For those few educated in classical economics, Gresham’s Law is a real find. It essentially states that when crappy money comes into a system, the good money (gold), is hoarded and goes out of circulation. The lesson is that when junk enters any system, excellence departs. Well, in enterprise sales, it is no different and we see […]
Enterprise Sales—The Mediocre Drive Out The Best Read More »
A friend and customer from a major telco had a last-minute emergency and asked me to stand in for him to speak to a group of Fortune 100 technology scouts at their annual meeting. I did not know there was such a thing as a tech scout but apparently, there is such a job and
Tech Scouts — In Search of Disruptive Technologies Read More »
Your startup won its first few deals and you are off and running. Growth is happening and you need to staff up. You do a private equity round. In that round, the first thing you do is make sales projections. Bring in the MBAs who can multiply anything while not knowing much about what they
Fire the VP of Sales—It Is Always the First Answer Read More »
After a startup has had its third Sales VP, is perhaps on its E round of funding and it still is not breaking out, it is what one would call a restart—or a restart is what it needs. It is at the edge of the Dead Zone. That is the space where many tech companies
Working with CEOs of raw startups offers lots of surprises. One of the most common—it is no longer a surprise, is their shock that the industry does not beat a path to their new product. The startup CEO often sees his or her solution as something the world desperately needs, thus as soon as people
Fundamental change in societies occurs at the edges and works its way to the center. The edge is often a border where different cultures interact in much different ways than at the center where a society reinforces its basic characteristics. The edge of the enterprise software civilization comprises the raw startups who have potentially disruptive
There is a clear trend today toward a metrics-driven enterprise sales model and the impersonal, interruption marketing needed to make it work. Some managers actually count the number of emails, phone calls, face to face calls, events that a rep makes and make that a determinant of his or her performance. This is highly
Enterprise Sales—More Art Than Science? And Why It Really Matters Read More »
Several former colleagues called because they want a sales job with a disruptive startup. They are tired of their life at VMware, HP, Oracle and want both the financial upside and the thrill of doing something really innovative. Delivering disruptive technology is like being a farmer—everyone wants to do it at 11:00 in the morning but
So You Want To Work for a Disruptive Startup? Part 1 Read More »
Several years ago, I was brought on to launch a territory in the Texas area for a struggling logistics software company. They had never sold a single deal in the region, had gone through 3-4 reps over 6 years and had nothing to show for it. Their product was a highly specialized offering and was
Disruptive startups with technologies that shake an established market often take in early venture equity—to their detriment. Of the many activities they then embark upon is the movement toward a “process driven, process centric” sales and marketing engine. Process is not bad—but it is deadly early in a startup’s lifecycle. The raw startup is