Top software salespeople know the best sales jobs are highly competitive. Enterprise software sales jobs are competitive because there are more salespeople than exceptional sales opportunities.
Find that hard to believe? Well, let’s define what we mean by exceptional.
Finding a company with a robust solution, strong implementation teams, knowledgeable pre-sales support, marketing prowess, high-caliber SDRs and BDRs, and rock-solid executive leadership is a hard combination to find, and most salespeople have to work around company gaps and limitations. So although there may be “lots of sales jobs,” there are fewer exceptional ones.
The best salespeople compete for opportunities offering compensation packages north of $300K.
So what’s a top software salesperson to do to win the offer? The best enterprise software salespeople prepare for interviews with passion, diligence, and determination, and they see that time as an investment in their sales career.
They dig into every ounce of information they can get their hands on: organizational charts, ZoomInfo snips, LinkedIn profiles, even conversations with the target employer’s reps before the first interview.
Depth of research is critical, because over-preparing lets you add value from the very first meeting. Where should you focus your pre-interview research? So glad you asked. Here’s an actionable list to get you started.
Pre-Interview Research Checklist for Software Salespeople
1. Research the CEO. Who’s the CEO anyway? Memorize their name and study their background. This is your potential future leader we’re talking about, so get up to speed on this mastermind, and quickly.
2. Look up the CFO. Yes, you need to know who the CFO is. Why? Because they’re usually the second most important person in the company: the CEO’s confidant, the analyst, the voice of fiduciary responsibility, the risk-averse amber hand of caution. Their influence runs deeply through most organizations.
3. Search all the news. Use Google and get the latest news on your future employer. What’s making headlines about this software firm?
4. Review the company blog. Blog posts give you an idea of the marketing team’s capabilities. What are they saying? What topics are they highlighting? Blog articles point you to the concepts that are relevant and top of mind for the organization and its customers.
5. Read recent press releases. You’ll find awards, office moves, honorable mentions, anniversaries, and other tidbits of insightful information.
6. Check out the current and former CRO. Who is the CRO? Who was the last one? Research both extensively, because they’ll both impact your future through their current and legacy sales strategies, mindsets, frameworks for engaging prospects, goals, quotas, and expectations. These two people will shape your day-to-day sales activities and your career opportunities.
7. Look into the CMO. Since most prospects do their research long before talking to sales, the marketing team should be producing relevant information.
Download the whitepapers and free reports, sign up for a demo, and request anything they’ll send you. You’ll see not only what they produce but the hot buttons they emphasize, the language they use, and the topics they choose.
8. Pull Forrester and Gartner reports. Research the competitive landscape and find out who you’d need to beat on any software deal. What are the strengths of the solution you’re thinking of selling? What kind of competition will you face? The more you learn about the technology and its challenges, the better informed you’ll be walking into the interview.
9. Deep-dive into LinkedIn profiles. Review the profiles, rough-sketch your own org chart, and find out who’s on the sales team. What are their backgrounds? How much experience do they have? What are they saying publicly about their solutions?
10. Visit the other social media sites. Check Facebook and YouTube. Sometimes you’ll find an explainer video of the software or a presentation given by the CEO. Anything you find adds insight into what they’re doing.
11. Explore primary research. This is the tip I find that obsessed salespeople tend to employ: reach out to someone on the team and see if they’ll share insights about the sales culture. The information will be less filtered when you contact a potential peer before the formal interview process introduces you.
But keep in mind you don’t know much about who you’re talking to or what framework they’re filtering their opinions through, so use good judgment. And don’t come across as a stalking tiger; use emotional intelligence to do this smartly.
12. Use the other research tools. Crunchbase, ZoomInfo, Glassdoor, and anything else you have access to. Glassdoor is good for collecting a sense of an organization’s cultural nuances, but don’t read too much into the reviews. Unhappy employees are the ones most apt to write one, and happy employees are less likely to say anything at all. Take what you can and apply your own good judgment.
Your Sales Career Is Too Important to Neglect Preparation
So, how’s that for actionable? I know what you’re thinking: this is a lot of work. Who has time for this?
Well, ask yourself what percent of the population makes over $300K a year. According to the Wall Street Journal, it’s 2% of the United States. Probably about the same percentage of salespeople will conduct every bit of this research.
Now, I can’t promise this kind of homework will land you an exceptional software sales job, but I can promise you one thing: when you take the call, Zoom with your interviewer, or walk into the company’s office, YOU’LL BE READY.
I bet you’ll be radiating confidence without giving it a second thought. Might even have to remind yourself to humble down a few notches.
And once the research is done, make sure the rest of your interview game matches it: know your sales math cold, and check that you have the seven skills enterprise sales careers are built on. Research is step one; the rest of the process lives in the complete sales interview preparation guide.
