There’s no better feeling than working an account nonstop for months and finally being able to open a $500K+ opportunity after months of strategic prospecting.
Welcome to another episode of our Break Into Tech Sales mentor interview series!
In this interview, Krystle Fabionar tells about her early beginnings as a Telefund Student Caller at Gonzaga, before making her move to San Francisco and starting her rise to tech sales super stardom. Krystle is currently an Enterprise BDR at New Relic, a cloud-based software company that had its IPO in December 2014.
Mentor profile:
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Name: Krystle Fabionar
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Company: New Relic
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Role: Enterprise Business Development Representative
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Alma mater: Gonzaga University
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LinkedIn profile
Can you describe your own journey of breaking into tech sales?
“I actually got started on the phones in college! A few weeks into Freshman year I decided I wanted a job, found out University Advancement was hiring Telefund Student Callers, and a week later I was on the phones calling Alumni, parents, etc. asking for donations to my university. After 4 years of being on the phones, it just made sense and was an easy transition to go into tech sales.”
What is your role at New Relic?
“I started on the Commercial team at New Relic, but I’m now on the Enterprise Business Development team supporting the West. As part of this team, it’s my job to create opportunities and build sales pipeline for the West AEs by creating new relationships with noncustomers within my patch, as well as strengthening the relationships we already have with current customers.”
Can you describe a typical day in your job?
“This might come as a surprise, but I’m rarely on the phones nowadays. Since I’ve moved over to Enterprise, I only make about 10-15 cold calls a day, and typically have 2-3 30 minute scheduled calls with customers each day.
The majority of my day is spent researching my accounts (I have about 30 companies within my patch), searching for key employees to contact on LinkedIn, and crafting customized emails.”
Which skills do you use on a daily basis?
“I’d say the most important skill for my role is buyer research. I specifically work with companies with 1,000+ employees, so it’s really important to keep up with social media accounts, news articles, and public financial documents related to my accounts.
In doing so, I’m able to understand which business unit(s) to reach out to, what they want, and how they make decisions. There’s just not enough time to hit all 1,000+ employees within my accounts, so diligent buyer research allows for more strategic prospecting and emailing crafting that will actually get bites.”
What is the hardest part of your working day?
“Working with Enterprise businesses is a monster in itself—I’m usually reaching out to 100-200 employees per account at a given time, and it typically takes 6-7 touches to even get a response from a company that’s not a customer.
As you can imagine, sometimes it takes months and 5+ scheduled calls with a specific business unit to even be able to create an opportunity, making it difficult at times for my work to show any value on a daily basis.
But hey, there’s no better feeling than working an account nonstop for months and finally being able to open a $500K+ opportunity after months of strategic prospecting.”
What do you know now that you wish you would have known at the beginning of your tech sales career?
“Work smarter, not harder! In tech sales, as an individual contributor, it’s easy to get caught up in the metrics (the number of calls you make, emails you send, etc.), rather than focusing on KPIs.
While it may feel like you’re ‘working harder’ because you’re putting up more calls or blasting more emails than your peers, this usually doesn’t give you the results you’re hoping for and only causes burnout.
To survive in this industry, it’s key to focus on putting out activity that has real value behind it.”
What’s your favorite thing about working in tech sales?
“Definitely the people I’m surrounded by. I’ll never forget what one of the sales managers told me during my final interview: ‘In this role, during your sales calls, you’ll no longer be the smartest person in the room.’
I’m in the application monitoring/observability industry, so I’m communicating with Software Engineers, Engineering Managers, Directors of DevOps, etc. all day long, and I came into the job with no technical background whatsoever.
As you can imagine, my conversations can get very technical very fast, so it’s motivating being surrounded by smart, hungry salespeople looking to learn and collaborate with me at all times.
Click here to connect with Krystle on LinkedIn.