Source
r/sales•
tgeezy

I've been asked to put together a plan on how I'd lead our 'Digital' (Inside Sales) team - has anyone been in a similar position?

Question

Context: I'm 3 months into my role as a Commercial AM at a Services Partner for a large/popular Service Management SaaS product. I'm 28, have been in Sales for roughly 3-4 years. No management experience in the professional world.

I've been asked by our Sales Director to put together a plan on how I'd build & lead our currently very immature 'Digital' Sales Team. The roles within the team are technically a full cycle/closing role but only for small opportunities within small accounts (small being sub $20k opportunities). The rest of the team's time is currently spent doing ad hoc Sales Support for larger deals (Tender Responses, Generating Quotes etc). There will likely be a max of 3-4 people in this team (potentially including some fresh graduates).

I think in his mind he's valuing it as an 'opportunity' for me rather than a paid promotion (I don't believe there is currently budget for it) which makes me a little hesitant however I still want to put forward some ideas even if they aren't all implemented (or they are but I'm not the person who runs the team). This may include decisions such as re-routing the team to support reps on larger Accounts rather than spending time hunting small opportunities and trying to close them themselves.

I would appreciate any input on some solid building blocks (training/KPIs/generating call lists/how to manage etc) from existing Inside Sales Managers/TLs or people who have been asked to do a similar thing.

Thanks all!

Posted Aug 1, 2018, 10:28 AM UTC

2620
vaetas-video•

The technicals you request here are out of my wheelhouse, but I do just want to tell you:

Sales management is not sales. If you are a solid AM, put the 'opportunity' in the box that makes the most sense for your career and work-style. Don't let yourself be pushed where you don't want to be. Congrats on the vote of confidence though, do something with it.

9
tgeezyOP•

Very true. Of the two I'd rather crush my number for the next few years and continue to earn my stripes and build my network before taking on the stress & risk of management.

Part of me wants to suggest some solid ideas even if it's only to help the Digital Team avoid the fate of being micromanaged to death. Our market is (fairly) small and I think certain KPIs such as Call Time/Dials are not the best fit for how our business works (Professional Services & Projects that typically require a fair amount of scoping & PreSales effort that isn't 'repeatable') and what we want to achieve (farming and maturing our existing business and winning new Enterprise logos)

7
vaetas-video•

I'd go with something like a B:A.

'Bossman, right up front I'm going to tell you that not the man for this job. That being said, here are three pages of strong suggestions to roadmap this for you. I'm excited to be in an advisory role as you execute, but I won't take point. I can deliver 2x value on the sales floor.'

Depending on the pushiness of your supervisor, you may have to reiterate this several times. Don't use soft language.

4
RacoonThe•

Fuck yeah bud! Your director is planning his move, and wants you to be a part of it.

Before accepting this ask yourself why he is asking you?

Is this just leg work that he's supposed to do? Is he planning on handing you the reigns, and this is a toe in the water?

If you decide that tying yourself to him is not a risk, and you want the job, go ahead and grab yourself a sales plan template.

Here's how I break my yearly plan down (minus all the marketing stuff, which frankly, is hard to decouple these days.)

  1. Sales Objectives
  2. Customer Focus
  • Customer Profile
  • Organization Profile
  • Sales Territory
  1. Sales Framework (full cycle or SDR/AE or etc..)
  2. Pipeline
  3. Targets, KPI's, and Milestones
  4. Tools & Systems
  • Meetings & Coaching
  • CRM
  • Communication Tools
  • Prospecting Tools
  • Other Tech Stack
  1. Team
  • Current Team
  • 2019 Expansion
  1. ** Budget**
  • Compensation
  • High Level Budget
  • Monthly Budget
  1. Bottom Line (ROI conclusion)

This shouldn't take you more than 40 hours to flush out. A week of planning will last you a year though.

Some advice:

Make sure the plan is inline with the companies goals.

If you want to make changes, do it in small increments; so small that no one thinks anything is changing. '

Be prepared to execute. Once you're given the money, your targets aren't measured by the number of calls you make, but by exceeding what you said you'd do. Promise just enough to be given the reigns, but not so much that you can't exceed your target.

If you've been given the okay, you don't need to ask permission for anything in your plan. This mind set was hard for me to get into.

Good luck, and god speed!

4
tgeezyOP•

This is exactly the type of thing I was after! Huge kudos and thanks to you my friend. Hope you have a great week.

1
Ipsw1chSaaS•

I am an Account Executive and I love my job, but I’d never manage a sales team. Loads of people claim management to be the next step in your career but I think that’s just wrong, not everyone is meant to manage people - I, for sure, am not.

If you don’t feel like you are a people management person, don’t even bother doing it.

3
tgeezyOP•

The team isn't big enough to justify 1 FTE of Management. It would be in addition to managing accounts of my own, which is part of my hesitation.

1
Ipsw1chSaaS•

Wouldn’t do it, you have quota on your accounts, why bother spending time on something you don’t get paid for?

Only reason I’d do this is if there’s an actual chance of being promoted (e.g. senior AE or bigger accounts) due to the fact of you doing additional work and going the extra mile, but even if that’s the case make sure they don’t play any games with you or blame you for not hitting your quota.

4
lylechipchipperson76•

This right here. Being a player coach sounds cool until you're dealing with leading a team and trying to close business at the same time. You run the risk of not hitting your number which lowers the amount you get paid in the long run. I

3
CuriousDonkey•

Okay, actual answers to your core question, but first same as everyone else. The risk of being a middle Manager is no greater than being a rep, in fact it’s likely a bit less. However, there’s a risk of your competence. Only you know what you’re good at. I’m a shitty salesperson that never missed a quota in spite of that, but I’m a savage sales leader - think about whether this is the right time to test yourself. 28 is a nice age to get to know what you want to do with life, so it might be a risk with taking if you think you might want to do management.

From a technical perspective:

  1. What’s the goal of this SDR team? Is it to groom talent first or to actually impact sales? These are quite distinct and even mid sized companies need to define their on boarding zones for college hires. If this is one, it should be focused on skill building and not on revenue(though influenced rev is a good KPI).

  2. Is this focused on a segment or industry? How can you focus the scope of the team into something that increases success? How do you go about picking that segment? Prospect all for a month and go by those results to focus with some side work done each month to check other segments? Can you lean on marketing even if they can’t do inbound?

  3. Typically these teams are banging phones but there’s a number of long term sales skills you should be working into them and that can help your AE’s like researching earnings presentations and picking up important intel that can be used. Things like deal structuring and working the operations side of the house with an AE well in advance of a deal to get guaranteed outcomes or something of that ilk that will require a legal or CFO signature.

I could go on. There are books on this. I recommend The Sales Acceleration Formula. Also Jason Lemoine did some great sales comp and sales strategy work. Finally Spears nets and seeds is another good, simple strategy. In this case your digital team throw nets and AE’s spears while planting seeds it would seem.

Good luck!

3
here2learnmore•

DM me. I’m a tech seller and have been collecting various materials and resources about this for years in trying to get myself promoted. Happy to share. A lot of the sales automation companies produce fantastic marketing materials that would be great to implement or at least provide direction.

Gong.IO, hubspot, saleshacker, yesware, etc. all great blogs and content.

2
centurytwentyseven•

How about you automate the qualification/presales with marketing automation, then build a process for closing that involves little time spent per (already qualified) lead - so those small accounts become worth it?

1
tgeezyOP•

Our marketing efforts are effectively on hold while we figure out what the GDPR is going to mean for us. We're a global organisation and thus far have made the strides to be GDPR compliant which means that automated outbound marketing is suddenly much more difficult to execute without significant risk

3
centurytwentyseven•

You are thinking this involves doing advertising? I’m just saying take the leads for small accounts you get anyway, and automate the qualification and as much else as you can to cut down on time spent with these...

2
vaetas-video•

Now I'm curious, what marketing automation exists for small businesses? We're a small Saas and I'd love to have some trickle-leads in addition to my standard door knocking.

2
centurytwentyseven•

Hubspot could be good

2
[deleted]•

[removed]

3
vaetas-video•

Oyster, can I PM you and pick your brain?

1
centurytwentyseven•

But that’s just the emailing part.. for advertising it depends on the business but Facebook leadads or Google ppc is usually a good place to start

2