Guest: Alyssa Thornley Guest Bio:  Alyssa is a dynamic leader recognized as a 2024 San Diego Business Journal Leader in Technology. With a background in non-profits like Teach For America and fast-growing SaaS companies, she excels in driving impactful initiatives through strategic vision, innovative thinking, and collaborative leadership. Alyssa has a proven track record of leading growth efforts through M&A integrations, optimizing operational efficiency, and spearheading strategic initiatives for SMB tech companies in San Diego. Her expertise lies in scaling teams and implementing cost-effective solutions to support business growth. Key Points: Guest Introduction: Featuring Alyssa Thornley, a revenue operations consultant with extensive experience in nonprofits and SaaS companies. Alyssa’s career journey from middle school teacher to a pivotal role in sales operations and strategy. Career Transition: From teaching to customer service, where Alyssa discovered inefficiencies and improved sales processes. Her progression from supporting SDRs to managing sales and demand generation in an education technology company. Role of Mentorship: Mentorship’s significant influence on Alyssa’s career development and success. The impact of mentorship on understanding sales systems and individual seller needs. Sales Approaches: Discussion on high volume versus personalized engagement strategies. Encouragement for sales teams to leverage their strengths in these approaches. Team Management and Support: Alyssa’s focus on identifying energizing aspects of the sales process for her team. Importance of understanding team personalities to create effective support systems. Sales Roles and Skills: Differentiation between “hunters” (aggressive prospecting) and “farmers” (client retention). Necessity of tailored training and resources for each sales role. Challenges and Tools: Challenges faced by new salespeople, including administrative burdens and inefficient CRM systems. The importance of equipping sales teams with efficient tools and drawing parallels to scenarios like cooking for better understanding. Effective Client Engagement: Significance of providing sales teams with information and tools such as dialers and quality control scripts. Emphasis on repetition and authenticity in scripts for higher conversion rates and positive customer experiences. Quality Control and Training: Importance of maintaining quality control through effective scripting and accessible templates. Advocating for natural communication in scripts to avoid robotic delivery and ensure authenticity. Scaling Sales Teams: Necessity of having a well-defined sales process, scripts, and roles before scaling. Training that promotes authentic speech and natural communication in sales interactions. Cold Call Scripts: Creating authentic cold call scripts focusing on individual customer experiences. Recommendations for practicing conversations and refining messaging for better engagement. Guest Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssathornley/   About Salesology®: Conversations with Sales Leaders Download your free gift, The Salesology® Vault. The vault is packed full of free gifts from sales leaders, sales experts, marketing gurus and revenue generation experts.  Download your free gift, 81 Tools to Grow Your Sales & Your Business Faster, More Easily & More Profitably. Save hours of work tracking down the right prospecting and sales resources and/or digital tools that every business owner and salesperson needs. If you are a business owner or sales manager with an underperforming sales team, let’s talk. Click here to schedule a time. Please, subscribe to Salesology®: Conversations with Sales Leaders so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatl