Every successful business is quick to praise their sales team.
Top marketers within the fundraising organization can reveal the best of how others can find success. It’s amazing that we want to research them to understand what makes them work, and then take what they’ve learned from the business community.
Some businesses sometimes invest too much in people who are doing this and don’t realize how to reduce the risk in other ways. What makes salespeople better than their peers can come down to what makes them unique as a person.
Ellie Fields and Chief Product & Engineering Officer at Salesloft. He previously led development, marketing, and management functions at Tableau and Microsoft, and is an expert in SaaS companies who loves seeing people grow, products being rolled out, and seeing all the pieces come together.
Ellie Fields joined G2 Chief Revenue Officer Mike Weir on the panel the latest news the GTM Innovators podcast to discuss how GTM teams can identify changes and optimizations that will help sales teams reach new heights. In this episode review, you’ll learn about Ellie’s insights into how virtual reality is disrupting GTM processes and how to empower sales teams to do what they do best.
Why truth is the biggest obstacle that GTM processes must overcome
A thoughtful, comprehensive approach is the culmination of our experience and hard work. It tries to provide context around the timeline, the expected obstacles, and the expected results.
Everyone go to market (GTM) Strategy faces many challenges and challenges. But according to Ellie, truth is the biggest challenge GTM teams have to deal with.
“Sometimes business leaders think about this neat, fun world they live in, following this idea of the sales process and the buying journey,” says Ellie. “But when you watch the salesperson, it’s a lot more confusing than that.”
We like to think that our planning and strategies will save us from confusion. Planning and strategy help us to know the truth, but it is not foolproof.
Sales leaders may find themselves looking at the buyer’s journey as a static process. However, Ellie argues that when you take the time to understand their day, salespeople have less time to engage and create value for consumers.
When you hire sales professionals, you’re relying on them to connect with consumers on a personal level. According to Ellie, there are some organizations whose data shows that salespeople interact with buyers for 25% or less of their day.
Ellie’s key to solving this problem is to analyze her performance to understand what is working and what isn’t. It’s about dealing with and accepting the reality of the curveballs that cause you to mess up.
The evolution of performance-centric frameworks
There is no denying the value and insight an organization can gain from its data. But information is also important if it is usable, trackable, and visible.
For example, it is difficult to ignore that it is very important customer relationship management (CRM) software has been selling B2B. It has become an important tool that many financial institutions around the world rely on.
At its core, CRM is a database-centric solution with a well-designed interface. And while it’s hard to resist using these tools, Ellie says salespeople spend more of their day searching for information from more sources than just CRM.
Ellie Fields
Chief Product & Engineering Officer, Salesloft
Jumping from one method to another to a data source can take time. The most difficult part is trying to analyze the data from these different systems in order to make meaningful changes to improve the flow of sales teams.
Tracking and understanding this is important for sales leaders to not only identify top performers. This effort also seeks to understand what sets them apart from their peers and what they do to create the best results.
Helping sales teams succeed with visual ideas
The concept of visibility in IT and software refers to the ability to see how other systems and infrastructure are working. This means seeing errors and understanding how they affect events, uptime, and more. Seeing this kind of data helps teams understand what is working and what isn’t.
Ellie says that marketing is often seen as a human-to-human endeavor. This means that monitoring in the sense of making changes is not done as often as it should be.
Based on a “visual” perspective, he points out that there are many things organizations can do to improve sales and find new opportunities for optimization. Let’s take a look at some of Ellie’s key takeaways from the latest podcast episode.
Analyze and optimize existing processes
Ellie thinks that sales leaders can uncover a goldmine just by looking at top salespeople. For the most part, the idea is to get a full picture of the day-to-day activities to see where these sales professionals spend their time.
Ellie Fields
Chief Product & Engineering Officer, Salesloft
Measuring the effectiveness of other sales activities can provide good information. However, sales teams may not have effective workflows that empower them to use their time wisely.
Remove obstacles to help them succeed
If the sales force is busy with administrative tasks, funding agencies should see this as an opportunity to find out where automation can help. It may also indicate that it is the right time to explore new solutions that better fulfill their daily tasks.
Ellie said: “I don’t care about what we use or the technology. “I want to make sure people are supported in the jobs they’re trying to do.”
The main issue that Ellie emphasizes throughout this podcast is that salespeople are people, which is why they were hired in the first place. Their goal is to improve the business and create mutual benefit for themselves and the customer, which roadblocks can greatly hinder their progress.
Follow up on successful products if possible
One thing you often hear in fundraising organizations is the desire to recruit top performers and replicate their success in the business community. While this is easier said than done, Ellie says to look for successful products that can’t be compared to the human qualities that set these salespeople apart from their peers.
“If it’s a dog from Minnesota, not everyone can be a well-known Minnesota dog,” says Ellie. “But if that celebrity has a way of communicating that kills people at your competition, the price of your product, or whatever it is, people can learn.”
Embracing the personality of sales professionals as a strength
Ellie is known for emphasizing the value of what we bring to the table as people. Business people are usually good-minded people who want to get things done.
When salespeople have to spend more time on low-cost services and less interaction with consumers and customers, something needs to change. Examining the benefits of critical thinking, Ellie believes that revenue-generating organizations can empower their sales teams to focus on what they do best.
Some points from Ellie in this episode
In episode 6 of GTM Innovators, the full interview with Ellie Fields includes things like:
- How to understand which services are working for you to sell smarter.
- Ellie’s thoughts on how AI and conversational technology are great for high-income organizations.
Watch the full episode YouTube and learn more about Ellie and other GTM experts by subscribing to Images of GTM Innovators podcast today – available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, and more.