How maintaining a startup mindset can help to drive sales growth
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On the latest episode of The Insiders podcast, we had the pleasure of speaking to Ricky Sevta, Chief Revenue Officer at simPRO.
Joining hosts Simon Hazeldine and Richard Lane, Ricky covered all bases around how to support your sales function whilst scaling your business. He talked about the importance of maintaining a startup mindset, finding the right tools and technology to accelerate your salespeople’s productivity, and how crucial data is when growing your business.
‘The Sweet Triangle’
Ricky spoke to Richard and Simon about ‘The Sweet Triangle’ – Tools, People, Processes. He reinforced the importance of hiring the right people, and supplying them with the right tools to maximise productivity and business growth:
“You have to make sure that once you have the right people in the right seats, you are giving them the best tools. In order to gain consistency and ensure that you are all hitting your goals and targets, you need to have clearly-defined processes.”
Going back to Ricky’s notion of maintaining a startup mentality, processes can change and when they do, you have to be flexible. Processes are an ever-changing landscape, and you need to allow yourself the space to learn along the way. The benefit of having a startup mentality as a business is that it allows you to make mistakes and adjustments which will help you reach your growth goals.
Finding the right technology
In a market saturated by new technology, it can be difficult to know which tool(s) will be most effective for your business and people. When searching for the right equipment, Ricky encourages businesses to make mistakes, even though they can be costly. You’re more likely to acquire adequate technology without compromising your budget if you can clearly identify the issues you are experiencing:
“No tool or software is going to be a 100% fit, but can you get to at least 80%? Then you need to identify: What is the biggest challenge we are trying to work on as a team, and what tools do we need to get there? Sometimes one [tool] isn’t enough. In regards to sales enablement, your CRM is the single source of truth, but that’s not the only thing you need nowadays. Online selling plays a huge part, so do you need a coaching tool on top of that? Do you need an artificial intelligence tool to pick up on how much you’re talking versus the customer? …The list goes on and on.”
The key is to ensure that your tools are simple to use; “it can’t be counterintuitive.” The purpose of using technology is to make your employees’ jobs easier. If it’s too difficult to use, all it will become is more admin for salespeople, which will prevent them from maximising their time and hitting their KPIs. By having the right tools, data can be collected to then inform decisions.
The power of data-driven decision making
According to Ricky, input is mandatory. It is the foundation of scaling your business. Data will offer you an insight into both macro and micro trends in industries, which will help you identify what companies are viable to sell your solutions to. Without data, you cannot gather this information:
“You want to take guesswork out of the business as much as you can. Business should be about calculated risk, as opposed to thoughtless risk.”
Data provides a concrete insight into what your business is doing well. As Ricky explains in the episode, whilst being agile and experimental can be beneficial, you still need a structure. He likens this structure to swimming:
“You need to be able to swim in the swimming lanes. It’s like being an Olympic swimmer that swims from lane one to lane eight, you’re constantly going up and down and trying different strokes and techniques”.
Ultimately, it comes down to finding what works best for your team and creating a repeatable process.
Get in touch to see how durhamlane can help you to overcome your sales challenges, and to hear more thought leadership in sales and marketing listen to The Insiders podcast here.