Pretty Big Deal: Stories from the Sales Floor

Kevin Knieriem started his career in sales selling ice cream to convenience stores. Now he’s the chief revenue officer of Clari. In this week’s episode, Kevin tells us how he ended up in a windowless meeting room negotiating for 40 hours straight, despite his own company's global team trying to intervene.

Chris Hays is the COO and president at ZoomInfo, but because he isn’t the stereotypical salesperson, it took him a while to hit his stride. As an introvert, he struggled with the expectation that salespeople are outgoing and gregarious. But as the sales process became more of a science, he was able find a groove. In this week’s episode, Chris talks about how sales has changed over time, and a deal that got way more personal than he thought it would.

Susan Killen is an account manager at ZoomInfo, and to this day, she still thinks back to a deal she closed over 20 years ago. It takes an enormous amount of energy and output to earn trust. To break it would be so destructive because you'll never get it back. On this week's episode, Susan tells us what it's like to say no to the customer and how it ultimately changed the course of the deal.

Bryan Tunick is a sales manager at ZoomInfo but seven years ago he was working at a start- up as the only salesperson there. On this week's episode, Bryan tells us about a deal gone wrong. And what he did to turn things around at the last second.