Scale with Strive Podcast
Welcome to the Scale with Strive podcast - the place where you come to listen to some of the worlds most influential leaders in the SaaS industry!
Scale with Strive Podcast
‘Building & Scaling your Sales Playbook’ with Laura Smith
Welcome to the Scale with Strive podcast, the place where you come to listen to some of the world’s most influential leaders of the SaaS industry. 🚀
I am your host, John Hitchen and on today’s episode, I am excited to welcome Laura Smith, Director of North American Sales at Strike.
Laura is an ex-athlete turned Sales expert, who has carved out a space for herself in the Cyber Security world. With a background in criminal justice and computer science, she's not just selling software, she's helping businesses protect themselves from real threats.
Laura's known for her ability to work complex Enterprise deals, build Go-To-Market strategies from scratch and consistently hit targets.
Today, we focus in on building and scaling your Sales Playbook and some of our key takeaways from the conversation were:
💡 Why a Sales Playbook is so important for early-stage companies
💡 How to start building a Sales Playbook – who to involve in the process, what components to include and how to make it adaptable.
💡 How to roll out your Sales Playbook, how to embed it and how to keep it relevant and updated
Let’s Dive in!
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Connect with Laura here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-smith-67939913b/
Connect with John here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnhitchen/
Learn more about Strive here - https://scalewithstrive.com/
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0:00. Meet Laura: From Athlete to Cybersecurity Sales
8:56. Laura's Career Journey and Athletic Background
16:05. Why Sales Playbooks Matter for Startups
21:19 Creating an Adaptable Playbook That Scales
25:34. Implementing and Measuring Playbook Success
29:37. Key Lessons and Book Recommendations
Welcome to the Scale with Strive podcast, the place where you come to listen to some of the world's most influential leaders of the SaaS industry. Welcome to the Scale with Strive podcast. Today, I'm joined by Laura Smith, an ex-athlete turned sales pro, who's carved out a space for herself in the cybersecurity world With a background in criminal justice and computer science. She's not just selling software, she's helping businesses protect themselves from real threats. Laura's known for her ability to work complex enterprise deals, build go-to-market strategies from scratch and consistently hit targets. Today, she brings the same competitive drive from athletic career into every sales room and she shows it, and I'm excited to have her on the podcast today. So, laura, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm good, John. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you can join us today. Laura, Do you want to start off for our audience and give us a whistle-stop tour of your career to date?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. As you mentioned, my background's in criminal justice and public policy and and I knew starting out my career, I wanted to do something within the legal and criminal justice space. Didn't know specifically what was debating law school sales. My family, my entire life, always joked that I would be going into sales just my competitive nature and my athlete background. But I started my sales journey about 10 years ago, during my university career, starting out as a sales rep and brand ambassador, and then, upon graduating, I was recruited into a legal technology company as a business development representative and this was the perfect place for me to start at the time. Time where I got to not only work directly within the legal space but get to test the waters with sales and see if that really is where I fit in. I ended up loving it. I really enjoy being in a sales environment I think that's a direct translation from my athletics and having a place where I can thrive in an environment that's competitive but supportive, and continue pushing myself and continually improving. So I stuck with the sales components worked. Legal technology wasn't necessarily a necessary tech and tool to have, but more of a nice to have, and, with the trends of the economy. I wanted to transition into more of a essential tool in technology, and that brought me into cybersecurity Without any technical background, wanted to give it a shot, see if it might be a good space Throughout my university career as well. I minored in computer science, so had a little bit of a preliminary understanding but nothing too technical in terms of cybersecurity, but it's always been something that was interesting to me. I really really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:From the beginning. I had really great mentors working at Axiero and had the opportunity to begin building out the sales and market focus within the organization, which, throughout my three and a bit years there at Axiero, we scaled the team from two representatives up to a team of 12. And then at that point I really really fell in love with more of the sales strategy side and building out the go-to-market functions, not only from the strategy side but then executing on it. And this actually led me into transitioning into some advisory roles where I did some advising for about a year, building out the initial go-to-market strategy for early stage cybersecurity startups and everywhere from the business development, the initial assumptions and validation of the market, all the way up to streamlining this and being able to replicate this with new reps being onboarded and I really, really enjoyed this new project and this opportunity to begin working in a more strategic advisory role.
Speaker 2:But I'm not going to lie, I definitely missed the full-time role as well and being a part of a company more tied to their mission and vision. And I actually reached out to you, john. We used Strive for recruiting at Act Zero and once I got to a point where I really enjoyed the advisory but wanted to get more into a company full-time again, I reached out to to John, seeing if there's any, any roles that might be a good fit for me, and you brought up Strike Security and the pen testing space and I thought, yeah, this is the perfect role for me. Getting introduced to the team at Strike both Santiago and Facundo, they're our two co-founders and learning about their vision for enhancing the pen test process and what their overall vision is for growing the company. It fully aligned with what I was looking for, and so that's what really brought me here to Strike to begin this journey of expanding into North America.
Speaker 1:Fantastic and what an exciting career and congratulations. I believe you just raised your Series A as well. Is that right?
Speaker 2:Yes, we officially announced last week that we raised $13.5 million in our Series A.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. Were you involved in working with the investors and the founders?
Speaker 2:Were you involved in working with the investors and the founders From the back ends? Yes, Our CEO, Santi, was very hands-on in that process and was really really great with talking with investors, but from the back end, and being able to speak to how we're approaching the expansion into the US.
Speaker 1:Yes, I was involved. Nice, nice. Well, look, I'm sure you're doing great things over there. I've been watching you from afar, but look, it's really interesting to hear you know how people sort of knew you were going to be good at sales from the start. You had that personality, that career, and obviously there's such a huge link between athletes and sales. So how has your background as an athlete shaped your sales career?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, like I mentioned my family, kind of by my entire life really thought that I'd be going into sales or some kind of role like that where my competitive drive can really flourish. But there's definitely no secret that athletes really typically make good salespeople and I think that's the natural skills and qualities that they have. That are things that can't really be taught. Specifically, grit, I think that's one of the most important and essential skills that a really good sales rep can have. That isn't something that you can really teach someone. You can't really teach that passion and dedication. So that's definitely something that's been transferable from my athletics into my sales career now.
Speaker 2:But more importantly than that, I mean I've been an athlete my entire life. I played field lacrosse in university. But being an athlete wasn't just about the love of the sport for me, it was also my ability to channel that competitive drive and be able to push my, my own limits and be a part of a team that's building something bigger and and towards uh achieving a specific goal, which in sports is uh, winning in your, your sport. But this directly is translated into sales, where I have that competitive environment to be able to continually improve and flourish, push myself and my limits to be continually improving, but then also be a part of that team dynamic where we are working towards a common goal and in this case's a revenue for the company. So, uh, it's definitely been a way to transition from my my athletic days now into my, my career, and been loving it I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it and I agree, if you could have one attribute in in sales and and sports which link it is great. It is the ability to do it day after day and compete to be number one spot and you know, I think that's a great attribute to have. So this, this podcast, is focused today on sort of building the sales playbook, so I really want to deep dive into this subject. So when you joined Strike, help me understand what was there already and what was the task you were given to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question. When coming to Strike, I knew that I was coming into a brand new market. What's unique about Strike is we are an early stage startup expanded throughout all of Latin America. They've dominated the market there and are one of the top providers in pen testing and so from there we began expanding.
Speaker 2:So I had the foundational components. I had customer case studies to go off of in terms of who we're targeting, what specifically they like about our solution, and the CRM components in terms of being able to study those trends of what industries and company sizes and titles we'll be speaking to, that most often translated into clients. So I had those foundations to go off of in terms of who we should be targeting and have a little bit of that social proof. But for the most part, the way that we approach the market is entirely different. So it really was starting from scratch with those guided principles there of who we should likely be targeting and having those preliminary messaging. So from there, building up and really taking on more of a business development role at the beginning to really validate those initial assumptions, which is that our audience will be likely the same within the North American market. So going through the process of validating those components and, from there, building and tweaking as need be.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice. No, I think it's great. I know you went in and you sort of tested A, b and tested everything yourself. You kind of created a repeatable process which has enabled you to do the mass hiring that you've done. So let's strip it back a little bit. You know for you. Why is a playbook so important for early stage companies and what's your perspective on a good one?
Speaker 2:I think. First, I mean a lot of sales leaders get pushback, often from executive teams of early stage startups to focus on your results and get that quick revenue. Because when you're in an early stage startup, revenue really speaks for itself whether you're targeting the right people. And it can often be seen as time wasted taking the time to begin building out the playbook and documenting your processes to begin building out the playbook and documenting your processes but in the long term it's setting you up for success further throughout the growth of your company. You really need to strike a balance between those quick wins and quickly identifying your target audience and being able to create a process to scale this efficiently. Otherwise you're prolonging your sales cycles.
Speaker 2:Often, if you don't have a clear focus and defined process, you aren't able to truly test what is and isn't working and adapting that quickly so that you are really targeting the right people and organizations for your specific process. But with that you're not only wasting time, but you can also be potentially wasting money. If you're putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, and not really taking a high-level view into what specifically is working and what's not, you're going to be continually paying those sales reps and paying for the technology stack without seeing any of those clear results. So you're really taking a gamble there if you're not taking an intentional approach to your sales process, but also when it comes to then scaling this. Once you've identified your addressable market and you've validated that this works, you then reach the scalability component where you're going to start adding in new reps and replicating their efforts.
Speaker 2:And oftentimes in early stage startups there's a few reps starting out that really begin building this out. But if you don't have those processes and techniques documented, it's really hard to then replicate and scale this efficiently. You'll be setting yourself back a lot more at that time and creating more of a headache for you later on when you're trying to expand. But also building out a playbook really helps. Identify the key areas where the sales teams need to be further enabled. Identify the key areas where the sales teams need to be further enabled whether that's additional case studies, marketing content, maybe even a product roadmap can help you put all the pieces together across the company in order to enable the sales team to sell as best as they can.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, I think there's a lot of different components there that you've kind of brought together, and that's not just sales, so really important to see. I guess when you sat down and realized from yourself there was a process, and you're like, right, I'm going to roll this out and recruit in X amount of account executives and BDRs, how did you make it adaptable to different types of people and how did you create the scale?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great, great question.
Speaker 2:I mean, with the playbook, I think the most important thing is that it needs to remain a work in progress.
Speaker 2:It's not a set and forget, because then you're also coming back to that time and money wasted.
Speaker 2:If you're not continually analyzing to see if this is working properly, but not tweaking it to continually improve with anything new that you're learning or any new product or feature changes, you're not doing the sales team a service in terms of really tailoring that specific approach. But also it's no one-size-fits-all in terms of the structure and flexibility you want to identify those key trends, messaging and value points without really putting everything into one specific category. Really keeping it high level in terms of the overall market focus will help you be able to adopt this to your different types of deals and the different reps and selling techniques that they have on your team, but also regular feedback loops. This should be something that's continually worked on and getting everyone involved. This isn't just a sales component. Yes, it's a sales playbook, but everyone plays a part in it and everyone has very unique and important viewpoints into how to sell the company vision and product and that should all be taken into account on a continual feedback loop in order to build this and continue to scale it.
Speaker 1:Nice. I think feedback's super important, right? Because once you've got the process defined, you want people bought into that process and believing in it and being able to collaborate there. I guess from your perspective. I'm keen to dig into those areas you touched on earlier around. Who was involved in the playbook beyond sales. So how much day-to-day interaction do you have with the other components in the business and how long did it take you to bring that sales playbook together?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in terms of who has involved everyone in some capacity, I started primarily with the sales team in Latin America, building off what they've identified so far and what's been working for them in terms of messaging and how we're really targeting our audience Product as well in terms of how to specifically and efficiently speak to the product or service offering. But, as well as the executive team and even, at times, the technical team, which, in our case, would be our hacking team, getting their specific expertise as well really helps us become more knowledge workers in the sales space and take more of that consultative approach if we truly understand what the essential components are within the service and offering and helps us think more like the security executives that we're selling to.
Speaker 1:Nice. It's really important to gather everyone in from the process. Different components, marketing. You know I can imagine CISOs, cios get thousands of messages now, so to stand out is a real pain point. How big is the sales team now, laura?
Speaker 2:We are about 12 people now, and at the end of last year we finished off with a sales team in the US of three people.
Speaker 1:So I've definitely been scaling very quickly this quarter Fantastic. And then you know it's really important now how you roll out that sales playbook right and how you manage it. So, from your perspective, how are you doing that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one thing to build out and establish the sales playbook and then another to roll it out as well.
Speaker 2:If the team's not using it, then it's not really going to be as effective and efficient.
Speaker 2:What I've done is make the sales playbook not only a part of the onboarding guide but the main component of the onboarding guide, so that their entire preliminary days and weeks joining into the company is is framed entirely around our sales playbook, with that incorporating other components like industry knowledge, trends, our specific use cases as well, but using a gradual approach to introduce them to each component of the go-to-market strategy, but also making this a part of our regular one-on-one structures as well. Anytime someone asks a specific question about how to use a functionality in the CRM, let's say, always bringing it back to that playbook so that it becomes ingrained in everyone on the sales team to be continually referencing back to that playbook and, if I also enable the team to bring any new suggestions or tweaks as well, so that we're not only adapting our processes and techniques but, while doing that, using it as a live document to update that playbook as well. So it's growing with us but also being incorporated in that week-to-week and day-to-day sales processes.
Speaker 1:Amazing. Yeah, I think having the play playbook, also having the process, is extremely important. You know, the process runs the business, the people run. The process is a general mantra I've seen through the industry, um, but naturally you know, no sales playbook is perfect. So I guess in creating the playbook and rolling it out and you've only had limited time, right, it's not been too long since the team's fully ramped up. But what are their sort of key lessons learned rolling out the playbook and would you do anything slightly different or different next time?
Speaker 2:I think one main thing to to make sure to not focus too much in on is the balance between messaging and processes. The messaging is just as important as building out the initial processes that you're looking to take in terms of your sales methodologies, your sales structure, how you plan to approach the market, but enabling and equipping your team with the right messaging and value points is what I'm referring to. More in terms of messaging goes a long way. One thing that I would have done differently is focus less in on building out the entire talk track, make it less of a step-by-step script and making it more of the overall trends, knowledge and value that we need to be focusing in on, so that you can enable your reps to really make it their own rather than copy and pasting what specifically you want them to say.
Speaker 1:I completely agree, and with that have you thought about the playbook in different territories, so you know, for example, what might work well in Boston, new York, does that work well in Texas and California? Have you had to sort of tweak the playbook in any ways there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really great question, as I as're continually growing very quickly. This will be the next step within our building out and establishing our playbook. I've been fortunate behaviors and approaches to take within specific geographical areas within the US market, but definitely still a work in progress for us in terms of identifying those key areas that need to be differentiated within each territory.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. Yeah, I thought that might be the case. So, with the playbook process all mapped out and the ongoing tweaking of the document and understanding you know how it evolves, what are the key as a manager? What are the key metrics for you on how you judge its effectiveness?
Speaker 2:This is a very important part within the sales playbook build out. How are you going to be continually testing and measuring its effectiveness? Having the right tools in place in terms of the documentation of sales processes, but also being able to use that to give you insight into what's specifically resonating and working within your market. So, having the right tech stack in place to be able to have the A-B testing to test different components, what's working versus what's not, but also being able to really judge its effectiveness comes from the front end. So what would be your reps? Really having effective and building effective one-on-ones with them on a regular basis and using that time to really enable them to identify key areas and opportunities for improvement, get their specific suggestions as well, so that you can truly make this an effective process.
Speaker 2:But in terms of the specific data that we're looking for on the business development end, looking more into the connections that we're having, but more specifically the conversations, where are we getting hung up on on the phone?
Speaker 2:What talk track works in terms of booking meetings? When we ask for email follow-ups, what specifically are they looking for in those emails? Being able to identify those key areas that are really picking up people's interests, or the opposite as well. From a rep perspective, we've invested in a tool called Avoma not sponsors, of course, but really cool for us to have, not only to document our sales process and what specifically is needed as an outcome from those meetings, but there's key features in it that'll pick up on the main talking points that both you and the prospect talked about during the meeting, really focus in and identify those key trends what's resonating versus what's not, key trends, what's resonating versus what's not, and all the way down to the percentage of you talking versus them. And, yeah, really getting granular into what specifically is working in those demonstrations in order to see where we need to tweak and adapt our methods and process.
Speaker 1:Amazing, amazing. Well, I think, with the way you sort of analyzing the playbook, the talk track, understanding how people work, and I think you're gonna have a really successful year. The business has been successful as it is, so that's really interesting to hear. Well, I guess, some final thoughts before we part ways I guess any advice for people creating their first playbook, so you know what would be the sort of two or three key things you would give people first document everything, especially in your early days, as much as you possibly can.
Speaker 2:Your crm is your best friend. Use it as much as you can, but also utilize your existing network, both internal to the company but external as well, and ask for feedback. Ask for their perspectives and their approaches, but even with prospects as well. Use this time in the early days to ask for their specific feedback. Within the industry, people are a lot more receptive and definitely willing to to help you really tailor your, your market focus when you take that, that approach to, to getting their, their feedback and their insights amazing.
Speaker 1:yeah, I think you know asking reps to document thing is traditionally quite a hard task, right, but I can appreciate the importance of it at the start. All that knowledge that you're keeping, creating and analyzing is so, so important and, on the flip side to that, any mistakes to avoid in creating your first playbook book Before.
Speaker 2:I mentioned not making it more of a step-by-step script but more of a guide to enable your team, but also really making sure that while you're making these initial assumptions, you're always coming back A-B, testing and re-evaluating whether this is the right approach. You don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. I would say that's the main thing to really focus on while building this out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can fully appreciate that. And then I guess, from your perspective, as you've learned, laura, and you've kind of gone through your career, any people books or anything that's kind of influenced your approach that you'd like to share.
Speaker 2:I definitely recommend checking out Angela Duckworth's book the Grit the Power of Passion and Perseverance One of my favorites and that definitely helps shape the early stage startup life and what's needed to be able to truly succeed there but also the medic sales framework and also the book the Challenger Sale. It really focuses on what makes the most successful sales reps stand out not just building relationships, but being able to challenge your customers on new ideas and insights which, specifically within the cybersecurity space, being a disruptor within the space, I think this is a very unique but essential approach to take when selling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely, definitely. Well, learning from the people who've been there and done it and then rolled it out is super important. I think they're three great books, um, to have for any any sales organization. Um, well, laura, look, it's been a pleasure to have you on today. I think three key takeaways I've taken from the conversation um, you know one, creating the playbook and the process. But giving people just that enough autonomy to put their own little tweaks on things and their own little patter is super important, so it's not too restrictive. Document everything. The CRM's your best friend, as much as reps hate to say it. And finally, you know, utilizing your network and asking for feedback on what's working and what's not working. So really appreciate you having on the's working and what's not working. So really appreciate you having on the podcast. Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2:The pleasure is all mine. Thanks, John. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe, and if you want more information about the podcast, head over to our website. Scale with Stride.
