Before SalesScreen, Frank served in various leadership roles at Yahoo!, Doubleclick, Google, Chango, Demandbase and Leanplum. He earned his university degree at Providence College, in Rhode Island.
We sat down with Frank to learn a bit more about him and how enterprise sales engagement platforms like SalesScreen are the ideal fit for leaders like him that have big goals to hit.
SalesScreen: Hi Frank. Great to meet you and welcome to SalesScreen. What was it about SalesScreen that was so compelling to you?
One of the biggest challenges I’ve experienced as a sales leader, and that I hear the most when I speak to other CRO’s, is how to energize and motivate sales teams, but in particular how to shift the sales culture of an organization from passive and reactive to proactive and more accountable. SalesScreen provides a market-leading technology platform to enable real cultural change in an organization. If you have ever taken a Peloton, Soulcycle or Flywheel stadium cycling class, and had your results flashing up on the leaderboard in real-time, you’ve probably felt an incredibly positive motivation to want to be at the top.
This is the main concept of our platform which is helping any team that is performance-oriented, to be able to visualize results on TV screens within the company and also on our web and mobile apps. It drives an immediate shift in behavior and ignites a fun element into your daily work life. We are seeing not just inside and field sales teams but also customer success, recruiting and even engineering teams use it. And not just in tech but across industries like insurance, telecom, and real estate. There are 23 million salespeople in the US alone, and many more across the globe. Think about that for a minute, almost 10% of the population is selling, so this is an absolutely enormous market, and we are solving one of its biggest core challenges.
In addition, while I’ve worked for both sales and marketing lead, and engineering lead companies, I was immediately impressed that the companies three founders are all world-class engineers from the top school in Norway. They can develop any new client feature request in a six-week sprint. I knew that larger more complex enterprise organizations that are looking to make their sales cultures more proactive, would require a scalable, flexible, real-time solution. And their demo came across as ‘enterprise-grade’. I’ve been in a dozen client meetings in the six weeks that I’ve been here and heard from clients how important real-time results are to them. For example, imagine the sales team is doing an outbound prospecting blitz, and a rep enters multiple new meetings into Salesforce.com, but the results don’t register into the leaderboard for a very long time. This is like doing a Peloton class where your pedaling results are delayed by twenty minutes onto the screen in class.
SalesScreen was initially bootstrapped into a successful company, and last year received seed investment from Spring Capital—led and funded by well known NYC repeat entrepreneur Are Traasdahl, as well as Rick Heitzman, founder of Firstmark Capital in NYC, and top Norwegian execs Gunnar Selleag, Jostein Pettersen.
I immediately felt a trusted connection with Sindre, our founder, and the rest of the leadership team, and really bonded with the culture immediately. What is not to love about a high trust, direct and to the point, but have-fun-doing-it spirit?
SalesScreen: In your new role as CRO you will be responsible for sales, customer success and marketing. What does a typical day look like?
What’s amazing about the new role is the diversity of daily activities. Given the hyper-growth stage of the company, I’d say that one minute it is focusing on strategic projects up at a 30,000-foot level, and planning and high-level work, and the next minute, rolling up my sleeves to work with the sales team on prospects. And working closely with our existing clients, to improve their sales cultures and drive more accountability. In addition, working closely with marketing to refine our marketing strategy materials, messaging and ad-mix. In terms of allocation of time, especially because of the significant growth we are seeing in North America, I’m currently spending 40+% of my time every week on recruiting top talent into the organization in this region. We are currently refining and up-leveling our revenue ops, sales ops and training functions for all revenue teams, to allow us to scale more efficiently—and to service clients better and drive higher client NPS scores. So spending much time on strategy, execution and rolling these out to the teams.
SalesScreen: Your product is a software platform to increase revenue for companies, what are the key things you look for in top field sales professionals?
Off the top of my head its four main things. Firstly, it is consistent performance with a respected Saas company. Normally I look for 2.5 years or more at the company, with presidents club and significant over achievement being a great sign. Secondly, because selling is so much about having a deep understanding of the client and their business, I’ve found those that are thoroughly prepared in the interview stand out from the rest. Specifically being able to quickly and effectively verbalize how the solution would help our clients and prospects, and an understanding of the competitive landscape. The best reps know both of these elements ‘cold’ in every meeting, and just don’t waste one bit of time in their client interactions. Thirdly, does the sales pro pass the middle seat to Oslo test? Are they conversational and relatable? In some ways chameleon-like in being able to adapt to the person next to them? In the end, we buy from those that seem like us and talk like us and the best reps adapt in this way, which is why they can be so successful. Would you buy from them?
Finally, you can’t fake passion for the company and the role, or a winning attitude. I find that you can feel the passion on the other side of the table, and immediately know a persons outlook and attitude. A feeling that the candidate really wants to be a part of the team, is ready to knock down walls for clients and internally is excited to help play a major role in transforming the next phase of the organization. But let’s face it, all of these together constitute the ideal candidate, and we know that this is hard to come by, so very often finding those that are the best fit is a combination of experience and an intuitive sense in applying these things and ‘thin-slicing’ to make a gut call.
SalesScreen: SalesScreen provides a platform to help sales teams visualize individual and team performance in real-time through sales floor TVs and a mobile and web app. It provides a fast and easy way to push out competitions and rewards and recognition that drive more sales activity and revenue. How important is it to you to keep your sales teams motivated?
Selling is an amazing profession, but let’s face it, doing any one thing for a long time, even if you love it, can become a grind. Keeping sales teams motivated is challenging, and so platforms like SalesScreen that are proven to keep sales teams more engaged, and thus more effective at reaching goals are fundamental to the sales tech stack.
SalesScreen: It sounds like you know a thing or two about motivation, what are some of your favorite motivational quotes?
Very cool you asked this! How much time do you have? I am a bit of a quote freak. I keep a list of my all-time favorite ones at the very top of my daily to-do list that I scan daily before doing anything. These are collected from famous leaders, coaches, as well as from friends and family that have said pithy things over the years that still ring true.
I’m a huge follower of @coachmotto which pushes out quotes from some of the top coaches of all time. One of the serendipitous things about life is that when you are going through a sales, or leadership challenge, they always seem to have a quote that day that hits exactly the perfect mark. Some of my favorites…
“A man is but a product of his thoughts, what he thinks, he becomes” - Gandhi
🙌 Attitude and mindset is everything. Don’t waste time on negative thoughts. Feel the negative thought, dust yourself off, pick yourself up and move on.
“Oneness is not something you can turn on with a switch. You need to create the right environment for it to grow, then nurture it carefully every day” - Phil Jackson
“Escape competition through authenticity” - @naval
☝️ If you don’t know him, I’d highly recommend you check him out.
SalesScreen: What will you be queuing up on your iPhone playlist on those frequent airline trips to Oslo headquarters?
I’m a big music junkie with diverse tastes so it would probably contain a few of the following...
- Giorgio by Moroder by Daft Punk - maybe one of the coolest, aspirational stories ever about determination and creatively adapting to life, but having some timing too
- Territory by The Blaze
- Pure Water by Mustard & Migos
- Moses Tale by SCSI - 9
- August Twelve by Khruangbin
SalesScreen: Your US headquarters are currently in Dumbo, Brooklyn. Any cool spots you’d recommend in the hood?
In Dumbo, Celestine (Brooklyn Bridge views), Cecconi’s, Dumbo House, and Vinegar Hill House. Frankies and F+F in Carroll Gardens never get old, and Miss Ada, Evelina, and Walters in Fort Greene are worth checking out!
Thanks for sharing more about yourself with us, Frank. We’re stoked to have you as part of the SalesScreen team and look forward to a really big, and best-ever year this year.
For those interested in learning more about career opportunities at SalesScreen, please visit: careers.salesscreen.com
