SalesTechStar Interview with Katie Layng, Vice President of Sales, Demandbase

The sales industry, is constantly evolving and this has changed how reps sell and also how sales leaders choose to dovetail their strategies. Catch this complete interview where Katie Layng, VP of Sales at Demandbase shares her key observations.

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Hi Katie, can you tell us a little about yourself? How has your journey in B2B/Tech sales been so far – at DemandBase currently, what’s a typical day in sales like?

My career began 15 years ago, working in the advertising agency world and supporting B2C brands. During this time, I was added to my first-ever B2B account, NetApp, and knew that the B2B world was for me. Following my ad agency stint, I joined IDG selling print ads, custom content, and digital display ad products to B2B brands. It was at IDG, where I was introduced to the Madison Logic team who lured me away from publishing and I joined their organization as the first display advertising sales rep. Then, Demandbase came calling. Gabe Rogol, who was our SVP sales at the time, brought me over to Demandbase, and I became the first ad-targeting sales rep for the company. Fast forward to today, I lead the mid-market sales team selling our SaaS-based ABM platform to the world’s leading B2B brands.

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My typical day includes a slew of meetings with key stakeholders across the Demandbase organization to ensure we are all aligned on business goals and forecasts and stay on top of initiatives each team has in progress. Furthermore, I hold 1:1’s with my RVP’s, run my recurring All-Hands team meeting where we review forecasts, share best practices, product updates, etc. I’ll meet with other executives from our customer base to discuss various topics like Sales/Marketing alignment, Ad Strategy, or Territory planning in an ABM world. All of these meetings ensure that the entire Demandbase organization is completely aligned and collaborating to achieve core business goals.

How have you seen Sales evolve in the B2B/Tech marketplace over the years? What are some of the most crucial skills that today’s salesperson needs more of, given their exposure to martech/salestech and the need to use these tools wisely?

The sales industry, especially in B2B tech, is in constant evolution mode, and over the past decade-plus, there have been numerous shifts that have transformed the way reps sell and pushed them to expand their skills. I’ll share a couple of examples of some of the significant trends and abilities today’s sales reps need to recognize and have at their disposal.

When I started in B2B sales, the typical prospecting strategy was a mass outreach approach to your buyer’s titles, regardless of the account, with little personalization. Today, it is critical for every sales rep to look at their prospect list through the lens of an account to understand what criteria determines a high value account. From there, develop a deep understanding of the prospect’s business and create tailored messaging that will resonate with them at each stage of the sales cycle. This is a significant shift that’s been happening over the past five years, and it makes perfect sense. Businesses want vendors to help them understand the value proposition of their products through personalized communications. My team works very closely with our marketing colleagues on messaging that will help them connect with customers and prospects.

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When it comes to having the right tools, sales reps need to have a suite of solutions that can help them sift through the noise and news to identify prospects. Once those prospects are identified, leverage tools to help them craft the right messaging that speaks to their business needs.

Now, more than ever, sales and marketing alignment is critical. We see our customers, across industries, recognize that agreement must be in place first before moving forward with goal setting and ultimately execution. 

How have you seen (can you share examples) leading brands successfully use and implement their sales tech/ martech to optimize outcomes and results in the recent past? What key learnings from these examples would you say are critical for every salesperson to grow from?

Zoom, the leader in video and web conferencing, is best in class in terms of how their sales and marketing teams work together to generate pipeline. They’ve created a methodological approach where they use Demandbase data, in addition to other first-party intel, to prioritize their accounts. Then they leverage those same intent signals as ammo to construct a meaningful, personalized message to send to their key prospects. Lastly, they measure response rates to better understand how to optimize for the next phase. They’re continually measuring what’s working or not working, providing marketing with feedback, two critical exercises every sales rep should practice, and a contributing factor to why Zoom is seeing a 4x return with these programs.

In your experience in technology sales – you must have experienced the often-talked-about friction between marketing and sales: what would your top 5 tips be to help reduce this?

Every B2B sales rep and marketer have or are currently dealing with cross-team friction, and if they say they don’t, that’s a lie. In my experience, I’ve dealt with this friction many times, and here are a few tips I’ve found to be valuable:

• Communication and trust are two key elements in having a successful partnership. Trust is built organically over time. But, communication is something that you can, and should, facilitate by way of 1:1’s and sales + marketing joint meetings.
• Have a clear understanding of how your marketing counterparts are measured or paid, so you know what’s driving their behavior. Now is an excellent time to level set and make sure marketing’s goals align with sales and vice versa, and that they’re not competing with or contradicting each other. Agree and commit.
• Recognize marketing as your partner in driving growth, and it’s in your best interest to collaborate. Remember, marketing’s efforts can help identify leads, build awareness, craft messaging for you (sales reps) to leverage for your communications throughout the sales cycle, and more. Break down the barriers and partner with your marketing colleagues to exceed growth expectations.
• Hold weekly meetings where sales and marketing review performance and progress to date for your shared goals (e.g., pipeline generation), share feedback on what’s working well, and what needs improvement.

At the end of the day, don’t get hung up on who gets the credit, recognize this is a team effort, and sales’ success is marketing’s success.

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How, according to you, will new innovations in technology sales and salestech change the way sales functions in the future?

Overall, I think the emergence of AI-based tools has and will continue to change our day-to-day operations drastically. AE’s and SDR’s are expected to hit high activity goals to meet their targets while still being thoughtful and personalized in their outreach. There’s only so much time in the day, so it’s crucial they have a suite of solutions that can help them sift through the noise and news to identify prospects. Once those prospects are identified, leverage tools to help them craft the right messaging that speaks to their business needs.

What, according to you, are the top 5 common mistakes you would tell sales teams to ensure they avoid when implementing/setting up their first ABM campaign/strategy?

When it comes to developing your ABM strategy, there are many traps sales teams need to avoid. Here are five tips for fellow salespeople to follow when getting started with ABM:

• First, don’t forget to create a relevant Target Account List, using all the tools available (technographics, firmographics, real-time intent, etc.) to prioritize and segment your account list, based on the specific campaign message.
• Second, remember to work closely with your SDR and Marketing counterparts to map out a strategy. What is the campaign goal? Which channels will we be driving? What will the messaging be? What is the call to action?
• Third, understand the key personas (within Key accounts) you’re selling to, from decision-making executives to practitioner stakeholders, and do your homework to understand the prospects’ business so you can tailor the messaging. Once you have that information at your fingertips, it helps to create personalized, relevant messaging to connect with said stakeholders.
• Fourth, have a coordinated approach with your SDR on outreach to determine who will reach out to who, and with what message.
• Fifth, take a hard look at measuring your efforts throughout the sales cycle. You need to understand what worked well to double-down and what to scrap, to ensure you and your team are creating connections with prospects and customers while driving growth.

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As VP of Sales, what are some of the top 5 best practices you follow to drive your team towards continued growth/success?

Great question! Here are five best practices that my team and I follow closely to us exceed our growth goals:

• (1) Account planning – clearly define your TAM, your sales goals, and create a thoughtful plan – both short term (more tactical) and long term (more strategic) to map out how you’ll hit/surpass your quota.

• (2) Create a concise elevator pitch that is authentic to you, and that demonstrates the “why.”

• (3) In that same vein, understand your product and demonstrate the value proposition of the product to your customers and prospects. If you don’t know how your products work (at a high-level) and cannot clearly articulate their business value to prospects and customers, you have set yourself up for failure.

• (4) Have a deep understanding of your industry’s competitive landscape. You must know what your competition is up to and to be able to clearly explain to prospects and customers the differentiating factors of your solutions compared to the rest of the ecosystem.

• (5) Tight cross-department alignment with SDR, SE, FIeld Marketing, CSM counterparts so you can leverage your resources most effectively. ABM is a team sport, and no deal is successfully closed solo.

We’d love to know a little about your future plans and a few tips/thoughts to share with marketing and sales leaders who are currently struggling through the (pandemic) crisis.

Every message should be one of solidarity, support no matter if it’s prospects, customers. Be smart about your approach and be human. Lead with empathy, understanding and humanize the message/outreach. Our teams (at Demandbase) are focusing on the things we can control and put our best foot forward to achieve our goals. We are all living in a challenging and highly emotional time, but this is the time for sales reps to stay focused, celebrate every win, take the time to hone and expand your skillsets, and lean on each other. If we can do that, we’ll come out on the other side in a better position.