In this episode we meet Sean Adams: the head of Sales and Partnerships at Iorad. Sean brings a wealth of experience to the table. He started his career as a business owner, serving home service businesses in the contractor space for a decade. Then, he entered the world of SaaS as an account executive and now leads sales operations with a focus on customer centricity.

Thinking Outside the Box: Sean shares a challenging situation from a past company where deals were constantly stalling due to issues with customers' accounting systems. Sean worked to establish a connection between the systems. This innovative solution allowed the technology to seamlessly communicate with each other, eliminating the barriers that were holding back deals. The outcome was transformative – deals started to flow smoothly, and lost opportunities became closed deals.

Overcoming Obstacles and Gaining Insight: During his strategic partnership and deal journey, Sean faced internal management obstacles. He engaged in no-obligation interviews with prospects and customers. However, as Sean and his team began to better understand customer issues with accounting software such as QuickBooks, and used video footage of them explaining their issues to persuade internal stakeholders.

Instilling Creativity and Tenacity: As the head of sales and partnerships, Sean Adams shares his approach to instilling creativity and tenacity among his team. Rather than just telling his team what to do, he leads by example and brings new talent into calls and meetings to watch and learn how it is done.

(0:00:29) - Sean Adams is the head of Sales and partnerships at Iorad

(0:02:58) - Software company had problems with material syncing between accounting system and supplier

(0:06:14) - You've connected the dots between SaaS and technology

(0:07:50) - So talk about some of the obstacles or where some of your master plan went off the rails

(0:11:40) - We'd love to hear about the outcome and then some of the learnings since then

(0:13:56) - Sean is the head of sales and partners at Iorad

(0:16:47) - Sean, this has been really insightful and can we point folks or where should we point

Check out Sean's Best Practice Article for those interested in being a guest on a podcast: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-become-guest-your-dream-podcasts-sean-adams/

Questions, comments, tips - reach out and connect with Andrew on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkappel/

Episode with Danny Brown, a seasoned entrepreneur and CEO of AppMeetup. Danny shares valuable insights into a pivotal deal from his early business experience.

What you will learn?

Building trust as an unknown entity, speaking the client's industry-specific language, and overcoming the resistance associated with replacing a familiar product.

# TIMESTAMP

- (0:02:07) - How to differentiate when the customer is trying to commoditize your product or service

- (0:04:55) - The importance of maximizing the use of tools like Gong for sales insights.

- (0:06:18) - The potential for AI tools to enhance sales efforts.

- (0:08:17) - Challenges faced in the early stages of a business.

- (0:10:43) - How to approach client-centric strategy.

- (0:13:03) - Approach for personal growth through reading, podcasts, and audiobooks.

- (0:14:51) - Danny provides information about where to find more about his training programs, books, and podcast.

Danny's Book: Talk it Up!: A Guide to Successful Public Speaking

In this episode, we hear from Mawghan McCabe, Director Platform Partnerships at HubSpot. Mawghan shares her unique journey from her sales background in New York to working with Piesync in Belgium, eventually becoming part of the HubSpot team.

Barrett King, a partnership expert and Sr. Director, Revenue at New Breed joins to share an interesting deal story from his time as a Channel Partner Manager at HubSpot.

Barrett re-engages with the CEO of a digital agency who had previously declined to partner with HubSpot.

Best Practice: taking an additive, not transformative approach to connect with prospects and highlight what a successful technology (HubSpot) and services (digital agency) partnership can look like.

Take a listen to hear best practices on indirect sales and partner motions. Designing Win-Win solutions, and why partnerships will be key this next decade.

On Taking Action from Advice:

Quote:

Connect: Find Barrett on LinkedIn and ask him about "3 in 30"

https://www.linkedin.com/in/barrettjking/

Questions, Comments, Ideas about the Show - reach out to Andrew Kappel at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewkappel/

This episode features Jerry Barsz, a top seller and leader currently working for a health tech startup.

Jerry joined Optimize Health as the first commercial hire. He has gone on to become a sales leader and now heads up strategic partnerships as the company continues to grow. Jerry shares learnings from being a part of a major product and company pivot. And how winning a major deal in the early days accelerated growth in revenue, technology, and processes.

Tune in to hear the skillset and mindset needed to be successful in startup sales and leadership.

In this episode, we welcome Kishan Patel, who shares a deal story of 7-figure pilot that goes onto become a multi-million dollar transformation deal for a large health insurer.

Nate Nasralla, sales leader, author, and co-founder of Fluint.io share a unique and fascinating story of a deal he sold to Facebook. And how that deal helped give him the idea to build his new Buyer Enablement app: Fluint.

Background:

Key Actions:

Learnings:

This episode is sponsored by OrgChartHub. OrgChartHub helps HubSpot customers get big deals done since 2018. Learn more at OrgChartHub.com/podcast

Pre-Order Nate Nasralla's new book (releasing Nov 9. 2023): Selling With: The art of selling with champions to shape internal buying conversations & close enterprise deals

Learn more about Nate and Fluint.io at https://www.fluint.io/blog

Dustin's background and 8+ year journey at ZoomInfo (1:15)

Dustin's specialty niche for professional sports team; outbound sourced 50+ deals (2:30)

Overcoming challenges including objections and timing issues that prevent deals from getting done (8:50)

Learnings from selling over 700 customers as an Account Exec at ZoomInfo (10:18)

Listen for the full detail on How the Deal was Done.

Sponsor: OrgChartHub has been helping HubSpot CRM Customers get big deals done since 2018. Visualize your accounts, see key stakeholder roles, and understand relationships at a glance. Check them out at www.OrgChartHub.com/podcast

In this action-packed episode, Tom Alaimo takes us through a captivating and exciting deal story in which he got in the door by sending an obscure Greek mythology book to the CEO of a major tech company. This got him referred to the CMO where he played the long game and built a relationship. That is just the start. Listen to the whole episode to hear the ups and downs and how the deal ultimately got done!

- How the Deal Started

In this episode, Evan Kelsay takes us through the fascinating journey of closing a $34 million SaaS deal. He shares how this deal began with a small customer engagement and evolved into a transformative partnership with his small (300 person startup - Seismic) selling a deal to one of the largest companies in the world.

Evan shares a mini-masterclass on researching and identifying potential opportunities, going outbound to get the ball rolling, overcoming internal challenges, building trust with champions, and creating massive buzz up and down and across the org chart to get the deal over the line.

Show Notes

- Evan Intro & Background

- Deal Background & How it Started
- When and how did you get connected with a Champion

- Competition and challenges

- How a $34M SaaS Deal gets Closed

- What makes Evan unique as a seller

Long form 90 minute podcast Evan did with Scott Ingram: Sales Success Stories Podcast Episode 56

https://top1.fm/episode-56-evan-kelsey-of-seismic-800-achievement-with-a-massive-deal/

The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision

https://www.amazon.com/JOLT-Effect-Performers-Overcome-Indecision/dp/0593538102