All posts filed under: Goals

Brooke Lengsfelder, Director of Sales Development at mParticle Discusses Management, Hiring, Team Cohesion and More.

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Brooke Lengsfelder, Director of Sales Development at mParticle Discusses Management, Hiring, Team Cohesion and More. Brooke Lengsfelder (LinkedIn) began her career at TalentBin as an SDR and then as an Account Executive, where she focused both on direct selling and sales enablement and management. From there, Lengsfelder moved on to a startup selling into recruiting agencies, HIRABL where she handled selling, growing, training and managing the sales team, and sales ops. Since then, she has continued to develop her focus on building and growing sales development processes, first at Quid, Inc. and now in the mobile space with mParticle, as their Director of Sales Development. Lengsfelder spoke with us about selecting and onboarding SDRs, and about the delicate balancing act of developing junior candidates into a cohesive and effective team, while concurrently preparing them to move ahead. What’s a secret for hiring for high-performance? What are the most important characteristics that you look for? I tend to look for four characteristics: competitiveness, eagerness to make money, attention to detail and organization–I bucket those together–and …

Modern Performance Profile: Annelies Husmann, Director of Sales at Mode Analytics

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Modern Performance Profile: Annelies Husmann, Director of Sales at Mode Analytics, Discusses Hiring, Communication, Delegation and More It was her idealism that initially led Annelies Husmann (LinkedIn) to sales. As someone who always considered herself an environmentalist, she had landed a dream job at Opower, a customer engagement platform for utilities. Laying out the benefits of smarter energy consumption was a natural fit for her. But before long, she found that she had fallen in love with selling itself. Since those early days, Annelies has also become attached to startup culture, moving from Opower to Yammer and then to AdRoll, where she was exposed to management and mentoring. She immediately took to the challenge of helping others develop and grow their careers. In her current role, as director of sales at Mode Analytics, she was able to build out a sales and account management program from the ground up. In a wide-ranging interview, we touch on topics including how she uses her Personal Work Time (PWT), winning like you’ve been there before, and why she …

Modern Performance Profile: Mike Haylon, VP of Sales at Care Message, Discusses Smart Goal Setting, Key Metrics, Candid Feedback and More

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Modern Performance Profile: Mike Haylon, VP of Sales at Care Message, Discusses Smart Goal Setting, Key Metrics, Candid Feedback and More Mike Haylon (LinkedIn, Twitter) chalks his sales career up to equal parts intent and fate. Growing up, his father had always encouraged him toward selling. In college, Mike participated in cold-calling efforts to raise money for his school’s endowment. He demonstrated his intent by taking the script, throwing it out the window and rewording it in a way that he felt would be more compelling. He had discovered that how you frame a pitch deeply impacts people’s interest in buying. But his real-world sales career would be kicked off by fate. He applied for and accepted his first sales job at cloud platform OpenAir largely because the company’s founder was also an alumnus of Holy Cross. That led to several years with the company, including after its acquisition by Netsuite, where he grew into roles of increasing responsibility. But Haylon wanted to be in a high-growth company with a focus on social impact. That …

Modern Performance Deep Dive: Annelies Husmann, Director of Sales at Mode Analytics

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Modern Performance Deep Dive: Annelies Husmann, Director of Sales at Mode Analytics, Discusses Hiring, Communication, Delegation and More. It was her idealism that initially led Annelies Husmann (LinkedIn) to sales. As someone who always considered herself an environmentalist, she had landed a dream job at Opower, a customer engagement platform for utilities. Laying out the benefits of smarter energy consumption was a natural fit for her. But before long, she found that she had fallen in love with selling itself. Since those early days, Annelies has also become attached to startup culture, moving from Opower to Yammer, and then to AdRoll, where she was exposed to management and mentoring. She immediately took to the challenge of helping others develop and grow their careers. In her current role, as director of sales at Mode Analytics, she built out a sales and account management program from the ground up. In a wide-ranging interview, we touch on topics including how she uses her personal work time, winning like you’ve been there before, and why she can’t stand the phrase …

Modern Performance Profile: Dhiraj Singh, Inside Sales and Operations Manager at MemSQL

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Modern Performance Profile: Dhiraj Singh, Inside Sales and Operations Manager at MemSQL, Discusses the Secret to Hiring, Setting Goals For, and Communicating With SDRs Over the past several years, Dhiraj Singh (Linkedin, Twitter) has seen the sales process from nearly all levels. Dhiraj experienced the perspective of a co-founder with OneCal, a social calendaring start-up. Afterwards, he worked his way up from SDR to AE and eventually Head of Sales & Marketing Operations at his last company, TechValidate. Dhiraj now serves as the Inside Sales and Operations Manager at a top operational data warehouse MemSQL. There he uses his experience to manage a team of SDRs and account executives. Dhiraj has considerable amounts of experience running efficient teams and scaling them quickly. In this interview, Dhiraj reveals some of the wisdom he has gleaned throughout his career. On hiring, Dhiraj addresses how to determine a candidate’s prospecting ability during the interview and how to hire those capable of managing ambiguous situations. Singh shares his perspective of onboarding as a full team endeavor and on key onboarding benchmarks. …

The Key to Account Executive One-on-Ones: Modern Performance Expert Roundup

Published by Peter Kazanjy

The Key to Account Executive One-on-Ones: Modern Performance Expert Roundup One-on-one meetings are integral to fostering team chemistry, maintaining accountability, and managing conflicts. Prioritizing one-on-ones on the calendar, one-on-one cadence, and the use of performance metrics are among the many important factors to maximize the value of the types of staff interactions discussed here. Modern Performance asked managers at top firms such as Lever, Lending Club, Datanyze, Intercom and Affirm to weigh in on everything from agenda generation to neural pathways, suggesting some of the methods they’ve found to be effective in successful one-on-ones. What’s the secret to an effective one on one? What’s the agenda and tempo for yours? Annelies Husmann, Director of Sales at Mode Analytics: I meet with most of my team on a one-on-one basis each and every week. With new hires we do it maybe twice a week. Then, as they get ramped, we move it down to once a week. I see my more senior team members every other week because their schedules tend to get pretty crazy. In one-on-ones the …

Modern Performance Deep Dive: Dhiraj Singh, Inside Sales and Operations Manager at MemSQL

Published by Peter Kazanjy

Modern Performance Deep Dive: Dhiraj Singh, Inside Sales and Operations Manager at MemSQL Over the past several years, Dhiraj Singh (Linkedin, Twitter) has seen the sales process from nearly all levels. Dhiraj experienced the perspective of a co-founder with OneCal, a social calendaring start-up. Afterwards, he worked his way up from SDR to AE and eventually Head of Sales & Marketing Operations at his last company, TechValidate. Dhiraj now serves as Inside Sales and Operations Manager at a top operational data warehouse MemSQL. There he uses his experience to manage a team of SDRs and account executives. Dhiraj has considerable amounts of experience running efficient teams and scaling them quickly. In this interview, Dhiraj reveals some of the wisdom he has gleaned throughout his career. On hiring, Dhiraj addresses how to determine a candidate’s prospecting ability during the interview and how to hire those capable of managing ambiguous situations. Singh shares his perspective of onboarding as a full team endeavor and on key onboarding benchmarks. From communication and culture, to goal setting and feedback, Dhiraj shares many …