(upbeat music) - You're listening to Let's Talk Jobs, where we give you practical insights into jobs and careers. I'm Tim Chen, and today we're talking about how to be an insight sales rep and the importance of social selling. Now, many studies have shown that customers buy a product if they have a good experience with the sales rep.

In other words, inbound sales is the first experience someone has with your brand. And based on the interaction alone, you either earn or lose that business. Now, that's a huge responsibility, and it's why I have a deep respect for my partners in sales, and why I'm extra motivated as a marketer to set them up for success and send them high quality leads.

Just think about it. If you recently made a large purchase for organization, and you're assigned an account rep, and something goes horribly wrong with onboarding or the product experience, who is the first person you call? For me, I call my sales rep because they have already built that trust with me, and I know they will help pull in the right people to figure it out.

Nine times out of 10, that is a quicker path to escalation than going through my account rep at the start of a relationship. So today, we're going to have a chat with Laura Erdem. She leads a US sales team at DreamData, and is a good example of someone who is able to quickly build rapport with prospects, turn difficult conversations into deals, and is a master at social selling.

In this video, she's going to give us practical insights into topics like how to upsell while also building trust, how social selling is a must have, and how to do it, and the importance of customer first selling. Now on that note, if you haven't read "The Challenger Sale" by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, I highly recommend it.

They provide a great practical structure on how to create a customer-centric sales approach. All right, let's get started. Hey guys. Today, we're talking about how to be a sales executive. Joining us is Laura Erdem. Laura, how are you doing? - I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Tim.

- Cool. I'm so glad you're here. You know, the sales organization in general, coming from marketing, is one area that kind of has a soft spot in my heart. So I'm definitely looking forward to this conversation. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing today and how long you've been doing it?

- Absolutely. So I am a senior account executive at DreamData. So I basically do sales, the full funnel sales of our prospects coming inbound to DreamData and then closing them, only purely working on new business, and then it's passed over to customer success. Before DreamData, I used to work in much larger organizations.

So first I was working at Red Hat for three years. Then I jumped over to Gartner. So I've been working a lot with enterprises that have very stable and set sales processes because they perfectly know their ideal customer profile, who they're selling to. You get a set accounts you're working on.

So most of the work is actually farming than hunting. And when I joined DreamData, it was a totally new thing. And I still, till the day today, think like, okay, so what was the actual reason I ended up here? I absolutely do because there is so much flexibility and also a lot of unpredictability in this work.

So if you like that type of work at a startup, it's amazing because you'll learn much more, but you'll learn by doing, which is also something people have to start choosing. - So it sounds like you're doing like a mixture of like inbound and outbound, but most of them are inbound leads.

Does that sound about right? - Yeah, that's correct. So DreamData is very heavily marketing driven and product driven as well. So we have a very strong inbound marketing machine and we have a free product that people can come into. So most of the leads that I'm getting are coming inbound from marketing, sometimes from product, but still they're anyway are being fed from marketing in.

And the rest of the leads that I am sourcing myself are mostly from LinkedIn, from the social selling activities that I do. - Cool. From the marketing campaigns that are driving your leads, are they a mixture of like your typical like webinars and ebook leads, or are they more like maybe further down the funnel where like they're looking for demos and whatnot?

- I think it's even higher up. So when you think about webinars and stuff, it is the thought leadership, but we don't run that many webinars. I do myself run LinkedIn lives and those are mostly around sales and marketing topics, alignment and so on. But those are not the ones that are bringing most of our leads.

So our CMO is really, really clever on demand generation, like the top of funnel thought leadership, where we do write articles that are easy to find. So SEO, big time. Where do we write articles? Where do we appear? And then when the prospects are actually looking for the solution, we better be there.

So at that point, we definitely are places where people are looking for solutions like G2, Capterra, comparison articles, HubSpot, and all of those places where people get the credibility, okay, I'm ready to take the demo with this company. - That's really good. And I'm glad you brought up the value of SEO and just kind of fully activating kind of your, the cross-functional or multi-touch mix, right?

'Cause I think you're totally right. If people are able to discover your content, by the time they reach out to you, they might be a little more warm and a little less cold than someone just converting on an asset, for example. So I think that's really wise, especially going to G2 crowd and getting some external validation.

And that actually leads me to another question. I'm kind of curious, you know, like you mentioned that obviously the leads come from various sources and various degrees of familiarity with your brand or product. How do you go and qualify leads or determine that they're actually a good fit for a company or your product and services, or maybe they're not necessarily the best fit?

- Yeah, we have a pretty well-defined ICB for Dreamdata. So it is B2B SaaS companies that do have a CRM and most probably are above 50 employees and have at least one marketing person. And from there, then, well, I wouldn't say the sky is the limit, but B2B SaaS is still there and you have to be pretty heavy on digital touches as well as a company.

So since we've got that defined, as soon as the leads are coming in, so I'm not getting the leads directly, as soon as they book, they book with me, they do go through a qualification. So if somebody books a demo with me, we still do qualify. So bigger companies, they do go into me.

Could be that they're, I don't know, fully manufacturing B2B. Then I would have to qualify it myself, but most of that work is already done pre-booking the demo or pre-getting into a free pipeline that I need to pick up as an AE. But- - I see. - You're asking about how do I filter out what's right, what's wrong.

Let's say a B2B manufacturing 10,000 people company comes over to me and the head of marketing wants to talk. Well, I very likely, I would take the call, even though this is not an ICP, because I would be curious, what are they looking for? Because maybe one day we would go that route and try to start to build a tool further for companies like that.

But if it was a total misfit, first of all, I reach out to them through mail or through LinkedIn. So I connect with people through LinkedIn or through mail and ask what they're looking for. If it is totally out of scope to what we're selling, then I would suggest that we save each other's time and do not get on the call.

If they do exist and would like to get on a call, then I would take it, but would try to keep it as short as possible. Sometimes, Tim, I do stuff. Meaning that if there is somebody who does not respond, and I clearly see this is not ICP, a company definitely does not need our service, or if they need, they envision something totally different.

Like let's say they are, I don't know, B2C. - Yeah. - Then I do write an email to them. If I don't get a response, then I send a second email just before the meeting, and I do cancel the meeting saying that, "I'm sorry, I don't think it's a fit.

And if you think this is a mistake, please reach out again and book a demo again." Never happens. So they don't have to book. - Yeah. (laughs) You know, I don't know if I told you this, Laura, I had one taste of experience as a sales rep, and it scared the bejesus out of me.

'Cause it made me wonder, like, do I have what it takes to do this? Early 2000, I graduated from college. I'm gonna age myself here. And I graduated with a marketing degree. But if you remember like early 2000, 2001, it was like the dot-com bubble burst, right? So like marketing was like the last position people were hiring for.

I remember one of the temp jobs I had was through Wells Fargo. And I was in the collections department where you're on an automated dialer. And so for those listening, automated dialer means there's a computer that has a list of names, and it's making a call for you, so you don't have to input it.

The challenge is sometimes you're on a current call, and the dialer already called the next person. So they're like, "Hello? Who's there? Hello?" So by the time you pick up, they're already angry. And it taught me a lot about how to deal with rejection, how to deal with angry people, and kind of set the tone for a call.

I'm kind of curious, as you're doing these conversations, you know, there are various degrees of calling. Some of them seem like they've been screened already, so maybe hopefully not as cold, but what does your typical call look like? Like, how do you build trust and credibility with your prospect?

And again, what attracted me in your LinkedIn posts is how you seem to be naturally good at naturally relationship building. So how does a typical call look like for you, and how do you diffuse all that and turn it into a productive conversation? - Absolutely, Tim, this is hardcore.

The phone call thing that you're reflecting to, I'm not sure if I would be able to do that. Earlier in my career, I used to work at the luggage tracing department as a call center. And that was rough because people used to call us who already lost their luggage.

So imagine that. Okay, so let's take this down a bit. Like, how does it look? And I don't want to tell you this. That's where I learned stuff like that, like empathy for people. You're trying to solve a problem. So I'm not going to solve a problem, but I'll do my best to listen it out and try to find what's the best solution for you.

So just like when looking for your luggage, I have to figure out how does it look, what's in it, and so on, and which airport might it be lost in. It is exactly the same with people. So you're calling me, you're trying to solve a problem. You're not calling me, you're probably booking a demo or getting a free account.

So I will do my best to first figure out where does it hurt? What is the problem that you're trying to solve? How big is the problem? Could be that I'm not the right solution for you. Maybe I will refer you to someone else to speak with. And people usually really appreciate that.

It's like, guys, you're not looking for us. This is way too complex. It's like, really? First time I hear somebody say that. But I know that from my experience, if I try to sell to you, I will waste my time. And very likely you will either not going to buy the solution or if you do, it will be such a small solution that neither you're gonna be satisfied, nor our time is going to be used productively.

So one of those things is like to understand what it is that they're trying to achieve. Then the next step is also to help them to build that business case because in B2B they don't buy alone. Even if Tim came over to me and said, "Oh, I need Dream Data.

I really wanna buy from you. This is an amazing solution." Say, "Let's take a step back. Okay, you think this is amazing. What are you trying to achieve? And who else is in the same boat in your team or besides your team?" Because you as a person, if you bought it, let's say it cost us peanuts.

You definitely can just pay it out of your pocket. You're gonna use it, but likely somebody else will be impacted by it, either positively or negatively. So let's map out this early that is going to happen after you bought the solution. So we're able to see, okay, this is going to be a future success.

- Yeah, I really like that. I like how you first start off with taking a position of empathy, right? Asking the questions to fully understand what a process is trying to solve for, right? And I think what questions you're asking is really cool 'cause it puts you in a place or a role as a trusted advisor, as opposed to someone just trying to push product down your throat, right?

And I think there is a... What I'm getting a sense from you is like there's a lot of transparency and openness in this dialogue. Part of it is like kind of embracing your vulnerability to just have a true conversation. I like how an outcome could even be like this might not be the right fit for you 'cause even a admission like that for a prospect, you're right, they don't hear that often.

'Cause like, aren't you trying to sell me something? It's like, no, I want to do what's best for you. And they might be more interested to listen to you. I remember when you and I were exchanging emails early on, we were talking about different methodologies of shaping a conversation, whether it's a challenger sale or value-based selling framework, like that tends to work in terms of these kinds of conversations.

And just kind of quick review for the people out there, just roughly, it's the idea where you lead with customer first and end with your company, right? So you kind of start off kind of helping them understand their current situation and maybe the negative impact of maintaining their status quo.

And then you kind of help them understand or discover the ideal future state and what that looks like. Again, it has nothing to do with you as a brand. It's to them, what's best for them. Once you kind of lead them through that kind of identifying the future, then you figure out how do you measure the success.

And that's kind of where you can kind of start weaving in metrics of success that maybe you might be uniquely positioned to solve for. And then you go into how you solve for that, right? And then customer references. Can you give us some examples? And it doesn't have to follow that, but like an example of maybe you had a customer conversation that maybe started here.

And as you kind of help them walk through that, either the validation or understanding of their situation, you kind of landed somewhere else that was probably better for them. - Yeah, for sure. So just recently we started defining the use cases that people usually think they're buying an attribution solution for, and what alternative use cases there might be that we're trying to reach.

And that helped us as well to figure out, okay, what types of use cases can we expose to our clients? Maybe they're not aware of those, or they're vaguely aware. So usually what happens is that most of our prospects come to Dream Data saying that, "I want a multi-touch attribution for my deals.

I'm closing." This is loaded. Let's figure out what's an actual problem you're trying to solve. Okay, so where does it hurt? Okay, how do you do marketing? First of all, is that organic? Is that paid? Is it a mix to go a lot to the events? Like how is the mix looking?

That you need a multi-touch approach. It could be that your clients are actually buying. Like you've got one stakeholder, they come in, they have two meetings, and then they buy. You don't need an attribution solution. But if you've got a lot of stakeholders, a lot of touches in the customer journey, then you need to figure out.

So those expensive events that we're running, should we continue those? Or should we repurpose some of that budget and drive it to paid when people are actually searching for our solutions so they find us top of the list? We stay top of the mind for them. So usually people would come for that kind of multi-touch attribution, but we would have to unpeel that onion so they know, okay, somebody who works with events needs to look into the solution as well.

Maybe we're onboarded because this will be a part of it. Paid, organic, very often they ask about sales. Because if you show the full customer journey, sales are interested to have a look as like, how did it start? How do I reactivate? Are they on our website and stuff like that?

So mapping this all out, takes your discussion very different places. And depending on what people are looking for. If a CRO comes into the call of that marketing is starting to look for an attribution solution, CRO has totally different views, needs to do things. Oh, this is way too deep.

I don't need that. Can you just show me which channels are driving our SQLs? Yeah, sure. But maybe you don't need an attribution solution for that, but your team does. And then it's really persona-based and what kind of use cases they're trying to solve. - I see. So it sounds like, and I like that kind of going from a kind of persona mixed with kind of whether it was a top task or use cases.

So I'm assuming like are there situations where maybe a lead comes in and maybe it's coming from a certain campaign. So you might assume that it might be attached to a certain type of use case for them, right? But like, as you're having a conversation, you kind of uncover maybe that was the entry point, but actually the problem they're trying to solve is a completely different use case that maybe is a larger opportunity.

Like, does that happen frequently or any examples you're willing to share that you're able to? - Yeah. So there's a prospect that I'm working with at the moment and the solution became much bigger than I actually anticipated. So they came in saying that we want to figure out which content is working, which content is driving pipeline.

Cool. So they've got their account-based marketing person, they've got their campaigns running person, pretty large account. And we're continuing talking, talking, talking. And then I mentioned the multi-touch attribution thing and it's like, wait, she's saying, I think we have a competitor where have installed on-prem. Okay, so they came for something that we have in the solution that the competitor they're using, they don't have.

And that means that they actually are looking into having both solutions implemented at the same time. One of the solutions is implemented by operations and it's up and running pretty well. Management is using, but the marketing team thinks it's not enough. So they came for a totally different thing than we have ever that they do have a competitor that they're using.

But at the same time saying that, okay, let's take a step back, assess if that competitor can deliver for us. And they can't. That means that we need both solutions. - I see. And again, I don't want to get too granular 'cause obviously there's some proprietary information here. But in this case where they're installed-based as your competitor, how do you kind of lead a conversation around like, we can work well together or play nice, or are you kind of advising them on a five-year roadmap to kind of maybe replace, right?

Like what does that conversation typically look like for you? - Yeah, this one is, it really depends on what is the competition in place and which teams are using it. So first thing that we had to realize is that how long time does it take for somebody to implement an attribution solution?

So if they have, they have used their time and they have that bias of, okay, so now we're going to miss out on all that time, means that maybe we should just wait with an alternative. And I do come in with empathy in saying, this is going to take you additional time to get a new solution if it is.

And these are the differences, and tell me where you see the benefits are. So they can guide the conversation. If benefits are worth it for them to go through this, once again, maybe faster, but I can't promise it. It could be there will be hiccups, but they should be ready for that.

For me, it would be totally impossible to say, oh, this is going to be thousand times better and it's much faster and so on. The solution is likely better, but the time that you spend on the other solution is going to be difficult for you to tell inside the company that now we're switching.

It has to be like 10, hundred times better solution to go with to change. And we have to be open to that because this is like heavy. - Yeah, I think it's a good point. I mean, I think for all of us on the client side, like how many times have we been in a situation where someone's kind of pitching something that's kind of comparable to what we're doing today.

What always turns me off is if the message is like this, like your competitor sucks at this, this is why we're better. Like that always turns me off, right? I think the empathetic poach is like, hey, cool, sounds like this is what you need. And like in some areas that competitor actually might do a good sufficient job, but kind of helping them understand their use cases, for example, kind of maybe broadens, maybe the picture of like, there's other areas of their business that they might be overlooking that may have a shortcoming.

And maybe there's an area where it can play nice. Again, not forcing the conversation, but again, you're playing the trusted advisor role where now I'm kind of believing things that you're saying and kind of being a strategic partner and helping them understanding what does a three-year or five-year roadmap look like.

And if one outcome of that is replacement, sure, but if not, like think of something for me, right? And again, to your point, like I've got a job to do at the end of the day. The more value you provide me to figure out how to make these decisions, like the more highly I'm gonna regard your feedback, right?

This is fascinating. I'm gonna shift the conversation really quick 'cause earlier you mentioned like using LinkedIn and I was trying to save that, my questions for then, 'cause I wanna do it now. Like social selling, especially with where the social media is today, it's so huge. And I remember like, I didn't actually even know you, Laura, but I knew of you just by looking at everything that you're posting.

I kind of got the stories you're putting out there, there's some personal, some professional, and I feel like you were connecting with me and building a relationship, even though I don't know you. Can you tell me a little bit about like how you're utilizing like social selling and how is it, how do you even measure what works for you in this channel?

- Yeah, absolutely. So I started, I think now around three years ago when I started at Dream Data. I did post here and there, re-share Gartner reports that nobody cares about and stuff like that. When I joined Dream Data, then we started to figure out, well, this is a pretty neat channel for us.

And especially if we do it as a team that will have a compounding effect for all of us to be in front of our prospects. And so for me, I started to do that consistently every day. Later in the process, I added videos. And during the videos, I figured out that if there are some things people can recognize me for, along with I'm saying the words of the stuff that I'm selling, like customer journey, attribution, or content, or some stuff like that, then it will be so much easier for them to relate to the rest of the content that we're pulling out as Dream Data.

So what I'm doing is I'm basically pulling the attention of a person. So as you're saying, some stuff is personal and you do remember it. Some stuff is including a picture or a very strong opinion about something, but this is what you remember. And very likely you don't remember that this is me, Laura, who did this, or she works at Dream Data, but you vaguely remember the face, probably the name a little later and then figure out, oh, so she talks about sales and marketing alignment, right?

So you start to recognize the name of a person, but also the company the person is working for. And of course, the name of the company is also standing just underneath your profile. And if the whole team is doing that consistently, then it is much easier to reach your audience.

And there are several things that we do that, like to nail that. We're connecting with people that are ideal customer profiles. The reason we're connected, Tim, is because you are the person who is interested in attribution. Either you're a marketer, operations are likely in sales, and one day when you think of attribution, you know what to think about.

And it's not any manipulative or anything, but it is just very basic marketing. 'Cause if you do go and buy some campaigns, you still want to target right. When you go on LinkedIn, you do target your audience. Who are you going to expose your ads to? This is exactly the same, but you do that through the content that you speak about.

So I'm speaking about stuff that you care about. But at the same time, I do connect with people that will care about the content. And naturally other people who are not connected with me start to follow me as well. So that compound effect that people who like my posts very likely are your connections as well.

And suddenly you start seeing them and say, oh, she's all over the place. And since it is grasping the attention of the person, then it's much easier to do retargeting later. So now our CMO is using me as a bot for conversation ads and stuff like that, because people remember the name.

- I see, so social selling for you is a department-wide strategy. It's not just you as an individual? - It is sales and marketing strategy, it is. - Oh, that's really, really cool. That's actually, my sample size is just the companies I've worked with, but that feels kind of rare.

I think utilizing social as a selling tool almost for me has been down to the individual. And you're right, most people are like reposting things like this asset. And I think what you've done, and actually I'll even categorize for you. You do things a few ways, and I'm kind of curious which way has worked well for you in terms of generating business or whatnot.

So I see a mixture of stuff. You did a post once where you talked about where marketing and sales interact, right? And what the role of asset creation, all that kind of stuff. And that one was helpful, 'cause your post as a structure was like, you provide information on the top 10 things that you cared about that kind of supported your point of view.

But that one was an open-ended question where you wanted people to proactively come and respond to the comments to build a conversation. That was one type of post. I've seen other posts for you where you're going to an event. It's very video driven, where it's like, meet me here.

And again, there's always some lead-in, like your description, it's very informative. And then there's humorous ones, like you did the "I F'd Up" one, right? That the video did recently. I think that was today or recently, where you just, it's some silly incident and trying to fill a car.

And it's again, just a little personal anecdote that just lets me realize, hey, Laura doesn't take herself seriously, neither do I. It seems like she's kind of humble down on earth. Maybe I want to have a conversation with her if I'm your target audience. Can you help us understand what types of posts or construction of posts have really worked for you?

Again, I'm not asking you to give away your secret sauce for your organization's strategy, but just maybe some tips on maybe building something that works. - Oh yeah, you can get the whole sauce. I mean, everybody will try to copy it, will do it their own way, because this is people you're dealing with.

So you're definitely going to do it differently. So for me personally, there are two ways of posting. The first one is the one that is grabbing attention, getting a lot of likes and a lot of engagement. Most of the times it is when I post either personal stuff or stuff about social selling.

So when I speak about those two things, about being a mom, being a woman, I even reposted Taylor Swift's one of the songs. It's like about women being like underrepresented. Anyway, that one, like a lot of engagements and hates and so on. This is nice. This is grasping attention, people remember.

But this one brings zero leads, nothing. But people see it. And then that means that they will see the other posts. Serious posts, product videos. I do product videos while I walk through the product. Click here and there. Or I try to show screenshots of customer journeys. Literally, how did I win a client to show that in Dream Data, where people get curious.

Oh, how did you do this? And what is the tool that you're using? Oh, glad you asked. So the reason that they're able to follow the two is because I do entertain, I do grasp the audience, but then later post the stuff that is probably do not gather that many likes, but do grasp attention.

People attack each other. People later remember those and get into demos with us and say, oh, I've seen a customer journey. Can I see that live? So this is how we do the strategy. And if you're thinking of like the whole company, how we do it, we chose not to do topics, meaning that, oh, we're releasing, I don't know, oh, we just got started to type two compliance.

Let's all talk about this. No, because people will think this is boring and it will be repetitive. So we'd rather choose to do it like that. So each and every salesperson, for marketing, it still works. They do go like topic by topic and so on. But for sales, we do pick up a group of clients that you are targeting right now to warm them up and to start getting responses and start posting the topics that those prospects care about.

What is that their top of mind that we're selling? So it sounds like you're speaking their language and then it's easier to start the conversations. It will always land in your attribution realm, but it will not be the same what marketing has just released. If it is released, we'll speak about it.

But other than that, it will be very client-specific and related. We would never mention the client, but it is like outbound one to many. I'll be speaking about you, Tim, but I'll be posting about the topic that you definitely care about and you will probably see it and never like it, but other people will see it as well.

And in that way, I will warm up the topic for those prospects to see us as a thought leader as well. - Yeah, I think that's brilliant. I mean, I think one part of it, you're talking about like understanding how to build your total impression base, right? Like how many total people can see your posts.

And so even though the Taylor Swift one, while it may not necessarily result in leads, you're increasing your reach for people who find you interesting, right? So that meant it maybe get connections to that or people follow you or repost or whatnot. So then when you do, do your more meaningful in terms of something that's like lead generation wise, like because you're expanding the total base of which it can be exposed to, then you're just talking about increasing the math of the funnel, right?

The more at the top, the more at the bottom, right? So, and I think the other part, I really appreciate what you said was taking something that's created by marketing and making your own, right? So not regurgitating, but putting your own spin, target at your customer about something that they care about that puts context around why that campaign matters.

And that probably converts well, right? So you need to target people through LinkedIn or do a broad post and hoping your target post on industry connects. That's fantastic. I want to do one last shift for you. And this is more around just career growth. You know, I'm kind of interested in understanding how you kind of came into sales and then close out with any tips you have for people considering a brand new career in sales and what skills you believe they need, both hard and soft to succeed.

But let's first start with your career journey. Like, how did you get here? Was it direct? Or like, did you have to overcome any fears to do this? Like, what's your story? - Usually the sales story for each and every salesperson is like, it was a mistake. I got there by mistake.

It is more or less like that. If you ask what people have studied at school, nobody ever wants to be a salesperson. When you're at school, you think salespeople are the ones that are banging on your door and say, "Oh, I've got this to sell to." It's like, "Oh, I never want to do that." But the way I got into sales first, I got into IT.

So education. I finished sociology as a bachelor. - Okay. - And when I was done with sociology, then I was like, "Hmm, okay, a researcher, uh-uh-uh." (laughs) I mean, the topics are fun, but no. And there was, even back in the days, like you're talking about, like I'm going to reveal how old I am and stuff.

Back in the days, IT was not that hot. But after working at that call center I mentioned, I went to the US, I worked there for half a year, like work and travel, USA university stuff. I come back and say, "Okay, I need a new job." And I'm called up by a recruiter who's saying, "Oh, I'm hiring for an IT company.

"I think you would be very good "at coordinating this and that." I'm like, "IT company? "Buddy, I'm not that good at Excel, you know?" I say, "No, no, no, that's all right, no problem." (laughs) So I landed at this company. It's an American company that was headquartered in Copenhagen.

And I came here, became a resource manager, like coordinator and so on, knowing nothing about IT. And then six years in, so I have been there for six years, changing the roles of various coordination, like graduate programs and so on. I think I would be good at sales. I could see those people in the same company being in sales, I think I could be good.

Then I hooked up with one guy who was head of sales over there. It's like, we have some conversations. He said, "No, no, you're very good at what you do. "Continue that." (laughs) So I left, I got two offers in two large corporations as inside sales. And I chose to go with the red hat.

That's where I started in sales. Going from a pretty nice manager position in a big enterprise, then I became an inside sales representative, like kind of a dig down in the career ladders. But for everybody who's thinking is sales for me, you have to try this. First, even though you go lower into the position than you think you were before, the salary will not go lower.

Salaries and sales are incredible, even for inside sales are really high. So if you are money driven, this is for you. You definitely earn a lot. And from there, then I went through like the very standard career steps. I can see the account executives doing this. I think I can do it.

Then I apply. And then they say, "No." But then I say, "Oh, what do I need to learn?" And then slowly you follow the people that you admire doing the work. It's like, I wanna be like you. Come, let's go to the meetings together. Let's learn. Let me figure out how do you ask the questions and so on.

And then Gartner came. They recruited me for an account executive position to work with the largest enterprises in Denmark with their CTOs and CIOs. And who says no? (laughing) The salary was even higher. So this is how I progressed in my sales career before Dropshare came in. And for anybody who is considering to go into sales, think about a couple of things.

So first, you have to be pretty brave and thick-skinned, I would say. Because you will be rejected a lot, but you will have to try and try and try and bruises and try and again. If that drives you to reach that success, both to reach the salary success, but also the gratification of somebody pick up the call, I book the meeting, or I close a deal, then it is an amazing place to be.

Because that drive of a whole sales cycle is amazing to experience. It's like a rollercoaster over and over again. It's like, oh, a new quarter, back to zero again. So it's nerve-wracking, but if you're driven by that, you should definitely try out. Because otherwise, you will just miss out on knowing a place where you definitely feel like you belong.

- Yeah, so I'm gonna project my own fears on you for a second. The two things that always scare me about considering sales, one is like, how do I handle objection in a way that doesn't depress me? And the second one is just a general fear of needing to miss a quota and the stress that comes from that, as opposed to a steady page job.

How do you personally handle those two things? - Yeah, objections is a pretty easy thing once you realize why people have objections. Is while leading with empathy, if you object to something, it could be it's not right for you. One of the books that taught me a lot about that is Chris Voss, "Never Split the Difference." Not sure if you ever read it, but he is a negotiator for terrorists to get the people out from places that they're (indistinct) and stuff.

And how he walks through his process of negotiating with a terrorist. This is hardcore. And when you think about the prospect who gives you some rejections for yourself, why do you feel that you have to get back with a better answer? It could be you don't know better. It could be that the person in front of you is actually right.

We just need to figure out what it is that you're trying to achieve. I think very little people are just like angry in themselves and just trying to reject you. I don't think so. I think, I mean, if you're able to have a nice conversation with a person and figure out what they're actually looking for, then it's not that difficult.

This one is easy. The second one is loaded. I mean, hitting the targets and not hitting them is really hard. And especially when you've got the team of your own peers who you collaborate with, but at the same time, you do compete with them. And not in who comes there first and so on, but it's more that feeling of, I'm not good enough.

That one is always there. If you are like number three or four on the list of the salespeople who did not hit the quota this time and so on, this is really hard because every single time you're thinking, am I good enough? Am I going to be fired? How do I get better to this?

And that is also, the way I deal with this is having a very heavy background of prospecting. Who am I going to work with next month, next quarter, probably next year? What's my target? So if I have that base, then it's much easier to always get back and say, okay, this quarter was shit, but I have a very stable pipeline for next quarter, and I'm going to hit that one.

And this is not personally me because people are not rejecting me. This is the hard part. You think, oh, people are rejecting me. Nobody wants to buy from me. No, this is not personal. This could be the market. This could be you haven't learned the right questions to ask and to uncover those problems, to be able to sell to those people, or to involve the right people in the customer journey for them to actually buy the solution.

So there's always something to find to unpack for that one. But at the end of the day, when you're sitting alone in a partly dark room and think, oh, I'm a fucking failure. I am number five from seven people sales team. That's hard. - Yeah. Well, I really appreciate this transparent conversation you have.

You know, I think you're very real. I think there's definitely a human element to all of this. And I like how you talked about detaching yourself from the rejection and also being self-aware enough to identify the truth nuggets in there that truly apply to you and how to improve.

And I think your point of view on always kind of thinking ahead and making sure that you build enough of a pipeline for yourself to kind of protect against softness of a quarter and then kind of get ready for the next quarter is really smart. So Laura, I just want to thank you for your time.

I certainly learned a lot from this conversation. I think a lot of people who are entertaining this field did as well. So I just want to thank you for your time, Laura. - Thank you so much for having me. - Thank you so much. (gentle music)