Shawn Fowler, PhD of SalesLoft takes a deliberative and methodical approach to Sales Development program performance improvement: ongoing analysis of funnel metrics and then making targeted improvements to process, training, messaging, tools and content.
Listen in as we unpack his process, and learn how to apply this structure to your own Sales Development program!
Come meet Shawn at the Virtual Sales Development Conference 2020! Register here FREE:
https://events.bizzabo.com/223921/home
#SDR #BDR #salesdevelopment #tenbound #podcast #sales #marketing
Notable Quotes:
“I like smaller companies. I like building something. I like having a seat at the table
where I can have like a real effect on the trajectory of the company.” – Shawn Fowler
“The reality is nobody wants to buy your product. They want to buy an outcome that
your product enables.”
– Shawn Fowler
“It’s not like you decide to quit smoking and you’re done and you never have to
think about it again, it’s a decision that you make over and over and over and
over and over again. And it requires a certain level of discipline in order
to effect change.”
– Shawn Fowler
Brief Summary
Some people in sales development improve their processes based on their metrics with the help of some software. Others, on the other hand, are blessed with sales enablement people to up their game.
Today’s Guest: Shawn Fowler
Shawn Fowler has worked as the person for sales enablement for years, improving and constantly polishing their processes to make everything smoother. He has worked at companies such as Silverpop and IBM. He’s now currently the VP of sales enablement at SalesLoft.
The episode touches on the following key topics and ideas:
- David introduces the week’s guest, Shawn Fowler (00:38)
- What if SalesLoft (01:11)
- How Shawn came to work at SalesLoft (01:46)
- Coming onto IBM as an accident (01:57)
- 3 phases of enablement: giving salespeople the right tools to succeed (03:27)
- Onboarding (03:44)
- Ramping (05:05)
- Ongoing education: problem solving (05:15)
- Understand the market and their needs before you get to the product (06:08)
- Overwhelming knowledge and circling back to the product (07:55)
- Putting the focus on the business challenges (09:16)
- Training and a basic framework of business issues (09:26)
- Bridging the experience gap and motivating engagement (12:18)
- The five types of discovery questions (13:00)
- Why start with looking at the process (15:33)
- Where to start unpacking your process for a bigger picture look (18:12)
- Keep the number of activities per opportunity down (19:27)
- Do you need a sales engagement platform for these processes? (20:29)
- How often the metrics of progress are checked (21:30)
- Number one failure for most things: lack of consistency (22:32)
- Discipline: the quitting smoking analogy (23:24)
- Trust and commitment down to the team level (23:57)
- A specific type of person to run the testing projects (25:22)
- Training for the execution of the process (26:31)
- Training even the prima donnas and the rainmakers (27:45)
- Building awareness: some people ae just not cut out for sales (30:28)
- The myth of Sisyphus (31:58)
- Closing remarks and where to get in touch with Shawn Fowler (33:01)
List of Resources Mentioned in the Episode
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