Welcome to the first episode of From Vendorship → Partnership 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.
Andrew Bothwell, SVP of Sales and Success at Spekit has been scaling sales teams for the past 17 years, and is a Salesforce, Zendesk, Talkdesk, and WalkMe alum.
Get the key takeaways from our conversation below!
📚 How do you build a repeatable playbook when you join a startup as a sales leader?
A common mistake sales leaders make is assuming the playbook they used at their last company will work at their new company.
Parts of it will, and parts of it won’t. You can’t just copy and paste your process – you need to have a process for learning, iterating, and measuring to build your new playbook:
- Meet with leaders across the organization to understand their current processes – dig into what’s working and where the gaps are in the buyer & customer journey
- Get directly involved with calls and deals – Gong recordings are helpful, but they’re not the same as hearing buyers’ questions and problems on a live call, where you can ask follow-ups
- Dive into data to figure out which stages reps are getting stuck in – identify one thing that you think will make the biggest impact on your sales cycle, and continue to measure and iterate
Andrew’s tip: Remember to focus on the why of the changes you want to make. Get your team and leadership aligned on the why. You’ll make better decisions and get more support.
👩💻 What should you look for when hiring reps & building your team?
Startups require a different mindset and ability to adapt than larger, established organizations. Your product and processes aren’t going to be perfect when new reps walk in.
That’s why Andrew recommends looking for reps with a growth mindset – people who have overcome challenges, can adapt alongside fast changes, and are always looking for new learning and growth opportunities.
“You can invest in the hard skillset, but there are other traits candidates can bring to the table that you can’t coach,” Andrew says.
Maybe someone doesn’t have the full experience you’re looking for, but they’re ready to learn, hustle, and conquer a new challenge – which opens you up to people you might not have previously considered.
🤝 How do you build strong partnerships with your buyers at Spekit?
Short answer: by ensuring sales and success are aligned on providing the best buyer and customer experience.
“We think about the long-term opportunity, instead of trying to jam a massive contract in at the beginning,” says Andrew.
At Spekit, the AEs’ #1 priority is landing new business, but they stay involved with customers to continue the relationships and help with contracts and expansions – always in close collaboration with the CS team.
“We really want our customers to have a good experience with CS, and not feel like they’re being sold to by them,” Andrew says.
💡 Andrew’s top sales resources
- Book: The Growth Mindset
- Book: Radical Candor
- Podcast: Hunters and Unicorns
- App/software: Rattle
About Andrew & Spekit:
Andrew Bothwell is the SVP of Sales and Success at Spekit, and is a Salesforce, Zendesk, Talkdesk and Walkme alum.
Spekit is a Just In Time Enablement Platform working with high growth organizations to large enterprises, to help their go-to market teams learn in the flow of work. Andrew has been scaling sales team for the past 17 years. In his time he has helped take two companies public (ZEN and WKME) and has scaled both sales and success teams across the globe.
