Author Archives: Larry Janis

How Your Network Can Help and Hurt You

by Martin Gargiulo

Your performance is dependent on the type of network you have.

Working for investment banks is not for the faint of heart. Workweeks of 100+ hours involving all-night sessions and meals at desks in order to complete heavy loads of difficult work have long been the lot of this industry’s professionals.

To thrive and not merely survive, however, junior investment bankers have to earn the trust and respect of colleagues and clients if they are to be given the chance to trade important stocks or to have their own customers.

A strong support network is vital in helping junior employees excel at their work and curb the risks of making mistakes as they learn on the job in a fast-moving business environment. The importance of this network is apparent in the career advice of a former head of proprietary trading at Bank of America Merrill Lynch: “Ask every single other person on the planet for help before you go back to your manager.”

In my paper “Homophily and Individual Performance”, published in Organization Science, co-authored with Charles Galunic of INSEAD and Gokhan Ertug and Tengjian Zou of SMU, we find that building a support network of people like you can enhance your performance in such an environment.

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Why business needs a ‘moral revolution’

By Leigh Gallagher

Acumen founder Jacqueline Novogratz issued a powerful challenge to the roomful of CEOs at Fortune’s CEO Initiative conference on Tuesday: Business had the technology revolution; now it needs a “moral revolution.”

Describing her journey of leaving a successful career on Wall Street three decades ago to start a microfinance institution in Rwanda—which turned into more than $100 million in investment across 108 companies around the globe that has used entrepreneurism to bring services to more than 270 million people in the developing world—Novogratz shared lessons and advice for CEOs seeking to help solve the world’s most pressing issues.

Among Novogratz’s lessons: Empathy alone isn’t enough, she said, because empathy allows power dynamics to remain intact. “We don’t really have to change if we feel another person’s pain,” she said. Instead, solving the world’s problems calls for business leaders to channel their “moral imagination.”

Partnering, she said, is critical for scale. She cited Acumen’s eight-year partnership with global consulting firm Bain, which includes senior partners coming into Acumen’s offices and a total of 52,000 hours of pro bono consulting, but also “reverse apprenticeships.” These involve Bain embedding its young leaders in externships at Acumen initiatives in the field—in Ethiopia, say, or post-conflict Colombia—after which they come back with a different level of understanding of things like the supply chains in which their large-corporate clients are working in. “It makes them better leaders,” she says. (more…)

Serena Williams’ Secret for Never Cracking Under Pressure Can Work for You Too

It’s used by sports stars and Zen masters, but it can help business leaders handle high-pressure situations too.

by Jessica Stillman

Watch Serena Williams play at Wimbledon today and you’ll no doubt be left in open-mouthed awe at the speed, strength, and precision of her play. But perhaps the most impressive thing about one of the best tennis players ever isn’t her incredible physical prowess, it’s her unshakeable concentration. The woman never cracks under pressure.

How does she shake off the incredible stress of a center-court match point? As David Robson recently reported for the BBC (hat tip Quartz), the answer is a powerful but little known technique called “the quiet eye.”
Control your eyes, control your stress.

If the term sounds a bit like something a meditation teacher would say, that’s no accident. The technique shares strong similarities with practices used by Zen masters, but the idea was brought to the world of sports by kinesiologist Joan Vickers. While studying exceptional sports performance for her PhD, Vickers hooked high-performing athletes up to a gizmo that tracked their eye movements. (more…)

innovative IT solutions sales

 

Sales Leader

Our client is a leading national provider of innovative IT solutions and services to Global 2000 and mid-size companies. Partnered with the top-tier technology providers, our clients unique solution-based methodology, combined with our experience and expertise, has enabled thousands of industry-leading organizations to effectively address their business needs, optimize the returns on their IT investments, mitigate risk, and focus on growth and profitability.

Summary
Senior level sales executive focused on new logo acquisition. Responsible for identifying and driving sales opportunities to closure; increasingly selling a mix of defined solutions/extensions and new offerings or products into white space; wide range of service group offerings and deal structures. Must develop strong relationships with key senior (Divisional head/C-Suite) client buyers and drive client decision-making spanning multiple layers of the organization
Responsibilities:
• Create, identify and drive business development opportunities with new logo clients and potentially expand existing client relationships
• Work with and sell to C-level and senior level management
• Develop trusted relationships, share insights that have meaningful impact to the customer’s business while positioning the company’s solutions to address business challenges.
• Articulate and present the cost justification/risk mitigation related to the company’s solutions
• Create differentiation, educate the customer on potential solutions and influence the decision making process.
• Build excellent client relationships offering value-added, insightful and strategic input to their business strategies

Job Requirements:
• 10+ years of proven IT products and services selling experience, preferably , data center and end-user computing focus, technical solution architecture, managed services in the areas of network operations and security operations, cybersecurity services, “virtualization”, , , transition to the cloud and/or disruptive technology products/services
• Experience serving as sales executive with demonstrated ability to integrate sales strategies with company-wide growth programs, new strategic initiatives and “out-of-the-box” thinking to achieve growth targets in excess of industry averages
• Record of consistently outperforming program budget targets, sales quotas and margin targets after controllable expenses; achievement driven; highly competitive, team focused
• Proven track record of contract signings, demonstrated ability to shape the deal from the onset
• Background in consultative selling
• Proficiency in account planning and understanding of territory management
• Ability to understand enterprise-wide issues and to structure innovative, integrated solutions that provide complex decision support to global organizations
• Demonstrated experience teaming with technologists in a sales environment
• Experience in the financial engineering aspects of deal development and pricing models
• Experience “hunting” and closing complex, multi-year IT managed services transactions
• Excellent communication skills, both verbal and written

Basic Qualifications:
• Bachelor’s degree required.
• Demonstrated good judgment and initiative in problem solving
• Experience working with and selling to large enterprises (F500)
• Expertise in enterprise IT products or services
• Strong interpersonal and influence skills to cultivate relationships, facilitate negotiations, and build partnerships with customers as well as key stakeholders
• Ability to use own judgment and initiative in problem resolution
• Outgoing and confident personality, exudes trust and leadership to customers and team alike, self- assured and creative

Locations
Dallas, Chicago, New York

Compensation
Attractive base compensation and incentive plan

Please let us know if you could be interested or might know someone who might be. Thank you.
Jeff Bruckner I Partner
P-973-761-5613
E-bruckner@issg.net

Larry Janis I Managing Partner I Integrated Search Solutions Group
P-516-767-3030
E-janis@issg.net
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