First off, for those serious about a career change to sales, I would start off by building (or rebuilding) your network. This can be done is a number of ways including: - attending conferences and industry training events (virtual or in person) - focus on joining relevant industry and/or company groups on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Slack - do an inventory of your strengths and weaknesses. Successful sellers are not born overnight and constantly are curious on how they can improve themselves. In your current role, you may possess traits similar to those individuals, but you will likely have weaknesses that you need to address before you can start that growth. - take a training course. Trust me, you indeed can teach an old dog new tricks...especially because these types of training experiences come in many forms to suit your taste, including 'on demand'/'just in time' training (think LinkedIn Learning/Coursera) and of course 'in person' options. - work on your 'executive presence' and 'relationship building' skills. In today's selling environment and competitive landscape, customers have a multitude of options to choose from, and sales has really become about building and maintaining strong relationships. No doubt an actual deal involves your business selling something of value, but that doesn’t happen unless you have a strong relationship with your potential buyer.

Common mistakes include: * Focusing on why you want to work at X company, but not why you want Y job (it's arguably more important to show why you're drawn to the role that you will be doing every day rather than just the company you will be joining) * Not having any questions whatsoever for your interviewer at the end (it's important to show that you took some time to think through thoughtful questions) * Spending more than half the interview going through every single job you've ever had (essentially, reading off the resume). Perfect your elevator pitch for yourself. In just a few minutes, how can you tell your story effectively and succinctly? * Indicating that you've never had any setbacks, failures, or difficulties in your previous roles (no one is perfect so being able to speak to setbacks and what you've learned from them is important) * Not knowing much about the company, its products/services, value props of what you would be selling, etc. (little-to-no research done before the interview shows a lack of Investment on the interviewee's end)

In today's world it is relatively quite easy to make a very well informed decision when assessing a new role in a different company. These are some of the things I look at and advise my mentees to do too : * If it's a public listed company, look at their financials to figure out their year on year growth. * Check out websites like RepVue which give you a very good understanding about how sales reps in that company are doing * On LinkedIn, check out the trend on their headcount,especially in sales, is it increasing consistently or not. * Check out analyst reports and websites like g2.com to see how the product is rated by their customers. * Check websites like Glassdoor to understand about the culture of the company you are considering * If possible speak with a few customers and partners of the company as well. 

Be transparent and share the “why”: Each SDR should be able to articulate the purpose of their role, the rationale behind their goals, and the methodology used to calculate key performance indicators (KPIs). While many teams have robust processes to determine these factors, they often fail to provide transparency to their teams. When metrics are perceived as being dictated without explanation or “handed down”, they become less motivating. Encourage individuality- Find areas where SDRs can flex their creativity, contribute to experiments, and express their opinions. When you go overboard with processes on an SDR team, it takes away the joy from the work and lowers the possibility of discovering impactful ideas. Create a team that defaults to collaboration and praises readily- While a slack channel, shout-out specific application, or kudos google form can be well intentioned, they often go underutilized. We know that if our team has downtime, they are probably using it to update Salesforce. Make giving praise part of an essential process that is already done!

There's a few different ways to gauge a candidate's autonomy in a sales interview. 1. Behavioral Questions: Ask situational questions that require candidates to describe times where they had to work independently to achieve sales targets or overcome challenges. For example one of my go to questions is, "What's the most creative, out of the ordinary, or above and beyond thing you’ve done to win a customer?" 2. Past Experience: Review the candidate's resume and ask about specific examples where they demonstrated autonomy in previous sales roles. Inquire about their sales process, strategies they implemented independently, and decisions they made autonomously. 3. Problem-solving Scenarios: Present examples of current sales scenarios and ask how the candidate would approach them. Evaluate whether they demonstrate the ability to think critically and make decisions independently in real life situations that arise. 4. Role-play Exercises: Conduct role-playing exercises where the candidate must handle a sales scenario independently. We ask candidates to run a discovery call and give them basic information on the team. Observe how they handle the situation and objections without much assistance or input.

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.

As important as any KPI is why the metric is being measured, how you intend to reliably collect and review the data and the frequency you will get together to review the trend good or bad. In entering new markets, however difficult and unpredictable, you need to establish what you do believe to be true: size of the TAM, ICP definition and owners of each stage and target conversion of part of the funnel. Once you commit to the process - and give enough time for the work to show meaningful results, perhaps then can discuss what might feel arbitrary. If after all that there is still uncertainty about what goals might be realistic then commit simply to make improvements each week until there is enough data to set the right goal. Or take a leap of faith, set the goal and over communicate how and why you set it and what you'll do and why if you need to adjust at some point.

The best way to improve interviewing skills is super simple - and this is going to sound reductive - Go ask your most respected colleagues & peers to interview you - just get creative with it. But the take away should be Develop a point of view on your history. what motivates you, what makes you succesful and how you plan to harness it and systematize it going forward. The practice with trusted colleagues will arm you with newly developed point of view about yourself and how you fit inot the bigger picture - this is the ultimate skill you're practicing for in an interview. 

It should all begin by understanding the motifs of the person you are talking to. First,you need to anwer the most important question: "What's in it for them?". It might be that personal goals may not be the same as company goals. But there are general aspects that may help you handle objections. Costs: Generate reliable business cases (either generic based on previous projects or backed by prospect's numbers) that justify investment Time: Describe what the outcome of doing nothing would be. Resources: Discover ways of leveraging partners.

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.