 Meet the head of Bandalier’s Binghamton officeOriginally from Connecticut, Matt moved to Binghamton, NY at the age of 5. He joins us from Modern Marketing Concepts, where he started as an inside sales representative and grew into a Sales Director position overseeing a sales floor of 20 sales managers and over 200 sales representatives. In Matt’s last role as Director of Multichannel Execution, he managed a team of designers, copywriters and creatives along with the sales floor. He was responsible for all sales and marketing channels, including launching new initiatives with video, digital, email and inbound lead generation. Last November, Matt joined Bandalier to lead its Binghamton office.
Tell us about a day in your life. “The primary things I’m doing right now involve recruiting which takes a huge chunk of time working through resumes, phone screenings and in person interviews. I’ve been working with new hires to take them through the sales training process as well as ensuring that client deliverables are met. Finally, I am also doing some direct work for our clients.” Why did you get into sales? “I was introduced to sales as a member of the customer service team at Jim’s Formal Wear. We would make outbound sales calls to sell packages to independently owned bridal shops and compete with David’s Bridal. There were 10 different centers in the company; I loved the work and especially loved doing sales. When a position opened up at the company for territory representative, I applied.” What is the best selling experience you have had? “One of my favorite experiences was working with Jim’s Formal Wear on a campaign with these marketing and online presence packages because I convinced an entire company to sign up for these accounts. Another great experience was only a couple years ago at my previous employer where I convinced a client to incorporate personalized videos into their e-mail campaigns. I showed the manager a cheap version and he ended up loving the concept and incorporating it into their outreach." What is something that you taught yourself recently? “I don’t know if this what I taught myself or what I have learned but Bandalier’s process for personalizing emails is a really interesting way to bolster response rates. I haven’t used this technique before. This process of combining a pre-set template with a personalization has been very interesting to learn.” Describe a time that someone successfully sold something to you. “I was an iPhone guy and a representative at the Verizon store recently sold me on an Android. He really sold me on it just by being so honest and excited. He couldn’t even articulate why he loved it. He kept saying ‘It’s just an amazing phone’ and ‘I can’t even pick one thing’. He was just so excited because he was so proud to be an owner of the phone.” What is your favorite way to grab someone on a call? “I would say using a referral statement. Just grabbing someone's name at the company is one of my sneaky ways to get their attention. Complementary statements go a long way as well. It makes it sound like we have reached out to them for a specific reason.” What has been your favorite thing to sell? “Bandalier itself. The fact that we are helping grow startups using knowledge that they wouldn’t normally have access to makes it really easy to sell. These startups are really good at a specific thing but they don’t have the knowledge or expertise on how to grow their sales and that is where Bandalier comes in. We’re helping those startups that have the perfect product at the perfect time.” What motivates you? “A sense of accomplishment. When I work on things, even on my own time, it is so motivating to feel a sense of accomplishment.” What is the quote you live by? “We had a lunch recently with some clients and we talked about whether we were the kinds of people that loved to win or hated to lose. This quote came across my LinkedIn feed and I felt it was super relevant. ‘My goal is not to be better than anyone else, but to be better than I used to be’ - Wayne Dyer" What makes you excited about Bandalier? “I think the opportunity to build a company from the ground up. I’ve always liked growing people in professional development, to be able to give some of our employees traits from sales training that help them in their everyday life, even if they don’t end up staying with the company.” Looking forward 5 years from now, where do you see yourself? “Hopefully, running Bandalier as a huge organization, with functions that extend beyond just customer service and sales. I would love to have an office in another college town using talented employees to get work done for tech companies."
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There’s a scene in Moneyball that we refer to when we’re interviewing candidates for our sales roles. Billy Beane, the data-driven General Manager of the Oakland Athletics baseball team, is sitting at a table surrounded by lots of old-school baseball scouts. The scouts are talking about players applying the same heuristics they’d been using for years. “He’s an athlete - big, fast, talented.” “A lot of pop coming off the bat.” Billy’s exasperation in this scene matches ours with the all-too-typical sales hiring process. Despite the opportunity to collect vast amounts of data on performance, leading sales organizations still rely on old-school heuristics to hire their teams. “He’s got a great voice.” “Strong handshake.” “Went to a terrific school.” At Bandalier, we’re taking a new approach. Similar to baseball, the volume of performance metrics available in sales is almost infinite. We want to isolate the attitudes and aptitudes that wind up being predictive of a successful career in sales roles. Our experience thus far has been that while some of these traits are obvious, others are much harder to glean and require very methodical questioning. Over time, we are collecting the data to support or discount hypotheses - about behaviors indicative of natural grit, the value of past experience, and how best to assess responsiveness to feedback, among other traits - and adjusting our approach as we learn. Our belief is that by utilizing an analytical hiring approach, we can unlock talent in places many customer-facing organizations would never think to hire and with people they wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. And in doing so, we’ll build a new American workplace that is characterized by more meritocratic and thoughtful hiring. For more on analytical hiring in sales, check out Mark Roberge's Sales Acceleration Formula. |