StartupTalky

Tag: sales skills

  • Success Story of Outplay: The New-Age Sales Outreach Platform to Help You Book More Meetings

    Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Outplay.

    The sales team plays a crucial role in any business. Increasing annual sales and profit is the core focus of any business. With the evolution of automation in business processes, the scope of the sales industry is continuously changing. Businesses are leveraging sales and marketing automation tools to quantify their marketing campaigns and workflows. Sales engagement platforms are one example of automating sales activities. A Sales engagement platform helps businesses in streamlining the communication of the sales team to their customers.

    Outplay is an Indian-American SaaS (Software as a Service) company headquartered in San Francisco, United States. The company offers a sales engagement platform that helps businesses to prospect efficiently and reach their revenue goals faster. Read to know about Outplay, its founders, the startup story, solutions it provides, funding, and more.

    Outplay – Company Highlights

    Startup Name Outplay
    Headquarters San Francisco, United States
    Industry Software
    Founders Ram Papineni and Laxman Papineni
    Founded 2019
    Total Funding Raised $9.3 Million
    Website outplayhq.com

    Outplay – About
    Outplay – Industry
    Outplay – Founders and Team
    Outplay – The Idea and Startup Story
    Outplay – Vision
    Outplay – Products
    Outplay – USP
    Outplay – Marketing Strategy
    Outplay – Funding
    Outplay – Growth
    Outplay – Competitors
    Outplay – Tools Used in the Company
    Outplay – Recognition and Achievements
    Outplay – Future Plans

    Outplay – About

    Outplay is a new-age sales engagement platform that combines multi-channel outreach and sales automation to help sales teams hit their revenue goals.

    The company’s core belief is to always deliver top-notch services to their customers, along with stellar support. It believes in providing meaningful opportunities for their employees to grow in, at all levels and takes pride in sharing all their wins, thoughts, and failures openly across the team. Its mission is to help salespeople achieve their dreams.

    Outplay – Industry

    Outplay is part of the Sales Software Industry. The company is rapidly expanding and bringing in more customers from the SMB market.

    Outplay – Founders and Team

    Outplay Founders
    Outplay Founders

    Brothers Ram and Laxman Papineni co-founded Outplay in the year 2019  in Wilmington, Delaware. Laxman is the CEO of the company while Ram serves as its CTO.

    Ram and Laxman have always been building things together. Ever since they were little boys, the idea of building something of their own fascinated them – anything that was creative, or would help people around them. Being brothers, both of them understood each other’s plus points early on. Ram was more interested in building platforms/tools, and Laxman was more inclined toward connecting with people and sharing stories. That’s how their current roles fit perfectly with their personalities and goals.

    Outplay currently has over 100 employees, and offers the most flexible work culture that helps in delivering a sense of belongingness to the employees and makes them create a proper work-life balance. Outplay sees its employees as the most important assets in the company, and does everything possible to make them feel comfortable and seen. They believe that it’s only when the employees’ needs are met, that they can continue building a world-class product.

    Coming to the hiring part, the company is able to bring in a lot of its employees through the simple means of referrals. Its existing employees – the Outplayers as they are commonly known, are always eager to share the openings within their network. And when they bring in someone, they’re rewarded for it. Apart from that, we’re also big on campus drives to hire college freshers, helping them start their professional journey with Outplay.

    Outplay – The Idea and Startup Story

    Outplay Logo
    Outplay Logo

    The whole idea of offering a Sales Engagement Platform began with blogging. Ram and Laxman’s first venture was a blogging network. That’s where Ram and Laxman learned about start-ups and what goes behind running one. They started their first startup called AppVirality – a referral marketing software that was backed by shoppingmode Microsoft Accelerator.

    During their first start-up stint, they realized the importance of sales and charted down how they could make it better for all the sales folks out there. They had 2-3 of their friends who left their jobs to join them at AppVirality first, which then morphed into Outplay. Together all of them sat through hours to build the right framework, get a few investors interested, and started pitching Outplay to people who were looking for a switch.

    Outplay – Vision

    Outplay’s short-term vision is to get good brand recognition and generate substantial revenue from the SMB market.

    Its long-term vision is to become a household name for large enterprises and expand fully to regions like ASEAN and APAC. Outplay aspires to become the No. 1 sales engagement platform in the world.

    Outplay – Products

    Outplay Product
    Outplay Product

    Outplay currently offers one product, which is a sales engagement platform that helps salespeople journey through their goals with ease, removing unnecessary clutter and providing top-class features to help enhance their outreach every step of the way. The product has a sleek UI that helps sales reps navigate between various tasks and sequences with ease, and also helps them hit their targets on time, with proper prioritization and automation.

    Outplay – USP

    Outplay’s USP includes multi-channel outreach which is a mix of channels like email, phone, SMS, social media, and magic chat – a webchat box that is launched when a prospective customer clicks on an email link. Apart from this, they also provide access to top-notch features such as multi-channel outreach, smart sales sequences, real-time sales insights, website, and email tracking, the ability to set activity triggers, and powerful analytics among others.

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    Outplay – Marketing Strategy

    Outplay launched an eBook as part of its marketing efforts and was able to create a lot of buzz in the market. The ebook is titled ‘30 Sales Teams Share Their Sales Sequences’ and contains a list of full-fledged sales sequences from top companies like Drift, Hubspot, Vidyard, etc. along with 30+ sales sequences from hyper-growth companies.

    Outplay – Funding

    Date Stage Amount Investors
    3rd March 2021 Seed funding $2 Million Sequoia Capital
    21st July 2021 Series A $7.3 Million Sequoia Capital

    Outplay’s series A funding which was in July 2021, helped the company successfully expand its operations, increase its workforce to 100+ employees, and work towards building features for its current and future customers, by understanding its current needs and issues.

    Outplay – Growth

    The company currently operates in the US and Indian markets. It has users spread over both regions.

    Outplay – Competitors

    Some of the top competitors of Outplay are:

    • Outreach
    • Salesloft
    • Klenty
    • Yesware
    • Reply.io
    • Mixmax
    • Mailshake
    • Lemlist

    Outplay – Tools Used in the Company

    Few tools that help accelerate the startup are:

    • Hubspot
    • Gong
    • Salesforce
    • Slintel
    • Sales Navigator
    • Seamless
    • Lusha

    Top 16 Best Sales Prospecting Tools to Use in 2022
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    Outplay – Recognition and Achievements

    The company’s recent funding news made it to Times Square, New York – announcing how Outplay raised $7.2 Million, Series A. Apart from that, its podcast ‘The Hype is Real’ was added to Sequoia’s Surge Academy.

    Outplay – Future Plans

    Since artificial intelligence is the future, especially of SaaS platforms, Outplay is also infusing AI into its sales platform. This step will simplify the lives of sales reps even further.

    Its users already have access to a feature that can magically write their sales sequences with the power of AI, but the future will see them making the AI capabilities more stronger and robust. With the company’s sole focus being on the USA for now, it wishes to expand towards ASEAN and APAC countries in the near future.

    FAQs

    When was Outplay founded?

    Outplay was founded in 2019 in Wilmington, Delaware.

    Who are the founders of Outplay?

    Ram Papineni and Laxman Papineni are the founders of Outplay.

    Who are the top competitors of Outplay?

    Some of the top competitors of Outplay are:

    • Outreach
    • Salesloft
    • Klenty
    • Yesware
    • Reply.io
    • Mixmax
    • Mailshake
    • Lemlist

  • Top 10 Skills Employers Look For in a Job Interview

    Your resume is not enough for the job you apply for. There are other things that the recruiter looks for. Whenever you go for any job interview, the employer looks for some soft skills irrespective of the job you are going for. In this article, we shall look at some of these skills which you will require for any job interview. These skills will enhance your chances of getting selected for the Job.

    These skills will not only help you in getting a job but will help you to leave a lasting impression on any person you talk to. Thus it will help a lot in any leadership position immensely. These skills will help also you to stand out and also enhance your career and help you in climbing the corporate ladders at a faster rate. So without any further ado let me talk about the top skills you need to develop before preparing for an interview.

    List of Skills you need to Ace for an Interview

    1. Communication
    2. Critical Thinking
    3. Teamwork
    4. Emotional Intelligence
    5. Self-driven
    6. Time Management
    7. Storytelling Skills
    8. Digital Skills
    9. Organizational Skills
    10. Adaptability

    List of Skills you need to Ace for an Interview

    A job interview does not only depend on your knowledge, experience, or expertise but also on the way to express yourself and the thought process you have. Here are the essential skills you need to ace which will give you an edge over others.

    1. Communication

    Communication Skills
    Communication Skills

    Communication is the basic professional skill which is required in any kind of job. Your career growth is directly proportional to the communication skill you have. Communication helps you solve complex and critical problems in your organization. When you handle complex things, you increase your personal power. This also makes you stand out in the crowd. Communication is therefore the first thing noted by the interviewer.

    2. Critical Thinking

    Critical Thinking Skills
    Critical Thinking Skills

    Critical thinking is one thing that recruiters will be looking for in any person. In any corporate office, you will face a lot of problems and will have to solve them as the need arises.

    Any company hands key functions to those people who are good at finding solutions to problems. From improving sales to doing any crisis management, it is employees with good critical thinking who are preferred in the company. This is why critical thinking is an important skill you need to develop.

    3. Teamwork

    Teamwork Skill
    Teamwork Skill

    No big work can be done singlehandedly so it requires a team to do it. This is why the skill of working with a team is very important.  The interviewer might test your teamwork aptitude by doing a group discussion. They might also ask you for an instance where you have to use various skills to work well with a team. You will be judged on your decision-making ability, communication, and management skills.

    4. Emotional Intelligence

    Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand our emotions about ourselves and the people we work with. Having empathy will definitely make you look attractive. When your emotional intelligence is good you can help find solutions for the employees. This will make you a reliable figure in the office. It will make you stand out amongst your peer.

    5. Self-driven

    Self-driven Skill
    Self-driven Skill

    Every employer wants self-driven employees. In the modern age, every employee is expected to be responsible for their work and conduct it their way. These employees usually bring a huge amount of value to the company they work in. An employee like this seldom solves complex problems with creativity. They also add to the current system by improving the present situation.

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    6. Time Management

    Time management is one thing that will distinguish you from other employees. Only when you manage your time properly you will be able to make grow with time. People who are focused on their goals and are always managing their time properly are the ones who win the game. For the people who climb the corporate ladders pretty fast, time management plays a crucial part in it.

    7. Storytelling Skills

    Storytelling skills
    Storytelling skills

    Storytelling is an important skill that distinguishes you from others. When you display these skills in an interview, you are bound to stand out amongst other interviewees. Storytelling also helps you a lot in any kind of corporate presentation and in any kind of leadership to inspire your team.

    8. Digital Skills

    In this world where almost everything is turning digital. Your employer will definitely look for digital skills in you. Today almost every operation happens digitally. Basic skills like coding, digital marketing, etc are looked at by any employer. Digital skills help you handle the assignments given to you in a more efficient manner.

    9. Organizational Skills

    Organizational skills are a must for any kind of employee. These skills are very much needed in the contemporary world. When you are adept in organizational structure then you can easily resolve any kind of conflict between employees. Organizational skills will help create a good image of yourself before your peers.

    10. Adaptability

    Adaptability Skill
    Adaptability Skill

    A very crucial thing that the employer note about you is how adaptable you are. The more you have adaptability, the more your chances of getting hired. In any corporate environment, you need to adapt to the situations quickly.

    In certain cases, you will be sent to a different project. You need to adapt to the new work environment and situations quickly. This is why adaptability is a very valued thing in your skillset repository.

    Conclusion

    I hope you now know about the various skills that you need to help yourself to get hired. You can start with the one which is easiest for you. After that, you can go ahead and master the rest of the skills quickly. Mastering these skills will definitely make you stand out amongst others.

    FAQs

    What are some common mistakes during a job interview?

    Some of the common mistakes are losing your focus on the interviewer, arriving too late or too early for an interview, talking too much, improper attire, and not researching about the company.

    What are the top 3 strengths that employers look for?

    Storytelling, being Self-driven, and Critical thinking are some of the top strengths employers look for.

    What soft skills do employers look for?

    Self-confidence, Communication skills, Teamwork and positivity are some of the top soft skills employers look for.