Episode 5: Empowering Sales with AI

AI development continues at a breakneck pace, with the number of use cases increasing by the day. This raises the question for many Go-to-Market leaders: how do we use AI to help sales? How do we ensure smooth adoption of AI? And what value does it bring to the business?

In this episode, SBI Managing Director of Talent Services, Ray Makela meets Conor Grennan, Head of Generative AI at NYU Stern School of Business to take a deep dive into the state of generative AI today, its use cases, and key considerations in business.

Key Talking Points:

• Use cases for generative AI in Sales and how it augments various tasks
• Overcoming resistance to AI use, and key considerations such as data privacy
• Ideas for effective AI enablement, as well as other new use cases for AI

Episode 4: Growth at Any Cost is Over

Understanding the right design and execution of GTM levers in uncertain markets could help CEOs propel their revenue growth by making efficient use of existing resources.

In this episode, Pilar Schenk, Cisco COO, Global Specialists, and Mike Hoffman, SBI CEO, discuss strategy, execution, and activation against a backdrop of those who had a growth thesis in tech of growth, at any cost.

Key Talking Points:

• The GTM levers that drive greater value generation in 2024
• How to better leverage commercial tech to increase sales efficiency
• What advancements the tech industry is making with generative AI

Episode 3: Know to Grow Sales Talent

A crucial driver of an organization’s revenue growth plans is the people that work there and how they perform. The importance of understanding how to develop top talent in go-to-market teams cannot be understated.

In this episode, Senior Partner and TMT Practice Leader at SBI, Tony Erickson meets with Director of Global Sales Enablement at Nearmap, Karen Mattice to talk about Nearmap’s approach to talent development through its Know and Grow strategy.

Key Talking Points:

• Assessing talent and creating individual OKRs in line with corporate OKRs
• Developing standardized training that focuses on gaps in key competencies
• How Nearmap leverages AI to analyze and optimize sales conversations

Organizations have had to drastically reimagine their revenue model since last year to accommodate the new era of digital. However, some companies anticipated this shift much earlier in advance and were able to adapt and scale quicker than their competitors. Autodesk is among those whose strategy pre-pandemic allowed them to weather 2020 unscathed.

On today’s show, Steve Blum, Autodesk CRO and EVP Worldwide Field Operations, joins us to discuss topics that are top of mind for commercial leaders navigating the second half of 2021, including:

• Revenue Model Shifts Pre and Post-Pandemic
• Talent Requirements For a Frictionless Customer Experience

SBI recently held its first Chief Financial Officer Growth Forum to bring together like-minded finance executives to discuss common challenges and share best practices with their peers. These growth-focused CFOs gathered in an intimate virtual setting to discuss the following topics:

• The Ascent From CFO to CEO
• The Digital Selling Landscape
• Driving Accountability Through Visibility
• And More

On today’s show, Jim Ettamarna, SBI Managing Director, joins John Staples, SBI Senior Partner, to share key learnings from the meeting.

SBI recently held its Spring CEO Advisory Meeting to connect with less than a dozen market leaders on current challenges and to share best practices. This influential peer group share key insights into the following topics:

• Organizational Clarity Around Customer Experience
• The CEO’s Role in Determining the Go-to-Market Model
• Talent to Drive the GTM Model at Scale

On today’s show, Scott Gruher, Senior Partner and Revenue Practice Lead, joins us to discuss these items and share takeaways from the meeting.

Being a CEO during a large Go-to-Market transformation is difficult, and with multiple acquisitions, this adds further complexity, such as:

• High Customer Acquisition Costs
• Low Employee Morale
• Inaccurate Fact Base
• And more

On today’s show, Steve Smith, CEO of Zayo, joins us to discuss how he navigated these challenges during his first few months in his role and shares how harnessing the power of listening and an efficient cadence has brought unity and clarity to his team.

CEOs often get lost in data while trying to decide what's working, if there is too much, or if it's even correct. But even great data is moot if not activated properly across commercial functions. On today's show, Mike Dickerson, CEO of ClickDimensions, joins us to discuss how CEOs should be thinking about their data and the processes that go with it. By owning the data, CEOs will not only have clearer visibility into the complete operation but also a unified fact base to run an unmatched commercial strategy.

Nearly 1 year ago, the economy had come to an abrupt halt as many organizations waited to be ushered into a "new normal." Now, companies worldwide have adapted to new digital capabilities to operate better than ever before, but many still struggle to replicate a personalized customer experience online.

On today's show, Brad Christian, Chief Customer Officer at Conversity, joins us to discuss how they have helped companies connect with customers in a virtual world while maintaining the personalization of in-person experiences.

Nearing the end of 2020, less than a dozen market-leading CEOs gathered for SBI's fall Advisory Meeting to discuss common challenges faced throughout the year as well as share best practices for trending topics, including:

• Using the Right Data for Right Actions
• Executing a Back-to-Base Strategy
• The Current State of Digital

On today's show, Scott Gruher, Senior Partner and Revenue Practice Lead, joins us to discuss these items and share key takeaways from the meeting.

While every industry has been impacted by the ongoing pandemic, private equity professionals have had to unpack an entirely different set of challenges trying to buy and sell in this environment.

On today's show, Mike Hoffman, SBI Senior Managing Director Private Equity, joins us to share how PE firms are validating investment theses centered on accelerating organic growth. 

Of all the challenges that sales leaders have faced this past year, effectively evolving field sellers into virtual teams has been one of the most difficult to navigate.

On today’s show, Mike Carpenter, President of Global Sales & Field Operations at CrowdStrike, joins SBI Managing Director Tony Erickson to discuss the strategic pivots Mike has facilitated to better enable their team in a work-from-home environment and the opportunities they have seen since, including:

• Forming inside sales teams without constraints
• Increases in customer access
• A lasting shift in corporate operations

It may be easy to assume that tech-enabled services became an overnight success in the wake of the work-from-home and digital phenomena. However, many companies will not only miss their number but have also experienced an 8% year over year decrease. It is clear that if TMT leaders do not make significant changes to their 2021 strategy, they will get left behind.

On today’s show, Tony Erickson, SBI Managing Director, joins us to discuss how the industry has handled this severe disruption and what market leaders are doing differently to outpace their competition.

Consumer behaviors have changed drastically over the past year, with a significant rise in ecommerce. As the supply chain is being disrupted across industries, businesses are reimagining how to go to market, generate demand, and serve customers.

On today's show, Grant Dismore, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer at Interstate Batteries, joins SBI Managing Director Tony Erickson to discuss the macro trends that are forcing B2B and B2C companies to adapt or die.

Over the past several months, SBI’s latest research has unpacked how market-leading CEOs have responded to market disruption and how they approach planning for 2021. Those identified as "Accelerators" have not only managed to thrive in the face of adversity but remain vigilant in aligning their revenue growth strategy with their corporate strategy.

On today’s show, Chethan Sharma, Senior Managing Director and CEO Practice Leader at SBI, joins us to share key constructs that market-leading CEOs are using to build the 2021 plan.

With the global shift to working from home, UC&C companies have witnessed a record amount of demand for their tools and services to carry on productivity away from the office. However, how are market leaders positioning themselves to be set up for success in 2021?

On today's show, Gregg Blatt, SBI Managing Director, joins us to share what UC&C market leaders are doing differently to outpace competitors.

For market-leading software companies, the changing economic conditions have had a positive effect on the bottom line. But this has not been without their fair share of challenges, especially for those facing a high growth environment.

On today’s show, Doug Winter, Founder and CEO of Seismic Software, joins SBI Managing Director Marc Odenweller to discuss how an accelerating software company could pivot to meet market demands and make pragmatic decisions every step of the way.

The software industry has experienced more disruption in the last 6 months than in the previous 10 years. With an increased need for online purchasing, content management, payment processing, and more, leading software CEOs have navigated changes in demand drivers flawlessly, even with imperfect data.

On today's show, Marc Odenweller, Managing Director at SBI, joins us to discuss how the top 9% of software leaders have been relentlessly agile in their planning process to outpace competitors.

Over the last 6 months, there have only been an elite few known as "Accelerators" — those companies that have thrived in a recessionary environment.   One such company is CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society. By expediting the growth strategies they already had in motion, CAS gained a first mover advantage in their market and continues to widen the gap ahead of competitors.   On today's show, CAS' CEO, Manuel Guzman, joins SBI Managing Director Andrew Urteaga to discuss the fundamentals that an organization must have in place to be able to seize unexpected opportunities.

In a virtual world, Customer Experience has definitively been at the forefront of the digital revolution. How has your company adapted to the new demands of the market?

On today's show, John deLorimier, EVP at Concentra, joins us to discuss how to bring more value to the customer journey and deliver on the brand promise.

As part of our advisory program, SBI recently held a virtual meeting comprised of an intimate group of market-leading B2B CEOs (public and private with market caps from $1B to 10B) to discuss current market challenges and opportunities for achieving strategic revenue growth.

On today's show, Scott Gruher, Senior Partner, and Chethan Sharma, Senior Managing Director and CEO Practice Leader, share insights from the powerful peer group including:

• The CEO's role in revenue growth strategy
• Managing board expectations
• Driving digital and customer experience strategy

Any CEO can attest to the current level of difficulty in closing deals. Customer sentiment and individual mind share are in high demand, and even with everyone online, many fail to adequately engage their communities in order to access their full potential.

On today’s show, Kevin Boyce, CEO of Higher Logic, joins us to discuss new ways of building and leveraging your internal and external communities to drive engagement in a virtual world. Kevin shares how the company pivoted its strategy to meet today's demands and new ways they have been able to enable and communicate to the organization amid their digital evolution.

It’s hard to imagine a time where calendars weren’t inundated with video calls and discussions around your digital sales transformation. With a virtual revolution upon us, how can you maintain the personal aspects that define your culture internally and externally?

On today’s show, Tim Brackey, President and COO of RGP, joins us to discuss how to translate culture from on-prem to a virtual world:

• Understanding “indie-ployment” and how it may define the future of talent
• Fostering a growth culture and how to measure it
• Developing digital capabilities to meet buyer expectations

For many services companies who achieve exponential growth within narrow timeframes, they often find themselves lagging in critical operational areas, including go-to-market.

Jarrod Johnson, Chief Customer Officer at TaskUs, found himself in a similar situation but was able to remain as agile as he was during the company’s startup years. Jarrod joins Scott Gruher, Senior Partner, SBI, on today's show to discuss how executing SaaS best practices allowed TaskUs to achieve manageable growth by:

• Creating a scalable sales system
• Implementing a high-growth marketing engine
• Building a data-driven customer experience

With the shift towards retention being the new growth, companies have increasingly seen the incremental value that Customer Success brings. If you are still assessing the benefits of a CS function in today's world, you will fall behind your peers and the market significantly.

On today's show, Alan Rudolph, SVP of Apttus, joins Tony Erickson, Managing Director, SBI, to share best practices for Customer Success and strategic deals in today's world. Alan shares how he achieves a 360-degree view of the customer and buyer journey and how to leverage CS to drive business outcomes seamlessly.

Vince shares valuable lessons learned from his tenure at Heartland that not only relate to the post-COVID recovery but also how you choose to advance your revenue growth journey through any challenging circumstance.

Having a full comprehension of customer experience in a digital world is crucial to revenue growth today. This motion requires not only active market listening, but communicating actionable insights across product, service, and channels — all while reducing friction in a virtual environment.

Joining us today is Tish Falco, veteran CX strategist and thought leader in tech and subscription-based services. Tish shares valuable guidance on:

• Defining CX vision and design from end to end
• Channel optimization protecting the revenue stream
• Brightening the future of digital CX

Shifting the go-to-market model to digital has been a subject on the mind of market leaders for some time, and now it is being accelerated. For better or worse, COVID-19 has been the catalyst for a digital transformation that will fundamentally change how customers engage with vendors.

Veteran and market leader Chris Perry, President – Broadridge Financial Solutions, has a broad view of his organization and recognizes the critical importance of digital transformation right now. On today's show, Chris discusses:

• Differences between the current crisis and last recession on a macro/global level
• An accelerated roadmap for digitizing the client experience now and after the pandemic
• How sales and marketing must work together to help clients take risks and “win the recovery”

It can be difficult to keep up with current updates and regulations surrounding this new normal. Without knowing the full implications of how long this crisis will last, how are business leaders adapting their strategies, especially when working with customers on the front lines of the pandemic?

On today's show, Milton Silva-Craig, CEO of Q-Centrix, joins Doug Bain, SBI's Healthcare Practice Managing Director, to discuss how teams must be agile in facing our new reality. Milton shares how to communicate with your teams and customers and solve arising problems outside of your traditional playbook.

For weeks now, businesses have been impacted by COVID-19. While it has been difficult to predict the severity of the pandemic, the one thing that has been unwavering is people's innate desire to connect with one another. As a Customer Success leader, the actions of your teams now will undoubtedly leave lasting impressions for years to come.

Bernie Kassar, Chief Customer Officer at Xactly, joins us on today's show to discuss what Customer Success teams are doing to help guide businesses through these uncertain times. Bernie shares unique opportunities for companies in today’s environment and how to create a frictionless customer experience.

While businesses world-wide have been grappling with the effects of the COVID-19 crisis, few industries have been seeing a surge in demand. Among those who have an opportunity to thrive are industrial markets like transportation and logistics. While T&L companies have the potential to increase revenue and enter new verticals, this is not without added risks.

On today’s show, we are joined by industry expert Chris Davy, Managing Director at SBI. Chris shares his experience and lessons learned from previous market disruptions in T&L and highlights the importance of a clear exit strategy.

There’s no denying it – unity, connection, and community are the marquee themes in the COVID-19 business world. Navigating these current challenges has also presented the opportunity to reimagine what is possible from product offerings and new revenue streams to internal and external communication.

On today’s podcast, Jeff Ray, CEO of Brightcove, a video powerhouse company, joins us to discuss how CEOs have the potential to:

• Create unity through authentic messaging
• Lead teams with empathy and positive intent
• Innovate and propose new offerings through cross-functional collaboration

"We're all in meetings where the dog runs around the back behind you or the neighbor fires up the chain saw. It's just the way it is. We're actually getting to know one another's kids and dogs better... I think there's more authentic talking happening now than ever before. And it would be a shame for us as leaders to miss that window of opportunity."

Companies who find themselves declining in revenue, experiencing customer loss or employee churn may be in dire need of a turnaround. To successfully recover from this type of crisis, it often requires a new CEO to step in and lead through the turbulence.

In today's segment, an expert in company turnarounds, David Ratner, CEO of Hyas, joins us to share insights for new CEOs who find themselves in a turnaround position. 

Nestor Benavides, CEO of EMG, joins us to discuss how a CEO can establish new forms of communication that not only drive the culture but deliver continuous improvement. Nestor shares how he perpetuates a strong culture within his organization through effective communication, objective conversations, and active company values.

Chris Downie, CEO of Flexential, joins us to discuss how to lead an integration that produces a strong organization, brand, and culture. He draws from his experience forming Flexential from two legacy companies.

Eric Vermillion, the former CRO of BlueCat, joins us to discuss how revenue leaders can build a legacy in their company that survives their departure. Eric reflects on his role as a CRO and how his leadership through integrations allowed him to develop successors to perpetuate his legacy.

VP of Customer Ops discusses the emerging role of customer operations.

Joining us on the SBI Podcast is Joel Trammell, the Chief Executive Officer of Black Box. In today's show, Joel provides a wealth of advice to first time CEOs. Joel covers the firt 100 days, dealing with an inherited management team, and interacting with the Board. 

If you are a new CEO, this episode is for you.

Joining us on is Steve Grimshaw, the Chief Executive Officer for Caliber Collision. In today's show, Steve demonstrates how a chief executive orchestrates the right level of inorganic growth to maximize the valuation of their company.

Joining us on is Steve Grimshaw, the Chief Executive Officer for Caliber Collision.  Steve has built and incredible business through both organic and inorganic growth.  He’s here today to demonstrate how a chief executive orchestrates the right level of inorganic growth to maximize the valuation of your company.

Today we are going to unpack the career path of a new breed of Sales-driven Chief Executive Officers and what it takes to develop the business mindset to ascend to the top position. 

Joining us for today’s show is Hassane El-Khoury, the CEO of Cypress, the leader of the semiconductor industry. Hassane’s mission is to establish Cypress as the global supplier of choice for innovative companies in high-growth markets. Cypress is leading the industry in growth after making the shift from commodity products to high value sales efforts. This has made it possible to focus on the  higher value offerings in the Cypress product portfolio.

Today we are going to demonstrate how to define which markets you will, and will not, compete in.  

Why is this an important topic? Being in fast-growing markets is the largest driver of revenue growth. Least important is market share growth. Yet, many executive teams tend to focus most of their attention on gaining share in their existing markets. While it is necessary to maintain, and sometimes increase, market share, changing your company’s exposure to growing and shrinking market segments should be a major focus. 

The first segment will seek to answer the question: How have you prioritized high-growth markets?   Hassane provides an overview to validate the claim that exposing your company to rapidly developing markets is the easiest way of growing with the highest probability of success.

In the second segment, Hassane outlines what traditional routes to market exist in his addressable markets, as well as innovative routes that disrupt those markets and his company’s competitors. Hassane also covers which channels he uses to target buyers, for each market segment (direct field sales, inside sales, global account management, key account management, VAR, systems integrator, e-commerce, phone, etc.). 

The final segment of the show describes the different areas market growth can come from, such as  market expansion or taking share from your competitors. Hassane goes on to describe the current demand drivers of his company’s addressable markets.

Joining us for today’s show is Bryan Adams, the co-founder and Managing Partner for Integrity Marketing Group. Matt and Bryan use the How to Make Your Number in 2018 Workbook to share emerging best practices. Access the latest Workbook and flip to the Objectives Phase of the Corporate Strategy section, found on pages 40-47.

Today we are going to demonstrate how to create clarity throughout the entire company by getting everyone laser-focused on the real drivers of revenue growth. 

Why this topic? Organizations that have too many objectives and priorities have none. They risk accomplishing nothing of significance. A CEO’s strategy often goes unexecuted because the sales, marketing, and product leaders are in their silos pursuing what they feel is important. This causes strategic misalignment and results in sub-par revenue growth. 

Bryan is an executive leader who rose through the corporate ranks as one of the youngest VP’s in his industry, and then, as an entrepreneur, started his own thriving business. Bryan is an expert on building, growing, and scaling a business. 

In the first segment of the program (6:18) Bryan shares the top goals of his business and the greatest challenges they face. He explains (8:03) how different types of growth earn different returns on capital, revealing that not all growth is equally value-creating. And, he walks us through (9:23) the process of converting revenue growth into a proportional growth in cash flows. 

Watch as Bryan describes (12:57) the three sources of revenue growth: Market Expansion, Market Exposure, and Market Share Performance. Bryan reviews each source and how it applies to his business, in order to understand the drivers of revenue growth. 

We wrap up the show (26:48) by discussing what strategic trade-off decisions should be made to prioritize long-term value creation. And Bryan discloses his willingness to forgo short-term profits to earn better return for shareholders (27:00) in the long-term. 

Joining us for today’s show is Amir Wain, a Chief Executive Officer who knows how to commercialize technical innovation. This show suggests ways to generate revenue from new product introductions. Amir and I answered questions from the new How to Your Number in 2018 Workbook to demonstrate generating revenue from product introductions by leveraging emerging best practices. 

Joining us today is Amir Wain, the CEO and of i2c, a payment technology company. I2c provides the infrastructure to enable companies to address the needs of the next generation of payments and commerce with personalized payment solutions.  Watch as Amir demonstrates how to commercialize technical innovation. 

Why this topic?  Technology companies are pouring millions of dollars into product development and many of these innovations are not generating enough revenue. Building cool new products is exciting, but unless they are bought at scale by prospects and customers, it's really not worth it. 

Amir is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic. Amir has pioneered many industry firsts, and has cracked the code on converting product development dollars into scalable revenue streams. If you plan to launch new products and need to get prospects to buy them at scale, you're going to get a lot out of today's show. 

In today’s show, we begin by discussing by determining which problems that are worth solving through product development. Customers have many problems, but you can't solve everything. Amir explains how to select the problems that matter to go after. Amir explains: 

Every month people from customer success, compliance, engineering, service delivery, and customer service come prepared with a sequential list of items that they want the company to spend resources on in terms of product development. Each advocate their case as to why their suggestion is important, and the others get to question and challenge.  Together they determine where the resources must be deployed for that month. The monthly cycle is important, because if your assessment was wrong, then you can quickly adjust and correct course.   

Amir’s description relies on agility to provide the courage and the capability to pivot to the next thing and keeping these cycles down to monthly sprints to keep product development pointed in the right direction.  We then discuss how to fit your product to a growing market and how to do that at scale. 

Watch as Amir advises how to develop a strong product to market fit, as he begins to explain:  

I think one thing to keep in mind is to distinguish between invention and innovation. A lot of times engineering and product teams get into the invention business, and it's cool that I've come up with this really. That's good. But can I monetize that? Can I commercialize it? That's the innovation piece. 

Skip to the 9-minute mark of the video to for Amir to describe the difference of invention and innovation.  It’s great advice on how to stress test whether a buyer is going to write a check for it or not, and that's the ultimate proof of product market fit. 

We discuss in detail how to think through the market plan and select the right routes to market.  Amir begins with this quote: 

The innovation adoption curve and the model of early adopters shows how people who would buy or not buy, no matter how good the product is, and what all it can mean to them unless they have validation and customer references. Depending on where you are in your product life cycle, I think recognizing it and making sure you keep adjusting and making changes to support, that is important. People who you would initially go after may not be a good fit for you later in the cycle, so the whole organization realizing that, and being prepared across your company is extremely important.

Watch Amir describe the product life cycle and how to think about where the product is in its life cycle.  Using that as an input, determine which products to sell, to which customers and through which channel.

A fascinating discussion involves how to validate value propositions for your product, and how competitive positioning fits. Amir and I discuss how to validate whether or not differentiation is real or false. From there, you have a superior product, and have the opportunity to receive a price premium. 

Joining us for today’s show is Mike Dickerson, the Chief Executive Officer for ClickDimensions who knows how to make the number. Today’s topic is focused on demonstrating the corporate strategy’s competitive view.  For many companies, the CEO leaves competitive guidance up to a simple report of competitor capabilities developed by an analyst.  This represents one of the least defined areas of corporate strategy by CEO’s for their marketing and sales teams.  There is a better way to increase your team’s win rate against the competition.

Mike and I leverage the How to Make Your Number in 2018 Workbook to access emerging best practices as a guide for our questions. Access the latest workbook to review the Competitors phase starting on page 70 of the Corporate Strategy section dedicated to generating revenue growth. 

Mike Dickerson, the Chief Executive Officer for ClickDimensions, a SaaS-based marketing automation company with 3,000 customers. Under Mike’s leadership, the company has grown 45% in the last year with revenues of $45M. Mike will demonstrate how to define who you compete with, and how to win. 

Why this topic? Share battles often lead to below average revenue growth because the cycle of market share give-and-take rarely results in a permanent share gain for any one competitor. Sustainable revenue growth from share gain comes from changing the product or its delivery enough to create what is effectively a new product. Price wars do not result in share gain driven revenue growth because they can result in a decline in sales, and are not repeatable. This is because customers will eventually push back, thus eroding any short-term revenue growth.  

Mike is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic as a CEO with a corporate strategy and planning background.  He knows the importance of setting the right corporate strategy to enable his functional leaders to be successful. [p]

In the first segment of the program Mike and I discuss his company’s unique competitive advantage. There are three broad types of competitive advantage. The first is a superior product, and that's clearly the case here with ClickDimensions, who has built their product with a UI that’s differentiated. They have a very clear competitive advantage there.

The second type of differentiation is price. The way that you can compete on price is that you have a lower cost structure than your competitors. As a result of that, you can be more competitive in pricing and offer a better value proposition.   Mike describes a very unique go to market model, with a thousand channel partners that allow him to have a lower sales and marketing costs, so he can be more competitive from a pricing perspective, which is a brilliant strategy.

The third type of competitive advantage a CEO can typically choose from is customer experience. A god example we can all relate to is the difference between a Four Seasons Hotel, as opposed to the Hilton. They both sell the same thing for the most part, but the Four Season's experience is quite a bit different, so they charge quite a bit more, even though it's the same product. That's called the customer experience.  Listen as Mike describes his customer experience advantage.  Here is a starting quote from Mike, and you’ll want to hear the full show to unpack this example and apply it to your company:

Our longer term sustainable advantage is in our distribution system. Sure, we must stay relevant in our product – The product we have today may only be a part of our portfolio tomorrow. The pace of technology changes, certainly in the marketing technology space, and I'm not sure anyone has an exactly perfect view on where that's going to be. So, we'll have to react to that. But the long-term thing that I think we can build a business on is the unique distribution model and the support that we provide in that space.

Today’s topic is focused on how to match the capabilities of the executive team to the objectives in the requirements in the corporate strategy. Our guest is Kelley Steven-Waiss, the Chief Human Resource Officer for HERE, the company leading the charge on autonomous driving technology. Kelley is a leader who knows how to build an executive team to Make the Number.[p]

During our discussion, Kelley and I leverage the annual workbook for our conversation. Turn to the Corporate Strategy section and find the Talent phase on pages 100 – 106 of the PDF workbook.[p]

Joining us is Kelley Steven-Waiss, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at HERE Technologies. HERE was formally owned by Nokia and, at the end of 2015, broke away as a separate company owned by a consortium of automotive OEMs, BMW, Daimler, and Audi, plus new investors, Intel, Navinfo, and Tencent. HERE is an open Location platform company, leading the charge on autonomous driving technology. Kelley will demonstrate how to match the capabilities of the executive team to the objectives of the corporate strategy.

Why this topic? The revenue growth objective, which is what we're about, is heavily dependent on having superstar executive talent. Field an average team, and you're going to miss the revenue growth goal. At times, this revenue growth strategy calls for a new set of competencies that the existing team might not possess. Sometimes, the competitors have a talent advantage that results in them winning more than they should, so mismatch talent and corporate strategy and suffer from significant execution problems.

Listen as Kelley describes how to match the capabilities of executive talent to the objectives and the requirements of a corporate strategy.  We begin the show discussing what sales and marketing leaders need to be best-in-class and to thrive in HERE’s innovative industry.  Kelley states that the number one attribute is adaptability. The markets are moving quickly, so the ability to adapt to different customers and market segments is required. Having high levels of business acumen comes next.  Being self-aware enough to adjust your style based on your customer, or even the sales talent underneath you.  Finally, consultative selling skills, because today it's about understanding the customer's ecosystem and competitive landscape, and if you cannot connect the dots at a high level, you're not going to be as successful.

Expertise in technology is obviously important. Particularly for a sales or marketing executive, it's crucial to be articulate, well-versed in the business, and have the ability to inspire and motivate teams underneath the buyer. Because at that level, you're not the one selling necessarily, you're really selling to your own people underneath you. Sales and marketing leaders can inspire teams and as markets shift and evolve there's more opportunity for executives to demonstrate their own adaptability, to ensure their teams are really following them.

Kelley and I also discuss the role of talent when thinking about your routes to market, and if they are changing.  If routes to market are changing, then take a fresh look at your leadership team and ask yourself the question, "Have I matched the capability of my leadership team to the requirements of my corporate strategy?"

Would you like to spend some time with me and my hand-picked talent experts on this topic? Come see me in Dallas at The Studio, SBI’s multimillion dollar, one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art executive briefing center. A visit to The Studio increases the probability of making your number because the sessions are built on the proven strength and stability of SBI, the industry leader in B2B sales and marketing. 

Joining us for today’s show is Mike Doobay, a Chief Executive Officer who knows a thing or two about creating new markets through product development. Our guest today has grown his company by creating new markets. He will demonstrate how to attract new customers to an existing product, and how to convince current customers to buy more of an existing product. We leveraged the SBI annual workbook to guide our conversation.  To follow along, turn to the Product phase of the Corporate Strategy on pages 72 – 77 of the PDF.

Joining us today is Mike Doobay, the Chief Executive Officer of Affinitiv. Anyone in the automotive industry will know Affinitiv as the leader in helping OEMs and dealers retain customers, build loyalty and drive sales.  Affinitiv does this through a combination of predictive analytics, integrated technology, and in-field experts. Listen as Mike demonstrates how to create new markets through the development of new products, how to attract new customers to an existing product and how to convince current customers to buy more of an existing product.

Mike is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic that dives deep into the product portion of the corporate strategy. Mike’s leadership is a fascinating story of impressive growth that serves as a solid use-case to demonstrate growth through new products. The benefit to our audience of CEO’s, marketing leaders, sales leaders, and product leaders in the B2B space, is that you should be thinking about all the different ways to bring innovation to your customers to spark revenue growth.

Why this topic? Not all revenue growth is equal. Some revenue growth creates more enterprise value than others. Revenue growth that comes from increasing market share for a product does not create much long-term value because competitors can easily retaliate. Revenue growth driven by increasing prices of certain products comes at the expense of the customer, who can retaliate by buying less and seeking substitute products. Revenue growth driven by products that create new markets, attract new customers and convince customers to buy more is the most valuable type of revenue growth.

Listen as Mike explains how the corporate strategy focused Affinitiv as a specialist to be unique and therefore drive impressive growth. Mike is competing against these much larger marketing services firms that are generalist, yet Mike’s team knows the automotive industry better than a generalist because Affinitiv is entirely focused on that industry. The corporate strategy Mike outlines tells his sales and marketing team what markets they will compete in and how they will beat the competition.

When thinking about, “How am I going to grow?” you should have a command over your business. What is your market share? How do you segment your market? What’s the spend? Who has the propensity to buy? who are my competitors? What is my competitive differentiation? Mike’s demonstration is a use-case of a CEO who knows what he’s talking about, and you should aspire to be like him if you’re able to answer these key questions for your team.

Would you like help developing your growth strategies or fine-tuning your product development approach? For your next executive offsite, bring your team to come see us in Dallas at The Studio, SBI’s multimillion dollar, one-of-a-kind, state-of-the-art executive briefing center. A visit to The Studio typically results in getting three months of work done in three days. The immersive sessions accelerate everything, dramatically reducing the time it takes to diagnose a problem, develop a solution, and create an implementation plan. [p]

Today’s topic is focused on how to match the capabilities of the executive team to the objectives in the requirements in the corporate strategy. Our guest is Kelley Steven-Waiss, the Chief Human Resource Officer for HERE, the company leading the charge on autonomous driving technology. Kelley is leader who knows how to build an executive team to Make the Number.

During our discussion, Kelley and I leverage the annual workbook for our conversation. Turn to the Corporate Strategy section and find the Talent phase on pages 100 – 106 of the PDF workbook.

Joining us is Kelley Steven-Waiss, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer at HERE Technologies. HERE was formally owned by Nokia and at the end of 2015 broke away as a separate company owned by consortium of automotive OEMs, BMW, Daimler and Audi, plus new investors, Intel, Navinfo and Tencent. Here is an open Location platform company, leading the charge on autonomous driving technology. Kelley will demonstrate how to match the capabilities of the executive team to the objectives in the requirements in the corporate strategy.

Why this topic? The revenue growth objective, which is what we're about, is heavily dependent on having superstar executive talent. Field an average team, and you're going to miss the revenue growth goal. At times, this revenue growth strategy calls for a new set of competencies that the existing team might not possess. Sometimes, the competitors have a talent advantage that results in them winning more than they should, so mismatch talent and corporate strategy and suffer from significant execution problems. 

Listen as Kelley describes how to match the capabilities of executive talent to the objectives and requirements of a corporate strategy.  We begin the show discussing what sales and marketing leaders need to be best-in-class thrive in HERE’s innovative industry.  Kelley describes that the number one attribute is adaptability. The markets are moving so quickly, so the ability to adapt to different customers and market segments is required. Having high levels of business acumen comes next.  Being self-aware to adjust your style based on your customer or even the sales talent underneath you.  Finally, consultative selling skills, because today it's about understanding the customer's ecosystem and competitive landscape, and if you cannot connect the dots at a high level, you're not going to be as successful. 

Expertise in the technology is obviously important. Particularly for a sales marketing executive, it's crucial to be articulate, well-versed in the business, and have the ability to inspire and motivate teams underneath the buyer. Because at that level, you're not the one selling necessarily, you're really selling to your own people underneath you. Sales and marketing leader can inspire teams, and as markets shift and evolve, the more and more that an executive can demonstrate his own adaptability to ensure their teams are really following them.

Kelley and I also discuss role of talent when thinking about your routes to market, and if they are changing.  If routes to market are changing, then take a fresh look at your leadership team and ask yourself the question, "Have I matched the capability of my leadership team to the requirements of my corporate strategy?"

Joining us for today’s show is Dennis Hummel, an executive who knows a thing or two about driving aggressive revenue growth. Today’s topic is focused on developing your corporate strategy objectives. Dennis and I leveraged the SBI annual workbook to guide our conversation. To follow along, flip to the Corporate Objectives phase on pages 54 – 59 of the workbook.

As the President of Maritz Holdings, Dennis has been with Maritz for fifteen years and prior to that was President of GE Capital IT Solutions. Maritz is a privately held company with revenues just north of $1.2 billion dollars with 5,000 employees. At some point in your career you have participated in a Maritz built incentive or loyalty programs. Today Dennis is going to share how he provides clarity of objectives to his leadership teams.

Dennis is uniquely qualified to speak on this topic of corporate strategy objectives. Maritz Holdings has several companies in different industries including the travel, industry and motivation industries. Dennis is responsible for setting the strategic direction for each company.

Listen as Dennis demonstrates how to create clarity throughout the entire company by getting everyone laser-focused on the real drivers of revenue growth. This show is a must watch for executives seeking to bring clarity to the leadership team on how to achieve high growth goals.

Why this topic today? Organizations that have too many objectives and priorities really don’t have any at all, they risk accomplishing nothing of significance. A corporate strategy often does not get executed because the sales, marketing, and product leaders, are in their silos pursuing what they feel is important. This causes strategic misalignment, and often results in sub-par revenue growth.

We begin the show discussing how important it is for his leadership team to understand how we make money and how that affects cash flow. We then discuss the three different types of growth strategies that a company can deploy. The first is market expansion where high water raises all ships. You're in the right market, at the right time, at the right offering, and you're going to grow because that sector is doing really well. The next is market exposure you go after an adjacent growth market and grow. The third type is market share where you are competing in a highly competitor and/or slow growth market. To grow you must take business from competitors. Dennis describes how his business units are leveraging all three strategies due to the different dynamics faced in each market. Listen to the scenarios Dennis describes to better understand why it’s important to identify your specific growth strategy.

Dennis and I discuss how you select a growth strategy to achieve your aggressive revenue growth goals. Can I expand in my current business? Can I expose myself to a new business? If I'm going to be in a market share battle then I better know my accounts better than a competitor can learn my accounts. Your growth strategy comes down to selecting market expansion, market exposure, or market share performance. Depending on what you select determines your sales strategy. In the final segment of the show we discuss the strategic trade-off decisions that must be made to prioritize long-term value creation and how to measure a return on ROI.

Joining us for today’s show is the Chief Executive Officer and his sales executive team who know a thing or two about generating revenue growth. We are going to discuss how to grow above the industry average while maintaining profitability. This is hard to do and requires corporate objectives that provide clarity throughout the entire company by getting everyone laser-focused on the real drivers of revenue growth. 

Today’s topic is focused on corporate objectives and we are going to demonstrate how to interlock the CEO's corporate strategy with the sales leader's sales strategy. To follow along download our 10th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. Turn to the corporate strategy section and flip to the Objectives phase on pages 54 - 59 of the PDF workbook.  

Helping me with our demonstration is the Chief Executive Office and the top sales leaders at BeyondTrust. This team is investing in growth and has a lot to share. Kevin Hickey is our CEO here today. Joining Kevin is his sales leadership team. Brendan Evers is the Senior Vice President of Sales in the Americas, and Brent Thurrell Vice President of EMEA & APAC. 

Why this topic? Growing top line revenue is hard to do and at times, we make it harder than it needs to be when the CEO and sales leader are not on the same page. By interlocking the corporate and sales strategy, we can unlock trapped revenue growth. 

Kevin and his team are uniquely qualified to speak on this topic having grown faster than their industry and competitors the last three years. BeyondTrust is in the highly competitive cyber security space.  Their focus is on the privilege account management side of things, which has to do with identities, passwords and credentials. 

Today we're going to demonstrate how to create clarity throughout the entire company by getting everyone laser focused on the real drivers of revenue growth.  As a guide to the discussion, download our 10th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. Turn to the Corporate Strategy section and flip to the Objectives phase on pages 54 – 59 of the PDF workbook. 

Joining us today is John DiMarco, Chief Executive Officer for Cedar Document Technologies, a provider of hosted customer communications management services to large enterprises.  Cedar serves as a hub to manage all enterprise communications for how an enterprise client talks to its customers and how those customers interact back with those clients. John is uniquely qualified to demonstrate how to create clarity throughout the entire company by getting everyone laser focused on the real drivers of revenue growth. 

John and I dive into the into three main types of CEO-driven revenue growth strategies.  We address each with examples to identify the real drivers of revenue growth from the CEO seat.  John and I discuss the differences between market expansion, market exposure and market share. I list those three in order because market expansion is the quickest way to create enterprise value shareholder wealth inside of your firm. To illustrate this point, this is where the CEO knows the market so well that he or she can put the boat over fish and drop the line in the water to catch fish.

Market expansion is Cedar’s main strategy where John has recognized he’s in a market where there are tail winds and he needs to make the most of the opportunity. The market exposure example market demonstrates how John is listening to the market, seeing a movement to mobile and trying to expose his company to that new source of growth.  The final strategy of market share gain doesn’t apply to Cedar since it’s an emerging market.

Listen to the dialogue of the Cedar use case to identify your growth strategies.  There's a completely different sales and marketing approach that you would take to accomplish each revenue growth strategy.  Sales and marketing leaders that don’t know these details are working blind.

Why this topic? Organizations that have too many objectives and priorities essentially have none. They risk accomplishing nothing of significance. A CEO strategy often does not get executed because the sales, marketing and product leaders are in their silos pursuing what they feel is important. This causes strategic misalignment and results in subpar revenue growth. 

Today’s show will demonstrate how to create new markets through the development of new products.  We are also going to demonstrate how to attract new customers to an existing product, and how to convince current customers to buy more of an existing product. This is a deep dive on product strategy. To follow along, download our 10th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. Turn to product phase of the corporate strategy on pages 72 - 77 of the PDF. 

Joining us today is Sudhakar Ramakrishna, the Chief Executive Officer of Pulse Secure. Pulse Secure is a leading provider of secure access and mobile security solutions to both enterprises and service providers. As companies increase productivity through the adoption of cloud and an ever-mobile workforce, Pulse Secure provides the security to safeguard your company. Listen as Sudhakar demonstrates how to:

• Create new markets through new products.
• Attract new customers to an existing product.
• Convince current customers to buy more of an existing product.

Enterprise value will only grow if you continue to expand.  Listen as Sudhakar answers how to succeed in existing markets as well as enter new markets. We discuss what's the cost of getting into those new markets and what's the cost of not getting into those new markets? The top priority first is to expand the market opportunity through new innovations and new products.  Second, growth is captured through a disproportionate share of that market expansion.

During the interview, we discuss the different types of revenue growth and which revenue growth is worth more than others and managing the portfolio along its life cycle. All in pursuit of growing revenues faster than our industry and our competitors. We debate whether a company should seek to create an entirely new category or should the company participate in a category within that category through innovation? New category creation has very different cost dynamics. Different customer acquisition costs and strategic time horizons. Listen as Sudhakar provides valuable insights into this decision for a CEO.

Sudhakar provides a great example of building trust and then expanding through innovation. Pulse Secure has a large base of customers whose investment is protected through software upgrades.  During upgrades, new features are unlocked to their mobile workforce and their transition to the cloud. It is a new capability in an existing offering that makes their investment more relevant to their needs today. Through this approach Sudhakar has been able to gain share in the marketplace.  He’s protecting the investment of those customers that bought products and then earning the right to expand your business with them through innovation.

All companies have portfolios, not just products, and those products are on different life cycles. Sudhakar and I discuss how the strategy's going to be a little different between products so this requires dynamic reallocation of people, money, and time, depending on where this portfolio is in its life cycle and the products within it.

Why this topic? Not all revenue growth is equal. Some revenue growth creates more enterprise value than others. Revenue growth that comes from increasing market share for a product does not create much long-term value because competitors can easily retaliate. Revenue growth driven by increasing prices of certain products comes at the expense of the customer, who can retaliate by buying less and seeking substitute products. Revenue growth driven by products that create new markets, attract new customers, and convince customers to buy more is the most valuable type of revenue growth.

Today’s show is a demonstration on securing and retaining the right talent for a transformation.  Consistent quarterly performance depends on the right talent.  As a guide to the discussion, download our 10th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. Turn to the Talent phase on pages 100 – 105 of the PDF.

Joining us is Sean O’Brien, the Chief Administrative Officer of PGi. The CAO title is becoming more prevalent in the C-Suite, and is used to describe an executive responsible for two or more functional areas.  PGi is a global leader in collaboration software and services.  Any time you want to connect with people that you are not present with, PGi is the glue to make that happen.  Sean will demonstrate selecting and retaining the right talent for a transformation.

You began a transformation to drive up the valuation of your company.  Listen as Sean describes building vs. buying executive talent.  There’s an opportunity cost to assess based on the skills gap.  We discuss the approach to weighing the opportunity cost of building to fill skill gaps versus buying talent with the skills.  Sean describes how to take a step back and evaluate the existing executive team.

Why this topic? The revenue growth objective, during a transformation, is heavily dependent on having superstar executive talent. At times, the revenue growth strategy calls for a new set of competencies that the existing team does not possess.  Mismatch talent and strategy and suffer from significant execution problems.

Listen as Sean describes how to evaluate talent, both existing and new.  Take a step back and look at the existing executive team as if you’re looking at them for the first time.  Sean states, “in many cases, the talents, the skills, the people that were responsible for getting you to where you are today are not necessarily the ones that are going to take you forward into the future most effectively.”

It’s an opportunity to re-establish that you have the right people in the right roles to take your company through that critical transformation.

The final segment of the show addresses how to prevent a brain drain.  This occurs when outgoing executives bring top talent with them as they exit.  Sean describes concrete actions to show the retained talent that they are valued.  Don’t miss the action items Sean describes.

Evaluate your executive talent at a deeper level by downloading our 10^th annual workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017.  Turn to the Talent phase on pages 100 – 105 of the PDF.  To request a workshop with an expert simply sign up for a MySBI account and check the box in your preferences to request a workshop. 

Today’s topic is understanding how to determine which markets to compete in and which markets to avoid.

Why this topic? Many executive teams tend to focus most of their attention on gaining share in their existing markets. While it is necessary to maintain, and sometimes increase market share, changing your company’s exposure to growing and shrinking market segments should be a major focus.

Joining us is Jim Briles, the Chief Operating Officer of American Global Logistics. AGL manages the supply chain for customers who primarily import ocean freight from Asia into the United States. During the interview, Jim will demonstrate selecting the right markets by using AGL as an example.

Today’s topic is how to evolve your strategy to stay ahead of the market. Joining us today is Jeff Ray, the Chief Executive Officer for Ellucian. A worldwide leader, Ellucian provides software and services to the higher education market. 18 million students around the world are touched by the software tools.

Why this topic? Strategic time horizons are changing. 5 year strategies are getting compressed to 3 year strategies and 3 year strategies are getting converted to 1 year operating plans with quarterly agile iterations. This time compression requires the CEO, and his executive leadership team, to build the capabilities associated with strategy evolution.

Listen as Jeff and Greg discuss how revenue growth, return on invested capital, and cash flow linked. Jeff describes Ellucian's advantage of a vertical market focus and the benefits to allocating resources.

On today's show we discuss the different types of revenue growth and their impact on company valuation. Our guest is Charlie DeLacey, the vice president of corporate development and strategy at the Kenan Advantage Group. Kenan is a $1.5 billion dollar transportation and logistics business.

Charlie is responsible for driving and shaping the strategy of Kenan Advantage Group, who has experienced 10-15% growth on an annual basis.

The types of growth discussed include organic and inorganic, and the different returns on capital each type of investment drives.  For example, given the opportunity to grow the same amount of revenue through organic or inorganic, Charlie explains that typically organic growth will drive greater value creation.  However, there are other variables such as time, capital requirements and execution risks.  Charlie describes how to make the decision between organic and inorganic growth.

Not all revenue growth is equal. As an executive leader, your primary objective is to increase shareholder value. To do this, you must realize certain types of revenue growth are better than others. We recently spoke with Charles DeLacey, vice president of corporate development at Kenan Advantage Group. Listen as Charles discusses the different types of revenue growth and their impact on company valuation.

At Kenan Advantage Group, Charles is responsible for leading corporate strategy and planning, and strategic growth initiatives. During the interview, he will answer questions such as:

• Do the different types of revenue growth earn different returns on capital, and if so, why?
• Is organic growth better than growth through acquisitions?
• How should you determine whether to invest in organic growth vs. growth through acquisitions?
• Give the available capital, are the number of acquisitions increasing?
• What happens to the executive management team when a company gets taken over?

Ultimately, in order to keep your job, prevent a takeover by increasing your rate of high quality revenue growth. Selling your company at full price happens only when you are healthy. Listen as Charles explains the different types of revenue growth, and how they impact the way your company is viewed. If after listening, you want to learn more about emerging best practices that top leaders are deploying, download our workbook, How to Make Your Number in 2017. It will help you determine if your corporate strategy is on track to increase revenue growth the right way.

On this week’s SBI Sales and Marketing Podcast, we speak with Tracy Cote, the senior vice president of human resources at Genesys, about attracting and retaining top sales talent, being an easy company to buy from and sell for, and using strategic alignment to support the sales team by making it everyone’s job to sell. Tracy’s company made SBI’s list of Ten Best Companies to Sell For in 2016, and she shares exactly what they did to make their sales process so solid.

In our first segment, we discuss why people want to work for Genesys. We analyze each aspect of the work environment, from the steps of the buying process to employee compensation and leadership training. Next, we discuss how they support the sales team by introducing the latest technology to upgrade both the employee and customer experience.

In our second segment, we discuss curating positive strategic alignment and making sure the company’s vision permeates everything the employees do, so they are all working toward a common goal. In our final segment, we conclude with steps to take to get your company aligned and your sales department as strong and as happy as possible.

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This week on SBI Sales and Marketing Podcast we speak with Kermit Randa, CEO of PeopleAdmin, about connecting corporate strategy with execution.

We start with a discussion of cascading strategy where Kermit explains the hierarchy of objectives and how it can shape your company’s values, focus and business strategy from the top down. We also review how to assign goals that help your talent see how their work on the individual level ties back to the company’s overall mission.

Kermit goes on to describe how you can add flexibility to your sales plan by focusing more on your rhythm than on your calendar. We look at the four forms of feedback that are important for any company that is undergoing strategy development: customer, prospect, competitor and employee feedback. We also discuss tools for measuring and evaluating these types of feedback to help hone your sales and marketing strategies and ensure your functional leaders remain strategically aligned with your corporate strategy.

We conclude our talk by looking at the first three actions you can take right now to immediately connect your corporate strategy with your execution.

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This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with SVP of Strategy at Magento Commerce, Mark Lenhard, about how to develop a revenue growth strategy quicker than both your industry and competitors. Magento Commerce offers an open-source digital commerce solution to 250,000 companies.

In our first segment, Mark covers company revenue growth relative to industry revenue growth. We discuss how to analyze the industry, its customer, the driving demand behind the growth strategy and how to determine critical success factors.

Next, Mark explains the strategy in choosing the proper market groups, and later we explore the theory of three forms of strategy development advantage: product differentiation, cost and customer experience.

In our last segment, Mark shares in detail three actions companies can take immediately to help increase revenue growth.

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Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. We're joined by Perry Offer, the CEO of The Dialogue Group to discuss how to determine a corporate strategy that sets your organization up for success.

In our first segment, Greg Alexander and Perry Offer discuss how Perry determines what objectives his company should meet and how to utilize these objectives in strategic planning.

Next, we discuss what to do once corporate objectives are in place. Perry guides his team through setting marketing strategies and product goals. Adding these objectives to your business strategy ensures your corporate strategy remains forefront in leaders’ minds.

In our last segment, we cover how to ensure your corporate strategy is being implemented through weekly, monthly and quarterly meetings. Perry discusses what to focus on in each meeting and how to use each meeting to track your progress.

Understanding corporate strategy is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. We're joined by Rick Haviland the President of MarketSource, to discuss the importance of a corporate strategy for choosing the right market.

In our first segment, CEO of SBI, Greg Alexander, by way of interviewing the president of Market Source, Rick Haviland, breaks down a corporate strategy for selecting appropriate markets for your business. Greg prompts Rick to assist other presidents in their strategic direction by defining his approach to market selection and maintenance at Market Source.  Specifically, Rick explains what aspects are important in choosing the right market, characteristics of those markets and ways to keep your team focusing on the desired markets.

Next, after defining the appropriate market, team members must maintain the strategic direction and effectively target the decision makers. A critical aspect in any successful corporate strategy is defining what buyers want in any market, which is another important step in the process.

In our last segment, Rick offers two tips for immediate creation of a corporate strategy when choosing markets. Success can only be achieved once the president provides obtainable numbers, otherwise numbers will be missed.

Understanding corporate strategy is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. We're joined by Jim Wetekamp, the CEO of BravoSolution, to discuss how he developed a corporate strategy that made strategic alignment a breeze and revenue growth the norm.

In our first segment, we discuss how Jim was able to steer his company through 14 straight years of revenue growth, despite market obstacles such as the dot.com crash and the one of the most severe recessions in the history of the U.S., by staying adaptive to market needs with a creative product strategy. Jim also talks about how his background in product strategy and development helps inform his decisions as a CEO, which leads to a look at the DNA makeup of the average Fortune 100 CEO.

Next, we delve into how to get CEOs and sales leaders on the same page so your company can enjoy the benefits of strategic alignment by involving them in 3-year-long range planning and product strategy, so that all eyes see where the annual sales strategy and numbers fit in.

In our last segment, we look at the importance of having an adaptable marketing strategy when facing market changes and conclude by outlining the first three steps a CEO can take today to get started on making a new annual plan.

Understanding corporate strategy is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

Welcome to the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast. Today, we're joined by Amy Slater to discuss a new way to look at your annual strategic planning process.

During this interview, we discuss with Amy how to translate high level corporate goals, such as revenue and EBITDA targets, into sales operations oriented goals, such as quota, sales forecasting, head count numbers, territories, sales planning, and comp plans. 

We use SBI’s recently released workbook titled “How to Make Your Number in 2016” to guide our conversation. Specifically, pages 217-220 which deals with the annual strategic planning process.  This Q3 to Q2 “meeting rhythm” lays out how to integrate weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual meeting cadence to execute strategic planning as a sales ops professional. As a sales ops leader implements this process a wonderful thing happens - you get your life back. Gone are the days of frantically responding to urgent requests from random executives looking for data.

We walk Amy through the model, and she explains how she uses her version of it at her company.  The benefit to you all is you get to see a “demo”, if you will, on how to use this tool. At the end of this show, if you want to use the SBI Workbook yourself, we let you know how to get it.

If you want to flawlessly execute the annual strategic planning process, listen and hear how one of your peers has done so.

Of course, understanding the annual strategic planning process is just one small part of hitting your number year after year. For more weekly sales and marketing insights like this, subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game.

This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Mike Ellis of ForgeRock about how to successfully drive strategy execution through functional leadership alignment.

In our first segment, Mike shares how the CTO drives successful execution of corporate strategy while staying in strategic alignment with the CEO. We discuss how to know when numbers are missed because of poor execution in sales and marketing or if it is because there's a product problem.

Next, we talk with Mike about what it takes to keep the marketing strategy in strategic alignment with the overall corporate strategy and bringing that strategy to market. We then touch on the cadence in face-to-face communication and Mike offers advice to ensure the product, marketing and sales teams continuously test and adjust the assumptions in the strategy. In this segment, we also take a look at how to keep strategic alignment when you want to make a corporate strategy shift that could potentially disrupt other teams’ strategy development. 

In our last segment, we conclude our conversation, and Mike sends us off with three immediate actions to take if you’re a CEO who finds his teams struggling to execute corporate strategy.

Want more weekly insights like this to help you make your number? Subscribe and leave us a review! Your feedback will help us improve our show and continue to bring you content that keeps you at the top of your game. 

This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Chris Giglio, CEO of Aderant, about how to hire the right sales executive who the CEO can develop a trusting business relationship with in order to make his or her number.

In our first segment, Chris shares with us the evaluation process he and his team structured in choosing the right sales executive, how to build a trusting relationship that is transparent between the CEO and sales leader, as well as understanding what is actually happening in the market in order to understand the relationship between your sales and product teams.

Next, Chris discusses how he manages to spot a good sales executive in the early stages of hiring when a sales leader is selling a product he himself knows well. Chris also delves into their company’s new design principle and how it shifted their approach to hiring the right person for the job. We also discuss how to assess the reasoning behind why a company isn’t growing. Chris shares his organization’s 360 reviews that give everyone a good look at what’s happening in the overall picture and where the real pain points exist.

In our last segment, we summarize our conversation and offer a set of immediate actions you can take to implement into your executive recruiting design in order to find the right sales executive for your organization.

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This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Brian Walker, CEO of Herman Miller about finding and sustaining strategic alignment from the CEO’s chair all the way to the customer.

In our first segment, Brian discusses some steps he’s taken to drive sales strategy from his role as CEO. The beginning of the processes includes annually narrowing down a set of four to five business strategies presented to the company to see all the way through. From there, each will be outlined in a detailed one-page document in order to understand the situational analysis of the project you’ve decided to take on in order to achieve overall business alignment.

Next, Brian shares what has helped him run a strategy where strategic alignment exists along the product and sales team, and the role the CEO plays in keeping the product team, the marketing department and the operations group aligned.

In our last segment, we ask Brian to send us off with some advice from his approach to leading a sales team as a CEO.

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This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Tim Huffmyer, the CFO of BlackBox Network Services, about reallocating a sales and marketing budget as the year unfolds.

In our first segment, Tim discusses how to establish expectations for your stakeholders at the beginning of the year. He then details how he and his team reallocate the budget as the year progresses and things change.

Next, Tim walks us through a hypothetical corporate strategy case study focused on head count planning, how that aligns with a P&L statement and the obstacles that come with it.

In our final segment, Tim shares with us how he measures the market and the return on his sales and marketing strategy. 

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If you are a sales leader wanting to work better with the CFO, listen to this podcast.  If you are a CFO wanting to partner better with sales, listen to this podcast.  I think you both will learn from it.

This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Fred Florjancic, Chairman of the Board at Ramsey Industries, and member of the board of directors at the Elkay Manufacturing Company and Liberty Tire Recycling, about sales and marketing effectiveness from the board’s perspective as it relates to accelerating revenue growth.

In our first segment, Fred helps us understand how a board member should analyze a company during a sales and marketing strategy execution, by walking us through the five Ps of success: the people, the products, the plants, its processes, its prices. We also discuss how often board meetings should take place and how to best prepare for them.

Next, Fred fills us in on the impact the CEO can have in leading the marketing and sales strategy to help meet the company’s revenue goals. We also dig a little deeper into what makes a great sales and marketing leader and how to hire the right talent as a board member.

In our last segment, Fred shares with us how he strategically aligns his teams, from product to marketing to sales, for the most effective sales strategy.

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This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Joel Trammell, CEO of Khorus, about his corporate strategy approach detailed in his book, “The CEO Tightrope,” which describes how to keep your product, marketing and sales teams aligned.

In our first segment, Joel discusses what inspired him to write his book and lays out the five core responsibilities of a CEO required to build a corporate level strategy, including owning the vision, providing proper resources, building culture, making decisions and recruiting the right talent.

Next, Joel talks with us about his perspective as a board member after serving as a CEO and how to hire the right CEO for the job.  

In our last segment, Joel walks us through the SCARF theory and how it relates to business strategy. He finishes by telling us how his company’s software product helps organizations maintain their strategic alignment from the top to bottom of a company.

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This week on the SBI Sales and Marketing podcast, we spoke with Dave Rennyson, EVP and GM of the Cloud division at Genesys, about how to scale a SaaS company using corporate strategy.

In our first segment, Dave discusses how he and his team successfully moved their average deal size from $10,000 to $80,000 with sales management, product focus and strong network security.

In our second segment, we talk with Dave about how strategic alignment across all departments is necessary to help grow your company from a small- or mid-sized business to an enterprise, something many SaaS companies want to do but are unable to.

In our final segment, Dave shares with us how he was able to move from sales leader to president of his company as well as make the shift from functional management to general management.

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