AMA: UserTesting VP of Sales, Katie Harkins on Scaling a Sales Team

For complex features, I recommend flash carding like you're in high school and listening to successful recorded call. This can be on an individual basis or in a group zoom setting. It's important that every quota carrying individual has a script that they can easily access and commit the sales script + top objections to memory. You can also bring in Solutions Engineers for demoing best practices to ramp up newer individuals on the team.

Sales updates can be done via slack or teams. We also have done weekly sales huddles every Monday at 9am PST to start the week strong. I've also done bi-monthly email updates to our CRO, CFO & CEO as to what we're hearing in the field. Here's my template for success: * Stat Rat (asp, close ratios, # of net new logos, total contract value out for signature, total revenue booked on the quarter, total ARR) * Self serve revenue #s * People updates (records broken, houses purchased, upcoming babies on the way, birthdays, etc) * Top Competitors * Top integrations asked for, but not yet in the product * Upcoming Pitches this week (Company name, Title you're pitching, blurb on what they do) * Demand Generation Updates * Personal Updates (what's going on in your life)

I personally think verticalizing a sales org died when COVID hit. If you had a hospitality and tourism vertical - they were bleeding big time when the world was shut down. For larger organizations, it makes sense to have a team specializing in healthcare or fintech for HIPAA and security reasons. I'm a big fan of AEs who can be chameleons and be Swiss army knives for pitching all titles and verticals. I've mostly seen sales orgs internally have teams by employee size. Segmenting by a company's total revenue is usually inaccurate. Zoom Info, Crunchbase or Linkedin can be your single source of truth for employee sizes. Any company under 250 employees will have less red tape for legal, security and procurement. One up market, you need AEs that can keep a pulse alive, engaged and excited for longer sales cycles.

#1 Need = REVENUE. Never forget that. Do everything in your power to exceed your number, everything comes after that. When you're the first sales leader at a company you're wearing multiple hats and you're under a ton of pressure. You need to get to know your team, what makes them tick, why they joined the company in the first place, what records have they set or broken and what will get them to do that again. Do you know their dog's name? What do they do on the weekend? How do they celebrate a big deal that they close? You also have to lead by example. Don't be afraid to work some pipeline on your own and get into the day to day of an Account Executive. It helps you answer questions in the future. You team will respect it. I also recommend encouraging collaboration, celebrating wins, and creating a positive sales culture for the team that you're adopting. Don't forget to coach and mentor. This will allow your team to grow professionally and come to you for advice in sticky sales cycle situations. Amazon does this best, but you have to stay customer focused. I recommend bringing your favorite customer to your next team meeting and have them walk you through their buying process and how they're currently utilizing your product.

My old CRO use to say, "If your territory isn't shrinking or the company isn't hiring - you're at the wrong company." I love this mindset. As your company grows and scales, it means your equity is worth more. Motivation for AEs should be that change is a good thing, change is inevitable and change is the most constant thing in life. JFK said, "Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past and present are certain to miss the future." Motivation around embracing the change and your mindset around the changes within the organization is what I recommend addressing. From a tactical standpoint, you can do the following: * Have your CRO or CEO do email shout outs on Fridays for weekly revenue closed * Team meeting shoutouts for progress within a deal cycle * Slack channel shoutouts for discos conducted on a weekly basis * If you receive an email shoutout or a customer compliments an AE on a call, just hit play in your next team meeting * Text AEs congrats when they close their biggest deal of the quarter

* Email Templates based on vertical & title you're selling to (Outreach or Sales Loft) * SFDC Dashboards to track accountability metrics * Closed Won Recorded Call Library (Chorus or Gong) * Interview Scripts and Interview Processes with the recruiting team * Onboarding Program with different departments internally * Training Videos for the tech stack you have available * Clear source codes from Marketing//Demand Generation * Offsites with new team members and existing team members * Practice sessions for value prop, elevator pitch, objection handling

I love shared KPIs with Demand Generation. We're all on the same team. If marketing doesn't bring in the leads, sales teams are turning to outbounding which elongates sales cycles. I see the sales team missing content creation on assets that don't yet exist to handle objections within the sales cycle. Take your top 10 objections, partner with your Demand Generation team and create blog posts or one pager PDFs to address the objections and provide best practices to your prospects. They're looking for advice from you.

I highly recommend doing a deep dive on understanding the landscape of the product or service you're about to sell. Take the time to thoroughly understand the products or services or competitive landscape. Make sure you can pitch this to your grandma blind folded. What are the key features, benefits and how do the current customers use your product in their day to day lives. This will enable you to be confident when you're engaging in sales cycles.

#1 - Hire strategically * SDRs? BDRs? Solutions Consultants? AEs? Sales Managers? RevOps? All these roles internally should have a specific focus and set of responsibilities that helps generate, close and support global pipeline. #2 Structured Interview Process, Onboarding Process & Training Process * Are your new hires are well-equipped to succeed? I recommend offering ongoing coaching, recorded call reviews and overall sales development. Everyone wants consistent feedback and improvement in their output. #3 Clarify Your Sales Process(This might tie with the ones above) * Document and optimize your current sales process. Verticals? ICP? Timeline to close? Levers to pull to get agreements signed? I live by rinse, wash, repeat. Ensure that this process is super clear, repeatable, and well-documented. Identify the key stages, milestones, and metrics that define success both in your sales cycle and in your buyer's sales cycle. #4 Establish Clear Sales Goals and Metrics: * Crystal Clear. Do individual contributors know what is expected of them on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis? Set specific, measurable, and achievable sales goals for each team member. #5 Tech stack already in place: * Outreach/Sales Loft seats in place for your new hires first days on the job. Linkedin Sales Navigator, Chorus/Gong, SFDC/HubSpot, Crunchbase, Highspot, Data.ai, etc. The seats need to be purchased and ready to assign. #6 Sales Collateral and Resources: * I recommend a digital and physical play book. It's an easy thing to ship via snail mail to the AEs that you're hiring once they sign their offer letter paperwork. It gets them excited and thinking about their future at the company. Throw in any additional company swag if you have it. * You'll want to provide your new hires quality sales collateral, marketing materials that are available, customer case studies, and additional resources to assist their ramp time and maximize their sales efforts. #7 Incentives and Compensation: * What are the AE's signing day 1 of the job? Is it a 50/50 split between base and commission? Are there any spiffs occurring within the quarter that they can take advantage of? Have you worked through all the scenarios to drive global pipeline generation? #8 Group 1:1s // Buddy Program * I don't care how cheesy this sounds. On day 1, new AEs should be assigned a buddy they can ask questions to via slack or in person. Maybe even set up a lunch within their first week. * I love group 1:1s. Especially within their first 90 days, you can pair the newest AEs with top AEs who have already sold for your company to do some group roll playing and work out any talk tracks they need help with.