Welcome to Sales Tech Podcast, the show that talks about sales technology, what’s working, what’s not, and where the industry is going. In this episode, Thom sits down with Hang Black, Vice President of Global Revenue and Enablement at Juniper Networks.

In her role at Juniper, Hang supercharges the sales and service community within her company to help them sell more and close bigger deals. Hang has a unique Revenue Enablement origin story which she shares today with Thom. They touch on how Revenue Enablement works, what smaller companies need to know about it, and what Hang wishes every sales professional knew about the work she does.

Finally, Hang shares the inspiration behind her book, Embrace Your Edge, and provides advice to those looking to make a major career change.

What We Covered:

00:39 – Thom introduces today’s guest, Hang Black, VP of Global Revenue and Enablement at Juniper Networks, who shares her Revenue Operations origin story

02:02 – Skills Hang took from her Engineering background that have been integral in her sales career

03:51 – How Hang defines Revenue Enablement and how it’s been a critical component of closing bigger deals

05:17 – Hang shares her thoughts on the evolution of sales technology

06:16 – How to get sales professionals to embrace and utilize new sales tech stack

08:43 – Advice Hang would give to smaller companies on how to approach Revenue Enablement

10:58 – Hang speculates on the future of Revenue Enablement and sales technology

11:47 – One thing Hang wishes all salespeople knew about Revenue Enablement

12:28 – Hang talks about her book, Embrace Your Edge

13:37 – Advice Hang would give to those with diverse backgrounds looking to make a significant career change

16:00 – Thom thanks Hang for joining the show and let’s listeners know where to connect with her

Tweetable Quotes:

“I always say I started engineering because I like numbers and I like complex problems. I ended up in sales because I like numbers with dollar signs in front of them a lot better.” (01:49) (Hang)

“It took me a while to shed the skin of ‘I know better than the salespeople do.’ It’s not until you sit under the umbrella of sales that you actually understand that we are the ones who have the privilege to represent the voice of the customer and what they need.” (03:11) (Hang)

“The customer journey is no longer a linear model; it’s an infinity model. Customers can enter and exit at any moment or any point. Just because you close a deal doesn’t mean that you don’t have to continue to nurture them through their experience.” (04:49) (Hang)

“I’d rather have one or two tools that are very good at certain things than having a tool that says that it does everything and not well.” (08:35) (Hang)

“The future is continued consolidation, I believe. And I do think that the tool stacks will definitely start collapsing, the vendors will start collapsing, which will make jobs for people like me a lot easier. But just as they collapse, there will be more technology and more innovations around the corner.” (11:04) (Hang)

“I would hope the sellers know that we’ve got your best intentions. We’re not trying to feed you too much stuff, even though you will probably get too much stuff.” (11:55) (Hang)

Links Mentioned:

Hang Black on LinkedIn

Hang Black Website

Juniper Networks

Embrace Your Edge: Pave Your Own Path as an Immigrant Woman in the Workplace

Welcome to Sales Tech Podcast, the show that talks about sales technology, what’s working, what’s not, and where the industry is going. In this episode, Thom sits down with Director of Revenue Operations at QuotaPath, Ryan Milligan.

In his role, Ryan works to help and support sales teams with their sales tech processes so that they can do their jobs better and hit quota. Ryan is passionate about connecting systems together, building scalable processes, and geeking out on sales technology.

Today, Thom and Ryan engage in a rich discussion about the evolution of Revenue Operations, the relationship between Marketing and Sales, and how the future of sales will require a balance between automation and personability.

What We Covered:

00:36 – Thom introduces today’s guest, Ryan Milligan, Director of Revenue Operations at QuotaPath who discusses his buying process and the evolution of Revenue Operations

08:51 – How to get sales professionals to utilize their sales tech stack

12:27 – How Revenue Operations can be a bridge for sales professionals

14:17 – The biggest challenges Ryan faces in the Revenue Operations space

15:28 – How to measure success once you’ve implemented a new sales technology

17:38 – Ryan speculates on the future of sales tech

20:06 – Will traditional sales professionals become automated out of their roles?

22:26 – The personal aspect of sales

24:05 – One message Ryan would relay to every sales professional

25:47 – Thom thanks Ryan for joining the show and let’s listeners know where to connect with him.

Tweetable Quotes:

“I think people are realizing that Marketing and Sales need to be super tightly connected. I think, historically in this world, there was this invisible fence where Marketing gets leads and throws them over the fence for Sales to run with. And I think people are realizing that decision cycles are much more complicated, the buyers are much smarter and everything is getting much more crowded.” (04:02) (Ryan)

“I, very intentionally, want to be incredibly and closely aligned to a sales team. It is sales tech. You’re doing systems to help a team.” (11:29) (Ryan)

“I think you’re going to continue to see a massive amount of automation in these sales processes, but I think you’re also gonna see a lot of people wanting to make sure, as customers, that the automation is still feeling very personalized and finding new paths to talk to customers.” (19:07) (Ryan)

“It’s a shame that you can’t be in-person as much for sure. But it does give you access to people all over the globe.” (23:26) (Ryan)

Links Mentioned:

Ryan Milligan on LinkedIn

QuotaPath 

ryan.milligan@quotapath.com 

Vlad Voskresensky is the co-founder and CEO of Revenue Grid, a leading AI Guided Selling Platform that nudges sales teams with step-by-step guidance towards actions that bring the best results, shows deals at risk, and prioritizes tactics with the greatest impact.

Vlad has been driving the product vision and leading the company’s technology direction for over a decade, reinforced with more than 20 years of deep expertise in connecting enterprise (CRM systems) and personal environments.

Vlad gained numerous helpful insights while collaborating with such tech giants as Salesforce, Oracle, SAP, as well as other Fortune 100 companies in the field of business workflows automation, sales enablement, sales, and service acceleration.

Today, Scott and Vlad sit down to talk all about the work Vlad is doing at Revenue Grid, what it means to embrace the rise of sales technology, and what the best sales organizations are implementing to excel in this competitive industry. Vlad dives deep and explains the difference between Guided Selling and Revenue Intelligence. Scott and Vlad discuss the importance of relationship building and differentiation in sales.

Finally, Vlad speaks to productivity trends he has noticed in other organizations, the ‘why’ behind data, and the challenges of adapting to our new world and society that has increasingly become remote.

What We Covered:

00:54 – Scott introduces today’s guest, Vlad Voskresensky
01:07 – The top three things Vlad has noticed about the best sales leaders and organizations
01:45 – Number One: Differentiation
02:29 – Number Two: Implementing the Latest Tech Stack
03:25 – Number Three: Adapting to this new ‘Remote World’
04:05 – Vlad expounds on his background and his company, Revenue Grid
08:31 – ‘Revenue Intelligence’ vs. ‘Guided Selling’
14:03 – The rise of Sales Ops roles and increasing tech stack
18:27 – Scott takes a moment to promote the upcoming Sales Tech Expo
20:28 – What’s missing from the current sales tech stack
21:49 – Why all conversations are not created equal
25:17 – Relationship building and other best practices for differentiation
28:23 – Vlad reiterates the importance of Sales Operations
30:57 – Trends Vlad has noticed that organizations utilize to increase productivity
34:06 – The ‘Why’ behind the data
38:07 – Zoom vs. audio-only phone calls
43:58 – How listeners can learn more about Revenue Grid
44:35 – Scott thanks Vlad for joining the show today

Tweetable Quotes:

“I would say that there are three pillars of value in any revenue intelligence platform, and we are no exception. And these are: capturing the data from where it should be captured, putting the data into play and providing the meaningful insights for sales leadership and sales reps, literally guiding them through the next steps.” (04:34)

“Revenue Intelligence is the answer to the question, ‘what?’ While Guided Selling is the response to the question, ‘How?’” (09:05)

“You may think that your problem is with quality of leads. But then, after the analysis, you may figure out that the problem is with the quality of speech you deliver to those leads.” (21:18)

“There is one very interesting conversation I had with a RevOps guru. He said, ‘Look, there are no silver bullets which you may start doing in your sales org that others are not doing. And even if you find that silver bullet, the next day your competitors will be doing the same.’” (36:24)

Links Mentioned:

scott@top1.fm
2022 Sales Success Summit
Vlad Voskresensky on LinkedIn