Chris

00:00 - 00:13

Really, what I wanna kinda start with is, what got you like, how did you get into sales? Like, how did that all happen? Because I saw your background was more engineering. So that's kinda where I'm very, like, curious about.

About.

Mark

00:13 - 02:34

Yeah. So, I was lucky enough in high school, when I started off, in high school, I was actually in a, class where we had, like, some Macs, some piece some IBM PCs.

And I didn't know anything about this, but there were some printers out there and the teacher was like, hey. Those printers aren't working.

And, I walked back there and I was like, well, what what's not why they're not working? They look powered on. And there's a little manual on the side, and I opened it up.

And I'm like, let me read this manual. And this is, oh, well, do this, do this.

And I just read it and did it. And then it just I'm like, hey, man, it's working now.

And so the teacher's like, oh, well, what'd you do? And that from that day forward, he's always using me for, like, technical support. And, and so, you know, one day the IBM guy was in there and he was like, hey, so I need I'm here to fix stuff.

The teacher was like, hey. Everything's working fine.

He's like, well, who's who's fixing it? They're like, that dude over there is, is a guy Mark who's fixing it. And so I went, you know, talk to him and he's like, hey.

Do you want a job at IBM? I was like, I'm not doing any better. Yeah.

I'll take a job at IBM. And so, you know, I started internship there.

And, and from there, I kinda just learned a lot about technology. I knew nothing about technology before that.

The nice thing about that that experience is, a lot of engineers are took me under their wing, and they just taught me a lot about engineering, diagrams, a lot about PC support. I just learned so much there in such a short amount of time.

And, eventually, I was doing desktop support for the VP of the site. And, the VP of the site, he, one day was was on his way to something called Comdex.

And, this was one of the big shows. Like, today, they have the the big CES show in in Vegas.

It was that that equivalent of the time. And he goes, Mark, what do you think of these demo demos we have here? And, I was just looking around working on his laptop, and, and it was just a bunch of spinning hard drives.

And I was like, you know, I go, Mike, they're they're pretty boring looking. You know? He's like, well, what would you do? And so, I said, well, you know, I I would do something way different.

And and, like, we're we're putting movies on the drives right now. We're, like, we're putting mapping systems.

Us like, the younger kids over there and the interns. Right? And then he's like, well, can you put something together? And I said, Yeah.

We'll we'll put something together. He goes, Great.

I'll see you in the morning, 8AM. And I'm like, Woah.

Woah....

Andrew

00:00 - 01:03

I'm Andrew Gross. I run our global sales team here at Excite, and I, run our US headquarters here out of our Hoboken office, right on the other side of the Hudson River in New Jersey.

And running global sales at Excite, if you haven't heard of the company, Excite, we do two very interesting things. One, and most importantly, is we provide the world's first managed services platform for integrators, resellers, installers, or really any technology, to start actually delivering on their managed service promise that we've talked so much about.

A signature on a contract is what a managed service promise was. Just the other thing that we do, very well is for hardware manufacturers who make something connected, and they wanna be able to offer a cloud based monitoring and management suite and potential business opportunities around the product, we offer a platform for them to build on top of it.

And what's nice is these two things, they meet in the middle where any hardware manufacturer that works with us directly to build this cloud based revenue generating platform on our foundation is also part of the ecosystem of the managed services platform that we're providing to their channel partners.

Chris

01:03 - 01:11

Yeah. And that kinda leads me into what I was gonna ask you is, what are the end users looking for when it comes to a managed services like solution?

Andrew

01:11 - 02:25

Most of the time and this is across enterprise, education, state, local government. It really doesn't matter.

They're all kinda looking for the same sort of things when it comes down to it. And they're very basic, really.

Right? They're buying technology. Right? There's no doubt that any one of these large consumers of technology, let's just say, you know, media technology in particular, AV, traditionally, but not so much AV, AV, UC, IT.

Over the last five years, especially since the return to office and everything, investments have been through the roof of this type of technology. Right? There's not a classroom or a conference room or a courtroom that you walk into that doesn't have cameras and speakers and microphones and touchpad.

It's crazy. They made this huge investment in physical technology.

They had to. Right? It was how people work nowadays.

But now we're at a point where, okay. Wow.

Great. I've made this great investment.

I now need to, a, get the most out of this investment, and I need to ensure that my return on this investment is actually happening because the it's only my return is only occurring if my technology is working. So that's where we are right now, is these customers are saying, I made this investment.

How do I ensure my return and really ensuring that it's operation that my investment is operational, and they're looking towards services support. From a resource standpoint,.

Chris

02:25 - 02:29

where are the end users in terms of being able to handle this type.

Andrew

02:29 - 02:49

of movement? It's it's minimal if if any at all. Typically have an IT support.

Maybe if you're lucky, you have an AV technician or AV support staff. And we're talking for thousands of rooms and tens of thousands of of tech of pieces of technology.

It it's unsustainable. It just truly is.

That that's what we're hearing the most.

Chris

02:49 - 03:14

When it comes to any data or information out there, as far as, you know, we have data and insights to talent acquisition process. Like, if you don't do this, there's a 60% chance you could be losing this type of talent.

When it comes to managed services and things that come up for the end users, is there any data around that around with, like, inefficiencies because they don't have that resource or that platform in place to let them know, like, what's actually going on with their solution...

Chris

00:00 - 00:10

Larry , in this conversation with Skip Level Talks , what I wanted to kinda share with the audience is , what is a skip level talk ? Because not everybody knows what that is.

Larry

00:10 - 01:05

Okay. That's easy.

If you're the leader , the VP of sales , the global sales leader , whatever you're called , the CRO , when you take the time to go a couple levels below where you are to get information. So if I'm a CRO , that might mean going to a sales manager.

You know , if I'm a VP of sales , that might mean going to a sales rep. But , you're just you're you're going a couple of levels below where you are to try to get some information that you think it can , you know , help the business.

And , I think I just think they're really important to do so that you stay attached to what's actually going on during the sales process of your organization. So , you know , it's a skip.

That's why I called a skip level. You're you're not going to the level that directly reports to you.

You're going somewhere below that level , and you're getting information.

Chris

01:05 - 01:09

Why are skip levels important for leaders ?

Larry

01:09 - 02:28

Well , they're important because if if something is happening that's really good in your organization , but you're only seeing it in pockets and rather than across the board , it's good to find to sit down with the people that are executing at a real high level , especially when it comes to individual contributors or sellers. It's really nice to be able to go call in , talk to those folks , and get a firsthand , feedback as to , you know , how they're able to be successful.

Why are they so successful executing where others are not ? And , you know , it's hard to get that. Even if you're you're very close to your team , you can get a feel for what it is , but to actually talk to the individuals that are that are executing out there in the field , it gives you the raw data , and and it's very useful to you when you start messaging to other people in the organization as to what's happening and why you're being successful.

But But it also can be helpful if if things aren't going so well and if you're losing opportunities or losing deals to go below the sales management level and talk directly to the sellers and get a get some feedback and what the challenges are at and get some feedback as to why they haven't met those challenges.

Chris

02:28 - 02:32

When do you utilize those skip levels ?

Larry

02:32 - 04:22

I can remember , when I was at the Tandberg organization , and we were working on you know , we sold , you know , infrastructure solutions , video infrastructure solutions. And we had you know , this one really hit me hard because we had we had some rich technology that we thought was pretty good.

And , we started to hear rumblings in the Salesforce that there was a newcomer in the business. And at that time , that newcomer was Codian.

And and they were being very successful at beating us when it came to video in infrastructure. And we were a bigger company , much stronger at the time.

We had a full suite of products. And so , typically , we would have an advantage in that area because we had a full suite of product.

But but this this company , this small company was doing extremely well. And I remember reaching out to one of my sellers at the time and asking them , you know , what what is it about this product ? And , the seller admitted to me that they had gone to get a demo of the product and , and that , you know , they went to see it.

Now this was one of my top guys , so I was a little nervous that they had actually gotten a demo of the product because that means they're talking to that company. So I'm a little nervous and , and he crystallized for me , and the...