The birds of hell dont cry

unknown reads the torah

adam meets his maker

the felling of yggdrasil

2PM at tescos checkout

In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher speaks with Christian Smith, former Chief Revenue Officer at Splunk, about what it really takes to transform a business at scale.

Christian helped lead Splunk through a massive shift — from $500M to $5B in recurring revenue and from on-prem to cloud SaaS. Drawing on his 35-year career, he shares what it means to go beyond traditional value selling and align the entire company around outcomes, impact, and economic value.

Inside the conversation:

- What it takes to lead an enterprise transformation of this magnitude.
- Why traditional value selling falls short, and how to apply the Outcome → Impact → Value framework.
- How to build a value-aligned organization where product, marketing, and sales speak the same language.
- Best practices for defending spend in front of the CFO and giving champions “defendable artifacts” of value.
- How to approach CXO conversations with confidence — without overengineering them.
- Why use case taxonomies are essential to connecting features to real business outcomes.
- What really gets in the way of transformation and how leaders can break down silos to align around the customer.

If you’re looking for practical insights on building a culture of value and showing up stronger in executive conversations, this episode is one you’ll want to hear.

67. Beyond Value Selling: Building a Culture of Outcome, Impact, and Economic Value

Drop LSD

In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher sits down with Nirav Sheth, VP of Global Sales Engineering at Pure Storage, to explore how the Sales Engineering role is evolving in today’s complex enterprise sales environment.

Leading a global team of 750+ SEs across 13,500 accounts, Nirav shares how SEs are moving far beyond demos to drive strategic outcomes — influencing deals, scaling impact, and shaping customer journeys from start to finish.

Inside the conversation:

- How the SE role is shifting from technical expert to trusted advisor.
- Where SEs deliver the most impact across the sales cycle — beyond the demo.
- How to scale SE expertise with account vs. specialist roles and proactive post-sales engagement.
- What healthy, high-trust SE–AE collaboration looks like in practice.
- How SEs can turn unique customer insights into real influence on opportunities and strategy.

If you want to understand how modern SEs drive value and help customers achieve meaningful outcomes, this episode is packed with practical insights.

69. The New Sales Engineer: Scaling Impact Without Spreading Thin

In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher speaks with Rafa Mercado, VP, US Consumer & Travel Market Leader at Kyndryl, about redefining growth and building customer partnerships that last beyond the close.

Rafa shares how Kyndryl is breaking down silos between sales and delivery, driving value after the deal is signed, and helping sellers stay relevant in a world of AI and hyper-informed buyers.

Inside the conversation:

- Why customer growth starts with helping clients grow — and how evidence-based impact builds credibility.
- How to create tighter alignment between sales and delivery to ensure value is delivered.
- Why post-sale value and proactive partnerships matter more than ever.
- How enablement must evolve — and why sellers need to embrace self-enablement with AI.
- The pillars of leading strategic conversations: industry acumen, financial literacy, challenger mindset, and executive presence.
- How buying behavior is shifting — and why sellers must move from transactions to continuous value co-creation.

If you want to understand what it takes to turn customer relationships into lasting partnerships, this episode is full of actionable insights.

70. From Handoff to Partnership: Rethinking the Customer Lifecycle

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Scorpio

This podcast is dedicated to sales leaders in the B2B space, where we share conversations about innovative and successful sales transformations to keep you up to date on the latest trends that will help you to effectively tackle the challenge of constructing and executing a profitable and sustainable sales process.

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