It’s a wrap, 2020! Sales Impact Academy’s Proudest Moments
By: Sales Impact Academy
Tags: Business Development, New Year 2020, Sales, Marketing, SaaS

Photo by Evie S. on Unsplash

2020 has been a crazy year for most, and one that some people can’t wait to see the back of. Here at SIA, we’ve been reflecting on just how much our amazing team has dug deep this year. They’ve pulled out all the stops, been consistent and focused, and managed to innovate despite multiple pandemic-related challenges, leaving us ending this year on a high.

Here’s a snapshot of what we’ve achieved.

Responding to the pandemic 👨‍💻

When the world shut its doors on the 23rd March, we rolled out a program of live events, called the ‘In This Together’ series, where industry experts came together to discuss best practice for tech startups. We knew that many of our customers faced the frightening prospect of unmet revenue targets, depleted sales and an ever-shortening runway. So we rolled up our sleeves and delved into the Zoom world, where we brought sales experts together to collaborate, share, and learn.

We delivered 100+ live events with the help of 134 world-class speakers, including the likes of Mark Roberge, Christopher Lockhead and Nazma Qurban (Who is now our Interim CRO!). Almost 50% of our audience was from outside of the UK with viewers logging in from 86 different countries!

Our YouTube videos were watched 10,920 times with 1.5k hours of educational content consumed for FREE on demand. Pretty cool.

Levelling up on courses and events 🏆

This year, we also really levelled up on our courses, bringing sales experts a huge variety of industry expertise across Customer Success, Prospecting, Management and Leadership, Marketing and Sales. We’re incredibly proud that we’ve collaborated with top experts across these sectors, including Sir Clive Woodward who teaches an SIA course on leadership called DNA of a Champion.

In September, after six great months of the ‘In This Together’ Series, we rolled out our new events programme ‘The Masters Series’, with our inaugural event led by Sales and Marketing Experts Kelly Breslin Wright and Elissa Fink. It was a fascinating event — demonstrated by the 91% engagement of our audience, who found it ‘inspirational’ and ‘hugely informative’. The series has continued to be a massive success and there are plenty more star-studded events coming in the new year.

UP NEXT is ‘The Age of the Customer — Don’t Let Churn Kill Your Business’ with Dan Steinman, the global leader in customer success!

We turned 1! 🥳

In October, we celebrated our first birthday. It felt crazy that we’ve only been going just over a year, and achieved so much. We took the time to celebrate the fantastic value we give to our customers with the development of metric driven Case Studies. Our customer, Reachdesk, saw a 15.6% increase in their close rates and 11% reduction in their sales cycle in just one quarter! (See here.)

Sales Impact Academy has also been recognised in HolonIQ Top 100 European EdTech Startups.

Much cake and celebrations were had, albeit virtually!

Giving ourselves a makeover 🎨

Our brand evolved quite a bit this year. In late November, we rolled out a whole new visual identity. Our courses, our digital assets, and our websites got a much-needed facelift, and we’re delighted with the results!

Not only did we refresh our external look and feel, we had a fair bit of time to do some introspection, too.

We carefully curated our values, and put them into a tangible format for us all to be happier at work.

It’s fair to say, the new values and brand have already had a profound effect on the team — we’re all hugely motivated and excited for the continued roll out of the SIA identity as we move into 2021.

Growing the team 🤩

Speaking of the team, the SIA Zoom meetings have had a fair few new faces every month this year! Our team has grown at a rapid rate, welcoming vital roles such as CRO and SDR Team Lead to Sales Impact Academy. This time last year we were a tiny team of three, but now have 30 coaches and a team which is 30 strong and counting!

Our Co-Founder and CEO, Paul Fifield says, “Even though we are remote and most of us have never met, we have managed to create a joyful place to work!”

Phew- we think that’s it for our wrap up. What a year!

Overall, we’re heading into next year excited, a little bit exhausted, motivated, and above all, incredibly proud.

Thank you so much to our amazing team, colleagues, and networks who have helped us grow at a rapid pace this year. We’ve managed to thrive under some very tough circumstances — and this is all down to having fantastic people around who really live and breathe SIA values and strive to bring better sales education to the market .

Here’s to 2021! 🥂