304 How To Design A Legendary Career, Company, And Category with Joe Sexton (Part 1)
Christopher Lochhead Follow Your Different™
The Biggest Revenue Quarter in Mercury's History
In 2005, Mercury was one of the companies identified by the federal government for a back dating accounting problem. The stock tanked and many of the employee stock options were underwater. And then we delivered the biggest revenue sales quarter in our history with so few days left in the quarter. "We were obsessed with customer success, not satisfaction because satisfaction is too low of a bar," he says.
This episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different is part of a very special two-part series that we are doing on how to design a legendary career, company and category. This two-part series is a masterclass on how to have a legendary career in technology from 2 different perspectives. On this episode, we have a dialogue with the legendary Joe Sexton.
Joe Sexton has been a material contributor to creating well over $40 billion in market value over his legendary career. He’s one of the most legendary sales revenues and frankly, overall company leaders I’ve met or ever had the pleasure of working with.
There are many people who would easily pay $25,000 to have lunch with Joe, and today you got him for free and on repeat. So sit back and let this conversation take you into new heights and ideas in the next hour or so.
How to Change to Conversation in Tech Industries
Christopher and Joe reminisce on the time they spent working together, what they learned from each other during that time, and how they were able to apply what they had learned from each other to their own practices after they pursued their own paths.
For Joe Sexton, it was all about changing the conversation about things. Whether he went to McAfee, CrowdStrike, and other different fields in tech, his understanding in improving their business and becoming business leaders in their respective categories was on how to change the conversation, i.e. making a radical change in the usual perspective of a certain product, or creating a new one for a problem that people didn’t think of solving before.
Know What You Know, and Execute
Joe Sexton has taken may advisory roles over the course of his career, and have heard from CEOs that doesn’t seem to know what exactly their company does, or what they do in it.
“I’ve spoken literally to well over 100 CEOs in my board role. I’ve heard pitch after pitch after pitch, and 99 times out of 100, after a half hour of passionate talk and presentation by the CEO, I say, “I’ve been doing these 35 years, and I don’t understand what you said. I mean, I only understand what you do.””
– Joe Sexton
On the other hand, Joe has also worked with people who knew what they were good at, and got his help so they could focus on the thing they’re good at, rather than stretching themselves thin. Of course, it doesn’t mean that you only stay on that level for the rest of your company’s development, but learning where you can help your business grow, especially during its start, can spell success or failure in startups and the like.
Joe Sexton on Creating Your Opportunities
When asked about how he would create opportunities for himself when he got started, Joe replies that that is one of the questions that young people ask him.
To answer the question, Joe shares that one must have a good track record on their field and the data to back it up. Because when it’s time to compete in the market, these two things will speak for themselves, rather than coming up with a soft pitch and hoping for the best.
It’s like explaining what you are worth to a company or a potential investor, without needing to resort to technical babble or telling your story from scratch. Having that track record and reputation and the data to back it up means that they have something to look into before you even meet, and that could put them at ease.
To learn more about How To Design A Legendary Career, Company, And Category, download and listen to this episode.
Bio
Joe Sexton
Mr. Joe Sexton is an accomplished technology executive who’s been part of creating over $40 billion in value.
He’s served as CEO, President, CRO and SVP, advisor and/or board member for more than a dozen category designing technology firms.
He is the former President of Worldwide Field Operations at AppDynamics. ($3.7B purchase by Cisco)
Prior to AppDynamics, he spent significant time in senior leadership roles at McAfee ($5B public co), Mercury Interactive ($4.5B purchase by HP) and CA Technologies ($20B public).
Joe is currently on the Board of Directors of Aqua Security, Menlo Security, D2iQ, DecisionLink and BrainBox Intelligent Marketing.
He is formerly on the Board of CrowdStrike and Executive Advisory Board of PagerDuty helping both companies experience successful IPOs.
Joe is also a private investor in several promising technology startups.
Joe earned his BA in Marketing from the University of Kentucky.
He is very passionate about mentorship, helping women succeed in the workplace and teaching salespeople how to become Value Professionals.
Links
Connect with Joe Sexton!
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on iTunes!
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