As Dreamforce continues Day 1 in full swing, we’re live blogging some of the top sessions and panels right here on the Salesloft blog. Kyle Porter and friends took the stage earlier today to introduce the new era of sales: the modern sales organization.
This afternoon he’s joined by another group of modern sales leaders to continue the discussion, and to get their first-hand experience on how this evolution from conventional sales to the modern sales era has transformed their sales organizations.
To begin, we all know that companies make the world go ’round, and the purpose of all companies is to grow. And in order to grow, they must accomplish one of three things: acquisition (buying a company), expansion (more revenue from current customers), or growth through new accounts (customer acquisition). The latter two are sales.
And as the traditional and conventional notions of sales transforms, the modern sales organization is emerging as the antithesis of everything that’s wrong with conventional sales. From selfish, sloppy, dishonest, and robotic, to empathetic, organized, accountable, and scalable, modern sales organizations are creating an environment completely new to the industry of sales. One that’s human, personal, values-based, and most importantly, customer-centric.
“There’s a difference between having a sales team and being a sales organization.” -Kyle Porter
Now, bringing culture and personalization to the popular table hasn’t always been easy. But if we don’t transform traditional sales into modern sales organizations, the entire sales industry as we know it will go extinct. While some will get it and others won’t, the companies who do are the true winners.
And from fast growing startups like Mulesoft & Gainsight, to venture funds like OpenView, the heart of modern sales is fully alive. They are leading the trend in which buyers increasingly choose sincere and intentional sellers as their business partners.
Three of these companies’ leaders joined Kyle on stage to share their vision for the future of modern sales:
Up first, Steven Broudy, Head of Account Development, Americas at Mulesoft, is focused on hiring and developing the next generation of leaders in sales and sales development. Thanks to Steven’s background as a Ranger Sniper Team Leader in the Army prior to his career in sales, he believes modern sales is very much in line with the Ranger Life. From the highest-value targets, to the best training, equipment, and support possible, genuine sales teams have the ability to move upstream, much like his team and their total revenue growth of 92% in 2015.
Next in the spotlight was Andrea Hansen, Head of Sales Development at Gainsight. Andrea honed her sales talent and leadership skills in a career at Salesforce prior to her role at Gainsight, and is focused on taking their power platform to market. Through modern sales techniques like strategy execution, personalization at scale, and professional persistence, Andrea believes modern sales organizations can achieve the same success as hers did last year, closing over 500k in won business, sourced by solely by SDRs.
And finally, we were joined by Devon McDonald, Investment Partner at OpenView. In her role, Devon oversees OpenView’s Expansion Platform, the largest team and network dedicated to helping expansion stage software companies dominate their markets, so she understands modern sales best practices better than most. Her mantra? Customer respect and empathy above all else will bring success to modern sales organizations.
But one thing all of these modern sales pros can agree on is that Sales Cloud is an essential part of the modern sales process. And to find the bandwidth to add a sales engagement platform to your modern sales workflow, you have to put the best sales engagement platform right inside Sales Cloud itself.
That’s why Salesloft allows you to use the best parts of Sales Cloud, while simultaneously including your sales communication activities with direct integration and automatic syncing, and these professionals are just three testaments to the modern sales process.
Want to see for yourself? Come visit Booth #1613 to meet with a Salesloft team member on the Dreamforce floor!
