Last Thursday the Atlanta Tech Village hosted the first Ultimate Sales Conference and four great speakers. With 200+ people, there was an excellent turnout and the quality of conversations set the bar high. Here are a few takeaways from each conference speaker:
Derek Grant of Pardot / Salesforce.com
- Build a sales playbook
- Develop an ideal sales rep profile
- Find reps that can punch above their weight class
- Include a written assessment during the hiring process
- Coaching is a critical part of sales management
- Use a headset splitter and listen to sales calls weekly
- Sales prospecting is a science
- Millennials want small promotions ever six months and a career path
- Listen, listen, listen – the best sales people are the best listeners
- Enter sales meetings with a goal but adapt during the conversation
- Culture is critical and should be nourished
- Embrace sales rep specialization as much as possible
- Recognize the need to go from individual contributor to leader as the company scales
- Sales leaders should not carry a quota while managing a team
- List building gets much more difficult as the team grows due to the need for such large numbers of contacts
- Scaling a sales team is incredibly hard
Special thanks to SalesLoft and Rivalry for putting on the event.
What else? What are some other takeaways from the Ultimate Sales Conference?
David Cummings on Startups 