#179 - Sindre Haaland, CEO of SalesScreen - A story about creating business software people love, not just like

This podcast interview focuses on product innovation that has the power to create top-performing sales teams that live and breath their sales ambition - because they're highly motivated and their natural competitive instinct is supercharged. My guest is Sindre Haaland, Founder and CEO of SalesScreen.

Sindre is the CEO & Founder of SalesScreen. Born and raised in Norway, but today lives in Brooklyn, NY.

He believes that the success of every company is a result of their combined talent. That even the leading products and services fall short if the people behind them can’t perform at their very best.

That sparked the big idea behind SalesScreen. A tool that turns the process of selling into a team effort, combining individual motivational instruments with cultural aspects and a winning mentality.

In short, SalesScreen transforms the challenging work of sales into a professional, motivating, and exciting game. A game where all your employees will have fun whilst competing amongst each other for the top position!

This inspired me, and hence I invited Sindre to my podcast. We explore his journey as a tech entrepreneur. What he did wrong, that caused him to waste a full year. What it takes to break new ground in a highly competitive space like Sales Automation. We discuss why humanizing software (rather than automation alone) is key to delivering remarkable impact. Lastly, Sindre shares his experience about the importance of embracing emotion as a way to stand out in the market.

Here are some of his quotes:

At our first client, I remember one guy there, he took up the mobile phone application, went to the middle of off the sales floor, kind of demanded attention of everyone, and then he hits "sale." Then all the TV screens lit up with Eye of the Tiger playing. Everyone was just going crazy, the energy was so good.

We were like, "Okay, we found something here." And look and behold, a week later, this executive from a large insurance chain in Europe called because she had visited this particular call center and seeing the energy for herself. She said "I'm not sure what this product is called or if you're the right one, but we want to buy. We want this for our sales teams as well.

During this interview, you will learn four things:

1. Why making people love what they do rather than just like it can mean the difference between success and failure. A massive innovation opportunity
2. The journey to create a product that has a wow-effect that's too compelling to ignore
3. How to break new ground and defend your price tag when you're selling something people aren't necessarily looking for
4. Why investing in amazing people who have relevant experience and have done it before is the best thing you can do as an entrepreneur.

For more information about the guest from this week:

• Sindre Haaland
• Website SalesScreen