Ross Binfield—Bench’s Resident Expert on Sales Techniques
The Employee Spotlight series aims to highlight some of the amazing people who work here and get an insight into their experience at Bench.
Today, we chatted with Ross Binfield, Bench’s resident expert on sales techniques. He’s been an integral part of the Sales team since September 2018, and currently works as the Outbound Team Lead.
A Brit-abroad, Ross comes to Vancouver from South East London. As a self-described “Travel Addict”, Ross has been to 58 countries, with the ultimate goal of visiting every country on Earth. After his upcoming visit to Petra, Jordan, he’ll have visited every “Wonder” in the world.
Tell us about your current role at Bench.
My current role is the Outbound team lead. Initially, my role was a wonderful mix of being both Team Lead, and an Account Executive for the Outbound team. I mentored two people on my team, which involved making sure they were on track by training them up and providing constant feedback.
The transition to purely a Team Lead role was actually a lot easier as I could 100% focus on the leadership aspect of things. Doing both the AE role while taking on leadership responsibilities meant that I could never 100% dedicate my time to the development of my reps and the team as a whole. Fast forward to now, I have been able to spend more time individually developing reps and working on the overall strategic aspect of where the team is heading and how best to get there.
What were you up to before Bench?
Well, I’m from the UK, which you can probably tell by the accent. Before Bench, I was working in London in sales at a travel company. The company organized working holidays and volunteering overseas, and I was in charge of the organization of the holidays. It was essentially an account manager position.
Basically, I was sending so many people to Canada, I figured, maybe I should just go to Canada myself? So I spent a month travelling around the country, then started here at Bench.
When you first started, how did you stay motivated in your role in Sales?
Honestly to start with, I just wanted to be the best! I am so target driven that when I first start a job I just want to get my name to the top of the leaderboard no matter what. I had a great mentor in Jeff Law when I first started and he really pushed me to get the most out of everything I did and that allowed us to set an all time high ACV record in 4 months of me being here. That record was just broken.
Motivation is always hard in sales when you end up doing and saying the same thing day after day but working with a team of people that genuinely want you to not just succeed, but really over-achieve really helped me stay motivated as I didn’t want to let the team down.
What’s changed since you first started?
Wow. Quite a lot, I mean that’s pretty much Bench in a nutshell, isn’t it?
When I first started at Bench I was working as a Sales Development Representative, an entry-level role. It was only a year ago, but it’s amazing how quickly Bench has broadened their scope of service. Sales is now able to onboard so many clients who we weren’t able to a year ago, so it’s really cool seeing that progress play out in real time.
On top of that, the Sales team has become a lot more sophisticated in its reporting and use of metrics. All of this information is so readily available to all the sales reps, which makes us perform at such a higher level than we were even a year ago. This transparency has helped us grow so much, and really enables us to help everyone succeed.
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What made you stay to develop from an Entry Level role at Bench to where you are now?
I came from a very different sales role. We worked more of the ‘traditional’ sales job you would see in movies where it was extremely high pressure and not the best experience overall for both staff and customers.
When I got to Canada I knew I wanted something different but sales is my passion so I started looking for something different and that’s how I found Bench.
Coming into this role, I was taken aback by the positivity and support that the overall team gave and knew that I wanted to stay here longer. My biggest challenge as a SDR was the complexity of the product itself. Learning so much about a foreign country’s tax system and making sure I can provide the service that our clients expect was a big learning curve early on. After mastering that role I really started to see that even though our inbound funnel is an amazingly well oiled machine, we could be leaving money on the table on the outbound side of things.
That is when I approached the leadership team to pitch us using more of an outbound system. Once that was approved I knew that I wanted to stay and develop this into a team that can really start to be an integral part to Bench’s growth.
The reason I’m still here and continuing to work hard and push this team is that we are not there yet. I can feel that we are so close to cracking the code and we have such amazing talent that I could never move on without us showing everyone what we can do
Walk us through a day in the life of Ross Binfield.
As a standard day to day on the outbound team, we’re always trying to find new lists, developing partnerships, creating new templates and cadences, and of course doing a lot of testing. It’s an experimental team so no two days are exactly alike.
What’s been the highlight of your time at Bench so far?
Career-wise, it’s being given permission to start my own team! Starting the Outbound team was a really big thing that happened in February, and has been growing ever since. Being able to develop the processes in place, and hire for teammates has been such a cool experience, and it’s definitely something Bench-specific. I can’t think of any other job where I could have progressed from entry-level on the floor to this, in just under a year.
Also, I was flown to Disneyland recently with Bench. There was a MindBody partnership conference in Anaheim we attended. We did a load of work there, but they threw a huge party, and we got to check out LA. Definite perk of the job.
What’s the most important thing you’ve learned during your time here?
Definitely how important a solid team is. Sales specifically can be a really cut-throat industry, and a lot of my past jobs have been that kind of environment where everyone is only out for themselves. That was such a huge change for me when I started at Bench.
My first day on the phones I had people coming up to me, asking if they could help in any way. I suddenly realized that everyone on the Sales team was doing well because of that supportive environment. You don’t have to just be focused on yourself — the more you’re focused on the team, the more everyone does well. That’s really the Bench ethos of putting people first, and you see it on the Sales floor every single day.
What would you be doing right now if you weren’t at Bench?
Ahah! Well, two options.
One, I would probably be working in a restaurant, because that’s what the majority of working holiday people do. Pretty standard — you always see the Brits, the Irish, or the Australians serving you here in Vancouver. They’re everywhere. If not that, then I’d probably be working in some scummy sales job. I definitely didn’t expect to move to Canada and find a career that I love. Needless to say, happy I’ve found Bench.
If a movie was made about your life, who would be cast as you?
Matt Smith. He played Dr. Who a few doctors ago. He’s British, and we used to have the exact same hair style. I was actually pursuing acting back in England and we’ve worked together in the past, so I think he’d be the one to really portray me best.
Say you wrote an autobiography. What’s the title?
See, the problem is that I’m extremely uncreative. The book would definitely be about traveling, because that’s my one big passion.
But I’m sure it would have a really boring name like, Travelling Around the World with Ross Binfield- that’s me!
Good content, bad name.
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