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Company: VMware, Palo Alto, CA
Entry Submitted By: Visualize
Company Description: VMware is the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop to the datacenter. Customers of all sizes rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. Founded in 1998, VMware employs more than 13,000 people worldwide, and is based in Palo Alto, California.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Process of the Year

Nomination Title: VMware Americas' Sales Process

Tell the story about your organization's sales process implementation since the beginning of July 2011 (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

In January of 2011, Mark Reynolds joined VMware as their Americas Enablement Director. His critical business issue was to exceed VMware’s internal growth target - -doubling revenue in three years. The core market was growing at a rate that was not fast enough to achieve this FY13 goal.

Though Americas Sales communicated value messages about their flagship cloud product, they struggled to deliver an overall value proposition for their newly expanded portfolio of products and services. With an expanded suite to sell, VMware’s Americas Sales was ineffective at calling higher and wider to access power during sales cycles. In addition, Americas Sales lacked repeatable, scalable processes.

Mark believed that the Americas would need to create this common process internally to align with Marketing and other partners by adopting a consistent selling framework.

He chose and deployed the ValueSelling Framework®, a simple, scalable approach that strengthened pipeline management and armed the Field with a unifying approach to engage in selling adjacencies beyond vSphere – the leading virtualization platform for building cloud infrastructures - -something that had previously been a transactional sale.

America’s Enablement Mission was created. Its goals were to arm Sales with the skills, knowledge and learning tools necessary for them to raise productivity and exceed quota, thus increasing revenue; to aim them in the right direction regarding whom to have a conversation with; and to inspire them to be successful, motivated leaders and to succeed in sales execution and delivery.

To further maximize best-in-class sales process, Mark deployed coaching certifications, measurement, leadership calls, office hours, reinforcement webinars, social media postings, and opportunity assessments – to drive the evolution across the company. These efforts continue to produce significant results:

• For consistent execution, the ValueSelling Framework® is now a required part of pre-call planning, at the heart of all enablement materials, and used to empower managers to coach more effectively during executive briefings, forecast reviews and discounting discussions.
• The ValuePrompter® and its elements are now the feeder for the demo outline. When the teams are doing discovery using the ValueSelling process, they capture this within the ValuePrompter®. The contents then become the genesis of the demo outline.
• The organization has shifted from a transactional, product-centric model to a solution-selling model.
• Bookings for America’s core product soared and are projected to hit their revenue targets in FY13.
• From Q3 YoY, the improvement of total non-infrastructure license bookings among those trained was 80% higher than non-participants. The improvement of average deal-size (all-in) among those trained was 107% higher than non-participants.

As a result of the processes Mark introduced, VMware recently won a $6 Million account. VMware executives shared that their sales rep truly understood the customer’s critical business issues and goals, allowing the rep and his team to craft a game plan that clearly aligned the customer’s strategic business plan directly with VMware’s unique solutions to ensure a win.

Attachments/Videos/Links:

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-earnings-q312.html (VMware Reports Third Quarter 2012 Results)

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-earnings-q212.html(VMware Reports Second Quarter 2012 Results)

VMware Reports First Quarter 2012 Results(VMware Reports First Quarter 2011 Results)

http://www.vmware.com/company/news/releases/vmw-earnings-q112.html (VMware Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2011 Results

http://www.vmware.com/company/customers/ (VMware Customer Success Stories)

Mark’s LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/markcameronreynolds

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the team that developed and/or implemented the nominated sales process:

Mark Reynolds is the Americas Enablement Director for the Sales Strategy and Transformation team at VMware, Inc., the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions enabling businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Within the $4Billion company, he enables the VMware Field to successfully sell and deliver VMware solutions via knowledge, skills, and tools.

Prior to VMware, Mark, held leadership roles at Equinix, Interwoven, BEA Systems, Siebel Systems, and Oracle. A California native who grew up ski racing, Mark graduated from the University of Virginia. He resides in the Silicon Valley with his wife and three children.