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Senior Vice President: Jim Gallic of Welltok
Jim Gallic, Senior Vice President at Welltok, jumped onto the Sales Ops Demystified Podcast to share his knowledge and experience in leadership and sales operations. Check out all the other episodes of Sales Operation Demystified here.
To learn more about Jim and Welltok Inc:
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Key Takeaways
Jim’s journey from core sales to sales operations
Jim has experience working in both sales and sales operations. He began his career in sales and marketing, then worked in sales ops in ADP, an American company. This is where he learned a lot about the behind-the-scenes work that results in sales. He found that it interested him a lot, and he moved into sales management and then eventually to leadership positions. Currently, Jim is the senior vice president at Welltok.
Having a background in sales and operations, Jim feels that it doesn’t make sense to consider them as opposing teams; in fact, both should be working together to achieve the goal, which is business success. This is his vision as leader.
The tech stack used at Welltok
Jim says they use a mix of standard tools like Salesforce, Zoominfo, and Marketo, while also adding some lesser-known tools to give them an edge over the competition.
One of these tools would be the Crystal Project, which helps to understand a prospective client’s psychology, so they can decide how to engage with them more fruitfully. Another tool is a crayon, which they use for competitive intelligence.
How has the role of leading the sales team changed in recent months?
Jim joined the company a few months before the pandemic hit. When he entered, he helped change the way the entire sales process worked, where the entire team from sales reps up to the CEO was involved. When the pandemic hit, they had to change their process once again. As Jim says, he’s been kept pretty busy.
Before the pandemic, Jim says that they relied on phone calls to make initial contact with prospective clients, and that was always followed up by in-person visits. Due to the pandemic, they have moved to a 100% virtual setup, utilizing phone calls, webinars, virtual presentations, and other such tools. The teams were given multiple training sessions, so they could cope better with virtual meetings and taught to refine their presentations as they would have to give those over the internet.
Measures are taken to help sales reps adapt to the changes.
One of the first things they have done at the company is beginning to listen in on the sales calls. This allows learning from mistakes as well as give guidance in trickier cases. Jim says they use Ring Central for this. They have also begun using Salesforce more efficiently by capturing more data and planning out future activities based on their information. For Jim, it’s essential to have as much data as possible to map out what needs to be done in the future.
Jim stresses that they make sure to take feedback and have meetings and sessions with the reps, to make sure the tech stack in place is utilized effectively and is engineered in such a way that reps want to use it.
Will things go back to the way they were after the pandemic?
Jim certainly hopes not. He says that the virtual processes are much faster and more efficient, and he thinks they would continue to use these processes even after the pandemic finishes. There might be a hybrid system in place, with most clients opting for virtual meetings but some requiring face-to-face meetings. He feels that the only way ahead now is to go forward and improve these processes, which are now in place because of the pandemic.
Changes in targets and objectives for forecasting
As Jim says, the pandemic has impacted how sellers sell and on how buyers buy. In this world of unknowns, it is quite a challenge to forecast successfully. Metrics that worked before don’t necessarily work now. The company’s focus is on collecting data and tweaking its targets and objectives accordingly to see what helps them best.
“The sales process is halfway between an art and a science” as per Jim, so in addition to changing the processes based on what seems correct, he also wants to rely on hard data. He wants to have metrics applied for everything, but as he says, that is still a work under progress due to all the changes caused by the pandemic.
#1 sales metric: consumer behavior conversion analysis
For Him, just seeing the number of closed-won and closed lost is not a useful metric of how a sales rep works. He would like to focus on the sales rep themselves and see how they work beyond just metrics.
In terms of a metric that he thinks is not appropriately utilized, Jim brings up ideal client profiles. He feels more work should be done to make them as detailed and specific as possible because the more detailed it is, the better the team’s performance. Jim says it’s a simple equation where the more you know about and understand the client, the better your conversion rate will be.
Jim’s biggest sources of inspiration
- Jennifer Forster – VP, Sales ops at Welltok
- Charles Forsgard – VP, Sales at Honeywell
- Bill Zipp – President at Bill Zip Leadership Link
