Business Development Specialist T.J. Jones Doubles B2B Sales with Toutapp
TJ Jones certainly knows a thing or two about working with small businesses. He’s gone from working in his dad’s family business to growing a career in SaaS business development: he’s a linchpin at Monk Development.
MonkDev is a software development company that truly works for the greater good – they specialize in providing software and web development for non-profits and ministries across the country.
TJ Jones: Business Development
It’s TJ’s job to reach out to potential clients, identify how and why they would find value in Monk Development’s software, and build a relationship with those groups. He’s able to take a group that was once primarily in-person, and provide them with a robust online presence, expanding their impact in the local community and beyond.
TJ’s job requires him to spend a lot of time building relationships over email. Like most people who spend a lot of time in their inbox, it was a challenge for TJ to keep up with – he was constantly asking the same questions: Who did I email? Did they reply? When should I follow up? Plus, between sending an email and receiving a reply, there’s no way for him to understand what was happening to his emails.
TJ uses Tout to beat his sales quota
TJ wanted to find a better way to manage his emails, but he needed something that would work with his existing workflow. He started using Tout and it was a perfect fit – it allowed him to send the same emails he was writing before, standardize and track them, and send them much, much faster.
“The ability to move back and forth between different templates in order to reach multiple audiences has cut down the amount of time it takes to process email during my workday.”
For TJ, it wasn’t a matter of changing his business process, but rather finding a way to manage his day-to-day interactions. As it turns out, making one small decision to use Tout made a huge difference:
At Monk Development, TJ’s business development role is critical, and the fact that Tout helped him double his sales in one month has had a huge ripple effect in the company. TJ is able to make an even bigger impact at a growing firm, and do it faster and more efficiently than before.
Are you tired of rewriting the same emails? Need a way to sort and track the templates you’re using? Try Toutapp.
Hello from ToutApp's New Director of Sales & Business Development
Hello, I’m Cynthia, and I just joined Tout! I’m very excited to be joining the company at this key phase of its development, and to be a part of the future of how we all communicate via email. Here’s a little bit about me, and how I came to be a part of the Tout team:
Much of my career was spent in enterprise software sales, pitching big six-figure software systems such as enterprise search, content management and internal help desk tools to corporate CIOs. This experience was great because it taught me how to analyze business issues and develop & present technological solutions to solve them. It also taught me the golden rule of ROI, namely, the bigger the better! Some of the companies I’ve worked for include AltaVista, Equilibrium, and Netopia.
In 2002, the business climate was changing, and I was ready to try something new and very different. I founded a bootstrapped eCommerce startup specializing in ultra- luxury handbags, and within 18 months had grown the business to a $2M revenue roll.
I truly enjoyed the challenges and rewards of being an entrepreneur, and of course the success was enjoyable too, but when my twin children were born in 2008 I chose to move on from that role to that of a stay at home Mom. I lasted six months. If you have kids, you understand!
In my next role, I headed up business development for a family-owned commercial supply business in NYC. I was responsible for the automation of many significant aspects of the business, online and offline marketing, as well as hiring training and managing a sales force. Once the CRM and POS systems and sales team were fully in place and running smoothly, I felt that my work there was done. I was ready to return to the tech startup world.
Which brings me to Tout. I first learned of Tout, and TK, via Twitter, where I was following the 500 Startups accelerator. I already knew that I wanted to work with a startup, and when I read TK’s Tumblr on the activities of a founder the day after funding, I knew I’d found a winner. His passion and vision were apparent, and as anyone who has ever held a job or started a company knows: email really is broken and needs to be fixed. I wrote him an email that same day, we met for lunch a few days later on his latest whirlwind trip to New York, and the rest is history!
I’m truly excited to be joining Tout, and about the great things the team has in store for the future. My responsibilities will include direct and organizational sales, business development partnerships, as well as marketing, and most likely some window- washing, airport-shuttling, and lunch-ordering since this is a true startup! I’m ready and willing to jump in with both feet, and I hope you’ll join us on the journey. Please do feel free to contact me for any sales, partnership, or business development inquiries. I can be reached at cynthia@toutapp.com, or on twitter @cynthiaschames. I look forward to hearing from you!

Cynthia joins Team Toutapp to lead up Sales and Business Development
Today, I’d like to welcome Cynthia Schames, the newest member of Team Toutapp!
I set an explicit goal at the beginning of this summer to turn this company from the “Royal We” a.k.a. just me running the company to a real team where each of the key functions to run this business would have a capable lead.
We kicked off the summer by hiring Derek Hopper, to lead up Engineering, then Margaux Guyonneau joined us to lead up Community Management. And, today, we’re filling the 3rd key pillar with Cynthia Schames joining the family to lead up Sales and Business Development.
Cynthia has done outside sales, inside sales, and has even run her own business. One of our investors described her as a “true unicorn.” More importantly, she brings a sense of hustle and passion that is turning out to be a core tenet of Tout’s company culture.
I’m seriously excited about what she’s planning to do to spread the word about Tout, and with her on-board, I am more optimistic than ever before about our future. Here’s to making it rain.
Welcome Cynthia! She’ll be posting on the blog soon to introduce herself.
