As we look to highlight great local companies and sales opportunities for the Top Rep Boston Community, we wanted to welcome a new Boston Company Spotlight feature with Adam Mavrikos - VP of Sales at Toast.
Toast is the fastest-growing restaurant technology platform in the U.S.
Adam Mavrikos - Vice President of Sales
What exactly does Toast do?
Toast simplifies restaurant operations by combining POS, front of house and guest facing technology on a single platform. Everything we do is about helping the restaurateur run a more efficient, profitable business and we do that by focusing on the guest experience first. Our products are easy to use, thoughtfully designed, and built exclusively for restaurants.
What problem does it solve?
Toast helps restaurants be more efficient when they are busy, such as turning tables faster at peak times. In parallel, Toast helps to boost revenue when they’re less busy, with online ordering and loyalty programs for example. We care about our customers a lot, so it’s rewarding for all Toast employees when we hear stories about how Toast has changed their businesses and consequently, their lives. We have a customer who grew revenue by 20% annually upon launching Toast hand-helds, this was after being flat in revenue for decades. Another says their servers are on pace to make an extra $7,000 per year in tips because of Toast. We sign up dozens of restaurants on Toast every day, and stories like this are why.
Why is it a great platform and product for local restaurants?
We made some very intentional decisions when building the product.. For example, being an Android based platform vs iOS gives our customers better pricing, more options for hardware, and greater flexibility in customizing the software. For example, many of us have used a guest-facing kiosk at a large chain like Panera Bread and had a good experience. But Panera is large company with literally millions to invest in this. (They did!) Now with Toast, local restaurants can harness the incredible ROI on guest facing kiosks for about $100/month.
Why did you decide to become a sales professional?
I wanted a way to have a strong influence on my paycheck based on how hard I worked. Actually, I would have liked to have started my own business by now as a way to do this, but honestly I found myself having too much fun working for cool scale ups like HubSpot and now Toast. I also like solving problems, helping people, and learning new things. Sales is perfect for that. My old man told me a long time ago that if you can become really good at sales, it doesn’t really matter what the widget is.. good companies will always be looking to hire you. Turns out that’s very true.
What does a top rep look like at Toast?
Like at other companies I’m sure, the best Toast reps are hardworking, coachable, smart and motivated. We find the best of the best are proactive about their business, humble, adaptable, have a life-long learner mentality and a unique passion for our mission at Toast. It’s also a very diverse group in terms of previous experience. We have former restaurant managers, minor league baseball/hockey players, stock brokers, etc join as entry level players and earn their way to six-figure Account Executive positions within a year through our training and career progression program. It’s all about finding the right Toast DNA it turns out.
What are some perks or benefits that make Toast exciting to work for?
Can I rant here for a sec? Very passionate about this topic!
Toast’s buying persona, growth rate, and professional training program make Toast uniquely qualified as the best place in Boston to launch a sales career. We of course have a great culture, beer fridge, unlimited PTO and other common perks you see at tech companies. But Toast is unique for people who want to be in sales in 6 ways:
1) The only way to get really good at sales is by having hundreds and thousands of sales conversations with prospects. You can read all the books you want but experience counts in sales. And each call is an opportunity to get better as a sales person. So my advice for people who want to get into sales is look for companies who
A) have a buyer persona who actually answer the phone,
B) have an insanely strong funnel of inbound leads, or
C) Both!
Now Toast sells to restaurants, our prospects HAVE to answer the phone! And our marketing team rocks, so we have the inbound machine cranking as well. At some companies, it could take years before you have your 1,000th sales call. But at Toast, that 1,000th sale call probably happens in your first year,, so your skillset as a salesperson will have been accelerated significantly. Whether inbound or outbound, the ‘leads’ we call all answer the phone...some will even invite you in for a meal!
2) Once on the phone, our prospects actually listen! Especially when fellow restaurateurs in the area are using Toast successfully because restaurant tech is top of mind right now.. It’s a big deal if your neighbor is using Toast. The power of localization in our prospect base + the success of Toast customers nearby = fruitful prospecting and personal sales development.
3) Do you know how many different types of personalities and business models you encounter when selling to restaurants? It’s awesome, fun too and again, a fertile ground for new salespeople to get good, really fast.
4) Our sales training is world class. We are aspiring to build the best sales development program in Boston.
5) Our career progression is results based all the way. It’s clear, attainable, and rewards top performers. We’ve had over a dozen SDRs get promoted in just the last 6 months into closing roles, nearly doubling their OTEs.
6) We have a field sales team! Want to live in Nashville, Austin, Miami, San Francisco, etc.? Great, come crush it with us in Boston for a year and write your own ticket. Want to stay in Boston? No problem, our inside team is booming. The upward mobility at Toast is nearly limitless right now. Come join us!
Interested in joining the team?
Visit Here
About the Author - Adam Mavrikos
Adam is currently serving as VP, Inside Sales at Toast. Before that, Adam was an early member of the HubSpot sales team in 2008. After helping HUBS grow to 1000 employees, 10,000 customers, and a unicorn IPO, Adam left to help apply those learnings and ultimately landed at Toast in 2015. Over the last 3+ years, Adam has worked with and coached over 100 SDRs, account executives and sales managers at Toast. Toast recently raised $115 million in a Series D led by T. Rowe Price and Tiger Global Management at a $1.4 billion valuation.