Inside Sales by Design

inside sales leadership

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The Fundamentals of Sales Enablement: An Interview with Amy Pence, Sr. Sales Enablement Manager, Alteryx

Amy Pence and I were able to catch up last week to talk about Sales Enablement and the value of having properly prepared sales people. In addition to a program and process by which sales people are brought onboard at a company, initially trained and then receiving ongoing training (for both sales and product).

By way of introduction, Amy Pence is the Senior Manager of Sales Enablement at Alteryx, the leader in data blending and advanced analytics software.

The oldest of six siblings and a self-proclaimed mother hen, keeper of the peace and problem solver, Amy is a natural (and I say gifted) fit as a Sales Enablement leader.

Read on for excerpts into our conversation and subscribe to our upcoming blabcast on 11/4 to hear more.

DM: How would you define Sales Enablement?

AP:When I think about sales enablement, I think about the enablement of breakthroughs through those moments of breakdowns. Figuring out how people learn, what’s going to make people “get it” to click for them, and put that into practice. It’s putting it into a coaching perspective, be vulnerable – you must practice what you preach.

DM: Why Alteryx?

AP: When I was interviewing, Alteryx stood out as the real deal. Talking to leaders, people in the building – everyone was here to make a difference and make it happen. Being here now, it’s the people, the product – it does what it says, no smoke and mirrors here. I could just feel it here, in the back of my neck, that this was it.

DM: Tell me more about your Enablement role within Alteryx?

AP: Even though enablement pops up as not a word in spell check, the enablement community is really excited about being more widely recognized as a key and strategic function in sales – a bonafide profession.  I run and provide a host of enablement services from sales boot camps and sales onboarding to ongoing sales training. I work with our Sales leaders to build 30/60/90 days plans – we call it the cohort approach – by team and then across teams. And we’re very careful to do retrospectives, aka postmortems so that our enablement efforts further a collaborative culture. One thing our culture demonstrates is this – accountability and engagement go hand in hand with collaboration.

As an extension of that, I am constantly asking what we can do better to make the reps successful. And further, build the tools and be sure to stay focused on testing, experimenting, executing – in other words, making it happen!

DM: Would you share with me your key insights re: Sales Enablement?

AP: It’s a mix of training, but not just from an event standpoint, it’s ongoing support and making sure people have what they need when they need it. Being the oldest child of 6, that was my role – making sure that everyone was happy, kids were in bed, so I could hang out later. Being helpful and keeping the peace, but making things happen.

These are the fundamentals I see as aspects of Sales Enablement:

  1. Onboarding, Ongoing, Over-the-Shoulder Coaching
  2. Training, tools, talent management
  3. Vulnerability, vigor, volume

I and my soon to be team, tie all of that together and use SalesHood internally as a means to foster that collaboration, accountability and engagement within the team.

I consider it validation, a true compliment when reps ask: “What do you think? What would you do?”  This tells me trust is there and I’ve done my job.

DM: What makes people embrace change?

AP: Sales Enablement is not for the faint of heart. It takes a ton of moxie, courage, and grit to train sales people. So I start with “there’s got to be a better way” mindset. And I show the outcome and definitely have refined my art of persuasion ability.

Literally what I tell reps is trust in the process, have faith, you’ll slip back into old tendencies, and that’s okay – and when you do, I’m committed to helping you reel it in so you can keep it between the ditches.

The Alteryx sales approach flips the traditional model on its head – and that’s where the onboarding, ongoing, over-the-shoulder coaching comes into play.  Being one sales enablement leader to 75 reps means working closely with the sales leaders is not just a commitment, it’s a necessity.

DM: What does the future hold for you?

AP: Acceleration. Accelerating everywhere – and while setting the pace, not just keeping pace.  Personally, I’m primed and ready to kick it into overdrive.  I have the privilege of working with amazingly talented, driven individuals each day – people who wake up thinking about transforming lives by means of an insanely great analytics platform.  We’re helping people learn to love their jobs again. And that’s exciting.  I love my job – making that a reality for others is what I wake up thinking about.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversation with Amy, she’s an amazing individual and definitely in the right role at the right company. You can catch up with Amy at our upcoming Modernizing Inside Sales blabcast series. We’re talking Sales Playbooks on Wednesday, November 4th at 8:30am pst. Subscribe here.

Dionne is a 17 year sales veteran having built and scaled Inside Sales team from the ground up. She recently started her own firm, Inside Sales by Design, to work with small and mid-size companies to share the ultimate best practices of high performing Inside Sales teams. To that end, she recently co-created PM Inside Sales, an online course teaching the fundamentals that have made her teams so successful. When not working, Dionne enjoys spending time with her husband, kids, and friends at the beach and embarking on new experiences.

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The Top 2 Reasons to Codify Training and Onboarding: An Interview with Jeremy Boudinet from Ambition

Jeremy Boudinet was kind enough to take some time with me and we had a great conversation about the value of Sales Training and Onboarding.

Jeremy is the Director of Marketing at Ambition. Ambition “provides the most cutting-edge sales performance management software on the market today.”

Read on for some great insights!

Jeremy’s love of sales runs in the family and he believes everything is sales and everyone is in SALES (to which I completely agree)! With sales running in the blood, it’s made Jeremy very empathetic to sales people and the sales profession. And raised the truth that ultimately a company must have a viable product for sales people to sell.

Armed with his BA in Political Science, a JD from University of Pittsburgh Law School, and his love of reading and writing, Jeremy is well positioned to be the Director of Marketing for the up and coming tech company focused on making “work suck less”. Ambition seeks to codify Training and Onboarding expectations so there are no surprises for employees!

I asked Jeremy what he meant by that and here’s some excerpts from our discussion:

DM: What are some of key insights from your customers regarding Training and Onboarding?

JB: The big thing is the love of transparency. Most people, and millennials especially, get nervous when they don’t know where they stand, don’t receive feedback, or have clearly defined expectations. The feedback we get about Ambition from our customers focuses on two key areas. 1. The Manager loves the automated and custom email alerts and reports. These allow the Manager to immediately and effectively coach without sifting through a bunch of data. 2. Codifying and visualizing daily benchmarks sets the clear expectations of the Sales Rep to ramp and where time is to be spent.

DM: How are companies tying gamification to compensation?

JB: There are roughly four levels of motivation in Ambition, all of which we’ve seen tied to monetary performance incentives. 1. You v. Your Daily Benchmarks. 2. You v. Your Past Performance 3. You v. Rest of Your Team 4. Your Team vs. Opposing Team.

In sales, rewards should be tied to both productivity and performance. And with a well-tuned process and the proper tools, creating multiple levels of competition, motivation and compensation opportunities is significantly simpler than before.

DM: Where do you see the market going?

JB: Initially, gamification was brought in-house to focus on revenue attainment. We’re seeing the market shift focus away from badges and arcade-style leaderboards towards a more sophisticated model.

The sustainable value our clients are getting comes from using Ambition to codify expectations, create a more robust CRM experience and offer personalized recognition and team competitions. (Take a look at this HBR article to dive further.) The latter part goes toward the rising tide of the collaborative, segmented inside sales model, which prizes the team-aspect of sales much more strongly than the prevailing models of years past.

The lone wolf stereotype in sales is over and gone, get on the bus! The future of sales is about a highly coordinated team attacking to achieve its goals.

DM: What makes people embrace Ambition and similar emerging technologies?

JB: The Leadership recognizes that is not a “shock the monkey” approach to motivating a sales force.  Adopting gamification and technology to speed up your team is about leveraging a tried and true sales process (meaning, your organization has one already) codifying a path to success and choosing to embrace real-time data transparency.

And for your team to embrace that change, the technology has to become part of your culture. Taking a carrot-and-a-stick approach to our software is a recipe for failure. This isn’t about making a leaderboard or winning a gift card. In sales, the most important competition is always with yourself, and Ambition provides a powerful visual reminder across every member of your sales team.

With clearly defined targets, gamification and technology can be very effective at aligning your Inside Sales Strategy with your Company Strategy. We’re out to make sure that there’s no wasted potential within your organization.

You can hear more at our upcoming webinar on October 28th, 8:30am PST: Modernizing Inside Sales, Why Training and Onboarding Matter. Subscribe here.

Jeremy Boudinet is the Director of Marketing at Ambition and President of AA-ISP’s Tennessee Chapter. He devotes most of his waking life to being the “Voice of Ambition,” by publishing in-depth articles, interviews, eBooks and editorials on emerging topics in sales and performance management. You can find his content on the highly active Ambition Blog and by following @AmbitionSales on Twitter.

 

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The 2 Most Important Reasons to Build a Solid Inside Sales Foundation

  1. Inside Sales is growing faster than Outside sales to the tune of 300%, according to a study from InsideSales.com (the data is from 2013, however, still relevant)

2.    The #1 top challenge for Inside Sales Leaders is access to effective and repeatable Training and Development, according to the AA-ISP 2015 Top Challenges Report. (You’ve got to be a member to access the full report. Do it, the Associate Member rate is $25/year.)

Put those two together and you’ve got the makings of a perfect storm. Companies are growing their Inside Sales team or creating them and Leaders have identified Training and Development as their biggest barrier to growth.

Also from the AA-ISP report, Leaders want to increase training speed. I take that to mean getting folks up to speed more quickly.

And that’s where PM Inside Sales comes in. What we’ve done is provide tools, templates, checklists, and additional resources for your to consume. For those of you comfortable with a structured online learning environment, this program gives you the best-of-the-best tools to create or enhance your very own Solid Sales Foundation, and ultimately the ability to increase your speed.

The course covers topics such as establishing the right model to writing effective job descriptions and from training and onboarding to setting goals and creating accountability. All the basics requirements of a solid foundation so you’re poised for growth.

Take a look at the intro video by October 16th and be entered into a drawing to receive a free pass to the course.

Thank you and we look forward to growing with you!

Dionne is a 17 year sales veteran having built and scaled Inside Sales team from the ground up. She recently started her own firm, Inside Sales by Design, to work with small and mid-size companies to share the ultimate best practices of high performing Inside Sales teams. To that end, she recently partnered with Rhonda O’Neill to create PM Inside Sales, an online course teaching the fundamentals that have made her teams so successful.

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The #1 Must-Have to Insure your Inside Sales Team’s Success – Part 2

The leader. Yep, I said it, it’s the leader of the group that can make or break success. Here’s why: according to a recent Gallup poll, Manager’s account for 70% of an employee’s variance in engagement. Wow. Also according to Gallup, an engaged workforce outperforms it’s less engaged counterparts by 147% per share. Staggering.

As an Inside Sales leader, below is a standard list that can drive engagement with your team. You may call these items something else, however, the gist is the same. And with the majority of our employees’ engagement riding on our own, it’s definitely something to move to the top of our priority list.

(I can also hear some of you out there calling out the employee’s responsibility to own their own engagement. Completely agree. And by setting clear expectations, that helps our team to either engage or not.)

So here we go, as a True Leader, you:

  1. Create a Success Plan template for your team which includes a feedback loop

And clearly defined expectations

2.    Remove barriers for your team in order for them to be successful

Do they need an order form? A bug fixed in the product?

3.   Create Trust and Transparency by constantly communicating

There’s some “stuff” we can’t communicate. Got it. But there’s plenty we can to keep our teams focused. Communicate the stuff you can in a way that keeps your team motivated and moving

4.   Provide Mentoring and Coaching to your team while holding them accountable to your mutually agreed upon Success Plan

This is NOT your 1:1. This is something different. A mentor is someone other than you, their Leader. Encourage your team to have a mentor/coach or start your own internal coaching/mentor program for your team. Everyone will benefit.

5.   Meet and communicate with your peers and Management internally in order to provide clear guidance for you and your team

As a Leader, having your own road map defined is just as important. Because really, how do you direct your team without a clear sense of the end game? And by meeting internally with your peers, you’re able to break down silos, raise everybody’s understanding, and increase engagement.

6.   Retain your best people

There is a talent war coming, if not already here, for good and great jobs. By engaging in these activities, you’re on your way to creating an environment your people want to stay in.

7.   Hold 1:1’s consistently with your team and your manager

If you do nothing else, take this away. 1:1’s are NOT optional. They are a must. 30 minutes a week or every other week with every person on your team. Care. Help. Be of service. Review expectations, review what’s going well, and review what needs to improve. This regular cadence is the single most important thing we can do as leaders to get to know our people, provide the right guidance, retain our best people, and effectively communicate.

Dionne is a 17 year sales veteran having built and scaled Inside Sales team from the ground up. She recently started her own firm, Inside Sales by Design, to work with small and mid-size companies to share the ultimate best practices of high performing Inside Sales teams. To that end, she recently partnered with Rhonda O’Neill to create PM Inside Sales, an online course teaching the fundamentals that have made her teams so successful.

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Why Discipline Matters in Sales

Isn’t it interesting that sales people have different stigmas, labels, and connotations? And not all of them are favorable. Some that come to mind are slick, fast talking, the life of the party and those are the ones suitable for print.

Discipline is probably not the first word that comes to mind when we think about sales. I’m here to tell you that it should be and why it’s not a surprise.

Ask anybody, and they probably didn’t go to college to be in sales. Or think of it as a viable profession. They don’t want to be a Sales Person. Hell, I didn’t either. Then came the reality and knowledge that we’re all really in sales, but that’s a story for a different time.

Here’s why Discipline is the single most important characteristics of a successful sales person. Discipline is what has us picking up the phone again after being hung up on. Discipline is what has us doing one more demo before we go home for the day. Discipline is what has following a tried and true sales process that nets results. Discipline is what has us herding the proverbial cats in our internal world in order to meet the needs of our customers. Discipline is what keeps us striving to hit our goals and quota.

Sales isn’t for everyone. It’s tough. Make your number or lose your job. I can’t think of another role in an organization with that kind of definitive end game.

The most successful sales people I know have a vast amount of discipline.

Visit the full PM Inside Sales 101 course & learn more about the importance of sales team discipline.

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6 Must-Have’s to Insure your Team’s Success – Part 1

There are tried and true must-have’s that all successful Inside Sales leaders have in place. Go ahead, don’t believe me, ask your Inside Sales Leader peers and you’ll find each and every one of them have the following must-have’s in place. These artifacts speak to Leaders who have a clear and deliberate path; they treat their career with care and intentionally move through their day, leading their teams to victory.

Onboarding Program: Probably the most critical and under used tool in your arsenal. Think of onboarding as playing Host/Hostess to your new hires. You just spent time getting to know each other and now, the mutual decision has been made to have this extraordinary person start with your organization. This is the perfect opportunity for everyone to continue putting their best foot forward

(Sales) Training Program: There is a distinct difference between Product Training and Sales Training. Definitely have both, however, keep in mind that having your Product Person download to a sales person does not insure success. *Remember: The purpose of Onboarding and Training is to get your New Hires up to speed with the goal of getting them to productivity within 4 months.

Leader Playbook: A Sales Leader Playbook exists for you as a Sales Leader and serves as a “you-are-here dot”. This document or power point is also used in your Training and Onboarding program, is revisited and tweaked on a regular basis, and leveraged heavily in your communication with other departments and your manager.

Sales Playbook: This is your team’s Bible and also used in your Training and Onboarding program. This is the single source of truth for your team when it comes to information, messaging, and leveraging tools and technology.

Ongoing Coaching and Mentoring: Employees are looking for more than a paycheck, they are looking for purpose in their everyday lives and at work. The key to this being successful is consistency; and having objective success criteria in place. Here’s what that means, your 1:1’s are consistent and meaningful; an agenda is set and expectations are clear.

Dashboards: As the saying goes, you can’t win if you don’t keep score. While some folks like not keeping score, Sales is not for the lover of ambiguity. We either do or do not make our number. We either do or do not make phone calls. It’s very clear cut and the numbers reflect our effort and skill. Make it easy for your team to know how they’re doing.

Tune in as we dive into specifics and offer examples & templates. You can also subscribe to www.PMInsideSales.com to join the Inside Sales movement and receive more information.