How Do You Prepare For Your First Sales Role?

Lizzy Castro: [00:00:00] Hey y’all, welcome to the blueprint round table. I’m your host, Lizzy Castro. And I am joined here today with Krissy Manzano and Emily Bell. And today’s topic is how do you prepare for your first sales role? Emily, do you want to kick us off? Yeah.

Emily Bell: Ooh, yes. So prior to joining blueprint have about probably 12, almost 13 years of, individual contributor sales experience, majority of which was outside sales and orientation. So, and lived a few different past lives and had to kind of re, align myself to various products and and categories and industries.

Emily Bell: And what I always say, they’re like basically three main things to live by, which is know they product know that competitors and know they market. And if you know those three things, you can master almost anything that you’re selling. And it’s not quite that simple, but those are really the main three topics that I focus on when I come into a new role.

Emily Bell: And there’s various ways you can go about doing that when you’re looking to know your product, you obviously want to get with peers within your group. I intentionally always met with the top performers. I wanted to understand, like, what are the reasons why we’re winning? What are the reasons why we’re losing?

Emily Bell: Where are the gaps in our product? What’s in the road map? The second piece is I take that knowledge and then I’d go directly to the product people for two reasons. One, I want to start building those relationships internally, but I also want to understand strategically, you know, where these things are prioritized, particularly while we’re losing.

Emily Bell: I think in a lot of cases, that’s way more important than why you’re winning when you’re coming in new to a role. And then the other piece would be, you know, know thy competitors and that kind of ties into, I learned the product first and then I learned the competitors because I want to understand, you know, organically how to get out in front of some of the reasons why people end up leaving to where it feels more natural in a discovery conversation and I’d rather know as much as I can going into those first calls versus like learning it through live action.

Emily Bell: And what I also do is kind of build my own, kind of competitive balance sheet. A lot of companies will have something that’s already in existence, but if it’s not, it’s a great way to have some professional development, even on the front end of your tenure at a company. And then the other pieces know they market.

Emily Bell: I think, industry is, can sometimes feel like it’s so vast. Like, how am I ever going to learn everything about this industry? And it’s like, you don’t need to learn everything about industry. You need to learn where your product fits into that market where you can learn some things high level to talk the talk, but really, you just want to understand what problems are, is your solution solving in the market, which could be very complex, could be very straightforward, but either way, you really need to master that and understand that, intrinsically outside of any call scripts.

Emily Bell: And I think, you know, high level. Those three things have served me very well to have repeatable success. But, yeah, Krissy, I know you’ve had success and field sales as well in some past roles. So curious kind of what your methodology looks like.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah. I mean, I think all the points you highlighted are great. I would just piggyback those. I think maybe from a different angle, if you’re, if it’s your first field sales role or sales role in general, I think looking, so I would want to understand what the company wants for the first 90 days. Like what does success look like?

Krissy Manzano: Right? Like outside of like, I have a quota. Do I have a ramp? What am I, what, what are the first 30, 60, 90 days supposed to look like? But I would also create your own 30 60 90, right? Like, Hey, the first month here is my goal. Like, when you get into sales, all all roles should have this just to be honest with you.

Krissy Manzano: But like, you’ve got to focus on outcomes. What do you expect the first 30 days to look like successfully? Right? Probably not closing a deal unless it’s, you know, really transactional or it depends what industry you’re in, but that’s like a learning period, like shadowing people. Looking, you know, understanding the product and the market and the greater and good questions to ask and, you know, pains and all that.

Krissy Manzano: But I think if it’s your first time really in that beginning phase, you know, you’re, you’re learning a lot. And so I think reminding yourself to be an active listener and just ask a lot of questions. Like the, the most successful and valuable people are going to be ones that are good at discovering and qualifying to know where to spend their time.

Krissy Manzano: Right. To your point, Emily, like it’s a big industry, big market that regardless of what you’re in, I mean, they’re all different sizes, but if you try to become an expert in those things. And you can take, you can end up focusing on just like pitching people versus trying to understand, do they have pain points that, you know, align with what my product solves.

Krissy Manzano: And I think it’s easy to go in companies and hear how wonderful the product is and why it’s the best in the world. But the reality is it has gaps and what it solves is not necessarily going to be what your customers feel it solves, right? So I think understanding what your success is going to look like, and what it, that takes, and then also, you know, being ready to, you know, ask questions more, just to discover, because that’s the fastest way to learn and get up to speed, just getting on the phone, talking to potential customers and just again, asking a lot of questions.

Krissy Manzano: I remember when I was a director at an organization, I never did a demo, obviously, just I had a team, and I was always able to come in and help my team on calls because all I did was ask questions. So, I didn’t have, I was, they were way more of an expert on the product and the industry than I was.

Krissy Manzano: Like, you could almost say embarrassingly. But I, but my role in this moment was like just to, I always knew how to get them where I needed to be, right? Because I just asked questions. Like, well, I need the product to do X. And the response is, well, Y. Is that a must have or is that a nice to have like, so I just highlight that because those are universal things that will help you whether you’re in field sales, regular sales first role, you know, tenured role.

Krissy Manzano: And then I think have be organized, like, use a CRM. It is your friend. Whether you believe it or not, this whole, like, rogue. I don’t need that. I’m too good. Doesn’t really work out for people long term, or it might have. That’s not really how that is today. And then, you know, no, like, Hey, what are great days to do, you know, reaching out to people for prospecting and cold calling and, you know, all those things you, even if you have a BDR team, you should never depend on that team to supply your funnel fully.

Krissy Manzano: You should always be prospecting and, and it’s also just a great way to learn and, and make sure that you cover yourself. So, I mean, from a field sales perspective, I would just be efficient with your time. Like if you’re going to go out in the field to visit a client, make sure you’re going to go visit three to four more potentially.

Krissy Manzano: Right? Like make, because every time, you know, my biggest lesson with traveling is like when you travel, like you lose a lot of time, even if you’re trying to close like a bigger deal, make sure that you’re, you know, making up for it. Cause sometimes too much travel can, can hurt you even if that’s what’s needed to close relationships.

Krissy Manzano: So just being organized, I think is really key, but hopefully that was helpful, but that’s kind of my thoughts on that. So, Lizzy, anything you’d close with or add, or Emily, anything you’d add with?

Emily Bell: No, I’d agree with all of that. All of the above.

Lizzy Castro: I think this was great. A lot of insight. Thank you both. And that’s all for today.