Charlie Teed is the VP of Sales at Mavenlink, the number one downloaded app on the Google app exchange. He’s been with Mavenlink three years (in August) and has seen his team grow from 1 to 40 in a very short amount of time. Charlie was kind enough to chat with me and share some of his nuggets of wisdom.
Dionne: How on earth have you been able to grow 15% month over month for 3 years?
Charlie: Lots of very smart people. We have spent significant time, and continue to do, learning from very smart people, reading the books out there by thought leaders, and being a part of the AA-ISP community. We pursue content from Mark Roberge, Aaron Ross, Peter Cohan and others to not only consume, but then figure out the best way to apply to our business.
Dionne: What does that look like from a coaching standpoint?
Charlie: I keep my office and a desk out on the sales floor. It is absolutely critical (and I love) sitting out on the floor, being around the sales teams, and listening to calls. As the first sales person, I spent the first 3 months here at Mavenlink following up on leads and talking with customers to create our Ideal Customer Profile; which lead to the creation of our sales process and engine. So being in the thick of things real time, keep that information fresh.
We also engage in two other distinct coaching programs.
- Coaching is manager specific, a la Sales Acceleration. We let the employee pick one skill a month to work on and make sure we drill down into that skill for that specific month.
- Oklahoma Drills. The AE team and I sit together in a conference room once a week and review a demo. During this time, we all provide constructive feedback that everybody benefits from.
Dionne: As a company looking for high growth, how does that affect your hiring?
Charlie: Very much! We’re constantly on the lookout for articulate, competitive, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed folks that are competitive, can write well and want to win. We also know hiring “A” players is tough, so we bookend our teams with our “A” players, and coach the rest up. I’m also very candid when interviewing, I tell candidates I want them to be smarter than me. We all benefit from smart people that can perform.
Dionne: You mentioned using Technology too – what does that look like?
Charlie: We made sure the process was rock solid and worked. We’ve built Playbooks for our teams in order to (1) insure the process is followed and (2) make it easy for them to be successful. For us, growth is everything. We built a deep sales process last May and are continuing to refine. That flow chart, along with the playbook will now make scale far easier. The processes allow us to rinse & repeat successfully; the solutions allow us to achieve hyper growth.
Dionne: What are some of best sales tips?
Charlie: Man, I have a ton of them that pop out at just the right time. “Don’t get too high with the highs or low with the lows. Keep doing the same thing every day.” “Persistence pays off.” “Enjoy what you’re doing.” “Be hyper-focused.”
Dionne: Any parting words?
Charlie: Have a great network. Work with smart people. Get out there and know that at some point, you’ll cross paths with just about everybody so don’t be a jerk.