Welcome back to the From Vendorship → Partnership podcast, Season 2: Seller’s Journey!
This season, we’re talking to B2B sales leaders about their experience building winning processes, coaching & scaling teams, and partnering with customers.
Our guest this week is Josh Roth, VP of Commercial Sales at Lob!
Early in Josh’s career, he built a $1M book of business exclusively through cold calling and outbound selling. Later, he moved into sales leadership and led a 25-person BDR team at WalkMe, and now leads the Commercial Sales team at Lob. And in Josh’s spare time, he and four partners built SDRDefenders, a community of revenue professionals dedicated to elevating the role of SDRs, which was acquired by Pavilion in 2021.
Listen to the episode here, and get the key takeaways from our conversation below!
🤔 Why do you think the bar is so low for B2B sales today?
“Poor enablement, poor coaching, poor mentorship, and poor training.”
This year was full of turmoil for B2B sales. As the economic downturn continues, many sellers who are earlier in their career don’t know how to sell in this environment because they haven’t had to do it yet, says Josh.
Because money was more easily accessible before, deals and sales processes were less scrutinized. But now, every deal has to be 10/10.
“I think a lot of sellers are missing very basic sales methodology,” Josh says. “We need to get back to the fundamentals in B2B sales.”
What this means, Josh says, is that you can’t just rely on enablement to do all your training and up-skilling for you. Sales leaders need the bandwidth to dig into customer calls, identify areas for improvement, and dedicate more time to 1:1 and team coaching to raise the bar for sales.
🙅 What’s a common mistake that B2B sales teams make?
“Not digging deep enough to prove value or ROI to their customers.”
Many sales teams only do a surface-level ROI, or an ROI based on their assumptions about the customer’s goals, numbers, and the impact the solution will have.
Buy-in from your prospects on the ROI is essential for moving the deal forward and being successful down the road. You need to truly understand the metrics they care about, how they’re measuring them, and the actual monetary impact that your solution will drive. And to do that, you need your prospect to provide real insights and data.
After doing discovery, Josh’s team at Lob asks their prospects to bring those numbers to the next call. If they’re hesitant, it’s a sign that they may not be ready to fully jump in and move forward.
🙌 What are the most important things sales leaders can do to up-level their team & process?
“Listen to your people, and listen to your data.”
Before anything else, sales leaders need to understand who is on their team and each person’s goals, skills, and areas for improvement to answer the basic questions: Do I have the right people? And how can I up-level the people I have?
Beyond your team, listen to your prospects and customers. Take time to dig deeper into customer calls and let them help guide your process and decisions.
But don’t forget to listen to your data – gut check what you’re hearing and doing against it. “There’s no reason to outsmart your data,” Josh says.
⚡ Lightning Round: Josh’s Fast Sales Insights
- Your favorite sales app or software? ZoomInfo.
- Another sales team you admire? WalkMe.
- A helpful sales book or resource? The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon.
About Josh
Josh Roth is the VP of Commercial Sales at Lob. He has over 15 years of experience in sales and 7 in sales leadership. Early in Josh’s career, he built a $1M book of business exclusively through cold calling and outbound selling. Later, he moved into sales leadership and led a 25-person BDR team at WalkMe, and now leads the Commercial Sales team at Lob. And in Josh’s spare time, he and four partners built SDRDefenders, a community of revenue professionals dedicated to elevating the role of SDRs, which was acquired by Pavilion in 2021.
