Jenna Raby, Senior Vice President, Global Financial Services at RiskIQ joins us in this SalesTechStar interview to share her insights and tips on Enterprise Sales while talking about the basic fundamentals that have always helped her in her journey.
Catch the complete interview here:
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Tell us a little about yourself Jenna, including your hobbies! Why (and how) did you venture into technology /SaaS sales and what has your professional journey been like so far?
Well I’m an early stage entrepreneur, a Silicon Valley transplant. I love the hard job of building a company with a game-changing approach to a challenging problem. I’m passionate about helping great ideas make it, and building a better world.
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Since we are at it, it would be great to know about some of your top-performing (most successful) sales campaigns / sales strategies from your time in SaaS and Enterprise Sales.
I would say, start with the genuine goal to be that long term partner. People and technologies come and go. But friends are for life. If you exhibit the behavior you would want to experience from across the table, eventually you win. Keep the customer first… learn their challenges, determine how and if you can help, then help them, consistently, with genuine interest to make their lives and security posture better. Their jobs are hard. Be a resource!
Given your experience in Sales/Revenue Generation- we’d love to know what some of your top must-haves are for a successful sales/revenue strategy?
Do the work, know your customer, their network, their pain points, validate those in early discussions, build trust with custom demonstrations. Align with funded initiatives and internal champions with the respect, credibility and ear of the buyer. Time kills all deals.
Sales is an art, the right sales leadership can enable sales and strengthen overall outcomes. Can you share your tips/expertise on how sales team leads can adopt better leadership skills with the aim of driving team success?
I like that. I always say sales is an ART and a SCIENCE. There are many sales trainings and techniques that incorporate standard and proven methods on the quantitative metrics needed to “hit your numbers” (e.g. contacts, leads, pipeline conversion, quotas etc) This is important and can’t be understated.
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Yet, the ART is of equal or greater value.
I’m a big fan of informed and empathetic leadership- understand the human element of each person on the sales team, what drives them, what they are passionate about as it relates to the industry and the work itself. In management, it’s important to set and be consistent with clear expectations, invest in talented people and their career ambitions, provide opportunities for growth and hire folks who have an “us” vs “me” mentality.
How have you seen the role of the typical B2B/tech salesperson evolve over the years? What are some of the traits/skills you feel more of today’s sales teams should imbibe given market dynamics and the changing salestech landscape?
The concept of beginner’s mind. Every day learn something new to drive value to the customer, the team and the company. That’s the win. For me, it always comes down to the people. If you hire the right team with the right attitude, you can get past any challenge. I’ve sought people with ambition, positivity, energy and passion for security to work at RiskIQ- and that approach serves us well.
We’d love to know some of the innovative ways in which your align use of your salestech / other tech stack to achieve team/revenue goals.
With technology, the world is always shifting. Being first means you need to remain innovative and build on your base. In cyber security, enterprises are dramatically under-resourced and executing on delivery and hitting achievable and programmatic milestones is as important as innovation on the front end. Sales teams need to partner with post sales delivery teams from the outset. Solutions Architects have that name for a reason.
Tag (mention/write about) the one person in the industry whose answers to these questions you would love to read!
I listen to VC podcasts with strong operations execs who comment / opine on what’s worked, novel approaches, and insights to building world class enterprise sales teams.
Tell us about some of the top sales/salestech other events that you’ll be participating in (as a speaker or guest!) in 2020!
Security Innovator’s Network run by Heather and Robert Rodriguez. I enjoy these events as the content is always relevant, interesting and focused on driving value vs pushing product or vendor solutions. Security is a game that you have to play constantly and innovate to keep the pace. SINET makes the effort to keep the content fresh by exposing new and up and coming entrepreneurs to both government and commercial/enterprise buyers . I always learn something.
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Did you miss this episode of The SalesStar Podcast with Jenna Raby? Catch it now!
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RiskIQ is the leader in attack surface management, providing the most comprehensive discovery, intelligence, and mitigation of threats associated with an organization’s digital presence. With more than 75 percent of attacks originating outside the firewall, RiskIQ allows enterprises to gain unified insight and control over web, social and mobile exposures. Trusted by thousands of security analysts, RiskIQ’s platform combines advanced internet data reconnaissance and analytics to expedite investigations, understand digital attack surfaces, assess risk and take action to protect the business, brand and customers. Based in San Francisco, the company is backed by Summit Partners, Battery Ventures, Georgian Partners and MassMutual Ventures.
Senior Vice President New Markets at RiskIQ. Experienced global leader in Enterprise Software Sales, International Sales, SaaS, Channel partner program design and management, Business Development and Sales Operations. Fluent in 5 languages, passion for entrepreneurship and putting the best ideas into the world to make the world better and more secure.
The top performing sales and business development executive responsible for RiskIQ’s relationships with the largest Global Fortune 500 enterprise and strategic accounts and establishing channel and reseller relationships in US and overseas. Experienced, passionate, results driven, first class contributor and dedicated company builder.
