Suggestions
Steve Richard
SVP, Revenue Enablement @ Mediafly | Co-Founder of Vorsight & ExecVision | Sales Expert
Steve Richard is a seasoned sales trainer and coach with over 18 years of experience specializing in B2B sales and marketing.
As the former SVP of Revenue Enablement at Mediafly and a co-founder of ExecVision, a conversation intelligence platform, Steve has a proven track record of helping sales professionals enhance their sales conversations for greater success.
Steve leads a team of experts at Mediafly, providing integrated solutions for sales planning, coaching, forecasting, and engagement to top revenue teams worldwide, including well-known companies like PepsiCo, Nestle, Databricks, and Honeywell.
Passionate about leveraging technology to elevate sales performance globally, Steve strives to empower sales professionals to achieve their goals and advance their careers through innovative solutions.
Outside of work, Steve volunteers for Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind and enjoys activities like scuba diving, skiing, running, and watching football. He is a dedicated father of four and a loving husband who values continuous learning and sharing knowledge with others.
Highlights
Rev Ops / Sales Ops - I believe the toughest part of your job has more in common with parenting than it does with anything else.
Follow my metaphor for a moment.
The sales operations job is:
- making sure the CRM is in order and connected to other sales tools
- sales compensation
- territory
- ensuring sales process adherence
- data hygiene
- forecasting
- sales analytics and many other things.
As you look at that list it definitely lines up with somebody who is analytical and a systems thinker.
Where it breaks down is once you have everything set up.
Once you have the right processes and systems, the weak link is the people.
And when the people are sales reps, that's a very weak link.
Yes I know some of you hate that statement, but it's true. And that's coming from someone who prides himself on being a salesperson.
I don't always do the stuff I'm supposed to do in the systems that revenue operations set up either.
My colleague James Hemberg does a great job with tactful reminders. Here's one from last week:
Hey team -
If you are receiving this email, you are the owner of a non-flat renewal opportunity set to close this fiscal quarter.
At this point, if it's not on the cusp of closing it should get pushed out to next quarter or moved to closed/lost.
I like the wording of his note. Way better than, "Update your opps you morons."
That inspired me to ask the question:
Got any bulletpoints on lessons learned from revops on how to get surly sales reps to actually do stuff?
His reply:
It’s like parenting and what I do to stop having to constantly remind my boys to do stuff:
-
create routines: be consistent with your expectations on when you ask them to do things and how you want it done.
-
keep the asks small: makes it manageable and shows you respect their time
-
lead with empathy and understanding: I know they don’t see personal value in every ask so I explain why the first time.
-
provide a means to avoid the ask: give them a dashboard or report they have access to at all times so they can proactively avoid having to do the asks. Gives them the ability to do it on their time.
Great advice from someone who is technically and analytically competent, while at the same time understands the human element as a father of two boys.
Sales operations people how do you handle sales reps when it's difficult to get them to do stuff?
#revenueoperations #salesoperations #salesteam #routine #habit
I learned if you click on 'Me' (top right on LinkedIn) > setting and privacy > data privacy > get a copy of your data > want something in particular > connections ... you can export all your followers /first degree connections.
Many years ago LinkedIn allowed you to export all of your first degree connections. They included email addresses unless the contact withheld the email from their network.
Somewhere along the way they turned that off or buried it. I tried a few years ago and couldn't export my connections.
Then came the rise of privacy regulations like GDPR & CCPA that say you own your data.
Apparently LinkedIn views the names of your network connections as part of your data.
They no longer include email addresses.
However there are technologies that will let you put the name and company name and do a fuzzy match to identify the best guess email.
Where this becomes incredibly valuable is for people at your company that have an awesome network on LinkedIn.
You can and should be contacting those people via email to schedule easy low-hanging fruit meetings.
I'll put a link in the comments below with the 'Speed Date Prospecting Strategy' that we are using very effectively.
Tuns out the saying 'your network is your net worth' is true.
Thanks to Ben Bronsther for this nugget.
#LinkedInconnections #salesprospecting #salespipeline #socialselling #LinkedIn #network
