I am a firm believer in the importance of having a strong Sales Operations team at any revenue-generating organization. A lot of companies do not understand the difference between Sales Ops versus FP&A. Your Sales Ops team should be the backbone, helping provide the data to provide a go-to-market strategy and the tools to track overall health metrics on how the company and employees are pacing against that strategy. Strategies and models will always evolve, but if you have a strong process in place and keep a firm understanding of the data, what the team is providing, clients are providing, the market, and more, all of this will help guide better visibility and, therefore, forecasting.
As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing: Brian Berner.
Brian Berner is an advertising media and technology executive with over a decade and a half of experience. He is the Head of North American Advertising Sales for Spotify, the popular streaming service, and he leads nearly 200 employees across various departments in all matters related to advertising sales and revenue within the United States and Canada.
Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I am originally from Chicago and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While in school, I took a job selling ads for the school newspaper, the Daily Illini. From there, I was permanently hooked into the world of advertising. After school, I moved to LA where I first started my career in email marketing sales. The founders I worked for conceived and launched MySpace and asked me to be the first salesperson. After 6 years at MySpace, I joined a company called Centro, which specialized in local media planning & buying. Quickly thereafter, I received a call from Spotify and could not turn down the opportunity to join. 11 years later, I am now running Advertising Sales & Partnerships at Spotify for North & South America.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
There is a much larger list of people across my entire journey. Every single boss I have ever had in my life has helped me grow in some way, shape, or form. There are so many people in my professional and personal life to be thankful for, but the list really is much too long to share here. With that said, however, throughout my entire personal and professional tenure, the one consistent person I have always been fortunate to have in my life is my brother. He has been a mentor to me my entire life. He has helped me through all my decisions from college to jobs to family and more. When I originally graduated school I was working for an investment bank stuck behind a computer cleaning up data and miserable. My brother helped me make the decision to leave my job, take a pay cut, and move to Los Angeles to start my career in advertising sales. It was the first of many major decisions I consulted with him to help me make. It was also the first core decision to launch my career in advertising.
Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision? What was its purpose?
While the Spotify mission statement has had minor changes over the years, the core purpose has always remained the same: Our mission is to unlock the potential of human creativity — by giving a million creative artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it.
In the very early days, this was mainly about musicians, but over the years our platform has opened up to a plethora of creators. Having this mission in place is vital to remind team members of how our work affects so many others in this world and how we hope to change people’s lives for the better.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?
While I have been in various leadership roles for over 17 years, the pandemic has been the most challenging — and quite frankly is still turbulent today. It had me reflect a lot on my leadership and how I was managing my team. For as simple as this may sound, one of the first learning moments I had was to start addressing the team more on personal matters versus solely on company metrics. I opened up more of my personal life, showed more vulnerability, my personal struggles, challenges, as well as things I was excited about. Our company meeting format changed to spend more time addressing the topics just mentioned alongside other team members, social matters, and key learnings beyond just revenue metrics. I took the time to start thanking clients and employees much more frequently than I had in the past. I found my voice in balancing vulnerability with optimism, but always laying out the facts as we saw them, be it good or bad, but most importantly we were in this together.
This is now my leadership through all times, not just uncertain or difficult.
Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?
No, I have never considered giving up. Whether it’s my internal drive or optimistic outlook on life, I see every single day as a new opportunity to learn something new, do something different, and continue to have chances to achieve your goals.
What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?
Listening to your team and having empathy and an understanding that everyone experiences things differently.
When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?
A company, leader, and team should always have a north star or vision they are aspiring to achieve. There will always be ups and downs and uncertain times. You have to remind teams that north stars are meant to be marathons, not sprints. Be sure to set milestones along the way and celebrate the wins, failures, and learnings, but having that north star is critical to always stay focused on the larger goal at hand.
What is the best way to communicate difficult news to teams and customers?
There is no one way. It depends on the news, person or persons, and a plethora of other factors. With that said, ideally difficult news should always be addressed live and F2F, whether that’s in-person or virtual.
How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?
The future always has been and always will be unpredictable — that’s the exciting part of life. We have the opportunity to shape our futures and learn from our pasts. All you can do is simply try your best to set goals and have them evolve, especially if your original game plan was wrong.
Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?
Transparency.
Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?
A few things. First, I would say a lack of transparency by not providing the team with all of the facts and how you are addressing them. Second, vulnerability, and in this instance, it is acknowledging your mistakes. Third, accountability for all decisions at hand. Lastly, a solutions-focused mindset on how you will learn from any mistakes and the action you are taking to move forward.
Four simple things that a lot of organizations do not embrace in difficult times.
Generating new business, increasing your profits or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?
I am a firm believer in the importance of having a strong Sales Operations team at any revenue-generating organization. A lot of companies do not understand the difference between Sales Ops versus FP&A. Your Sales Ops team should be the backbone, helping provide the data to provide a go-to-market strategy and the tools to track overall health metrics on how the company and employees are pacing against that strategy. Strategies and models will always evolve, but if you have a strong process in place and keep a firm understanding of the data, what the team is providing, clients are providing, the market, and more, all of this will help guide better visibility and, therefore, forecasting.
Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Transparency
- Vulnerability
- Empathy
- Accountability
- Solutions-Focused Mindset
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Having a favorite here is impossible as different quotes have affected me during different times in my life. One that has always stood out to me is:
“Did is a word of achievement,
Won’t is a word of retreat,
Might is a word of bereavement,
Can’t is a word of defeat,
Ought is a word of duty,
Try is a word each hour,
Will is a word of beauty,
Can is a word of power.”
— Ann Landers
It is something I read in my elementary years and always stood out to me as the potential for me to be able to do anything with the right attitude.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this. We wish you continued success and good health.
This article was originally published on Authority Magazine by Yitzi Weiner. Read more from Authority Magazine.
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