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29: Interview for these traits, sales leaders' courage, cold calling powers

29: Interview for these traits, sales leaders' courage, cold calling powers

Interview for these traits, sales leaders' courage, ✅ cold calling

March 11, 2022

Support this free email by forwarding it to one person who would enjoy it too Enjoy this week’s email….because who doesn’t want a bluebird every week…

#1 - Alex Jones, CRO at NetSPI, shares 5 traits he looks for when hiring

This week I sat down with Alex Jones, who has anything but a typical career path leading to his current role as CRO. This affords him to bring a unique perspective on becoming successful in the cyber security sales space and what he’s doing at NetSPI to continue to build a great sales team.

Alex spent most of his time building a career outside of cyber (in recruitment), until 5 years ago when he joined NetSpi. At NetSPI, Alex had to dive in head first to learn the terminology and become familiar with the space.Luckily, the nontraditional aspect of his background paid off when he had to make hires to build up his sales team. Alex tells us the 5 key traits he looks for in all potential new hires:

Coachability
Curiosity
Prior success
Intelligence
Work ethic

Dive bar or cocktail bar...which one does Alex prefer?

Listen to Sales Bluebird episode #108 to find out and to hear more about Alex's tacticspsst....NetSPI is hiring, so get in touch with Alex on LinkedIn

Time for a dad joke break...

What does a baby computer call his father? Data.

#2 - Hat's off to you, Sales Leaders!

Here’s to the sales leaders at cyber security startups... they're the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently and aren't afraid of joining an early-stage startup.Founders can disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they will:

change the trajectory of the company
push your company and cyber security forward (if you let them)

And while some may see them as the crazy ones, I see courage..

because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can build a team and transform the trajectory of a company and industry, are the ones who do.

(Apologies to Steve Jobs)

#3 - "Cold calling is dead"...

Hands down the dumbest saying in sales

Usually by people who are...Not in sales OR scared to make a cold callThe real question to ask is:"Compared to what?"What have you tested that is the most effective way to book high-quality first meetings, for you?- If cold calling is getting you a steady stream of meetings, go for it.- If email outreach is getting you more meetings than cold calls, go for it.- If cold calling plus email, plus LinkedIn is working better for you, go for it.- If getting referrals from your customers is getting you the best conversations, do it!- If being referred to CIOs by your successful Uncle Marc (Benioff) is working better for you, go for it.Or if you are overwhelmed by the flood of high-quality inbound, more power to you. (and let us know where you work!)"Sales" is a huge field. There are millions of people doing B2B sales. Everyone from Abby selling $100m business process outsourcing deals to Fortune 50 CEOs to Billy selling landscape services to small businesses in one zip code.To declare that cold calling is dead for Abby and Billy and everyone in between is ludicrous.Every market and territory is different. Test and adapt.

Shit we've got to stop saying...

"It's plug and play"

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Rooting for you,

Andrew MonaghanChief [email protected]