The Moneyball Approach to Inside Sales
Moneyball is the bestselling book and later Academy Award-nominated movie about how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane used statistical models to make player decisions.
These models are his “secret sauce” which enables a small market team to compete with teams like the New York Yankees and their gigantic war chest. Because of his lack of financial resources, Beane was forced to find players undervalued by the market, and he built a system for identifying and extracting value from these players.
Many high tech inside sales managers exclude candidates that lack a couple of years of industry experience from their hiring consideration set. As a result, these companies pay a significant premium for polished talent. Some companies—like the Yankees and the Boston Red Sox—have the luxury of making that trade all day long.
At memoryBlue we don’t.
Instead we need to find the most undervalued talent and develop it. We believe that recent college graduates offer the highest potential return on investment for two reasons: 1. They are undervalued in the marketplace and 2. They offer the most upside potential. We bet our entire business on developing this pool of talent and the performance of our 50+ Alumni gives us an echo chamber so we can change our approach if necessary.
So far the feedback indicates we’re on the right track.
Contact us if you’re interested in having memoryBlue develop your inside sales talent or help you hire proven inside sales professionals.
Since cofounding memoryBlue in 2002, Chris has helped provide inside sales resources to more than 1,000 high tech companies, and has hired, placed, or evaluated thousands of high tech sales professionals. Chris spearheads memoryBlue recruiting services, and is passionate about developing sales talent that generates results.
