Reps Who Skip the Story Lose the Deal with Rob Potter

I always tell people all the time, learn a story about your customers, and if you don't have one, go learn somebody else's. Because it's the story of how someone uses a product. It's a story of how an outcome came about from that product. It's the story of what was the journey someone went through to understand what the problem was they were solving, how they were gonna solve it, how they implemented our capabilities, what that outcome was, and how that actually elevated their visibility with their leadership in the company. That's the passion.

[upbeat music] Welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives, hosted by five-time CRO, John McMahon, and Force Management co-founder, John Kaplan. The show takes guests in the barrel, behind the scenes with the people who've been there, done that, and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers best practices for scaling and growing your business, while sharing the pitfalls to avoid.

Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast. I'm John Kaplan, here as always with my co-host, John McMahon. Today's guest is someone I go back with a while. I met Robert Potter years ago at RSA, back when he was building sales organizations inside some of the most consequential companies in enterprise security, like IBM, RSA, and EMC, Symantec, Lancope, Mandiant, and the list goes on. He's worked alongside leaders like Art Coviello, Joe Tucci, and Tom Heiser, along with a frequent guest on the Revenue Builders, Mark Thurman. What makes Robert different is the vantage point. He sold as an individual contributor, led as a sales executive, sat on the buying side as a CISO customer, bet on companies as a venture investor, and now he's in the CEO chair at Oomnitza, running the platform play at the intersection of IT asset management and AI. We talk about what great selling has actually looked like across 30 years of watching it up close, what changes and what doesn't when you go from revenue leader to CEO, and where he thinks AI is taking IT management or IT asset management and enterprise sales. This is Robert Potter, CEO of Oomnitza. So Rob, great to see you after all these years. I have some fond memories of you, uh, at, uh, at RSA, and, uh-

Me too

... it, it's really, really good to see you again, buddy.

Yeah, you as well. It's, uh, you know, the, we, we had some good times there and, uh-

Mm-hmm

... you know, I can certainly tell you that, uh, you know, your program, Force Management, really impacted me personally. I've carried it with me for years, so I'm really honored to be, uh, on your show, and I guess achieved the, uh, the level of, uh, [laughs] approval from, from your tutelage. [laughs]

I'm so glad to hear that, buddy-

[laughs]

... 'cause as I remember it, for the three or four days we were together, you were busting my chops for eight hours a day, bro.

[laughs]

[laughs]

You gotta, you gotta challenge it to make sure it's worthy-

Yeah

... John, but it was worthy.

Yeah, buddy.

He didn't wanna be there in the beginning, Kap. He didn't wanna be-

[laughs]

No, I, not very many do. Not very many-

I felt like it was a punishment from Thurman, but it turned out to be-

[laughs