The value and pressure of deal desk roles are immense, yet deal desk professionals are often bogged down by friction and misaligned priorities across teams in an organization.
To understand this topic at a deeper level, we invited industry veteran Vandana Nair, VP of Revenue Operations & GTM Strategy at Narvar, to share her insights with us in collaboration with the Deal Desk Association. Nair has led Deal Desk and RevOps roles at companies like Dropbox and Workday and has learned how to effectively spot and remove friction from the B2B sales process.
In this candid conversation, Nair shares her thoughts on building teams and optimizing sales, while openly discussing how deal desk leaders can move beyond the frustration and disillusionment and create a meaningful role for themselves and their team.
What you will take away from this conversation:
- Learn why it’s critical to involve Deal Desk early in GTM strategy, and why it’s so critical to making data-driven GTM decisions
- Clarify what your focus should be as a Deal Desk Leader, so you can elevate your team’s profile from being “quote jockeys” to one that is mission-critical to the sales process
- Get guidance on how to navigate Deal Desk leadership challenges and create a culture that develops and retains employees as you step into a leadership role
Topic timestamps for your convenience:
- [6:24] Thinking about staffing a deal desk and headcount planning as you build out the organization
- [8:59] Approach for hiring top deal desk talent
- [14:40] Friction in the sales process and how can deal desk help
- [20:00] How to flag you need help to management
- [25:44] The harm in leaving deal desk out of GTM planning
- [30:22] Thinking about your deal desk career
- [32:52] Bridging the gap between sales, deal desk, and revenue leadership
- [38:15] Establishing roles and responsibilities in deal desk
- [42:00] Creating a succession plan to keep resources available
- [44:40] Guidance for building and growing a deal desk function from scratch
- [49:32] Key KPIs to measure deal desk team performance
- [56:03] Choosing the right tools and tech for your deal desk team