Companies across the economy spend a lot of time and money trying to find and cultivate successful salespeople. But what are the characteristics that matter the most for sales folks on the front lines in the K-12 arena?

On April 24 at 2 p.m. EST, EdWeek Market Brief will host a webinar to answer that question. The online presentation is not based in guesswork, but rather on new survey data collected by the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. as part of a study.

The webinar, “What Makes a K-12 Company Ed. Tech. Company’s Salesforce Succeed,” will be led by Jake Bryant and Judy Wade, the McKinsey team who co-authored the study. Their analysis was based on a survey of 44 privately held technology companies, all backed either by venture capital or private-equity growth funds, and an analysis of their sales forces. Of the businesses they looked at, 14 were ed-tech companies.

Finding the right salespeople is far from easy, the authors found. Over the past three years, about half of the ed-tech sales reps companies hired were not successful.

So who are the education salespeople with the right stuff? Here’s a hint: having salespeople who are able to cross-sell and upsell matters a lot. Having salespeople with traits like empathy and ambition matters not as much.

We’ve written quite a bit for EdWeek Market Brief about the strategies used by companies in sales and marketing, from trying to hire former educators to reaching out to educators through social media to carefully structuring follow-up calls and e-mails.

For more insights, tune into the webinar, which is free to EdWeek Market Brief members, and costs $195 for non-members.

You’ll be able to pose questions directly to Bryant and Wade, as well as associate editor Michele Molnar, who recently wrote a story for Market Brief about their findings. Looking forward to having you on board.

---

See also:

• Email Marketing: Generating Sales Leaders vs. Alienating Potential Customers
• Successful Traits of Top Ed-Tech Sales People: McKinsey & Co. Findings
• What K-12 Companies Should Look for in Hiring Former Educators
• The Art of the Follow-Up: Closing a Deal After a Conference