About SmartBear and what they do
SmartBear is all about software quality. It's our mission to be the first choice for software development teams that are looking to accelerate the release of high quality software. Now me personally, I head up North American sales, been with the organization for a little over seven years now, which, as I'm sure you imagine, seems like an eternity these days in high tech. But it's afforded me an awesome opportunity to continue to progress my career, as we've continued to grow as an organization, both from a number of employees perspective, as well as a revenue perspective.
Details on SmartBear's sales team
So in my organization, I have 75 In total, that's a breakdown of about 60 reps, 10 managers in five directors. We are organized by business unit. So SmartBear has 21 different products that are grouped based on personas value to the customer, that we refer to as product business units. Inside those business units, we have new business teams, they have expansion teams, as well as our strategic account team. So in terms of new business, right, so they're not a product, not an existing customer of that particular business unit. So they may own another product of SmartBear, but they're new to that particular business unit. And expansion, we have three types of roles within the organization, we have a core rep, we have a major account executive and a strategic account executive. So the core reps have a variety, wider variety in number of accounts. Whereas a major, you start to take a number of accounts that they're working with, we tend to tag these accounts as higher propensity to you know, expand at a greater velocity and higher dollar value. So a little bit more of a strategic and opportunity for you know, some someone on our expansion or new business team to take kind of that next step in their career. And then the next step would be our strategic account team where they're handling and scaling across all products. So they own a smaller subset of accounts anywhere between 10 and 15. Accounts. These are some of our top enterprise customers. And those in that team, like I said, sells any of the 21 different products.
How the sales process works
The sales process are the sales model, we like to refer to as a trial by so all of our products have trials, for which allowing the customer to evaluate those trials can range from a seven day trial all the way to a 45 day trial, depending on the product. The sales motion is to uncover and discover, obviously, the end qualify the prospective customer make sure that we're aligned with their requirements, a product's going to solve their problems. At which point, once we've discovered and created an opportunity, you would engage as a rep, you would engage a sales engineer to demo that particular product. So the next step in the sales process would be a demo, a formal demonstration, where you partner with your sales engineer to prove out the value against the requirements of the customer. From there, it's a series of value adds and handholding throughout the trial process, through follow up technical calls, documentation, a variety of different you know, building ROI is case studies, whatever it may be, to help the customer you know, determine and validate that SmartBear is a product for them. And we always like to say in parallel, we want to be uncovering you know obviously the commercial pieces of the you know of the purchasing process to ensure that you know, at a particular time of extra you know, when the trial expires, they're prepared to proceed with a purchase. Our sales cycles range from 45 to 60 days, as I'm sure you imagine on expansion. Those can be as quick as a day turnaround for all size opportunities for new they can take a little bit longer but They tend to average out around a 45 to 60 Day sales cycle.
What to expect during the interview process
So the candidate during the interview process can expect the opportunity to speak with leaders who have been there before, we have a history of promoting from within. So our frontline managers, many of which have come up through the ranks. Within, you know, as individual contributors and reps. A candidate would speak to anywhere between two and three frontline managers as well as one director. If they give their vote of approval, then it would, the candidate would then speak with me for roughly about 30 minutes. The way I like to structure my interviews are in three parts. One, I like to give the candidate an opportunity to explain their motivations to me, tell me a little bit more about their background, their family, I think at the prospect of potentially working together, it's very important to connect human to human. So I can understand their motivations, as well as making sure that they're aligned with what the job entails, and that they understand what it would take to be successful. In part two, we dive into the professional experience making sure that again, their experience aligns with what the job entails. And then in part three, giving them a chance to ask questions about my experience, my background, where I see the company, I think any candidate joining an organization not only wants to understand what your one looks like, right, but what does your two and year three look like? So I make an effort to try to explain SmartBear thesis for growth, and how that aligns with the individual candidate, as an individual contributor and their goals, as they look into the future and look to grow with the company.
About SmartBear's culture
SmartBear culture is very fast paced, um, we afford our reps or managers the opportunities to work on a lot of work with a lot of customers of all sizes, anywhere between, you know, a small 50 person technology company all the way to the fortune 100. It's very, very inclusive, as well, where, in my previous statement I had mentioned, a lot our managers have come up from within the organization. So they, you know, they include their, their team or their reps. They're very open to helping their representatives work their deals and it's very hard working. And we put a big emphasis on coaching and development here. Right. So there's no, you know, I would like to say there's no ivory tower, right? We're all in it together, we win together. And we have fun, right? It's a wide open sales floor, everyone's brainstorming with each other on how to move deals forward, how to overcome particular objections with customers, how to align with longer term thinking, and what that would mean for that, right? We always say, hey, the platform is there, right? If you make a commitment to yourself, then the sky's the limit, right? And you bring a high level of accountability every day, the sky's the limit. There's not There's no hiding, right? We have our big win channels, we have a lot of, you know, company things that, you know, such as happy hours or, you know, Friday lunches, and all the stuff that you would expect, you know, outside of the day to day, that makes coming to work fun. We always pride ourselves on really moving our business forward, both as an individual and contributing to the overarching goals of the company to continue to grow and help customers solve their problems related to app quality.
Why now is the ideal time to join
The market has never been never been hotter. The opportunity, as I said to work with the world's best companies, across all industries, companies solving problems that help us every day, right? When I wake up and know that I'm coming to work every day with that I'm solving meaningful problems for these organizations, right? Pick up your pick up your phone, interact with applications, via your view your phone via your web browser. We're helping companies solve problems that we interact with as consumers every day. So it just it's very meaningful work. And in we have audacious goals as an organization. to continue to grow by innovating our products, continuing to develop great products, as well as continuing to acquire other companies that help us round out or complete our overall offering. In with that comes more opportunity for people who aren't with the organization. Now, those who have been here for a number of years, and those who have been here like me for upwards of six or seven years, right to take on more responsibility. So I always like to explain the environment at SmartBear is very much an established startup. And with that comes opportunity for those who want to take on more and step up. And we have a history as a set of promoting from within both as individual contributors as well as managers. I've never been more more bullish than I am today, and I've been here for seven years. I think there's a huge opportunity in the market. And with that comes more opportunity for individuals every day.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
