Frank Fillman is CRO/Country Leader Australia for Salesforce where he is responsible for responsible for the overall strategy, execution, success, and growth of the $1B+ Australian market across all industries. Prior to Salesforce, Frank was SVP/GM @ Tableau where he was responsible for the strategy, execution, and growth of Tableau's Top Accounts. Over the last 10 years at Salesforce, Frank's accomplishments include $500M+ new revenue closed in 5 years and $1B+ revenue managed. As a result, Frank has been awarded #1 Sales VP of the Year, North America, 3 times! Huge thanks to Zhenya Loginov @ Miro for the intro to Frank today.
In Today's Episode with Frank Fillman We Discuss:
1.) From Selling Kitchen Utensils to Leading $1BN Revenue Line for Salesforce:
- How did Frank first make his way into the world of sales selling kitchen utensils?
- Why does Frank believe, "how you handle tragedy defines you"? How did it define him?
- What does Frank know now that he wishes he had known when he started in sales?
2.) Build and Execute the Sales Playbook:
- How does Frank define what a "sales playbook" is today? What is it not?
- Literally, what are the first steps to building a sales playbook? Is it the founder who does it?
- What does a good playbook have? What does a bad playbook have? What makes the best?
- What tools should founders and sales leaders use to create their playbook?
3.) Enterprise Deal Dynamics 101:
- Why does Frank believe that you should never start with the price or "send over numbers"?
- How can enterprise sellers create urgency in a deal cycle? What works? What does not work?
- How does Frank advise sales teams on the use of discounting?
- How open should reps be in communicating the win for them as well as the win for the customer of closing a deal?
4.) Building the Bench:
- How does Frank structure the hiring process for all new sales reps?
- Why does Frank believe that all sales leaders want to be super reps?
- How does Frank rank high potential vs high experience when hiring reps?
- What matters more; the exec have experience in the sector you are selling into or the deal size?
- What are the single biggest mistakes founders and leaders make when hiring sales?
5.) Setting Quota and Deal Reviews:
- How does Frank advise founders on setting quotas? Why does Q1 set the tone for the year?
- How does Frank conduct deal reviews? How often? With who? What is the agenda?
- What is the one question that Frank always asks when a rep says, "the client told us it was not a priority and so it slipped into next quarter"?
- How does Frank advise founders and sales leaders on multi-threading large enterprise accounts?
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode:
Frank's Most Recent Book: The Go-Giver: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea