Tech Sales Insights

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 Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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."

The best advice a former manager taught her - Annalies: "No matter what the problem is, if you really do take away distractions and focus on something, you'll probably be able to ride or at least have a path forward within 24 hours."

Find out more about Annelies in the link below:

• About Annelies

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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% tied to value."

Avoid getting stuck hiring certain profiles by focusing on behaviors - Annalies: "Focus more on competencies and behavioral traits versus past experiences, and here's why. I think if you focus just on past experiences, you could really go down this path of going down a profile that you typically for very, very quickly."

Find out more about Annelies in the link below:

• About Annelies

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 LinkedIn and email, I get great responses. And so, if I'm a leader saying this is something that's important to me, I'm also going to put my time where my mouth is and go out and start recruiting and selling people as well."

Find out more about Annelies in the link below:

• About Annelies

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 in the next 6 months and you have to make these difficult decisions."

Value selling when going through recessions - Diana: "The easiest way to increase the bottom line is by cutting costs. While that's not what salespeople want to hear, they can position themselves with companies that are looking to help companies reduce costs, increase ROI, and the very best way to accomplish that is through automation."

Find out more about our guests in the links below:

• About Eric
• About Diana

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by:  

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 partnership of ONDAS and Dynam.AI - Diana: "They're not just solving a problem for one customer, they're solving an industry-related problem. When you do that, you're just levels above your competition because you're thinking way bigger than just one customer. You're thinking, what can I do for the industry to help get it to the next level?"

Find out more about our guests in the links below:

• About Eric
• About Diana

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 Diana

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

OpenSymmetry | https://www.opensymmetry.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 SaaS start-ups looking to explore different markets - Larry: "The whole idea of the game is revenue acquisition. Sometimes, especially early-stage founders, get wrapped around the idea of wanting to be a global company and selling in all these different countries. And they lose sight of the fact that the whole goal is to capture revenue. Especially if you're a US-based company launching here, there's a ton of opportunity just within this country."

Find out more about our guests in the links below:

• About MJ
• About Larry 

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

DecisionLink | https://www.decisionlink.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 those solid accounts because you've invested in them and they have a relationship with the company."

Importance of CROs in revenue retention - Larry: "The easiest people to sell to are those that have already bought. The ability to expand is super important. I love the function, I think it's an easier way than traditionally putting this on sales. As a sales rep, if you close the big deal and you know that you probably block yourself out of an account revenue-wise, you're not going to spend time there."

Find out more about our guests in the links below:

• About MJ
• About Larry 

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

DecisionLink | https://www.decisionlink.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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's a pretty small umbrella. But as you grow, just understanding and looking at what departments make sense in the revenue generation versus retainment section define the CRO role."

Is it ideal for start-ups to have CRO? - Larry: "You start getting into that, 'alright, we need to have a structure.' You need to have separate disciplines within marketing, sales, within customer success. That consistent look and feel is key. But to early stage, you're creating layers of structure that creates inefficiency when you can least afford inefficiency."

Find out more about our guests in the links below:

• About MJ
• About Larry 

Send in a voice message to us: https://anchor.fm/salescommunity/message

This episode of Tech Sales Insights is brought to you by: 

Sales Community | https://www.salescommunity.com/

DecisionLink | https://www.decisionlink.com/

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.