#28 The Art of Becoming a Strategic Sales Leader

ABOUT THE GUEST: ROSS NIBUR, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AT TOAST 

In Ross’ own words: 

I love solving the puzzles of scaling businesses and empowering front-line players to execute their jobs more easily. My idiosyncratic perspective is born from my entrepreneurial journey from prep cook to a sales rep, and now, operations leader at a Forbes Top 10 Cloud Company. My secret technique is the ability to scale the mix of data, process, and technology a modern team has to engage with to execute the core tasks that make up their day-to-day lives of their front line teams while generating the kinds of reporting that power executive leadership. 

*Speaker at Dreamforce and OpsStars 2019 on Revenue Operations and Cross-Functional Alignment 
*Panelist at Dreamforce 2018 on the impact of technology on Sales Leadership 
*2018 Top 10 Sales Development Leads in the World 
*2018 Top 100 Sales Coaches to Watch 

Find Ross on LinkedIn here: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossnibur/

 
ABOUT THE EPISODE:  

Ross has been with Toast for four years and has had a fast rise up the org chart as Toast has gone through a very rapid expansion in terms of revenue, headcount, and market share. In this episode, Ross talks about how he has grown from a tactical execution-oriented front line sales manager into a more strategic sales leader - and how others can adopt the kinds of perspectives that will help them succeed in that kind of rise and those kinds of roles as well.  

0:43 - What’s the best sales advice that Ross has ever received? It’s about curiosity  

3:45 - What’s the worst sales advice that Ross has ever received? It’s about lying  

6:45 - Some background from Ross, his current role and company, and the rapid rise of Toast for context  

8:43 - Ross talks about what he looks for in a person who is new to management as a sign that they might be cut out for a more senior sales management role  

11:12 - How does a sales manager grow beyond a tactical orientation and into a more strategic perspective in their work  

13:36 - How do you address the discomfort of growing from a tactical role to a more strategic orientation and more importantly, how do you navigate the path from tactical to more strategic  

17:22 - How following the metrics and/or the processes in your own organization and applying curiosity to how your business works can help you map an organization, understand your business, and excel  

19:51 - How embracing and refining the way that you think about business issues is a critical step in coming to understand your business strategically. Ross brings it home with an analogy about making a hamburger  

21:28 - What is leadership’s role in helping a rising sales manager navigate their transition from current to future roles. Check out how Ross makes a “yes and no” answer work!  

26:40 - Ross talks about the importance of an operations perspective for sales management success. It’s not just about customers and numbers, but how does your organization work and deliver for customers - internal and otherwise  

31:30 - Where to reach and learn more about Ross