SalesTechStar Interview with Adam Steinhaus, Head of Sales at Boosted.ai

Adam Steinhaus, Head of Sales at Boosted.ai chats about a few top evolving B2B sales trends:

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Welcome to this SalesTechStar chat Adam, tell us about yourself, what inspires you about being in Sales and as Boosted.ai’s new Head of Sales, what are you most looking forward to?

I am lucky to have been in the fintech industry for over 15 years, and over that time have become particularly immersed in front office technology. Being in sales inspires me because there are always new challenges to selling a product. As Head of Sales at Boosted.ai, I am most looking forward to working with such a talented and experienced team of other fintech leaders. The team at Boosted.ai has developed a game-changing platform that will revolutionize investment management through artificial intelligence.

In what ways do you feel sales leaders can truly make a difference to core sales processes and sales team outputs – a few focus areas and improvement areas that should be the daily responsibility of sales leaders in your view?

I think sales leaders can help their teams reach their goals by getting out of their way. Many new leaders immediately come in and share their entrenched points of view or methods – I like to talk to sales teams and find out how it works for the people on the ground first. This helps me determine how I can help, whether that’s removing blockages, pushing for budgets, or otherwise empowering teams to perform at their best.

Read More: Adam Steinhaus Joins Boosted.Ai As Head Of Sales

Take us through some of the top sales strategies and salestech that you’ve often used to drive your own sales processes and ROI in your sales roles over the years?

Throughout my career, I have found that data integrity and reliability are critical in realizing your sales strategy. Being able to leverage your CRM by building workflows to provide predictive analytics allows you to be proactive instead of reactive. While it may take significant time and effort to initially implement these tools, the ROI is significant. Knowing your clients and providing transparency across your firm ensures you are properly aligned across your sales organization, while also saving time along the way.

If you could change 05 things about B2B sales, what would they be?

1. Thinking every B2B sales operation is the same – each business has individual personas and each organization may require different ways of thinking. There is no one size fits all! 
2. Too many internal meetings –Although internal meetings can improve camaraderie and allow for more face-to-face interaction, there are a lot of meetings that may be easier/faster as an email or report. Reducing the time spent in meetings frees sales teams to work on their core businesses. 
3. ROI focus – all businesses have to care about ROI, but some things, like, say, networking, have a difficult to measure benefit. Focusing solely on ROI doesn’t allow for those intangible bonuses to sales activities. 
4. Not enough data – we live in an age where almost everything can be tracked. Having robust data capture systems and teams that can interpret it to create actionable insights for your sales organization is key to continued growth for most B2B organizations. 
5. Always-on hours – especially during the pandemic and working from home, many folks have adopted hours that would be considered “always-on”. It is rare when that 9:30 p.m. info request needs to be responded to immediately. The next morning is fine. I feel strongly that disconnecting from work helps recharge teams and provides a better work-life balance.
   

Can you share a few highlights on the type of salestech that you feel should be core to any B2B sales process and why? What should sales teams do before optimizing their salestech in your view?

A few obvious ones – a customer relationship management (CRM) software, a calendar system to reduce friction for clients booking meetings (like Calendly), and a payments system are some of the big ones that come to mind. Some others that can help as an organization grows are a screen recording software to share positive (or negative!) sales calls with your teams, data visualization tools (often included with your CRM) to highlight trends, and basic image editing software (like Canva) to ensure your work looks its best. 

Sales teams should have a holistic view of the problem they are trying to solve in adopting a piece of salestech before they start their search. They should also have an honest assessment of their needs – is the most expensive CRM necessary right now? Could you use it efficiently if it were? That said, look to the future because replacing a mediocre piece of salestech can become difficult once it’s entrenched in your sales teams processes.

Some last thoughts, takeaways, digital sales/customer communication tips and best practices before we wrap up!

I think a best practice – in a lot of ways – is to just always be learning. Keep an eye on new trends, new channels you can add, new ways of communicating with your clients, new verticals, and so on. Surprises can be fun when it comes to birthday parties, but less so when it comes to business. 

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