It’s a well-known fact that sales is about building relationships, although it’s usually the salesperson-customer relationship that people focus on. What gets talked about much less is how important it is for salespeople to build relationships within their company. Whether it’s product, design, engineering or any other team, knowing who’s who in different orgs makes it much easier to tag in subject-matter experts when specific support or knowledge is needed.
As Amaly Miranda, EDU enterprise team lead at 3D printing company Formlabs notes, this internal relationship-building is an especially critical skill for sales team leaders to have.
“There are situations where sales reps need to quickly pivot a conversation and bring in resources to help create a more customized solution for a customer,” Miranda said. “Being able to bring in someone from our business development team or our customer success team, for example, can help create stronger partnerships with users and gives you a better scope of what other opportunities exist within a specific company.”
Built In Boston caught up with Miranda to learn more about her career at Formlabs and how internal relationship-building has helped her navigate tricky challenges that, in the past, might have stalled deals.
What is your career background, and how did it prepare you for a leadership role?
I worked at Apple for many years in customer service and found my passion for sales and business development as an account manager on their business team. I was actively looking for opportunities to catapult my career in sales after I had my son, which was when I came across Formlabs and joined their team in 2016.
I quickly learned about qualifying inbound sales leads across a number of technical verticals and cultivated relationships with key players in the industry. I eventually became an enterprise account manager and from there I found my passion for education. I began building my book of business solely with large-scale universities, which I introduced to our full product line.
I was promoted to the EDU team lead this past summer, where I lead a team of enterprise account managers. I have helped my team grow and navigate the industry while planning and working the full sales cycles of our customers. The best thing about working through the ranks in our org is that you’re able to sharpen your skills while also presenting the perfect solution for the customer.
Encouraging your team to consult one another for advice and guidance helps build a richer work culture.”
What are the most valuable sales leadership attributes and characteristics?
Effective communication and strong relationship-building across the organization. It’s important to be able to know your company as a whole and to know the key players when you face specific challenges. There are situations where sales reps need to quickly pivot a conversation and bring in resources to help create a more customized solution for a customer.
Being able to bring in someone from our business development team or our customer success team, for example, can help create stronger partnerships with users and gives you a better scope of what other opportunities exist within a specific company. Encouraging your team to consult one another for advice and guidance helps build a richer work culture.
Give an example of those sales leadership skills in action. What’s a recent example of how they helped you or a colleague solve an issue?
One specific example that I’ve personally navigated within our own sales organization has been trying to determine the best way for our direct and channel teams to collaborate in the best interest of our customers. There are situations, especially in education, that might require us to work with local partners due to state guidelines, in-person demonstrations and training, etc.
Previously this might stall or prolong a deal, which not only affects our deliverables but those of the customer as well. It’s been extremely helpful to work with our director of channel sales and her channel managers to determine who is local to our customers and involve them sooner in the discovery phase to shorten the deal cycle while still presenting the best possible solution.
