To be an effective sales leader, you must have strong communication skills and be driven by data and process. Strong communication, especially a coach-like mindset, is extremely important in terms of supporting reps to achieve quotas. Positive and effective communication between a leader and their reps allows for a smooth flow of information, which creates an environment that motivates the team to work towards achieving goals. More than ever, being analytical and process driven is key to creating and scaling a high performing team. It’s important that leaders understand the story in the data, make impactful decisions based upon it and motivate their team with data. In terms of nice to haves, having an eye for great sales talent is something that can take time to develop as a sales leader. I’ve been in sales my entire career and being able to identify great talent is something I'm always working on. If early on in their tenure a sales leader can hone in on a candidate's desire to learn and succeed, they are set up for success.

Ah.. a great question and something that I have yet to see perfected, but continues to get easier as many enablement and development professionals know and argue that companies cannot afford NOT to invest in the soft skills development of their employees. Historically I have seen that budgets typically allocated towards soft skills learning initiatives are all too often the first to be cut because of the difficulty of proving an ROI of sales soft skills versus hard/technical skills. Below are a couple of approaches I have seen, taken and partnered with internal teams around indicators of success within soft skill initiatives: Platform Engagement Rates: One area of my business I look to when measuring the impact of 'soft skill' enablement is our internal LMS & CMS platforms that tracks learners’ usage, knowledge retention and engagement rates. If a platform or specific collection of content is being used and consumed on a regular basis, it is a sign that employees are getting value from the company's soft skills training. If engagement and consumption levels are lacking, it could be a sign that the platform is not easy to navigate, that the content is untrusted or not engaging. Track Sales Team Productivity Rates: Over time I have started to see the increase in how soft skills such as multitasking, proactivity, communication, and creative-thinking have had a positive impact on sales productivity rates at companies that prioritizes employee development. Identifying and tracking success metrics across the sales team upon implementing soft skills initiatives is a great way to measure program impact. Sales Team Retention: Sales team churn is a major cost to any organization, and something that is easily measurable and can tell an important story. A recent 'Workplace Learning' report out of LinkedIn suggests that 94% of employees consider staying longer with companies who invest in programs aimed at career development. Impact of Process Optimisation: When organizations and teams see soft skills like successful teamwork, great communication, and strong time-management become ingrained in a company's culture, processes are optimised, and sales motions are completed more effectively and efficiently. Looking at the time it takes sales opportunities through the full deal cycle is a useful way to present an ROI to the business.

I really like this question because it's so true! Leadership can break a lot of trust by implementing incorrect KPIs for a segment. Experienced sellers will get angry they are treated like SDRs, etc. The best thing leaders can do is watch, listen, observe, and then replicate. What have the most successful reps done in this position? Are they having 10 calls a week, 2 on-sites a month, and 1 "high value activity" a quarter (like exec intro, hackathon, etc)? Standardize from the top and make excellence the norm.

Staying up to date: It’s important to pick a medium that you like for content. Whether it is Linkedin, podcasts, email newsletter, or chat based slack groups, you want to make sure you are setting yourself up for success. If the content goes unread or unlistened to, you won’t build a consistent learning habit. Personally, I find the most value in content forums where you can engage and ask follow up questions, hear multiple opinions on a particular matter, and even reach out the the original writer for a 1-1 chat! Another underutilized source of knowledge for industry trends is content from Sales Development technology vendors. It’s imperative that they stay on the cutting edge, so following a few top vendors on Linkedin will allow you to see what future the tools are preparing for. Avoiding the noise: There can be a great amount of value in public best practices. That said, there is risk in assuming that something that works for someone else will also work for you, or for implementing changes to something when you are already seeing above-average results. For example, if your content is getting a 20% reply rate, you may not want to adopt the “best practice” that moved someone else's team from a 10% to 15% reply rate. Having your own benchmarks and running your own A/B tests can help you determine where you should be altering your SDR motion, and where you should keep yours in place. Then, you can proactively search for interesting ideas to test in areas you are performing below benchmark. 

I always recommend that candidates study the job description carefully. Take a look at the qualifications and skills/experience that the hiring manager wants. Do your best to come up with examples/stories to showcase those desirable skills/experiences in the interview. If you have time, it never hurts to connect with someone who is doing the role today and pick their brain on what they like, don't like, and do to succeed in the role. You should be able to find them on LinkedIn. This type of insight is invaluable as you will be learning from someone who is doing the job you want. If you're talking to a cross-functional partner that you're not as familiar with, get curious. For example, I really appreciate it when candidates take the time to ask me, "how can I make your life easier in this role? how can this role help contribute to your team?" This type of question is a launchpad and invitation to discuss future collaboration opportunities. Remember it's just as important for you to evaluate if this role or company is a right fit for you as it is for the hiring manager and company to evaluate if you are a right fit for them. So be sure to throw in one or two questions to help you evaluate your decision as well. 

I don't have a favorite question but I do prefer open ended questions in discovery. Close ended questions start with helper verbs. Every question beginning with these words(Am, Are, Is, Was, Were) can be answered by a buyer with a yes or a no. Even when folks give you more than a yes or no they will always be giving you less than a response to an open ended question. To get the most information and provoke deep thought from a prospect. I coach my team to leverage open and command open questions. For example questions that start with Who, What, Where, Why, Tell Me, Explain, Describe, Help me understand ETC. When you construct questions that are "open ended" buyers will elaborate and provide answers with a lot of detail.

Sales KPIs play a critical role in forecast accuracy, especially in unpredictable markets. Amidst the market turbulence, really the only thing you have are deal execution and forecast accuracy. The difference between having a math based forecast everyone is aligned around vs not is stark. There are so many ways to cut your forecast in an effort to determine where you'll land. The math itself is important but the most important is having a shared language and "walkup" in order to pinpoint the assumptions you're making - so you can have an in-depth discussion in a short amount of time.

I am a firm believer of meritocracy. So when it comes to pay raise especially in sales roles it should be very black and white for a sales rep to determine when would they qualify for a pay raise. It should be very easy for sales people to chart out their salary hikes based on their performance. The more consistent you are in delivering and over achieving your targets, the faster you should get to your pay raise. Needless to say, that there is no compromise when it comes to ethics and integrity when you are achieveing your targets.

Coming into an organization as the first sales hire puts a lot of responsibility on your shoulders. You are basically in charge of proving the validity of this function within the company. There are a few things that I would consider and act on in this position: Start with the short term. As a first hire in a sales organization, you are required to deliver results that have a very immediate impact that meets the business needs. This means focusing on some low-hanging fruits in order to deliver results within a short time frame. Build a framework. As a first hire within the team, you should make sure you document your work, and create clear guidelines and processes, with the expectation of adding additional members to the team in the future. This will ensure a smooth expansion of the team while positioning you as a thought leader and a pivotal member of this function. Go beyond your scope. As a junior sales hire, never underestimate the power of tenacity. I always invite my team members to push the boundaries and look for additional scope and responsibilities whenever they feel capable. This is a very strong signal that you are willing to take on more, and when management will face a new task at hand, they will know they can count on you.

I'll be honest, I've been in the Sales Enablement industry for a while and this is something that takes so much time to master and has so much nuance depending on your organization's structure. Here are some tactics I use that have helped me get 80+ people in my last annual strategy review. It boils down to these three things: 1. What you did: I LOVE quarterly business reviews. Now let's be honest, I HATE writing them, but they are very effective in getting engagement. The two questions you want to ask here are: 1) Who's the audience(s) I'm trying to activate? 2) What information are they looking for that would gauge proof of investment return and guidance? For me, I typically stick to a common format: * Divide the document by program * In each program, share objectives that you've set at the beginning of the quarter/year, what major projects were activated to address these, achievements, key insights and feedback, and next steps (how you're building on it, how you're pivoting away from it, and what you need help with by cross-functional department) * Tag specific people you know that would be interested in areas that pertain to them * Create a read-through event and ask folks to add comments and tag others who would be interested * Leave room for discussion of key themes at the end 2. What you're going to do: In addition to the quarterly business review, I do an annual review that considers any strategic plans for our key audiences, mostly this will be Sales Leadership's north stars. If you don't have these plans, go off of the business goals and vision for the year (team restructuring, market expansion, change in target audiences, etc). Here's my typical format: * Goals and objectives from the previous year and share loosely what your team achieved * Key insights that are going to guide you in the new year - changes in team habits, cross-functional partnerships, industry changes * Identifying those business objectives and the strategies (the direction, not the roads) you'll be taking to get address them - focus on why you are doing this from an enablement professional perspective * Divide the following sections by quarter, refer back to the objectives and strategies and key initiatives. Make sure to call out dependencies, financial/cross-functional resources needed, priority levels. This is a great place to be clear about who you need these from and ask for DRI's from their teams through comments * Give gratitude to your partners for making this happen and look forward to the collaboration needed to make this happen 3. How it's doing: These are weekly or monthly updates on those objectives and key initiatives. Share your current state in achieving those objectives and the deliverable progress for key initiatives. I also include some key themes and insights that we see in the data and feedback we hear from reps. This is also a great place to share what you're hearing from the industry/enablement world and how you plan to integrate them. All of these have really jumpstarted interest in our programs by being clear on guidance for why and how your partners can help will get it going. Make sure that you secure clear partners, project owners, and recurring times set to meet with them. Hope these help!