GTM 8: Connecting with People with Lars Nilsson

Nov 15, 2022

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Lars Nilsson is the VP of global sales development at Snowflake. Prior Snowflake, Lars was the CEO of SalesSource, a premier RevOps consulting firm. Before that he was the VP of Global Inside Sales for Cloudera. Lars and his team at Cloudera developed the sales methodology known as account-based sales development, which has transformed how businesses approach high-value targets, and is an integral part of most teams playbooks today.

Lars has also served in sales exec roles at ArcSight, Hewlett Packard, Riverbed Technology, and Portal Software, all three of which achieved IPOs.

Lars starts this episode by sharing what he learned early in his career at Xerox and the world-famous Xerox Management Training Program. He then talks about Cloudera's account-based sales development method, including how it started and why it was successful.

What You Will Learn:

How to use personalization to your advantage.
How to speak among people in a way that brings them together.
What to look for when hiring a BDR.

Highlights
(05:00) Insights on nurturing young talent while fostering loyalty.

(14:40) Cloudera's account-based sales development methodology: origins and early successes.

(21:40) Insights on the power of personalization.

(27:30) How to create a lasting impression in front of people and bring them together.

(31:00) Why you should express gratitude or tell a story in front of people more often.

(32:49) How to overcome fear and nervousness and find the courage to speak among people.

(38:03) Things to look out for when hiring a BDR.

(41:26) Summary of Lars’ career learnings.

Guest Speaker Link:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lanilsson/

Host Speaker Links:
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

The GTMnow Podcast
The GTMnow Podcast is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with the top 1% GTM executives, VCs, and founders. Conversations reveal the unshared details behind how they have grown companies, and the go-to-market strategies responsible for shaping that growth.

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