Win Even David vs Goliath Competitive Battles
With creative and effective approaches, am able to drive competitive wins even against entrenched "800 pound gorilla" vendors.
Skills Summary
Leverage diverse skills including hands-on sales expertise to establish new thought processes, markets, and products that effectively compete with name-brand incumbents.
Scenario 1: At Nokia, needed to replace Cisco / VMware for secure clouds in enterprises . Response:
– Polled Sales to determine replicable use cases where Nokia could replace either or both of the 800 pound gorillas. Wrote up each use case and matched it to a case study with a name-brand enterprise.
– Focused on each use case with Buyers Journey, Sales Journey (sales tools), and Demand Gen Journey (emails, SDR scripts, and more) to generate raw leads and convert to opportunities.
– Ensured that all prospect questions could be addressed on the Buyers Journey with minimal sales involvement, such as viability of the Open Source platform (OpenStack), key performance issues (e.g. network hair pinning), and financial aspects (e.g. stranded IT assets).
– Key Metric: Truly partnering with Sales, drove competitive wins accounting for 30% YoY growth across multiple years.
Scenario 2: Malwarebytes Extended Detection and Response (EDR). The flagship product for the enterprise did not include forensics - the key function that all competitors touted. As a result, revenues were minimal. Response:
– The product included automated response for malware and, more importantly, ransomware protection. Focused on Response and trained SDR and Sales teams re how to position the advantages and downplay forensics.
– Matched each Content Journey with corresponding Sales Tool, including call scripts for SDRs.
– Sat in bullpen during focused call blitz to coach SDRs in real time.
– Key Metric: 35% increase in bookings within a few weeks and significant sales opportunities increase shortly thereafter.
Scenario 3: Infoblox and Alcatel-Lucent VitalQIP. Response:
– VitalQIP was the overall market leader at the time. For growth, needed to win these customers from a suite approach to a dedicated DNS layer from Malwarebytes.
– VitalQIP was the overall market leader at the time. For growth, needed to win these customers from a suite approach to a dedicated DNS layer from Malwarebytes
– Built a competitive playbook with "silver bullet" advantages that the prospect could easily verify. No-nonsense approach resonated well with prospects.
– Key Metric: Cut VitalQIP market share by approximately 50% across a three year period as part of 30% QoQ growth.
Proof point: Overcame strategic business issues to increase competitive wins by 30% YoY or more against 800 pound gorilla competitors across multiple years and multiple companies.