Sales, Digital Customer Experience, InsureTech

These are Questions I ask the CEO to get a better understanding of the Opportunity, the Culture and the Solution. The actual job description is at the end of the Q&A.

1) What is the sizzle around Company? What does your Solution do for the client?

  • The Customer Engagement Platform from Company is a powerful omnichannel platform for connecting insureds with their insurance carrier. It can be deployed over the top of any Policy Administration System, or multiple systems, to provide a full-featured digital customer experience with no changes to internal processes, and deployment has little to no impact on internal IT.
  • Insured Portal, IVR, outbound SMS and Voice, Text-To-Pay, and FNOL, as a configurable, synchronized platform that allows for ultimate flexibility. Our platform modernizes and streamlines any insurance company's user experience, substantially increasing customer satisfaction and customer retention, and reducing servicing costs, at predictable SaaS pricing.

2) Why would a Top Tier salesperson want to come work at Company? What was the deciding factor(s) in why you chose to come work at Company?

  • We are of a size, and at a stage, where a key player can make a huge impact.
  • We have primarily grown via partner connections and word-of-mouth since our inception and are in a position, from a technology perspective, to support exponential growth.
  • Our products are mature but continue to improve, and we are ready to move beyond founder-led sales to achieve success at scale.
  • A salesperson coming to Company at this stage has the opportunity to build a streamlined sales playbook and do things their way, without the limitations of technology that is still “in the works”.
  • We offer the ability and the flexibility to come in and create, build, and lead a sales team, as well as help to guide the company's overall direction.

From a benefit standpoint, we offer:

  • Fully remote work
  • Medical, Dental, Vision covered 100% for employee, and 80% for family
  • 3 weeks Vacation // 1 Week Sick
  • Generous holidays
  • Generous paid maternity and paternity leave
  • Non-matching 401K
  • Equity (“Phantom Stock”) pool that rewards employees in an exit event
  • Yearly equipment / upgrade stipend, anniversary gifts, and company events

3) What specific problems in the marketplace does your software or service resolve?

  • Mid-market insurance carriers struggle to remain competitive with large carriers that can afford to develop a feature-rich user experience that becomes a competitive advantage.
  • Mid-market insurance carriers do not have the technical staff to implement and maintain advanced technology, and therefore are often unable to deploy modern UX that will enable them to remain competitive.
  • To remain price-competitive, mid-market carriers need to reduce operating costs through greater process automation, more customer self-service options, and reduced customer service expense.
  • Carriers have multiple systems with disparate UX/engagement platforms each providing the user with a different experience, which results in customer frustration from confusion, rekeying, and the appearance of poor service.
  • Carriers need a solution that can grow with them, regardless of other technological changes - a permanent and evolving consumer experience.

4) What skills are Preferred and Helpful: ?

Preferred

  • Highly Organized - Someone who has a system or mindset to track all tasks, to do items, follow ups, etc. Can self-manage and absolutely doesn’t require hand-holding.

Helpful

  • Pricing Experience - Experience with formulating pricing models and methodologies
  • Marketing Experience - Marketing and Sales go hand-in-hand and any experience here could certainly be valuable.

5) What kinds of customers/verticals should the Candidate be selling to in order to get an interview?

  • Mid-size P&C insurers; carriers, regionals, mutuals, and MGA’s, < $500m written premium.
  • We focus primarily on auto and home, however we have customers in Commercial Lines and Workers Comp as well.
  • We currently are not in Life or Health, and are US only at the moment, although North American expansion is in the cards. We would ideally have a candidate that has pre-existing relationships in our target market that could be capitalized on.

6) What are the 3 core attributes/accomplishments that a candidate must have to get an interview and be successful on the job?

  • A Proven track record of closing multiple deals per year. This is not the position for someone starting out, we need someone who is capable, and proven to be able to hit the ground running.
  • Ability to understand and restate the real, key value propositions of a product, and has a proven track record of being able to deliver that message.
  • The ability, and a track record, of self-assuredness and execution with little to no frameworks or guardrails in place. Basically, no training wheels.

7) Describe your ideal candidate in your own words.

  • A well-established sales person with a proven track record in closing deals for SaaS Insurance Software.
  • Knowledgeable about both insurance and technology, and able to see and identify where a company may have a problem, and be able to envision how we can solve it.
  • Hungry to close deals and a desire to prove themselves.
  • The ability to become a sales leader, building out our playbook, and taking an overarching responsibility over our sales strategy.
  • A product evangelist who is excited about what we do, and can work with Product to let us know where we need to improve market positioning, and organically identify improvements/enhancements to our product offerings based on sales feedback and perceived gaps.
  • Well-spoken, great written and verbal communication skills. energetic, and a welcoming demeanor.

8) Why would a Top Tier salesperson want to work for you? Why would they see you as a Mentor?

  • I strongly feel that we are unique in this space. We are a profitable, bootstrap, enterprise level software company that has been in business since 2011.
  • We have gone through our revenue getting sliced in half, managed to prevent a single layoff, and come back bigger and stronger.
  • We have undergone a pivot from services to SaaS successfully, and out of our own pocket.
  • We have an executive team that has come primarily from insurance, and understands exactly the trials and tribulations that insurance carriers face, and have built technology to solve these problems, rather than trying to fit technology to a problem.
  • Additionally, we come from diverse backgrounds, rather than being educated in software, which makes us uniquely positioned to solve problems from many different angles.

9) How would you describe Company's culture?

  • I like to think of us as existing right in between “start-up” and “established company” culture.
  • We are lean and as such we have a good, connected relationship with each employee; everyone in the company is on our daily standups.
  • We are relaxed, casual, and very flexible to our employees needs, while also maintaining a level of structure that comes from being in business over a decade; this also means we have matured enough as an organization to slow our pace down a bit, and are exactly a “fast-paced high-churn” environment.
  • Our biggest cultural touchstone, however, is our commitment to our customers.
  • We have very low churn, and when I say very low, I mean it; we only lose customers to acquisition or insolvency.
  • We communicate with our customers, we are proactive, we are friendly, and we absolutely never take advantage of them.
  • We are always available to talk to our customers and work through problems with them, even if one of our products isn't the ultimate solution.
  • We believe in providing high quality products and high quality experiences, with minimal errors, and at a delivery pace that doesn’t always exist in this space.

10) What does your Marketing Department look like?

  • We currently have a fractional CMO as well as a contracted Media Relations provider that handles the development of our general marketing strategy, as well as an outsourced content writer.
  • Execution is primarily handled by myself (founder) and (Business Development) – including most digital content creation, social posting, interviews, etc.
  • We are in the process of hiring a Digital Marketing Assistant.

11) Do you use BDRs/SDRs to help with brand awareness/scheduling appointments?

  • We currently have one contracted, part-time BDR handling prospecting, messaging, and outbound.

12) Last but not least, what is Company's exit strategy?

  • While we are somewhat of a niche product, we do fill an important gap in the insurance software value chain.
  • We expect to be acquired by a larger organization when we fill a particular missing puzzle piece; this could be a PAS vendor, Payment Processor, and larger software solutions provider.
  • Ultimately our goal is to exit with a company where we can continue to provide value, grow, and expand.
  • We are looking to exit at a point where the numbers make sense, that is, strong multiples on high revenue.
  • Moving away from founder-led is the first step to drive that revenue up, and a strong sales candidate with a big impact on revenue positions themselves quite well in the event of an exit, with a portion of the equity pool (mentioned above) scaling up commensurate with the value they bring and the size of the exit.

Annual Salary: MARKET based