At the beginning of 2022, LeanIX’s midmarket sales team didn’t exist. Ten months later, the team is comprised of 12 employees — and it only looks to keep growing.
Heading into 2023, LeanIX is prioritizing adding leadership positions to enable further growth and preparing account executives for promotions. But it isn’t the only Boston-based company growing its go-to-market team. Skillsoft and M-Files, two companies that, as of this writing, have nearly 20 open roles, are also in a big hiring push for their GTM teams.
Recently, Built In Boston spoke to these leaders about their priorities for 2023 and the skills and qualities they are looking for in candidates. In these conversations, company leaders explained they’re seeking candidates who are driven and can be coached in an environment that’s constantly changing. What worked yesterday won’t always work tomorrow, and candidates should be curious about exploring new, innovative solutions.
One leader even created a word to sum up exactly the kind of candidate she’s looking for: “humbitious,” a combination of humble and ambitious.
IT company LeanIX created the Continuous Transformation Platform, which provides customers with the SaaS solutions needed to achieve transparency and control over their software.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot at LeanIX?
Being coachable is the biggest thing I look for in a new candidate. In today’s fast-paced environment, things are changing quickly and we need to have a growth mindset on how we can always be improving. The fastest way to improve is by taking coaching and applying it in your work. What we find is many people have huge potential, however, they may not have had the best leaders in the past who can provide that coaching.
We built the midmarket team from scratch, starting at zero employees in January 2022 to 12 team members today — and we’re still growing well into next year.”
What’s the biggest priority for your go-to-market teams in 2023, and why is it important for LeanIX’s overall success?
We built the MidMarket team from scratch, starting at zero employees in January 2022 to 12 team members today— and we’re still growing well into next year. To continue this growth, we need more leadership positions to help manage and enable the team. Our biggest priority is investing in our account executives to get them ready for promotions into leadership or enterprise AE. Our success is fully dictated by the success and development of our team members.
The key to 2023 is having a strong team we can build the future midmarket team around.
How would you describe your team culture in a single word, and why would you choose that word?
Driven. We have a unique team from many different backgrounds and half the team sits in our European offices, which gives us a wide array of cultures and personalities. One thing we all have in common: we are all focused on the mission to succeed. Individually we are competitive, yet we celebrate each victory as a team and we don’t hesitate to collaborate on new ideas or best practices. We are all driven to achieve our personal and team goals.
There’s a lot of energy in our team meetings!
Skillsoft is an edtech company focused on connecting organizations with cutting-edge digital solutions for corporate learning. The world’s leading organizations rely on Skillsoft’s software to train their workforce.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot at Skillsoft?
I’d say now more than ever it’s important to have a healthy impatience for the status quo. In today’s evolving workplace we choose not to rest on our laurels. Curiosity drives us to find innovative solutions that keep raising the bar!
We are growing very quickly and have many new product and service areas. Keeping up with the change and having a sense of ownership of work is important.”
What’s the biggest priority for your go-to-market teams in 2023, and why is it important for Skillsoft’s overall success?
We are growing very quickly and have many new product and service areas. At the same time, we are updating processes and tools to help us scale. Keeping up with the change and having a sense of ownership of work is important.
How would you describe your team culture in a single word, and why would you choose that word?
Collaborative. Work is not accomplished in a vacuum. Collaborating with others is super important. That includes technology, relationship-building and focus on the desired outcomes.
M-Files is an IT and business services company that gives organizations a competitive edge via its metadata-driven document management platform. Founded in 2002, the company now has thousands of customers around the world who use the platform to automate processes and instantly access the right information.
What’s one character trait or skill set that a successful candidate should have to land a spot at M-Files?
M-Files has guiding principles that describe how we are expected to work and interact with others: “Make it Happen,” “Help Others” and “Love Customers.’ These principles provide us with a shared foundation to lean on regardless of global location, cultural background or personality. One word for our culture is “humbitious” — humble and ambitious.
For the marketing team, I look for dynamic, high-performing, strategic thinkers that align with our core values and culture. While skills and experience are important, greater emphasis is placed on the company and department culture fit. Our pace is fast and dynamic, which requires all marketing functions and resources to be aligned and high functioning. However, we strive for work-life balance so the team can enjoy life outside of M-Files and work optimally when here.
A successful candidate should possess the ability to be humbitious, as well as a desire to drive results and improve performance. Finding that balance requires individuals with a high level of emotional intelligence to guide thinking and behavior.
It’s not just about the product itself. We have a wealth of expertise on the business challenges organizations face with information management and how to address them.”
What's the biggest priority for your go-to-market teams in 2023, and why is it important for M-Files’ overall success?
Our biggest marketing priority in 2023 will be to continue to grow our customer base and ARR with an emphasis in North America. We will support this by ensuring consistent branding and messaging. This was also our focus for 2022, which enabled stronger market-facing messaging and brand elements. We now have a new look and have been consistent with our messaging for brand advertisements, paid media, social media advertisements and thought leadership. For 2023, we aim to do more of the same, creating compelling content and thought leadership so we can differentiate ourselves from the sea of document management solutions that are out there.
We know that “content is king,” and we recognize the need for it to allow buyers to quickly see our product in action. However, it’s not just about the product itself. Our product is unique with a value proposition and ROI that is clear to our customers. Leveraging thought leadership to convey that message should enable us to differentiate further against the competition. We have a wealth of expertise on the business challenges organizations face with information management and how to address them and transform their business.
How would you describe your team culture in a single word, and why would you choose that word?
Transparent. We strive to be transparent not just within our marketing team but throughout the whole organization.
When I joined M-Files, the partnership between sales and marketing was non-existent and each function was pointing fingers at the other. In part, this was due to a lack of transparency. Today, we meet with the sales team each month to review performance and share challenges. We even have shared dashboards to track targets, activity and results. The marketing team also works in partnership with sales to identify and address issues, and openly and honestly discuss and debate them. Within the marketing team, each team member has quarterly goals that we call “rocks,” and those goals are shared with everyone to hold the team accountable.
This kind of transparency ensures our function, and its team members deliver on commitments, which, in turn, means we are a high-functioning, results-oriented organization. Transparency also helps to build trust. Trusting relationships at work are important for us to feel a sense of support and camaraderie from our peers. We are in this together. Transparency is a great way to empower people to work together.
