On this episode, we’ve acquired Shaan Hathiramani with us. Shaan is the Founder and CEO of Flockjay. Shaan began Flockjay as a approach to prepare individuals from non technical backgrounds and usher them into the tech ecosystem primarily via gross sales. Now Shaan has made Flockjay a platform to provide managers and gross sales leaders cheat codes to how and why they win by following the journey of their success tales.
In case you missed episode 213, test it out right here: Branding a Firm that Makes a speciality of Account Based mostly Advertising with Nirosha Methananda
What You’ll Be taught
- The evolution of Flockjay, going from an academy to shining a highlight on what corporations do nicely and never so nicely
- Having the right construction and being product chief would allow you to maintain to powerful occasions
- The right way to do extra with much less as a gross sales chief
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Present Agenda and Timestamps
- About Flockjay and their development [3:35]
- The challenges transferring from a coaching enterprise to a software program firm [11:57]
- Leveraging brief kind movies to advertise inclusiveness firm extensive [23:45]
- What’s the way forward for the SDR position [29:00]
- Paying it ahead [32:29]
- Sam’s Nook [35:36]
About Flockjay and their development [3:35]
Sam Jacobs: Hey, all people. Welcome to The Gross sales Hacker Podcast. At present on the present we’ve acquired the CEO and founding father of a extremely cool firm referred to as Flockjay, Shaan Hathiramani. And we discuss this evolution of Flockjay’s journey from being a coaching academy for individuals from non-tech backgrounds and welcoming them into the tech ecosystem, primarily via gross sales.
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Sam Jacobs: In your phrases, inform us about Flockjay. What do you do? How do you do it? And the place are you in your development journey?
Shaan Hathiramani: Our mission, as you talked about, is to increase entry to upward mobility, particularly via schooling on the job, specializing in gross sales and go-to-market professionals particularly. I feel we are able to all agree that previously three years, not to mention the previous three months, rather a lot has modified by way of how we take into consideration exhibiting as much as work, particularly in gross sales — one of the crucial accessible and upwardly cellular profession paths. And we’re actually centered on aggregating, structuring, and surfacing profitable information in corporations to provide reps, managers, and gross sales leaders the cheat codes to how and why they win. And we’ve constructed a platform that finish to finish is goal constructed to try this.
Sam Jacobs: So that you began off as a bootcamp if I’m not mistaken, serving to individuals from underrepresented or numerous backgrounds enter sort of the gross sales ecosystem, however now you’ve constructed a platform. Inform us about that evolution a bit bit.
Shaan Hathiramani: In some ways, we’re following the journey of our learners and our graduates as they begin their careers. And so I began Flockjay, as you talked about, with a singular mission of offering a platform for people from every kind of backgrounds: Retail, hospitality, you title it, to entry what, to me, continues to be top-of-the-line saved secrets and techniques for upward mobility in our economic system in the present day, the software program gross sales career; and simply broadly talking, gross sales jobs usually. They’re in some ways leveraging lived and life experiences, and with some coaching and a few mentorship and assist, can unlock an entire completely different high quality of life and management potential and profession development.
And in that journey of constructing our gross sales academy, and particularly through the pandemic, we haven’t at all times been distant, first by way of how we prepare people traditionally, and the way our firm has been. The factor that was simply obviously apparent as people graduated our program and began SDR and AE jobs in unbelievable corporations, is even probably the most tenured and storied enterprise software program corporations had been essentially not arrange for his or her reps’ success in onboarding and steady studying within the quickly altering market that all of us exist in in the present day. And the work surroundings with out, in lots of circumstances, 4 partitions of an workplace. And all of the form of historic crutches that we leaned on to assist people get located in a job, ramp up on a job, proceed to hit their quantity, drive productiveness, turn out to be leaders, whether or not that’s peer to see mentorship or tapping somebody on the shoulder and asking the way to do one thing, or occurring a stroll and actually form of gathering that institutional information, a number of that has crumbled. And so we took a step again and mentioned, “What’s the bigger drawback right here? What’s the structural drawback?”
The challenges transferring from a coaching enterprise to a software program firm [11:57]
Sam Jacobs: How has it been transferring from what’s successfully a providers enterprise to a product and engineering enterprise? I work with a number of founders who’re my friends which have providers companies which might be constructing merchandise. And it’s been a difficult evolution for them. Have you ever discovered related challenges? Or has it been fairly seamless?
Shaan Hathiramani: I might hesitate to say something is seamless as of late, simply given the world we dwell in. However I feel one of many traits I worth most in each being a founder and a CEO, and likewise simply anybody I work with, is humility and figuring out if you’re not the neatest individual within the room. And a number of my job is to get a mile extensive and an inch deep on a number of issues. I’m Flockjay’s first and unique BDR, myself. I did a number of Flockjay’s unique design. I did among the preliminary entrance finish work for tech constructing and a few technical stuff. However I’m not at all the sharpest technical individual within the room.
I feel the place I can be taught probably the most is bringing actually sensible individuals collectively who’re excited in regards to the mission and form of see the TAM of how giant this drawback is, if all this institutional information had caught in corporations, and assist arrange and construction the product roadmap and translate the imaginative and prescient into traces of code and right into a platform that’s in the end one thing that reps use each day. That’s the aim.
Leveraging brief kind movies to advertise inclusiveness firm extensive [23:45]
Sam Jacobs: How ought to corporations take into consideration capturing brief movies from different reps that discuss why they received, or articulating a hit story? Is that a part of how we are able to additionally drive inclusivity, by utilizing the completely different faces of the corporate to onboard individuals in a approach that makes them really feel included? How do you concentrate on serving to corporations not simply rent numerous candidates, however make it possible for they’re integrated into the company organism in a wholesome and productive approach?
Shaan Hathiramani: You’re spot on, Sam. That’s an enormous a part of steady studying and assembly people the place they’re in the present day: Is giving people a approach to share their information in a approach that’s far simpler than they’ve in the present day, which is often submitting some sort of kind, in some sort of Salesforce area, or one thing like that, and actually emphasizing that video and interactive piece, but additionally actually structuring that information. So take into consideration a deal story: You simply set a gathering, otherwise you simply closed a deal. There’s a lovely second of time the place you’ve gotten one thing actually precious to share along with your group. And proper now, that information is trapped in reps’ heads, and it’s not getting out. In case you’re fortunate, it’s possibly being shared freehand in a Slack wind channel, and Slack is what we prefer to say is the place nice concepts go to die. In case you miss it, it’s gone.
What’s the way forward for the SDR position [29:00]
Sam Jacobs: The position of the SDR: I discover it controversial. Consumers, it’s now dogma that you simply want an individual to create a gathering and prospect, after which one other individual takes the assembly and hopefully turns it into cash and a buyer relationship. However it may be a troublesome and irritating expertise for patrons as a result of they’re conscious of what’s occurring, and so they’re conscious that they’re going to be handed round. And likewise there are such a lot of completely different SDRs which might be utilizing a lot crappy messaging that it actually form of stains the particular position a bit bit. And but, additionally it is entry level into the gross sales ecosystem to show individuals the way to prospect, to show individuals about how to do that job. What’s your viewpoint on the way forward for the position?
Shaan Hathiramani: I feel all of us can empathize from a purchaser perspective, simply the diploma of quantity of content material in our inboxes and the diploma of cellphone calls we obtain. And from an empathy perspective, when that’s your job as an SDR, it’s the job that we have now supported as a bootcamp for some time, it’s actually onerous. And so the best way I give it some thought is, as we have now overcrowding of instruments, of emails, of messaging. Are you able to do 30 dials as a substitute of 20 dials? Are you able to ship X quantity of emails versus Y quantity of emails? The way forward for the SDR job actually comes right down to what makes us probably the most human and what kind of differentiates an SDR from somebody who’s really doing the sale.
Paying it ahead [32:29]
Sam Jacobs: Who’re among the individuals, concepts, or books which have had the most important affect on you, that you simply assume we should always learn about?
Shaan Hathiramani: The individual most instantly exterior of my spouse as a result of we have now a new child and she or he is my continued supply of inspiration as we carry a brand new individual into this loopy world we dwell in, is definitely one in every of my mentors and somebody on our board, DP Brightful. He’s the president of area operations for Qualtrics. He was an SVP of gross sales at Salesforce for a few years earlier than that and had a fairly storied profession, Microsoft, IBM. However the factor about him, which he doesn’t readily share, is that he got here up from a background which is being fully exterior the trade and looking for a approach in, and actually having to chart that path for himself.
After which on the guide aspect, it’s a area of gross sales, however there’s a guide referred to as Bewilderment, and it’s all a couple of father and his son and nature and developing on this world, and having an appreciation for slowing down. So extremely advocate that novel to anybody who’s in search of learn.
Sam’s Nook [35:36]
Sam Jacobs: Hey, all people. Sam’s nook, my little nook of the world. Actually loved that dialog with Shaan. I discover what he’s doing actually inspiring. I talked to a number of founders who’re making an attempt to construct merchandise from successfully providers options, and so they’re struggling. However my sense is that Shaan thinks about issues in the appropriate structured approach that he’s in all probability a fairly good product chief. And definitely, after I took a have a look at flockjay.com, the web site seems to be fairly cool. And I simply love that they began as this one factor, which is an academy to coach individuals from nontraditional backgrounds. Perhaps they performed sports activities, possibly they had been in retail, possibly they didn’t graduate from school, and assist them enter the tech ecosystem.
And now it’s actually a a lot larger concept. It’s an enablement resolution leveraging brief kind video to assist mirror the very best practices and behaviors of your reps, after which carry collectively all the opposite context that you simply would possibly want into one place. After which that approach, it’s form of nearly a brand new sort of resolution.
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