The 4 Pillars of Hiring Great Reps - Jon Feldman - Coach2Scale - Episode # 010

Coach2Scale: How Modern Leaders Build A Coaching Culture

Today’s guest is an extremely thoughtful and passionate sales leader who has grown huge companies such as SAP and Oracle. Jon Feldman is the Area Vice President of Sales for North America at Absolute Software. Jon is also the Founder and Host of The Rally Call, a podcast for sellers. Jon and Host Matt Benelli dive into the need for AEs to embrace continuous learning, the impact of outcome-based selling, and the four pillars of hiring great salespeople.

Takeaways:

• Becoming an effective sales rep in the tech industry today requires a commitment to continuous learning. The problems and solutions buyers face are evolving as rapidly as the tools available for reps and without a desire to stay up-to-date, reps will fall behind.
• In the current market, the best-performing reps sell based on the business outcomes that their solution will provide to the customer. Be clear about the problems X solutions solves for the customer. Move away from the feature-based selling approach of the past.
• As an example of the two sales philosophies, let’s use a home that needs a fence. A feature-based seller would try to sell the owner the hammer, nails, and wood to build the fence, whereas an outcome-based seller would sell the increased security and privacy provided by the fence.
• One of the keys to improving the impact of your sales team is to invest in tools, such as sales-enablement software. Tools like Gong allow you to record sales calls so you can go back and review how they went and highlight areas for improvement.
• Another key to changing the impact and culture of a sales organization is hiring. There are four pillars to hiring great sales reps: 1. Coachability, 2. Urgency, 3. Resiliency, and 4. Curiosity.
• Curiosity is an extremely important factor for new reps to have because business problems are complex and finding solutions to them requires a good understanding of the business and the problem
• Coaching is a two-way street, if reps show they are willing to learn more, even average sales managers will recognize that and provide opportunities to grow. Asking questions and reaching out for help should be encouraged, this is no longer the age of do it all on your own.

Quote of the Show:

• “We live in the evidence era of sales” - Jon Feldman

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/feldmanjon/
• Website: https://www.absolute.com/
• The Rally Call: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-rally-call/id1629248198

Ways to Tune In:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A
• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434
• Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU
• Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77
• Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale

CoachEm™ is the first Coaching Execution Platform that integrates deep learning technology to proactively analyze patterns, highlight the "why" behind the data with root causes, and identify the actions that will ultimately improve business results going forward. These practical coaching recommendations for managers will help their teams drive more deals, bigger deals, faster deals and loyal customers. Built with decades of go-to-market experience, world-renowned data scientists and advanced causal AI/ML technology, CoachEm™ leverages your existing tech stack to increase rep productivity, increase retention, and replicate best practices across your team.

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