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This is a fantastic thread. Thank you all so much for being so free with your experience. Here's my situation: I was a private equity attorney at a Wall Street firm in London then Hong Kong for about 9 years. At the end of that I was burned out, bored out of my skull by heavy document work, and ready for something new. I switched to one of the big suppliers to lawyers, an information company, as a lawyer-editor, with a view to moving to the business side. Was fast-tracked for promotion, so after one year I took over the team and after the second year I took over the product entirely (regional director-level role). We have around 10 products that we sell to law firms, in house lawyers and governments; mine is huge in the UK and US but a startup in Asia. I built it up from zero to a decent size and grew the team from one to seven people. Since I was the senior person associated with the product in Asia I've spent a lot of time in front of customers and prospects, either directly or running thought leadership events etc and I freaking love it (and get a lot of positive reinforcement from colleagues). Long story short the MD for Asia asked me if I would consider moving to a sales role handling all of our other software solutions as well as my product. It's a step down as I currently manage a 6-person team and would not initially have any direct reports as it's an entirely new business here, but in comp terms it's better: my base salary will be roughly the same as it is now and there's a very solid commission if I hit target; I also have assurances about milestones to hit to build a team under me. Territory is three countries. I have a high degree of confidence in this: I know our products, know the market, can talk lawyer-to-lawyer and after nearly 10 years of being yelled at by stressed PE execs am quite resilient and process rejection well. So I'm all geared up to accept the role. At the same time, I think it's going to be incredibly tough. The market for these products isn't mature and I'm expecting a lot of "don't bother me" at first, followed by many months building pipeline before my first sale. I'm also going to be doing p much everything myself, and selling into a region where people don't look like me, which for some of them will be a problem. Anyone got any tips for transitioning from an operations/product role to a sales one, or other thoughts/observations? The product is essentially b2b software packages around a law firm's core business or a company or government agency's legal dept. Long sales cycles, high deal values.
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Apr 7, 2016 15:49
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Hambilderberglar posted:Hello Thread, Going from my 1 month-ish experience working with our sales engineers, what I really want from them when I get them on a call is to (a) know their stuff for the technical questions and (b) be really good at listening, so that when the client asks about X, they don't start by answering about Y. Showing that you understand that dynamic goes a long way. Outside of that, basic professionalism, being able to show you're organised, etc is always good, and knowing the frequently asked client questions and having the answers to them all seem good to demonstrate.
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Sep 3, 2016 12:45
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Also with the questions, how do enterprise sales folks spend their time? My calendar right now is sth like: 10% internal meetings (big company, lots of reporting and stakeholder engagement) 30% sales meetings, demos etc 30% thought leadership like speaking at conferences / other lead Gen activity 10% servicing existing clients and their needs 20% random stuff, travel and so on Is this fairly normal for selling somewhat big ticket software?
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Jun 12, 2017 05:13
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Lyon posted:drat that 30% thought leadership is nice. We do zero of that. It's really a shame. What do you sell (generally) and what do you speak about at conference generally with regards to your industry/software? Obviously you can't get too salesy during those types of presentations so I'm curious what you speak about. I'd love to get more time for those kind of activities. I sell legal tech/solutions of various types, mix of software and services. I do small, invite-only events for the key buyers in my industry, and share industry knowledge and key trends: personal anecdotes about how some customers are teching up (maintaining client confidentiality of course), conceptual pieces that I write for myself on where the tech is leading, and panel discussions/webinars. I keep it entirely off sales - the main benefit is having them talk to each other. The less I talk about our stuff, the more (and better qualified) leads we get from them. Sometimes we do a very small 4-5 person dinner at a nice restaurant. Key thing is to let them network and keep it fairly small.
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Jul 6, 2017 12:04
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JackDarko posted:I have an interview for an Account Executive role at an IPO in Santa Monica tomorrow. I'll definitely make sure to ask what the value proposition is. What are some other good questions to ask? What's the typical sales cycle, are there customers willing to be reference points are a couple that spring to mind.
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Jul 6, 2017 14:32
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That was a really fantastic post. On the closer, I use the "Can you think of any reason you wouldn't do this?" question a lot in my pitches, typically if conversation is flagging a bit near the end. It's a good question and where there are problems it helps to flush them out.
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Jul 7, 2017 00:23
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I started doing solutions sales last year after being a lawyer for years. Closed a few small deals but was way behind target as we're opening a new market. Just closed my first really big deal ($1m+), largest in our region for this year. Feeling pretty amazing. Partly it's the deal and partly the vindication / relief of knowing for certain that I can close.
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Oct 11, 2017 15:48
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| # ¿ May 16, 2024 07:33 |
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3/4 license 1/4 services, approx. And yeah, this is a way less stressful way to make a living (having previously been a sr assoc on NYC rates for a US firm here in HK).
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Oct 24, 2017 03:43
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