In order to get a better understanding of what you could be walking into, I suggest asking the question "What is your biggest problem and can I help solve it?" It shows genuine interest in the interviewer's pains/goals and enables you to see how you can make an impact. Aside from this key question, always make sure to check out these resources before stepping into the interview. 1. Company Website: Familiarize yourself with the company's products or services, mission, values, financials and recent announcements. 2. LinkedIn: Research the hiring manager and other key stakeholders to gain insights into their backgrounds and professional interests. 3. Glassdoor or RepVue: Read reviews from current or former employees to learn about the company culture, interview process, and potential interview questions.

So much of the sales KPI tracking has been automated (# meetings, Pipeline generated, funnel progression) so I find the manual ones more difficult to track, but move the needle the most. ie: how many on-sites did a rep conduct this quarter? It's a manual process for reps to log into a CRM and update a meeting field as "in person" and often gets over looked in an organization. There is no substitute for in person meetings. Another example that's difficult to track things like how many new business units or contacts from other business units you broke into in a month, quarter, or year.

To be successful in sales going forward, professionals need a mix of both soft and hard skills. Here are the most important ones to focus on: Soft Skills: 1. Emotional Intelligence (EQ): • Understanding customer emotions, handling objections, and building rapport are critical to gaining trust and maintaining strong relationships. 2. Active Listening: • Listening to what the customer says—and doesn’t say—helps identify their true needs and allows sales reps to tailor solutions effectively. 3. Resilience & Grit: • Sales is full of rejection. The ability to bounce back and maintain a positive attitude in the face of adversity is key to long-term success. 4. Adaptability: • The market, customer demands, and technologies are constantly changing. Sales professionals need to be flexible and able to pivot quickly. 5. Effective Communication: • Clear, concise, and persuasive communication, both written and verbal, is essential to conveying value propositions, closing deals, and maintaining client relationships. 6. Problem-Solving: • Customers are looking for solutions to their pain points. Being able to identify problems and provide tailored solutions separates top performers from the rest. 7. Collaboration & Teamwork: • Sales is increasingly collaborative, requiring coordination with marketing, product teams, and customer success. Building strong internal relationships helps sales professionals deliver better results. Hard Skills: 1. CRM Mastery: • Knowing how to efficiently use Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools like Freshworks CRM for tracking leads, managing pipelines, and analyzing sales data is critical for sales effectiveness. 2. Data-Driven Decision Making: • Sales teams now rely heavily on data to inform their strategies. Sales professionals must be comfortable interpreting analytics and using data to drive decisions and forecast accurately. 3. Sales Automation & Technology Tools: • Familiarity with sales automation tools, email marketing platforms, and lead-generation software helps streamline workflows and increase efficiency. 4. Product Knowledge: • Deep understanding of the product or service you’re selling is essential. This enables you to articulate its value, answer technical questions, and position it against competitors. 5. Negotiation Skills: • The ability to navigate complex negotiations and find win-win solutions is a crucial skill for closing larger, more complicated deals. 6. Social Selling & Digital Presence: • The ability to use platforms like LinkedIn and other social networks to engage prospects, build personal brands, and generate leads is becoming increasingly important in modern sales. 7. Market & Industry Knowledge: • Understanding the broader industry landscape, competitors, and trends helps sales reps anticipate changes and position their products more effectively. Conclusion: • Soft skills such as emotional intelligence, communication, and resilience will help sales professionals build relationships and navigate challenges. • Hard skills like CRM proficiency, data analysis, and product knowledge ensure they can operate effectively and strategically. Balancing and developing these skills will help sales professionals succeed in an evolving sales environment.

With most of these questions, there isn't a one size fits all. Consider things like: * Company stage * Growth objectives * GTM strategy * Customer segmentation * Self serve vs. sales led * Compensation modeling AI has, of course, been a hot topic lately, begging the question of which roles will become obsolete. Personally, I think there will always need to be a human element. This AMA is a great example. If you wanted these answers you could find a generic response in Chat GPT vs. reading my response, but you are looking for the human experience aspect that ideally will provide you with more value. Below is a brief rundown of how I'd think through my org structure coming in at an earlier stage business. It's less about the actual title of the role and more about the function itself: * Inbound vs. outbound * Marketing * SDR * Partner/Channel * Customer acquisition * AEs * Customer retention * Onboarding Specialists * Customer Success/Account Management * Customer expansion * AE * Customer Success/Account Management * Customer reporting * Revenue Operations * Customer value * Sales Engineers * Solution Consultants * Leadership * Revenue * Sales * Customer Success * Revenue Operations Are all of these roles needed to get started? No. Figure out where you can create overlap in your roles by working backward on your bottoms up modeling for your revenue targets and determine how many people to need in order to achieve those goals. From here, you can uplevel the structuring into categories: * Functional: Think specialists vs. generalists. Core vs. overlay * Geographic: Location specific * Market Based: Industry/vertical specific * Product Sales: For larger organizations, this can be based on product SKU, bundle, etc. to drive certain revenue engines of the business

Over-indexing on trying to look good by manipulating the narrative or masking challenges or flaws. Better to be honest and proactive where there are challenges, especially if it is you that has not done well enough to deliver against what is needed. Radical candor is/was talked about a lot but no matter how much practice you get the reality is it is hardest to deliver the truth when it is often most important to do so. My very first forecast call with a new CRO I was nearly certain would cost me my job. Instead, I think in part because of my honesty and directness (the news I was delivering was not good!) it turned into a pretty pivotal moment for me and my team as a result.

My suggestion is to reframe your thinking from "managing people" to collaborating with people who don't report to you. As leaders, we should manage processes and not people. The simplest way to work with others, both those who may or may not report directly to you, is to build strong relationships built on respect and communication. Fostering collaboration is key by first ensuring you're aligned on the project's goals, then be sure to include them in the decision making process, or acknowledging their contributions to the work.

Sales can be a rollercoaster. You and your company are always judging your performance by what you've done lately. Missing quota is impossible not to take personally, and it's inevitable. Dealing with the highs and lows of selling month in and month out can be super difficult, it's very important to build a healthy process for handling stress and live with healthy habits or it can get the better of you.

KPIs drive the behavior you expect to see from your Sales team. Quota attainment is typically the primary focus for Sales teams, how you achieve those results can alter the direction of your business. Quota from New Logos vs Expansion customers, will impact your future revenue streams differently. Selling a core product vs cross-selling additional products can drive customer retention and ultimately impact churn down the road. Landing a monthly contract vs multi-year commitment allows you to invest more confidently for the future. Identify what's most important for your business and hold your sellers accountable to them. Revenue alone should not be the only KPI for your Sellers.

The worst KPIs to commit to are the ones that: * Don’t drive to business outcomes (if we hit this KPI, does it bring us closer to our goals as an org?) * can’t be communicated easily (if it’s not understood, it won’t be adopted!) * aren’t tracked against a source of truth. (need a single view into how we’re performing against the KPI) Work towards the opposite of that list when validating the effectiveness of a KPI. Hope that helps!

I think it makes sense to look at what success has looked like for your business as opposed to looking at general industry guidelines. What do the metrics look like for the top performers within your business and what do they do differently to the bottom performers? You will get more buy in from reps if you can show them how others are achieving success within their team. I would also recommend regularly reviewing these metrics, so that you can also demonstrate how top performing sales reps are adapting to any market changes.