Quick fire Q&A with VP of BD at Import.io Dan Murphy

We are always interested in speaking to interesting folks building the sales machines within their organizations.  For this reason we are sharing some quick fire Q&A sessions with smart folks.  Up next is Dan Murphy, VP of Business Development from Import.io shares his thoughts below on sales, revenue, and building the right team.  With his experience in building and founding companies, his thoughts are worth a read.

Interested in sharing your thoughts on building your sales machine? Get in touch!

What’s a tactical challenge you’ve solved lately that had given you the most trouble? How did you solve them

Getting sales and marketing to get on the same page about how new revenue is generated was super critical to the business. To do this we agreed on simple funnel metrics (MQL>>SQL>>Revenue) and monitor them on a weekly basis at pipeline forecasting meetings. Marketing owns MQL, SQL is a shared metric and sales owns Revenue. It’s given us great forecasting visibility and a shared understanding of what drives revenue. It was a real lesson in the power of simple metrics when it comes to team alignment and driving revenue. It’s also much more fun with the whole team is pushing on the same metricsvenue.

What are the best tricks / hacks you’ve learned in the last 6 months?

Stress testing a deal, by candidly sharing with the potential customer why you think the deal is not a good fit and probably won’t go ahead (weak business case, no timeframe, no urgency). Then working with them to resolve your concerns or agreeing that it’s not a fit (take it out of the pipeline!).

What is the tactical challenge you’re happiest about solving?

Implementing weekly deal review and forecasting meetings…amazing impact on the rhythm of the pipeline.

What does your first hour in the office look like?
Coffee
Clean up to-do list
Get stuck into some of the ‘thinking’ projects while no one else is in the office

What is one thing sales reps, in general, should be doing more of?
Qualifying hard on timeframe and urgency. No timeframe/urgency no deal. Get it out of the pipeline, I’d much prefer to see a near empty pipeline with highly qualified deals than a fat pipeline with lots of friendly conversations that don’t close.

What’s your biggest challenge right now?
We are working on cracking out Outbound process, so we can scale an SDR team in the new year.

What is the thing you are happiest with on your current team?
Attitude: We are getting stuff done, but keeping it friendly. No one takes themselves too seriously…that’s got to be the key to making mistakes, owning it and bouncing back fast.

Top 3 tools in your sales stack right now, how are you using?
Pipedrive.com (crm)
Outreach.io (outbound)
claralabs.com (scheduling)

Favorite quote, why?
‘Fortune is in the follow-up’ ~ Arbonne Cosmetics Sales Consultant.
Trust is required for money to move hands and trust is built over a series of interactions (emails, calls etc). This quote is a such great reminder of the power of follow-up and it’s short (I love short quotes!)

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See more posts like Dan’s here:

Matthew Bellows – CEO, Yesware

Jorge Soto – Early Twitter, Founder Soto Ventures, Dashtab.co 

Douglas Freeman – VP of Sales, The Muse