Classroom Reflection - Get the Sales Hire Right

Class continued at Stanford University. During the second week, our focus moved away from the power of lead-nurturing to the importance of getting the sales hire right. On average a bad sales hire at the senior level costs a company one million dollars. This figure is the summation of recruiting costs, training costs, and the foregone sales resulting from both the bad sales hire as well as the ramp time of his replacement. While the world’s largest and most successful sales organizations invest heavily in making the right hires, a chronically high percentage of new sales executives, including eagles recruited from other firms, still fail.

Nine Key Choices When Selecting Your Business Laptop

If you work for a large or even a medium-sized company, normally someone else will select all of your business computing resources for you. But if you work as a sales executive for a small company or a startup, this responsibility for selection will normally fall on you.

As a sales executive, you are going to need something portable. Portable computers come under many different category titles, including laptop, desktop replacement, notebook, ultraportable, netbook and tablet, but herein I will simply use the term laptop. Over the past decade, I have selected my business laptop three times, and I have learned a lot each time. So while there are many generic guides available, this guide is specifically targeted toward the sales executive at a startup or a small company. Nonetheless, others will certainly find value.

Classroom Reflection - How The Cloud is Radically Transforming Enterprise IT Sales

I recently signed up for a fantastic single-credit class at Stanford University through the school’s Continuing Studies program. I attended the first of six on-campus sessions this past Wednesday. Nothing discussed inside the classroom caught my attention more than how the “cloud” is transforming enterprise IT sales. In short, the future looks bright but not familiar.

Minipost - Multi-Lingual Email Courtesy

I work in a multi-lingual company and am the only native English-speaker today. The rest who natively speak Russian all take the time to write to me in English. It is something I greatly appreciate. I would like to return the favor but I don’t know a word of Russian.

Seven Strategies to Land a Great Sales Position with a Hot Startup

Startups hold huge appeal. Once a promising company has a market-ready solution, it is ready to hire its first dedicated sales executives. It is a great opportunity for the right seasoned sales executives, and occasionally ambitious entry-level or early career professionals.

Landing a great position with a startup is different from landing a great position with a mature company, or even a growth company. While much has been written to guide engineers and programmers in finding a great position with a startup, I have yet to find anything providing guidance for sales executives. Having just gone through the process successfully myself and now looking from the inside outward, I have isolated seven strategies that I believe are most important if you are looking to land a great sales position with a hot startup.