We created the Pavilion podcast (formerly Revenue Collective) for one reason — give top revenue leaders a chance to share inspiration, know-how, and insights with the broader community.
Which Pavilion podcast episodes have you caught lately? We know how busy life and work can get, especially these days, so it’s ok if you’re behind on the latest episodes. No worries — we’ve recapped the top five episodes from the last month for you. Skim, enjoy, and listen back to our favorite March episodes of the Pavilion Podcast.
Episode 49: March 2, 2021
Creating Discomfort with Ashley Grech, Global Head of Sales, Square
Ashley Grech doesn’t believe in tricks. But she does believe in structure. During this episode of the podcast, Grech discussed how the notion of structure helped her in her journey from leading SMB sales teams to an IC role in enterprise sales to leading a team of over 400 sales professionals at Square.
And she thinks it might be time to start making prospects a bit uncomfortable.
“Creating discomfort” isn’t quite as it sounds. Grech suggests starting with pain points and making prospects repeat those pain points back to you to make them feel more present and real. Then, you can empathize with them and offer solutions.
She’s also excited about building a scalable and predictable machine with a product that is constantly changing. “That intersection is really exciting,” Grech says. “We are building the first-ever SMB ecosystem sales team.”
Episode 52: March 9, 2021
Customer Success in a Downturn with Leah Chaney, Chief Experience Officer, BetterGrowth
Before the COVID pandemic, Leah Chaney was a customer success leader during the 2007/2008 economic crisis, so she knows the challenge of focusing on CS in a downturned economy. In Chaney’s experience, however, moments like this, where churn threatens to become astronomical and pipelines dry out, are the time for CS to shine.
“With the right tools and focus, CS can help you find your customers that are built to weather this and grow while doing it and focus on internal expansion to bridge the gap with shrinking pipelines,” she says.
The challenge of growth will be here for a while, and the companies that will come out on top are those that focus on the customer experience. Chaney outlined ways CS teams can support customers during downturns.
- Find clients that can weather the storm and double down on the ways your product can help them weather it even better
- Help those customers that are having more challenges and be a partner
To wrap up, Chaney also outlined what CS tips or tools she thinks revenue leaders should implement tomorrow.
- Stop looking at NPS scores to predict churn: It’s not that it’s a terrible metric, but it can’t be your North Star right now.
- Don’t be afraid to ask your customers if they’re going to renew earlier: If you’re a CS leader, you already have that relationship, and you can check in to keep customers on track.
Episode 54: March 15, 2021
Increasing The Representation of Minorities in Tech with Alexis Matthews, SDR Leader, Snyk
Alexis Matthews might be newer to the tech sales industry, but she was immediately committed to helping underrepresented groups find a place in it.
While she noticed a major lack of representation in her new sales roles, she also saw a relatively low barrier to entry to the industry and wondered why more underrepresented groups weren’t pursuing these jobs.
“I thought, either they aren’t aware of the opportunities, or they aren’t given access to opportunities,” she says.
She’s on a mission to rectify that through her gigs as Head of Strategy at Us in Technology and Co-Chair of Pavilion of Color (formerly Revenue Collective of Color, or RCOC). Us in Technology provides companies with tangible ways to address a lack of diversity in their organizations. The organization now has 100 career-ready mentees and consultants to help drive organizational change and tangible coaching and training to front-line managers to create more inclusive hiring practices. Through that organization, she works to help organizations implement tools and tangible ways to address the lack of diversity in their organizations, including:
- How to rely on organizations specialized in diverse placing and hiring while building diverse teams
- How to do the hard work to create a more diverse and inclusive culture
- How to educate leadership on leading diverse teams
Episode 59: March 25, 2021
Breaking Through as a Female Leader with Beth Berry, VP of Growth & Alliances, Real Green Systems
Beth Berry remembers taking conference calls from the closet, behind the clothes, with a Do Not Disturb sign for her kids on the door in the early 1990s.
“It was all about learning how to juggle it all.”
Working for most of her career in a male-dominated industry, Berry constantly felt like she had to showcase her skills to keep her career on pace with her peers. Her mantra? Be so good they can’t ignore you.
Here are a few other tips Berry shared about how to break through as a female leader:
- Get a seat at the leadership table by becoming invaluable
- Seek out women mentors
- Follow women entrepreneurs for inspiration
Episode 60: March 29, 2021
How To Manage-Up In Your Career with Nalin Vahil, Head of Commercial & MM Sales, Asana
Many sales leaders follow an untraditional career path. Nalin Vahil started as an entrepreneur in the music industry before pursuing a leadership path and a career in sales. During this episode of the podcast, Vahil outlined how he vetted new opportunities, leveled-up in his career, and learned to manage-up through trial and error.
3 tips to leveling up your career
- Look for great leadership: Surround yourself with people who inspire you or who you aspire to be.
- Accelerate your sales skill set: Learn to fail early and often.
- Adopt a real growth mindset: Take full accountability for failures and learn from them so they don’t happen again.
4 principles to managing-up
- Over-communicate early and often: Take ownership of your communication.
- Learn how to address the root cause of problems: Be self reflective to show leadership and solution-oriented problem-solving.
- Don’t outsource your thinking to your boss: The most coachable people propose and think through potential solutions.
- Know your boss’ top 3 priorities: And know how you’re contributing to them at any given time.
Join us for new episodes of the Pavilion podcast every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday wherever you listen to podcasts. And get to know the hosts of the Pavilion Podcast, Tom Alaimo and Brandon Barton.
