BC Startup Sales Podcast – Building Your Sales Automation Stack – Chris Flores (Namely)

Chris Flores of Namely joined us in the studio this week to record another episode of the Bowery Capital Startup Sales Podcast: “Building Your Sales Automation Stack.” Every startup sales team faces this question early on: what tools or infrastructure do I need to empower my salespeople and make sure we’re ready to scale quickly? Our team here at Bowery Capital stays close to the world of startup sales tools both on the investment side and from the perspective of our portfolio companies, and we know well that there is a diverse range of options out there for the modern seller. From CRMs to power dialers to sales analytics platforms, it can be hard to keep track of and there are few true real-world guides out there. That’s exactly what we were able to do in today’s podcast: Chris walks us through the startup “Sales Stack” he built overseeing the growth of Namely’s inside sales team from the ground up, and highlighting the top 10 solutions that have really made a difference.

Chris joined Namely early on as its first inside salesperson. Today, he is the manager of inside sales at the company. In that capacity, he oversees hiring / coaching and sales development / ops to ensure quota attainment, which at the end of the day drives revenue. For those of you who aren’t as familiar with Namely, it’s a top emerging HCM (Human Capital Management) platform that can take a good deal of the headache out of managing a growing business. Namely combines all HR-related tasks in one integrated suite including payroll, benefits administration and performance management. CEO Matt Straz—the former co-founder and CMO of Pictela—has built up one of the strongest growth-stage businesses in NYC, having raised nearly $30M to date.

Crafting a stack of startup sales tools may seem easy at the outset: just let your salespeople use what works for them to help hit quota and have them hit the ground running. But when you’re aiming to build a lasting business, it’s important to have a consistent set of tools that your entire team can use. Building a data-driven culture of sales tool compliance is near impossible without this sort of top-down guidance. As a sales manager, however, your work is still cut out for you. Last year, the team here at Bowery Capital pulled together a Guide to Startup Sales Tools to try to put some structured thoughts around the massive ecosystem of solutions in the space. There are certainly no shortage of options. In our podcast today, Chris takes the analysis one step deeper by walking through his top 10 and why they work for Namely. In no particular order, here’s the list:

– Rivalry

– LinkedIn Sales Navigator

– Salesloft

– ZoomInfo

– Rapportive

– Salesforce

– InsideSales PowerDiealer

– ToutApp

– DocSend

– Joinme

We’ll discuss the pain point each of the above solves, how each is used effectively, and the impact that each has had at Namely. Hopefully you’ll find Chris’ insights as useful as we did. If you haven’t checked out the full podcast yet, we hope you’ll do so now.

If you liked “Building Your Sales Automation Stack – Chris Flores” and want to read more content from the Bowery Capital Team, check out other relevant posts from the Bowery Capital Blog.