Get answers from sales leaders
Alicia Lewis
Culture Amp Senior Sales Director • January 12
Being in sales, we experience challenges on a daily basis. One of the bigger frustrations is having a great quarter or year and then seeing the dial goes back to zero, knowing you need to start all over again. It’s what we all sign up for, but that doesn’t make it any easier of a pill to swallow. As a sales leader, one of the biggest challenges can be motivating reps to maintain consistency. Keeping reps motivated to successfully climb the mountain each quarter is not a one size fits all approach. For some reps, it’s providing growth and development opportunities that keep them driving, for others it’s SPIFs and recognition that helps them get where they need to be. Finding a way to effectively manage your time can be another big frustration. At times, the sheer number of responsibilities on our plate can feel overwhelming. It’s hard when everyone seems to need something from you and there aren't enough hours in the day. I’ve found that it’s important to be as highly organized as possible, prioritize tasks, learn your productivity patterns, block out calendars to complete important activities and schedule breaks to refresh.
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Roee Zelcer
TikTok Head of Sales, Products & Services • February 9
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.
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Jessica Holmes
Adobe Director, Adobe Sales Academy • August 29
According to all the websites and experts, a typical career path for a sales professional is to move from BDR to AE to Sales Manager, or a variation of this, and that can absolutely be your path. What you'll most likely find, is that there is NO typical path - especially as you discover who you are as a sales professional and your sales style. Each of us have unique strengths and interests, and instead of focusing on a career ladder, where you only have one option in moving up/down in roles, you should focus on in developing your career lattice based on skill and sales style. By this, I mean: Identify what you know and don't know, as it pertains to the sales process: * What parts of the sales process you are skilled in and can leverage as you progress in your career? This can be leveraged to identify roles that you qualify for, can succeed in, and show your expertise. * Where in the sales process do you need to develop or hone your skillset further? This info can be used to identify which roles can help you grow and develop your expertise in the sales process. Determine the type of seller you are/sales motion you are interested in: * Do you like speaking to decision makers early in the sales process? Do you like working multiple deals at the same time? Do you want to close multiple deals a month/quarter? * Would you prefer a longer sales cycle with each prospect? Do you like building long-term relationships and developing plans and strategies that span across multiple buying panels and decision makers? Are you content with closing 1-2 deals a quarter, or even a year? * Do you prefer to work with buyers who are early adopters, where you sell vision and strategy and a reasonable approach to taking risks, or do you prefer working with early/late majority buyers, when what you're selling may have mass market appeal and your buyer is a bit more risk-averse. Once you have identified the type of seller you are, the sales motion you most prefer, the skill set you have today and where you want to develop further in the sales process, you now can make an informed decision about YOUR career path and identifying what is the best next move for you. This may be a move up, across, diagonal or down - as long as you're making career decisions with information and goals to continue your growth, it's a good move. Remember, it's not about doing what's typical, it's about making career decisions that makes it right for you.
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Brian Tino
AlphaSense Director of Strategic Sales, EMEA • January 25
Good question! When it comes to motivation, at any stage & maturity of a sales organization, you need to make sure: 1. Purpose - your sales team understands the mission & objectives of the organizations, feels connected to the purpose of what you are trying to acheive, and most importantly, can see how their work directly impacts progress towards company goals 2. Compensation - your sales team is well compensated and that the components of that make up compensation (base salary, variable inventives, bonuses/accelerators, equity, etc.) all work together to reward the behaviors required to acheive the output the company needs 3. Development - you are continually investing in the growth of your people. All top performers want to continue to learn, grow, improve, and ultimately master their craft. Look for those opportunities to expand the experience of your team, be generous with your feedback, and invest in coaching at every chance you get. That said, as companies & teams scale, the mechanisms & resources you have to impact motivation also evolve. Early Stage Companies & Less Mature Sales Organizations are usually focused on trying to find product-market fit and build a go-to-market motion to support it. During this phase, compensation plans need to be simple, aligned more to behaviors than outcomes, and reward progress. There is generally a greater need to ensure alignment and connection to "Purpose", and leaders should create opportunities for their salespeople to engage with cross-functional executives, influence the product roadmap, etc. If you are looking for a first compensation plan for your SaaS sales team, Jason Lemkin's framework can provide a great starting place. Mid-to-Late Stage Companies & More Mature Sales Organizations can then evolve to dedicate more resources to invest in their salespeople in different ways. Things like more formal career pathing, mentorship, and management development courses become table stakes. Salespeople will have opportunities to work with larger companies, build bigger deals, and raise their skillset. And compensation can shift to allow for additional rewards and incentives through SPIFs and President's Club.
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Eric Martin
Vanta Head Of Sales • November 28
This is a great question, and how we have done this at Vanta has evolved over the years. Being thoughtful about how sales communicates updates to the rest of the company (and vice versa) is so critical. Today, we have a number of public slack channels where sales or GTM-related updates are regularly shared. We also host a public GTM All-Hands once a month that the entire company is (optionally) invited to attend. We also have monthly business reviews where GTM and EPD (engineering, product, design) representatives are asked to report on progress on key cross-functional company initiatives. All this to say, there are any number of ways that you can (and should) communicate sales updates to the rest of the company. Sometimes even a weekly email is enough to do the trick. H/t to my CRO for sharing that idea!
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As a Sales professional we are often under a lot of pressure to close deals and meet our targets. If you're not careful you can quickly burnout especially when quotas reset each month or quarter. Over the years I’ve had to become more intentional in creating boundaries and finding new ways to recharge. Here are some ways that I’ve found success to prevent burnout and recharge: 1. Prioritize self-care: Prioritize self-care activities such as exercise, meditation, and getting enough sleep. Pay yourself first physically and mentally to stay energized and focused. 2. Take breaks: Take regular breaks throughout the day to rest and recharge. This could include going for a walk, having lunch with a friend, or breathwork between meetings. I also plan a trip each quarter to make sure I'm spending quality time with the family. 3. Set Boundaries: Improving my time management skills and creating clear boundaries between working hours and personal/family time. This can help you prioritize tasks and manage your workload more effectively.
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George Cerny
Iterable VP, Growth Sales, B2B2C Sales & LATAM • November 15
"You can't improve what you don't measure" - Peter Drucker. When starting out in a new market, there can be lots of uncertainty. This uncertainty is the starting point, however, for a fun and exciting journey to figuring this new market out. But uncertainty can be the enemy of action, so you want to remove as much uncertainty as possible, as quickly as possible, so you can get out there and start driving results. A few places to look for data in the planning and early implementation phase to eliminate uncertainty: 1. Your network - while you may not have a network of people in this new market already, you should be able to define a couple people who would be willing to speak with you who can help get the ball rolling. One or two quality conversations with your network can lead to a number of intros, and increase your network size overnight. If these people already know you, they'll also be kind if you fumble through your first conversations or have some misconceptions going in. 2. Interviews - when I was opening the Latam team, I learned so much from the interview process. I spoke with dozens of the top leaders in the industry and the vision became more and more clear each conversation I had. They helped me calibrate the resources needed for success, nuanced buying characteristics in each country that I was unaware of, partners and strategies that I wouldn't have learned about without their expertise, and more. I approached the process humble, and was honest about where I was at in my journey of learning the landscape, and so many people were happy to help fill in the blanks. 3. Online research - there's no shortage of information online. This is an obvious step and a great place to get a baseline before you test it out in the wild. This can get you past the initial uncertainty phase pretty quickly, and put you in a position to take action. That action COULD be to hire someone who IS certain and can go build out the appropriate KPI's based on their vast expertise in the the new market you're looking to enter. If this is an option and makes sense for your business - then this is a short answer. Go hire a superstar and let them do what they're great at. Get them what they need and get out of the way. If that's not the appropriate action, then you need to establish a baseline to measure against - so you can improve and re-calibrate along the way. A few things I would consider in going through this exercise: 1. Prioritize winning early, over winning BIG early. You want to prove concept, validate the mission and get people fired up for the cause early. You want positive visibility across the org, and an infectious enthusiasm in this new market. If you shoot too high, do a good job, but don't quite hit your big lofty goals, you'll move slower, dampen the enthusiasm of the team, and may even get skeptics on if it's the right bet. Set very attainable goals, crush them, and ramp the goals up quickly from there. 2. Think long-term revenue, short term activity. The short term revenue will come as a natural output from intense focus on activity. As stated there will be some uncertainty early on - especially around when/where/how that first deal will come in. So instead of overanalyzing it - go out and get data. Lots of data. Set intense activity goals and talk to as many prospective customers as possible. Don't overqualify when you still aren't positive what you're qualifying for. Every conversation is valuable early on. If you hit your lofty activity goals, and have a solid product market fit, you should naturally hit reasonable revenue goals in the first year. Year 2 is really where you want to ramp up expectations after validating assumptions in year 1. 3. Re-calibrate, re-calibrate, re-calibrate. Every week you should review what we learned week over week. Trends, competitors, partners, what's resonating, what's not, resource needs, etc. Your ICP will likely fluctuate during this time, which will inform the types of prospects you'll want to go after. You may adjust this as often as weekly early on. This is also where you review your achievement against your baseline metrics, and may adjust these KPI's if they're not the right ones. But you need a starting point. TL;DR When entering a new market you want to eliminate uncertainty as quickly as possible so you can take action. Hire or network with top talent in this new market to improve your ability to define starting KPI's that make sense. Prioritize high activity and achieveable revenue targets early to collect more data and build momentum. Re-calibrate often based on your initial KPI's and adjust as you continue to get real data about your product in this new market.
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Maria White
Cornerstone OnDemand Vice President Sales Enablement and Education • April 6
How to convert ClassRoom Enablement into 'real world' experiences Effective account discovery can be the subject matter to be trained on. Normally these enablement sessions would use case studies based on potential experiences that could happen during the account discovery steps, giving insight but no "real world" examples. To convert your training you can do this in five simple steps. 1. Use an example case study - this is to expand on techniques for effective discovery. 2. Get each attendee come prepared with three accounts they can work on during the workshop. Create exercises that allow time for them to work on their own account discovery during the workshop. This will allow them to apply what they learned directly to their own accounts. 3. Get feedback from each group. What did they uncover during the exercise? Encourage feedback. 4. During their discussion allow the class to share their own approach to discovery expanding on their experience with the "own account" exercise. 5. Make sure you have a note of all the accounts they have worked on during the sessions to prove the value of these workshops. How to scale this across an organization in 3 simple steps. 1. After running a few sessions you should be able to prove the value of the workshop. Build documentation outlining the number of accounts that were worked on during the session and quantify the pipeline value. 2. Once you have secured agreement from stakeholders to run this workshop at scale get volunteers from the Sales community, you can then train them to assist in the roll out globally. 3. It is critical to schedule sessions in advance as well as having back up trainers ready just in case. Measure the success of the program and keep your stakeholders informed of the success of your program.
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Michael A. Rosenberg
RocketReach VP, Sales • May 24
I see 2 different places that sales is headed: 1. Do more with less. Brute force (hiring more) used to be the answer to growing sales. Now the strategy is to load up the top reps, keep them busy, and get the best from them before we even think of hiring someone else. Sales efficiency is key from a profitability standard which is where the market is right now. 2. AI. Not saying the robots are coming for our jobs just yet, but with technology now that automates so many manual processes, is it so far fetched that in the next 5 years technology can tell us who to sell to, how to contact them, and write the email itself? What about AI images that talk and you don't realize that they are not actual people? Does it feel so futuristic to believe AI can dial or Zoom someone, respond based on what is said, overcome objections, negotiate pricing, and automatically send out order forms? There will always be a place for sales in some industries, especially emerging technologies where everything is new.
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Shahid Nizami
Braze APAC Vice President of Sales • January 10
My mantra on career advanement has been always around doing the role before you get the title. I have always asked my manager that apart from delivering on my targets what more can I do for him/her. Specifically around a sales manager moving to a sales director, the biggest difference is from moving to managing ICs to managing managers. It is a very different trait when you are leading 2 or more layers of sales people under you. The shift focuses a lot more from showing the reps how to run the deals to coaching your managers on how to run the business. It is a transition from being too much in the business to moving to being on the business. My biggest learning there is to build more on your Emotional Quotient and leadership skills as you strive for Director+ roles. Having said that, never move away from the customers. Always try to stay connected to the customers to understand the pulse of the market even if you are at a VP or above level. This way you will always stay relevant to the business and also able to make better GTM decisions
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