What helps a sales professional succeed?
A great team to back them up and extensive customer knowledge — at least, that’s according to the following sales leaders.
Chase Buchholz, a sales manager at transportation tech company Toro TMS, supports new teammates by helping them understand the daily challenges that customers face.
“Developing sales talent starts with becoming fluent in our customers’ businesses, because trucking company owners can instantly tell whether you understand how they operate,” Buchholz said.
At insurance platform Hi Marley, Senior Account Manager Laurie Jones sees continuous learning as a vital part of successful sales operations, and it starts on day one.
“Not everyone comes to Hi Marley with an insurance background,” Jones said. “To help them get acclimated before meeting clients and representing Hi Marley externally, we partner closely with others in our organization who have deep industry knowledge and experience.”
For many of the sales leaders we spoke with, teams also thrive when they are trusted with autonomy, like at data insight company Dynatrace.
“For me, developing sales talent starts with coaching, not managing,” Sheri McQueen, regional sales vice president at Dynatrace said. “I believe people do their best work when they feel supported, challenged and trusted to grow.”
Read on to see what the recipe for success is on these sales teams.
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As enterprises prepare to deploy thousands of agents across business-critical use cases, Monte Carlo provides the support infrastructure, from human-guided agents to fully autonomous operations.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
I believe the best way to develop sales talent is through a combination of high expectations, consistent coaching and lead with trust for them to own their performance. I want people to understand not just what great looks like, but why it works and then give them the opportunity to apply it themselves.
Ultimately, the goal is to build confident, independent sellers who can eventually develop others themselves.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our sales goals come straight from our mission. Monte Carlo is the first agent trust platform and our customers are betting their business on AI working in production. So our success only counts if theirs does. We set ambitious goals and chase them with urgency, ownership and teamwork, but we measure ourselves on real customer outcomes, not just bookings.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition is a huge catalyst for our sellers to overachieve their goals. Sales is a tough job and you hear no a lot, so when someone wins, the whole company hears about it. Every closed deal gets posted in our wins channel in Slack and it’s not just sales jumping in. Engineers, product and leadership all pile on.
But we don’t only celebrate the deal. We call out what got us there: the rep who ran a flawless POV, the forward deployed engineer who saved a deal at the eleventh hour, the team that rallied around a customer. What you recognize is what you get more of, so we’re deliberate about celebrating the work that led to the outcome.
Dynatrace delivers answers and intelligent automation from data.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
For me, developing sales talent starts with coaching, not managing. I believe people do their best work when they feel supported, challenged and trusted to grow. I focus on creating opportunities that stretch individuals beyond their comfort zones while providing the guidance and feedback they need to be successful. Equally important is fostering a culture of continuous learning, collaboration and psychological safety, where my teams feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking for help and learning from mistakes. Ultimately, I measure success not only by performance outcomes, but by how much people grow in confidence, capability and their careers.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our sales goals are aligned with our mission because we believe that when customers win, we win. Success isn’t just about hitting revenue targets; it’s about helping customers achieve meaningful business outcomes. Integrity, collaboration and customer obsession are core to our culture and influence every aspect of how we engage with customers. We focus on building trusted relationships and delivering long-term value, because sustainable success comes from earning trust, not simply closing transactions.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition plays a critical role in creating a high-performing team. I believe people thrive when they feel seen, valued and appreciated. While business results matter, I make a point of recognizing the behaviors that drive lasting success, such as collaboration, resilience, teamwork and customer impact. Through initiatives like my “Half Awards,” I celebrate individuals who embody these values. Consistent and authentic recognition boosts confidence, strengthens engagement and reinforces the culture we want to build together. When recognition becomes part of the team’s DNA, it leads to stronger relationships, better performance and better business outcomes.
Arrive Logistics is a logistics company that specializes in freight brokerages.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Arrive Logistics relies on a proven “Hire. Train. Retain.” model for sales development. To achieve top-tier results, we build our team with a service-first mindset. Foundational customer service skills are established during four weeks of classroom training before reps are paired with experienced mentors who have strong track records in talent development. Depending on the role, this mentorship phase spans five to nine months and serves as the bedrock of our success. Demonstrating our commitment to growth, Arrive is investing over $60 million in new-hire development in 2026.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
As a dedicated sales organization, Arrive Logistics operates on a “relentless pursuit” to challenge the status quo and continuously improve. Our core business KPIs directly inform our sales goals and investments. However, it is the reliability and service quality we cultivate in our team that forms the true fabric of our culture — defining how we show up and deliver for each other, our customers and our partners every day.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition, acknowledgment, guidance and consistent support are vital to our team’s success. At Arrive, we drive engagement through annual sales competitions like Arrive March Madness and Fantasy Freight. Top performers can also earn a spot at our annual President’s Club trip, where they are celebrated alongside company leadership, peers and significant others. Across all offices, daily, weekly and monthly scoreboards highlight performance metrics and leaderboards. We thrive on healthy competition and raising expectations—knowing where we stand and celebrating wins daily is essential to building our company and succeeding together.
Toro TMS is on a mission to deliver technology that drives lasting improvements for the trucking industry.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Developing sales talent starts with becoming fluent in our customers’ businesses, because trucking company owners can instantly tell whether you understand how they operate. During ramp, new reps spend time on site with customers and shadow our implementation team to build that expertise. From there, reps take early ownership of their deals, giving us a baseline of their strengths and growth areas. Each month, we set a single coaching theme per rep focused on the change with the biggest impact, such as running a clear process, uncovering customer pain, or sharpening the close. We adapt our support to how each rep learns best, whether by joining calls, reviewing recordings, or strategizing on deals. Weekly enablement sessions also let reps learn from each other, not just their managers, so the best tactics spread quickly. More broadly, we learn where each person wants to go in their career, whether that’s top closer, leadership, or another part of the business and help them build the skills to get there. We value ability over tenure, so anyone ready for more responsibility gets it. Above all, our leaders model the preparation, curiosity and ownership we expect from our team.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our mission is to help trucking companies run a better business with less stress and we only sign up a customer if we believe Toro can deliver on that. Our month-to-month model means we have no incentive to sell anyone that won’t see real value and almost everyone across the company has compensation tied to converted, paying revenue. As we tell prospects, “don’t believe us, believe the business model.” We take an old-school approach to partnering with customers and that transparency builds trust, aligns incentives and sets the best foundation for both businesses succeeding together. It also creates an unusual level of clarity inside Toro: every team and individual is accountable to one shared goal, converting and retaining bulk hauling operations. If something doesn’t serve that goal, we don’t do it.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition of what’s working matters a lot at Toro. Sales is a demanding job and with many reps in the field and on the road, their wins aren’t always visible to the broader team unless we surface them. Every week, we shout out wins. One week, that might be an enterprise deal closed by our most tenured top performer. The next, it might be a new tactic from a brand-new rep who experimented and proved it works. Beyond showing appreciation for hard work, recognition shows the team what good looks like, so everyone can take something back to their own process. The more we celebrate standout effort, tactics, persistence and ways of thinking, the faster the best ideas spread. Sales is often treated as an individual sport, but we like to play it as a team sport, knowing it builds a better culture and accelerates the learning that drives individual performance.
Kustomer’s AI-native CX platform is designed to help businesses meet the needs of customers.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Over the years I’ve learned that step one is finding each seller’s “why.” Each of us brings a different set of experiences and motivations for choosing this career and grounding coaching and growth opportunities in those perspectives is crucial to get buy-in.
Second, as the saying goes, clear is kind. I always try to frame coaching and development in one or more of three buckets. The first bucket is “your customers want this type of experience.” The second bucket is “the company needs this type of behavior or skill level.” And the third is “this type of change will positively impact your career growth.” If the team understands development through the lens of how it benefits their customers, the company and themselves, it tends to resonate a lot more.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our mission is to end bad customer service, so we’ve shifted from legacy SaaS selling tactics to things that actually provide a great experience for potential buyers. Over the years, buyers have come to expect easier, earlier access to technology and we lean into that. Of course having an innovative, reliable product makes that easier to do. Buyers have also come to expect a level of expertise, so we’ve set that as a baseline expectation culturally. We must embody expertise in our field.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
One of the key shifts we’ve made is focusing on recognizing successful behaviors in addition to successful results. Obviously we chose a results-oriented profession. But those results are the outcomes from successful behaviors, so I try to spend more time talking about what led to the result and recognizing team members for those things and encouraging more of those things. We are living in a time of incredible market dynamics and the ability to adapt and innovate is crucial. That’s why recognizing and rewarding early behaviors and the willingness to try new things is important to me.
Quantum Metric helps companies improve their user experience with continuous product design.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
It starts with culture. Before we talk about skills or tactics, we establish a shared commitment to the process of excellence, because talent grows fastest in an environment where everyone holds themselves to a high standard.
Every quarter, each person on the team knows exactly what’s expected of them and then they invest real time in deep work to build their own plan to get there. We don’t stop at company expectations, though. Each rep sets personal goals well past what’s required. Stretching that far forces us to think more creatively, challenge our assumptions and find new ways to create value for our customers.
Development is also personal. Every member of the team has defined career growth goals, whether that’s moving into a larger book of business, leading a team or mastering a new part of the sale and we actively coach toward them. We teach a common language and methodology, using Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain and Champion sales strategy to qualify and run deals with rigor and command of the message to articulate value in a way that resonates with customers. Most importantly, we invest in the habits that compound over time: disciplined pipeline creation, thoughtful deal reviews and honest self-assessment.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our goals are designed to serve two outcomes at once. Quantum Metric’s growth and each individual’s professional growth. We don’t see those as competing priorities. When our people get better, our customers get more value and the company grows as a result.
Fulfilling our mission starts with getting the right people on the bus, people who are genuinely committed to the process and to each other. From there, we pursue development through the lens of our company values: passion, persistence and integrity. Passion shows up in how deeply we care about our customers’ success. Persistence shows up in how we handle complex, long enterprise sales cycles without cutting corners. Integrity shows up in how we forecast, how we represent our product and how we treat one another. The number matters, but how we achieve it matters just as much.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition is central to how we build a winning team and we’re intentional about what we recognize. Of course we celebrate results, but more importantly we recognize consistency: the people who show up every single week committed to excellence, whether or not a deal closed that week.
That distinction matters because the path of excellence is what produces results. Big wins are usually the product of months of disciplined, often unglamorous work. By reinforcing that commitment consistently, we make it clear what we value and we see team members thrive and grow into the best versions of themselves.
With a platform that connects providers and payers, Cedar empowers healthcare consumers with a personalized journey from appointment confirmation to payment — all powered by data science and interactive design.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Developing sales talent is a team sport and it starts with giving every seller a clear picture of what “great” looks like. Each of our roles has a competency model, so our sellers always know which skills that will take them to the next level.
Talent growth also starts on day one. Our onboarding runs on milestones designed to get new sellers confident and productive fast and everboarding keeps their edge sharp as our market, products and pricing also evolve.
Our sellers have the whole go-to-market team invested in their growth. Managers, RevOps, product marketing and commercial strategy share what they see in the field, from win-loss trends to pricing patterns and Enablement turns those insights into development that reflects the deals our sellers are working on right now.
AI is changing how healthcare is bought, so we’ve also changed how we build skills. We work in shorter cycles: sellers rehearse in AI role plays, sharpen through live practice labs and put new skills to work quickly. A growth mindset keeps our sellers learning as fast as the market moves.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Somewhere today, a patient is opening a medical bill and wondering whether they can afford their next appointment. Cedar’s mission is to empower us all to easily and affordably pursue the care we need and our sales goals start there.
Our sellers carry ambitious targets and each new health system partnership brings clarity, flexible ways to pay and one less reason to delay care to its patients. Hitting quota and advancing the mission are the same work here.
Our mission shapes how we sell, too. Health system leaders are managing real financial pressure and they need a partner who understands it. Our sellers earn that trust through deep discovery and good judgment, recommending what each client truly needs. And because we reject mediocrity, we raise the bar together: sellers, sales engineering and client management challenge each other’s thinking on every deal.
The mission says “us all” because our sellers are patients too, which makes this work personal.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
In healthcare sales, a single deal can take the better part of a year. If recognition waited for closed revenue, our sellers would go months without it. So we recognize the progress that makes wins possible and that rhythm is a real driver of our team’s performance.
Recognition shows up daily in our shoutout channel, where teammates call out a well-run executive meeting or a colleague who stepped in at the right moment. Every all-hands meeting includes dedicated time for recognition, which signals that leadership treats it as part of how we operate.
When a deal closes, we celebrate the entire deal team: sellers, sales engineers, client management, delivery, commercial strategy, product marketing and leaders. Naming each contribution reinforces the collaboration that complex health systems demand and we share what the partnership means for that system’s patients.
And true to our growth mindset, we recognize learning too. A candid review of a lost deal that makes everyone sharper earns the same respect and recognition as a big win.
Coupa is a global technology company that helps businesses run smarter by connecting all the ways they spend money — from procurement and expenses to payments and supply chain decisions — in one intelligent platform.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
At Coupa, great sellers are built through intentional structure, starting on day one with the Coupa sales academy. This onboarding goes beyond product features, immersing new hires in BSM fundamentals and real customer scenarios to build immediate credibility with CFOs, CPOs and IT leaders.
Enablement is a continuous, career-long commitment. Sellers have constant access to Coupa Talent Edge (our learning portal) and The Vault (our master library for competitive playbooks). We use Chorus for call coaching and managers actively coach through weekly one-on-one’s, deal reviews and regional Demand Gen Councils so no seller navigates complex deals alone.
We weave peer mentorship directly into daily operations and foster close collaboration with value business engineers and value solution consultants.
Career paths are highly visible, enabling sellers to grow from account directors to strategic enterprise roles, or transition into regional sales management and global enablement. Our ’inverse org chart’ means management is here to support the field — the entire village is designed to invest in your long-term growth.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Enterprise sellers perform at their absolute best when the scoreboard is completely transparent. At Coupa, we eliminate the black box of commissions. Every sales professional receives a clear, formalized compensation plan at the start of the fiscal period outlining their exact quota, accelerators and territory details.
We don’t leave performance tracking to end-of-quarter surprises. Sellers have real-time visibility into their transaction-level attainment and can see exactly how closed-won business translates into earnings. This is supported by our strong revenue operations team and regular manager touchpoints, ensuring progress-to-goal remains a collaborative, ongoing conversation.
We hold ourselves to a standard of fairness and absolute clarity. By taking the guesswork out of commissions, our sellers can spend 100 percent of their creative energy where it belongs: collaborating with teammates and helping our customers succeed. Operating on an ‘inverse org chart,’ our entire village is designed to support the field and invest in your success.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Coupa powers a global network of over $10 million buyers and suppliers, managing more than $10 trillion in business spend. For our sellers, this spend represents critical real-world initiatives: optimizing cash flow, mitigating supply chain risk, building resilience and driving sustainable progress. When you show a company how to find efficiency in that spend, you fundamentally improve how their business runs.
Our value-based selling methodology turns this impact into our standard sales motion. We don’t lead with ‘features and functions.’ Instead, we lead with discovery — understanding operational pain, mapping ROI and demonstrating how a single unified platform unlocks millions in savings.
Mastering this methodology is the ultimate engine for your career. By guiding executives through complex financial transformations, you become a trusted advisor. Our top sellers build deep business acumen, connect with C-suite leaders and earn the credibility to lead our largest, most strategic global accounts. At Coupa, your career trajectory is directly linked to the tangible value you create.
Hi Marley creates a conversational platform built for P&C insurance and is powered by SMS.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Developing and growing talent takes a village and it starts with onboarding. It’s important to set new hires up for success and get them up to speed on the P&C insurance industry before they start with their assigned book of business.
Not everyone comes to Hi Marley with an insurance background. To help them get acclimated before meeting clients and representing Hi Marley externally, we partner closely with others in our organization who have deep industry knowledge and experience. We schedule info sessions and informal meetings so new hires can spend time with those employees and understand the platform’s end users (adjusters), what they’re up against, their challenges and the problems Hi Marley solves.
New hires also sit in on other account managers’ client calls, observe and keep a running list of questions. Then, we host a weekly roundup where anyone on the team can bring questions that came up during the week and run through them together; it helps everyone feel comfortable asking questions and it allows us to learn from one another.
We also collaborate, meeting regularly as a team to share best practices and help each other work through challenges.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
At Hi Marley, our goal is to make insurance lovable. While the account management team is sales-driven and has goals we’re expected to hit, we take a consultative approach to our roles. Our priority is to take care of our clients and help them solve problems through the solutions and products we offer.
Relationships are a huge part of the P&C Insurance industry. Building a trusted relationship with our clients takes time, listening and understanding. We need to understand each carrier’s unique needs, what challenges they’re facing and how we can improve their workflows.
We talk about Hi Marley’s core values internally — “max courage,” “be humble” and “ubuntu” — which guide how we behave and work with each other. Those values also shape how we partner with our clients. We approach conversations with an open mind, wanting to hear what others have to say and gain their perspective. We have many conversations, ask questions and find the best ways to work together.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
One of Hi Marley’s core values, “ubuntu: I am because we are,” means true success is being part of a purpose much bigger than any single individual or company. That value is evident in our dedicated, company-wide Slack channel that highlights new customers, renewals and expansions.
The Slack messages not only celebrate our wins but also recognize and thank everyone who played a part in the deal. It’s important because it shows it’s not just the client executive or account manager who makes these deals happen; it’s a collective effort. Deals in our industry can take months, sometimes years and require support from a variety of teams, including customer success, engineering, product, security, industry strategy and more. It’s crucial to highlight the people who played a part that aren’t in client-facing roles; when people feel appreciated, they are more willing to share their time and expertise in the future.
That level of recognition doesn’t happen at every company; it’s a unique part of our culture and shows how we work together. We’re lucky to have an organization that encourages and values collaboration.
Samsara’s platform helps organizations that depend on physical operations to harness IoT data to develop actionable insights and improve their operations.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
The first step in developing sales talent among account executives and frontline inside sales managers is best-in-class recruiting. When you have a strong recruiting process and understand what makes a great candidate for each role, developing that talent becomes much easier.
From there, it’s about setting clear expectations and aligning coaching to each person’s growth. Every account executives and inside sales managers are on a journey and leaders need to recognize the critical steps, define expected outcomes and coach the right skills at the right time. For account executives, that journey might include pipeline generation, pipeline progression, closing revenue and expanding products within existing customers. For an inside sales manager, it shifts to team development: recruiting, ramping, remediation and retention.
Once those areas are clear, use enablement and weekly coaching to strengthen the skills that need the most focus and measure progress quarter over quarter. I also encourage leaders to build a network of mentors for their teams. One leader can only offer so much; the right mentor gives an aspiring rep, manager or director access to new skills and experiences that can accelerate their development.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
I’ve had the privilege of working at Samsara for more than seven years, supporting sales teams across four countries. Throughout that time, the goals assigned to my teams each quarter and year have directly connected to the real-world impact we create for customers.
Sales teams often think of quotas in terms of contracts sold or expanded. But because of the power of our products and the incredible work our customers do, we can connect those targets to tangible outcomes. If part of a target is achieved through products such as AI Dash Cams or AI Multicam, it can translate to fewer accidents and claims, improved workflows and even lives saved.
I encourage teams to start with the customer’s business challenges, then identify where Samsara’s products can make the greatest difference. An account executive’s quarterly target becomes more than a number: it reflects the insurance and fuel costs reduced, assets recovered, time saved and operational efficiencies gained. Knowing we’re helping customers solve real challenges makes our culture of performance even more fulfilling.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition is one of the most impactful tools for building team culture and motivation. It should be methodical, fair and consistent, with praise connected to the outcomes you want to see as the team grows.
For account executives, recognize quality pipeline generation and progression, champion-building within opportunities and strong revenue performance. Upmarket wins are especially worth celebrating as account executives progress in their roles. If a team is working through a change, such as expanding products or selling into a new vertical, recognition in those areas is essential. Celebrate wins publicly and often.
Recognition should also reflect each person’s goals. For account executives pursuing upmarket roles, highlight wins that show continued success with larger deals. For those interested in leadership, recognize collaboration with junior talent and cross-functional partners.
Sales leaders need recognition, too. For a new manager, celebrate strong hires, account executives development and coaching outcomes. For a senior manager, recognize performance at scale and the promotions they have enabled through developing their team.
Apollo.io is an AI-powered sales platform that helps revenue teams find and engage leads, automate outreach, manage deals and enrich data — all in one place.
How do you develop and grow sales talent?
Growth at Apollo starts with a genuine culture of coaching. In EMEA, managers and leaders invest in regular, hands-on development: reviewing calls, role-playing tough conversations and giving real-time feedback so reps sharpen their craft every week, not just at review time.
We pair that with a clear career framework that spells out the expectations at each level. Everyone knows where they stand, what great looks like and what it takes to reach the next step, which makes promotion conversations transparent rather than a mystery.
We also believe great careers are built by whole people. We support both personal and professional goals, whether that’s moving into leadership, becoming a deep specialist, or building the flexibility to do your best work and live your best life outside of it.
How do sales goals align with company mission and culture?
Our mission is to democratize go-to-market technologies. We help companies find their next customer and our sales team gets to use Apollo to find and engage ours. We’re our own best proof point: the reps selling Apollo are also living the product every day.
Our sales goals also tie directly to our culture pillars, “customer obsessed” and “all for one.”
Customer obsessed: Our team lives and breathes this in every interaction with a customer or future customer. Hitting our target is the byproduct of understanding customer needs and helping them succeed.
All for one: Nobody hits their number alone. We celebrate and encourage collaboration and it takes the full team, across sales, solutions, marketing, success and beyond, to reach our targets and deliver an outstanding customer experience. We win as a team.
What role does recognition play in your team’s success?
Recognition is fuel for our team. We celebrate the day-to-day wins, like a great discovery call, a creative approach to a tough deal, or a teammate who jumped in to help, as well as the big milestones, like closing a landmark deal or hitting a quarterly goal. Shining a light on both reinforces the behaviors we want to see, builds momentum and reminds everyone that their work matters.
