Using Storytelling in Your Strategy With Amy Volas
Amy Volas is the Founder of Avenue Talent Partners. She loves making sure the right people are in the right roles, specifically, helping early-stage startups and founders hire executive sales leaders and executive customer success (CS) leaders. Learn more about Amy and the methodology she applies to the work she accomplishes.
Can you give us some background on your career and how you found yourself in your current role as an executive recruiter?
“I've been in the game for more than 25 years. I got thrown into the deep end of enterprise sales during the first recession that I survived in 2001 and was bitten by the sales bug. I've never turned back. My background is in enterprise sales leadership. Along the way, I got bitten by the startup bug.”
2015 saw the start of Avenue Talent Partners where Volas helps reduce the margin for hiring error among sales leaders and executive CS leaders in SaaS startups.
Volas has a host of other roles and projects including:
Co-Founder of Thursday Night Sales.
Limited Partner (LP) at Stage 2 Capital.
Founder of Better Together.
Strategic advisor.
Author.
How can a sales professional use storytelling to sell?
“When you understand the power of story – and it doesn't need to be like this big, long, dramatic, drawn out, dear diary kind of thing – but ultimately the human condition is people want to be seen, they want to be heard, they want to be understood, they want to be valued, and they want to be validated. A powerful story hits on every single one of those points.”
Volas considers the best business conversations ones where salespeople listen to understand. As a buyer expresses a priority or challenge they face, there is an opportunity to storytell by connecting dots between their experience and other buyers’ experiences.
“I think that's the power of story – is wait, I'm actually listening to you. I'm not listening to you to objection handle or sell you. I'm listening to you. and that's got my wheels turning because what you just talked about is something that 85% of our buyers go through as well.”
According to Volas, there are 5 reasons why people engage and buy:
You can help them solve a problem.
You can help them reach a goal.
You can help them get better.
You can help them pinpoint a blind spot they didn’t consider before.
You can help them be the hero of their own story, not yours.
How can executive leadership invest in the sustainable growth of their staff and how does that translate over to their customers and sustainability?
“The best leaders come out through crisis or hard times. But what are you doing to even uncover that you have untapped leadership talent? And how are you harnessing that? And so I think it's not about an investment of money, it's more an investment of time and care and intentionality that seems to be missing these days.”
Volas prefers frameworks over playbooks, saying that frameworks are flexible.
“Alignment equals retention for your people and for your customers. How can you be aligned if you don't know, and you're assuming, and then going through what are our opportunities to get better here? How can I help you do that? And then it's how do we translate that into the things that we need to do for managing our threats and getting after all the opportunities that we have, and learning from things that are working against us to continue to get better.”
How can leaders do the work to develop themselves professionally and how do they find a balance between professional life and their overall personal well-being?
Volas says it comes down to understanding what's important to you.
“I think for leaders, we get stuck in this rat race of what we think other people think we should be doing. Because I have goals. I have expectations. The pressure’s on. I'm under a microscope. But if you lose sight of what's important to you, it's really hard to have balance anywhere else. I'm a big fan of boundaries.”
Volas goes on to explain how leaders can work on themselves even if budgets have been slashed or they're in an early-stage startup. A MasterClass subscription is one example she mentions.
Volas also considers it important for leaders to collaborate with each other cross-functionally, learn from each other, and brainstorm in a safe place. Saying, “That also helps you strengthen and tether yourself to the overall ecosystem.”
In your expert opinion, what makes a great sales leader or customer success leader?
“I say this all the time, and I believe this to my core: If it is not about people, you should get out, meaning the best leaders of those two functions [sales and customer success] care deeply about two things.”
Volas describes someone who cares deeply about their team and helping their team be the best that they can be, while removing barriers internally for them, removing barriers externally for them, and helping to understand what it takes for them to be where they want to get going.
What overall advice would you have for somebody who is considering pursuing an executive role in a SaaS startup?
“I think the very best advice that I could give anybody that's considering a role is it's one thing to get the role. It's a whole other ball of wax to keep the role, We have a lot of turnover in this world, and I think a lot of it comes from the fear of managing up, having hard conversations, and keeping a seat at that executive table and knowing how to show up in that room, not just doing the job.”
Contact Amy Volas by visiting avenuetalentpartners.com or connecting with her via LinkedIn.