On this episode of the Sales Talk for CEOs Podcast, Alice speaks with Ganesh Shankar, CEO at RFPIO Inc. After relying on workaround solutions for RFPs, Ganesh decided to build the solution to this confusing yet essential aspect of sales. Ganesh runs his company on transparency, both in the way they reach goals and the way they reward talent within their ranks. His company values, Get It Done (GID) and See Something, Say Something (S4) create accountability and give his most talented salespeople incentives to step up.
HIGHLIGHTS
01:46 Starting RFPIO and helping companies respond to RFPs more efficiently
10:07 Ganesh's sales experience was a natural progression to CEO
14:01 Trial and error: Changing company goals to figure out behavior
19:21 Celebrate sales milestones and recognize the efforts of every team member
23:15 Filling the organization structure with the right people at the stages
31:45 Future forecast for RFPIO and success with an onboarding specialist
38:46 Sales tips for fellow CEOs
QUOTES
08:27 "We realized salespeople never logged into those system. They have accounts already working on. They don't want to log in. So go with cheaper solution."
14:26 "Compensation drives behavior. The second one is, time kills deals. Two things it is always in my mind. When we started scaling, we as an organization were looking at what is that year 1, what is the behavior that we want?"
19:34 "We as a company celebrated every small milestone the sales team brought in. Everybody from top to bottom, even an intern who's on the engineering team was made part of the sales team."
25:21 "My entire sales team knows it will change. Either the quotas will change, the territories will change, the industries will change, but not in between."
39:07 "Make sure you're not creating a conflicting competition plan. Make it clean and simple, easy for sales team to understand, and go after it. It'll make your life so much easier."
Connect with Ganesh Shankar in the link below.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ganeshshankarcr/
You can learn more about and connect with Alice Heiman in the links below.
Website: https://AliceHeiman.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/