Customer-focused Sales Ops with Samantha Jozwik, Market Product Strategist at Adobe

In this episode of Sales Ops Demystified, Tom Hunt is joined by Samantha Jozwik, Go To Market Product Strategist at Adobe. They discuss a customer-first focus for sales ops, using this approach for forecasting in 2021, and an empathetic approach to helping Sales reps improve their productivity. 

• Samantha’s Linkedin
• Adobe’s website

Samantha’s definition of sales ops

Samantha defines sales ops as a function where people and analytics, her two biggest interests, converge to drive business.  The joy of sales ops comes from being a strategic business partner who can use data to present it in a way that helps grow the business.

Adobe’s sales team structure

At Adobe, different sales ops managers – including Samantha – align to different business areas. It is a multifaceted role in which she interacts with all departments that enable sales operations, such as product marketing and financing. 

Building trustworthy relationships with sales reps

Every person has a story. Empathy for people helps guide them toward their goals easily instead of telling them what to do. In any industry, to be an effective leader, one must have a broader knowledge of their role and what their teams do. 

Adobe’s sales forecast for 2021

Despite the current economic conditions, Adobe is prioritizing customer-focused forecasting to support customers where they are in their business. Customer retention and renewal – particularly with the Adobe Experience platform – is a huge business focus for Adobe. 

Improving sales rep productivity

What works for one industry/vertical may not work with another industry/vertical. According to Samantha, sharing industry-specific resources and options periodically with the reps helps boost their pipeline creation efforts and productivity.

An important trend in sales ops for 2021

Focusing on understanding the customer’s needs, their relationship with your product, and taking that into account while creating your forecast will be the dominant trend of 2021. 

Samantha’s sales ops inspirations

Christine Mackie and Robin Kuhn talked about leveraging empathy to build a team of sales ops champions at a sales conference in 2017. Samantha believes empathy helps tie data and relationships to drive business. She would love to take Christine and Robin to lunch.

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