Podcasts

Welcome to another episode of the Tech Sales Insights Podcast! We have a special episode for you today as we bring back some of the best moments from our conversation with Ed Sim, Founder and Managing Partner of boldstart ventures. Tune in as we talk about finding and working with start-ups and helping them reach new heights. HIGHLIGHTS Working with founders and identifying their common mistakes Sales reps that a company should attract The right timing of bringing a high-caliber individual to work with technical founders The best way to learn about start-ups “When I think about SaaS, I think about the thing that I said a couple of years ago which is that you want to win the hearts and minds of the developer or the end-user before you win the hearts and minds of the enterprise. The whole idea of how you sell and reach these large orgs is changing.” - Ed on how business models have begun to shift towards SaaS Find out more about Ed in the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.…

Welcome to another episode of the Tech Sales Insights Podcast! We have a special episode for you today as we bring back some of the best moments from our conversation with Peter Quirk, previously General Manager of the Global Enterprise East at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and now Chief Revenue Officer at ThreatWarrior. HIGHLIGHTS What global enterprise and global accounting mean for HPE Become a life-long learner because there are always opportunities, especially in tech What it takes to become a great sales manager Knowing the true value you can provide the company “The only thing that I can say the shift has taken place are the partners that are making the shift along with us. Because you still have to do the same things you had to do before, you just end up having to do it remotely. I think you see the partners that are managing their business the best are the ones that are making this transition the best.” - Peter on how global enterprise teams shifted their strategy…

Welcome to another episode of the Tech Sales Insights Podcast! We have a special episode for you today as we bring back some of the best moments from our conversation with Ken Dougherty, Vice President of North America Storage Platforms and Solutions Sales at Dell EMC. HIGHLIGHTS Trends in tech sales that could have an impact post-COVID The hallmarks of a successful salesperson Use social media and tools to stay connected with people Be more patient as a salesperson and you're likely to get better outcomes “Don't forget what made you successful as a salesperson when you become a sales leader. Don't change your approach in how you engage with clients and stay customer focused. But also lead from example and go back to that term I referenced earlier, be action-oriented” - Ken on the mindset of becoming an exceptional sales manager Find out more about Ken in the link below: About Ken Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message This episode of …

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Annelies Husmann, Head of Enterprise Sales and Growth at Gong. She shares some of the best advice she had learned over the years, including riding out overwhelm by focusing for 24 hours. She also discusses the importance of building multi-threaded relationships at the executive level. In sales, she comments on the magic of in-person meetings and the need to balance it with the mandate of doing things online. HIGHLIGHTS Sales and rev ops are strategic counterparts of sales Advice: Focus and ride out your ship in 24 hours Building longer-term relationships with executives QUOTES Sales and rev ops allow teams to see around corners and execute more effectively - Annalies: "The importance of rev ops and sales ops and having a great strategic counterpart to help balance you out is just so mission-critical nowadays. And it's been great to see even how our team has evolved over the last couple of years." …

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Annelies Husmann, Head of Enterprise Sales and Growth at Gong. Annalies dives into mentorship and how other women in sales should explore their networks to find a good mentor. In her experience, just having these conversations allows other women to see themselves in quota-carrying roles too. Annelies also discusses value selling as a requirement in today's macroeconomic situation and how sales conversations must always be tied back to value.  HIGHLIGHTS Women in sales and the value of mentorship Value selling should be tied to the company's key strategic initiatives Hire based on competencies and behavioral traits vs past experiences QUOTES Value selling is more important now with economic headwinds - Annalies: "I think now where we are, you really need to be very thoughtful with how you're building your business cases and how you're engaging with your executives, and you just have to stay 100% …

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the first part of our conversation with Annelies Husmann, Head of Enterprise Sales and Growth at Gong. Achieving true diversity in organizations is admittedly difficult. Annelies discusses how leaders need to be thoughtful during this process and to stay committed to this cause. She emphasizes how leaders must go out in the field as well to find the best talent. HIGHLIGHTS Gong: Aggregating data streams and improving day-to-day lives Diversity best practices: Sales leaders need the commitment to recruit actively QUOTES Gong aggregates data in a tangible and life-changing way - Annalies: "I have a command over my business I never had before. I'm making more money. And it's all those really small, personal levers of how gong is just changing their day-to-day operations. And those are the best customer stories." Leaders must do the legwork to find the best talent - Annalies: "When I start sending notes out to people, personally, through Li…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Eric Brock, Chairman & CEO of ONDAS Networks and Diana Shapiro, CEO of Dynam.AI. They talk about who their buyers are and what it takes to weather recessions and come out of them successfully. They also share some of the insights they've gained from mentors and their own personal experiences. HIGHLIGHTS It takes different skill sets and experiences to be successful Automation helps cut costs in a recessionary time Selling to non-tech-savvy buyers in target markets Diana and Eric share about the mentors they've learned from and the things they also want to teach QUOTES Weathering the trying times in a struggling financial market - Eric: "You have to deal with outside forces. And today those forces are difficult, they're tightening up. I think in this environment, like everyone, you have to spend time prioritizing what you need to do. You could have a hundred things to do but you can actually do them all i…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Eric Brock, Chairman & CEO of ONDAS Networks and Diana Shapiro, CEO of Dynam.AI. Eric first introduces ONDAS and what they do for businesses that need connectivity over wide areas. They then talk about defining automation at the highest levels and what their partnership means in creating relevant technologies and solutions. HIGHLIGHTS Eric talks about ONDAS and their focus on drones Automating decision-making and manual processes at a high level Bringing together different technologies to create great solutions QUOTES On having something that defines the industry and defines solutions - Eric: "It is about understanding what the customer needs and we come in solving that critical bottleneck. We're removing the pilot and the FAA is giving us permission to do that which is really difficult to do from a fully-autonomous platform that works every day as a workhorse without human intervention." The partners…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights features Eric Brock, Chairman & CEO of ONDAS Networks and Diana Shapiro, CEO of Dynam.AI. When we think of AI in the business space, it's only natural to first think about using it to automate manual processes. Today, Eric and Diana each talk about their careers so far and how they arrived in the tech sales world. Diana first introduces Dynam.AI, how we're approaching an upcoming space called decision intelligence, and the AI technology they are currently working on. HIGHLIGHTS How Eric and Diana each ended up in tech sales Diana talks about the decision intelligence space and introduces Dynam.AI QUOTES The top things CEOs are looking to use AI for - Diana: "Interestingly, the top business priorities for AI at companies start with automating business processes, improving existing products or services, improving competitive differentiation and it just goes down the line." Find out more about our guests in the links below: About Eric About Dian…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with MJ Leslie, Owner & Principal of Chapter 3 Ltd and Larry Irvin, Principal of Black Diamond Revenue Advisors. MJ and Larry share their points of view on how sales will look 5 years from now. They also talk about trying out new markets demographically as a start-up, value selling, and the leaders in the space that they follow and respect. HIGHLIGHTS How sales will change 5 years from now When should a start-up explore new markets? Supplement the talent pool with alternative choices for value selling Larry and MJ talk about the sales leaders they respect and learned from QUOTES On using effective tools and strategies - MJ: "Through the pandemic and going into whatever the next stage of society is, knowing who you're going after and what is the value to sell to them becomes really important. So the more intel that you can gather on the individual you're trying to connect with is why I like ZoomInfo." US…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with MJ Leslie, Owner & Principal of Chapter 3 Ltd and Larry Irvin, Principal of Black Diamond Revenue Advisors. MJ and Larry share their opinions on the increase of titles and if they actually matter for a company. They also discuss the sales, marketing, and customer success functions being part of the CRO role and the importance of SaaS experience for reps even outside of sales. HIGHLIGHTS Should the CMO report to the CRO? Go-to-market functions being added to the CRO role is laborious but can make sense. The customer success side is becoming an increasingly important function How important is SaaS experience when hiring sales reps? QUOTES Customer success develops advocates within an organization - MJ: "I have seen a ton of peripheral success not just by a certain customer renewing and expanding their deal but them going out and becoming very much like public advocates or referrals coming through th…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights features MJ Leslie, Owner & Principal of Chapter 3 Ltd and Larry Irvin, Principal of Black Diamond Revenue Advisors. In the world of SaaS and many other industries, companies are becoming more and more focused on not only acquiring customers but also retaining customers. Hence, the introduction of the Chief Revenue Officer or CRO. MJ and Larry talk about their sales journeys and some key lessons they've learned so far. They share their insights into what a Chief Revenue Officer actually offers and what level of a company actually needs the CRO role. HIGHLIGHTS MJ and Larry talk about their careers and sales journeys What is a Chief Revenue Officer anyway? The ideal stage of a company relative to having a CRO QUOTES The CRO's job in a macro level - MJ: "Anything that falls within that big, wide umbrella can be part of that. Larry and I were chatting about what stage of that makes sense for a company because if you only have five people, that…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Kevin Connolly, SVP of the North America Mid-Market at Dell Technologies. He shares his insights into the importance of partnerships when it comes to medium businesses. Kevin also talks about how building trust and confidence has changed over time across different generations. HIGHLIGHTS Partnerships as a key piece to the sales puzzle How do all generations build trust and rapport with clients without face-to-face meetings? Kevin and Randy discuss their mentors QUOTES The difference between generations in getting trusted relationships fast - Kevin: "This generation of buyers want it a different way. Their version of trust and confidence might come through social media, it might come through text, or through email. What I perceive as building trust and confidence comes through servicing them really well in the way that they want to be serviced." Leveraging the partner community's reach - Kevin: "Sales pa…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Kevin Connolly, SVP of the North America Mid-Market at Dell Technologies. He shares about taking advantage of technology to inspect and provide feedback for those working remotely. Kevin also shares how ramping, productivity, and the sales cycle in the remote work environment have changed since Covid. HIGHLIGHTS How do you inspect in real-time those who are working remotely? What it means to marry sales, operations, marketing, and AI  The relationship with the inside seller Changes in ramping and the sales cycle since Covid hit QUOTES Getting sales, operations, marketing, and technology right - Kevin: "We try to really get them productive actions each week, each month, and each quarter. That's kind of the internal engine and, of course, the marketing. We're trying to ignite someone to come at us whether it's using that technology, or bots, or what have you." Customers still enjoy that relationship …

This episode of Tech Sales Insights features Kevin Connolly, SVP of the North America Mid-Market at Dell Technologies. Shaping young leaders and medium businesses until they graduate to an enterprise is a fun challenge and a big responsibility at the same time. Kevin talks about his transition from EMC to Dell and his roles under Dell's Medium Business umbrella. He shares about his experience in managing a young, in-career force, the differences between managing large and small teams, and the dynamics of moving to scale. HIGHLIGHTS Kevin's responsibilities under the Dell umbrella The biggest challenge in managing large sales teams vs small teams How to create and keep an amazing culture intact QUOTES Managing large vs small sales teams - Kevin: "There are a million challenges but when you have scale, one of the golden rules is to try to keep it simple and not overthink it. Especially when you have a lot of solutions to provide and you get excited about that. So I'd say simplicity…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Jon Festejo, Co-Founder and CEO of Salesbricks. He talks about the many possibilities of CPQ and overall software five or ten years from now. Jon also shares a few of his favorite sales tools to use with Salesbricks to add more efficiency and produce more results. HIGHLIGHTS Possible changes to CPQ five years down Why it's CPQ and not CQP Other sales tools Jon uses QUOTES How software will be trained for the future - Jon: "In software, we'll be doing a better job in figuring out what that right moment is to go upsell your customer. Because in sales, timing is everything. Time also kills all deals and so the software will learn how to go compete and figure out when it is the right time for you to actually visit the customer." Software will eventually do a better job on its own- Jon: "Today in software sales technology, it's human first and then tools that help them augment and make their jobs a little bi…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Jon Festejo, Co-Founder and CEO of Salesbricks. He talks about the three main aspects to think about in order to secure enterprise transactions, namely transparency, flexibility, and building trust. Jon also shares different insights and analogies when it comes to software sales and being a salesperson in general. HIGHLIGHTS 3 things to consider when leading enterprise sales deals Being the Shopify of B2B SaaS companies The "If you give a mouse a cookie" analogy QUOTES The importance of flexibility - Jon: "What a lot of people don't really understand is, not every deal is going to look exactly the same. Your one million dollar deal, your nine million dollar deal, your fifty thousand dollar deal, there's a lot of permutations and a lot of things that are very different." Building trust is also about telling the truth - Jon: "There's going to be times in your career and sales cycle where you need to sto…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights features Jon Festejo, Co-Founder and CEO of Salesbricks. Creating a user experience where even new sales reps can take the software and effectively build out a strategic workflow is essential. However, not many realize how painful it can be to work with legacy CPQ. Jon talks about the amount of work that salespeople do especially with CPQ software even if it's supposed to make things easier. He shares about how dealing with CPQ implementation for the fourth time pushed them to start Salesbricks and create a better experience for customers on their software implementation. HIGHLIGHTS Implementing CPQ and the start of Salesbricks How Salesbricks creates the ideal experience for sales reps CPQ insights from the decision-maker's perspective QUOTES The way that CPQs are architected makes them difficult to implement - Jon: "In fact, the CPQ market basically invites a billion-dollar business in consulting. You go hire somebody offshore and spend 6 fig…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Matt Handler, President and COO of Coralogix. He discusses value selling and how the different departments must be aligned on what your value is to extract it in every part of your messaging. Matt also discusses retention and compensation. Coralogix boasts the best in class retention at 150% as they compensate salespeople for the right things, consider upsells and cross-sells as new business, and follow it up with attractive accelerators. HIGHLIGHTS Product, marketing, sales, finance, and HR must know the product’s value intimately well Value selling: Constantly check your messaging Retention: Compensation drives behavior, so incentivize correctly QUOTES Align your messaging so value selling becomes organic - Matt: "Every conversation that we have, the frontline managers, second line managers, CRO, me, we are speaking the same language of ‘Do you understand what the current situation is? The pain? …

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Matt Handler, President and COO of Coralogix. He shares their creative ways for lead generation which gets emails opened and creates relationships with prospects immediately over a cold call. Matt also talks about the tools they use that aid their lead generation and the value of authenticity in forging strong relationships. HIGHLIGHTS Creative lead gen gets emails opened and relationship-building over cold calls Referrals and getting customers from champions who have left the company Give discounts but you must absolutely get a customer referral in return QUOTES Get your emails opened with creativity and research - Matt: "Knowing the business, connecting to something in the business value on their 10k or their press releases that resonates with your audience. Know your audience, know the company, do the research. It actually works and you get the opens." Build a relationship from a cold call thro…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the first part of our conversation with Matt Handler, President and COO of Coralogix. He introduces how Coralogix operates in the observability space and their unique way of organizing "digital exhaust." He talks about how they help clients migrate from legacy as log data is constantly growing at a rate faster than revenue. Matt discusses how their technology lowers this cost to allow companies to scale. HIGHLIGHTS Coralogix: Analyzing and optimizing "digital exhaust" for observability Selling to fast-growing mid-sized companies and PLG for smaller companies Market expansion and new products QUOTES Go-to-market requires people who execute and operate well - Matt: "You have to screw up enough to get successful and then, honestly, if you can really prove that you can scale and execute, there are a lot of financial-minded folks and that's very much needed in our industry. But people that can execute and operate a business, which Randy was g…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the last part of our conversation with Kelly Breslin Wright, President and COO of Gong, and Founder and Thought leader at Culture Driven Sales. Culture-driven sales recognizes that people are behind every single interaction in business. Kelly shares what it means to prioritize people in terms of valuing your team and truly understanding the customer journey. She discusses how teams must be aligned in putting the customer first to reduce confusion and build up customers to be successful. HIGHLIGHTS People build great companies, so companies must prioritize people Be authentic with mistakes and own them Managing sales and customer success management When the going gets tough, companies need to have very tight focus QUOTES People are the priority no matter your stage of growth - Kelly: "What are the top 3 priorities? Priority number 1 is people. Priority number 2 is people. And what is priority number 3? It's people, you got it, Randy. Because…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is the second part of our conversation with Kelly Breslin Wright, President and COO of Gong, and Founder and Thought leader at Culture Driven Sales. At the heart of culture-driven sales is people. This challenges the idea of a sales-driven culture where operating principles are the priority. A strong people-first approach gets you the best talent and creates a positive work environment, which ultimately drives toward more and better sales. This means that companies must be very firm with hiring based on behaviors that align with the culture that they are trying to create within their organization. HIGHLIGHTS Culture-driven sales has a common mission and challenges conventions On hiring: Determine the right behavior traits that align with your culture Feedback and managing your culture with care and intention  QUOTES Attract top talent with a strong mission - Kelly: "It's culture-driven sales. If you have a strong mission, strong culture, stro…

This episode of Tech Sales Insights features Kelly Breslin Wright, President and COO of Gong, as well as Founder and Thought leader at Culture Driven Sales. Seeing a comprehensive view of a salesperson’s reality and taking insights from that is a powerful way to unlock their full potential. Kelly shares how Gong takes a holistic approach to data and uses AI to glean insights into customer conversations. This has sweeping advantages for salespeople and many other departments which have a stake in understanding what is going on with customer conversations and getting prescriptive guidance on what to do next. HIGHLIGHTS Selling books door to door: Kelly's journey in sales and entrepreneurship Gong offers a holistic approach to data and insights to create effective sellers Providing salespeople with actionable insights on what to do next  QUOTES Grit and resilience are necessary to be successful - Kelly: "So much of being successful in sales and successful in business, it's about g…