How GDPR will affect sales teams (Q&A webinar)

Here's the recording of today's webinar about how GDPR is going to affect sales teams (hint: the answer is, it's impacting sales teams in a lot of ways). Tune in!

Like it or not, if you sell to customers (and prospects) based in the European Union, then the new GDPR regulations are going to change things for your sales process—particularly when it comes to the ways in which you email, text or call people (who are based in the EU) that haven't specifically opted in to receive your communications.

Sounds a little scary right? More than anything, what we learned in today's webinar, is that these new changes in EU regulations around how to lawfully communicate with people, are intended to eliminate unsolicited communications. In other words, GDPR is designed to squash (unsolicited) cold outreach to EU citizens.

If you've built a lead list of prospects (based in the EU) who haven't already agreed to receive your emails, texts or calls about the specific content & purpose of the outreach message in question—then GDPR says that communication is unlawful. So, what does that mean?

Tune in to watch the full recording of our Q&A webinar right here:

Huge thanks to Chas Ballew, CEO of Aptible, the security and compliance platform with tools like Gridiron in use by thousands of recognizable companies around the world.

Chas mentioned a ton of helpful resources during the webinar where you can go to learn more about the specifics of GDPR, read up on the actual verbiage as it pertains to your business, and determine exactly how the new regulations will apply to your own unique situations.

Remember: There's no substitute for actually speaking with and obtaining advice from an attorney. The contents of this video and post do not constitute legal advice, they represent the interpretations of GDPR according to the author. When in doubt, consult an attorney for specific answers.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, here are the resources Chas mentioned on today's webinar:

• Aptible's free Slack Channel for GDPR Q&A
• What is GDPR? General Data Protection Regulation (read it in full right here)
• GDPR Article 3: Territorial scope outlining the use cases for when you need to be GDPR compliant
• GDPR Article 5: The conditions under which you can lawfully use and store personal data of EU subjects
• The Information Commissioner's Office list of resources and guides to being GDPR compliant with your sales and marketing efforts
• The Information Commissioner's Office guide to making your direct marketing activities GDPR compliant
• Article 29 Working Party opinion on the ePrivacy Directive, and how to improve it when it becomes a Regulation
• Article 29 Working Party opinion on unsolicited communications for marketing purposes under the ePrivacy Directive
• ePrivacy Regulation Proposal

This stuff can be pretty dense, I know.

That's why over the past couple weeks, I've been digging around for more useful articles and guides that explain GDPR (and the actions we need to take as sales and marketing professionals) in layman's terms, rather than the dense legalese you have to translate in much of the official documentation.

Here are a few of my favorite (easily readable) guides to understanding and implementing GDPR compliance changes:

• 13 GDPR requirements needed for total compliance (and changes you can make today) on Plan.io
• General Data Protection Regulation explained on Wikipedia
• GDPR best practices for B2B sales and marketing activities on DiscoverOrg

Still have sales-related GDPR questions?

Please ask in the comments below!

Chas and I will do our best to weigh in and get to the many questions that went unanswered during today's webinar.

Thanks for tuning in!