How do you show thought leadership in sales operations?

Most of them think that the Sales Ops role is a back-end role but they are the ones who are aligned with organizational goals. 1. Understanding the Organization's Goals 2. Publishing Data Driven facts to the Sales Team - What's working and what not - Win/Loss Analysis, Lead to Deal Conversion, Funnel Analysis, etc., 3. Understand the pain points or issues that are facing by the Sales team and help them if they need any support 4. Learn, Unlearn, and ReLearn - Latest facts about the industry 5. Work with other stakeholders or function heads and take their input

In my experience I have too often seen sales reps that are very quick to give their best discount from the start. This is an easy trap to fall into because we all want to close deals, but, the lowest price is not always the best deal. A manager once told me “anyone can give it away”. I tell customers all the time, “if you’re looking for the cheapest price, I’m not your guy, but if you want a great product at a fair market value that’s what I have to offer.” Be sure that your team understands the value of the products you’re selling and the value of their expertise, as well as how to articulate that value to your customers.

A strong leader encourages their team to embrace ownership of their outcomes. Once this mindset takes root, it's only a matter of time before team members naturally deepen their understanding of their roles and responsibilities, assuming full accountability for their work's credibility.

Good leadership and trust are the key factor for sales people to encourage and drive them to their full capabilities to reach the goals.

Definir claramente o meu papel e objetivos nas operações de vendas sempre foi crucial para atuar de forma eficaz. Não tive a experiência como líder de equipes vendas, mas tenho claro que quando você gerencia equipes, desenvolve estratégias e monitora métricas-chave, sempre colaborando com outras áreas, irá para maximizar o impacto nos resultados de vendas.

A great way to stay on top of trends and best practices is to talk to different vendors and ask them what they are seeing. Yes, this means you may have to sit through a demo presentation :).

Never stop learning. Change is a constant. You need to involve yourself in interactions with peers from other organizations, industries etc. Be open-minded and see if some things can be adapted in your specific situation, try out new things.

Para demonstrar liderança de pensamento nas operações de vendas, é fundamental estar atualizado sobre as últimas tendências e práticas do setor. Isso inclui acompanhar novas tecnologias, ferramentas e insights relevantes. Para isso, costumo ler blogs, livros e artigos especializados, além de participar de webinars, eventos da indústria e comunidades online.

As with any industry it’s key to stay updated to be relevant. The complexity is the pace of change for good. Communities are a great way to understand latest market trends, best practice and get to know the best in the industry to learn from. Its key is take these incremental changes back into the business for execution driving process and performance efficiency. Also great to use these platforms as a speaker to share info, it’s a two way street

Step 1: Understand the priorities for the business; Revenue, Retention, Market-share, Lead conversion, etc. Step 2: Generate relevant, actionable insights based on defensible data. If they don’t believe in your data - solve for this first. Step 3: Develop viable, cost responsible, and measurable options to solve the problem. A concerted effort across Sr. Stakeholders committed to address a known issue is often all it takes. Step 4: Drive constructive, objective visibility. Everyone wants to be successful. “Actionable insights”often point out inefficiencies or performance issues. The goal is NOT to point fingers, but to solve the problem. Read the room. EI required. Step 5: Own the solution. Volunteer to run the improvement initiative.

Sales operations can often be a behind-the-scenes team in an organization, which is why I think it's incredibly important to increase visibility for that team in your company. I like to have members of my team speak at company-wide standups/town halls on the projects they are working on and how those projects are contributing to the overall success of the business. Projects like outbound strategy, forecasting methodology, and ICP definition are all great candidates to present to the broader org on.

To amplify our Sales Ops Leader's thought leadership, I involve them in key cross-functional decisions, from Quality, and Opperations,to Finance and Marketing. This visibility allows others to appreciate their strategic value in enhancing decision-making and operational efficiency. I also encourage their participation in panels and workshops, showcasing their insights and fostering a collaborative learning environment. Ensuring they have these opportunities highlights their expertise and thought leadership and ultimately contributes significantly to our organization's growth.

Sales cannot accomplish anything without a great team behind them. If you're in sales and one of your value propositions is selling service, you should know that your operations team is as valuable as you are. Mutual respect and appreciation for those on the front lines is critical for all to succeed.

I completely agree. We are stronger when we have a strong sales ops team. Shout out to Daniel Meadows on the #sentientenergy team.

A huge benefit of being in a sales operation function is being able to see across the full value chain just giving an opportunity to work with partnering functions. This would be getting feedback on sales ops deliverables and also partnering with those associated functions for delivery with a broader scope. This enables being able to contribute outside the sales function or a broader company objective which again embodies the concept of thought leadership

Collaboration is a great way to encourage thought leadership. The best way to optimize sales operations or strategies is not through a top-down approach. For example, meeting ideas in the middle by encouraging executives to collaborate with SDRs is a great way to encourage thought leadership among all in your organization. With my team, we have dedicated creativity time in meetings that we call 'Dev Blocks' and 'Sales Working Groups' where we encourage all to come to the meeting with an idea or strategy that we can implement to help optimize.

Compartilhar conhecimento e insights é crucial para mostrar liderança de pensamento em vendas. Isso pode ser feito através de apresentações, relatórios, estudos de caso e até conversas informais. Participar de debates e eventos também é importante. Ao compartilhar suas experiências e soluções, você demonstra liderança e influência no campo das vendas.

As a sales leader we should always be in a position to challenge the status quo as market conditions keep changing all the time due to multiple exogenous factors. Here are few ways : 1. Institutionalize a culture of inquisitiveness : encourage a culture of questioning the existing processes and systems as they may not be yielding the same results as earlier 2. To remain abreast of the latest/emerging market trends, best practices, technology etc 3. Adopt data-driven decision making : Leverage AI driven tools to arrive at an informed decision 4. Conduct a pilot on new initiatives on a smaller scale before implementing on a larger one

I am a huge advocate for speaking up! If you see something, say something! When proposed in the right way, new ideas can be a breath of fresh air to your organization. Whether that is a new forecasting methodology for more accurate results or something as simple as tweaking the CRM to make navigation a little easier. These iterative changes can be stepping stones to a more effective team. It’s always important to take a step back and ask yourself, could this be done a better way? It is equally important to approach stakeholders in a manner that encourages discussion and growth. Change happens slowly but is the only constant in life and business. Using this to improve areas of your department and others is an essential skill.

Sales is a combination of "Art and Science". Hence mentoring and coaching from time to time on specific skills is a very crucial aspect. Another critical thing to do is to "Shadow your team members on client calls and meetings". This way your members can observe "YOU" demonstrating certain critical sales behaviors which could be essential for a timely closure. Having 1:1 feedback and developmental conversations is another way to keep your sales motivated and skilled all the time.

I am a strong believer in mentorship and coaching. As much as they are different between them, I also think you are never too young to start or too old to finish either. As long as you have some experience within a field or subject, you can already contribute to the learning of others and even teach someone something they already know, but in a different way.