Episode 306: Unleash Your Rep Superpowers with Steve Waters

GUEST: Steve Waters, Vice President of Sales at ZoomInfo

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In today's episode of The B2B Revenue Executive Experience, you're in for a treat as we discuss several subjects.

How can you find your rep superpowers?

What is the difference between coaching forward and call reviews?

What data-driven go-to-market strategies allow you to really measure rep productivity?

To help us with these incredible topics today, we have Steve Waters, Vice President of Sales at ZoomInfo. Steve has worked at ZoomInfo for about eight and a half years. He recently celebrated ZoomInfo "ringing the opening bell at Nasdaq, four years after becoming the first tech company to IPO during the pandemic." Before this, Steve spent four years at DiscoverOrg before they joined forces with ZoomInfo.

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How Data-Driven Strategies Elevate Sales Performance

For Steve, enhancing team performance comes down to identifying the individual strengths of each team member by leveraging data-driven insights. By analyzing performance metrics and behaviors, Steve identifies each rep's unique abilities, such as excelling in creating urgency for one-call closes. This method involves detailed observation, using software like Chorus to gather evidence of successful tactics, which are then shared and taught by the exemplary reps themselves. This boosts the confidence of those recognized for their superpowers and elevates the entire team's capabilities through peer learning and role-playing.

“The data reveals the superpowers. The recordings help to teach it. We let the rep teach it. They get the confidence everyone else gets better. And it's just a play that we can run over and over and over and over for all the different aspects of sales. And I found it to be really successful across my team”.

Steve Waters, Vice President of Sales at ZoomInfo

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Coaching Forward Versus Call Reviews

Instead of solely relying on call reviews to correct past mistakes, Steve advocates for preparing sales reps in advance for upcoming interactions. This proactive approach involves understanding the client's potential objections and pain points and designing tailored strategies for engagement. Rehearsing and refining responses and stories before crucial calls allows reps to significantly improve their performance and confidence.

Let's say you have a call in 15 minutes. You get with a rep before the call and say, who will be there? Do we have a custom deck? How are we going to open the meeting? What are we anticipating their objections are going to be? What are the pain points? How are we going to highlight that? What are we going to show on the platform and then have an outline on how to do that? Then you're coaching them to what will happen and preparing them to do that.

“Coaching forward to an event that is going to happen, I find to be so much more practical than coaching retroactively. Retroactively is helpful. Yes, we should do that. And we need to call reps out when their calls are a snooze fest or when they mess things up or whatever. That's all fine, but I find coaching forward to be a bigger lift and a better use of everybody's time”.

Steve Waters, Vice President of Sales at ZoomInfo

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How Personalized Data Transforms Rep Performance

How can leveraging go-to-market data effectively enhance sales rep performance? By focusing on direct dials and organizational charts, sales development reps (SDRs) can initiate 3 to 8 times more conversations. A key strategy involves using personalized data points early in calls to capture attention and differentiate from typical cold callers.

Additionally, focusing on customers similar to your top 20% revenue generators and targeting them at opportune times using intent data or significant organizational changes can drive success. Remember, embracing data-driven approaches helps you both improve sales effectiveness and maximize the utility of your own data resources.

“It's so much easier to find more customers that look like the 20% that do 80% of your revenue. And how can we replicate those and then target them at the right time with intent data or leadership moves? Or when they get funding or add or drop technology? That's all really data-driven”.

Steve Waters, Vice President of Sales at ZoomInfo

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Now that you know how to find your rep superpowers, learned the difference between coaching forward and call reviews, and discovered data-driven go-to-market strategies allow you to really measure rep productivity, discover the full list of episodes at The B2B Revenue Executive Experience. If you enjoy the show, instructions to rate and review it are found here.

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