Table of Contents
Share this article
Learn from the brightest minds how to predictably and efficiently grow revenue.
Related Content
How to Prevent Deal Slippage in 2023 with Brad McGinity at Hone
In this episode of the Revenue Insights Podcast, host Lee Bierton is joined by Brad McGinity, CRO at Hone, a platform for cohort-based management and leadership training. Brad’s role is as a problem solver in the revenue operations space. You must listen to this episode if you prefer to be hands-on with your teams. The...
Mastering the Art of Relationship Building with Jaime Konzelman, Vice President, Sales at Unisys
In this episode of the Revenue Insights Podcast, host Lee Bierton is joined by Jaime Konzelman, Vice President, Sales North America & Canada at Unisys. They explore the intricacies of cultivating meaningful connections with individuals, delving into various subjects that encompass the significance of relationships and effective strategies for building them in the year 2023....
Establishing a High-Performance Business through Efficient Change Management with Zach Gropper, Founder and CEO at Insight Revenue
In this episode of the Revenue Insights Podcast, host Lee Bierton is joined by Zach Gropper, Founder and CEO at Insight Revenue. In their discussion, they cover several topics, such as the significance of a business operating at a high level, the impact of change management on a business, techniques to enhance business and customer...
Technical Sales Operations with Lance Thompson, Technical Sales Operation Manager at SeekOut
This week, we’re joined Lance Thompson, who is currently a Technical Sales Operation Manager at SeekOut.
In conclusion, Lance shares many fundamentals to follow throughout the sales cycle.
The art of developing systems from scratch
Lance started his journey as a sales coordinator, where he was responsible for observing implemented sales strategies and reporting to the marketing team on elements that needed improvement.
From the sales coordinators’ position, he was promoted to a marketing events management role, but due to lack of opportunities in the field for a new-comer, he switched to sales.
Feeling burnt out in 2013, Lance started looking into sales operations analytics. Lance eventually joined IMPINJ in a dual role as their first sales administrator and part of the sales operations team.
Lance was then approached by Scott Franklin at Igneous who were re-establishing their sales operations unit after a three-year gap. This was when Lance got the opportunity to work on sales operations methods from scratch.
After Igneous, Lance joined SeekOut where he had a desire to create synchronicity within sales operations processes. He currently works as a Sales Operations Manager at SeekOut.
Priority tech stack for streamlining operations
IMPINJ was one of the first companies to implement SteelBrick, which is now known as Salesforce CPQ, and helps companies to incorporate automation within processes.
For forecasting, data crunching, and analysis, IMPINJ used Clari.
Lance implemented Xactly at one of his first projects at IMPINJ, which is handy for tracking compensation software.
Here is SeekOut’s core sales tech stack:
- HubSpot for putting feeds into Salesforce
- Intercom for a chat and building better customer relations
- Planhat for monitoring customer success stats
- SaaSOptics for financial operations
- Zendesk for streamlining tasks
- Outreach for sales automation
Consider the factors correlated to sales for accurate forecasting
You should start with the basic assumptions and keep re-evaluating them for accuracy.
When making a deal, a salesperson must assess what steps have been taken and what still needs to be done; for instance, the involvement of key decision-makers such as CFO’s when closing a deal is a must.
The primary focus for sales growth in the year 2021
Focus closely on annual recurring revenue (ARR) and different segments for growth.
Lance plans to target recruiters, SMB, and enterprise as the new segment for 2021.
Closely monitor KPIs to see how many leads are created and how many of those are converting.
The net retention rate for existing customers is yet another metric to forecast the expansion that a company needs as opposed to downturns and losses.
Who in the world of sales ops would Lance like to take out for lunch?
Lance says that he usually takes his wife, Camella Thompson, for lunch since she also has a lot of prior experience in sales and marketing, even though she has now transitioned into working as a technical writer.
Lance’s biggest influence
- Alex Long, Director at Dell EMC. Lance acknowledges having learned a lot about tech support, sales, operation, and strategy from Alex
