11 Tips on Scaling Modern Sales Teams [Live from Rainmaker]

Here at LevelEleven, we spend a lot of time studying modern sales. So when Rainmaker 2016 hosted a session called “The Real Story Behind Scaling Modern Revenue Teams” today, we had to bring you the highlights.

Here’s the speaker lineup:

• Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
• Chad Burmeister, Senior Director, Sales Development, RingCentral
• Richard Harris, Owner, Harris Consulting Group

And here are the best quotes they offered:

11 Tips on Scaling Modern Sales Teams

1. “I believe the new selling is teaching.” –  Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
2. “[When hiring reps] Don’t confuse liking a person with cultural fitting.” – Richard Harris, Owner, Harris Consulting Group
3. “Scaling is a result of optimal productivity.” –  Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
4. “Better, faster and cheaper — that’s what every organization that I know wants to do. And it’s been my experience that you can do two out of three. It’s really hard to do all three. And in my experience, people focus on faster and cheaper. They don’t really focus on better.” – Richard Harris, Owner, Harris Consulting Group
5. “Information is only as good as you’re willing to do something with it.” – Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
6. “I think the modern sales leader should be able to go in and build a dashboard or a report in Salesforce…but that doesn’t mean that the modern leader should be able to go in and program all the code.” – Chad Burmeister, Senior Director, Sales Development, RingCentral
7. “It’s not a secret sauce. You’ve heard it a million times. But it is the people. Inevitably the biggest return comes from the people.” – Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
8. “Trust the data first and your gut second.” – Richard Harris, Owner, Harris Consulting Group
9. “Get real about how you hire.” – Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy
10. “Always hire in pairs when you’re hiring salespeople.” – Richard Harris, Owner, Harris Consulting Group
11. “The first [critical sales metric to track] is the ability to connect on a call.” – Jim Keenan, CEO & President, A Sales Guy

Want more expert tips on scaling modern sales teams?