Client context
The client is an emerging leader in high engagement B2B education apps and learning
platforms. It has an indirect sales route to market through key corporate clients that then sell onto a long tail of customers. The deal sizes are very large and complex, and require true partnering with corporate partners, advising them on co-marketing and GTM, as well as selling in the
initial deal.
The business’ CEO is has completed 4 exits in the past and is highly commercial. He loves to be in front of clients still and led the first multi-million $ deals in the UK and US. As the business grew its B2B offering after a $16m raise, it needed to make a key strategic hire that could be
trusted to continue this momentum and take the onus away from the CEO on large deals and go to market activities.
The solution
After arranging 3 initial networking interviews with a range of senior sales people , Gameface had in depth discussions with the CEO, HR and leadership team. Gameface and this hiring team then
settled on the ideal type of person to find and only brought select candidates forward.
We were looking for the rare blend of someone that could really hold a room with senior
execs & influence sales strategy but also someone that could also get stuck into prospecting and building pipeline from scratch.
Gameface has continuously mapped the top talent in edtech and HR for 5 years, and was in
touch with a proven start-up VP sales. His previous start-up employer had been
acquired by a larger PE backed education tech player, where we tracked his
progress over multiple years with regular check ins.
It then transpired that after a couple years post-merger, he once again wanted to join a strong,
smaller team and was very happy to get back to more hands on selling.
Results
The client now has a sales leader that the CEO can trust to take over major pitches and deals,
and someone else that can mentor other junior sellers in the team.
Within days the sales director was out at various events and networking and sending cold pitches. Quickly the CEO and the investors became comfortable in opening up their networks to him. He closed a deal within his first 3 months and has taken over ‘farming’ and expanding on some of the largest deals in place, as well as being the lead 'hunter'.
The sales director has mastered various ways of going to market that most senior account executives could not compete on. His industry knowledge and ability to build and maintain senior stakeholder relationships has created trust internally, and with the start-ups growing customer base.