Welcome to A Day in The Life where we are showcasing the day-to-day moments of productivity with teams across the world. We’re asking real people how they spend their day in Hive — and what they accomplish because of it.
The Need-To-Know:
Today: The Sales Manager on a remote team for a SaaS company
Occupation: Sales Manager
Industry: SaaS, Productivity Management
Location: New York, New York
Hobbies: Playing the piano ???? and cooking delicious meals ????
Pronouns: He/Him
How would you describe your role on your team?
I’m the Sales Manager of a 10-person team and my day-to-day is really helping to enable our sales team to go out and create new partnerships and win new business. I do that through my responsibilities in a couple of areas: preparing with the team for any of our upcoming calls and demonstrations — both from a product side and making sure that the workspace and agenda are impactful — and walking through the sales process to make sure that we can win new business in an efficient manner.
What does the Sales Team do?
The sales team builds partnerships with potential customers, nurtures those relationships and builds revenue for the company, overall.
To accomplish what we need to, we do cross-departmental work from a new business perspective. Of course, we work with the marketing team to make sure that we’re aligned with the campaigns being run and they help us create new material to go to market with — that can be the sales deck we use or a one-sheeter that helps us best describe the value of the product. We also collaborate with the customer success team to make sure that once we are getting close to winning a new logo, the CS team gets all the information they need to ensure a smooth onboarding process.
What are some of the main goals of your team?
First and foremost, one of our main sales goals is revenue. At the end of the day, our entire team is focused on delivering a specific number on a monthly basis. As a subscription business, revenue is pretty critical, and there’s a lot that goes into that. I like to think about the sales world in terms of new business and expansion.
On the new business side, it’s not just the amount of revenue we’re closing, but the quality of the logos that we’re partnering with too. The sales team knows that the lifetime of a partnership might be more valuable than even just the upfront partnership that we create. We’re focused on creating lasting relationships that create value.
On the expansion side, we’re aimed at ensuring that our current customers are utilizing the product to the best of their ability and making sure that they’re not only growing in terms of the number of users on the platform but also growing the depth of the subscription that they’re utilizing as well.
What do you use Hive to do personally and how does it help you get your work done overall?
First and foremost, Hive simply helps me with communication channels. Hive’s native chat is how I’m engaging with the team most of the day, especially since we are a remote team. It’s really the easiest way that I can stay in touch with the rest of the sales team throughout the day.
The next layer is definitely Hive notes. I can’t really recall what my day-to-day was like before Hive notes existed. They help me document the weekly one-on-ones that I’m having with the team, allow me to have a running notebook week over week, create new entries and talk about priorities. It helps me strategize for the week and make sure that we’re prepared for all of the opportunities we’re engaged with. It’s been a super neat way for me to track week-over-week priorities on a one-to-one basis with the team.
Do you use Hive in tandem with any other tools?
Zoom is a huge one. I’ll be speaking with the team in a chat and I’ll realize it would be easier to hop on a screen-share quickly. It is so much easier just punching open a zoom window quickly. So that is huge for us too.
A Day In The Life Using Hive
9:30-11:30 A.M
My day usually starts with reviewing a lot of Hive notes. I make sure to also check my calendar in the My Day feature to ensure I’m joining the right calls with my team throughout the day.
12-3 P.M.
In the middle of the day, I like to access forms to tap into, other teams’ workflows. Hive’s forms feature really helps us to remove barriers in the pre-sales process. For example, there are always legal reviews, information and security reviews. We’re able to communicate with our legal and IT or development teams by simply just giving them a briefing on where we’re at and what the main steps that they can support us on are.
That’s a big part of my day: making sure that I’m helping the team to facilitate those reviews and then making sure that once those things enter the projects of those various teams, that I’m able to get updates throughout the day on how those things are progressing. Being a follower of all those actions, for example, eliminates the need for me to constantly like check in throughout the day. I’m just getting notified when those things happen.
Since I’m on calls back-to-back most of the day, it’s very hard to find free time to have check-ins with mine and other teams. Forms allow me to keep up to date through notifications, rather than having to go chase people.
We also have to revise contracts, sometimes. Recently, I’ve started using the proofing approvals function to revise our contracts. So one of our teammates will upload an initial draft of that agreement, they’ll assign it to me for approval and I’ll go in there and mark it up —maybe there’s a line item missing or a miscalculation on price — and I’ll just annotate that document and send it back to them for revisions.
Once they make those final edits, I can actually mark it off for complete. So instead of having to meet and have a conversation about it, I’m able to do this process when I just have free time to approve these contracts to be sent out.
3:30-5:30 P.M.
Toward the end of the day, I make it a priority to hold myself and the team accountable for some of our day-to-day activities. Whether that’s updating the sales pipeline or making sure the team got through contacting all their sales leads for the day. I do this by either sending out requests in our Hive group chat where everyone can post what they’ve accomplished for the day.
I also use the time at the end of the day to assign action cards to the team with anything that needs to be completed. Once it’s completed, they’ll mark off as complete when finished. Instead of having to go check through reporting in Salesforce or another tool to validate the task as completed, the team is able to just confirm through Hive that those things are accomplished for the day.
I’m always finding easy ways to keep track of the team’s smaller tasks in Hive that, without a project management tool, could potentially fall out of scope during a busy day.
Making a True Impact On a Workday
What would you say are the biggest benefits of using hive overall for you and the team?
I think the biggest sort of time-saver for me is not actually having to check in with people for updates in my pastoral, we did not have a project management solution. We just use Salesforce and were constantly sending emails or slacks. What’s the status of this opportunity? You know, where are the notes for our upcoming demo? Everyone’s keeping one-on-one notes in a different place, you know, apple notes or whatever their Evernote. It has just eliminated a lot of chasing that I have to do to collaborate with the team. Just makes it a lot easier to get more done and actually spend more time on calls and with our customers then, you know, doing internal work.
What would happen if you couldn’t use Hive anymore?
Find a new one. I think that we probably just have a little less insight into how to I would say keep the, keep the team accountable and probably lose some preparation time for our calls. I think it’s very hard when you have a full day to sort of plan around preparation for each demo to make sure that they go well. So I’d probably say the quality of our presentations at our meetings would take a serious hit.
Would you recommend Hive to other teams and if so, why?
Yes, absolutely.
