Crushing Sales & Social Media with Matt Firestone: Customer Café Podcast
Matt Firestone is the Founding Account Executive at Noble and co-founder of SDRs of Israel. Matt started out as a lawyer but was drawn into the wonderful world of high tech. Sales was a great entry point given his transferrable soft skills. His analytical and “intentional” writing skills enrich his abilities in his current role.
There is a lot of fun AND informational banter sprinkled throughout this episode, so listen to the whole shebang!
You can and should tune in wherever you listen to podcasts including Spotify, Apple, or here.
A few of the highlights are here:
What is a Founding Accounting Executive?
He’s creating a sales process for Noble. He’s creating the playbook while simultaneously doing the job. He collaborates with the founder, marketing, and product in the sales process.
How do you collaborate with marketing? (It sounds like you do it differently)
“It’s definitely a two-way street and two-way integration, if you will, of data. I’m feeding off the experience and the expertise of understanding the ICP and the language from marketing. I’m feeding back to them my conversations with clients and what current trends look like. Gong has been a great tool. We can each glean the takeaways that we need in these collaborations. It’s definitely cyclical. I’m learning from them, and they are learning from me as we build this organizational knowledge and as we continue speaking to clients and prospects.”
Does SDR fall under marketing or sales? (Matt asked this question!)
Matt asked the question on his personal LinkedIn, and the vote was split. He leans towards marketing. He once asked if SDRs are salespeople. Matt thinks that SDRs really need to start conversations. That’s what is most important.
What made you decide to co-found SDRs of Israel?
He wanted to break into the field and reached out to friends in tech. In doing this, he started conversations with people and one of those conversations led to his first role at EasySend. To break into the field, he had to piecemeal information and conversations. He met up with Yaalit (link to her episode) and SDRs of Israel was born.
Matt wanted to know what’s working for other people. He wanted to learn within a community. “We are hoping to accomplish being that place.” They host two events monthly. One event is skill building and one is more social in nature.
Chat spaces allow people to ask questions. Members can ask questions that can result in another member hopping on a call and helping with problem solving. They also have a mailing list.
Startups utilize SDRs of Israel to recruit and that funding supports the professional development and network.
You have major game on LinkedIn. Tell us more about that.
SDRs tend to post a lot about the industry or product that they work in or are selling. “They speak as if they are a leader in the field. To me, it felt not so authentic. Today I work in the risk and credit space. To an extent, I can consider myself an expert in that space. I’m not a credit risk officer and I didn’t go to school for that purpose. I do have an expertise in selling and that feels more authentic. The type of person I would sell to is going to look to someone who is in that field and studied in that field. I can speak to and be an expert in sales. Im not really creating pipeline through my LinkedIn activity and that isn’t my goal. In the end of the day I’m not a credit person, I’m a salesperson. I probably won’t be in credit and insurance forever, but I will be in sales.”
He made it clear that if you jump from declaring expertise from one field to another, along with the followers and audience you’ve built, it doesn’t make sense. “Sell yourself. Utilize it for yourself.” By being authentic, real and personable, he does end up making sales through his LinkedIn game.
Are you missing out on leads by not posting about your company’s industry?
“If I just posted about credit risk, would I have gotten a handful more leads or meetings? Maybe. But it’s totally outweighed by the value I’ve gotten by posting what im actually passionate about, which is sales development. That’s how this conversation happened and my involvement in SDRs of Israel.” It is how he landed his current job. They liked his content. He sees long-term benefits with his approach.
Are you the TikTok SDR/AE?
Nope! He uses it for the free software but can find that it can easily be a distraction. He deletes the app weekly so as not to procrastinate. Talk about self-control!
Don’t message him on TikTok. If you message him on TikTok, you may never get a response. “If you message me on LinkedIn, I’ll get back to you immediately.”
Want more? Tune in! Customer Café by Collabria is available wherever you listen to podcasts including Spotify, Apple, or here.
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Looking for more to listen to? Join Menachem Pritzker and Sharon Weiss-Greenberg, hard core Collabrians, as we drink coffee and learn from collaborative leaders in sales, customer success and account management.
Ready to get started? Customer Café by Collabria: Sales Collaboration Tips for Pros is available wherever you listen to podcasts.
