Sales Methodology: Erin Bush of Pendo.io

Erin Bush jumped onto Sales Operations Demystified to share her knowledge and experience in Sales Operations. Check out all the other episodes of Sales Operations Demystified here.

You can learn more about:

• Erin Bush
• Pendo.io

Tools Mentioned:

• Salesforce
• Marketo
• Outreach
• DiscoverOrg
• LeanData

Key Takeaways

Why move from sales to sales ops?

I see many guests transition from a traditional sales role into sales operations – Erin did this twice!

She started her career as an SDR and then quickly moved into SDR management where she started to embark upon sales operations related tasks. Though Erin quickly then progressed to AE level and left her management responsibilities.

Erin then saw the terrible state of the sales process at one of her previous roles and moved into sales operations to have a bigger impact on the revenue organisation.

A team of nine supporting a revenue operation of 150

From previous interviews, the average ratio of operations resources to active reps sits at around 1:15, which is almost exactly the ratio that Pendo.io currently have. Pendo.io has 150 sales and customer service reps, which are serviced by Erin’s team of nine operations resources.

The key to sales operations success: simplicity & a clear sales methodology

When asked about driving rep productivity, Erin mentioned that the key to a successful sales operation is to simplify and implement a simple sales methodology that reps can easily follow with simple metrics that reps can easily understand.

“Sourced” Vs “our” data

For the first time in a Sales Ops Demystified interview, we broke down data quality into two buckets: “sourced” and “our” data.

“Sourced” data is data that has been brought over from a source such as ZoomInfo, the quality of this data is owned by the ops team. “Our” data is data that has been entered or modified by people within Pendo.io, this data is managed and maintained by a partnership between the sales reps and the operations team.

Documenting and systemizing processes

When a single person in an organisation understands how to do something – this is not a process. This is also very dangerous for the health of the business as what happens when that person leaves the business or moves roles?

One of Erin’s previous bosses was the only person in the business that understood how sales reps should be onboarded… this is a. not scalable and b. a significant risk.

It was then Erin’s job to pull that process from the brain of this individual and onto paper so that the process could be formalized and improved over time.

Erin’s favorite sales metric – it’s a simple one!

Erin’s favourite sales metric is a simple one… sometimes on the show we get “super complex, hard to understand and calculate” sales metrics. Erin selected: Total Opportunities Accepted By Sales.

This is an opportunity within Salesforce that has been validated as a true opportunity by an AE.

Erin’s biggest influence…

Erin hasn’t actually worked under a sales or revenue operations leader through her career and therefore her biggest influence has been a sales leader:

• Derrick Grant

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