Onsite Flashcards
Please share an example of customer obsession #1 - Herbalife - S Situation
S: top 50 e-commerce site with 3b in sales was experiencing outages due to lack of consistency and reliability of their legacy configuration update processes, which they had to do monthly. They had seven datacenter/cloud regions, each with its own unique XML file that they jokingly called ‘this horrible thing’ to manage updates. They had code freeze for 2/4 weeks every month largely to deal with reliability issues and updates.
Please share an exmaple of customer obsession #1 - Herbalife - T Task
this was a known issue but there was no budget or proposed solution. I needed to help a technical director prove, design, and sell our solution internally. We knew our dynamic service registry/configuration mgmt solution would give them a automated and holisitc way to manage all their datacenters and services.
Please share an exmaple of customer obsession #1 - Herbalife - Action
Anticipated there would be another outage. Started with a free 3-month POC to prove feasibility, giving us metrics on how much engineering time they’d save in manual overhead (estimated 30 hrs every month per datacenter, equal 185k annual) and evidence reliability would be significantly improved. Presented our findings together to global VP for if there would be another issue. Surely there was and it was a CEO level priority. Budget freed up, some negotiations happened, but we were prepared and able to capitalize.
Please share an exmaple of customer obsession #1 - Herbalife - Results
Over the next 3-yrs we’re estimating we’ll save them 600k in manual updates, another 2-2.5m in time recovery and DR time. More importantly, continued outages cost would have cost them 10s of millions and their license to do business in China, their 2nd largest market.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Viasat - S Situation
I wrote about this in writing exercise, in short… an existing customer wanted to buy additional licenses through we failed to deliver on the expected value to date. Important to note we were only serving less than 10% of the addressable market in the account.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Viasat - Task
I needed to decide between what’s best for the customer and long term partnership and the immediate revenue, which represented 20% of my annual goal.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Viasat - Action
I had to present my case to management, and then the customer, suggesting the compromise that we’d be better served if the customer invested in Partner Services instead. That’d allow us to accelerate progress and ROI on our solution.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Viasat - Result
It’s been less than 60-days but our relationship immediately evlved. We identified and started to onboard our partner. We have a clearer roadmap of use cases and value to deliver. Customer already introduced to teams and projects we had no access to prior
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Ticketaster/Sauce Labs - Situation
F500 eCommerce in the live events industry was suffering from app quality issues, learned through a boutique services partner, because they didn’t have the resources to test all functionality at the speed their dev. teams demanded. We sold a hosted solution to test at cloud scale, speed, coverage.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Ticketaster/Sauce Labs - Task
Needed to sell the partner to broker a meeting with their customer and then sell the customer on the cost and speed benefits of our solution.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Ticketaster/Sauce Labs - Action
I explained to the partner we should use this is a pilot to see about joining our partner program, providing them marketing and credibility. Also, our service would free up their senior resources to do more meaningful work in the account. To the partner, I had to explain what metrics we needed to collect for a business case, prove through a POC our solution works, and create the content for our customer preso. With the customer, it was a normal sales process, revalidate value and technology, and jointly work on the business case.
Please share an example of customer obsession #2 - Ticketaster/Sauce Labs - Result
Our value was you they would improve their coverage (devices you test on) and save on operational costs (false failure and infrastructure) while testing at same speed. They could now test on 4x number of devices, save 650k a year in costs, and get immediate access to new devices by simply pointing tests to our cloud service.
Give me an example of a time when something you tried to accomplish and failed.
(Herbalife)I committed a significant deal earlier this year that hasn’t closed yet. At hindsight, I rushed the process and failed to realize some important considerations. There was a vacancy at the CIO level and thus a technical committee of 3 VPs reported to the COO. It wasn’t until it was too late that I learned the VP we had was great technically but not good at making friends. His peer, though not part of this domain, suggested stopping this signifcant purchase until a CIO joined. COO agreed. CIO joined only in December. Now restarting process. They were willing, but not ready and able to purchase.
a challenge where the best way forward or strategy to adopt was not “clear cut” (i.e. there were a number of possible solutions). How did you decide the best way forward?
(CoreLogic/Neudesic): situation. a customer approached about a transformational requiring two of our solutions. They had limited experience and resources and wanted to leverage a partner we didn’t certify. Tasks. #1 was how to proceed, #2 how to ensure success, #3 what to do if it failed? Actions. #1 we agreed with the caveat that we’ll need to interview and they’ll need to sign up to our partner program for certification. #2 weekly calls with TAM and every 3-weeks in person with customer and partner, #3 we made it a point that our responsibility is with the customer first. Result. Six months later, we recommended customer continue with only 1 of the 2 solutions and a different partner. This was because of some issues with the partenr and lack of focus by the customer.
An example of when you showed initiative and took the lead?
1 I built successful territories for now 3 territories, 2 startups with < 30m in revenue, which required both initiative and creativity. #2 At HashiCorp, recognized we have great solutions but lacked a brand and infrastructure to support our customers as they adopted our technology. I took iniative to vet and enable local SI partners (Trace3, Evotek). #3 Another one, this year we had a customer with only 9-5 support face a Sev-1 issue going into the weekend. I took initiative the iniative, asked them to open a ticket, made the case to make an exception, and lead by example by joining the support call late into that night. See email.
Give me an example of a time when you motivated others?
Throughout given I’m in sales. At Symantec had three ISR assigned to me. I helped two of them get promoted to field roles in under 8-months when the average was over two years. First, I flew to Eugene to meet them in person and understand their skills and hopes. Two, we had individual and team meetings. Team meetings were role plays, deal strategy, and everyone was required to bring something. Three and four, I kept them and me accountable and trusted them with deals knowing mistakes were ok if we learned from them.
A time when you delegated a project effectively?
Candidly this is an area I needed to work on. One recent example, is when a customer was failing to adopt our solution and falling behind their timeline, impacting the partnership and an upcoming deal, I stuck my neck out to sponsor a rescue services mission for a week by a services partner. The best use of time was to have me there for the first day then every AM and PM we had debriefed calls with the partner to ensure key tasks were delivered. We learned a lot and saved partnership, the customer is now using partner full time.
An example of a time when you used your fact-finding skills to solve a problem?
Was working an opportunity with a VP that seemed to stall, from one week to the next, and I couldn’t get a straight answer. It was my first time working the account so I didn’t have many allies. I remembered him mentioning Splunk multiple times positively, a recent long sales cycle with another ‘innovative’ vendor, and I knew MSFT was a key partner. I searched, reached out, and met each of them. I got to learn there was an internal power struggle for resources and VP didn’t know how to make the business case and needed our help.
Why AWS?
- Aligned on values, especially customer obsession, long-term view, and accountability
- Complex, exec level customer issues
- Network of customers, Amazonian, Partners.
- Endless opportunity - AWS
Why this role?
- Learn in addition to capitalizing on my experience - greenfield, cloud adoption, land and expand
- Hyper-competitive time with high rewards
- Leverage technical experience and business acumen - true business transformation
- Endless opportunity - greenfield enterprise.
Why me?
- 3 territories from nothing w/minimal ramp - HashiCorp rep of Yr…see email.
- 4 yrs of Cloud - 2 Hashi, 1 Sauce, 1 Symc
- 3 yrs of land and expand to developers - Hashi, SL
- Culture fit and results-driven - ‘startup’ person - always made in < 2 yrs.
- Learn and stay humble - MBA; more I know more I want to know and realize what I don’t know.
- Overcome adversity - PIP w/in 100 days
What I’m looking for?
- Somewhere to challenge and build a career - 2-3 jobs
- Experienced leadership to learn from
- Values and colleagues that reflect my brand
- Stay in this space to capitalize on my experience to do even bigger things
Why am I considering a change?
- Hashi is a good opportunity but this is not the team I want to build my career around
- Part of a local team and culture that values results and customers
- Upside for growth and learning
- some baggage - PIP
- The first time I’m considering an opportunity 99% due to values and culture fit.
Questions for Cindy?
- tell me about a time you implemented something a direct report suggested?
- tell me about a time you went out of your way for a rep?
- how would you describe your job?
- what is your process for evaluating progress and potential?
- what are some of the ways you try to bring the team together?
- if someone doesn’t like working with you, what would be the reason?
- what would reps say they like most about working with you?
