Lessons From the Early Days of Salesforce

Shahin chats with Drew Sechrist, Co-Founder & CEO at Connect the Dots about his experience being employee number 36 at Salesforce and the lessons learnt from his time at the organisation.

A cold email to Marc Benioff in 1999 landed Drew an account executive job at Salesforce, where he became the company’s highest-producing seller, then the highest-producing sales manager as Salesforce scaled from zero to more than a billion dollars in revenue.

When Drew moved on in 2010, he was the VP of Salesforce’s High Tech vertical, calling on customers such as Apple and EMC. He launched his first tech company, Koozoo, in 2010, and went on to serve as an investor, advisor, and Chief Revenue Officer for various startups before founding Connect The Dots in 2019.

As a young seller, leaders like Marc Benioff, Jim Steele, Carl Schachter, and Susan St. Ledger transformed Drew’s career by opening their networks and making warm introductions on Drew’s behalf. With Connect The Dots, Drew is making that experience possible for anyone.

The episode covers:

• What was learnt from the early days of Salesforce
• How Salesforce managed to grow
• How to sell into an account
• How Connect the Dots is inspired by his time at Salesforce

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• How to Meditate - Pema Chödrön
• Marc Benioff
• John Barrows
• SaaSy Sales Leadership - Matt Cameron

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