True Sales Results

LinkedIn friends: Please PM me if you are a F1000 CISO or know of an Enterprise Company CISO that is amenable to participating in this Cloud Security Customer Experience project that I'm working on. All interviews will be kept confidential. The aggregate interview results will be shared with all of the CISOs that participate. Thank you! #CISO #CloudSecurity #Encryption #DataSecurity

To my LinkedIn network: Calling out to all Global 2000 CISOs. Please PM me if you or a CISO that you know is open to doing a discovery call with me. I'm working on a major Global Cloud Security project and want to ensure that I capture the customer's perspective. My commitment is that all CISO discovery interviews will be kept strictly confidential and anonymized. The focus is on capturing the customer's experience in evaluating, selecting and on boarding Cloud Security products and solutions. We want to learn your unvarnished good, bad and ugly Cloud Cybersecurity vendor sales experiences that you and your Security team have had. #CISO #CyberSecurity #Cloud #CloudSecurity

Sales Pressure? I vividly recall working at my first software startup. We had a full day meeting with a F500 Bank and then went out to dinner with their exec team. During the dinner, I excused myself to go to the restroom. To my surprise, our CEO and founder was in the urinal next to mine. He then casually asked me; "Do you think that we're going to close this deal soon?" I joked and replied that this was the first time I had ever conducted a forecast call in a bathroom. He then replied with 100% gravitas; "The reason that I'm asking is because we're running out of money and won't make payroll in 3 weeks." It became clear to me that this was serious and no time for my bad attempts at humor. I told him that we would make it happen. We did make it happen. We ended up raising a round of VC funding, closing a lot more deals and bigger deals and eventually went on to a successful IPO. But I never forgot my bathroom forecast commit. This was written by a human. #salesenablement #saassales #b2bsales #salestraining #salesplaybook

Is Your Sales Engine Performing Optimally? If not, please check us (TSR) out to help tune and improve your sales performance: https://lnkd.in/exC_h8am #salesenablement #saassales #b2bsales #salesperformance #salestraining

Just kicked off a new TSR client engagement working with a white hot Cloud company bringing to market a new, disruptive Cloud Security technology. The best part is that I get to work with a longtime friend and uber smart CyberSecurity rock star. We will be leveraging AI/ML in a way that will really help customers understand what security they really need for their Cloud workloads. Imagine that... helping customers make their own informed, smart Cloud Security decisions. This will be my Opus client engagement and work deliverable. #cloud #cybersecurity #saas #ai #salesenablement

Sharing my Champion Sales Training Workshop slides... #MEDDIC #Champion #salestraining #salesenablement #saassales

What does mission critical or "must have" technology mean to a sales person? Many moons ago I was pitching an old school Venture Capitalist (VC) with my CEO in SIlicon Valley. The younger VC associates in the meeting were pounding us with technology questions. One of our co-founders had his PHD from MIT and was dazzling and schooling them with his answers. The old school VC Partner did not seem engaged for the first 10-15 minutes of our meeting. All of sudden, he turned and asked me as the startup CRO; "Is your software mission critical to the customer?" I gave what I thought was a clever answer. He chuckled and then asked me if I cared to know how he defined mission critical. I replied in the affirmative. He proceeded to tell us that the way he defines mission critical is to go into the file/data server room and unplug the server that hosts our software. Then take out a stop watch and wait to see how long it takes for users to call/email/text their IT staff and complain that the software is down and they can't do their job. Fast forward in the story, we didn't get funding through this VC. But I never forgot his definition of mission critical. The practical truth is that almost all software is NOT mission critical to the customer. Despite our best efforts to convince the customer that our software is mission critical. This post was written by a human. #saas #saassales #sales #b2bsales

In old Enterprise Tech Sales parlance, when a customer is not being forthright with you it often means that you are being played as "column fodder". Column fodder refers to the columns in an evaluation spreadsheet. The customer has already decided which vendor/technology they want (e.g., column A). In many cases, the customer has decided before they even start their evaluation. And they reverse engineer their requirements to dictate the decision outcome. Losing in sales sucks. But losing when there was never a level playing field is excruciatingly painful. Because that means you and your sales team completely wasted your time on an "opportunity" that was never winnable. #saas #saassales

Anyone in my network hiring an AE? Please PM me if you'd like an intro to an AE who is both a prospecting and closing machine. He is exploring new sales opportunities. #aehiring #saleshiring

Looking for a brilliant startup GTM CMO? A long time multiple times colleague of mine is open to exploring new opportunities. Please PM me for an intro. #CMO #CMOhiring