Podcasts about Apttus

Join us for a deep dive into Salesforce-focused CPQ solutions in Germany with Dennis Knodt, Founder & Managing Director, and Ivan Todorov, Managing Director, from Valuent. These industry experts share valuable insights on: The inspiration behind Valuent and its journey (combines "why" and "how" they started) Their target market segments (clarifies focus areas) Valuent's Salesforce consulting expertise (streamlines specific service offerings) Why they specialize in High Tech and Tech companies (highlights industry focus) Collaboration between their German and Bulgarian teams (explains teamwork structure) The dynamics of working with Salesforce Teams (clarifies partnership) The current Salesforce market landscape in Germany (streamlines market analysis) Their take on the evolution of Salesforce CPQ solutions (addresses "old + new" solutions) Don't miss this opportunity to learn from these experts and explore the future of Salesforce CPQ in Germany! Connect with Dennis and Ivan on LinkedIn: Dennis Knodt: https://de.linkedin.com/in/dennis-knodt Ivan Todorov: https://bg.linkedin.com/in/ivan-todoroff-8a8398167 Visit Valuent's website: https://www.valuent.io/en

This episode of the CPQ Podcast features Noel Goggin, a seasoned leader with over 25 years of experience at companies like Aptos and Epicor Software. Now, at the helm of Conga, Noel sheds light on: pivotal moments that shaped his impressive career his unique leadership style Conga's company culture and how they empower their teams insights from influential figures like Jim Collins the power of mentorship - both the guidance he received and how he fosters it at Conga Conga's cutting-edge Revenue Lifecycle Management platform artificial intelligence and its role at Conga why Rebate Management is a game-changer for Conga and much more! This episode is packed with valuable insights, and because it was so informative, we've created a Part 2 (under 15 minutes with new material that is not published in this audio version of the CPQ Podcast) coming soon to YouTube! website https://conga.com/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-goggin-ceo-%E2%98%85-78ba45/ 

Tim Fraser, Chief Customer Officer at Forsys, shares his insights on the company's CPQ solutions, proprietary products, and the role of data in sales success. With over 35 years of experience in the industry, Tim Fraser has a wealth of knowledge to share about CPQ solutions and how they can help businesses achieve their sales goals. In this episode, he discusses Forsys' support for Conga CPQ and Salesforce CPQ, along with the company's three proprietary products: Flo Data, Ayara, and Rise. He also highlights the importance of data in sales and the role of AI/ML in CPQ and CLM. website www.forsysinc.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfraser/ email tim.fraser@forsysinc.com 

In this episode you hear from John Banks (CEO & Founder) and Sean Joyce (Head of Go-To-Market) of Continuous Technologies which have a combined 45+ years of business experience. Here they talk about usage consumption pricing models, their relationship with Salesforce, credit burndown, scaling their solution, enhancing their solution, clicks-not code, integrations/enhancements with billing systems, AI/ML and much more John Banks - Contact Info LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/banks/ email john@continuoustech.com Sean Joyce - Contact Info LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanjoyce/  email sean@continuoustech.com 

In this episode you hear from Sri Nagavarapu, Sr. Director of Business Applications at Crowdstrike. Sri has 20+ years of business experience and was with companies like PwC, Splunk, Brocade and Tech Mahindra before he joined Crowdstrike in 2022. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family. Here he talks about Salesforce CPQ, Dreamforce 2023, hypergrowth for SaaS customers, eCommerce, AI, his experience as CPQ customer and CPQ consultant, customer satisfaction with CPQ Solutions, demands for user experience much more website www.crowdstrike.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nagavarapu/ 

www.CPOPLAYBOOK.comEpisode TranscriptAboutBrad Williams, Head of HR Technology and People Analytics at Northwestern Mutual, a Fortune 100 company with nearly 9,000 employees, gives examples on strategies that work. Brad shares his experiences for gaining leadership buy-in for data-driven HR initiatives and transitioning to a skills-based talent culture.*Brad Williams BioBrad Williams is a curious, humble, diplomatic thought leader who doesn't usually write in the third person but was convinced by LinkedIn experts that it's the thing to do. He grew up thinking he might be an engineer or an architect but veered into studying psychology when family circumstances made him profoundly curious about how personality is shaped and constructed.Brad didn't quite get his PhD (he has an ABD – All But Dissertation), so lunch appointments with friends aren't technically “Doctor's Appointments”, but he got his Master's Degree studying whether emotional intelligence impacts our ability to deceive others (or detect their deception).Brad launched his professional career tempting candidates to join a small healthcare company in Chicago and built his reputation delivering analytics and workforce strategy for Sears and HP (and their divestiture). After a brief stint at Apttus that foreshadowed his eventual HRIS fascination, Brad led business transformation at Fannie Mae and then settled in at Northwestern Mutual to transform HRIT and People Analytics.Brad loves exploring the things that make us different and teaching teams how those differences make us stronger. Some things that make him different: he believes in luck as much as skill, he abhors many things about hierarchy, he treats feedback the way he'd like to be treated, and he writes his Ss from the bottom up.And, secretly, he's convinced that he's going to be called up to play professional soccer any day now.*Be a guest on the showAll media inquiries: media@cpoplaybook.com

In this episode Mike Smart of Egress Solutions interviews Alex Gammelgard, a go-to-market and product marketing leader and expert with extensive background in B2B and B2C GTM strategy and execution. Gammelgard describes her unique path to achieve GTM career success and how she continues to differentiate herself. She emphasizes that during our current times of uncertainty and coping with macro-economic factors product marketing best practices and our core go-to-market skills are even more valuable in the technology sector. Alex's perspective is, “Understanding the customer, anticipating their needs, and delivering easy-to-use solutions with great education and support are still key fundamentals of go-to-market success.” Alex' Bio: Alex is a GTM and product marketing executive with expertise driving go-to-market strategy and brand outcomes for and B2B SaaS, Marketplace, AI, and Robotics companies. As a consultant she works cross- functionally with senior leadership to help define and drive company strategy. Previously Alex has worked with companies such as Active Campaign, Softbank Robotics US, Rentlytics and Apttus in leaderships roles such as Head of Product Marketing, Head of go-to-market strategy and Sr. Direction of Brand Development. ----------- Guest: Alex Gammelgard | https://www.linkedin.com/in/agammy/ Host: Mike Smart | www.EgressSolutions.net ----------- This is a Mr. Thrive Media production. Learn more at www.MrThrive.com

In this episode you hear from Tim Beck, CEO & Founder of SaaSteps and Ron Costa, Co-Founder of SaaSteps. Tim has 20+ years of business experience with companies like Conga, FPX and BigMachines and lives in Denver, CO. Ron has 10+ years of business experience with companies like Embraer and lives near Sao Paolo in Brazil. Here they talk about their product incl. ecommerce, payment processing, CPQ, subscriptions, Billing, Renewals and more.  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/saasteps/  email: tim.beck@saasteps.com   

How can service companies simplify selling with AI and automation? View the full video interview here. Mahesh Baxi is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Provus. As one of the original innovators of Services CPQ, he is responsible for furthering the company's leading position in the Services Economy. He is a proven leader with over 25 years of management experience scaling the IT, product, and services operations for global software companies. Prior to Provus, Mahesh served in executive and senior leadership positions at Clinc, Inc., My Ally, and Apttus. He is a domain expert in CPQ, CLM, pricing, quote-to-cash, and HR tech and has spoken at various conferences on the topics of leadership, customer success, and team building. Mahesh holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Dharmsinh Desai Institute of Technology and is the author of two books.

In this episode you hear from Vinay Toomu, Founder & CEO of ScaleFluidly. Vinay has 20+ years of business experience and lives with his family in Cary, NC. Here he talks about ScaleFluidly's Quote CX solution, why that solution is built for start-ups and SMB customers, reduced total cost of ownership, collaboration features, integrations to Salesforce, SAP and more,  a roadmap published on their website, free software trial and much more Web scalefluidly.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/vinaytoomu/ 

In this episode you hear from Sudhakar Jukanti, Director Business Systems (GTM) at Confluent. Sudhakar has 20+ years of business experience with companies like Oracle, Conga/Apttus and Deloitte. He lives with his family in the Bay Area. Here he talks about his experience with different CPQ Solutions, how Confluent uses their solution, his role as a customer advisory board member, important CPQ KPI's and much more LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sudhakar-jukanti-b109201/ email sjukanti@gmail.com

“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” ~Tony Hsieh, Zappos CEOThe Guiding Voice is pleased to launch a special episode in recognition and support of all the great work done by the Edurigo team in the LearnTech SpaceCongratulations to @edurigo on your 2nd anniversary!!Tune into The Guiding Voice #TGV270 for Naveen Samala's conversation with Nikesh Jain for insights on "Pros and Cons of Joining a Startup"In this EPISODE, we will dive into how to decide between working at a startup vs a corporate company based on a variety of factors such as benefits, leadership opportunities, growth tracks, and overall job satisfaction.0:00:00 Introduction and Context Setting0:02:00 Toughest lessons learned as an entrepreneur by Nikesh0:06:00 Pros and Cons of joining a startup, how to choose a startup job - what kind of research one must to before joining a startup?0:09:00 Salary vs Stock Options - how to balance?0:12:00 What do MNCs offer compared to Startups?0:18:00 Approaching for VC funding0:22:00 Vesting Options0:29:00 How to Exercise Stock Options0:34:00 Tax implications0:39:00 Exit Opportunities0:42:00 Dealing with co-founders0:48:00 Witty answers to rapid-fire questions, his nickname, super strength vs invisibility, what success means to Nikesh0:50:10 Trivia about StartupsABOUT THE GUEST (Nikesh Jain, in his words):Building Edurigo a web 3.0 learning experience platform! Making corporate, sales, product, support, and academic learning fun, engaging, and measurable. Prior to Edurigo, I had,- 24 years of experience in developing complex software platforms, and building top-notch engineering teams at highly successful startups and world-class software companies.- Worked as Vice President/Head of Engineering - India at Apttus a quote to cash start-up.- Worked at Icertis a Seattle/Pune-based start-up as VP of Engineering and managed Icertis products on MS Azure cloud. - Worked at Ariba ( An SAP Company ) as Director of Engineering and managed engineering development for upstream (Sourcing, CLM, Spend Analysis) and downstream (Procure to Pay, Catalog) products on the Ariba commerce cloud.- Worked at Yahoo! as part of their cloud platform group. Owned and managed Y! Geo and Video transcoding platform.What gives me a kick - To make a difference (with a huge impact) to society in the area of education or healthcare or just anything which would make this world a better place for humanity.Connect with Nikesh on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikeshjain/Powered by Metaverse and Web 3.0 technology, Edurigo is a game-based interactive and experiential platform for sales-enablement, corporate, and academic learning.Edurigo Website:https://edurigo.com/CONNECT WITH THE HOST ON LINKEDIN:Naveen Samala: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naveensamalaFOLLOW ON TWITTER:@guidingvoice@naveensamala@s_nagandla#tgv is now available on Amazon Music, JioSaavn, Spotify, Gaana, Apple, Google Podcasts, and wherever you find podcasts!#theguidingvoice #career #startups #learntech Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode of How We Got There (which was recorded earlier this year, before the downturn), I talk with Doug Landis, who is a Growth Partner at Emergence Capital. Doug spent some time at Salesforce and Box before moving into his current role in helping Emergence's portfolio companies with go-to-market assistance. He was working in the early days of sales enablement and now recommends hiring rev ops and sales enablement roles earlier than you think, even at Series A, to drive productivity in the sales organization. Emergence Capital is a venture capital firm that invests in B2B Enterprise SaaS businesses for their Series A and B funding rounds. They've invested in Veeva, Steelbrick, Box, and many more household names in the Salesforce ecosystem. The biggest challenge every early stage company will face is pipeline and that can be helped by hiring Marketing leadership before sales leadership, because sales professionals won't enjoy being full cycle for very long. His message to early stage founders is to become obsessed with pipeline. In deals over $10k, there are normally 8-10 people in the buying decision even if there is a single major person that your solution will help. A good benchmark for any AE is they should be generating ~20% of their own pipeline. Key metrics to look at are by account, how many contacts are on each account and then dive deeper into touches by contact to know depth of engagement in a given opportunity. Looking at conversion rates can help you zero in on gtm priorities to work on. Technical founders make mistakes by hiring a salesperson too early because you need to learn how to sell early on. A good target is for you to sell the first $1M in ARR and collect insane insights along the way for your product while capturing referrals. Hiring customer success people early on the other hand is wise because your first few customers need to be successful, you can't afford to churn your first customers (unless you learn they aren't a good fit for where you're going). Before starting the process of fundraising, you need to know your data inside and out beyond your pitch deck that includes a strong “why”. Include customer stories to help tell your story. It's important to make a thoughtful list of potential investors that will be good long-term partners with you who will offer you the right level of engagement to guide you on the things you might be missing. For the ecosystem specific advice, he shares a word of caution for ISVs in getting Salesforce Ventures to participate in your round. Doug's view is when you take Salesforce Ventures money…..and it's cause for pause. If they build something like what you're offering, you could be in big trouble. He share the story of Steelbrick (Emergence was the lead investor here) and Apttus and how Salesforce leveraged their relationship to strong arm Steelbrick during the acquisition. Here's a closer look at the episode: 1:37 How did you find your way into the ecosystem? 5:13 Sales enablement 9:55 Who is Emergence and what's your role there? 14:16 What are some elements that make a great go to market approach in a series A or B company? 22:07 What's the biggest mistake you see technical founders make before they hire professional salespeople? 25:53 So founders in the ecosystem, if they're considering raising institutional capital, what should they know before starting the process? 34:15 What are you most proud of in your career? 36:10 The final three Doug's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglandis/ Emergence Capital's Website: https://www.emcap.com/ Emergence Capital's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/emergence-capital-partners/

In this installment of Contract Heroes, we had the good fortune to be able to sit down for a chat with renowned AI expert, Jim Chiang. Jim is the founder of My Legal Einstein, an AI-powered contract acceleration platform. He has been submerged in the contract management space for some time, catering mostly to the AI side of CLM. He was the head AI engineer for major names in the CLM industry such as Apttus and Icertis and brings a wealth of both experience and knowledge to improve the way AI interacts with contracts. His goal and the goal of My Legal Einstein is to investigate how AI can transform the way people work in the contract space.Our conversation with Jim touched on several aspects of the interaction between AI and contract management, exploring how the two can work together most effectively, the importance of honesty in technology, and the future of AI-based solutions as a whole in the world of contracts.

Interesting opportunity for CPQ Vendors to add an accomplished Sales Manager to their team.  This is an individual with 25+ years of business experience. Hear what this individual is looking for and send an email to Frank.Sohn@NovusCPQ.com if you want to be connect to that person. 

#109. In this special episode, I'm interviewed by Dani Kahil about my experience delivering an enterprise CRM project at RACQ (the Royal Automobile Club of Queensland). RACQ is a membership organisation serving two million people in Queensland with roadside assistance, insurance and banking services. In 2018, they set out to replace two legacy systems with Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Apttus and I had the pleasure of leading their Dynamics 365 delivery team.ResourcesDani Kahil's websiteDani's course: Functional Consulting - requirements analysis for a successful project deliveryDani Kahil on LinkedInSupport the show (https://buymeacoffee.com/amazingapps)

In this episode Mike Molson, a co-Founder of servicePath is our guest. He lives in Toronto, Canada with his wife & two kids and was previously a guest on the Podcast (2018). Here he talks about what has changed for them since 2018, pre-quote functionality, how they support deal modeling, Gartner MQ Report 2021, G2 reports, their roadmap, expansion beyond technology vendors & managed service providers, servicepath job opportunities and much more. Send questions to mike@servicepath.co  website: servicepath.co 

If you are a middle manager and felt stuck in your current position for a long time? This episode is a MUST TUNE FOR YOU! In this episode, Nikesh has shared a lot of tips from both employee and employer perspective on crafting a career path for middle level management. A good number of careers get stuck in middle management because of the comfort of solving low-quality problems efficiently. Middle manager who lose touch with technology are prone to become obsolete Organizations should create career progression path for technical roles too Pyramid structure of organizations forces them to have limited number of leaders at the top Captive organizations have less number of leadership roles offshore vs onshore People with strong technical knowledge coupled with business acumen will have a long lasting career Nikesh's Witty answers to rapid-fire questions 1 piece of advice to those aspiring to make BIG in their careers and LIVES Trivia about Social media platforms! ABOUT Nikesh Jain (in his words): - 24 years of experience in developing complex software platforms, and building top notch engineering teams at highly successful startups and world class software companies. - Worked as Vice President/Head of Engineering - India at Apttus a quote to cash start up. - Worked at Icertis a Seattle/Pune based start-up as VP Engineering and managed Icertis products on MS Azure cloud.   - Worked at Ariba ( An SAP Company ) as Director of Engineering and managed engineering development for upstream (Sourcing, CLM, Spend Analysis) and downstream (Procure to Pay, Catalog) products on Ariba commerce cloud. - Worked at Yahoo! as part of their cloud platform group. Owned and managed Y!Geo and Video transcoding platform. What gives me kick - To make a difference (with huge impact) to the society in the area of education or healthcare or just anything which would make this world a better place for humanity.   Connect with Nikesh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikeshjain/ His company website: https://edurigo.com/ Here is a chance to broadcast yourself

In this episode you'll learn more about the recent acquisition of UK and India-based Hansen by Navint.  Navint CEO Jim Martindale and Hansen MD Steve Crosby share why and how they started the acquisition process, how they support lead-to-revenue transformation, what opportunities and challenges they see in the CPQ market, what new after-market opportunities they see, their partnership with Salesforce Revenue Cloud and much more.    See also www.navint.com to learn more about their services

In this episode you hear from Noel Goggin, CEO and Culture Leader of Conga. Noel is based near Denver, CO and leads Conga since the fall of 2020. In this interview he talks about his key take-aways from two decades of leadership, how Jim Collins and Pat Lencioni influence him, business numbers that show Conga's progress towards its goals, Revenue Operations, virtual events vs in-person event, the "Conga Way", key improvements and much more LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/noel-goggin-ceo-★-78ba45/ Twitter @noelgoggin

In this episode you learn about CPQ + Revenue Recognition from Chris Benoit and Kathy Pearson from RightRev. RightRev was founded in 2020 and is native to Salesforce. In this episode Chris and Kathy talk about ASC606, IFRS 15, how they work with the Salesforce teams, their company focus and growth, that revenue does not only happen at the end of a sales process and much more Chris LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisbenoit3/ + email chris.benoit@rightrev.com Kathy email kathy.pearson@rightrev.com

Maria Pergolino, CMO at ActiveCampaign, after working with Marketo, Apttus, and Anaplan has built much of her career in the ecosystem. From giving away a car at Dreamforce to trials in the enterprise, Maria shares some of her learnings from Marketing to the Salesforce ecosystem. I really enjoyed her thoughts on trialing while balancing self-serve and sales-led to improve the overall health of the pipeline. Sharing her journey as a woman executive and how she has reflected on helping other women around her in their careers. Follow Leyla Seka and Leslie Tom, which Maria calls out as people to pay attention to. And thank you for the introduction, Eric Dreshfield! This episode is brought to you by Appiphony. Appiphony is a leading Product Development Outsourcer that has been helping AppExchange partners architect, develop and get their apps through the Salesforce security review, since 2009. Appiphony is the only PDO funded by Salesforce Ventures and its customers include Stripe, Slack, LinkedIn, Docusign, and Salesforce. Visit www.appiphony.com to learn more about how Appiphony can help your organization successfully launch their app on the Salesforce AppExchange today.

In the 2nd episode of the “Enterprise Leaders” podcast, Arun Penmetsa, partner at Storm Ventures, interviews Mahesh Baxi, co-founder & CEO of Provus. Drawing on his vast experience at companies like Apttus and MyAlly, Mahesh shares insights on building a successful customer success function at your company - and how to become an effective CS leader. Provus (https://www.provusinc.com/) provides a revolutionary CPQ services solution that finally solves the age-old legacy problem of excessively long quoting and deal construction processes. Customers can accelerate turnaround time, grow deal sizes, and increase win probability faster – all while improving their gross margin and mitigating compliance risk - with AI-driven what-if scenarios, real-time collaboration, flexible approval workflows, automated SOW generation and more. Make sure to also follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/stormventures) and check out our website (www.stormventures.com/thoughts) for a lot more content on building & scaling successful B2B SaaS businesses. About Storm Ventures Storm Ventures is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm that is focused on building enterprise leaders with over $1 billion in capital under management. Over its 20 year history, Storm has partnered with entrepreneurs on the startup journey to address some of the most challenging problems that businesses face across the B2B enterprise software space. Portfolio companies include Algolia, Marketo (IPO/Vista), MobileIron (IPO/Ivanti), Pipedrive (Vista), Qualio, SalesLoft, Splashtop, Talkdesk, Tekion, and Workato. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/enterprise-leaders/message

On today's episode, Shelly talks with the founders of the West Tenth app, Sara Sparhawk and Lyn Johnson. They created West Tenth as a place to find artisans, crafters, artists and other service providers in your area. Of course, if you're an artisan, crafter, artist, or a service provider, it's the perfect place to market yourself and what you do. The concept feels like a blend of NextDoor and Etsy. Join Shelly as she learns more from Lyn and Sara about their exciting app! About Sara and Lyn Lyn Johnson is the co-founder and CEO of West Tenth, a digital marketplace where you can discover women in your local community who have turned their household talents into home-based businesses. As an advocate for female entrepreneurs and economic equality, her goals for West Tenth are to create a company that generates positive change for our society, that is profitably sustainable, and that provides an economic resource for women all over the world. Before founding West Tenth, Lyn worked in the financial world at PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York City and then as a CFO for a private financial advisory firm in Santa Monica. She is a mom to three young boys and in her spare time Lyn loves to pursue her passion for travel, and for exploring small towns across America. Sara Sparhawk is the co-founder and COO of West Tenth. Passionate about career coaching and development, Sara wants to grow West Tenth globally and enable women to pursue their career passions with the flexibility they need. She wants to make all women-led, home-based businesses visible to their communities. Formerly, Sara began her career in New York City where she worked at PwC and Guggenheim Partners in various finance and accounting roles. In 2011, she pivoted her career to focus on Talent Acquisition and Talent Management, and successfully helped build recruiting teams at Amazon, PwC, and Apttus. She has been featured in various publications including Inc., CNBC and Fox Business. Since 2004, she has volunteered as a camp counselor or fundraising volunteer for Okizu, an organization supporting families affected by childhood cancer. Sara is also an avid world-traveler and has visited over 40 countries across 6 continents. Links Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Twitter Website

Stephane Kors has 14+ years of experience with Product Configuration and CPQ Solutions. He lives with his family in Paris, France and is focused on the French CPQ Market. In this interview he talks about his partners Salesforce CPQ, KBMax, PROS, Conga/Apttus, Tacton and Threekit, consultant certifications, why 3D is so interesting, the biggest customer challenges they see and much more website itcelerator.fr  email skors@itcelerator.fr  LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephane-kors-crm-cpq-digital/ 

Suren Reddy is a leader with 25+ years of business experience who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He founded 2 companies in the last decade, Cloudely + Infocomply.com. In this interview he talks about Cloudely, shortly about Infocomply, their Service offerings for Conga/Apttus CPQ+CLM and Salesforce Revenue Cloud, their business expansion plans, that people in certain industries have more CPQ knowledge, Robotic Process Automation and much more.   website cloudely.com    email sreddy@cloudely.com 

This is an episode where I share a short outlook of what you can expect from the CPQ market in 2021. Main capabilities discussed are CPQ + eCommerce/self serve Integration with other solutions + data integration More CPQ+ Solutions Anyone interested to get regular and more detailed information about the global CPQ market should consider our "CPQ Circle Subscription" which provides a monthly Newsletter and 20 hours of personalized advisory. Send an email to Frank.Sohn@NovusCPQ.com to learn more  

Today the great and brilliant Gilad Turbahn, Senior Director of Product Management at Conga (formerly Apttus). Apttus is a leading quote-to-cash company that will put big enterprises on accounts receivable, and they recently merged with Conga, a global leader in commercial operations transformation. Gilad explains this week what they are working on for conversational interfaces with sales folks. The idea of layering on AI is still the wild west to some degree, there are a plethora of potential exciting use cases, and it will be interesting to see which ones evolve and move forward, but this is one use case that I thought you all should hear about. Interested in more use cases? Check out Emerj Plus: emerj.com/p1

Protik Mukhopadhyay is a Quote-to-Cash (QTC) expert that works and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. In this episode he is talking about his new book "Reimagine Enterprise Sales Systems". This book is for QTC practioners and covers topics like data readiness, subscriptions and their importance for B2B, pre-packaged SI Solutions, Process Mining and much more and we also talk about the process of writing and publishing this book.    website: www.protikm.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/protikm/

Lakshmi is the Infosys CPQ Delivery Head based in Banaglore, India and Anand is the CPQ Chief Architect based in Frankfurt, Germany. In this interview they talk about what CPQ related services Infosys offers, how they work with various CPQ Vendors, for which CPQ capabilities they see increased demand March and much more email: eng_services@infosys.com LinkedIn Lakshmi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lakshminarayanan-c-8a887618/ LinkedIn Ananad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anand-kothalkar/

Digital Transformation is a hot topic, but what does it really mean to individuals and corporations alike? Everyone is talking about digital transformation impacting the business world. This conversation will focus on demystifying how digital transformation affects you and your work. How can engineers prepare for a new world of work in the face of large scale automation and creative disruption? In this TechTalk Tuesdays episode with Tarun Bharti, we cover how you can use digital transformation to change the way business is done, how to use technology to improve business practices, and what you can do to improve your own skillset. Tarun Bharti is the Director of Business Systems at Quotient. He is an entrepreneurial leader with more than 20 years of diverse technology experience in delivering innovative enterprise-transforming products and services. Through the course of his career, Tarun has worked for established firms and publicly traded companies as well as VC funded growth startups including Oracle, Juniper, and Apttus. He has successfully led multiple digital transformation initiatives that have enhanced customer experience, increased user productivity, improved decision making, reduced cost of doing business, and accelerated revenue growth. To check out the full videos or snippets of our recorded webinars, visit our Youtube channel. You can also visit us on our website and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

This 44 minute Podcast provides key information for teams investigating CPQ Solutions and covers these areas Product Configuration (Type of Engine, Type of Configuration Use Cases) Pricing (Integration with CRM, ERP and Pricing) Quoting (including approval workflows You can also "see" this course with slides at https://novuscpq.com/resources/ . Send any questions you have to info@novuscpq.com 

In this episode you learn about CPQ Best Practices and Basic Skills. The information is helpful for anyone who is expected to work with CPQ. In this episode the end-to-end CPQ Process is review, Tips are provided for Vendor Selection and to prepare a implementation project.  Note: If you want to hear and see (the slides) for this session you can go to https://novuscpq.com/resources/ to attend this course online.  Send any questions to Frank.Sohn@NovusCPQ.com 

Today's guest is the great and brilliant Gilad Turbahn, Sr. Director of Product Management at Apttus, which acquired his former employer, Conga, for $700+ million in 2020, joining Apttus's quote-to-cash capabilities with Conga's contract lifecycle management platform. In this episode, Gilad helps us learn how AI can enhance back-office workflows, clearly mapping the space before and after implementation to show how AI creates value. Want to discover more opportunities to use natural language processing for automation? Get Emerj's free PDF brief: Unlocking the Business Value of NLP emerj.com/nlp1

Don Robertson is the Chief HR Officer for Northwestern Mutual. Previously Don was the Chief People Officer of Apttus. Before Apttus Don was the CHRO for Sutherland Global Services. Before Sutherland he was SVP of HR for HP Enterprise Services. ES had $22 billion annual revenue and 110,000 employees. Don partnered to deliver people strategies that helped shape the organization. Don was with HP for 14+ years. Prior to the ES role, Don was SVP for Technology and Operations, an organization with over 50,000 spanning IT, Real Estate, Sales Op's, Shared Services and Security. In this role Don oversaw more than 200 HR professionals. Previously, Don was the VP of HR for APJ (living in Singapore). Don was tasked with building a best-in-class HR focused on developing the most talented and committed workforce in the region with over 120,000 employees. Don led a team of over 600 HR professionals. He was a member of the APJ Senior Team and led the APJ HR Council. Don’s experience at HP ranges from Sales Mgt, to HR Program Management to Sales Development and Marketing. As Sr. Director of HR Transformation, Don was responsible for the transformation strategy for the company’s HR population. He was instrumental in defining and executing major HR policies that included people development and talent management initiatives. Prior to this, Don was Director of Sales Development for where he created and globally sponsored the Sales Excellence program to drive major sales transformation across the company. He is also an experienced and successful entrepreneur, having launched several companies and IPO efforts. He has held senior positions in Sales, Finance and Operations with GE Capital, Deloitte, SRI and Clorox, prior to joining HP. Don holds a BS in Business Administration (Marketing and Accounting) from California State University, Fresno. He is also a member of the Craig School of Business Board . Don is based in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and 2 boys.  On This Episode: Find out how Don’s background in financials gave him a foundational understanding of business. Discover the ways HR can gain credibility within companies. Don explain’s how to maintain connectivity with your team during the “new normal.” Key Takeaways: You won’t be good at acquiring new talent if you don’t know what the business is trying to accomplish. Don’t just tell your team what to do, tell them why. Leaders must be authentic, be empathetic, be humble, and be cautiously optimistic. Tweetable Quotes: “The more we have tangible experience to Draw from, the quicker our ability to ramp, the quicker our ability to react, the quicker we’re able to use the more advanced part of our brain as opposed to the rudimentary part.” “The more you can demonstrate to your people that you care about their career more than you’re own, the more they’re going to help you and believe in you.” Don Robertson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-robertson-9b8104 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/don-robertson-9b8104) Denis Gianoutsos: denis@leadingchangepartners.com https://my.captivate.fm/www.LeadingChangePartners.com%C2%A0 (www.LeadingChangePartners.com )

John is a successful entrepreneur with 30+ years of business experience. He lives in San Jose, CA and founded CDS Visual in 2005. CDS Visual is a partner for CPQ firms like Oracle, SAP, FPX, Vendavo and others. In this interview he talks about the impact of COVID-19, digital photography, Design Automation, 2D, 3D and Augmented Reality, the progress visualization has made in the last years and much more. Website: www.cdsvisual.com JMajor@catalogds.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmajor1/

On this week's episode we are honored to have a very special guest, Dan Frohnen, CMO of Sendoso join our podcast. Dan has been a repeat client of ours at 3 companies where he led marketing at Apttus, Skedulo and now Sendoso. Dan shares some amazing insights and experiences into what a CMO looks for from their MOps team and how someone in MOps can elevate themselves all the way to CMO. Like he did. Some great takeaways from our conversation includes: Career path from MOps to CMO MOps leader traits and how to separate yourself What a CMO looks for in MOps professionals ABM strategy and tech stack And much more! Tune in for a fun listen (you won't be disappointed) and let us know what you think!

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.

Laura Kendall is the VP of Marketing at MadKudu - a predictive marketing ops platform. She is a data-driven marketing leader with over a decade of experience in B2B marketing, demand generation, and building cross-functional teams. Previously, she has built and led teams at SimpleLegal, Apttus, Quantum Secure - to name a few.In this podcast interview she talks about: How does one set up the stage for the right expectations with different stakeholders? How do you get the information out of Founder's head, so both of you are on the same page? Creating marketing budgetsWhich marketing channels you should focus on when you don't have a large team?Value of listening to different stakeholdersHow do you manage incoming demands from various stakeholders in the company?Laura KendallLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-kendall-48556911/Company: www.madkudu.com

Maria Pergolino is Fearless. Having led demand generation at the company that invented demand generation, a successful run at Apttus, Anaplan and now as CMO at ActiveCampaign, there's no question that Maria knows a thing or two about B2B marketing. She has built some of the best marketing teams in Silicon Valley, and as time allows, pays it forward by sharing her best practices with the industry that she herself helped shape. That's how I first got introduced to Maria and thrilled to have her on this week's episode. Connect with Maria: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariapergolino/ https://twitter.com/inboundmarketer?lang=en Connect with Poya Osgouei: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/poyaosgouei/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/IamPoya Connect with Robby Allen: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robbyallen/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/_RobbyAllen --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/uncharted1/support

Jason is responsible for implementing and using Apttus CPQ together with SAP Pricing and Salesforce CRM at Bayer. He is splitting his time between the UK and the US for the last 15 years and is currently based in Englewood, New Jersey. Jason has been with Bayer for 14+ years and in this interview he talks about how Bayer selected a CPQ solution, what challenges his team encountered, what they learned in the process, how they increased tool adoption and much more LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/japritchard/ 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn about what a CPQ is and the value it gives to a company Find out how to bundle products together to cater to a customer’s specific needs Learn how to achieve price optimization through the use of CPQ   Steve Wilkins is the Head of Pricing Solutions at Standav Corp, a seasoned executive with many years of experience advising senior management teams on revenue growth, new business model development, pricing strategy, data preparation and cleaning, price and revenue management, commercial excellence, change management, profitability improvement, and business transformation. In this episode, Steve talks about his experience working with pricing-focused CPQ companies, how CPQ helps in bundling products together, how pricing optimization is attained with the use of CPQ, and much more.    “Pricing is a journey. It's not a sprint. So take it in steps. Don't think that you have to go for that end-goal right away.”  - Steve Wilkin   Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!   To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.     Topics Covered:    01:37 - Dealing with a lawsuit is the last thing you want to have. But interestingly, it's how Steve started his pricing career.   03:06 - What is a CPQ and what is a pricing system? How do they differ from each other?   03:55 - What does a configured product look like? Steve gives an example.   05:26 - Manufacturers with customizable products can use CPQ. How can they bundle products?    06:28 - What is so important about CPQ systems? What benefit do you get for buying a CPQ system for your company?   08:12 - What about time to quote? What big of a deal is it about?    11:56 - Pricing systems consider different factors, and when you add this to different configurations of products it gets complicated. Let's hear Steve's thoughts about it.   13:13 - What is Standav and what does it do? What differentiates it from other implementer companies?   14:23 - Data cleaning is one of the tools Standav offers. What goes on in this process?   15:18 - Dealing with master data management. How does Standav solve the problem of bad data?    Key Takeaways:    “With CPQ you're providing a single source for putting multiple things together.” - Steve Wilkins    “Right now they all integrate into a CPQ to provide the more relevant price or winning price that's going to help speed the process up. So that's where you're going to hear that story of, I can get this through quicker, win more deals at the best price. - Steve Wilkins    “I believe in the idea of getting the data ready, fixing the problem that caused the data to be bad. And then building that integration into it, is it a pricing system, a CPQ system, a CRM system, we build that.” - Steve Wilkins         People and Resources Mentioned:    Frank Sohn  PROS  Apttus  Salesforce  Zilliant  Price f(x)  Dell Computer    Connect with Steve Wilkins:    LinkedIn  E: steven.wilkins@standav.com    Connect with Mark Stiving:       Email: mark@impactpricing.com      LinkedIn      Twitter      

The CPQ Market is fragmented with 100+ CPQ Solutions and so it is challenging to find the best Solution for any customer. We  make it easier to find a suitable solution by providing eight common evaluation views. While a specific Industry focus is common, do you know what a "Swiss Army Knife CPQ" is? Listen and find out List of CPQ Vendors and SI's @ https://novuscpq.com/cpq-circle-community/foundational-knowledge/  Always stay up-to-date with CPQ @ https://novuscpq.com/subscriptions-cpq-circle/    

In this episode you can learn what impact the current COVID-19 Pandemic has on CPQ stakeholders (CPQ Vendors, System Integrators and Customer). You further hear what is currently in high demand with customers and some tips concerning starting a CPQ Project during COVID-19. Send any questions you may have to Frank.Sohn@NovusCPQ.com  and/or check our website @ https://novuscpq.com   Blog Posts regarding COVID-19 & CPQ  Blog Post G2 Blog Post  

From PM'ing at a special unit within 8200 to a Human-Computer Interaction undergrad at the Hebrew University and a Kellogg MBA, to Fring, Microsoft, and Apttus, we have a lively chat with another product management superhero in Silicon Valley. Gilad shares his experience building an enterprise grade chatbot that his customers love using. Our favorite quote: "It's not about what they (customers) say they want. It's about understanding the underlying need behind what they say or the underlying pain point, and coming up with a solution - then satisfying it." You can reach Gilad at gturbahn@gmail.com

Our listeners asked us why we mention the CPQ Circle Subscription in each CPQ Podcast episode for the last 12 months or so. This episode provides an answer to this question. The CPQ Circle Subscription provides high quality and low cost, monthly CPQ Industry News, Industry Trends, Tips and much more that you can't find anywhere else. Just spend 5 minutes to learn more and see if this is for you. We strive to be "the" industry-leading CPQ Subscription for all CPQ Stakeholders. 

I had the privilege of speaking with Jason Smith, senior director and legal counsel for Apttus, about his expectations for Legaltech 2018.

David Belove, CEO at Prodly, joins me, Jen Spencer to discuss investing in the channel, compensating your channel sales reps, and more on this episode of The Allbound Podcast. Jen: Hi everybody, welcome to the Allbound Podcast. I'm Jen Spencer here at Allbound, and today I am joined by David Belove, who is CEO at Prodly. Most recently he served as Vice President of Sales Operations and Productivity at Nitro. Welcome David. So good to have you on the show today. Can you share a little bit about yourself and about kind of some of the roles you played in sales operations?   David: Well, first of all, I've had three distinct careers. I started out as a marketing professional and then I had a sales career, and now I'm refocused on sales operations. So that spanned almost three decades. So I've been making that transition from marketing to sales to sales operations over the last 10 years, I would say.   Jen: That's great.   David: I'm just going to stay in that process so I moved from selling hardware to software and now I'm to the SaaS software.   Jen: I love that, you know, you've had experience in the marketing side, sales, sales operations. I think it's great today to have that breadth of knowledge. You know when it comes to SaaS… you mentioned that you are at Nitro, you had roles at Apttus and eFolder and Cloud9 Analytics. You're pretty well-versed in SaaS sales at this point and I'm curious, you know, over the course of your career, what are some consistencies that you've seen that have really created successful SaaS partner channels? Because selling SaaS through partners and with partners can be different from selling traditional software or hardware even?   David: So, several things come to my mind. One of them would be that, vendors in particular but also that channel partners have to have a super clear picture of their go-to-market strategy. So if you think about go-to-market strategy as where you define your market segmentation. And then the way you pursue these segments, you've got to have a really clear picture in mind so that everybody knows what their role is. And the goal is to avoid sending conflicting messages to your partners and to your direct sales team. You want them to play nicely together. So for example, at Nitro, partners play a pretty clear role. Nitro has Geographic and that's a small company, has geographic and language coverage limitations. And so partners are absolutely crucial in many parts of the world. But also, you know, having a clear picture of which verticals you can cover yourself and which vertical partners have to have expertise to cover for you, or situations like integration. If your product involves integration with other products, partners are going to be really important. It's really hard for a vendor to cover every different instance from an integration perspective. So, in all three of these cases you would have a really clear ROI, and that would make it much easier to explain what your partner's role is in. But that's one point, it's understanding the roles.   And then, the second point would be making sure that you have dedicated marketing and sales resources assigned to the channel. And it's kind of hard because, most especially when you first get going, and in particularly in a SaaS environment where direct sales tend to be the first approach to the market and dedicating these resources is kind of hard to justify. It's an investment because the bookings are probably going to be coming from the direct sales initially and so you're kind of betting on the [come?] that the channels gonna contribute. But if you don't have dedicated channel marketing and channel sales resources you'll never gonna make any progress.   So, one quick story - at Apttus, we were very interested in signing up SI's to help us with not only opportunity generation but implementation. And so we kicked off the program but we didn't have the implementation training programs put in place, and so nothing really happened. We were disappointed with the results. Once those training programs were put in place everything at the top of the funnel started to fall in place.   Jen: That makes a lot of sense. I was really kind of like really curious about… you made a kind of statement about how channel can allow a SaaS organization to not pivot but to kind of expand into another part of business that maybe they couldn't previously move into. Like, whether that's moving from targeting small and medium size businesses to enterprise or going the opposite direction enterprise down to a more of an SMB market. I know that there's... It's one thing to say, “Okay, let's bring on this partners and they're gonna have this expertise so they're gonna get us into these deals or they're gonna get us into these opportunities.” I wonder if you can share a little bit about what makes that kind of a shift or taking event into that kind of opportunity successful. What does an organization need to do in order to really embrace that kind of opportunity to expand beyond a target market that they've already sort of claimed?   David: Yeah. Well, it's tough but it would be similar to expanding into a new geography or if you are expanding your product line, those are both examples of investments that you have to make. Well, expanding your go-to-market strategy to include channels is similar. You've got to be willing to invest, putting in place that dedicated channel resources and training programs and being willing to essentially share the market with your partners is critical.   Jen: What else do you think is really critical for a channel leader who's working on maybe building out or exchanging a channel partner program? Maybe there's… there's a lot of folks we talk to who, you know, they've got these channel partner programs. They sort of were created almost organically, maybe not a lot, maybe not very intentional, and now they've got these program and things are maybe a little bit out of whack or a little bit out of sync. What do you think are some of the most critical elements that a leader should consider when going into... I mean, I hate to use the word "repair," but really optimize their channel program?   David: You know, I think there are various reasons why things break down or need to be optimized, to put it in a positive way. One would be having vague agreements with your partners. If partners are not fully committed to your program, if you don't understand their motivations, there's going to be a problem. The second thing is making sure that you're properly motivating them. Do you have a compensation program for them that makes sense? I mean, moving into SaaS is hard for everybody. Especially if you are transitioning from software, to perpetual software, to SaaS, all of the sudden your revenues are stretched out over a longer period of time. Well, the same thing happens to the channel. They're going through this transition where instead of booking everything upfront, now their revenues are booked over a long period of time, or recognized over a long period of time. So understanding that there's going to be some shared pain there, and making sure that your partners are willing to accept that pain that transition is critical. And not everyone is willing to do that and so you've got to pick your partners carefully. I think one critical role or one idea is to focus on partners who get it. Focus on partners who have accepted the SaaS model and are compensating their sales people that way and are making the transition themselves.   Jen: Yeah. I think that's really a good advice because you really got to work, you know, with you and your partner, vendor and partner have to work as a team together. You really wanna make sure those partners are really on the same page that you are for certain… that makes a lot of sense. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about... you know, it's so interesting to me, I sort of started sorting this sentence okay, and how do I frame this? So when I think about sales operations, this is a very growing field right now. I feel like I'm seeing more and more organizations invest in sales operations.   David: Yup.   Jen: And I'm really focusing on being productive, being efficient, maximizing resources. You know, probably a lot of this has to do with things like growing technology stacks, things like geographically dispersed workforces. So I looked at sales operations professionals as being the fixers in an organization, right? So, it's like, here's what we wanna do…   David: Yeah.   Jen: … and like, all right? Like, we got to go to this, it's like you're an engineer, like help kind of construct this and make sure we think kind of stays inline. So I'm sure you've seen a lot of challenges. I'd love to know about some of the big challenges that you've seen when it comes to management and collaboration of direct and indirect sale programs. People talk about channel conflict a lot. We talk about, you know, how do you continue to have harmony between your direct and your indirect efforts. But you probably see the pain more than anybody else in operations?   David: Yes. Like you've said, we're often tasked with straightening it out, because in some sense we're the Switzerland in that situation where…   Jen: Right.   David: … we, you know, supporting both the channel group and the direct group. But it comes down to a couple of things. One is we have to be able to integrate a channel into the CRM system, so to speak, with the sale stack. And so, it's an extra complexity when you've got to be able to measure channel leads and channel bookings, and be able to integrate that with the direct channel, and know how things are attributed. So do these come from a channel partner or does it come from a direct source? Which one was inbound, which one was contributing? So there's lots of attribution issues. There are CRM tracking issues. And then there are sales process things like, how do you roll out a new price book? You can't forget the channel.   Jen: Right.   David: You're gonna have probably two price books instead of just one. And these are things that a lot of times that SaaS providers are not accustomed to. So, during the integration, and thinking about the channel, whenever you make changes and whenever you plan a new enhancement is really important. The second aspect is in terms of compensation. How do you compensate your channel managers? And a lot of times you have to think about these in terms of their contributions. Is the channel the source of the opportunity or is the channel manager essentially reacting to an opportunity that a direct sales person has located or essentially playing matchmaker. In those two cases, you might want to pay them a different amount of money or a different percentage of the deal. So compensation is an issue, integrating the pipeline, the funnels of the two channels, direct and partners. So there are lots of implications.   Jen: Do you have any war stories you can share with us? Anything maybe that you've experienced that was a major lesson learned or at times maybe you painted yourself into a corner?   David: Well, I think the one that comes to mind would have to do with compensation where their quotas have to be aligned with the quotas of the direct team. And there you have to decide whether they're gonna share that quota or not.   And so, I've seen on a couple of occasions where the quotas for the channel team were aligned more towards run rate business. Say a large number of small deals, and then a large deal comes in. And maybe that large deal is a million dollars or more, and so the channel person blows out their quota but the direct team doesn't. So whoever is in the compensation plan need to be carefully architected to ensure that you don't have a channel manager totally blowing up their number but the direct team doesn't.   Jen: Right, right. That makes a lot of sense. Have you ever experienced any challenges where like internal struggles with revenue share with partners? So you talked about compensation for the channel, the channel manager who works for the vendor.   David: Right.   Jen: What about for partners? Is that something that you've experienced, you know, challenges in that area as well? I find that a lot of people… they're not sure like how much should we be spending, like how much should we be giving and there seems to be like some philosophical battles that I've seen people sort of face when it comes to that.   David: Yeah. There's a couple of different challenges. One challenge would be that the vendor doesn't wanna part with a piece of their SaaS revenue stream.   Jen: Right.   David: And so they'll try to get the partner to accept some sort of a finder's fee or a fixed upfront fee and then forgo the annuity. And of course, if a partner accepts that then they're really not participating in the best part of the SaaS business. And so they're not going to be as committed to you as they would be if they had annuity for an ongoing revenue stream.   Jen: Right, right. So if you want your partners to bring you SaaS business you should be expected to pay them as such, and pay them the commission, is that what you're sharing?   David: That's right.   Jen: Yeah.   David: Yeah, and it should be not some sort of a fixed finder's fee, so to speak upfront. But we want them to share in the ongoing revenue. And of course a lot of SaaS companies are very direct sales oriented and they see that as a major sacrifice for them. So that's something that everybody has to work through. It's the idea that partners should be sharing in the revenue stream. And so that's one scenario. And then, another scenario would be where partners are having to shift their role in the sale from a software model where they're making their money by doing provisioning and the licensing and installation and upgrade, and things like that, to providing more of a strategic consulting role, where they're helping their client with business transformation and with integration and security. And that may be… I mean, I don't think that's new to many established partners today, but five years ago that was a major transformation.   Jen: Right.   David: So essentially they have to upgrade their value to their clients to take into account the difference in the way a SaaS product is delivered, versus a software product.   Jen: I'm just curious also, over the course of your career, and you have mentioned kind of like three decades of working in marketing and sales, and sales operations, let's just go back five years ago, you know. I mean technology has advanced in the last five years but not so significant. So what's a piece of advice that you would have told yourself five years ago based on what you know now about sales, about the channel, about business, just wondering what you'd like to tell yourself in the past?   David: Well, just to kind of keeping at the theme of this conversation, I would say that five years ago I still probably had some doubts about how the channel would participate in SaaS.   Jen: Yeah.   David: I think I was still unclear about that. But so I would reassure myself, my younger self that SaaS is something that the channel can participate in, must participate in, and that there's a major role there. Like I've said, it's gonna be different in many cases. They're gonna have to develop a more essentially business expertise, meaning expertise in their vertical expertise, in system integration, in security; things that are more difficult than just focusing on the delivery of hardware and software.   Jen: Right. And perhaps there's a role that the vendors can play in helping to coach their partners and bring them along for the ride, and treat them like that natural extension of their sales and marketing teams that they have and truly partner together…   David: Yeah.   Jen: … so those partners aren't kind of felt like left off in an island by themselves.   David: Yeah. So I think this has been going on but essentially the partners contribute their vertical expertise and their integration expertise. Well, the SaaS vendors can share their expertise in how you manage a SaaS business. How do you pay SaaS sales people? How do you make this transition from selling software to software as a service? That's something that vendors have been forced to go through and to figure out and they can share that with their channel partners. That's essentially comes right like a franchise where the franchisor is teaching the franchisees how this sort of business works, how the model works.   Jen: Right, right. Here you go, right. Here's the kit, here it is in the box, right. Here's everything you need to know in order to be successful. I think that's a great example of franchisers have been doing this for decades, really setting their franchisees up for success. I think there's definitely a lot we can learn from that model for sure.   David: Yeah. There are many of examples of channel partners now that do understand SaaS and are making that transition but there are ongoing lessons to be learned that vendors can share.   Jen: Always, always. Well, David, before I let you go, it's been great talking to you about sales operations and the role of operations in and the channels in SaaS, I do have… at the very end of all my podcast I ask some more personal questions just so we can get to know you a little bit better. Our listeners feel like they get a little bit more of a glimpse into your life. So I got four really simple questions as long as you're willing?   David: Sure. Fire it up, Jen.   Jen: All right, all right. So first question is what is your favorite city?   David: My favorite city, other than my hometown of Los Altos where I've lived for most of my life, I would say it's Santa Fe, New Mexico.   Jen: Oh, nice. I haven't been there yet. But it's one of the places I really like to go. What do you like about Santa Fe?   David: Well, the atmosphere is amazing. For example, if you go in the summer time, the monsoon clouds build up over the Rio Grande Valley and they charge across the valley and move to Santa Fe, you'll get a 3 P.M. rain shower. And then the whole thing kind of dissolves into bright blue skies again.   Jen: Yeah. Sounds a little bit like the way some of the storm that get into Tucson, Arizona. I went to college there and have amazing, amazing lighting storms. Where amazing monsoons where it just keeps pouring rain and the streets would be flooded and we'd be trudging that from class, with like water up to your knees. And all of the sudden, it just stop and the sun was out and skies are blue, and it look like it had never rained.   David: Yeah. Like nothing happened.   Jen: Yeah, unbelievable. It's really cool, nature is amazing. Second question for you, would you consider yourself an animal lover?   David: Oh yeah, for sure. My dog is sleeping on the couch next to me here.   Jen: What kind of dog do you have?   David: A Goldendoodle.   Jen: Oh, very cute.   David: Yeah. She's looking at us now, “Are they talking about me.”   Jen: Yeah, that's right. Okay, next question, Mac or PC?   David: Well, I started out as a big Mac fan and I still first use iPhones and iTunes and all that. But I'm pretty accustomed to using a PC at this point. One short story is that my parents were one of the first distributors for Apple computer.   Jen: Wow.   David: This was in the 70s. They were the distributors from Mexico.   Jen: Wow, that's crazy. So you had a Mac early on, you had an Apple computer early on?   David: Yeah.   Jen: That's interesting. A lot of people I talked to when I ask that question they said, “Well, it was always PC. And then they started working for this company, and they gave me a Mac, and now I'm using Mac.” So I haven't heard a lot of people share the opposite way around. It's interesting. My last question for you is, if I were able to offer you an all expenses paid trip, where would it be to?   David: Oh gosh. This is really hard. I would say Venice.   Jen: Nice. Have you been there before?   David: I have been to Venice once before, and I remember to this day getting off of the train and looking out across the Grand Canal and seeing the gondolas, that was just magical. I think I would want to go back.   Jen: Excellent, excellent. Well, I would love to join you. I've been to a few different places in Italy but I never made it to Venice, so my only knowledge of Venice is basically like the Venetian in Las Vegas, which is really embarrassing to admit I don't know why I just said that. But that's all I can picture in my head besides pictures in books. So, one day I'll get there as well. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today. It was a pleasure just chatting channel with you. If any listener would like to reach out to you personally, maybe to dig in, ask you a few follow up questions about your experiences, what's the best way for them to get ahold of you?   David: I would say, just ping me on LinkedIn @davidbelove, BELOVE. And yeah, I'll respond that way.   Jen: All right, perfect, easy enough. Well again, thank you David. I really appreciate your time and thanks to everyone else for tuning in and we'll catch you next week for all new episode.   Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to the Allbound podcast. For past episodes and additional resources, visit the resourcecenter@allbound.com. And remember, #NeverSellAlone.

In this edition of the Predictable Revenue podcast, host Collin Stewart (flying solo) welcomes Kent Venook, Senior Director of Sales Development at Talkdesk, a rapidly-growing call centre software company based in San Francisco. Kent is a Bay Area sales veteran with significant team-building experience. Prior to leading business development at Talkdesk, Kent helped scale the SDR sales team at Apttus from 4 to 100 members. In this episode, Collin and Kent do a deep dive into the ever-important world of Salesforce (a company Aaron may have heard of :) ). Collin and Kent chat about how Salesforce consistency is critical to both scaling a sales team as well as diagnosing and fixing issues in the sales funnel. Highlights include: designing and teaching SDRs how to manage the key planks of Salesforce (14:00), the balancing act and benefits of implementing sales processes (26:52), how Talkdesk tiers its accounts (33:03), and Talkdesk's lofty quotas (41:10).    

I spoke with Jason Smith, the Senior Director and Legal Counsel at Apttus, a software company that facilitates deal flow in various industries. He focuses on contract lifecycle management. We discussed how the interest in contract lifecycle management has evolved over the past few years, the results of the General Counsel's Technology Report, and the key trends that are likely to influence the legal market in 2016.