In this episode, we sat down with Maura Brady, RVP of 6sense, who shares her craziest demo stories, what she loves about sales, and (of course) her best sales tip.
Watch the full video or read the interview below:
What’s your name and where do you work?
My name is Maura Brady and I work at 6sense.
What’s the funniest thing a client told you?
This one’s funny, but in a painful way, and that’s when they say they don’t care about revenue. You know, I think that happens a lot when you’re with an unsophisticated buyer or someone who’s not ready. So it’s a good qualifier for the sellers out there, but that to me is hilarious because anyone who works for a company and as a shareholder should care very much about revenue.
What phase in the sales process do you hate?
So for me, I’d say the InfoSec security part is the worst, because I hate losing control and that to me feels like when my team takes their hands off the wheels the most.
What do you love the most about sales?
You know, this might be a controversial answer, but I think I love the balance in sales. On one hand, it’s very dynamic, changing all the time, new challenges, new people to talk to, new problems to solve, but on the other hand to be successful and to do it for a long time you do need to have a process, and you do need to have consistency when it comes to forecasting and planning.
What’s your most embarrassing sales story?
This is more embarrassing I think for the industry: When I was first a BDR and they were referred to often as booth babes and kind of paraded around the showroom floor to get people to come to the booths, and I think about all the wasted talent and I think about how, you know, we can do better as an industry.
What’s the craziest thing that happened to you during a demo?
One wild one that happened: I was at a customer site in Ohio and right before our demo a drunk driver from the night before crashed into their entire center, webcenter, or whatever. Their entire system went down, their website went down. So it was interesting to get to see like a critical taskforce jump into action.
What’s the most genius move you did to save a deal?
Walking away. I think if you’re trying to do something grandiose to save a deal, you’re probably desperate. Your confidence can only be high if you have the pipeline to support it.
What’s the deal you closed that’ll stay in your Pantheon?
My first new logo deal as a seller was Chanel. So that was fun, but worthy of a Pantheon in addition to that because their legal process was nuts. They had an outside counsel. I remember one call. We actually were negotiating whether to use i.e. or e.g. and I was like “Is this ever gonna end?” It did luckily and they were a great customer.
What’s your best sales tip?
I guess this is just my tip in life and I hope this is okay to say, but just don’t be an asshole.
What’s your biggest challenge when demoing?
I think a lot of sellers, you know, lean on product because they know it, and hopefully they do, you know, the good ones get in there and get their hands dirty, but you know if you sell a cool technology, it’s very easy to kind of go down the rabbit hole of just throwing up product, and so I think that’s challenging, especially for newer reps to remind themselves, to pull themselves out and give a good demo experience.
Sell me a walnut!
It’s funny, because I know now walnuts are actually the longest tree nut in mankind. They predate anything and now they’re like flourishing and they’re good for nature and I see a similar trajectory for you and your company, and I would say it’s worth giving them a try.
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