BTM Q & A : Simplifyeye VP Sales – Matt Bress Best advice for sales leaders

Building the Sales Machine’s Q & A series is focused on sales leaders out there in the real world building and scaling high tech sales teams.  We aim to bring you the most practical and operational tips from down in the trenches.

For today’s Q & A, we’re following up with the fourth part of our interview with Matt Bress, VP of Sales of Simplifeye, a mobile technology platform to help doctors run their practices.

Most important thing to learn for new sales managers?

When I was a young sales rep, something I realized I loved so much about sales was that I controlled my own destiny. Whether I was successful or unsuccessful was largely dependent on how much I focused and how hard I worked. When you scale, you will in all likelihood have one or more first-time sales managers. One of the most jarring things I needed to grapple with when I transitioned to a management role was that as a manager, you relinquish so much control over your own success and entrust it in the hands of your team. In my experience, this alone is one of the hardest adjustments for a new sales managers to make.

The most important thing for a new sales manager to learn is how to think dynamically about the organization’s sales process and implement not necessarily what made HE or SHE successful, but what will make the individual members of their team successful – truly tailoring your management and coaching approach to each rep on the team. This doesn’t mean telling all your reps to do things differently – managers should always be teaching and reinforcing the same concepts and techniques – but rather, deliver that coaching and feedback in a manner that is most digestible by the rep you are giving it to. Your team is not a monolith, and they are not YOU… adjust and manage accordingly for each one of your reps. Empathy is critical in this pursuit, and should be a primary competency when evaluating management talent among your team.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from a mentor?

Don’t exhaust yourself trying to ensure that you are completely confident you are making the absolute right decision every time. You’re in the position you are in for a reason; because others trust your judgment and ability… trust yourself and your instincts as much as they do.

Matt Bress started his sales career at Single Platform as an AE, and rose through the ranks to sales manager, sales training manager, senior sales manager, and eventually Head of Sales.  Since they he went on to lead as the VP of Sales at Lofty, which was recently acquired.  He now leads the sales team for Simplifeye, a mobile technology company making it easier for doctors to run their practices and communicate with patients.

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