Episode description

Sean Kester from SalesLoft joined us in the Bowery Capital studio this week to walk us through his strategy for “Aligning Sales Teams Through SLAs.” The modern startup sales team includes a variety of roles, each of which has a different but critical part to play in the sales process. And this doesn’t just include core members of the sales team like Account Executives and SDRs. It’s also critical that Marketing and even Customer Success are aligned with sales and understand their responsibilities. Without extremely clear delineation of exactly who owned which parts of the process when, a sales team can become confused, lose deals from a pure lack of communication, and in the worst of cases, turn into a blame-game where different roles become adversarial. The failure to align sales and supporting teams with a clear process, left long enough, can destroy a startup’s culture. This is where the Service-Level Agreement (SLA) can work wonders. Though it doesn’t have to be long or even over-complicated, a well-structured SLA is a core document that makes clear exactly who owns what in a process. A good SLA determines how a team works together and, as we talk about in today’s podcast, can ensure a healthy and collaborative startup sales culture.