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?