GTM 104: Winning with Systems and Relationships in Sales Leadership with Ralph Barsi

Ralph Barsi is the VP of Sales at Kahua, a leading construction management platform. Prior to Kahua, Ralph held executive roles at Tray.io and ServiceNow. While at ServiceNow, he built and led a team of 230 people across the globe, during thecompany’s growth from from $1 billion to over $4 billion in revenue. Prior to ServiceNow, Ralph was the VP of Field Operations at Achievers (acquired by Blackhawk Network) and the Manager of Sales Development at InsideView (acquired by DemandBase). Ralph serves as an advisor to go-to-market leaders at Aircover, Scale Venture Partners, TopHap, and others. He is also a growth stage investor with the GTMfund. Barsi dedicates much of his time serving others. In addition to his work at Kahua, Ralphmentors and advises a host of SaaS leaders and leadership programs.

Discussed in this Episode:

• The importance of implementing systems and processes in sales and life.
• How frameworks like SCQA (Situation, Challenge, Question, Answer) and PAR (Problem, Action, Result) can improve communication.
• Strategies for delivering difficult messages, such as during a reorganization or reduction in force.
• The value of staying in touch with former colleagues and playing the long game in relationships.
• Tactics for maintaining a robust contact database and regularly checking in with people.
• How to motivate and guide reps who are facing a challenging selling environment.
• The significance of chronicling your work and keeping a record of your achievements.

Highlights:
(8:28) Introduction of the quote "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets" by Edwards Deming.
(14:33) Discussion on using frameworks to communicate effectively with a large or small audience.
(24:27) Ralph's journey from Compliance360 to Kahua and the importance of maintaining long-term relationships.
(31:55) The system Ralph uses to stay in touch with his extensive network of contacts.
(35:41) Strategies for shifting focus and moving forward when facing challenges or setbacks.
(41:45) One thing revenue leaders believe to be true that Ralph thinks is bull$***(48:15) One thing that is working for Ralph in go-to-market right now.

Guest Speaker Links (Ralph Barsi):
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralphbarsi

Host Speaker Links (Scott Barker):
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssbarker/
Newsletter: thegtmnewsletter.substack.com/

The GTM Podcast
Features conversations with well-known tech executive, VC, and founders - the expert operators in the trenches who have ‘been there, done that’ to build some of the fastest-growing software companies. Every week, a guest joins Scott Barker to dissect their stories, revealing expert insights around what worked, what didn’t, and how things actually went down.

This podcast is produced by GTMnow, the media brand of VC firm GTMfund - sharing insight on go-to-market from working with hundreds of portfolio companies backed by over 350 of the best go-to-market executives.

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