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. 

• Lance Thompson’s LinkedIn 
• SeekOut’s website

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

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