3:30
Juan MC Larrosa
If You Want To Be Awesome At Emails, Add Yesware To Your Gmail Today
One of the biggest problems in business development, partnerships, and sales is managing your pipeline. A close second is managing, tracking, and keep up to date with your email inbox. I’ve tried many tools to help both issues but each has had its shortcomings. About a week ago a friend tipped me off to a company called Yesware, a tool for salespeople that tracks emails, create templates, CRM sync, and more. With his endorsement I immediately added it to my business and personal Gmail accounts.
My inbox was transformed into a hyper-aware entity. As my day commenced I started to realize that I was getting smarter by the minute. That really important email I sent in the morning to a team member was still sitting in their inbox, unopened. I decided to head over to their desk to talk about the important matter I had emailed them about. Efficient, smart, and useful. I’ve only been a user for a week, but I’ve already upgraded to a paid account.
Yesware was founded in 2010 by Matthew Bellows (CEO and photo above),Cashman Andrus (CTO) and serial entrepreneur Rajat Bhargava, who sits on their board. In April 2012, Yesware raised a Series A of $4M from IDG Ventures and Golden Venture Partners (alongside Google GOOG +0.42% Ventures and Foundry Group that participated in their $1M seed round in 2011). During this time, the Yesware staff has grown to 17 employees, and users have increased from 5,000 to more than 120,000+. There are also a few high quality customers using Yesware, including: Groupon GRPN +0.59%, GoodData, Xactly, HubSpot, Brightcove BCOV +4.11%, Adroll, Demandforce, and Cloud Sherpas.
After playing around with the tool, I sent my praise to the Twitter-sphere and connected with the CEO, Matthew Bellows. I had a chance to ask Bellows a few questions about his business, the future of sales, and other tools to help you become awesome at business development/sales/partnerships.
Alex Taub (AT): Where do you think the future of sales is going?
Matthew Bellows (MB): Sales is at the start of a quiet revolution. It’s being driven by several factors: the broader availability of information, a more aggressive lean-forward approach to purchasing, higher expectations for enterprise quality software experiences, and more process-driven tactics to running sales teams. When customer behavior, customer expectation, and internal management processes are all in flux, it’s a very interesting time to be in sales. As a meditation teacher once said, ”Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.”
Matthew Bellows (MB): Sales is at the start of a quiet revolution. It’s being driven by several factors: the broader availability of information, a more aggressive lean-forward approach to purchasing, higher expectations for enterprise quality software experiences, and more process-driven tactics to running sales teams. When customer behavior, customer expectation, and internal management processes are all in flux, it’s a very interesting time to be in sales. As a meditation teacher once said, ”Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news.”
AT: What is the most interesting thing you’ve learned since starting Yesware?
MB: As a salesperson, I started Yesware thinking that my ability to sell was going to be a defining factor in our success. In fact, our board members really had to hold me back from selling in the early days. They knew, and taught me, that before the product was actually ready, it’s counter-productive to sell. I wrote a blog post about the experiencehere). Overall, the role of the product, especially in the enterprise world, has gotten more and more important. In the old days, a great sales and marketing organization could make up for a mediocre product. That’s changing now, and traditional enterprise companies are struggling because of it. I think that’s one thing plaguingMicrosoft MSFT +0.74%. So I’ve learned that product is central to marketing and central to selling, as well as central to the customer experience. That’s a big shift from how B2B companies traditionally operate.
MB: As a salesperson, I started Yesware thinking that my ability to sell was going to be a defining factor in our success. In fact, our board members really had to hold me back from selling in the early days. They knew, and taught me, that before the product was actually ready, it’s counter-productive to sell. I wrote a blog post about the experiencehere). Overall, the role of the product, especially in the enterprise world, has gotten more and more important. In the old days, a great sales and marketing organization could make up for a mediocre product. That’s changing now, and traditional enterprise companies are struggling because of it. I think that’s one thing plaguingMicrosoft MSFT +0.74%. So I’ve learned that product is central to marketing and central to selling, as well as central to the customer experience. That’s a big shift from how B2B companies traditionally operate.
AT: Where does mobile fit into your roadmap?
MB: We get asked this question every day, and it’s always on my mind. In the long term, Yesware will be everywhere a salesperson is. If you are working on email, Yesware is there for you now. If you are making phone calls, Yesware should be there for you. If you are on the road, Yesware should be there to help you close more deals.
MB: We get asked this question every day, and it’s always on my mind. In the long term, Yesware will be everywhere a salesperson is. If you are working on email, Yesware is there for you now. If you are making phone calls, Yesware should be there for you. If you are on the road, Yesware should be there to help you close more deals.
The thing is, we’re a small team delivering an enterprise-grade product to almost 150,000 salespeople all over the world. We’ve bitten off a lot by integrating Gmail and Salesforce, helping salespeople close while exposing customer response data to their teams. So we haven’t gotten to mobile yet. But we will. I promise.
AT: What other tools do you recommend for sales/bd/partnership people to use to be more successful?
MB: I’m a big fan of Mobile Day which makes conference calls so much better. I love PrepWorkwhich emails you primers on the people you are meeting with later in the day. I’m fascinated about sales compensation (I interviewed Dan Pink about ithere. Xactly has a great product for mapping innovative approaches to that thorny topic.
MB: I’m a big fan of Mobile Day which makes conference calls so much better. I love PrepWorkwhich emails you primers on the people you are meeting with later in the day. I’m fascinated about sales compensation (I interviewed Dan Pink about ithere. Xactly has a great product for mapping innovative approaches to that thorny topic.
Speaking of Dan Pink, his book is great for everyone interested in sales. It’s called “To Sell is Human.” He takes modern social science and applies it to sales in a refreshing, human, and motivating way.
AT: What are you focused on in 2013? What is important for you guys?
MB: We’ve done a decent job of making Yesware helpful for salespeople, and we need to do more of that, but in 2013 we really need to improve how we help sales managers. Teams are more collaborative, and sales management has changed a great deal from the old carrot-and-stick methods. This year you’ll see Yesware help managers help their teams be more successful.
MB: We’ve done a decent job of making Yesware helpful for salespeople, and we need to do more of that, but in 2013 we really need to improve how we help sales managers. Teams are more collaborative, and sales management has changed a great deal from the old carrot-and-stick methods. This year you’ll see Yesware help managers help their teams be more successful.
AT: You talked about how a B2B product has to really be ready before you start to sell. Isn’t that counter to the “Lean Startup” method that’s so popular now? How do you know if your product is ready?”
MB: Great question. No, seriously, there is a big emphasis in the startup literature about “ship early and often” and “if you aren’t embarrassed by your product, you waited too long to ship” I agree with both of those sentiments actually, but they pertain more to product development than they do to sales. Ship early, and be embarrassed, but before you build a sales function, make sure your product supports a scalable sales effort. I wrote about this in an article called “You’re Not Ready for a Sales Hire.”
MB: Great question. No, seriously, there is a big emphasis in the startup literature about “ship early and often” and “if you aren’t embarrassed by your product, you waited too long to ship” I agree with both of those sentiments actually, but they pertain more to product development than they do to sales. Ship early, and be embarrassed, but before you build a sales function, make sure your product supports a scalable sales effort. I wrote about this in an article called “You’re Not Ready for a Sales Hire.”
The way to know that your B2B product is ready for a dedicated sales effort is by inbound interest. Seriously. You should have customers emailing you, calling you, sending you meeting invites, because they want to talk about how to buy your product. Before that happens, don’t spend a dime on marketing or selling. Focus exclusively on improving the product experience. Once you start getting inbound interest, then you can start to sell.
Update: If you are looking for a solution for Outlook, check out Toutapp.
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