techslog

I am a lifelong salesperson, who is currently working as an executive coach and business development guru. I host techslog because I love sales and I love to keep abreast of the technology sales world.
My sales history? Started right out of college professionally; but as any good sales person can tell you- I was selling long before I made my first professional call. Maybe it was the value proposition to my mother as to why I should drive, even though I am only 15 or even the advantages of Cap’n Crunch over Wheetabix, whatever it was- I was selling, and it just occurred naturally. ..
Educated at Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science and the school of hard knocks (which naturally taught me more) I switched majors halfway through my college career from “Fashion Merchandising” to Marketing, only because the baloney was so deep on the fashion side of the house, I thought I needed a more realistic perspective and I thought business would offer me that. HAH!
I pay special tribute to Zenobia Beckett Ryken, my best friend in high school and not only that- one of the best sales people I have ever known. Credit her as she was the one that pulled the bag off my head and told me I was really a sales person deep inside and would I like to come work at Savin with her? And why wouldn’t I?
So off I went, with my degree in my back pocket and the attitude that I could do anything …and there was John Richards, my sales manager ready to transform me into a fast and furious sales rep. Fast forward three months- another Center City happy hour under way after a LONG day of cold calling in 4 buildings in downtown Philly, only to be thrown out of 3. Knowing every copier and contact in a certain zip code was my goal, and I was hot on the trail. Was this what sales was about?
A year later, Zee left Savin for the competition- Xerox, and took me in tow. While she relocated to California with her husband to be, I stayed on the east coast learning about “outsourcing” and “Facilities management VS copier specs” from Kevin McCauley and Rich DePeitro. Not only that, Xerox decided to train the heck out of me, sending me away for 4 weeks at a time to their elaborate “Document University”. It was a great experience- filled with quality teams, the Malcolm Baldridge award, good sales reps, and frankly a good team environment.
The XBS division of Xerox had some hiccups, and after a few successful years with the company, I was laid off. The first lay off at Xerox ever, and since I was the low man on the totem poll, off I went- only to be brought back 3 months later in a re-structuring effort- but the damage was done, and our “team” was never the same (nor was the company).
I had a customer at the time, Bell Atlantic, and made a connection with the President of their business directories division- Dan Hernadez. He offered me a role heading an obscure technology initiative they wanted to explore; creating web pages, or essentially an on-line yellow page directory for their yellow pages customers. This was 1996, when the internet was in it’s infancy. Heck I had not even had an e-mail address at Xerox! Imagine that!
I thought it was brilliant, and with the aid of my friend Zee’s father Tom Beckett- an ex VP of sales at Merck, I began to create a business plan for this new endeavor. Being a Gemini, I was all about what is new, and signed on for what would become www.bigyellow.com.
What an incredible time, managing a sales team, handling a P&L, learning the corporate world from the ground up ALL in an established Fortune 100 corporation -but in the guise as a start up! We developed a web site for the New Jersey Devils, put the White House’s white pages online, built an online part’s directory for Howard W Sam’s and frankly we were one of the first people to ever speak to organizations about having a web presence. What a glorious time!
This renaissance era came to a crashing halt when Nynex decided to buy Bell Atlantic, and wanted nothing to do with the business unit’s that did not feed their core competency- telecommunications. So there I was laid off again.
Well, at that time I was in the midst of dramatic change not only in my professional life, but my personal life too. So instead of jumping head on into another “Big Job” - with three kid’s in the house and a transition to being a single parent AND main wage earner, I needed something less demanding and more like the Xerox job I held before. While I enjoyed the executive management responsibility at Bell Atlantic, the days were long and the fiscal responsibility daunting.
While at Bell, we used primarily Oracle technology in development of our directories, so I knew the company quite well. I really wanted to work at Oracle, but as the “Big Gun” in technology software at that time, they wanted someone who had enterprise application experience. So off I went to Lawson Software- for some more “education” and lessons from the school of hard knocks.
Henry McNamara hired me, and was charismatic and wise in a used car salesman kind of way. Now I offer that observation as a positive one; Henry was one of the reasons I chose this tier 2 company to get my needed software application experience- he had a good rapport with the customers, and was a good sales person. So off I went to build my knowledge and learn about the software world.
Lawson was quite the learning experience, as I later learned most tier 2 vendors offer up training by “fire”. So while we were offered the basic sales boot camp experience; the in-depth knowledge of ERP selling was still lacking. Henry left for PeopleSoft after 6 months and my Lawson experience went downhill after that. Plagued by people who were promoted out of effectiveness, Lawson struggled, and I did too. I brought my Xerox large account management process into effect with large Lawson accounts, which was not the norm at Lawson. That effort served me well, and helped me to manage McGraw Hill as the larger SAP and Oracle’s tried to lure them away from Lawson.
After a solid 18 months of constant sales struggle at Lawson, but monetary gains, Oracle came knocking- offering me a position in their applications group serving the Mid Market. Apparently their Mid Market lost an account to some “Hot shot” sales rep at Lawson, and they decided to find out who that might be.
With the same determined focus I had shown when I began my career at Savin, I jumped at the chance to work for the company I really thought would help me reach the pinnacle of my sales career. The seas parted, the angels sang and I reported into Jim Wiberly in the New York office.
Guess I should have known what I was in for, as I appeared in the New York office for my first day, and every secretary would ask me “Who’s assistant are you” and were in disbelief when I told them I was a sales rep. I write about Oracle like an endearing relative that could be dam annoying, yet also interesting at the same time. I met some great people, talented people, bad people and realize later that in some cases, the people were not “bad” but the process they worked in was broken.
In any event, as a marathon runner, and just a type “A” dogged and determined person- I was determined that Oracle was NOT going to chew me up and spit me out, as I watched the “machine” do on a weekly basis to my peers. I spare you my hurdles and the many many machinations that presented themselves in my path- but let’s just say I was tumbled and tossed and fluffed but made money in the school of hard knocks working overtime.
Just as the “spin” cycle was ready for yet another round, and I had another run-in with the “Boys Club” at Oracle, I decided I had enough. One area that Oracle did not address, yet even Lawson had caught onto was- Financial Reporting. Lawson aligned with esbase, which became Hyperion. OLAP was in its infancy, yet I liked the value statement in the offering. While it seemed like everyone was implementing ERP, and that field felt to crowded- I certainly had the option to head over to SAP and even paid Henry a call at PeopleSoft, but one area I kept seeing in the ERP installs I sold, was the need to get the information the customers really wanted. The logical next step to get the information you really wanted out of those transactional systems was BI tools.
And along came SAS, actually by accident. I sniffed around Hyperion, but the sales infrastructure at the time reminded me of Oracle. A recruiter came a knocking, and for the first time I listened, and what they were selling was a position at SAS. The “kinder Gentler privately held company” voted the best place to work; who could not fall in love with a company that had women in management and a campus that seemed like a corporate Disney Land? I interviewed with Annette Green, an ex- systems engineer who was now a sales director, with the promise I could work from my home instead of the 1 plus hour commute to the local SAS office- I started my career in BI.
Now the culture at SAS really caught me by surprise, and what had seemed like great selling points when I interviewed, I later realized was the Achilles heel of the company- so once more the school of hard knocks had to kick in to give me a lesson again.
The “woman in management” which I thought was a plus, actually had the opposite effect. While some of the women in this “girls club” were talented and bright- they also grew up at SAS, having never worked anywhere else, so their view was limited, and their approach to new folks like me- who they claimed to hire for our new “perspective”- was fearful. This fear evolved over time into the worse command and control management I had witnessed since my early days in copier sales, and frankly some of the worse discrimination I have ever seen.
If I was a psychologist, I am sure this would all make sense, but when you are in the trenches trying to make your quota with a sales infrastructure made up of people that had been essentially telemarketers, and leaned on “Solution Selling” as if it were the bible. I tried coming to the table with an idealist attitude in the quest to make things better, and was shot down repeatedly- and even watched as a talented sales manager Ed LaPerche, who could charm the pants off of Larry Ellison and Osama Bin Laden, while running circles around the sales infrastructure at SAS, was also shot down, despite his professional and strategic efforts to make SAS successful.
Heck let’s face it, the year was 2001, if it wasn’t for the economic downturn, SAS would have been vacant from any sales talent, with a lousy comp plan and infantile sales infrastructure.
I learned a lot- when I got off the fact that SAS just won’t be a sales/marketing company and accepted it for the quirky happy technology company that it was, and once I did, ironically I began to experience success. While my managers changed almost quarterly, and our comp plans never seemed to be delivered until March for that calendar sales year. Life at SAS continued and my 4th child was born.
While I returned from my maternity leave; change was already in the air. My start up Mid Market group lost it’s leader and was funneled into another business group; one that really has no interest in our success. Our underdog team struggled through the year, and actually came out better than anyone anticipated, but it wasn’t enough to keep us in tact. They made the decision to do away with the growing Mid Market group, and subsequently let me go.
Well, three strikes and your out! I decided to take the SAS severance package and start my own business offering business coaching and development. I enjoy the experiences I am having as well as the incredible people I meet.
This brings me up to date, for now; after all I am quite the multi-tasking girl on the move. I also have a strong tug towards philanthropy, and have started various organizations to support initiatives to help children. Operation Children, Hope 4 Peace, and community initiatives to help the great people locally and beyond.
Currently, I am busy growing an IT recruiting business, as well as working as a coach for an incredible executive coaching firm. I am fostering the writing of a book by my children, inspired by our meeting and interview with the Dalai Lama. They want to interview business/political/entertainment leaders with a series of questions around how children can promote peace in the world- it is absolutely inspiring. I am also a wife, mother, neighbor, and people addict- meeting new people and learning from them in the quest that they will experience and can take away something from me.
If you read more of my blog, you’ll discover that I love investigative inside news (as opposed to random rants). Although I strive to be more “random” and “blog like” in my writings- keep me in line by letting me know how I am doing.
Thank you for visiting and check back often!

Hope Blaythorne