Modern Logic collaborated with Lighter Capital on their latest webinar series, “Scaling and Accelerating SaaS startups”. This article is part of the series on the topic, “Accelerating Sales and Leveraging Technology to Build Engaged Communities.”
Remote work has radically transformed our working lives – especially for those in sales. You may have been in person having coffees, lunches, and going to offices making sales. Now, even employees are distributed across the countries. How can you prepare yourself for success in a remote environment? Check out these tips – hard-won knowledge from Anna Talerico at Arthur Ventures, Derek Baird at Sensyne Health, Brian Loar at GoCheck Kids, and Dustin Bruzenak, our CEO.
The Case for Sales Ops Gets Stronger
Derek: I find it a whole heck of a lot less fun. My background is enterprise sales with long sales cycles deals, this benefited from in-person engagement. There’s a really long list here: 1) even in the world of high dollar enterprise sales, selling in a remote world just makes the case for sales ops even stronger. Sales ops was finally getting the attention and recognition it deserved, and now the last 2 years have strengthened the case.
Sales Ops has brought Sales and Marketing together in a really great way. When both Sales and Marketing are closely measured by similar metrics, it brings people together. That’s been one of the positive outcomes of the last couple years. It’s a crucial consideration for your team. You can waste a lot of time and capital without Sales Ops.
Get Relaxed, Get Creative, and Get Weird
Dustin says: “You need to be creative. Teams doing truly creative things 5 years ago sometimes seemed cheesy, but now they stand out. The teams that are trying to be more human when connecting do so much better. In a world where everyone’s a little burnt out all the time, talking to that human and making a connection matters. The former corporate environment trained us not to let the dog bark on a Zoom call. Things are different now.”
Brian adds, “One of the really big winners is the Digital Marketing Manager. That used to be a ‘nice to have’ – now you’ll see it on every single job board, because the markets are so noisy. Trying to break through forces you to feed new and interesting content. Last week, I got an email which showed how informal people can really be. I got an email that had a picture of a seal and said “Don’t make my seal sad” – and you know, I replied. One of our employees put out a similar strategy within an hour, he had 18 responses. You can AB test. Get away from the stale messages of the past.
Anna elaborates,
“One fundamental challenge for anyone in sales is simply reaching people. When you call, you’re not reaching people at their desk. There’s a real bifurcation. Some teams are struggling a lot with their connect rate. Then you have other teams getting phenomenal results with calling. They’re using data enrichment and thoughtful conversation starters for hitting people. It’s interesting to see how some have stumbled and others have thrived.”
Build Cohesion In Your Team
Anna concludes,
“Sales feeds on energy and momentum. Without that feeling on the sales floor, not having that exposure of being with your tribe and having a win – or having people lift your spirit on a day with 50 nos – it becomes really hard for younger reps. It’s paramount to build cohesion. Even if just for 15 minutes a day. Celebrate in Slack – build team culture virtually. I’ve seen teams where everyone gets on Zoom, goes on mute, and cold calls as a “Power Hour”. They’re trying to create that energy, and they’re doing a good job. Just remember how hard this really is for your entry-level sales people sitting at home.”