• The SiriusStars blog series provides an inside look at how select high-performing clients use SiriusDecisions research and analyst inquiry to increase revenue, meet and exceed goals, and transform their organizations
  • In this edition, we feature Bryan Hauptman, SVP of global sales at Datto
  • We chatted with Bryan and discussed his favorite SiriusDecisions exercise, his go-to sales acronyms and his typical day

SiriusStars is an exclusive community of high-performing and highly influential clients selected for their exceptional work leveraging and implementing SiriusDecisions research and advice. The SiriusStars blog series is designed to share the personal and professional world of your B2B peers. In this post, we spoke with Bryan Hauptman, SVP of global sales at Datto.

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SiriusDecisions: Take us through a typical day in your life.

Bryan Hauptman: Generally, I start the day with a one-and-a-half- to two-hour workout, during which I like to listen to some type of sales or motivational audiobook. I like to get to the office before the majority of the team, before kicking off the workday with forecast meetings, meetings with C-level executives, and meetings on improving the business from an operational standpoint and what the future of Datto looks like. We look at where we need to be and who we need to look after. I try to take a forward-looking approach and get as much face time as possible with day-to-day sales and marketing leaders. I take a “constant communication” approach, so they all feel like part of the process and successes. I’ve realized that I’m not going to know everyone in the sales organization now that it’s grown to more than 200 sales reps, but I try to get to know as many people as possible.

SD: When it comes to sales acronyms, there’s a ton! Do you have some that are part of your daily vernacular?

Bryan: MRR (monthly recurring revenue), KPIs, NBP (new buying partners) and EOQ (economic order quantity).

SD: How did you become a client of SiriusDecisions?

Bryan: Datto has used SiriusDecisions for some time now, but more from a marketing and Demand Waterfall® standpoint. When you launched the Chief Sales Officer Strategies service, I got in touch with Phil Harrell. I thought, “Who better to prepare me for board meetings than someone who used to work with Akamai?” Meeting with Phil and discussing how we can improve and continue to grow is what led us to expand our relationship with SiriusDecisions.

SD: In your own words, what differentiates SiriusDecisions from other companies you’ve worked with?

Bryan: You offer a more personal touch, and provide a more customized and fluid approach. Your frameworks and structure are conducive to what we’re doing today. Some competitors’ work is outdated, but you evolve your approach so that it’s relevant to the challenges we’re facing now. SiriusDecisions helps me make more customized decisions – the focus of our conversations is “Let’s talk about how we can help you make a shift to address the business needs,” not “Just follow the framework and you’ll get there.”

SD: I know you’ve participated in our Sales Activity Study and gone through a few benchmarks. What would you say is your favorite model or framework so far?

Bryan: I look back at the benchmark and that was my favorite single exercise. By going through a benchmark, I was able to show our CEO and CFO the number of resources I needed and the impact hiring more resources would have in 12 months. We actually ended up outperforming by giving our best sales reps more selling time, resulting in 85 percent of sales reps exceeding their quota – all because of the benchmark.

I want to do a benchmark again, because for this merger, I was interviewing sales reps in London – and I can already see that they’re spending three hours selling and seven hours doing administrative/non-revenue-generating activities. By hiring additional resources to do those activities, we can cut down on training costs and really increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the sales team.

I like to use the analogy “Give your best athletes the ball more often and you’ll get more points for you.” That’s really what we did. We didn’t change anything from a business and marketing perspective; we just gave our sales reps more time to sell.

Read part two of Bryan Hauptman’s SiriusStar interview here.

Interested in being featured in a future SiriusStars blog post? Email siriusstars@siriusdecisions.com!