New York City’s sales teams are some of grittiest, scrappiest, and hardest working groups in the technology industry, period. Sales teams know that if you want to win big, you have to think big. Of course, thinking big involves weeks of planning and strategizing, particularly at the start of a new year.
Built In NYC spoke with leaders from some of New York’s top sales teams to learn what goes into setting goals...and making them a reality.
At Trustpilot, feedback is everything. The B2B company helps businesses gain insight into their customers with its unique software. Meanwhile, the sales team also thrives on feedback by creating a culture where employees, like Sales Manager Jeff Boone, work to support each other.
What is your process for setting goals for the new year?
Goal setting for the year is always an interesting process because it involves a ton of different departments and can seem to be rather complicated. But, really, it comes down to one pretty simple idea: sell!
How does your company work to motivate and support its salesforce as they work to meet their goals?
We have a culture at Trustpilot that motivates and supports our salespeople by getting them to be as successful as possible because when our salespeople are making money and getting promoted that means the company is growing.
From a sales perspective, what are you most looking forward to in 2018?
I’m really looking forward to coaching my team to be the best they can be this year.
When it comes to setting sales goals at the Managed by Q office, it’s all hands on deck. The company helps businesses manage office services, including everything from on-demand administration, IT support, cleaning, maintenance and even security. Within the company, the Managed by Q team ensures that everyone from the executive level down has a clear picture of the coming year. The sales team, in particular, is encouraged to never stop learning, and are supported with regular trainings throughout the year, according to Megan Bowen, senior director of account management and client experience.
What is your process for setting goals for the new year?
Goal setting at Managed by Q is a collaborative process between revenue leaders and the executive team. There are many factors to balance including investor expectations, historical growth patterns, expansion plans and ideal growth targets for existing clients and new clients. The collaborative process ensures all responsible parties are committed to their goal and have the opportunity to provide input on the final number. Our growth goals are always ambitious (as they should be) which motivates the team to consistently work toward improving and experimenting, finding creative ways to accelerate the growth of our business. Transparency is part of our company ethos, so once all company goals are set we share them with the entire company to ensure complete organizational alignment.
How does your company work to motivate and support its salesforce as they work to meet their goals?
Motivating and supporting a team responsible for achieving ambitious goals in a fast-paced environment is challenging. At Managed by Q, we host training sessions every other week on a variety of topics along with certification exercises to give employees the opportunity to validate their learnings. Growth can be achieved in a number of ways. Therefore, I find providing teams a broad toolset sets them up to be successful in a variety of scenarios. For example, we rolled out a formal executive business review process for account managers to conduct with clients and found that these meetings with clients almost always resulted in uncovering additional needs they had that we are able to meet with our services, resulting in better outcomes for our clients and greater growth for Managed by Q.
From a sales perspective, what are you most looking forward to in 2018?
One of the largest opportunities for ongoing growth in any organization is creating an amazing experience that your customers love. If your customers love your product and service experience, they will keep coming back for more, invest a greater share of their wallet in your services and refer new prospective customers. One of the reasons I joined and love working at Managed by Q is that we are a customer-centric organization and I believe 2018 will be the year we elevate our customer experience even further through exciting product and service delivery enhancements.
At Riskified, there’s a lot at stake. The sales team is dealing with some of the most high-tech fraud prevention software, and the company works hard to ensure their e-commerce clientele remains free of security breaches. Fortunately, the tightly-knit team, guided by Head of Sales Andrew Kashin, works together on a comprehensive strategy that keeps them moving all year long.
What is your process for setting goals for the new year?
I kick off the year by meeting with each salesperson to discuss individual revenue and professional development goals, existing opportunities in their pipeline, and the company's annual revenue goal. What's more important than setting annual goals is the strategy session where we figure out the framework for success to ensure we hit or exceed each goal.
How does your company work to motivate and support its salesforce as they work to meet their goals?
Our sales team is motivated by a very generous compensation plan, representing a fantastic product, and collaborating with a highly intelligent team. We are fortunate that all of Riskified is aligned, and works to provide the support the salesforce needs to succeed — whether it's leveraging the design team for a presentation or supporting the technical team with a client-specific request — the salesforce is encouraged to engage with all departments.
From a sales perspective, what are you most looking forward to in 2018?
We are all looking forward to working with amazing new clients and adding significant value to their operations and bottom line.
At Doctor.com, the sales team helps connect medical professionals to a suite of software that helps develop the online presence of both private practices and hospitals. Sales professionals at Doctor.com need to be flexible and innovative as they work alongside individuals in the fast-paced medical field. Patrick Killen, Doctor.com’s director of sales development, shared how his team sets goals and supports each other on a day-to-day basis.
What is your process for setting goals for the new year?
I start by looking at how 2017 finished out: How close to or above our team goal did we achieve? Does it consistently average out across each individual? Were we on target for our most impactful KPI's? When you are hitting the mark on those, you are typically on point with goals. If you are consistently way above or below, then I look for the gaps in our process or training opportunities that we need to implement, and if necessary, adjustments are made. I also like to take feedback from the team into account to get a sense of their perception of how they’re goals are set and if they feel this process is fair.
How does your company work to motivate and support its salesforce as they work to meet their goals?
We work very hard at Doctor.com to ensure the motivation we provide to our sales team is well balanced between extrinsic motivators — running sales contests or weekly/monthly award programs — which creates a sense of competition and keeps things fun day-to-day, with intrinsic motivators, such as career or personal development goals an individual is working to achieve in the long term. When we successfully tie those together, it creates an environment where people can really push themselves and their teammates to achieve excellence.
From a sales perspective, what are you most looking forward to in 2018?
There are a lot of things for me to be excited about in 2018, but what stands out the most is the opportunity to coach many of our top performers into closing roles within our inside sales team. Last year was a large growth phase for our sales development team, and as the size increases and people become more proficient, we will need to add sales reps to support that growth. We will have folks that are literally creating positions for themselves as an outcome of their hard work, and it's absolutely inspiring to watch. I'm excited, too, for the new clients who will benefit as a result of that.
