Megadeals Podcast

Founder and CEO of Fluint.io, Nate Nasralla teaches how to sell with buyers, not to them. In this podcast episode, Nate and Christopher discuss strategies for successful enterprise sales. They emphasize the importance of identifying and empowering deal champions in order to win over key stakeholders. Additionally, Nate points out the importance of effective communication in B2B sales and the challenges of scaling messaging and positioning. Ps. You will also get an explanation of how to create a “cohesive narrative."

ABM is mistakenly seen as a technology when it's really about targeting specific groups of accounts with tailored messaging throughout the funnel. The podcast guests, Christopher Strandell and Erik Annerberg have over 20 years of experience in the ABM industry. Now that they are colleagues at the ABM company InZynk, they happily joke about how they were once business rivals. Erik and Christopher emphasize the importance of teamwork and collaboration between sales and marketing. They know how hard it is to get marketing and sales working together. As an example, the sales and marketing teams can collaborate in determining who, when, and how to target and build messaging, content, and distribution together. We're joined by the host Christopher Engman, author of the Megadeals book, also known as "the father" of the ABM category. 

One of the key traits of successful megadealers is their ability to understand, influence and shape a client ecosystem.  Elon Musk and Steve Jobs shaped their respective ecosystems and transformed how we communicate and drive e-cars. In this podcast episode HP Indigo "veteran" Christian Menegon shares an inspiring story of how he and the HP Indigo team influenced and shaped the ecosystem from traditional analogue to digital printing technology. You will also learn which two words the market doesn't want to hear. Not only did this result in winning deals but also growing the digital printing category and positioned HP Indigo as the category leader. Stay tuned. 

"The best things are easy, but you need to understand them..." says Megadealer Kenny Fogel.It all started with listening to a podcast episode on vacation in Mallorca. Today Kenny Fogel can title himself a Megadealer and the CEO of HPSolartech. Kenny shares the story of when he, as a salesman, went from small deals selling solar panels on rooftops to orchestrating Megadeals selling solar parks due to the Megadeals philosophy. How did he understand the need to differentiate messaging to investors and landowners? When is the right time to position a brand? This episode opens the door of working on the solar market's ecosystem and the proper messaging architecture. Don't forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast! 

The three Megadeals Advisory founders have a dialogue around learnings from 2021. Some of the learnings discussed are linked to Messaging creation, Content production and Martech tactics. The three also deliver tips on how sales and marketing may come together as one team. They handle topics like title fights and the importance of following the symptoms to find the root cause. You don't want to miss when Christopher expand the definition of a Megadeal. There's a correlation with deal size. However, the deal size is not the trigger when you need to shift from selling to orchestration. Interested to learn what these triggers are? Welcome to tune in!

We have acted on feedback from you listeners who want to hear more from our previous podcast guest Mareo McCracken. This time we talk about why Mareo's newly released book "Really care for them" is a great introduction to other sales books and disciplines and how to really care for the customers you intend to help. If you view your counterpart as a target on a "hit list" and you only care about the signature on the contract, people will sense it and walk away.Among other topics, we also cover how pride kills most sales deals and how to prevent it.

Andy Paul is back with us and talks about his latest book, Sell without selling out. He shares his experience throughout the years that made him write this book. The core of this book is understanding why salespeople are not trained to sell to buyers as humans. We talk about what's important to your buyers and how to help them get it with Andy's 4 pillars of selling in. 

We talk to the legend and host of the number #1 sales podcast, The Sales Enablement Podcast - Andy Paul.  Andy gives us insights over his everlong career and the good and the bad trends coming from his over 1000 episodes with interviews with leaders in the sales space.   

Meet Sofia Svanholt. A Megadealer at Microsoft, started off a path of an engineer but got later to love the process of helping people and building relationships on a professional level. She tells her story of 25 years in the IT business, working with Global SLS companies, going from selling to orchestrating big complex megadeals. How does an orchestration look when one of the key initiatives of a company is to meet the Paris agreement? Sofia shares her greatest tips in order to become successful in space and why she dislikes Trojan horses.

Growing your salespeople in numbers has been a traditional step for increasing revenue. One big shift hitting us right now with a brutal impact is marketing being developed for full-funnel strategies instead of just being the top funnel strategy. Christopher, Bora, and David explain why the traditional growth strategy is imminent to end and why the focus needs to lay on media tactics. It is INEVITABLE that you need to recode how to work with large deals, for everyone who isn't using strong media tactics today. We discuss how you can win bigger and faster by becoming more deal-centric instead of lead-centric at a lower risk and as a result, having the leads coming TO you instead of your marketing team chasing them for you.   

In this episode, Christopher & Bora meet Patrik Möller from CorPower Ocean, one of the companies in our sustainability report (Nordic top 50). CorPower is a Swedish technology company that enables 100% renewable energy by using a buoy that captures energy from the ocean's waves. With this technology, you can actually power around 500 million homes, which makes this wave energy solution a complete game-changer.

Where should you spend your time, money, and resources? What people do you need in an organization to make it fly and execute? Today, some of the best companies are spending 50/50 between marketing and sales. Our forecast is that a future version of megadeals is closer to 70/30 or 80/20. Here, Christopher, David & Bora are talking about which techniques you need to combine and design in order for your organization to sign megadeals.

This week Christopher, David & Bora discussed the similarities between implementing the Megadeals discipline in a small growing organization or a large corporation, like learning your category and subcategory in order to create a perfect messaging.

This week we have another company from our Sustainability Game Changers - Nordic Top 50 report as our guest - Stefan Nilsson & Ove Lidström from Foxway. Foxway combines different business areas and expertise within IT so that you can reach your specific goals and succeed in a sustainable way. In 2020, Foxway saved 350,000 tons of CO2 by refurbishing more than 1 million devices. Don't forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast

Enjay is one of the participants in our Sustainability Game Changers - Nordic Top 50 report that we launched this spring. This week we have the CEO and Co-founder of Enjay - Jesper Wirén as our guest. Enjay is a Swedish environmental technology company specializing in energy efficiency. Their first innovation, called Lepido, is the world's first profitable recycling system for restaurant ventilation, used by Burger King and other restaurants.

This week Christopher has an interesting conversation with Theodore Bergqvist, a serial entrepreneur with a strong track record as a deal maker focusing on tech solutions such as low code/no code. Today he is the CEO and Co-Founder of Turbotic, aiming to enable world companies to be self-operating using AI and Automation technologies. Theodore shares his key learnings when doing big complex deals, both failures and successes. Don't forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

Would you read an article or news items where you are named? Are you struggling to engage a large enough audience or to reach the C-level? In the Orientational messaging part of the Megadeals discipline, Christopher, David & Bora discuss techniques of how to reach the bigger audience and how it blends into the messaging architecture. You find the episode on all Podcast platforms and don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

How many times have you heard people saying: “Yes, we want to buy from you”? But a verbal yes will never be the same as an actual signing on the last dotted line. In the Deal closing messaging of the Megadeals discipline, we talk about the small decisions that need to be made and all matters that will need to be clarified before signing. These are messages centered around how to go from signing, to going live and from launching to an actual relationship. Christopher, David, and Bora share some insightful tips on how to do things once and never again in the deal closing part of the messaging architecture. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

In this week’s episode we got the chance to have another chat with Michael Eckhardt, managing director at Chasm Institute. The Chasm Institute is a Silicon Valley consultancy founded by Geoffrey Moore, author of the product marketing classic "Crossing the Chasm." We talk about channel sales vs direct sales and the consequences of doing the right thing at the wrong time. What should you think about in a go-to market and when is the right timing to start with channel sales? Michael shares many hands-on experiences on how to dominate a market in the B2B world. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

Do you want to change behavior in life? Get to know yourself better and develop yourself? In this week's episode, we have an inspiring conversation with the professional speaker, trainer, and advisor in negotiation and emotional intelligence - Lousin Mehrabi. She teaches us about the right mindset and strategies and goes through the nine-step method for successful negotiation. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

Who emails the top manager of Ericsson every monday for three months? In today’s episode we have a conversation with Erik Josefsson, who has worked at Ericsson for almost 9 years in several different continents. He has been driving global business development for IoT solutions and the 5G offerings in the industry. We discuss how to merge sales, marketing and product development as well as the importance of gathering the right team in a company. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

To what extent can we rely on published research results? Why should we question Kahneman’s loss aversion study? And why is the 60+ million viewed TED-talk on power posing not reliable? In this episode, we have a conversation with Anna Dreber Almenberg, the first female Economic professor at Stockholm School of Economics. She has been active at Harvard University since 2006 and today she works as a researcher of behavioral economics mainly in the field of metascience - the science of science. We discuss different research experiments and why it matters to be critical of research results that don’t replicate. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Megadeals Podcast!

How many could say that they have been inspired by Donald Trump? At least this guest made that inspiration and turned it into something good. Ingmar Rentzhog is the person behind the global social media network We Don't Have Time which focusing on the solutions of the climate crisis. This platform combines social networks and ratings to influence society by connecting people all over the world to be leaders within climate change. In this insightful episode, we talk about We Don't Have Time, the media's accountability in the climate crisis, and how to scale existing innovations. Join www.wedonthavetime.org now!

If you're a true listener of this podcast you have probably heard Mark Organ's voice before. Here we discuss why you should think big when crafting your category vision in startups/scaleups. Mark gives many valuable tips on how you should think, act and dominate within your category. Lastly, he shares interesting thoughts about the portfolio mindset, dealing with horizons and future investments. Mark Organ is the CEO of the global community of category creating leaders - Categorynauts. He also coaches other CEOs on how to develop and dominate their categories.

How do you actually build trust and create new relationships with stakeholders during these times? Andréas Rydén, megadealer at IBM, shares his experiences on trust, relationships, culture, and how to set boundaries when negotiating. We also discuss how the pandemic makes it even more difficult to drive consensus.

In this episode, Bora, David, and Christopher talk about part 1 of 3 of the Messaging Architecture, the Fundamental Messaging. This part of the discipline takes the buyer from 'I don't know who you are' to 'I want to buy from you'. It is also being discussed why it's problematic that companies talk too much about their product's benefits and features and what to think of instead when providing support throughout the buyer’s decision-making process. The next part of the Messaging series: Deal Closing Messaging, part 2 of 3.

You have probably listened to music in his headphones and maybe heard about the revolutionary electric boat company X Shore. Konrad Bergström started Zound Industries in 2008, including Urbanears and Marshall, which grew by 11.000% over a 3 year period. Today Konrad fully works with his innovative electric boat company X Shore. Konrad is a Megadealer that has extremely good spotting radar combined with a clear gut feeling. By adding statistical analysis and market research Konrad blends marketing and sales in perfection to become a true Megadealer of our time. In this episode, we discuss how to revolutionize a whole industry and why all senses should be considered when building new concepts.

In this Christmas episode, Christopher, David and Bora sum up the year by sharing their top key takeaways that they have collected during the year. They discuss different strategies and disciplines for scaleup companies wanting to do larger deals and for already big companies doing Megadeals, how to maximize win rate, and which marketing approach to choose when you want to grow faster and meet all expectations. Finally they share their new year’s resolutions and give an outlook for 2021. For all our you listening to The Megadeals Podcast - a mega thank you for this year, see you in 2021 with some new exciting and inspiring guests!

Gary Guttenberg is a seasoned negotiator. Gary is a California business lawyer who has been working in Sweden via his firm (B2World) for over 20 years. As an international business developer and deal maker, Gary regularly represents clients in structuring/closing deals with market leading tech companies in USA, Europe, and Asia. In this episode, he clarifies the know-how and process steps necessary before, during, and after negotiations to consistently secure worthwhile deals. All this, layered on the Megadeals discipline. Gary is also the author of Low Stress High Profit Negotiations (2018) - available on amazon.com

Have you ever thought about why some messages are just so exemplary and some do not even make you wanna read it through? In this episode, Christopher and Mareo talk about how to create the most successful messaging and he gives us three useful takeaways that will change how you will craft messages in the future. Also, the most important ingredients when orchestrating complex megadeals and what issues there are in such a process, and how to overcome them. Mareo works as Chief Customer Officer at Movemedical and runs a very active LinkedIn profile with a lot of exemplary messages with enormous engagement. Check him out! Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast!

Why should we be more transparent in sales cycles and why should organizations think more like IKEA? In this episode, Todd shares his insights on why transparency is key when dealing with prospects and buyers. Based on neural and behavioral science, Todd has studied why we humans always want to predict what our experiences are going to be and why we need to know what could go wrong in the sales process? Todd’s findings have resulted in the best-selling book The Transparency Sale. Don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast!

When Jessica Fewless started investigating B2B marketing technologies she came across the company Demandbase who was focused on Account Based Marketing. This became a shift for Jessica’s career and from that day she knew that she wanted to work at Demandbase. Said and done, she has been the VP of Customer Experience at Demandbase among other things as the author of Account-Based Marketing (2019), speaker, and ABM strategist. In this episode, we discuss what ABM is and how companies can apply different ABM tactics by taking part in some practical thoughts and experiences of Jessica’s career.

Thomas Westin has worked with M&A (mergers & acquisitions) and investment banking for over 20+ years within several international banks. In this episode, we discuss the Megadeals discipline, more specifically the 5 Cornerstones, and how they can be applied to different M&A cases. Thomas also gives some interesting insights into the impact of PR and teambuilding in the M&A field.

How do you make contracting successful in megadeals? Mike Hurley has a long track record of negotiating megadeals and has been working with the contracting part for some of the largest companies in the world. Here he shares his knowledge of negotiation strategy, disqualification, and traits of a megadealer,

In this episode, we have a conversation with Joakim Sjöblom and Christoffer Pettersson from the Gothenburg based company Minna Technologies. They are a highly successful Swedish FinTech scale-up that has surpassed 5X growth in the last 2 years. Their growth strategy is predominantly driven by winning Megadeals. They were also one of our early clients and are true role models in adopting the Megadeals discipline.

Some guests need no further presentation. This week’s guest is a well-known profile for our Swedish audience. Anna Kinberg Batra has been seen in the political rooms, leading one of the biggest Swedish party Moderaterna. After leaving the political world, Anna has taken on a number of advisor roles and been elected Chairman of the Board of the listed company Soltech Energy. In this episode, she shares her insights on the similarities between megadeals and politics and how it can give rise to societal change if combined right.

In this episode, we have a conversation with Alexander Helling on how to structure and financing megadeals. Alexander has a great experience from the Chinese market and shares his insights on the differences between making larger deals in China compared to other countries. He has been part of several megadeals and emphasizes the importance of being present and not underestimate the time it takes to structure the financing of a megadeal in order to close the deal. Today he is the CEO of Baseload Capital which invests in renewable heat power and the company has received funding from well-known names as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg.

In this week’s episode we talk to Michael Eckhardt who is the Managing Director of the Chasm Institute. His team, including Geoffrey Moore, has contributed to the best-selling strategy book Crossing the Chasm which has sold over 3 million copies as well as the book Zone to Win which is aimed to guide established enterprises. Michael shares his views on the challenges for startups and larger enterprises, the adoption curve, pains, and segmentation.

Jimmy Andersson has a solid experience in sales and megadeals. He started as an engineer and was more or less thrown into a megadeal where his career took a turn. Today he has a great track record of doing megadeals and has worked at Sogeti for +15 years. In this episode, he shares his insights of how transparency, especially risk mitigation, is part of building trust in complex deals.

In the tenth episode of the Megadeals podcast we have the pleasure of talking to Laura Bishop who has worked at one of the biggest and oldest tech companies for over 20 years and has huge experience in technical sales and data science. Laura talks about the importance of mapping the ecosystem with all its stakeholders, both internal and external. She shares her insights of letting the technical people being part of the sale cycle, bringing credibility and trust to complex deals.

Every now and then someone comes along and creates their own category or segment. That's exactly what our podcast guest has done twice. He created sales and marketing automation in B2B with Eloqua which he sold to Oracle for $800 M. He then created a whole new category again with his company Influitive around advocacy marketing, to infuse more trust, at scale, into the buying process. He is a huge profile within Martech and proven successful over and over in building highly successful scale-ups. We are delighted to have Mark Organ join our podcast episode and share highly inspiring insights around Megadeals, messaging, building successful scale-ups, leadership, how to create new industry categories, the importance of “A” players and strategy. Drawing insightful learnings from his incredible success as an entrepreneur.

Tim Herglotz is back after a “demand” from our listeners. This time he walks us through and shares some golden nuggets of how an entire deal team worked together when orchestrating a Megadeal worth more than 2 billion dollars. Tim is a megadealer who works out of Germany for one of the largest IT Technology companies in the world. Tim also addresses things like Trojan Horses, Watermelons, and kiwis, the importance and the complexity of mapping and driving consensus in a huge ecosystem of stakeholders and how to mitigate risk.

We often talk about shifting from ”selling” to ”orchestrating” in Megadeals. In more complex ecosystems with multiple stakeholders the best Megadealers act as orchestraters as they shape the ecosystem in their favour. They are also skilled negotiators, this is equally important in landing Megadeals. As you meet stakeholders and key decision makers its critical to understand what’s driving them and developing a negotiation plan to move them and the deal closer to close. In this episode of the Megadeals podcast we have the pleasure of talking to Johan Lagerbielke who has 20+ years of both hands-on negotiating, research on the subject and coached many professionals in upskilling their negotiating techniques. Johan started researching economic psychology at Stockholm Business School where he also attained an MBA. After visiting MIT and Harvard Law School back in 1994 to understand how they have set up their programs he came back to Sweden to launch the first Negotiations training for business students in Sweden.

We invite you on a Megadeal journey between Siemens and Electrolux that was shaped against all odds. You will meet the very orchestrator of this deal, the Serial Megadealer Tony Bergström. The story is sprinkled with several golden nuggets of hands-on advice that you don't want to miss. Tony has always been an early adopter and a front runner when it comes to sales and marketing. He comes not only with an impressive mindset, will win and track record in doing Megadeals, but also from the world of professional basketball.

Tim Herglotz is a true orchestrator who works out of Germany for one of the largest IT Technology companies in the world. In this episode, Tim talks about the importance of disqualification and execution out of a deal closing strategy to ensure a win-win scenario for the customer and his company. Tim has orchestrated or been a part of orchestrating Megadeals across Europe and APAC worth everything from $50M to $2 billion Euro.

When blending smart messaging, the latest technologies and insights around the DNA of Megadeals you move from winning by default to winning by design. Especially now in the beginning of a recession making larger deals with few headcounts is key.

The super senior MegadealerJorgen Nilson comes with more than 40 years of experience orchestrating large and complex B2B deals. He has worked all around the world and held roles such as VP and GM. Worked in/with companies like Ericsson, Hewlett Packard, Compaq, Vodafone, and Accenture, just to mention a few. You will, for example, hear the story of how the dialogue around shaping the ecosystem around the mobile broadband once started together with the CEO of Vodafone and the CEO of Ericsson on an island in the Swedish archipelago.

Co-Founders and Managing Partners of #Megadeals. Experienced in orchestrating and managing Megadeals worth billions (USD). Held senior positions in top Fortune 500 companies (American Express & MoneyGram). Built and led American Express sales training organizations across EMEA, JAPA, and LAC. Responsible for the skill development of all the sales professionals and leaders across the three regions. Honored with numerous awards in sales, leadership, and innovation. Built and lead most sales channels whilst managing the optimization between them to deliver the best results.

Welcome to the Megadeals Podcast! Your hosts David Klättborg, Christopher Engman and Bora Brännström will continue their journey of exploring the complex process and discipline of orchestrating and managing Megadeals. You will meet the people behind these big and complex deals and learn from their extraordinary war-stories of both failures and successes.