LIke most professions, you can not lead a team well if you haven't done the job yourself. Must Haves : * You should have been a quota carrying sales rep for at least 3 to 5 years before you can transition into sales leadership. * Have a good understanding of the product. You don't want to be in a meeting with your sales rep where you are not able to answer the use cases and functionalities of your profuct to the customer without any hesitation * Good understanding of the market you operate in * Ability to motivate the team and shield any unnecessary pressure from top management * Good analytical skiils would always help you to identify trends in the market place as well as your own internal metrics * Listening skills : They are both important as a sales rep as well as a sales leader. * Focus on Culture :Though some people might put this under "Nice to Haves", I strongly feel that being focussed on culture and building a strong team culture helps a sales leader a lot. Nice to Haves * Some experience around areas of business development and customer success is always helpful * Project management skills can come in handy as you go up the hierarchy and need to work across cross-functional teams

Naturally, in most cases, sales teams are mainly measured against revenue. This could come in many forms such as potential revenue such as leads, MQLs, SQLs, etc., or actual revenue from active and existing clients. I think there is one main KPI that is commonly overlooked, and that is the quality of the relationship with the client. This is a critical aspect that more often than not, is not measured. And I completely understand as it is incredibly difficult to do so. While a great and trustful relationship with a client will not always correlate with revenue in the immediate term, this is the key metric that will ensure long-term partnership and mutual accountability going forward. A great sales representative will forgo short-term gains in order to build a long-term partnership.

Another great question and one that will certainly differ from executive to executive. However, in my experience some of the top intangibles for the top performers I have seen include: - Confidence and a winning personality. Now, I don't want to confuse 'confidence' with 'ego'...to have 'confidence' is to believe in yourself and your own abilities. 'Ego' on the other hand operates out of self interest, and 'lone wolves' do NOT work in today's high performing sales teams. - Being a 'consultant' and expert in your industry. Now, I don't expect every seller on the team to be able to lead a 'Ted Talk', but do your homework with your top accounts - understand the top challenges and opportunities in the industry they are facing. Read up on the company and understand what they are trying to achieve in their current environment, and get to know the motivation for your contact - what are they trying to achieve and how can they be your champion? - Customer focus and appreciation. The sales teams I want to be most associated with are ones that realize the customer relationship truly begins once the deal has closed. Too often sellers are off to the next chance to retire quota, and they lose sight of the long term benefits of being customer centric. Think 'seed and grow', not 'sell and go'. Also, being responsive and available to your accounts, whether 'prospects' or 'customers' is also key. People will remember those who respond in a timely fashion to any outreach from their accounts - goes back to the earlier point of differentiating yourself in small, but significant ways, and helps grow customer confidence and retention.

Big question, but I'm happy to share some small factors that can really help to align and at least surface areas that enablement professionals can miss: 1. Know when and by whom business reviews are created. Even if it's async, understanding the target numbers, target audiences, and key strategies can help you understand where there are areas of opportunity. If you don't have this (common for early business organizations), gather feedback, create a base document of your strategic focus areas, and then gather feedback from top leads. 2. Align yourself as an enablement individual to understand where in the sales selling journey these numbers/initiatives align. For example, maybe your organization wants to increase top-of-funnel conversion. You'll probably want to focus on outreach efforts like effective outbound emails, cold calling best practices, and effective value-selling content to use for outbound campaigns. 3. Be aware of any sales leads' initiatives that they may start without enablement knowledge. This is very common when in hyper-growth mode or when an enablement team is so strapped that they have to say "no" to projects. At least being aware will help you to consult and map out what they are doing. 4. Report on your findings and annual/quarterly strategies and key initiatives for feedback. You'll get comments on whether you're on the right track and can provide call-to-actions with your team on areas that they can support.

The best sales candidates are able to demonstrate their curiosity, coachability and empathy in the interview process. These are three attributes that we see in our most successful Account Executives and here's why they are important. * Curiosity enables sales reps to uncover valuable insights that can inform their sales approach and tailor solutions to meet the customer's specific needs effectively. Their thirst for continuous learning enables sales reps to stay ahead of the curve, competitors and adapt to changes in the market (especially now). * Coachable sales reps are open to feedback, learn from experiences, and are receptive to new ideas and perspectives. They actively seek out opportunities for growth and ask for feedback to enhance their approach. * Empathetic sales reps build trusting relationships, understand customer needs, communicate effectively, and can more easily resolve objections. Through Gong we are able to track when Account Executives demonstrate empathy and those reps with high levels of empathy are almost always at the top of the leaderboard.

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. 

Red flags I look for are around tenur in a closing role - The biggest thing I am trying to interview for/hire for is an understanding or even basic personal philosophy on how the candidate drices a process. If I see short stints at sales gigs - I don't immediately DQ as this could mean culture just wasn't a fit - however, I am concerned that with short stints comes a loack of a developed process. It takes time to learn what a great process looks like at a company - you need to talk to a ton of customers, deal wit hdifferent procurement teams, understand materila value versus marketing jargon - If I see less than 2 years, I often wonder what I am missing and how the candidate got through screening - BUT, depending on the role or the person - tenure may not be a good judge of ability With a developed personal sales philosophy - a younger seller without a ton of tenure will be in a far better position to help me visualize how they fit into my org. 

From my experience, most candidates coming into an interview put their best foot forward and perform well, however, here are some of the most common pitfalls before, during, and after a sales interview... 1) Lack of Preparation - candidates who have not done even surface level research on the following is a massive red flag: * The company - reviewing the website, blog, etc. to understand what we do * Myself and the other interviewers - looking at the LinkedIn/social presences of those who they are meeting with * The job itself - reading & understanding the job description, and * The product - signing up for a free trial if there is one and at the very least understanding the basic value proposition 2) Lack of Narrative - being able to effectively tell your personal story & professional story is critical and usually one of the first questions asked during an interview ("So tell me about yourself"). Not only does this give the interviewer a deeper understanding about your career & the decisions you've made along the way, but it also gauges your ability to effectively craft a narrative. Make sure you practice it over & over, until you have it just right! And also make sure you can articulate what you are looking for in your next role/company, and do not be afraid to be explicit about it. If the role/company isn't a fit, it's best to identify & address it early. 3) Not Following Instructions - usually this comes up during a role-play, demo, or craft demonstration, but I can't tell you how many candidates have ended up falling out of the hiring funnel for not following instructions in a prompt given during later stages of the interview. Hint: if there is something you don't fully understand or is vague around the expectations that have been asked of you, then make sure you contact the recruiter or hiring manager to get clarity. 4) Asking Non-Relevant or No Questions - typically at the end of an interview, there will be an opportunity for you to ask your questions. Make sure those questions are relevant to the person you are speaking with and avoid asking questions you could easily research on your own ("so what does the company do", or "who are some of your competitors", etc.). Non-relevant questions signal a lack of research, preparation, and engagement. And worst of all is asking no questions at all! 5) Not "Closing" at the End - especially for a sales role, I expect candidates to be willing to ask hard questions and "close" at the end of a call. If you are not able to ask questions like the following, then how could I expect you to ask hard questions & close with a prospect or customer: * "So after meeting with me, are there any questions or concerns you may have outstanding?" * "Is there any reason you would not feel comfortable recommending me to move into the next round of the interview process?" And at the very least make sure you are clear on the expectations, next steps, and timing of the remainder of the interview process. 6) Not Following Up - at the end of every sales conversation, there is an expected follow up recapping the discussion & making explicit the next steps. The same is true for an interview. Call me old school, but if a candidate does not follow up with me after an interview, it's a signal they are not engaged, or worse, not capable of crafting an effective follow up message. The hand-written note is a thing of the past. If you have my email address, send me a message and if not (or you're just looking for another touchpoint), then connect with & message me on LinkedIn.

It's a great question. I believe that all reps are continuously motivated by earning potential and career growth opportunities, regardless of the stage of the company. To get more nuanced, you'll see earlier hires more motivated by the combination of equity and cash, and you'll also see earlier hires hoping to leverage their early arrival to accelerate their career growth (vs later hires). As an aside, one of the real joys of leading and scaling sales teams is rewarding those deserving early hires with promotions, additional equity grants, etc. We've had the opportunity to do a lot of this at Vanta. More broadly, my advice is to spend a lot of time thinking about the design of your compensation plans (revisiting them at least annually) and also to map out levels and definitions for career growth sooner vs later. Make sure that you're putting your team in a spot where they believe they can hit their goals, and where they understand intimately what career growth means for them, and how to unlock it. Easier said than done. :)

Here are a few good OKRs that I focus on within my region: * Objective: Increase Revenue Growth * Result: Increase sales stage conversation rate by x % * Result: Increase average deal size by x % * Objective: Enhance Customer Retention & Satisfaction * Result: Increase net dollar retention rate for existing enterprise clients * Result: Generate a certain percentage of revenue from upselling and expanding customers. * Objective: Optimize Sales Process & Efficiency * Result: Decrease sales cycle duration by x % * Result: Improve win rate of inbound qualified leads * Result: Implement a new tool such as CI to improve productivity