Sales (and Sales Development) Study Guide
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Overview
Sales is one of the most misunderstood professions on the planet. There is a somewhat negative stereotype associated with the sales profession, but the truth is that every company or organization in the WORLD sells something. You name it, they sell something.
Tesla? Sells cars.
Facebook? Sells advertising.
The most prestigious law firm in the world? Sells legal representation.
Sports agents? Sell their pro athlete clients’ time.
Non profits? Sell the public on the importance of donating.
The best doctors? Sell their medical expertise and bedside manner.
To make money is to sell. Most people are afraid of sales because it’s uncomfortable, and salespeople get a bad reputation. However, it’s one of the most lucrative professions in the world, and you don’t need a ton of formal education to be an incredible seller. Even more, very few colleges even offer formal sales educations, despite the fact that it’s one of the most commonly held professions.
Below, we’ll break down what sales interviews are like in the tech world, with the obvious understanding that you can have a sales job in any industry, not just selling software or tech solutions.
The job of a sales team
Sales teams exist to manage revenue targets for the business, and to work directly to identify strong prospects for the product your company sells. They are responsible for managing revenue targets, specifically, being able to surpass the sales goals that are assigned to them. In simplest terms- you have to produce a certain amount of sales revenue, or qualified leads, depending on your role. If you exceed your goals, you’ll be in good shape. If you fall short, you have to figure out how to alter your process and methodology until you’re happy with your production.
Key traits for new grad sales hires
Willingness to grind, generally motivated, motivated by money, humble, eager to learn, comfortable on the phone, not afraid to embarrass him or herself, excellent listener, comfortability with public speaking is a plus. Being consultative is hugely important- that means the ability to listen to a customer, understand their painpoints and goals, and put together a plan that solves their problem.
Technical skills
Understanding of Salesforce (CRM system, which stands for customer relationship management), ability to create email campaigns (send a lot of emails at once to get prospects and potential buyers to reply), comfortability making cold calls, ability to craft customized emails to get someone’s attention and ideally, a reply.
As you become more senior in the sales org, you’ll eventually need to learn how to lead a discovery call (defined below) with prospective customers, how to do a demo of the product, and how to lead the customer from interested party to buyer, including the close and often coordinating the steps post sale. This can become a more complex process than it sounds.
Wait, what is ‘Salesforce?’
Salesforce is a cloud based CRM (customer relationship management) software. It helps salespeople track their accounts (companies they’re trying to sell to) and contacts (people they’re trying to sell to.) Salesforce is important because it tracks activities (an email is an activity. A phone call is an activity. Because sales is a numbers game, the more activities you have per week, the harder you are perceived as working.) Sales managers use Salesforce to oversee how their sales team members are doing.
Sales roles and terminology
SDR- sales development representative. This is usually going to be your first role in a sales org. You’re responsible for prospecting, and you’re judged on how many qualified opportunities you can create. A qualified opportunity can be defined in a bunch of different ways. The basic idea- you find a fitting contact at a fitting company, and get them to agree to a call with your AE (defined below.) SDR’s are typically matched with AE’s- they’ll work together as a team, SDR’s helping to generate leads for the AE to try to qualify (by verifying that you’ve connected them with a good person to potentially buy) and then hopefully close.
SMB AE (Small and Medium Size Business Account Executive)- you’ll be assigned a quota that you have to hit over the business quarter or year. Some of the most common terms what your quota will be measured in are “ACV” (annual contract value) or “ARR” (annual recurring revenue or annual run rate.) You’ll work with smaller companies, and these sales cycles are smaller and easier to execute upon.
Mid Market AE- same as above, but you’ll make more money, have a bigger quota, and work with bigger companies.
Enterprise AE- same as above, but you’ll make more money, have a bigger quota, and work with the biggest companies. These deals are more complex, and typically require coordination amongst multiple “stakeholders” within a company. Stakeholders can include C-level executives, champions (normal people who really want the company to adopt whatever you’re selling) or other decision makers.
Sales Manager- A sales manager will also have a quota- typically, the quota is made up of the quota of the members of their team. If an entire team performs poorly, it’s reflection on the sales manager. A sales manager has to understand what deals are going to close, predict how much they will close for, and be able to predict how much revenue the team will bring in. They report on the status of their “pipeline” (the deals that MAY close during the quarter or year) and have to provide transparency to the management above them.
Director or VP of Sales- As your role as a sales manager becomes more and more senior, you become more responsible for things like team culture, the technologies you invest in to help your team hit their goals, and strategic decisions. You set the quotas of the team, and have to represent the sales organization to the C-level members of the company. Even a VP or sales, or a Chief Revenue Officer, has a quota. How does he or she hit their quota? They hire a team of people beneath them with varying levels of responsibility. The end goal of the entire sales org is to hit and surpass a revenue goal.
How sales fits into the company
If you look at company employees in the most simplistic terms, they either make something, sell something, or do something that can support both functions. Marketing, Customer Success, Customer Experience; these are teams that help sales teams to sell. Engineering, product management, design are examples of teams that make something. Finance, IT, and Legal are teams that support both functions. Sales- they obviously are there to sell something.
How sales orgs work
A company’s board, CEO, leadership, etc. will determine the revenue goals for the year. They will break that larger goal into quarterly goals. The sales team has to come together and hit those goals, each chipping in and being accountable to the goal they’ve been assigned. Each team and most people have some sort of a goal they have to hit as an individual or group, and you’ll get paid based on how well you hit that number.
How you fit in
As a young member of the org (organization), you’ll be responsible for prospecting for new leads, managing inbound leads, and trying to get leads into a “qualified” stage, where someone above you essentially recognizes that you did a good job and found a good prospect.
Culture
Sales teams have all different types of cultures. Some are aggressive, some are collaborative, some are competitive, it’s all over the map. Sales teams are usually comprised of young, fun, hardworking people who want to make money and move up to higher and higher paying roles.
More stuff you should know about selling
When people hear about sales, they think of the “used car salesman” cliche. (Also, nothing against use car salesman- it’s just an expression.) But in most sales roles, your job is not to pressure people into buying stuff they don’t need. You are there to be a consultant, to listen, to be an expert on your product, and to advise on how to implement and get the most out of your product. The best salespeople understand how to convey the ROI (return on investment) or value of their product, and work around the goals and priorities and needs of the customer.
Sales professionals who are technical, who understand how their product works deeply and who don’t rely too much on other teams to help them sell typically do very well in sales. Being comfortable with presenting, public speaking, and being able to accurately predict someone’s intent to buy are all things that go into a good salesperson. Talented salespeople are excellent at budgeting their time wisely, and will be hard workers. They will leverage the relationships they develop with their prospects to gain information, understand painpoints, and use that knowledge to make deals happen.
Understanding the product you sell
What is the product? What do you like about it? What objections do customers have? What are the common objections? Who are the competitive products? Why might you lose a deal to them? Who is the typical buyer?
The importance of leads
A lead is a company or contact that has expressed interest in purchasing your product. They might come to you via an inbound channel (they may visit your company’s website, intentionally looking for assistance) or may be a lead that is contacted cold by your outbound team. How do you develop outbound leads? It seems impossible, but it can be done. We’ll explain what good “outbound prospecting looks like” below.
Outbound prospecting
To keep it simple for now, there are a few methods of outbound prospecting:
1. cold calls (you simply find the number of the contact you want to reach, dial, and try to speak with the person in charge)
2. customized email (you write personalized messaging to the person you want to reach, and will often have to follow up several times before they reply)
3. email mass blast (you essentially create a list of email addresses that will receive the same set of messaging. You can send a sequence of emails automatically where the email will be followed by several more with different messaging. The goal is to ultimately get this prospect, who doesn’t know you at all, to respond, and show interest in the product you’re selling.
Customized cold emails and targeting
It seems like it’s probably impossible to get a response from someone you want to sell them without them knowing who you are. It’s tough, but it can be done with some creativity! Here are a few tips:
1. only target and reach out to the type of role/profile who would be interested in the product you’re selling. If you are selling a marketing product, reach out to the Chief Marketing Officer, don’t reach out to the CFO.
2. Read recent events about the company. Figure out how the product you’re selling fits into the news you’re reading.
3. Write an email that is customized; something that couldn’t possibly be written by a robot.
4. Think about how you would write fan mail to a celebrity if you wanted a response. You wouldn’t be generic. Here’s the email you might write to Aziz Ansari (famous comedian) for example:
-Subject: Episode 2 of Master of None changed my life… THANK YOU.
-Message: would address how the episode specifically changed your life (as referred to in the subject) why you connected with it so much, and why you thought to reach out. The same applies when you reach out to a prospect- everything about your note should be custom, and help the prospect know that you are reaching out to him or her SPECIFICALLY, and that you truly invested time in learning about their problems and thinking about how your product can help.
5. Bonus Tip: end the email with a question of a call to action. The last sentence should be your ASK.
Discovery process
One of the most technical parts of a sales cycle is understanding how to lead a “discovery call.” An inexperienced salesperson will likely be unsure of him/herself in this process, an experienced salesperson will have a much better sense for how to lead this process. This will usually take 15–30 minutes, and is your best opportunity to learn how to sell to this person and team. You need to determine if this is a realistic sale, or if there isn’t enough there to justify action being taken.
A discovery call consists of a few main components:
1. Mutual agreement (introductions, an agenda, outcome)
2. Pain and Gain (Understanding the company you’re selling to, how their current processes work, what their pains might be, and the impact that those pains are having. This can be personal pain, financial pain, or organizational pain)
3. Solution Mapping- based on what you’ve just heard, this is how your solution solves the pain of the person you’re selling to
4. Sequence of Events- timeline that they would want to purchase, who would need to be involved, budget for the purchase, and anything else needed before the sale would close. What are the next steps? How do we drive this conversation forward?
Misconceptions about the role
As mentioned before, selling is not about forcing solutions on people that don’t need them. As a salesperson you are a consultant. People also think being in sales is incredibly stressful or cutthroat- there are some companies or sales teams with bad cultures, but there are amazing ones too. You should prioritize culture in your job search. If there are cultural red flags, do not ignore them just because you need a job.
The most important thing in sales is being willing to grind, work hard, and learn your product. If you’re focused and motivated, you can learn the game and have a great career. Sales is very fun- you’re in charge of your own schedule, and as long as you’re hitting your numbers, you have a ton of flexibility. Athletes and people who enjoy competition tend to do well in sales- they’re used to working hard, putting their head down, and are results oriented and competitive.
Also, some people thing that sales jobs are all commission. Not true. Many senior sales jobs have a pretty good base salary too, with upside if you really perform well. It depends on the company and your seniority.
Annoying things about the role
Prospecting is tough, customers hate being sold to, they hate spending more money than they have to, the project can slip for them. It’s an absolute grind- you’ll likely carry a quota of some sort (which is a number you’re obligated to hit) and it can be very stressful to manage the pressure involved with working towards it. Selling and lead development takes a high amount of skill, a high willingness to grind, and a refusal to quit.
A good SDR (or sales team member) vs. a bad one
A good SDR will work hard, care about results, not let things fall through the cracks, will know about the product they are selling, will constantly think of new ways to improve and innovate. Will A/B test, try different strategies, be observant of what works vs. what does not. They will not have an ego, will not be entitled, and will be detail oriented process wise. They’ll also keep accurate records in Salesforce, and be good at predicting what is a real deal that will likely close, and good at understanding where they should spend their time.
The sales interview vibe
Conversational, don’t feel like you have to talk forever and have to prove yourself. Get to know the person you’re talking to and connect with them. Have a bunch of anecdotes that speak to your motivation, and ability to get stuff done in the face of adversity. Stories about being self sufficient, organized, capable, and self motivated are great. Think of all the parts of your life; even stories about volunteering or being a camp counselor or starting your own business in high school can be great examples of told in a STAR format. Ask good questions at the end, and be engaged and a good conversationalist.
Relevant questions to ask at the end
- what do top performers do differently than the rest of the team?
- what does a successful first month or first quarter look like?
- what is the part of the product roadmap or company that you’re most excited about?
- how has the company or strategy evolved since you’ve joined?
- what excites customers the most about the product?
- what are some of the most common objections the team hears? How do you handle those?
- also, feel free to take notes during your conversation, and ask questions based on things that were noteworthy during your conversation.
