Avalara’s 5 Levels of Sales Certification [Podcast, Episode 3]
In this 12-minute
interview Marcouiller outlines:
- How Avalara transformed its enablement and onboarding program to scale
- His five-level process for onboarding and certifying new sales hires, and
- How Avalara has structured its five unique sales teams while maintaining the same corporate look and feel
Listen now
to hear how Marcouiller manages the challenges of scaling and enabling five leading sales teams at once.
To download or subscribe to the Sales Excellence podcast login to Soundcloud or find it here.
“Sales enablement is the foundation pillar, saw sharpener and keeper of the flame.”
That’s how Chuck Marcouiller views his role as Director of Sales Learning at Avalara. With a sales force of 325 people scattered across 5 countries and numerous cities, Avalara has managed to achieve scale and maintain enviable growth rates of between 40 – 60% year on year.
“My role is to ensure that each member of the sales team has the foundational skills when they come on board, and then and as they progress they continue to sharpen their skills weekly and make sure that they stay grounded in our strong corporate culture,” explains Marcouiller. “Managing five different sales forces, each unique with their different skill sets and different needs, yet trying to get them to look and feel as if they’re one Avalara, gets to be a bit of a challenge.”
“For us sales excellence really is having a marketplace leading highly capable sales force, creating customers at a rate that meets or exceeds our growth plan. And sales enablement is providing the training and tools that meet the salesforce’ needs to meet the needs of our customers and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace dynamic.”
“A good channel program is one of the fastest and most effective ways of scaling the sales motion of any company.”
In today’s world, marketing has become a highly scientific and data-driven discipline, but many sales organizations continue to rely primarily on tribal knowledge and informal processes. There’s a huge opportunity to harness this tribal knowledge and leverage the experience of those who have been successful in building a culture of sales excellence.