Spark of Ages
In every episode, we interview B2B Marketing leaders, executives, and innovators about their successes and challenges, asking them how they broke through and what spark in their careers took them to the next level.
Spark of Ages
Modern Sales Skills For a Digital Buyer/Elay Cohen - SalesHood, Enteprise, Taylor Swift ~ Spark of Ages Ep 34
Elay Cohen, CEO and co-founder of SalesHood, shares his journey from Salesforce to pioneering the sales enablement category through his AI-driven platform.
• Built SalesHood to address the unmet need for scalable sales enablement solutions
• Pioneered sales enablement at Salesforce, helping scale revenue from $300M to $3B
• Created a direct connection between sales ramp time and company performance
• Focus on leading indicators (meetings booked, pipeline created) vs lagging indicators (quota attainment)
• Essential modern sales skills: curiosity, storytelling, communications, and effective meeting management
• AI role-playing driving 231% more enablement activities with 45% fewer enablement staff
• Digital sales rooms and mutual action plans transforming strategic account management
• Building compelling events requires co-creation and understanding the sequence of events
• Trusted his gut to build SalesHood despite VCs claiming "sales tech isn't a big enough market"
• Draws inspiration from both Steve Jobs (minimalism, vision) and Taylor Swift (connection, community)
What happens when one of the architects behind Salesforce's explosive growth decides to revolutionize sales enablement for everyone? Elay Cohen, who helped scale Salesforce from $300M to $3B as SVP of Sales Productivity, takes us behind the scenes of his journey founding SalesHood, an AI-driven sales enablement platform transforming how companies prepare their teams for success.
The numbers are staggering - SalesHood customers are achieving 231% more enablement activities with 45% fewer staff, and seeing win rates jump from 57% to over 100% increases through AI-powered training. But this conversation goes deeper than metrics, revealing the fundamental shift happening in sales today.
We explore the critical distinction between leading and lagging indicators in sales performance, why the first five minutes of a customer meeting determines success, and how the best strategic account managers are co-creating compelling events with their champions. Eli shares practical frameworks like MEDDICC for managing complex deals and explains why digital sales rooms are becoming essential for modern selling.
Beyond the tactical insights, Eli takes us through his entrepreneurial journey - including the moment VCs told him "the sales tech market isn't big enough" (they were spectacularly wrong), and why trusting your gut sometimes trumps what the data tells you. His unexpected inspiration from both Steve Jobs and Taylor Swift reveals the perfect blend of minimalist precision and community-building that drives his approach to business.
Whether you're in sales, marketing, enablement, or leadership, this conversation offers a masterclass in how AI is transforming go-to-market execution while making the fundamental human elements of selling more important than ever. Ready to reimagine how your team prepares to win? This is your blueprint.
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Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Elay Cohen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elaycohen
Elay is the CEO and co-founder of SalesHood, an AI-driven sales enablement platform. As CEO and co-found
Website: https://www.position2.com/podcast/
Rajiv Parikh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajivparikh/
Sandeep Parikh: https://www.instagram.com/sandeepparikh/
Email us with any feedback for the show: spark@postion2.com
Hello and welcome to the Spark of Ages podcast. Today's guest is Eli Cohen. Eli is the CEO and co-founder of Saleshood, an AI-driven sales enablement platform. As CEO and co-founder of Saleshood, eli is on a mission to empower sales and marketing teams to go to market smarter and faster. Prior to Sales hood, eli held key roles at Salesforce and Oracle. As Salesforce's SVP of sales productivity, he helped scale revenues from $300 million to $3 billion that's a 10x effect and co-pioneered sales empowerment with Mark Benioff.
Speaker 1:Eli is a recognized leader in the sales industry, having been named Salesforce's Executive of the Year in 2011 and acknowledged by Entrepreneur Magazine and LinkedIn as the top innovative mover and shaker in sales leadership and one of the world's top sales experts. He's also the author of the bestselling book Enablement Mastery and Sales Hood how Winning Sales Managers Inspire Sales Teams to Succeed. Sharing his insights on effective sales strategies, eli is also a graduate from the University of Toronto and the Schulich School of Business. Some of the key takeaways you can expect from this episode the sales enablement landscape and what Eli Cohen did to start Saleshood. What it takes to scale revenue and what it took Eli to pioneer sales enablement at Salesforce. Key skills for virtual and digital sales how to leverage AI and sales enablement. Eli, welcome to the Spark of Ages.
Speaker 2:Great to be here. Sounds like we got a lot to cover.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. I'm so glad you're here. I know you pretty well. Over the last few years, you and I have done a lot of events together. More recently, we are co-founders with our close friend AJ, who did one of the early episodes with us with the Go-To-Market Leadership Society, so-called GLS, where we have all kinds of events for the community, and you're, of course, handling the sales and revenue side. I'm handling more of the marketing side, so it's been super fun working with you.
Speaker 2:Super fun. It's been great to get to know you and your team and just yeah, the Go-To--market society is a special, special group. I'm happy to be happy to have co-founded it with you.
Speaker 1:That's right. We love starting things and building community with it. So let's talk about this. What unmet need in the sales enablement landscape did you identify? Like, what got you to leave Salesforce and really embark on this entrepreneurial journey with sales hood? Because I mean, you look, you're an executive rising up, stock prices exploding. What got you to go start your own business? Yeah, no space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, listen, there are moments in time when you see something and you see a white space in the market, and that was my moment of clarity where I thought, okay, there's a real opportunity here to bring to market a turnkey, scalable sales enablement solution, a SaaS platform, to ultimately deliver to the world what we did at Salesforce. So I'll tell you a quick story. At Salesforce, we pioneered sales enablement and every month we were hiring reps, every quarter we'd add more reps and we were always trying to bring down the amount of time it would take to ramp teams. Think about it If we could get our salespeople hitting quota faster, what would happen? They would close more deals. And if they closed more deals, what would happen? The Salesforce stock would go up because we were reporting contracts and subscribers at the time. So there was a direct correlation between ramp time of salespeople and the stock price.
Speaker 2:So we had that map down, and so that was why Mark and I we worked closely and we were doing some really innovative things around sales enablement things like standing and delivering meaning, like getting salespeople to practice their pitch, to be able to get certified on their pitches and we were doing a lot of these innovative sales enablement programs training, coaching, pitch practice, playbooks and Mark's vision was want to make sure everybody's on message meaning he wants, wherever Mark was around the world, whatever deal he was talking about, playbooks. And Mark's vision was want to make sure everybody's on message, meaning he wants, wherever Mark was around the world, whatever deal he was talking about, whichever customer he was meeting, he wanted to make sure the sales team were saying the same thing. Right, that was the essence alignment, rajiv, like alignment, and so how do you deliver alignment at scale? Right, and so the story for me is it know it's back in 2011, 2012. I left early 2013.
Speaker 2:And one of my teams was the executive briefing center.
Speaker 2:That was one of the teams that I ran, and executives would come in all the time and I was the exec that would welcome them, and they always asked me the same question how are you getting your teams on message? How are you growing so fast, how, how, how. And we would tell them the story you know, like what they would do in bootcamp, what they would do with their teams. And then they would look at me and say, wait a minute, how many people do you have on your team, eli? And I'd say, well, about 120 people on the enablement team. And they go oh, we only have one or two people. And so that became kind of apparent to me that we needed to deliver the same best practices of sales enablement that we're doing at Salesforce, but we need to do it more efficiently yet without losing any of the effectiveness. So, rajiv, that was the kernel, that was the essence of it and that inspired me to kind of start SalesHood, found SalesHood and create the discipline and create the category that's now called sales enablement.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, I think it's. So. You see what's happening in the larger company. You have a massive team and you're like, wow, I can boil that into a platform and offer that to many, many people. So when you think about sales revenue, we'll go to market. What's the first place you'd start at? Is there a framework that you use, and what have you found to be important for businesses that utilize that kind of framework?
Speaker 2:Right. So, listen, most companies are at different stages in their life cycle, and so you've got small companies that need to. What sales enablement means for a small company is very different than what it means for a large company, and so you know, first of all, you got to identify, you know where are you in terms of just the life cycle of the business, and it's not a one size fits all, Rajiv, right. But to answer your question specifically, you know it comes down to leading and lagging indicators. And what are the specific metrics and KPIs that a business is trying to solve? And this is what we do.
Speaker 2:We sit down with companies and we try and help them, we try and guide them on implementing the right kind of sales enablement, Because there is such a thing as bad sales enablement, Because if you're going to enable people and you're enabling them on the wrong thing and you're not solving the right metrics and KPIs and I'll give you some examples then you end up wasting time, wasting resources, reps leave and you wonder why aren't we hitting our numbers? Why aren't we growing? And so, when we look at some of the leading indicators, these are things like sure, it's time to revenue, it's time to ramp, but I want to be very specific. Let me just back up. The lagging indicators that most people kind of tend to focus on are quota attainment and win rates and sales cycle time. But, Rajiv, those are lagging right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that happens months and months after you've already started something, so you don't know if you're on the right path yet, right?
Speaker 2:And if you're a B2B software company and you've got you know kind of a six to nine month sales cycle and you've got someone who is, you know, 12 to 18 month ramp time, like you're two years later when you find out this person wasn't a fit. So I want to look at leading indicators, and those leading indicators are things like you know meetings booked, you know things like pipeline created and things like pipeline progression, and so you know, I think, as leaders sales and marketing leaders think about how they're going to embrace sales enablement to ultimately achieve kind of great revenue outcomes. It's so critical from a framework perspective that you are getting aligned with your leadership team on one of the most important leading indicators and lagging indicators and then build programs and invest on the leading indicators and then the rest will follow.
Speaker 1:Got it. That's a great way of looking at it, because you're saying it could be. If you do it the other way, you're going to burn two years and not know where you are. So now, as you shift towards vertical right, there's a shift towards vertical and digital interactions with customers, right, there's a shift towards vertical and digital interactions with customers, right. What are the key skills and competencies that sales reps need to succeed in this new environment?
Speaker 2:Right, and so we're talking 2025. We're talking. You know we're post-COVID, you know we're in a world now where some of the fundamentals in selling are increasingly more important. And you know this, this whenever I think about selling and sales acumen and sales skills, I always think of my father, right, because you know my dad is old school retail furniture store. You know, taught me how to sell in Toronto, where I grew up, and taught me the basics of you know how you communicate with customers, how you share a customer. You know kind of tell stories to customers and how you help customers kind of realize, kind of the solution that you're trying to sell them, how it's going to fit into their home. Like, literally, my dad sold furniture Right, and so, like we would help our customers visualize.
Speaker 2:And so when we talk about 2025, right, we need to be, we need to be curious. So it's so important that we're asking questions, it's so important that we are being authentically curious and asking the right questions. Right, it's so important that when we are engaging with prospects, that we are curious not just about kind of them, but their industry, their competition, and so we're doing the research ahead of time. And Rajiv, of course, ai can help. However, you know what the best salespeople are rolling up their sleeves and they're focusing in on what's most important to the people that they're speaking with. So curiosity, storytelling, and now, in this age of you know, think about it.
Speaker 2:I think the stats are now buyers. When they show up, you know, to that first call, they're already 60 to 70% the way through in their buyer's journey. Right, and so you really have one shot. And so, if I'm a salesperson, I got to make the most of that meeting and I love this. How do you turn that meeting into momentum? And I like to believe that the best, the pros out there, when that meeting happens, they're treating that meeting like it's the only meeting they're ever going to have. With that prospect, you get one shot and you actually get five minutes, and in those five minutes, if you haven't set the agenda properly, if you haven't demonstrated you know kind of that you're curious about their business and if you're just pitching, pitching, pitching, then then you know what the customer is going to go to your competitor.
Speaker 1:Right? No, no one wants the first meeting for someone just launching into their pitch. Right, they want to know who you are, but they want to know you care about their business and, frankly, with the tools that we have today, they expect you to come in knowing quite a bit about them. You can't just do a big ass discovery call in the first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but in 2025, right. I think it's also interesting, right, because we've got concepts like digital sales rooms, because we can share content ahead of time, because we can actually track kind of insights, right. So, like Rajiv, let's pretend that I'm selling you, right?
Speaker 2:And I know you're, you know you're, you're, you're CEO and I know you know your, rajiv. Let's pretend that I'm selling to you, right, and I know you're your CEO and I know you know your company, I know your company size and I know you've got some some interest in some sales solution issues. Right, I could if I'm a good salesperson, I could give you some some information to read ahead of time. I could share with you a customer testimonial video. I could share with you some curated content that demonstrates to you that I've been thoughtful about your business. I've been thoughtful about you. Now, rajiv, you may or may not decide to look at it, but guess what, if you do take a look at it, then when you join the call and we're having a very, very kind of thoughtful, you know, guided conversation, it's a hey, rajiv, what'd you think of those stories? Oh my God, how did you like you nailed it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you nailed it for me right.
Speaker 2:Maybe you didn't watch it right. So the best salespeople are curious, they're telling stories, they're really executing meetings like clockwork and they're leveraging the before and the after of meetings in a very, very way, leveraging the latest in technology. And those are some of the things. Right, I really think salespeople today the best ones are just they're amazing at execution.
Speaker 1:And so they're ready, they've grounded out and they pounded oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, there's so much to say, but the last one, which is so, so, so underrated, is, like this is crazy Sales communications or just basic communications, like how you write an email, you know how you communicate, you know before and after a meeting, and like I want to work with someone that can write easy to read English, plain English email. So these are the skills right. So if you're a salesperson out there and you're asking yourself what's it going to take to be successful in 25?, you know curiosity, storytelling, communications, you know meeting management before, during and after and leveraging technology so that way you can share information with folks, right? These are some of the things.
Speaker 1:Every touch point of a company matters, and that's where you put the pedal to the metal right, absolutely. Now, like you mentioned a little bit about AI and I know you've transformed your product as well to incorporate AI, so it's transforming businesses we're spending more on AI. If you're going to spend more on AI, it's going to come from your IT budget, so you're probably going to spend less on other enterprise applications. How do you view this world? I mean, how do you view this kind of change that's happening? Do you expect people to spend less overall? Are they spending more overall? Are they taking it from one place and putting it in the other?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a great question. I've got some analyst information to share and then I've got some real-life use cases from our own customers to share. And first, I think, from a mindset perspective, organizations that are leaning into leveraging AI to help them become more effective and more efficient. And professionals, whether you're a salesperson, whether you're a marketer, whether you're in sales enablement, whoever you are if you're not embracing AI to be more effective and efficient, then you will be outperformed by your competition and by your peers in the industry. So it's a heads up. If you're not already all over this, you're already behind. And so when we look at kind of the discussion of like, are we displacing dollars, like? There was a stat I saw last week from Gartner that basically shared that. You know, when I was at Salesforce, we were spending approximately $2,500 per rep per year on kind of everything that they needed to be successful. Just think about that. Right, you do that across 5,000 salespeople. You get a feel for what the budget is. They're saying that in by 2030, you know that spend is going to be 4x more, but it's not going to be more salespeople, it's going to be more AI solutions, and so companies are now looking at investing more, but using AI to get the teams to be more efficient. Now, rajiv, more efficient in what? More efficient in research, more efficient in communications, more efficient in personalized selling, more efficient in curating All those skills I talked about. Those skills are increasingly more important, but now AI makes you more efficient.
Speaker 2:Now a quick, a quick story with our customers. We analyzed 2024 data. So we've got an amazing set of customers and we've got you know, so we anonymized some, some data and so we looked at, we looked at efficiency and then we looked at kind of the effectiveness Right, and so in 2024, our customer base saw a decline by 45 percent in the number of enablement. People. Think about that for a second. Forty five percent less enable people. Now you would think, with 45 percent less enable people, how much more enablement do you think? How much would enablement have gone down?
Speaker 1:you would think it would be either a commensurate amount or maybe there's some savings like 20% Right.
Speaker 2:Like you got less people, you're going to do less enablement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 231% increase, increase Because of AI, because of AI tools.
Speaker 2:Because you know, imagine, remember I shared a little bit about kind of that essence at Salesforce, where we were doing pitch practice and we were running around the world and sort of find people on the pitch. Now, with AI and with AI role-playing, you know you don't need to have a manager providing feedback, you don't need to have an enablement person. You know salesperson logs in and it's, and it knows your, it knows its calendar, the AI knows the calendar, it knows what meetings are coming up, it knows, it knows, it knows and it can say hey, rajiv, it's been a while since you practiced your pitch. Why don't we go through it together and I can sit there and practice it 5, 10 times and get very thoughtful, consistent feedback. And so AI role-playing was one of the top use cases for us in 2024. But it's incredible 45% decline in efficiency in resources and a 231% increase Real data right.
Speaker 1:So they're flipping it it essentially from people to tools. They're flipping it from people to tools and maybe getting even more practice and more confirmation and more coaching, and so really that this is the idea.
Speaker 2:And the benefit. The benefit is faster, faster time to revenue.
Speaker 1:So the customer, how much faster are you seeing? So we're seeing, we.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we're seeing let's actually look at a lagging indicator now, because after 12 months we're seeing win rates bounce up from about 57 to north of 100% increase when you've got a sales team that is leveraging AI to practice, leveraging AI to personalize and leveraging AI to actually close deals, they're winning more business, 57% to 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. And one of our other customers one of our customers just told got an email on Friday from Star Compliance. I can show this publicly. They shared it. It and, uh, you know from from star compliance, I can show this publicly. They shared it and they said, like in quarter, you know, after leveraging ai, you know, to kind of complement their whole kickoff experience, they saw a 10 lift in win rates, like in quarter that's amazing.
Speaker 1:These are real numbers. That's a big turnaround, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, that's incredible, not like nine months later, and like some correlation causal, this is like the only thing that changed was the reps were doing this 10 to 15 time practice.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. And so then you can do that. You can monitor it, you can you know, you can figure out what you know and you can do great correlation. It's amazing. So when you're so, what are the like some of the common pitfalls that companies should avoid when they're implementing these AI-powered sales enablement tools? So how do you make sure that the tools are aligned with the strategy and objectives?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's a great question. Not all AI is equal, and I think first you have to trust your AI. What do you guys do to build trust? Well, we guarantee to our customers that the you know we have a private LLM per customer and when a customer uses SalesHood's AI, it's content aware and organizationally aware and it's a multi-tenant system and a multi-tenant infrastructure, so you know everything is protected right. It's not like pointing your people to chat GPT or Gemini and it's out there it's not, yeah, same thing.
Speaker 1:Like I've had that concern when I've shown some of the demos of what we're building and they're like, well, I don't want that stuff to go back to Gemini. I'm like, no, it's not going to go back to Gemini. We may be using Gemini or some equivalent, but you're going to get your own private LLM or even, however we implement it, your data does not get shared with the engines or with other customers.
Speaker 2:Exactly so. Trust, trust, trust. You got to make sure that it's only looking at your data and that it's not being shared in the public domain, right, so I'm leading with trust. Another lesson from Mark when it comes to kind of building, building trust with, with, with customers, I think. I think another lesson for folks is you know, be careful when you, when you're evaluating partners, that it's really not a unified experience. You're evaluating partners that it's really not a unified AI experience, it's not a really like a unified data model. So if you've got a company that you're evaluating, you know you really want to look at their data model. Are they a company that acquired six to 10 companies? And then are you really going to get the lift and the benefit of AI? Because you want to start working with companies that have kind of an end-to-end solution across the life cycle of the solution that you're buying or evaluating, and it'll look at all the data, it'll look at all the content.
Speaker 1:Yes, the architecture versus market.
Speaker 2:It's the architecture.
Speaker 1:Architecture versus market Architecture, right? People will say, yes, we have a common name for my product and it's really 10 different disparate tools that when you actually work with it, nothing works together, right? So, yeah, if you're a best breed solution and you do it right, you can actually make it look seamless in the way it's put together with other, with other platforms. So there's all kinds of cool ways of doing that. So you're right, totally right. Um, let's talk about major account selling okay, I love it.
Speaker 2:what it? One of the one of the.
Speaker 1:When I I was in sales, it was early in my career. I went from engineering into technology sales and one of the first things I did was learn all about strategic selling, major account selling, um. How do you think about that, um, from from the point of view of you know, it's very different from one-to-one selling for one sales to one person, to one customer, and that customer is the buyer, the user, et cetera, and the evaluator, whereas you're in major account selling, you have a whole team.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right, and then a lot of times as part of that, as part of leading that effort, it's not all on you as a salesperson. You're really the person that's driving a whole team of folks to sell with you, right? So executives play a pivotal role in building relationships as part of this. So what are the most effective strategies for helping to prepare executives before sales and customer calls to ensure that there's great alignment in the way that sales process runs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we could spend a whole day on this topic. There's a lot here, rajiv. So selling into big accounts and ultimately trying to close these whale opportunities isn't easy. And I think, when we think about these large accounts I'm going to start with, there's an internal team and an external team. And the internal team you've got to make sure your team is aligned. And so if I'm a salesperson owning a strategic account, then you know, if I'm a professional, you know in my job and in my trade and I'm really a pro here and I want to make sure my team is aligned Right. So you're ensuring that there's always, you know, clear roles of responsibility who's on first, who's doing what? And if you're going to start pulling in internal people from the organization, then you want to make sure folks are aligned.
Speaker 2:Now, now, when you're closing these large, these large, large deals, and we're talking, you know, depending, let's just, let's just quantify large, which is like what does what does large mean, like like million? Because it, you know, it depends. Let's just, let's just quantify large. What does large mean Like like million? Cause it's depending, right, if you're an S.
Speaker 1:It depends Right. If a small deal right, 20, 40, $50,000 a year, is that a small deal?
Speaker 2:That's yeah, I'd say the bigger so let's let's just or the potential to drive millions of dollars a year for your company. So if I'm a salesperson and I'm owning an account and it's my job to kind of pull in a million dollars, I'm going to leverage my internal team, you know, to ultimately help me. You know, do the research, sell value and build relationships, you know, across the organization, right, that I'm selling to Now on the external side, right, what's happening today is now, you know, there's a champion, there's an economic buyer, there's stakeholders, there's influencers, right, and you've got 10, 20, 30 people that are now going to participate. So, as a salesperson, I not only need to align my team, I need to now find a champion and then truly align with, with, with, with that person and help them sell the solution that we're proposing into their business.
Speaker 1:Right, right. This is the coach right, the coach in the account. It could be your champion in the account. It could be a little bit of both Right, and so you've got to help them sell for you.
Speaker 2:You, you've, you've got to help them and listen, things like Medic helps a lot.
Speaker 1:Just real quick Medic is.
Speaker 2:So Medic is a sales kind of process framework and it's kind of universal in the software industry Metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process Some people call it MedPick, and P is the paper process. I is implications of pain, c is competition, c is also champion and some people have three C's, which the third C would be compelling event, and so when a sales leader in an organization embraces medic, they use it to help align the internal team around the key plays you're going to run on the strategic account and then ultimately it's a guide for how you're going to work with the champion, how you're going to win over the economic buyer, and tools like a mutual action plan, tools like a digital sales room, really helps drive alignment at scale. Right, because now you've got 20, 30 people you're selling to but you're never really going to know who they are. So if you've got a champion that you've partnered with and they understand how you're going to help them solve their number one business problem and they're truly bought in on you being kind of the primary and you've got a great partnership here, right Now you've got to help them sell.
Speaker 2:How do you help them sell Rajiv? You help them set up this digital sales room. You put all the demos in there, the stories in there, you got a mutual plan and then they start inviting the stakeholders because they realize, wow, this is an amazing resource for my company to help us make a decision faster, right? And so I've just described kind of what a B2B strategic account selling process looks like and I got a quick story to tell you, because the one thing I want everyone to understand is, if you think you're selling your product when you're actually working a million dollar plus deal, it's not your product, it's their top issue and the impact on that issue to their business. And you know, I think it's really important that you're focused in on solving problems. That's why curiosity is critical, that's why doing your research, that's why building relationships, is critical, yeah, cause you're always connecting back.
Speaker 2:You're always connecting back.
Speaker 1:To their biggest problem. So, while you're in the details of whatever you're trying to do, biggest problem, so, while you're in the details of whatever you're trying to do, always help them connect back. And this also gets to that notion of when a lot of times these deals start, they move along and they don't seem to close right. They don't close because they get stalled, there's not enough urgency for something. So, like you talked about this notion of the compelling event, right, so you have a compelling event driving deal urgency. So what are the best ways to uncover that compelling event?
Speaker 1:in those large accounts, because I mean, many times it just goes along and along and everybody says they're in and there's nothing to drive them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, compelling event is a really hard concept for sales teams, success teams, for organizations, to really embrace, because, for whatever reason, we all have happy ears and you know, like, for example, rajiv, let's just say I was selling you and you needed help with a program and you said to me, hey, I got to roll out this program by Jan 1. And I'd say, okay, great, rajiv, let's talk about that and I'd understand what the program is, I'd understand, kind of the impact of you rolling out this program. And then, in order for us I'm going to use a word here to co-create a compelling event, we need to really understand more about your business, your timelines, your internal, because most people think that Jan one event is a compelling event. It's actually not.
Speaker 2:You got to work backwards and it's called a sequence of events. Because then I'd say, rajiv, well, listen, if you're going to be live by Jan one, this is so critical to your business, let's go back in time. You're right. That means we need to have a system, a pilot system, a proof of concept, up and running, you know, probably by the late summer. You know, and the reason why I say late summer, because on Labor Day, then all of a sudden people.
Speaker 1:So you really got to map back right, because you map back Well. First, I think what you're talking about is you got to understand what that when somebody says Jan 1, that may be the beginning of a calendar year or fiscal year or something, but under year or fiscal year or something. But in many companies sometimes they blow past that date and they don't make a decision by that date. So you have to understand what is significant about the date. Is it a make or break for them?
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And then you're going all the way back and you have all this stuff that could get in the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, by the way, you know what could get in the way.
Speaker 2:Here's the thing right, if we don't work backwards and start anchoring around some internal dates that are important to your business because, rajiv, you know I'm selling you right, you know your internal IT, you know how long decisions take, you know how important it is to your CEO, to your decision team, that they're going to run a proof of concept before they're going to go widespread this thing, and so that means that we're doing a Q4 rollout, and if we don't insert that as a co-created event, then you know what happens.
Speaker 2:Things happen and maybe you do an internal solve. Maybe your IT team says, hey, you know what, we could probably build something, maybe, or maybe the priority really isn't the top priority, but if I'm a salesperson and, and if we're, if I'm working with you, rajiv, and your executive team, and we're collaborating and we're and, and you know what and like, and if I miss that september date, right, and if you go silent on me in september, then at least I know that's information versus if we were tracking January and then I got no way to make up for it that I've completely missed my number.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and I think that I find that on both sides like there's the happy ears on the salesperson side, the happy ears on the executive side we want to see that pipeline grow, we have numbers to hit and then on the other side the client thinks I find this a lot that the people we're selling to are very optimistic about their ability to push things through. They don't realize how many layers they have to go through and who they have to persuade and frankly and you get annoyed at them, but it's not their fault, that's your fault, that's your job to help them understand that and to help them work together with you. So I love your notion of co-creation.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, you've got a very large community of amazing marketers out there and marketing does and should play an active role in sales enablement right, and they do. They create playbooks, they create competitive battle cards, but here's something I'm not seeing enough marketers leaning into is documenting compelling events, documenting trigger events by role, by persona, and then driving urgency and providing those resources and assets in terms of how to run a contest To help drive it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, help drive it Right. I think you always have to have I mean, at least I find this in my world have a bunch of events that you can get more touches with or to force more interactions with at a senior and the actual user, buyer Just because you sold the senior person on it doesn't mean the one that's actually going to use it is going to be on your side. What are you doing to wake them up? A lot of that is marketing's job and I find companies don't do that in terms of their buyer definition, in terms of understanding how important it is to accelerate the endpoint. So it's just huge. It's just huge.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, here's what Medic does right, and Medic teaches people to have these kinds of conversations with the champion. And therefore, and and therefore, Rajiv, when we get a call and we've got a mutual action plan and we've written down these milestone dates, then I can get curious with you, rajiv, and I can say well, rajiv, we've got this August 15th date, which is kind of the, the launch date. So who else in your organization needs to? It needs to be aligned with this date, and what other people do? We need to make sure that this is going to, you know, kind of meet their requirements and and. And you mentioned that mary is the economic buyer. How aligned is this with her top priorities? Right, and your answers will tell me, yeah, and ultimately qualify whether this is real or not. This deal, and and and if we can't have that open conversation, you know two, three months before getting signature, and we're never going to get signature on an msa or a contract right, not for a million dollar deal.
Speaker 2:Not for a million, yeah, or $10 million, a huge deal right, whatever it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have to be working together and have really open conversations. So I love this. It's like we're getting to share all of our best techniques. I love this.
Speaker 2:Right. Oh, it's great.
Speaker 1:You're awesome with this and you get to live in it every day. So I mean, I just wonder, like, if I go back to what got you to do what you wanted to do, what got you to this point right? A lot of times you just some people are accidental entrepreneurs, some people aren't. So, like, did you always know that you wanted to work in this kind of technology field? Was there like a specific moment, was there a project that got you to go this way, like while you were at salesforce? Or did you know from as a kid that this is the way you were going to go? You mentioned your father had a furniture business. Yeah, so, uh, how'd you discover this? What sparked you?
Speaker 2:so discover what you mean, like the entrepreneurial bug, the entrepreneurial bug and to go into something entrepreneurial with the technology platform you know when, when I was so yeah, listen, watching my father, you know, kind of run a furniture store and build something from nothing, and you know my dad went bankrupt, you know, and he had to redo it again, so I got to see him rebuild from nothing. It's hard right, and I think and that's something we celebrate right. So I bring it up now, because sometimes it happens you have a bump in the road and that's something we celebrate Right. So I bring it up now because sometimes it happens you have a bump in the road and it's not that, but it's how you recover and what you do from it. I think it's so critical.
Speaker 2:You know, I guess I always liked tech. You know I had a computer. You know I always like video games, but like you know when, when, when the Internet kind of came around I'm going to date myself now, but like we're talking like the mid-90s and when the net came around, and you remember like the way you used to connect to the internet through the dial phone, and you know, when I did my MBA, you know I decided that I wanted to do an entrepreneurial component to my MBA and where we actually partnered with a local digital agency and that was kind of how I, that was one of my credits. And so, and so I was there working with this quote unquote internet company and I remember I remember we were in this is 94. I was, we're in the room and we're evaluating their company and the ultimate credit is to give them a business plan so they can actually turn their digital agency into a real business.
Speaker 2:And the CEO kind of wrote on the board like e-commerce, and said like here's a word, can we just talk about what this word means? And that's when I knew that like we were so early in this internet world and that I really wanted to be a part of it and I knew I needed to be connected to it. And so I left Toronto and moved to San Francisco because I wanted to be where I thought kind of the heart and soul of technology was software technology, silicon Valley. And I knew I was coming down here to start something. I knew I was coming down here to build legacy and I worked at a startup, worked at Oracle, oracle, and was always creating, but always had this, this itch. And it wasn't until that moment when I realized you know what, there's a market here for sales enablement and it actually I can leverage all of my life's experiences to give back to the sales world, to give back to companies so they can actually execute sales as best as they can. And that was it right.
Speaker 1:Did it sort of coalesce with you while you were at Salesforce. It was like this magic moment.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure right.
Speaker 1:Did you always go in and say I want to be an entrepreneur, or did the entrepreneurial moment come to you?
Speaker 2:Well, the golden handcuffs of Salesforce.
Speaker 2:It's hard right, You're getting options rsus absolutely and did very well and I'm super grateful to the company, to mark, to our customers and to just right time. It was 2005, right? I? When I left oracle, folks at oracle were looking at me like I was crazy, like why would you leave and go to that like cloud? It's not a real thing. Literally, that's what they told me in my exit interview and I go back to my dad. He always reminded me don't forget where you're from, don't forget the basics of selling, and I think I always had him in my ear and I speak to him a lot.
Speaker 1:Is that your voice? I speak to him all the time.
Speaker 2:My dad's still going and I love him and he's a very big part of my life, so is my mom and so is my family. I want to make sure that everyone, but I think I'm fortunate that my wife, I think, when we sat down and I said, listen, I really want to build this because I think we can really change the way companies go to market. We can really change kind of the sales profession and elevate it in a whole new way with tech. And this is even pre-AI right. It was mobile, it was social, it was data right.
Speaker 1:It was just like it was a in an interesting way. You've you've by being there before ai, as ai comes in, you can. You're so embedded in that domain knowledge of what works and what doesn't right. Your folks have been writing code, they've been developing it in a particular way and all of a sudden ai comes about and now it's more about your expertise and knowledge and being applied in a dramatically faster way than ever before. Right? So now you're already in and now you got to make the transformation. But you're embedded in that knowledge and you're in a community in Silicon Valley and around the world where that's coming at you day in and day out, so you can jump on it quickly.
Speaker 2:It's true, you asked me a question earlier and you said you know what should companies look for when they're looking for to kind of lean into AI? And you know you do bring up a great point the idea that an AI is purpose-built, and purpose-built for specific use cases, for specific outcomes. I think trust is important, I think unified data model is important, but I think being purpose-built is probably number one. And yeah, we've got, you know, years of experience living it at Salesforce and then you know, a decade here with SalesHood and it's a unified data model, so it enables us to go real fast. And there's so much great AI out there. But you know what you got to ask yourself what problem are you trying to solve, how quickly do you want to solve it and what resources do you have to actually bring it to market in your go-to-market? And uh, those are questions I'd be asking myself. So, uh, yeah, I appreciate that recognition.
Speaker 1:Thanks for jake would ai be your biggest change that you've seen over the career? You mentioned the internet earlier. Is there, like a surprise, uh, being in being in silicon valley's come you know?
Speaker 2:just thinking broadly over the course of your career here in Silicon Valley, right, right, the big megatrends, you know, I think. Well, first, like SaaS, right the idea that because I don't know if you remember ASP there's application service providers.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That was kind of like in 99 when I first came down here. You know we were building server farms and that doesn't scale Right. And so you know what Benioff did with Salesforce was, yeah, it was CRM, but it was really proving out multi-tenancy and it was kind of so that was A right, that was a big shift Right. And then another big shift you know that I remember was you know I mobile, right, you know mobile is, is, is so big, and I think, uh, you know you remember when, when steve jobs came out with the ipad, like that was like like whoa, you mean you can like have your computer on an ipad and you can run around and and so mobile was big. And then social right, all of a sudden, you know we're social right and and then, and then data became so central to the story. So these were, all you know, super, super interesting, big, big, mega trends that we all experienced.
Speaker 2:But I think what AI does, and why I think AI is the biggest, is it actually goes back further in time and I think we could take the best of what we had in the 60s and the 70s and 80s with solution selling I'm talking about sales right now. Right, we could take the best and the promise of automation and we didn't really quite realize the benefits of automation, you know, I think. But Gen AI and AI now takes kind of the best of old school, the best of new school, right, data, video, mobile right.
Speaker 2:And brings it all together and delivers it to people like in milliseconds. Right, because we created this world where there's so much data, there's so much content, and now we've confused people. We've almost it's almost like paralysis a little bit, because customer-facing selling time has dropped, productivity has dropped quota attainment All these benefits that we'd hoped to achieve haven't yet happened. And now we are realizing the promise, because now, if you're leveraging AI in your business, you can get answers to questions like you've never before. Your team can get feedback on things. Your buyers are going to be able to get answers to their questions, and this is a millisecond. So to me, this is the biggest shift.
Speaker 1:This is the biggest yeah. So I like how you lay it out, eli, how it all comes together right. You wouldn't have it if all the systems weren't connected together. If you didn't have this ASP or cloud infrastructure, you didn't have the ability to get access to information from wherever you are, to collect data from all these different touch points. So it has to come together, and AI enables it to come together super quickly, so that's a great way of putting it All right, Eli. Now it's time for the game, the game.
Speaker 1:So you may not know this, but this is a special feature of the Spark of Ages. So welcome to the Spark Tank, where we ignite the power of association and uncover the hidden connections within the minds of today's most influential leaders. And today we're thrilled to have Eli Cohen, a master of sales strategy and the architect of revenue growth, joining us. So today isn't your typical sales pitch. This is where the art of persuasion meets the spontaneity of thought, where sales enablement collides with the power of intuition, where a single word can unlock a cascade of insights. Our minds are wired to connect the dots, dots to find patterns of the seemingly random, and often it's the unexpected leaps that we discover the most profound truths. So think of it as a journey through the landscape of experience, where each word acts as a stepping stone, revealing the underlying principles that have driven Eli's success. This is the ultimate word association challenge, where every response could uncover a new approach to sales excellence. So basically, eli, here's how it works.
Speaker 2:Okay, tell me I love it, because you got me excited. I'm curious.
Speaker 1:I know you're dying, here's the big one. I throw out a word. You respond with the first word that comes to your mind. No filters, no hesitation. Okay, now respond to your word and we'll keep this chain of associations flowing for at least three or four volleys, and the only rule that we have to embrace is spontaneity, to let your mind make these unexpected leaps. So ready to see where your mental agility takes us, eli.
Speaker 2:I'm ready to see where this goes.
Speaker 1:Let's do it here we go, here we go, pipeline Money. Clothes Open.
Speaker 2:Scale Sales Upsell.
Speaker 1:Cross-sell Customer journey Buy more Okay. Ipo Saleshood, saleshood.
Speaker 2:Love that, love that. All right, okay, ipo Saleshood, saleshood Love that Love that.
Speaker 1:All right, okay, here's the next one, okay.
Speaker 2:How do we do on that last one?
Speaker 1:Our listeners should tell us They'll comment Okay, we always have fun with these things, okay.
Speaker 2:I love it. Let's do it again. Let's do another one.
Speaker 1:Objection Handling Concern. Let's do another one objection handling concern, problem solving uh interaction love customers build relationship for sure I love it. Okay's go to the next one Story. Customer Brand Apple iPhone. Love it. Brilliant Mind. It's a you know, I, when I think about Apple, I think as you do. It's. It's like we talk about merging with devices. Haven't we already, haven't we already merged with the device? Call our iPhone.
Speaker 2:Right, we have, and there will be a time in our lifetimes I believe, and for better or for worse, that it will be even more integrated. I think we're getting there, I think, hopefully it keeps us on a good path.
Speaker 1:All right, here's another good one.
Speaker 2:Failure Inevitable. Hurts like hell.
Speaker 1:Oh God, how about this Hurts so good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, john Cougar Mellencamp.
Speaker 1:Back in the 80s Hurts, so good it is, john.
Speaker 2:Cougar Mellencamp, right, I think it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, john Cougar Mellencamp Hurts so good. Come on, baby, make it hurt so good. Sometimes love doesn't feel like it should, so there you go. Failure is what gets us there. All right, here's the last one we'll do. Momentum, keep it going. Sales cycles Shorter, relentless.
Speaker 2:Push Pull Marketing.
Speaker 1:Marketing, nice Complementary.
Speaker 2:Services.
Speaker 1:Scale.
Speaker 2:Execution.
Speaker 1:Measure success KPIs. Oh, I like that KPIs measure success for KPIs all the time. How often do you make your team look at the KPIs? Is it on a weekly basis as part of your weekly calls?
Speaker 2:values, methods, obstacles and metrics. So we created a V2 hood process vision, values and objectives and outcomes and so we track them, and so I am sending out a weekly note to my team sometimes video, where we're highlighting how are we doing on our V2 hood and on our top metrics and KPIs on a weekly basis. We look at them on an e-staff call weekly and these metrics range from pipeline metrics to adoption metrics, to sales metrics, to engineering metrics around things like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great way to go, Because I think then people can see that and when they see it, they start looking for those hidden gems that can help boost the numbers or just notice things that they can drive back in. And I have that expectation of my team that whatever metrics you're supposed to drive, you're going to grind on them, because inside of that is some magical moment. Side of that is some magical moment Because I'm always inspired by my clients. We have clients that are doing what you would consider. Many of them are super high-tech, cool AI companies, but some of them are basic businesses and the difference between one person and another is the one that really grinds it.
Speaker 2:I remind my team on a regular basis. We do monthly hoodie calls with a monthly kind of all-hands calls with the company, and I'm constantly reminding my team. You know like, here are the 10 metrics and KPIs that are critical to our business, critical to our growth, critical to our success. If you're not directly impacting one of them, you got to talk to your manager. Or you got to talk to me, right? This is like you got to talk to your manager. You got to talk to me, right? This is like you got to be connecting yourself, not like some. If you're not impacting one of them, let me know, because then you're doing something off that's important so critical regime I'm sure
Speaker 1:we run our businesses very similarly yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's a it's well, we we have the aspect of being involved in the day-to-day operations. You're probably helping to drive and close deals, like I am, but you also have to be that executive that gets your people to look at what focus on what they're supposed to do. All right, we always ask guests like you, eli, to name a historical person, event or person that inspires you. Right and early on in the questionnaire you answered Steve Jobs and Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2:Right, wow, two different names.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 2:So you know, I've always admired kind of the, the, the creativity and the vision that has come out of Steve Jobs and Apple and a how he created, innovative and then and then left and then came back and took it to new heights, and and for him to be able to imagine a world where you're carrying everything with you, you know, video, audio, phone, and this, this simple iPhone device, I think, is transformed, has transformed living, and to me that's ultimate legacy and in a form, in a minimalistic form that is just beautiful, whether it's an iPhone, a Mac, an iPad and whatever else comes out of that world.
Speaker 2:I think has always, always, always, inspired me. And when I create, when we create, when we communicate, I've always got, like the jobs filter on, you know, less words, less graphics, a simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, simple, and so that's always been, you know, an inspiring factor for me. And then you know what, and most people have someone like that right and you probably wouldn't expect an executive like me to say but also I've got this Taylor Swift kind of energy right and you know my younger daughter was begging me to go to the Taylor Swift conference and it's conference Look at me.
Speaker 1:You can't leave it. Well probably at that concert you were just entertained. It probably was a learning adventure for you.
Speaker 2:You know what, and this is where I'm going to take you because you know, I just, and for whatever reason you know, I think it turns out, a friend of mine, you know, he ended up having tickets because I couldn't justify for Taylor Swift 3k ticket, right, that was crazy. And it turns out he had tickets at cost. I'm like, boom, let's go. So I became a student of Taylor Swift and listened to her music, right and so, and so got it Right. So the music is interesting, and and so, but that wasn't really the big learning for me. So there there we are.
Speaker 2:My daughter and I were in the stadium, 50,000 people, and all of a sudden, you know it's five minutes before Taylor Swift comes out. And All of a sudden, you know it's five minutes before Taylor Swift comes out, and I couldn't hear myself think, and the room, the stadium, the energy, like it was like amazing. And for the next three hours, that same and everyone stood up, everyone was dancing and, through the art of visual storytelling, you know, taylor Swift kept us all kind of enthralled and eating out of the palm of her hand. It was incredible and I became a Swifty, wow, and I became you know what. So you went through it for three hours, three hours is a lot of time to be at a con.
Speaker 1:Three plus.
Speaker 2:Listening to one artist, one artist, and it kept you going Watching artist watching, absorbing, assimilating the this experience, and and then, and then to leave and realize that this was a movement. And then to watch taylor swift, now, like taking a step back as an entrepreneurial genius, to turn this property into a movie, to turn this property into so many other ways for her to just, you know, kind of continue to drive her mission and her vision of how she wants to elevate, you know, teenagers and elevate the music industry. And you know, love or hate Taylor Swift. What she's done is absolutely and I was, I was on a plane, I was on a plane next to a CFO. You know, keep him nameless and he may not want to come next to a CFO.
Speaker 1:Keep him nameless. He may not want to come out as a Swiftie. Is that what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Keep him nameless and what he said. And all of a sudden, you know we're small talk on the plane and the plane takes off and I've got my Taylor Swift playlist and I'm looking at the song Miss Americana that I'm listening to. Adam, I didn't mean to look. I look and I'm looking at the song Miss Americana that I'm listening to. Adam, I didn't mean to look. I look, his phone is sitting down, there's an empty seat between us and the same song. No way, miss Americana, no way. I tap him on the shoulder, I'm like, and I show him my phone.
Speaker 2:He unbuttons his shirt and he's got a Taylor Swift t-shirt underneath. Whoa. And he tells me a story that he gets up on stage at his kickoff and he grabs the mic Everyone's laughing because his walk-up song is a Taylor Swift song and he says here's a performer, here's an entrepreneur that generated a billion plus in revenue without AI and got the whole room laughing hysterically. And so boom. And there are many, many, many CEOs in Silicon Valley that are also Swifties. They're also Swifties in the Silicon Valley that are also Swifties. They're also Swifties.
Speaker 1:And I think it's that respect over her drive for perfection and connection.
Speaker 2:Yeah girl, creativity, creativity, creativity. Think of the community she's developed. My daughter.
Speaker 1:she's a crazy Swifty, she knows every song.
Speaker 2:Well, I think we have the next time, Taylor Swift's on tour it looks like we've got a date night with you and my daughter and your daughter and we'll make it happen.
Speaker 1:That sounds like a lot of fun. It sounds like a lot of fun. I like how she is so genuine. She does consistently try to connect with her audience. So that's the. She's not just trying to monetize, so I think that's brilliant. You're also, by the way, you're also into music yourself. You're also, by the way. You're also into music yourself.
Speaker 2:You're a DJ, you know. I've had some fun with music. I went to your office.
Speaker 1:You had tons of old vinyl hanging up on the walls.
Speaker 2:Old school DJ Soulful, funky house. I love female vocals, I love tribal music. I love when, like, disco and soul come together and you can close your eyes and you're on the dance floor and you're dancing and you're vibing and you're feeling it and you're doing that all night long. That's a happy place for me. You know, I've DJed at Burning man. I've DJed a lot of underground lofts in San Francisco. I've DJed a bunch of clubs lofts in san francisco. I've dj'd a bunch of clubs. And it's that moment, like two, three in the morning, when I can look around everyone's just going, going, going and uh, and I'm helping making that happen, that's that's. I love that. And uh, you know I've, I'm committed to to djing again and uh, doing it, bringing the worlds together. How do I bring the sales community together with go to market, together with my vinyl and just create this amazing experience for people to let loose and have fun.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. That's awesome how it all comes together. So now, if you were to, you know, you mentioned a lot about how you grew up. If there was a billboard with any message, any message to your younger self, what would it say?
Speaker 2:You know what? Always, always trust your instinct, always, trust your gut. It's, it's, it's never failed me.
Speaker 1:I love it.
Speaker 2:Always trust your gut.
Speaker 1:And is that? Is that like when push cuffs becomes a shove? When, even though there may be data all over the place, it's just it's informing your intuition?
Speaker 2:Sometimes data has convinced me to make the wrong decision. And where? Where had I trusted my gut from the beginning, the decision would have been the right one.
Speaker 1:Why is that? Can you give me an example?
Speaker 2:Well, listen, Salesforce right. So leaving Oracle going to Salesforce, leaving Salesforce starting SalesHood? Right? I think these are examples, right? I think sometimes, look at Steve Jobs. Right, there's no data that would have said an iPhone is going to change the world. You just got to trust your gut, right? Like there's no data that would have said an iPhone is going to change the world, you just got to trust your gut, right, Like, I think, when we decided to build out features at SalesHit. Sometimes all the data in the world and all the customer feedback in the world will kind of point us in another direction, but my gut just tells me, you know. A very specific example is digital sales rooms. Right? Did salespeople need another sales tool? Yeah. Did buyers need another tool? Did they need a place to actually collaborate? I mean no, no, like they never would have raised their hand.
Speaker 2:However, today, salespeople that are using technology to collaborate with their buyers in this new category called digital sales rooms, they're winning deals, winning more deals and they're building better relationships right yeah, no one would have told me to do that no one know the the data told me not to do it right and and, but we had to do it and it's actually the future of my business. So, uh, that's super.
Speaker 1:So many, so many examples, so many examples and I think when you go back to your entrepreneurial example, you, like you, know you're talking about, um, the expected value of moving from one company to another, if you already have and Silicon Valley is very good at locking you up, especially the bigger ones, they understand the game and they give you this expected value equation that makes much more sense than it is to go strike out on your own and you went with your gut and you went with what was interesting for you.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you one more example, one more interesting one. You know, when we were like, listen, we're mostly self-funded as a business, and we were doing the rounds up and down the peninsula talking to VCs, and the VCs were telling me no joke, you know, this is 2014, 2015,. That the sales tech market isn't a big enough market for standalone companies to be successful. That's what they were telling me. Therefore, if you want to take sales hood, maybe take the sales out of hood, maybe call it hood, and maybe go do like employee engagement and employee training, then maybe we'll fund you. I'm like are you kidding me? There are 15 million salespeople that need a tool to actually sell, and so, anyway, there's a real's another example for you.
Speaker 1:Regina. I love that. That is fantastic, and you've built self-funded since, which is amazing to do because you're getting your validation every day right, every day. You got to go keep fighting. Okay, what's your personal moonshot?
Speaker 2:Okay, what is? What's your personal moonshot? I try not to distract my mind into too many things outside of the focus of what we're doing, so I don't get an opportunity to kind of explore what I'm about to share right now. But I'm going to share it because you know, sometimes when you put things out there, they're even you increase the chances of it happening.
Speaker 1:It'll manifest, it'll manifest.
Speaker 2:Listen again. We're maniacally focused on continuing to grow Salesforce and we're looking for ways to grow and we've got a whole bunch of cool stuff happening.
Speaker 2:But I got this dream. I love community and I also love concepts of sustainability and I want to create a community almost like a kibbutz, a kibbutz a community almost like a kibbutz you know, a kibbutz like community, cali kibbutz I've called it in my head where people can come together. You know what you want to come hang. You know you want to get away from it all. Come, come to come to eli's. Eli, you might, might are our cali kibbutz, right and this is a place.
Speaker 2:This is a place. It's close to nature, so it's probably on the coast. You want to be able to smell the sea, be at one with nature, and it's a community still forming the idea here, richie. But like, yeah, I'll hold retreats for sales executives, yes, I'll hold retreats for startups, yes, I'll hold family retreats. But I really want a place as I'm looking at the next chapter of my life. Again, I'm not trying to get distracted, that's right, but like a place where people can come, have a destination, safe place, be at one with nature. And you know what? There'll always be great food in the kitchen, we'll always be hanging outside, there'll always be fires going and fire pits and guess what? Vinyl will always be playing too. Always be playing great music. But it's just a great place to bring people together. And that's really where I'm thinking of what's next for us here.
Speaker 1:I can't think of a better way to close this episode of Spark of Ages. So, eli, that was just beautiful. I so enjoyed talking with you today, so this was fantastic, oh my God, so fun.
Speaker 2:And Rajiv, you're always invited right. There will always be.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, you're always invited right, there'll always be and, by the way, there'll always be I have a place to go.
Speaker 2:I always want a place to go. It's going to have like a main house, but there'll be a bunch of these like smaller houses where people can come and hang out for some time too. So you're always welcome, rajiv, and I really appreciated your questions and this conversation. It's super fun.
Speaker 1:It's great to kind innovation, what it takes to take what you believe in and get it out there in front of folks and, eli, you're an excellent example of that.
Speaker 2:Thank you so?
Speaker 1:much, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Well, that was a lot of fun. Eli is definitely a true entrepreneur, a true pro. I think if there's any message that I can take back and share with all of you, it's typically when you're doing these sorts of companies, especially technology companies, the first thing you think about is how do I get funding and how do I build from that? And you would think a guy like Eli, who comes with a fantastic, phenomenal, high pedigree background, working at really the company that turned sales into software right and is known for it, is, of course, built much more than that Easily get around and grow. And you know, the mentality wasn't there at the time. So he went and forged ahead and built his company up and said, yeah, it doesn't matter, I may not need your capital, but I'll keep going. And he's had to compete against many well-funded competitors and if you look at his customer list, it's remarkable. So it's a testament to his belief, his drive, his desire to make this type of connection happen so that companies can be much more efficient and much more effective in terms of bringing their innovation or their products to others. That's what I take away, and the fact that he's competing and adding AI to it and still adding great clients and growing. It's amazing. Plus, he's just a great guy to be around, so I encourage you. Very approachable, really easy to talk to. How he appeared today is how he is in normal life, so I think that's something really awesome. And to hear him get excited about Taylor Swift, it's remarkable because you can appreciate that artistry at multiple levels. I just want to make sure, when you listen to these types of conversations, you let me know how we're doing with them. I want to know when you're commenting on Apple, spotify, youtube, feel free to give me feedback, and there's ways of getting to me individually or you could just leave it out there. It really makes a difference for me. So take a moment, rate it, comment. We're everywhere podcasts can be found.
Speaker 1:So the show is produced by Sandeep Parikh and Anand Shah. Sandeep Anand has really done a fantastic job of working right now with me. Sandeep has been dealing with the LA fires and his impact on his life and his family and he's one of you know, hundreds of thousands of people dealing with the same problem and it's incredible what he and others have to go through. I just went to a fundraiser last week put on by a common friend for LA, and it's great to see how much response there is for this, and it's only going to get more difficult as these folks rebuild their lives. Production Assistance is by Taryn Talley. It's edited by Sean Marr and Aidan McGarvey. I'm your host, rajiv Parikh from Position Squared, an AI-focused growth marketing company based in Silicon Valley. Come visit us at position2.com. This is an effing funny production and I really look forward to seeing you next time. Remember folks, be ever curious.