The Goats of Growth

My guest, John Sheffield, is the ‘Vice President of Sales’ at Yottaa, which the the leading cloud platform for eCommerce acceleration.  In this episode we discuss: Developing sales methodology Behavior traits and successful sales habits Building confidence in your sales team. Sustaining low a attrition rate Evaluating and hiring new team members Overcoming setbacks and encouraging your team The value of intellectual curiosity All of that and more. If you’re a sales leader or aspiring to lead a team to success, this episode is for you.

Joe Breen, a senior sales leader who has led start-ups through hyper-growth, including SecureWorks, which grew from $1M to $300M---leading to an eventual acquisition by Dell. Most recently, he led Nuspire, an MSSP, to a 5 year revenue goal in just under 3.5 years, while scaling the sales team from 14 people to 40.  In this episode we discuss the strategic decisions he made that had the biggest impact including: The steps he took to simplify the GTM messaging How Nuspire went up market by asking a prospect how to sell to them Repositioning and then rebuilding the sales team His overall approach to leading and managing people Why some sales people struggled and the skills really needed to succeed How to handle the "maverick" on the team How often to evaluate strengths and weaknesses All of that and more in this episode. 

My guest, Rouzbeh Rotabi, is the Chief Revenue Officer at Orum, which is  a platform for frictionless money movement. He’s also a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital, a venture capital fund led and backed by elite go-to-market professionals. In the is episode we discuss: The importance of maintaining discipline The big strategic decisions he made shortly after at Orum which took a great deal of discipline How to communicate potentially unpopular disciplined-based decisions   How to make discipline part of your culture and operating system How and when he developed self-discipline All that and more in this episode. 

My guest, Brent Keltner, is making his second appearance on Over Quota. After this episode, go back and listen to episode 73 where he talks about the 3 pillars of growth acceleration. Brent is the Founder and President of Winalytics, which helps clients reach their top growth potential by shifting from product-driven conversations to authentic conversations that anchor on buyer-defined value. Prior to Winalytics he spent 10 years as a revenue leader in early-stage and enterprise companies and 10 years as a PhD Social Scientist at Stanford and the Rand Corporation.  He’s also the author of “The Revenue Acceleration Playbook: Creating An Authentic Buyer Journey Across Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success” In this episode we discuss what he learned from promoting his book, the impact writing a book had on his business, and the major takeaways that readers of the book have gotten. 

My guest,Manuel Rivera, has held leadership roles with global technology and pre-IPO companies managing domestic and international partner programs, alliances, and channel sales. He’s currently the Vice President of Global Channel Sales for Constella Intelligence, which provides Digital Risk Protection for some of the world’s largest organizations. In the episode we discuss the mechanics of how to build a world-class partner program.

I didn't interview a guest for this episode. Instead, I give a summary of my recent trip to San Francisco at the SaaStr event where 10,000 people got together to network, learn and have fun. It was worth all the time and eevry day.  I also give a quick update on The GOATS of Growth, which is a book I'm working. on.

Rob Stevens is one of the people that I consider to be on my personal Board of Directors, who’s made some fantastic introductions and opened up others doors along the way–including helping me with getting guests for this podcast.  We met on the heels of his successful 7 year run at Kiva Systems, which culminated in a $775M acquisition by Amazon Robotics back in 2012. He then led sales, marketing and business development at 2 more successful start-ups (both acquired) and is now advising other early-stage Founders on their go-to-market strategies.  Something I found particularly interesting is how he navigated his way to leading 4 major functions within 5 start-ups, including sales, marketing, product, and professional services.  In this episode, we cover how he developed that breadth of skill and what he learned along the way that he is now sharing with his clients.

In this episode you will hear me highlight the 10 most cited traits, mentioned by my guests this year, that are present in top salespeople they've managed. I was reluctant to do it in order of most cited to least cited, because they are all paramount to the success of top sales reps, but I did it anyways to make it more interesting.  Over Quota is sponsored by the j. David Group, a retained sales search firm for lean start-ups. If you're looking to hire a sales leader for your next stage of growth, please visit thejdavidgroup.com. 

If you’re a Founder or an early-stage Sales Leader, you’ll appreciate and recognize many of the topics covered in my latest podcast interview with Brian Benedict, Global Vice President of Sales at Narrator.  If you aspire to be, on the precipice of, or have just started your journey as an expeditionary sales leader, you’ll appreciate learning about the mechanics of what it takes to get the flywheel moving.  And, if you’re an individual contributor aspiring to, or are currently working for an early-stage start-up, you’ll get a sense of what it takes to succeed and the expectations of you in such an environment.  Some of the topics we discussed include: GTM StrategyShould you go up market or down market and why?Pricing structureWhat should you be focused on from day oneSecuring the right meeting with the right people How he had 5 meeting set before his first day at one company What should your tech stack include? Creating processes and systems What goes in the playbook? When to iterate or not Who to hire first and why?The challenges founders could experience if they hire for the wrong position first What kind of experience should the first members of the sales team have?Which traits and core competencies should you screen for? How do you assign quota (or not) in the absence of precedent and much data? How to build a repeatable motion When should you scale and how Enjoy the episode.

Teaching and coaching enterprise sales reps to become HIGH-PERFORMING enterprise sales reps is difficult–to say the least. There are many variables to reaching greatness that sales leaders and coaches need to navigate. Is a rep struggling because she doesn’t understand the value proposition well enough? Is a rep struggling because he’s in a new territory and simply hasn’t generated enough activity? Is your go-to-market strategy flawed? The potential roadblocks that can prevent success are overwhelming and endless. With all the various reasons and possible impediments to success, wouldn’t it be nice if someone were to distill the complexity of true enterprise sales down to just a few pillars that can be coached and repeated—regardless of which sales methodology you’re using? Well, that’s what my latest podcast guest, Douglas Cole, Enterprise Sales Leader at LinkedIn, achieved in his new book, The Sales MBA–How to Influence Corporate Buyers. In this episode you’ll not only hear when and how to incorporate these core pillars of successful enterprise sales, but you’ll also hear him talk about the mental shift CRUCIAL to mastering it all.  Here is the link to buy the book on Amazon