#124 The SDR DiscoCall Podcast - Emily Hunter

Hey, it's Neil from Happy Selling, and a quick note before the episode starts. Alongside hosting this show, I also sales coach SDRs, account executives, CSMs, and founders, especially those without enablement support or looking for that external voice. See it as sales therapy. Coaching with me is 100 % confidential, recorded, and bookable on demand via Zoom.

Session starts at £150 sterling with no long -term commitment. If you're curious, just email me at neil at happyselling .io and I'll send you the details, alright? Let's get into today's episode.

Hello subscribers, fans and watchers of the SDR Disco Call show. Welcome to another chapter. If you're joining us for the first time, what is this all about? So we work in the world of sales, predominantly tech sales.

And within that profession, there's an element called sales development. And the role of sales development is to speak to prospects or future customers, get them interested, and then hopefully come on board as future customers. What we like to do in this show is go around the world and find cool and interesting people to learn about their stories about how did they get into this profession? What insights can they share with us and what lessons were learned.

If you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, what would really help us out is by giving this episode a rating and sharing it with your peers, friends and families, or even pet dog, if that makes you happy. But also, if you're watching this on our YouTube channel, what would really help out with the algorithm is by giving a like, comment and subscribe down below, because this is telling the platform that this is good content and it will help us with searchability and discoverability and get more people tuned in.

So with this guest, what I'm really happy to say is their company prospected me and asked would I be interested in having this person. and on. So I want to give a massive shout out to Ellis for getting in touch and making this happen. Shouts out to you.

But guess without further ado, could you tell us who are you? Where are you based in the world? And who do you work for? Sure.

Thanks for having me on Neil. So my name is Emily. I am based in Belfast and I work for Syleads. Thank you very much.

And a super high level Emily, what does Syleads do? Sure. So we are a life science lead generation and market intelligence tool. I suppose most people working in sales might have heard of ZoomInfo.

So think of us as the ZoomInfo for science. That is a cool analogy. And that's a cool little picture like that. And typically, what would be the personas or prospects that you guys and girls get in touch with?

Sure. So we work predominantly with people that are selling to life science or material researchers. It can be biotech companies, companies making microscopes, things like that. And then the personas within those companies tends to be sales and marketing individuals.

And so they'll use our platform for prospecting to find their ideal targets. And then it's nice because we provide high level insights that they can then use to actually enrich their outreach to those individuals as well. Love that. Top, top dollar.

Love it. And a question that I love to ask all of our guests, Emily, is outside of the world of sales, what do you like to get up to? What are your passions, hobbies and interests? Because you've got a few, right?

A long, long list. Yeah, like I really enjoy, I've started Reformer Pilates actually in the past year, which I feel has gotten very popular now, but I do really enjoy that. I actually do it with some of my colleagues, which is really nice. I like trying new things.

You might see on my LinkedIn that I've done a bungee jump before. I love like I love traveling in general and I love I love food I love going to new restaurants trying new meals lots of different cuisine me and my boyfriend love to cook as well I love it thank you so much for sharing and yes we're going to get into the bungee in a moment but um obviously we connected a few weeks ago but there's been a major change in your life because boif is no longer boif what's what's the news Emily so yes I just recently got engaged there at the weekend thank you so much congratulations Thank you.

And I actually met my fiance and Zylides as well. Love that. Well, maybe there's a bit of a story to be told here, but thank you so much for sharing. So what we like to do at this point of the show is go to our guest's LinkedIn profile.

So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see this right now. But if you're listening to this on the podcast, what you can do is go to the episode show notes and you can actually see Emily's LinkedIn profile. So if anybody... out there wants to connect to learn more about the topics we've discussed today or you want to pick her brain on anything we've discussed feel free to connect and reach out to emily but emily as we can see on your linkedin there is a cool uh banner that you've got of you bungee jumping which is freaking awesome but what we can actually see in your about section that you've had the opportunity to wear many hats within the company at silades and we're definitely going to be diving into that You've been a hell of a way to a lot of traveling and around a lot of different countries around the globe.

So we want to learn more about that. But if we look at your career, what we can see is that you've had the experience of working as a marketing comms intern at HC Paris. You've worked at Randox and I'm really familiar with those people as well from back in the days of pandemic. So we're going into that in a moment as well.

But you've had the opportunity of working at Size Leads for pretty much around five years, but you've worked in different roles and experiences, and you've come into becoming an account manager. And this is one of the reasons why I wanted to bring you on board, because you've lived that sales development life, but you've gone through different hats. And I think what's really interesting for our listeners out there is to see different career paths, how that can come about, and obviously what else is out there.

But Emily, I'd love to know in your own words, starting way back in the day in Paris, like walk us through the journey of how did Emily Hunter get to where she is today? So it was kind of like Emily in Paris? Yeah. So, yeah, well, I studied international business in French at university.

So with that, I had the opportunity then to do a placement year in France, which was sort of what drew me to the course, to be honest, as well. At the time, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I thought business would probably be quite useful in general as well and open up the doors to lots of different things. But Paris was great.

I didn't learn an awful lot of French, unfortunately. My line manager was from Grimsby and my boss was from Belfast. And we had a lot of students from Queen's University where I studied went over there as well. So I spent a lot of time with people from Northern Ireland.

But it was still a really great experience. I got to do quite a lot of different things. I did a bit of marketing. I did a little bit of events.

And just in general, living in Paris was great. I went to university in Belfast, so I'd never really been away from home for any length of time. So to do that for a year, sort of put yourself out of your comfort zone, live in a different country where you don't, you know, the language isn't your first language. It was great.

And then we were able to do a lot of traveling from there as well because, you know, we could just hop on a train and get to Spain or Germany and places like that too. It really was a fantastic year. I loved it. I love that.

So obviously I want to talk about the journey as to what happened after that, but I just wanted to pause on, you know, that point of the early days, right? So as you said, you, uh, you're at university, um, and you had the opportunity to travel to another country where, you know, English wasn't the first language. It was obviously French. Um, but there was this bit where you said, um, you might as well do some business cause it could be helpful and could open doors.

So I've had a lot of people and we do have a lot of listeners that are potentially in university right now. And they're thinking about those future careers and they don't know how it's going to pan out. But when you're saying, you know, business, it could potentially open up doors. What was the thinking behind that?

And at that age, like what was going through young Emily's mind of the potential future? Sure. Well, at that age, I still didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. I didn't think it would be sales, but here we are now.

But I knew business would encompass lots of different things that I could learn. You know, I knew there was going to be modules on finance and economics and international business. And again, I was really, really interested in that placement aspect to, you know, from, I guess, an employability perspective. I thought that would be really good to have.

And, you know, studying the language as well, even though my level of French. is no better now as it was probably 10, 15 years ago. You know, again, I thought that would be really useful to do too. Okay, thank you for sharing.

And is there any sort of advice that you would give to those people that are on the cusp of, you know, thinking about future options? Because like we said, we don't really know what we want to do. And I think it's okay to say that it's all right to be in that space. But if there's somebody listening now who's like worrying about it and having a bit of anxiety, what advice would you give to them?

Do something you enjoy. Do something you love. Because, you know, university, you're there three, four, five years, maybe more, potentially, depending on what you're studying. And if it's something you hate, it's going to feel like a lifetime.

You know, do something that you're passionate about, which I know at 18 can be hard to know, but you don't necessarily need to go into a career with that degree. Like I work with lots of salespeople that have degrees in psychology or geography or maths. You know, there's so many options out there. Just study something that you like, something you enjoy.

Top, top advice. Thank you very much for sharing. And coming to... emily in paris right what was that life so you've you've got this person from belfast that's going into a new country you've never traveled before what was that experience like and again what was going through your mind like oh my god i'm in another country this is completely what how did that feel I really loved it.

I have to say, I really took to it like a duck to water, to be honest. Now, it did make it easier that I was with people from home as well. So we had our home away from home and we were quite lucky. We actually were able to stay on campus as well at the university.

So I never really had that difficulty of trying to get accommodation sorted or anything like that. We did have, we thankfully had a lot of that stuff sorted for us, but I loved it. Like I am quite a bit of an adventurer, you know, I've gone traveling then after university. city too that's where the bungee jump uh photo comes into play um so I just love being in new places and trying new things and you know going out at the weekends exploring and getting to you know just go to the Eiffel Tower on a random Saturday or go to Disneyland Paris because we can sort of thing oh it was great you're somebody that likes to travel go to new places and new people where do you feel that stems from that adventure side of you Emma Yeah, I guess my parents, like they always encouraged us to try new things.

We would have gone on, you know, but we were lucky and fortunate enough to be able to travel as kids and go on family holidays and things like that. And so I guess I've always had quite an open mind when it comes to traveling. Living in Belfast, like Northern Ireland's quite a small city, small country, and it can feel a little bit. suffocating sometimes in a way too you know and there's so much more out there to go and explore and yeah like coming from quite a small town like i'm not actually from belfast i'm from outside of belfast where everybody knows everybody it's nice to to get away and see those sort of bigger sites thank you for sure and yeah i've been to belfast i remember i think i went last year and i went came to george best airport and i went to go i was training a company called kanos And I remember because I've been to Dublin before and when I got at Dublin airport and then got to a hotel, it was like a 30 minute ride.

But I remember getting at George Best airport, getting into the taxi and literally like within 10 minutes, we were in the city center at the hotel. And I was like, are we here already? so in terms of like size yeah i kind of feel that vibe but then the question begs if you've come from somewhere where people know each other and it's relatively small right and you're just on the outskirts of belfast right what did it feel like being in a bigger country where there's all this massive space and all these different people how did that feel to you somebody coming into into that space it's a really good way to push yourself out of your comfort zone and sort of like get comfortable being uncomfortable as well you know and having to have the confidence to, you know, do a bit more networking, go up to people that you don't know, try and converse in a different language as well.

And I think like that sort of experience has also then helped me in my career as well, because, you know, I'm happier to take risks and things like that. I'm not as scared of rejection, I suppose now as well, because I had the confidence from that experience to put myself out of my comfort zone. I love that. And I can resonate with it in terms of like, that was one of the reasons that I got into sales because I wanted to travel.

I wanted to get out of my hometown because I found it kind of boring, but going to places like the States or going to Germany or going to Paris. I remember my first tech job when we launched our Paris satellite office, we got to travel out there, but I found those things so exciting and a little bit nerve wracking as well. But, you know, going into a completely new place because of your job. and meeting new people different cultures I freaking loved it and compared to my friends I don't really go on holiday I don't really take holidays but the reason why I love my sales job was I got to travel and for me that was kind of like a little break and a trip because you're going off to another country but you're still doing what you love right and yes you know it helps you with confidence meeting new people traveling trying to figure out the metro and getting from point a to point b um i freaking love it and with what i do today anytime somebody says neil can you do this face to face i'm like hell yeah i'd love to come i'd love to travel and go to different places but coming back to yourself um when looking at your linkedin there was a logo that i recognized for for for various reasons but it was randox and to kind of set the scene a little bit when the pandemic happened i remember there was a lot of like testing going on And that was the logo I saw.

So what's the story of you joining Randox and what was that like? So, yeah, I joined Randox after I graduated. I took a year out and I went traveling and, you know, I had a year of fun, really. And I did really enjoy myself.

And then Randox was my first job outside of after I'd graduated. And so I joined as a customer relationship executive and that would have been in September 2019. And I did love it. Like I had a great team.

I'm still really friendly with my colleagues. I'm actually seeing one of the girls tonight. We're going out for dinner. You know, we got on really, really well.

But then, yeah, the pandemic hit March 2020 and our job roles all really changed overnight. I was actually doing a lot of the reporting of the COVID results. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was long hours.

It was hard shifts. And at that point, I quit. Wow. Really, it became very, like, I find it quite overwhelming.

It wasn't aligned with what I wanted to do at all. And again, you know, it was just the circumstances. Unfortunately, it was COVID. Everything had changed.

That was sort of what they were focusing on then was the development, obviously, of those diagnostic kits. Yeah. And for me, I just sort of had to take a step back and say, look, this isn't what I want to do. This doesn't align with the career that I envisioned for myself.

It was starting to take a toll on both my mental and physical health, to be honest, as well, because we were working really long shifts. Now, I was fortunate I was still living with my parents at the time. I didn't really have as many responsibilities. So I was lucky that I could walk away from that and sort of take some time to myself to think, right, what do I want to do now?

And then fortunately, like a month later, I got the job with Sileads and I've been here ever since. I love that. That's beautiful. And I'm curious to know, because like we have this Emily that has graduated.

She's thinking like business is something that could definitely help her out. She joins a company where she's enjoying the culture. She's making friends there. And then the world changes and it goes into this pandemic.

And it's the pandemic changed a lot of our lives. And it was different for all of us, myself included. But, you know, for a lot of us, we kind of thought, is this the new? world has the world ended and there was a lot of doubt and i could imagine with the amount of things that were happening with covid the amount of tests and like diagnostics and reports you had to be running but i can only imagine well i can't imagine how would a young person that's on the cusp of the beginning of their career the world's changing you're not doing what you want to do what you said like it affected mental health you know physically as well like what was going through your mind and what did you think was going to happen to the world good question Yeah, it was.

It was just really, really tough, I guess. Like even looking back now, it sort of feels like a fever dream that COVID didn't really happen. Yeah, it did take a toll on my mental health, I suppose too. Like I was still going out to the office, fortunately.

So I did have still, I still had a little bit of social interaction. But it wasn't, you know, for me as my first job as well. This wasn't what I envisioned, you know, going to the office and socializing with your colleagues and the type of work that I thought it was going to be. And it did, you know, it's made me thicker skinned, I suppose, for that as well.

And I know I'm more adaptable now too from that. But yeah, it was definitely tough when you sort of have an idea in your head of how you think. something's going to go. And then when it doesn't go that way, it is quite disappointing.

It's hard to wrap your head around that, I suppose. 100%, 100%. And I think, again, the way that you put it, like a fever dream, that's so true. Because I think the way the world's going now, we forget at this one point that the world stopped and everybody came together.

But we all had to adapt, as you said, because pre -pandemic, I was a sales trainer that went to go deliver workshops in people's offices. Couldn't do that anymore. And I had to adapt and become an online business. And that's when Happy Selling fully became remote.

I launched a podcast, you know, five years later, we're here. But I think, you know, it was, it makes you tough skinned. It makes you more adaptable. So sometimes when the world's going to pot, you don't worry as much, but you know that you need to do things and take action to make change.

And, you know, you did a beautiful thing of taking a step back and just saying, this isn't what I want to do. And luckily you had mom and dad and you're able to stay there. But then, you know, like a month later. You then found PsyLeads.

So tell us, what was the story of joining PsyLeads and how did you get to where you are today as an account manager? So when I joined, we were a company of about 20 people. I was the only inside sales stroke SDR at the time as well. And now five years later, we're almost at 100 employees.

Like our sales team's grown to probably 40 or 50 employees. So it's been really nice to watch that transition in the company. And I myself have transitioned then too. Yeah, I started in the inside sales team.

I did all the prospecting. Back then we did a lot. We didn't cold call as much, but we did a lot on LinkedIn. and sending emails and things like that.

And then from that, I sort of transitioned into doing more of a partnership role. So looking at other third parties that we could collaborate with. And then from that, I moved into the sales manager role. And then around last, I think it was last summer, then I moved to account management instead, which has definitely been my favorite job so far.

I love being part of the account management team. I just love working with our customers. I love it. So just to confirm, so you kind of started off, like you said, inside sales, so like doing the SDR piece, right?

You then transitioned into partnerships. You've then gone into leadership and then you've gone into account management. So that's, you know, like with a lot of our listeners, typically they want to go SGO and then just go straight to AE life and then maybe go to, to like maybe leadership or thereafter. But you've taken quite a lot of different steps and I can assume there were different nuances.

So could you help us break down as to. What was firstly, what was like partnership life like? What was that life? What were you doing?

And then I'd love to know, like, what was it like being, you know, European sales manager? And then I'd love to end with, well, why is it that you love being an account manager? Could you like take us, what was the life of partnerships like? Sure.

Working for a startup, I guess these roles sort of come up ad hoc in a way too. So it was like my boss noticed this sort of opportunity, I guess. And then I was lucky enough that she asked me, she was like, look, I think this could be something cool that you could head up. would you like to do it I thought yeah of course you know I don't necessarily want to be an SDR all my life so I'll give this a go too I'm never gonna I'll never say no dead opportunity I'll always try it and if it doesn't work out it doesn't work out um and I really enjoyed that you know that was trying to fight to forge these partnerships with as I said third -party companies sort of there's like an invest NI type partnership that we would have over in the States.

So setting up those calls, organizing webinars, then trying to attract customers through the partnerships and things like that. And I really enjoyed that. It sort of appealed to, I guess, like my, I'm quite an organized person. I love putting that sort of stuff together.

So it appealed in that way. And then from the people point of view too, you know, I've always liked. chatting to people and and you know building rapport and I guess that sort of then fed naturally then when the the suppose well more of a business development sales we call it sales manager it's not necessarily leadership but the sales role came up um and I went for it then again it was my boss sort of was like look I think this is something you would be good at and I sort of shadowed her for quite a bit and then went off on my own and was doing my own demos The only thing I didn't like with sales is I find it quite transactional.

And I hate building a rapport with someone to then, you know, once they buy, that's it. It's done. You know, you never really speak to them again. And I also, again, I find it was starting to take a toll on my mental health because I was taking it quite personally.

You know, I associated that target and that number with my worth almost in a way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And the months that I wasn't hitting target, it was really starting to get me down and I was taking it personally. And then from that, the account management role came up and I chatted to my manager and I said, look, I think I would prefer to do this instead.

And it actually worked quite nicely because a lot of my customers were people I had sold to. So, you know, it was like that sort of, you know, they knew me already. So I had those relationships forged. Or, you know, I get the opportunity to attend quite a lot of conferences and trade shows with work.

So I maybe would have met them in the past at an event as well. So I've had all those relationships built and I still get a little bit of sales because obviously we're trying to upsell them and grow the account. But I like that I have that existing relationship there already with them. It's not as transactional as what direct sales would be.

I love that. Thank you for sharing. And transactional, that's what resonated because I think when we spoke on our intro call a few weeks ago, we've had a very similar career path and trajectory, right? Because I found being an account executive where I just did the demos, sent out the sales orders, closed, and then move on to the next one in my pipe.

That was boring and transactional for me. Because I was really interested in knowing, did they like what they bought? Have they seen the value in what we've sold them? Are they enjoying the platform?

Are they using it? Are they adopting with it? And all those things. I'd always be speaking to my account management team.

They're like, Neil, piss off. You're the closer, you're the A. You don't need to be involved in this stuff. We'll look after the customer.

I'm like, I just want to know, are they happy with what they've done? And then obviously going into account management or customer success, as we called it, a lot of the customers, my portfolio, my book of business. or people that I sold to. Even funnily enough, I remember I had one company called High Force Hydraulic Tools.

I SDR'd them and booked the meeting. They didn't buy when I was an SDR, but a year later when I became account exec, I closed the deal. And then, you know, after I transitioned from AE to CS, I became their account manager. So I literally saw the lead from SDR Life all the way to account management.

But there is a common theme that I'm hearing here is like, you know, you wanted to go for these roles from partnership to sales manager, then to account management. Speaking to your boss and saying, they're thinking, I think you'd be good at this. And there was that common like kind of coach saying, do you want to take it to the next level? What was that relationship like with you and your boss?

And when she, or he brought these ideas to you, like what was, what was that like? It's really nice to be valued within the company, to be honest, and to have somebody see in you maybe something that you don't necessarily see in yourself. I'm a terrible one and it sounds really cliche for having imposter syndrome, you know, and not thinking that I'm good enough to do something or that I lack the experience. You know, when I became a sales manager, I was the youngest and the only female.

as well. You know, the men had 10 years more experience than me, but, you know, I was still able to do the same job as them. I was still closing the same deals. So it's really nice to have somebody that believes in you, I suppose, and that does push you for things that you might not necessarily put yourself up for as well.

I love that. Thank you. And you're right to quote Les Brown. Sometimes you have to believe the belief in others in you before your own.

kicks in right and having that person who sees that potential and I've been a manager where I've seen potential with my reps to either go into another role or perhaps another department but there is that element that you say with imposter syndrome where you kind of doubt yourself if you can do that but I think giving them the support helping them make that transition having those constant check -ins and also reminding them just look how far you've come right why couldn't you do that but taking that leap can be a little bit scary but as you said It's really good to have somebody see that value in you.

So again, if somebody is listening to this episode and their manager has recently come to them with like, hey, I think you'd be great for this role. But they're like, I don't know if I can do it. What advice would you give to that person when an idea is brought to them? I think sort of take a step back and, you know, they wouldn't come to you if they didn't think you were capable of doing it.

um yeah there it's a lot easier for other people to see things in you than it is for you maybe to see in yourself um take the leap if it doesn't work out at least you tried you know change is scary but not changing is scarier exactly like if you're still in the same place you are for a year from now then that can be you know it can be stagnant it can be boring but taking those leaps of growth but i love what you say is at least i'll give it a shot And if it doesn't work out, you know, there is always something else.

And I think in my young career, like when I got into sales, I'd always had this fear of, and I've said this in other episodes, I think in my twenties, the idea of just going and doing typical nine to five, coming home, putting my feet up on the sofa, eating dinner and just watching TV and just doing the same thing every day, that scared the hell out of me. So there was this. fear in me of a potential future that i didn't want so i said i have to take leaps to keep going and nowadays you know i still get scared when people present ideas or if i'm going to go launch something new like i've recently launched a free weekly zoom on a monday's call coach from call where any sales people can come in and just ask questions it's like free sales coaching but literally up until the day i was shitting bricks i was like i don't know if anyone's going to turn up i don't know if i'm going to be able to answer the questions but doing it people have come in they're getting value they say i want to come back next week i want to bring some other people and i was like yeah this is great but it's just the idea i don't want to just be doing the same thing day in day out so yeah i think give it a shot if it doesn't work out at least you know you've tried right but what i'd love to now kind of like dive into is this life of an account manager so For context, a lot of our listeners may still be in SDR life and some of them may think, all right, I'm going to go become an AE.

But some like myself may have thought, well, I wonder what that life is like. So what is the day to day of an account manager? How would you describe that, Emily? For us in Xyleads, it's quite a hybrid role.

We do both the growing of the account, so the identifying upsell opportunities, trying to get them maybe to add more users. We obviously deal with the retention, so making sure that they're renewing. We're a subscription -based service, so it operates on a 12 -month cycle, so making sure they're renewed. But a lot of the job is actually then coaching too.

Particularly for me, a lot of our customers, my customers, are all SMEs um and a lot of them you know are maybe one -man bands they don't really have a big sales and marketing team so we basically act as a consultant for them in a way you know not only do we train them on how to use our platform and how to get the most out of it but, you know, we can chat them through, right? I would recommend running this sort of campaign or send me your emails and I can make some tweaks to make sure, you know, your deliverability is better.

Recommending maybe additional tools that they can use alongside side leads, you know, something that they can use to send their emails and things like that. Doing some problem solving, I guess, for them as well, you know, where they come, look, this is what I want to do. How can you help me achieve that? And I really like that because no day is the same.

You know, and some of my customers have been using Xyleads for five years and don't need as much help. Or some of them have only signed up this week, you know, and they need a lot more training. But I like that variability in the role. And yeah, it does give me the best of both worlds where I have that sort of like customer relationship, sort of customer success aspect with a little bit of sales sprinkled in there too.

I love that. And it really does resonate with me because that was my life as a CSM when I was at a company, Showpad. So for context, we provided a sales enablement platform and we sold to sales and marketing. And you'd have sales leaders, marketing leaders that would then have their sales reps using the platform.

So easiest way to think about it was you have a PowerPoint presentation or a quote, you send it through Showpad, you could track what page the prospect was looking at or how long they were spending it. But you could also see, you know, what were the top sales reps presenting and how are they doing sales cycles so that everybody could do it. But my job as a CSM was handed over by, you know, the account executive. We'd set off a kickoff call.

So the kickoff call would be like, okay, let's understand what you've bought and why you've bought it. And then over the next 12 months, what is it that you want to achieve with your sales team? Like what's sales excellence for you? And similar to yourself, we had people that hadn't had any sort of sales enablement in the company.

So they didn't know a strategy or we had marketing not knowing what content was working really well. So as a consultant, you would share best practices of, well, what are top customers doing? And these are things you could do. And then we would set about a plan over the next four quarters as to what we're going to do together.

So it was kind of like a partnership. So my pitch to my customers when they were onboarded by me, Emily was like, I'm not the salesperson. but see me as like a PT in the sales gym. And my job is to help you see the ROI to your Showpad membership or subscription, right?

But the thing that I really loved was because I loved sales, I was helping other sales leaders with their sales strategy for the year, but also meeting their sales reps and training them on how to use the tool. So I can really relate with that, you know, that consultancy piece and then doing all those things and helping grow the account and then trying to upsell, get more people to buy the licenses. Freaking loved it. The only problem was with Showpad was I kept getting so many questions about, we love the platform, but how would you do this prospecting or how would you do social selling?

And I'd always say, Emily, I don't get paid for this. I'm here to train you about the platform. But it happened so many times that I thought I could do that. So that's how I launched Happy Selling eight years ago because it came off the back of it.

But I'd love to come back to, you know, there may be a listener right now thinking, I might want to do that. What's the first couple of months like when you became an account manager? What things did you have to learn? Because you said it was kind of a hybrid, but what was those learning blocks like for you?

So I guess like when I started, I did have the benefit that obviously I'd been with the company for so long as well. So the main thing when you come on board, especially in Xyleads, is obviously your product knowledge. So the first couple of months is really ramping up how much you know about the platform and how you can demonstrate that value to your customers as well. well for me a big thing too has been learning to listen more um and ask the right questions as well and i guess that does go hand in hand with sales too um i'm a terrible one for probably talking too much um so yeah learning how to ask the right questions because to be honest account management it does go hand in hand with sales like our onboarding calls are very much discovery calls as well yeah you know because but it's just sort of flipped more And, you know, how are you going to measure the success of the platform?

How are you tracking the leads that are coming, you know, from CyLeads to your CRM or whatever it is that they're using? What are your goals with using the platform? It's not necessarily that we're now trying to identify an issue and, you know, show how we can fill that issue. It's now how they're going to get success with the platform.

So, yeah, it's like the sales training definitely comes into play there too. A hundred percent. Like you said, our kickoff calls were discovery calls. It was an extension of, well, this is what you told the sales team.

Now we're really going to get under the hood of, well, how are we going to do this together? But another thing that I learned as a CSM was prospects didn't really trust the salespeople because obviously there's a commercial element to it. But what I found was as soon as the deal was closed and they signed the structure, sorry, the contract, they were more forthcoming with us CSM. So they really told us.

what the pains were they really told us why they wanted to buy um and i'd always say to a lot of sdrs you know a really good thing to do is when you join a company is go meet your account management or csm team and ask them like three questions like why do people buy from us what are the problems we really solve and why do people renew with us because that sort of information is what you can take to new prospects because another thing we used to say at showpad is You know, we're a SaaS platform, so software as a service.

We provide you the software, but it's the service you get with us. It's the insight, the consultancy, helping you guys grow. But getting that knowledge from the CS or account management, highly recommend all of our listeners. If you have a CS team or account management, go sit with them, learn with them.

Don't just see them as another department. But I'd also like to know, as an account manager, you also have to have tough conversations like renewals or when customers are not happy. objection handling etc like what are those conversations like and how do you manage those sort of things and i think like you just need to remember to be human you know in these sort of conversations like be personal and don't take what they're saying personal i suppose as well you know there's so many factors at play when people don't renew or they they don't sign up you know initially if you're on the sales side of things and a lot of the time it's outside of your control unfortunately so yeah like going in don't be don't be aggressive i suppose as well in these conversations you know they probably don't want to let you down as much as you don't want them to let you down sort of thing too And objective handling, it is a skill.

You know, I'm still learning every day how to handle different objections because you'll get lots of different stuff thrown at you as well. But again, I think that like adaptability sort of comes into it and not being afraid to have those difficult conversations. And the more you do it, the more you learn, obviously, as well. Like we all learn by doing.

A hundred percent. And you're right by having those hard conversations. Because I remember being like a CSM, you'd have, I'd have 40 accounts as my book of business. And there were some customers where adoption and usage is really low and we're coming very close to the renewal.

And you'd have to have a QBR with your customer and you have this fear in the head that they're going to turn around and say, we don't want to renew, right? Or they send you an email saying, Neil, this isn't working. We're not getting what the salesperson told us we were going to get. And a lot of the times as a CSM, I used to read the CRM notes that the account executives used to hand over.

I said, we don't do that. We don't sell that. Why have you told the customer that? And then you have to be the person to reset expectations, but also salvage the relationship.

But I remember many a time in my early days where Stein, who was my CS manager, when I'd come to him, I was like, bro, we've got this account, Collingwood Lighting, and they're a legacy customer. They've got a really small price. point that they bought showpad and our pricing has gone up we've got 20 30 users and i've got the renewal call and they're just not responding to my emails and calls and i'll be cacking pants of having this call with this customer but he would always like walk me through of like how to sell the value of how to bring it back as to why they bought but also how to navigate the conversation of by the way you're going to be paying more next on your renewal But then, you know, how do you have those conversations?

And then you'd have those customers where you'd really build a good relationship with them and they would come to you with every question or every product idea. And I remember the one conversation I used to hate having was product roadmap. Where are we going? Because with our product team, they would say, hey, this is going to be coming out.

And then you share it with your customer. And I said, so when is it coming out? We're like. Well, it's on the roadmap for maybe Q3 or Q4, but I can't tell you that we're going live because, but what we used to always have this pitch of was if you put in a support ticket that you really want this feature, then it pushes it for the product team to build it more.

But I think renewing customers is a hard conversation, right? It can be hard, especially if there's been low adoption and usage. But have you had any more sort of hairy moments where you don't know if the customer is going to... but they're giving you every reason why they shouldn't renew and you've had to like salvage it.

Have you ever had those? Trying to have those conversations as far in advance as possible really helps. You know, as you say, looking at their usage, seeing adoption across the team, sort of handling their expectations, but giving yourself plenty of time to do that. Like you don't want to be having these conversations two weeks before their renewal date.

You know, you want to be doing it three months in advance. where you can then give yourself enough time to okay take on board what what it is that they're saying if they have any criticisms if you know it is a usage issue anything like that and then you can obviously use those three months to help formulate i guess like your action plan for trying to save them as well but again you need to give yourself the time to do that because you're never going to be able to achieve that in a shorter time frame I freaking love that you've said that because that's exactly how I used to work as a CSM.

You're right. If you tried to have like a renewal call two weeks before the contract's renewed, you've really put yourself in a danger zone. And we were trained at Showpad. You know, imagine if we have a 12 month contract, we have that QBR three months before the renewal date.

And what we look to do is kind of understand what is the milestones we've hit. But then we also try to understand what are the niggles and problems that they're facing. So if they were saying, we're not seeing usage, we're not seeing adoption, the reps aren't using the platform, or we've got this SharePoint integration that's not working, or this isn't, I'm trying to get all of these problems now. And what we then set to do is create a mutual success plan to get this stuff sorted.

But we'd also set upfront contracts. So I used to say, so Emily, if we could get the adoption up. if we could like implement an end user training to refresh all your sales reps using the platform, if we can get this integration sorted, do you feel that would be what you need in order to continue this relationship into the next year? And these people would say, yes, some of them wouldn't believe it's going to happen.

And they think it's not going to happen, but I would do my darn hardest to make sure it did. But what you'd see is before you get to the renewal call, then when you finally have that catch up call two weeks or three weeks before the renewal. You then go through the checklist. So Emily, we said we needed to do this.

Has this been completed? Customers like, yes, we needed to do this. Has that now worked? Yes.

Cool. Now we did the end user training. What's been the feedback from the sales reps? Oh, they're loving it.

And now kind of figured out why we're going to be using this. I said, okay, great. So it sounds like we're all on track. Is that correct?

They're like, yes. You'd have to make sure a customer was in a happy space before you went on. But rather than asking you outright, Emily, are we going to renew? I just used to do this.

I say, Emily. I'm going to be raising the PO for our renewal for next month. I just needed to know, is it you that I send this to? So it was an assumptive close of not are we going to renew, but do I just send you the renewal thing to sign?

And nine times out of 10 customers, if we got to this point, said, yeah, just send it through. It'll all be fine. But sometimes if you did such a good job where you could catch all the problems mid contact through, sometimes they would renew earlier. And they'd give you that confirmation there and then.

So I love what you said of, you need to be doing it three months before the renewal date. And in essence, it's kind of like a mini sales cycle again, isn't it? You're trying to resell the value of what you're doing. Because I've worked in some orgs where, you know, some CSMs are saying, we've got the renewal call today.

And then they ask information. And I'm just like, what? You can't just do it on the day and then expect, or, hey, do you know if we have any notes as to why they should be using us? I'd be like.

You need to be doing this much earlier on. But I think this has been a beautiful episode and it's shown a different career path people can go to. But could I ask if one of our listeners right now is a BDR or an SDR and or perhaps they're an account executive and they're doing closing sales and they're thinking about going into account management or CS life, what advice would you give to that person before they think about taking on this career? Like what things should they be thinking about?

I suppose the number one for me in general, and we sort of spoke about this, is don't take anything too personal. So I was saying to you before we started, like I read something on LinkedIn yesterday that was, it's not personal, it's probability. You know, if you ring somebody and they hang up, it's probably they're just having a bad day. It's not a reflection of you.

You know, if that sale doesn't close, it could just be purely budget. If that company doesn't renew, they might be going into liquidation. Like these are all things that are totally outside of your control. So don't take things like that too personally.

Don't take it too much to heart. I guess don't be afraid to try new things, to push yourself out of your comfort zone, get comfortable being uncomfortable. That's sort of where you see the most growth, most growth, I suppose, as well. And then lastly, just always believe in yourself.

You know, have the confidence in yourself and I suppose the confidence in what you say and your abilities and things like that too. You know, stop the negative talk. You know, you can do it. You just need to see that for yourself.

I love that. And that's solid advice. And to kind of come to a conclusion on our chapter, if we could think about that young Emily Hunter, who, you know, is at... university and they're just about to go to paris and have this placement if you could go back and give her just one bit of advice because she's about to go on this journey you've been on what's the one thing you'd say to her oh probably enjoy every moment because time goes it's such a cliche but time goes so quickly um and just yeah just enjoy it soak it all in you know yeah I love that and solid and you know what it's weird you said that because I was thinking this exact same thing I was coming back from the gym early this morning and the words that came through my head was years turn into months months turn into weeks weeks turn into days days turn into hours it moves that quickly as life progresses and you go through so to your point be present and enjoy it just have as much fun and try not to worry about things that don't exist yet right But Emily, this has been a beautiful episode.

I really appreciate you coming on board today. Are there any shout outs or kudos that you'd like to give today? Well, I suppose shout out to Elish for prospecting you and getting me on the call today. Because I definitely wouldn't have put myself forward for it.

So again, it's really, really nice to have somebody that, you know, again, believes in you and the company and thinks that you'd be a good fit for this. And I guess my head of sales and marketing, Laura Haldane, has just been a great support for me throughout my career. I wouldn't be. here like where i am in this position now without her so yeah big shout out to laura too i love it that's a whole load of hashtag sales love and a massive thank you to our listeners watchers fans and subscribers and supporters of the sdr disco course joe joining us on this chapter today so a reminder emily's linkedin profile will be within the show notes so if anything has resonated with you or you've got any sort of questions feel free to reach out to her and connect and it would be awesome for everybody to learn from what you shared with us today here as well.

So again, if you're listening to this in your local podcast platform, what would do us a massive favor is if you can give this episode and chapter a rating and share it with anybody that you think it could resonate or help out with. And if you're listening to this on our local YouTube channel, please make sure that you like, comment and subscribe down below and write some comments, perhaps some questions, and I'll be happy to share these with Emily. But Emily, it's been an...