Welcome back to Inside Drift, where we introduce you to all of the people that make Drift such a great place to work.
So far you’ve met Shannon Donovan, Mary Mitchell, Catherine LaMacchia, Nadine Shaalan, Britnee Laughlin, Carolina Caprile, Michelle Ai, Frank Schepps, Tate Knapp, Zareena Javed, Stacy Chen, Lillian Frost, Miles Kane, Meghan Catucci, Josh Perk, Fiona Heaney, Moe Lawson, Richard Wright, Andrew Jones, and Francisco Oller Garcia.
Today we’re introducing you to Sara Miller Blanc, an Enterprise Account Executive on our sales team. Sara has been at Drift for almost three years and, in that time, has become well-known around the company for exceeding goals and helping lead our Women at Drift employee resource group (ERG). If you’re on a call with Sara, you might be lucky enough to spot her four-year-old Mini Australian Shepherd, Benni. In her spare time, you can find her working for a number of amazing nonprofits around Boston.
Ready to meet Sara? Let’s go ⚡
Editor’s note: The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Kaitlyn Martins: Hi Sara. Can you tell me a bit about what you do at Drift?
Sara: I’m an Enterprise Account Executive, which means I spend my day talking to companies about the biggest marketing, sales, and service problems they’re facing. Then, I help them understand if Drift can solve those problems.
Kaitlyn: What does your day-to-day typically look like?
Sara: Every day is a little bit different — and that’s one of the biggest reasons why I love my job.
Regardless of what’s on my calendar for the day, I start every day by looking at Drift Prospector to understand how my customers and prospects have been engaging with Drift’s website and digital content. Based on that information, I strategize with my business development rep (BDR) on how to best engage my target accounts and get them to set up a meeting. For ongoing opportunities and customers, I send thought-leadership content and information relevant to what they’ve been looking at or what we’ve already discussed in conversation.
Throughout the day, I get to work with some incredibly smart and fun people — especially with all the team selling we do. I love working toward a shared goal, whether it’s prepping for a demo with my solutions consultant, strategizing a deal with my manager or teammates, sharing buyer and customer feedback with our product team, or collaborating with our customer organization.
Kaitlyn: Can you tell us a little bit about the structure of the sales team at Drift?
Sara: As an account executive (AE), I focus on selling to new customers, but I also get to support the customers I’ve sold to if they’re looking to expand during their first year with Drift. For the rest of our customers, our account managers take care of upselling and cross-selling, while our renewal specialists work on renewing contracts.
AEs are supported by our sales development team who help us drum up interest and book discovery meetings. We also have a team of solutions consultants who create custom demos for our prospects and lead any technically-focused conversations. (You can learn more about our BDR organization here.)
Our sales team is also broken up by the size of the companies we sell to. I’m on our enterprise team, selling to the largest companies which have more complex deal cycles, but we also have a mid-market team and growth team. Some of our sales reps are focused on selling to emerging markets to pave the way for the rest of the team.
Additionally, all of our teams are grouped geographically — so we have US-East, Central, and West, as well as EMEA and APAC teams.
Kaitlyn: You’ve been at Drift now for almost three years. (Congrats!) What has been your favorite experience or moment so far?
Sara: It’s so hard to pick one specific moment. I’d say my favorite experiences have been shaped by the people I have the privilege of working with every day.
Even though we’re Digital First, I have built extremely strong relationships with my colleagues. I’ve rarely worked with my manager in-person, but I feel completely understood and supported by him — both personally and professionally. If I’m struggling with a deal, I know I can Slack him or jump on a Zoom call to work through it together.
Every day, I get to work with people around the country and the globe. I can safely say I have friends in many cities I haven’t visited (yet) thanks to Drift 🌎
Kaitlyn: What is a fun fact that people might not know about you?
Sara: As a kid, I spent a summer going on a “dinosaur dig.” We drove across the Northern Great Plains, camping with my local nature center and stopping at archeological dig sites. My most exciting finds were a dinosaur toe bone and parts of a mammoth.
Kaitlyn: When you aren’t working, what can we find you doing?
Sara: I spend a lot of my time volunteering. I serve on the board of a nonprofit called The Wily Network, which partners with college students in the greater Boston area who are working towards their degrees without academic, emotional, or financial support from their families. A couple of years ago, I helped Wily start a Young Professionals Association to engage younger people in philanthropy — something I’m very passionate about.
As an AmeriCorps alum, I’m still involved with City Year Boston and love participating in their physical service projects at local schools: painting murals, cleaning up playgrounds, and sprucing up school hallways.
Otherwise, you can almost always find me with my four-year-old Mini Australian Shepherd, Benni, eating good food and spending time with family and friends ❤️
Kaitlyn: Tell us a little bit about why you chose Drift and the career growth you’ve experienced here.
Sara: I initially came to Drift from a Series A startup where I was employee number 16 and we were still trying to figure out product-market fit. I’ve held many different roles in the past from working with middle school students in Boston Public Schools to analytics at a tech company, as well as some customer success, account management, and sales roles.
I came to Drift because I wanted to focus on my new biz sales skills and gain experience at a bigger growth-stage startup. When I started, Drift was just over 200 employees — and now we’ve grown to about 600 employees while breaking into many new industries and expanding our enterprise customer base.
Personally, after being promoted from mid-market to enterprise sales, I’ve honed my process by selling to complex companies with more stakeholders and larger deals. I’ve leveled up my communication skills and become an expert in driving revenue and pipeline.
At Drift, I’ve also gotten to co-found and help lead our Women at Drift ERG and CloseHERS — our group for supporting women in sales and customer-facing roles. I love getting to mentor my colleagues who are earlier in their careers 😁
Kaitlyn: Finally, what advice do you have for prospective Drift candidates?
Sara: If you’re looking for a place to learn and grow alongside a really smart team — and have fun doing it — reach out! Take a chance on a new adventure, and let’s work together 🚀
Want to work with Sara? We’re hiring. Check out our open roles here.
