The SaaS Revenue Podcast

Nearly everybody can relate to the struggle of losing bad habits.  Habits may feel natural and instinctive, for some they may even come to define your character. The truth is that they are 100% learnt.  The modern salesperson joining the industry today is riddled with preconceptions from television, movies, or just bad advice about how to conduct themselves during a sale. They may think salespeople should be hyper-aggressive, shark-like characters who ‘always be closing’ and play under-handed games of deception to sell the latest and greatest products or services.  These ideas become bad sales habits. Here is what you do: Separate your personal and work lives. Try not to get attached to deals. Leave these preconceptions at the door. Forget what you think you know and be a person instead of an idea. “Facts fade, but stories stick” argues Testimonial Hero CEO, Sam Shepler, who spoke with us about how to sell effectively and the importance of storytelling.  Just as any good story has a good plot, come to the table with a strategic narrative and remember to tell your story in the most engaging and inventive way you can.  

Rule number one: care about your colleagues’ success.  This is a universal truth for all levels of a business but especially management. Running a team, regardless of its size, is a careful balance between company set goals and staff satisfaction.  It does not matter if you are in the early stages of your management career or a veteran – do not “sacrifice individual success” for targets and never use a colleague “as a vehicle to get your own achievement”.  These were the words of VP Sales at SAP, Tom Lück who we spoke with recently about the delicate tightrope act of building working cultures that both value individuals and meets quotas. 

Doug C. Brown of Business Succes LLC and previously the president of Sales & Training for Tony Robbins is our guest on this episode of the SaaS revenue podcast. Doug reminds us that: “people buy the person as much as they buy the solution”. What if a client or a colleague feels as though you “have their back” and have their best interests at heart, the trust created between both parties will foster valuable future professional relationships.Having a sound mind flow in sales is one of your number one assets and we dig into why this is so important. 

In this episode of "The SaaS Revenue Podcast" I was joined by Pierre Thompson-Lukas, RVP Central Europe at Datadog. Pierre has an exceptional background in software sales, working for the likes of Tableau, Snowflake and now Datadog, where he is responsible for building and coaching software sales reps for his own team across central Europe. We covered various areas of how to prepare and interview with a rocketship SaaS company like Datadog, along with the importance of treating the interview like a sales discovery meeting. We spoke about what to do and what not to do in the interview, along with Pierre's top tips, of what he likes to see when he is interviewing top sales reps.  

In this episode of "The SaaS Revenue Podcast" I was joined by Adam Long, RVP UK & Northern Europe at Yext. Adam has an exceptional background in software sales and he is now building and coaching software sales reps for his own team at Yext, across the UK and Northern Europe. We covered various areas of how to build a solid pipeline from scratch, along with what he teaches his team to do in regards to the science of breaking down your quota into manageable chunks and what the activities and behaviours are that you need to do on a daily basis to be successful in the role.Adam was very honest about some of the areas where he went wrong at the start of his sales career and what other reps should be aware of. 

In this episode of "The SaaS Revenue Podcast" I was joined by Andy Champion, VP EMEA at DocuSign. Andy has an exceptional background in building and scaling sales teams across EMEA and has had the experience of going through two IPO's with software companies in his career to date. We covered various areas of what makes a great sales leader, along with some of the key mistakes he has seen from other leaders, that has helped him learn and become a better sales leader himself. Andy goes into detail around the core functions of a great leader, along with why sales leadership is not for everyone and that there's nothing wrong with staying put as an individual contributor if that's what makes you tick. 

In this episode of "The SaaS Revenue Podcast" I was joined by Tom Becker, RVP Central Europe for Alteryx. Tom's background has been in selling software analytics and growing and scaling large sales teams for the likes of Qlik software and more recently Alteryx. We covered various areas of where some software sellers go wrong in their sales career and how they should not be cutting corners and jumping from one company to another to take a step up in their career, or try going out in the field without a system in place, where they can learn and get better. 

In this episode of the SaaS Revenue Podcast, I was joined by a mentor of mine Marcus Cauchi. Marcus and I discuss how software sellers listen with what he calls "happy ears" when dealing with prospects and customers and how it ultimately costs us the sale.We covered various areas of where people go wrong on the cold call, as well as the discovery meeting throughout the sale. I warn you, this episode is not for the faint hearted and will challenge what you might believe to be true in the world of sales.  

This weeks guest I was joined by Geoff Atkinson Founder & CEO of huckabuy.com and previous to that he was the SVP of Marketing at Overstock.com, at the age of 25! “Huckabuy is an SEO software company automating key Google initiatives like dynamic rendering and structured data markup to drive organic channel growth for all types of organizations.”Geoff shared with us some lessons that he has learned in his career to date around the building and growing SaaS companies and how he feels that making a marketing heavy and sales light team has been a game-changer in his business. 

In this episode I was joined by Matt Wolach at Xsellus. Matt is a highly experienced sales trainer with a background in selling and growing software sales teams.We covered various areas of where field reps sometimes struggle and how important it is for SaaS companies to have a clear sales process in place for their sales teams.Matt also shared his experiences of where some sellers go wrong in the discovery meeting and how important it is to really understand the prospects pain, before you discuss your solution, which could ultimately be costing you the sale. 

This weeks episode I was joined by Todd Chambers - Director at Upraw Media.Todd and his business help SaaS companies accelerate revenue growth through the likes of PPC. We discussed some of his key tips for how SaaS companies should go around their marketing in these difficult times and how to approach it with empathy. We also spoke about some of the best practices for conversation rate optimisation and how SaaS companies can align sales and marketing. 

This weeks episode I was joined by Thierry Ondet - General Manager at Room and previously he has worked for companies such as Yext, Oracle, LinkedIn and Google.  Thierry has recruited, coached and lead some of the most successful software sellers across Europe. Throughout his career he believes one of the biggest reasons for his success has come from his passion of self coaching. We spoke about how self coaching has helped him become more successful and even after a twenty year career in sales, why he still invests in his own development today. 

This weeks episode, I was joined by Michael Hartwig - Board Advisor at Yext. Michael is and has been a massively successful leader to some of the worlds most exciting technology companies, such as Google & Yext. We spoke about what he looks for when hiring and growing a sales and marketing team, along with some of the key things he sees individual sellers and sales leaders do, that holds them back from being more successful. Michael gave excellent insights into the challenges of growing and scaling up a team and what he has learned when growing a region from scratch.

This weeks show of “The SaaS Revenue Podcast” I was joined by another awesome senior seller in Germany, Tobias Kopp.  Tobias has a really strong background in selling software to enterprises across the whole of DACH and has worked for both large software companies as well as smaller companies.  We discuss how important it is to have a structure and clear agenda in how you do all of your sales activates, as well as being key to successful client meetings and demos. 

In this week’s episode of “The SaaS Revenue Podcast” I was joined by Georg Stumm, who is a highly experienced technology sales professional, within the DACH market and primarily the Life Sciences industry.   Georg gave some brilliant insights into selling software into the DACH market. We discussed a lot around some of the challenges he sees less experienced sellers do and what his advice would be when experiencing some of the challenges and habits we spoke about. 

In this episode, I speak with the UK’s most hated sales trainer, Benjamin Dennehy.  Benjamin has been a mentor of mine for a while now, so I was really excited to have him on the show to give his honest advice and opinion on the world of software sales and how we can all improve, with what he teaches.   We covered some of the areas that hold software sellers back and where they go wrong within their approach.   We discussed why it’s only our fault as salespeople when we are behind quota and how it’s important to identify that and take accountability and improve ourselves moving forward.  As Benjamin says, not everyone will do what he teaches or agree with his approach, but I think he will help a lot of SaaS sellers that want to listen.

In this episode of The SaaS Revenue Podcast, I was joined by David Jenkins, who is VP of Sales for Parloa.  We spoke about his experience of selling SaaS software into different markets and territories, along with the up’s and downs of his career and the advice he would give SaaS sellers who might be experiencing similar things.  David gave some great insights on how some of the sales processes work, along with sales methodologies and things that have helped him get to where he is today.  

In this episode of the SaaS Revenue Podcast, I was joined by Karen Muldoon, who is the UK sales leader for Zendesk.I was really excited to have Karen on to discuss her experience entering software sales and getting a better understanding of how she worked her way up from a mid-market AE into VP Sales.We spoke about some of the challenges that Karen faced when she first started, along with the things you should take on board when looking to work for a big cloud company like Salesforce or a smaller start-up.   

In this episode of the SaaS Revenue Podcast, I was joined by Timothy Hughes who is the CEO & Co-Founder of DLA Ignite and author of the best selling book “Social Selling - Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers”I was honoured to have Tim on the podcast as one of my first guests. He's won various honours and awards for his work over the years and worked his way up from a new logo hunter, cold-calling selling Mainframes, into Oracle's UK's Business Development Director, where he was responsible for Business Development, Demand Generation and Marketing for all of Oracle UK Applications.We spoke about where he started in his sales career, along with the importance of using Social Media to prospect and win more business.