Building a scalable sales engine is something which Ryan Hall, founder of Friday Solved, is an expert in. We were lucky enough to sit down with him and he took us through how you can create a sales engine that will grow with your agency, as it scales.

Defining the Right People for Your Sales Engine

To build a scalable sales engine, you need to start by thinking about the people you need to put around it. Ryan says, “We need closers, we need subject matter experts, we need relationship people.” He suggests that you need people who are good at building relationships and drivers who can properly stimulate the engine and help you get some scale.

Building a scalable ales engine needs… t-shirts

Ryan breaks down the people in the sales engine as  “T-shirts”: purple t-shirts (junior staff, probably sales-based), yellow t-shirts or “personas” (EG head of UX, head of creative, etc – someone who the buyer can learn something from), blue t-shirts (relationship builders, who can nurture those budding relationships with prospects) and green t-shirts.

The Green T-Shirt: Your Closer

Ryan suggests that the green t-shirt in your team is your closer. This person is usually a founder, a leader, or an MD. As your organization gets bigger, you’ll likely need more closers. But for a small agency, it’s probably going to be the founder, the leader, or the MD. Ryan says, “What’s important is that this person shouldn’t be spending their time turning the hand on the big fat end of the funnel doing all the prospecting.”

Putting Drivers in Place

To take care of prospecting, you need to put some drivers in place. Ryan says, “They can do that with a really interesting playbook and be very happy about it.” These are the people who will run all your channels, do all of the demand generation, run the tools, build the flows, and get you out there at scale.

Identifying the Right Personas

Ryan suggests that you need to identify the right personas for your sales engine. He says, “The people who are going to add meaning to the subject matter expertise that they’re trying to deliver on their business.” These are the people that the buyers want to be talking to because they can learn from them.

Hiring Relationship People

To handle the middle part of the funnel, you need some relationship people. Ryan says, “It’s better to hire someone who’s really good at building a relationship and doesn’t need to be too sales orientated.” These are the people who are going to help you nurture leads and prospects beautifully and help drive towards an opportunity and a solution for the end buyer.

Delivering on the Promise of Reach and Scale

To deliver on the promise of reach and scale, you need to think about automation. Ryan says, “There are some brilliant tools out there that can help you do some really intelligent automation, but it’s only as intelligent as the messaging and the insight that you put into it.” By adding a don’t sell philosophy to your automation efforts, you can get some really interesting results and make it work for you.

Conclusion

Building a scalable sales engine is all about thinking the right people to put around it, nurturing relationships, and using automation intelligently. By following Ryan’s tips and insights, you can build a sales engine that can grow with your company and help you reach your goals.

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Ryan Hall is the founder of Friday Solved, a consulting and coaching company that helps businesses solve their sales problems with sustainable and scalable solutions.

Over the last 20+ years of experience in positioning, proposition design, and sales strategy, Ryan has helped leading global brands such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Sky, M&S, first direct, Trainline, Vodafone, The Independent, UBS, Bank of America and The Times buy market-leading solutions.

His passion is to share his expertise and insights with other, founders, CEOs and business leaders who want to create a market position that stands out in a B2B market.