Sara Eklund is a seasoned GTM and operations executive with over a decade of experience leading global teams in both the technology and renewable energy sectors. As a Fractional COO, she specializes in helping startups scale and achieve their strategic goals. With a hands-on approach and a passion for developing talent, Sara is known for driving operational excellence and championing gender equality and diverse work environments. She is also the chair of the women’s leadership organization Diamanten in Finland.

Three Key Takeaways for our audience:

Scaling with Strategic Excellence: how sales leaders can implement operational strategies to effectively scale teams and drive growth in competitive environments.

Empowering Talent Development: Learn how to mentor and develop high-performing sales teams, fostering leadership skills that inspire success at all levels.

Diversity as a Growth Driver: Sara will discuss the importance of creating diverse and inclusive sales teams, highlighting the role of gender equality in driving innovation and long-term success.

Sara’s insights, driven by her passion for operational excellence and diversity, will provide valuable strategies for both individual and team growth

This week's Guest was -

• Sara Eklund, a seasoned GTM and operations executive

This week's Host was -

• Alex Abbott, Founder of Supero

This week's Panelist was -

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of DLA Ignite

Transcript of SalesTV.live Early Edition 2024-10-15

Alex Abbott [00:00:02]:

Hello, and welcome to sales TV. I'm Alex, otherwise known as the bearded sales guy. I'm the founder of Supero, creator of the conversation operating system and cofounder of Alex AI, a social enablement platform by Critical Combo. My passion lies in helping people and organizations build real and meaningful conversations to drive growth and success. And it's great to be back. It's been a while.

Adam Gray [00:00:31]:

It has been ages actually since we've, our parts have crossed on one of these shows, isn't it?

Alex Abbott [00:00:37]:

It has. And but everybody knows you. Right, Adam? Do you or do you need to do a short intro?

Adam Gray [00:00:42]:

Hi. I'm Adam Gray. I'm cofounder of DLA Ignite. We're a social media management consultancy. Everybody doesn't like the bad penny I keep cropping up.

Alex Abbott [00:00:52]:

Brilliant. It's great to be, alongside you today, sir.

Adam Gray [00:00:56]:

Likewise.

Alex Abbott [00:00:58]:

So today is an incredible topic, about scaling success. I'm excited to be joined by someone who has not only led Teams but has also helped businesses scale and thrive in a highly, competitive, in highly competitive industries. Our guest, Sara Eklund, is a seasoned GTM and Operations Executive known for her hands on approach and operational excellence and her advocacy for diversity in the workplace. So some of the key takeaways we will be talking about today include how to scale teams with strategic excellence, the power of mentoring and developing high performing talent, and how diversity can drive innovation and long term success in sales teams. So let's dive into the conversation. Welcome, Sara.

Sara Eklund [00:01:54]:

Good morning. Really nice to be here and really really excited to chat with you guys.

Alex Abbott [00:01:58]:

Brilliant. Brilliant. It's great to have you from, from the darkness of Helsinki in in Finland.

Sara Eklund [00:02:05]:

Yes. For sure I do have my daylight lamp here beside me, so it looks lighter than it actually is.

Alex Abbott [00:02:13]:

Brilliant brilliant. So let's, let's kick things off.

Alex Abbott [00:02:18]:

Why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself because you've got you've got a great background spanning 2 interesting industries. How do they come together?

Sara Eklund [00:02:30]:

Actually spanning 3? If I'm really honest, I'm usually saying that I've had 4 careers so far, and who knows how many there will be in in before before I'm done, so to say. Now I started my journey as a politician, a very young politician, that said, and and worked in in decision making and and policy making for especially youth and equality politics, and then moved into renewable energy and technology after that. And that's where I spent about 20 years of of the past past history and continuing on that journey as well. And my journey in many ways have been about scaling growth, building opportunities, and empowering teams in order to break the boundaries of what's possible. And consequently, always been working very close with sales and with all type of revenue architecture abilities in the companies.

Alex Abbott [00:03:21]:

Wow. Wow. So I'm

Adam Gray [00:03:23]:

I'm rather speechless, actually. Yeah.

Alex Abbott [00:03:25]:

That that

Adam Gray [00:03:26]:

that that amazing. Please please go back to politics. The world needs some decent politicians, doesn't it? Yes.

Sara Eklund [00:03:34]:

It it for sure does. I believe so. But I I like to do many things at once, and consequently, I also work with NGOs and with with, pro bono work in this space while I'm doing business at the same time. So not one thing at a time kind of girl.

Alex Abbott [00:03:49]:

Yeah. I'd I'd definitely say you're well rounded then, Sara. Politics, renewable energy, and now tech. Yeah. So from from your perspective, what are the common challenges that companies face when trying to scale? And, you you know, maybe you could talk to startups, but also you've worked in big corporate. So I'd love to hear your perspective on, you know, how, how companies do that and, how you can help help them overcome the obstacles that they might face.

Sara Eklund [00:04:21]:

Mhmm. I think scale is important in all stages of company's life cycle, and usually it comes down to what is your bigger purpose and how you live by that purpose when both finding your market, optimizing your market, and then stepping into that goal that you want to achieve. And all of that sounds maybe easy and good and fine, but as we all know as seasoned leaders, it is a challenge at all stages. And it's a lot about how clear you are on that purpose, how you build your strategy around it, and how you empower your people and your processes and your tools to align with that strategy at every step. And I think the word empower and align are quite important when it comes to staying close to the operational excellence at every step of that way.

Alex Abbott [00:05:12]:

Okay. Interesting. Now I don't know if you're gonna go dizzy. I'm just gonna pop you there in the middle. Is that there we go. I think you need center stage.

Sara Eklund [00:05:21]:

Oh, that's nice. Thank you.

Alex Abbott [00:05:24]:

Okay. So so that's interesting. But what so if we think about sort of, scaling and strategic excellence, you know, coming at this from from best a best practice perspective, One of the key takeaways that we're talking about today is is scaling with strategic excellence. Can you share what operational strategy sales leaders should prioritize when scaling their teams in what is highly competitive environments in some cases?

Sara Eklund [00:06:04]:

Absolutely. I would say it comes down to several things. It's very important to have such a team culture and have such a team structure where you can learn from each other and have the sufficient psychological safety in order to also make, obviously, agile changes when things are working well and can be scaled or things are not working well and needs to be exchanged for another type of activity. So yet again, the purposefulness and the values of how you build that scale is is really important at every step. I also would say that being methodological is important in order to actually prepare to take those scaling steps, and consequently turning your best practices into playbooks and turning them into tangible, both activities, milestones, OKRs, and KPIs that you follow, that is really a recipe for success. Also, I would always be very mindful of leveraging data, Leveraging data both as an as a way of analyzing what has been going well or not so well backwards looking, but also leveraging predictive tools in order to scenario plan what would be the best steps, not only the first best steps, but actually the 5 next best steps. And then finally, I also say that strategic excellence and operational excellence also comes down to having a diversity in the team, both the diversity of skills, of insights, and of of strengths of the individuals, but equally also a diversity of both background and gender and and all types of features that that sits within within teams.

Alex Abbott [00:07:51]:

Yeah. Now there's a lot there. There's a lot there for, I think, sales leaders to think about. And and, you know, what what we're seeing is that, you know, many sales leaders are are under so much pressure to perform. You know, they're often behaving in in ways that are very short term and very tactical by nature just to get the deals closed and so how you know what what advice can you give? What what are your thoughts on? How to maintain strategic excellence when, you know, in some cases, their their livelihood is at stake. A job is on the line.

Sara Eklund [00:08:34]:

Of course. And and I completely both understand and and underline, the the challenge in all of that. And at the same time, I also believe that working both tactically really excellently as well as also looking forward, it's a recipe for creating business, in in a in a good way. Because as we all know and as you very well know as sales sales professionals, sales is not about only what you do today. It's also the pipeline and the excellence and the longevity that you create. So I think it it goes into the concept of sales in itself. What I usually if I if I'm bound to give just one advice, I would say that keeping an eye on the so called sales equation, and focusing on a few key metrics in that in order to tweak both your tactical excellence as well as also your leading indicators, that's definitely something to to keep in mind. And if I would go even more specific in the sales equation, what we can see in today's sales motions, we know that multi threaded sales is something that had a direct impact, not only on the sales velocity in the now, but also impact on how well the deals progress in the future and how you create customer retention and and net retention that is building the baseline for your company.

Sara Eklund [00:09:58]:

So I think I think if you choose some of those key metrics and follow them, empower them, coach for them, that's also when you can see a longitude impact. Yeah.

Adam Gray [00:10:10]:

If if I can just pick up on what Alex said and and explore that a little bit because, we get to talk to a lot of different sales leaders. And, as Alex said, you know, the one universal truth seems to be that everybody's under a lot of pressure at the moment. You know, the sales landscape has changed and the things they used to do are not working the way they used to work. And in many cases, the the the concept of a strategic plan for sales, actually, that's out of the window because we're worried about making our number this quarter. And do sales leaders not run the risk of saying, okay. Well, my top performing salesperson is Alex. He's a man, and he's got a beard. Therefore, I'm looking for lots of men that have beards to be salespeople because that's the model that works in this industry.

Adam Gray [00:11:04]:

Now I'm being silly when I say a a man with a beard, but but you know what I mean. We're we're looking for specific skills that are delivering value now, and that's absolutely the opposite of what you're looking for when you're trying to build a diverse team. You know, you need women. You need people of different ethnicities and sexual orientations because, actually, not everyone in the world looks like me. And, therefore, having a bunch of bearded people with no hair that are selling stuff means that it works well selling to people in my own image, but not necessarily everybody. So so how do you maintain that diversity and richness of a sales team when only one specific, silo or sliver of that is working today?

Sara Eklund [00:11:47]:

Absolutely. I think here, it's both possible to lean on what data tells us in in terms of the value of diversity, but equally also leaning on the evolution of sales psychology and what we see in in the market today. If I spirk first speak a little bit about the statistics, we do know that diverse teams have a higher probability of outperforming on on a larger scale. We also know that there is a higher degree of innovation and higher degree of of, how to say, confidence to bring diverse ideas to the to the plates and to the table and consequently coming up with good solutions that then can be created into a methodology and scaled, across. And we we know that there also is an impact on the on the, how to say, bottom line and the financial final line in the companies. And we I can I can share a lot of statistics both from from back in Boston Consulting Group, Swiss Credit Suisse, and and many others? Now that's all good and fine. When one then looks at the teams in themselves and and what this means, I I also like to to kind of broaden the spectra of of what the market is looking like today, who are the buying personas, and what are these buying personas looking for. And and as we know, with the buying personas in the companies have become more diverse, and we have decision makers and role holders that both sit on the sponsoring power as well as also the final budget and decision making power.

Sara Eklund [00:13:21]:

And in order to respond to these personas needs, creating a strong dialogue, focusing on the value that the solution can create, and also focusing on the relationship that then can bring retention and expansion, that's really where the big buck lie. And and I like I like reading and I like reading about these these topics, and I think the Jolt Effect is a really cool book that that touches upon the changing landscape in sales and and speaking to this this relationship between fear of messing up and fear of missing out. And I think there's something interesting about those two acronyms because it doesn't only apply to how we want to serve our customers and how we want to create a sense of security and a sense of interest, but it also applies to our teams. We need to be less afraid of messing up in terms of going diverse. We need to feel that there is something to be lost if we don't go diverse because that's the the potential of really expanding the borders.

Adam Gray [00:14:26]:

Yeah. I I I absolutely get that and buy into that, and I I've seen that, you know, with some of the teams that I have worked with within the client organizations that I engage with. I've seen the more diverse the team, the happier a place it is, as well as being, you know, a a a high performing place. It becomes a a more entertaining and fun place to be, and that that's incredibly powerful. However, I can't help feeling that that often sales leaders, you know, it's very binary. Okay, Zara. This is your number. You are making it.

Adam Gray [00:15:02]:

Great. You're not making it. Okay. You're in trouble. And and, you know, as the pressure continues to be dialed up on not just sales leaders, but entire sales teams, it does it does breed sort of short termist views of things, doesn't it? And and how do you how do you maintain that longer term view of you you know what's right. You know you know you need to have a diverse team for a whole host of reasons. You know that, actually, it isn't just what you sell today. It's what you're gonna sell tomorrow and next week that matters as well because you're trying to build something sustainable.

Adam Gray [00:15:39]:

However, there isn't gonna be a next week if you don't sell something today. And balancing these two things is is is one of the greatest challenges facing sales departments these days, I think.

Sara Eklund [00:15:53]:

No. Clearly, you're right, and and there are a lot of a lot of challenges in this. And I think it comes down to how you, how to say, how you rhythm the work in the team and how you also coach your people to rhythm their own work in order to build their excellence. And now I'm not only talking about building pipeline per se because clearly there's an important business development aspect of of any type of sales work, but it also is about coaching to some of the leading actions that will render results, and and that might be how you coach for, yet again, creating multi threaded customer relationships to really be able to build the best types of deals, how you play with your portfolio in order to, how to say, lay the ground with some landing deals and then working on the bigger expanding deals at the same time. So So I think it's it's also about a much more diverse way of coaching your teams rather than only coaching by this is the result. Just go. I think lead sales sales leadership today is becoming very, very hands on, and I think probably you as expert, you can say that it always has been. But I think we are gonna see an even more, like, relationship centric sales leadership going forward because that's also the nature of the customer relationships we need to have.

Alex Abbott [00:17:12]:

Yeah. I I do think, you know, from my own experience, being a hands on sales leader was was was differentiating, you know, certainly for me and my team in a in a within a large organization, as the sales leader driving the enablement of the team and not leaving that solely to to another team to to to do. But it you know III agree with you II. You know, I'm hearing you know talent development is is is fundamental in terms of scaling an organization and for someone as passionate as you about talent development, I can kind of feel it coming through the screen. Yeah. How how do you identify and mentor those high potential leaders, within Teams?

Sara Eklund [00:18:03]:

I think talent development is both coming on to that you are close to the strengths and to the, how to say, the working genius of of these these individuals. Because I I also think that there is not one form of talent development that will suffice for everyone. Some need a more, how to say, more challenged base, development stream where where you are given responsibilities in order to test things out and learn from them while you feel that someone has your back. And for others, it might be about completely breaking thought patterns and breaking free of of, in confidence in order to take the next types of leaps and any anything in between all of that. And I think that's both a challenge for us leaders as well as also the opportunity that we detect what is the situational coaching that is needed in order to really unlock the best types of skills. And I think there's today, with all the types of of, technological tools, there's also a possibility of of testing testing out how you can how you can break break some of those boundaries and how you can work with with both learning as well as application in a real time setting. So I'm I'm quite positive in the in the face of what what lies ahead, and I think curiosity is what is needed from from the leaders, in order to really really be able to to lift lift the potential of their individuals and their teams. At the same time, what we discussed just before about the pressure and the time constraint and the results that needs to be made, I am also completely mindful that that that it's it's if not in conflict, it's definitely challenge in order for how you should have time to do all of these things and and place that focus, but it definitely pays off.

Alex Abbott [00:19:58]:

Yeah. It reminds me, it reminds me really of the world that that Adam and I live in right we we are we advocate social selling as as a method we have been working together on this for several years. Adam, many more years than I. We now have the data to back up this approach, that it works. It works in different, with different go to market sales strategies. Yet many companies that we talk to really struggle to make the full shift from you know. Cohort based training to operationalizing social selling. Why why do you think that is?

Sara Eklund [00:20:46]:

No. I think the simple answer probably is that cohort based training is a far more simplified way of executing. It's a it's a one to many approach, to to say it short. And I think the companies haven't yet completely taken the leap towards personalized coaching, personalized training, and personalized performance optimization, not because it's not possible, but because the the the possibility of having oversight has not yet been created in the companies. I think it's more like a structural problem than a problem of actual willingness in in that sense. And hence, as an as an operations professional, I'm super inspired by the possibilities that are, like, uncovered in in all of this. How can you build an operational fiber in your company that allows you to be personalized, not only towards your customers, but also towards your teams and your individuals alike? And and I think the the the topic around social selling and and social branding is a very, very good example here because as we know, it's the person and the individuals representing a company that's really what brings the interest and brings those customer relationships to par.

Adam Gray [00:22:06]:

So so is it oversight? And I'm I'm gonna be controversial here. Or is it just laziness on behalf of the the company? Because what we see and and this is not about social selling, but it is about go to market strategies. What what we see is organizations looking for shortcuts. Now when you're selling anything which is complex and strategic and high value, the most important thing is that I have a relationship with you, the buyer. And, what we know from our own interaction when we're spending our own money on things is that, there's a 1000000 providers in the marketplace. They all look the same to me. Why am I gonna listen to you? Why am I gonna read your your brochure, in quotes? Well, I'm gonna read your brochure because I know you and like you. Why am I gonna believe what your brochure says? Because I like you and trust you.

Adam Gray [00:23:06]:

So the key is to unlock relationship and trust between the buyer and this and the seller. However, what we see is that technology is driving an ever larger wedge between these two things. The idea that I will use AI or automation to farm people. I I, as a buyer, do not want to be farmed by you, the seller. What I want is to be engaged and spoken to like a person by you, the seller. Yet businesses have so so many instances where this is not even on their radar because they're trying to add that scale. So so how do we reconcile these two things? We need to have that hyper personalized me to you relationship. Mhmm.

Adam Gray [00:23:51]:

But it's a business. It's got lots of customers. So how do we balance these two things in the real world?

Sara Eklund [00:23:57]:

Absolutely. I think what technology and and all types of revenue intelligence systems provide today is a possibility of automating a good deal of transactional tasks and a good deal of, like, in the now analytical tasks as well. And that, of course, gives an extra layer of productivity into the, as you said, the farming. I I would maybe refrain from using using that term, but I think it's a good one to to really really, like, point it out what it is. Because in in the end, when it comes to using these these data analytical tools and and transactionally automating tools, that gives a possibility of seeing what the portfolio entails, what is going on, what are the next best actions, what are the risks, what are the potentials, and what what is the mix that we need to harness. And ideally, that means that it leaves more space and time for the individual to do the relationship work, to keep on strong and high quality dialogues, do discovery, and and discuss about how to drive value in the best possible way. And and I I when when people ask me, I say that I'm a highly AI positive executive and and individual because I definitely believe in the extra umth that it creates in order for us to be really human with other humans. Yeah.

Alex Abbott [00:25:27]:

I think I think we we've come to time now, Sarah. We're gonna have to wrap things up. This has been fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. How can how can our audience learn more about your work and stay connected with you, especially with the work that you're doing around your leadership role and diamantin if I pronounce that correctly and your work with startups.

Sara Eklund [00:25:54]:

Mhmm. Absolutely. No. So as as you say, I lead a leadership organization in Finland called Diamanten. The diamond is is the the translation. And, we work especially with female leaders and and empowering female leaders both for for their career progression, as well as also on a scale looking at how we can create an aggregated diversity in the leadership ranges across society. And, I I'm quite active on social media about these topics and also quite active in in speaking about these things, in in media as well as in in social media in general. So please connect with me, and I'm happy to to continue the dialogue because we are really keen and interested in this topic, not only in the Nordic context, but really also in the global one.

Sara Eklund [00:26:41]:

Relating to start ups, I have currently the joy of being a cofounder and a fractional COO at at the start up, and and I'm really excited about about this journey. And this is actually the 4th career that I was mentioning in the beginning. And, one of the the exciting dimensions also with this, is not only to build something from from the from the start and the get go, but also be able to contribute to being one of one of many, but I hopefully also a growing amount of of women in this space because we still know that the start up space is quite homogeneous in in many ways, and there is a lot to be done in order to show that this is a really exciting and possible route for everyone who likes.

Alex Abbott [00:27:26]:

Fantastic. Fantastic. Look. I wish you every success this career and your 4th career. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, Adam. Until next time on sales TV. Have a great week.

Sara Eklund [00:27:40]:

Thank you.

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