TECH SALES

BY THE DEAL DIRECTOR

I write for top performers interested in the development and selling of technology.

That means members of the Go-To-Market teams (tech sales), investors and founders.

Which part of technology do I care about?

My strong conviction bet is that computing power is the most important resource together with oil.

Everything that we use derives from these 2 resources.

What are the most important attributes to computing power?

Obtaining it (Hardware production)

Utilising it (Applications powered by AI)

Keeping it running (Observability)

Protecting it (Cybersecurity)

When I refer to AI, I focus on ML-at-an-Enterprise-scale. This is not limited to LLMs, but builds upon the already strong foundation of automation algorithms that drive the industry.

I believe that the highest value will accrue at the bottom of the stack, which on the software side means the cloud hyperscalers and their marketplaces, the data platforms and the early adopters.

I believe that focusing on applications is not sufficient, observability and cybersecurity have become a mandatory part of the success stack.

In my day-to-day I'm part of the leadership team in one of the companies at the forefront of what I describe above. Since I'm heavily involved in the pointy end of selling our solutions, I tend to have strong opinions on what good looks like when it comes to sales.

My bread and butter is "big ticket", i.e. multi-million deals that change the game. This means that I look at the industry trough the "sales lens". This goes against the "trend", where the majority of content is written from a consumer, product or investor perspective.

The reason why I write about the industry is because I find it fascinating and the only way to keep improving is to keep learning. This is the best way that I've found to put the pressure on myself to keep learning.

The two things that I care the most about is selling and building great teams.

This is my love letter to the industry.

Every Sunday I write a new email.

One week it’s about the most interesting SaaS companies to work for and invest in.

Another week I take a big-picture view of cybersecurity or cloud computing.

Sometimes I do a deep dive into the art of tech sales.

I’ve covered in significant detail from a tech sales perspective companies such as Palo Alto Networks, Crowdstrike, Datadog, Samsara, Salesforce, HubSpot and many others.

The Tech Sales Community is a passion project dedicated to providing those in the tech sales trenches with an edge.

The focus of the community is to get together some of the most hungry, talented and long-term oriented tech sales individuals in one place.

We discuss in-depth cloud computing, cybersecurity, GenAI, data platforms, SaaS companies, getting hired, getting fired, managing stress and achieving your dreams.

One community call every week.

Services

Consulting

I consult individuals depending on their requirements, typically we focus on:

  • Career strategy within your personal goals

  • Job interview preparation and qualification

  • Evaluating the Go-To-Market opportunity and overall performance of a SaaS company.

  • Improve your sales process (focus on pricing, negotiation and building value propositions)

  • GenAI, cybersecurity, observability, data platforms and cloud industry insights

This is suitable for any member of the GTM team (both commissioned and regular roles).

I also work with companies and founders on their Go-To-Market strategy, building sales processes and hiring right.

Coaching (Deal mastery)

Deal Mastery is a program designed for sales reps that want to reach OTE and overperform.

While the coaching can be booked for as little as one month, the best outcomes for a structural growth would come from a 3 to 6 months engagement.

What do you get:

  • 60 minutes every week with The Deal Director focused on sales coaching

  • 30 minutes every second weekend focused on personal improvement and mindset

  • Intro call to qualify your needs and identify the biggest growth opportunities

We will focus on:

  • Selling the deal: Assess and qualify your pipeline, build strategies for the largest customers

  • Forecasting the linearity: Clean up your pipeline and help you drive predictable outcomes for your leadership

  • Deep learning: Assess realistically your opportunity for growth within your current company and how to build relationships with leadership. Improve your skill stack.

The biggest story of the last 2 years in tech sales is the emerging of GenAI as part of the technology stack.

LLMs changed how we think about interacting with systems.

Now is the time to learn how to sell the AI tech stack.

From my perspective, every application that we use can be augmented and improved with the implementation of ML-at-an-Enterprise-scale.

Learn with me how to qualify the right company to work for and become sucessful selling their AI-improved product.

The missing gap in how a lot of investors approach the technology market is that they often evaluate investments only from a financial or a technical perspective. Early stage investors sometimes tend to account for the leadership perspective.

Almost everybody ignores the Go-To-Market strategy and the quality of execution. Since most investors have never sold a single technology product in their life, they assume that it's sufficient to look at the end results (growth metrics and financial performance) and drive conclusions from there.

The problem with growth metrics is that a) they are often arbitrary b) they are a lagging indicator.

Analysing earnings calls can often give hints towards a direction, but it's still a "tailored" perspective, often omitting the real problems behind the scenes.

I believe that investors are able to make a better educated investment decisions if they have a more nuanced understanding of the sales strategy and quality of execution of a company.

This is your introduction to this analytical approach.