Most Important Skills For A Director Of Sales Strategic Accounts At Ouster Lidar
Max, a Director of Sales at Ouster Lidar Inc., emphasizes that while strong interpersonal skills—"being personable, uh, and listening, understanding"—are crucial for building rapport and navigating difficult conversations, strategic thinking sets successful salespeople apart. The ability to "grow the business to satisfy new requirements or new technologies," coupled with meticulous organization to manage multiple internal and external stakeholders, is what ultimately drives success in this customer-facing role.
Communication, Strategic Thinking, Organization, Relationship Building, Sales
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Max Coates
Director of Sales - Strategic Accounts
Ouster Lidar Inc.
University of Colorado, Boulder
N/A
Economics
Electronics & Semiconductors, Technology
Sales and Client Management
None Applicable
Video Highlights
1. Max highlights the importance of interpersonal skills such as being personable and a good listener for building strong customer relationships.
2. Strategic thinking is crucial, not just focusing on immediate tasks but also planning long-term growth and adapting to new technologies and requirements.
3. Meticulous organization is essential for managing multiple aspects of the sales process, coordinating with various teams, and maintaining customer trust.
Transcript
What skills are most important for a job like yours?
For any customer-facing role, being personable, listening, and understanding are very important. These qualities help people connect with you.
You are building relationships, and sometimes you need to have difficult conversations. It's much easier to do that when you have an established rapport with people.
While many people get into sales by simply talking to others, a key differentiator is strategic thinking. This means looking beyond what's directly in front of you.
It involves thinking about what's next and how to grow the business in a beneficial way. The saying "sell what's on the truck" is common, but there's also the need to consider how to grow the business to meet new requirements or technologies.
The most important quality I see in successful salespeople is organization. You have to be meticulously organized with many different things.
At the end of the day, you need to take ownership to get those tasks done. There's a lot of support available, depending on what you sell, such as engineering, legal, and product teams.
You need to be aware of everything happening and be able to articulate it to your business and your customers. If you can't do that, they won't trust you, and it will be difficult to accomplish things.
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