icanmakeitbetter.com continues to grow - Patty and Sheri join the team!

We are super excited (really - super + excited) to have Patty and Sheri join us!

Patty Riley has joined icanmakeitbetter.com as Director of Business Development. Prior to joining icanmakeitbetter.com, Patty worked as Sales Director for CSIdentity (CSID). At CSID Patty helped to grow the company from a small start-up with a staff of 12 to the leading global provider of identity protection solutions with a team of over 150.

Sheri Stark recently joined the team as Research Manager. Shari will manage icanmakeitbetter.com’s growing roster of insight communities and integrated feedback platform launches. Sheri brings a unique background with 6+ years’ experience at Cambia Information Group merging primary market research and specialized technology solutions. Sheri worked on projects ranging from brand engagement to strategy, and customer marketing.

We are always looking to bring on amazing renaissance professionals – those that  love to learn, have eclectic disciplines and singular focus on excellence. We found exactly that in both Sheri and Patty. They will add tremendous value to our company as a whole, but also to our clients by bringing skills ranging from building the world’s leading identity protection platform (not an easy task) to in-depth market research and innovation skills married to technical project management. These are not your standard resumes! And, that is exactly what we and our clients look for – creativity, innovation, actionable insights, impeccable service and above all integrity. We are honored these two wonderful women have chosen to share their time and talents with us.

Please join me in welcoming them to the team.

An Awesome Job! Director of Sales icanmakeitbetter.com

An Awesome Job: Director of Sales – Austin, TX

Why we exist: To make things (products, companies, the whole dang world) better through the power of feedback and the wisdom of knowing what to do with it. We believe in the power of ideas, the wisdom of communities, the tools of social media and the intelligence of market research.

icanmakeitbetter is the only platform that seamlessly combines these practices to help businesses reduce costs, get new products to market faster, increase quality, reduce waste and deliver more of what customers need and will actually buy.

The opportunity: Join a rapidly growing business that is revolutionizing a stagnant $31B a year industry. If you thrive on moving fast, limitless opportunity, no-cubes, no time clock and a team that will fully support you, this is for you.

Think of us as a software start-up combined with a well-established full-service market research agency. We started out in 2003 as Sentient Services – a global full-service market research agency. We saw a massive need in the marketplace and among our clients so we built www.icanmakeitbetter.com and everyone loves it! We have more demand in the sales pipeline than we can keep up with and proactively sell to. Now we need your help to roll it out, create our sales strategy and execute on it.

You will:

·        Be our first dedicated sales person – you get to be a trail blazer.

·        Create your own dream sales department – we are here to support you in doing that.

·        Create a sales culture of value, fun and integrity.

·        Sell SaaS and associated full-service community management and market research.

·        Build out the sales strategy, and execute on it. You will be responsible for direct sales and revenue.

·        Build out a sales team as you knock it out of the park.

·        Be amazing. Really, we don’t have the time or budget for anything less than someone that is absolutely the best at selling software and services. We need someone that thrives on finding solutions for customers, loves pleasing people with unexpected kindness and has unwavering determination to make it happen…every day.

And, no this is not commission only or a tiny base. You bet on us, we will bet on you.

Why you will not like it here (you’ll love it!): We don’t want to brag, but working here is awesome! And it’s because of people just like you. If you don’t feel that you make a place awesome with your creativity, humor, and hard work, no worries, but don’t apply. If YOU can make us even more awesome by being here, we know that and we will treat you like that every day.

Position overview: icanmakeitbetter.com continues to grow and is looking to add driven, passionate and amazing new friends to our team as we meld business knowledge, research, usability and interactive software to serve leading global clients. We are actively seeking to fill the position of Director of Sales (preferably onsite in Austin, TX but will consider remote for the ideal candidate).

This is not an easy position, nor is it for everyone. We are small (that means you get to do lots of different things, which can be fun and exciting, or terrifying and tiring).  

Requirements: What is more important than concrete requirements (though there are a few below) is being proactive, willing to learn, quick on your feet, flexibility within a growing organization, having a desire for excellence and the ability/passion/competency to sell with joy and integrity. Core competencies we would like to see are:

·        Must haves experience/education:

o   5+ years selling software (SaaS) along with associated services (preferably market research, innovation, advertising, consulting). Core market is B-B, mid-sized and up.  

o   Worked building a small company into a large one through direct sales or launched a new division within a larger organization and participated in developing the division, strategy and directly taking it to market and selling it.

·        Excellent writing skills.

·        Excellent computer and tech skills

·        Desire to sell and grow a business

·        Ability to be a proactive self-starter

·        Project/time/task management

·        Attention to detail and desire for perfection

·        Analytical and inquisitive by nature

·        Team player; willingness to wear many hats

·        Strong in-person presence

·        Ability to work independently and build out your dream team

Don’t have all of the above? No worries. Convince us you can do this job – we are always open to new ways, new people and ways to make it better!

Further information: Please send resume and cover letter to jobs@icanmakeitbetter.com.  Additionally, to help us get to know you and your sales acumen please send us one of the following 1.) How you would approach your first 30 days on the team, or 2.) A sales email you would send out selling icanmakeitbetter.com to a F500 market research manager. OR really blow us away and send us all of the above.

About icanmakeitbetter.com: Very simply, we provide the software and services for clients to get feedback from customers to improve their business. This is $31billion/year business we are going to take by storm and revolutionize.

We work with clients in product development, innovation, interactive, usability, research, marketing and branding.

We have extensive global experience covering qualitative and quantitative market research and usability. We work with Fortune 500 clients and startups alike. The common denominator is great people, great products, integrity and a quest to make things better through customer insights. We don't help put lipstick on pigs.

We're a team that works together and believes in having fun in both business and life. We have to work for a living, but it’s the living that defines us, not the work. There are companies that are changing this world for the better, and every day, we strive to be one of them - from the way we interact with those we have the pleasure of calling our clients, to our own work environment and most importantly, in the way we operate. (This is no BS, we work with great clients and great co-workers, everything else comes second – we would rather close shop than not enjoy what we do and who we work with.)

Legal:

Sentient Services, LP (DBA icanmakeitbetter.com) is an equal opportunity employer and encourages all qualified candidates to apply. We do not accept resumes from recruiters that we do not have a formal agreement with. Any resume received from unapproved recruiters will be considered unsolicited, and Sentient Services, LP will not be obligated to pay referral or replacement fees to the submitting recruiter or agency.

What is icanmakeitbetter?

Well, here is an answer in a short video. All new platform with a ton of new features: surveys, customer panel and idea platform and customer feedback all in one simple, powerful tool. And, it's FREE!

SXSW: A short Sentient Services history

We had the pleasure of being part of Startup America and the Dell Entrepreneur In Residence program during SXSW 2012. You can read the article written by Dell's EIR Ingrid Vandervelt HERE.

And watch the interview below.

I hope you enjoy this short "history" of Sentient Services. We could not have done it without great support from family, friends and clients - thank you!

The Subtle Art of NO

A few years back I found myself in a transitional place professionally. I was in a new state looking for work in a related (albeit only marginally related) field. I found myself in an interview wearing a suit (yes, a suit), sitting in front of someone whose role, and entire department to be honest, I did not fully understand. It’s times like these,  when one takes a resume from one field and submits it to another that you realize you have been talking in hyperbole, or in other words BS laden task lists made to look like a resume. All of a sudden a resume riddled with sexy items like managing the production of vertical specific variations for non-transactional web content becomes worked closely with writers to update various website articles. The latter line item is boring, lame, flat…and as humbling as it may be, more informative to most people on the planet. It was during the vernacular-free discussion that I realized the fulcrum of my career was the fact that I had refined a way to tell my clients and managers “no” on a regular basis and have them love me for it.

Allow me to explain…back to the interview. As it turns out, I got the job. A while later, my boss told me I pulled off the upset and edged out someone with much more relevant experience because of my answer to one single question – “Do you have any experience with difficult clients?” My response – “Respectfully, there’s no such thing as an easy client. But, if you keep them informed and deliver what you say you will, they get a lot easier.” Before you fire me, let me explain. During the interview, I went on to elaborate about how clients come to agencies and research firms to extend their own skill sets and resources. As such, both sides – agency and client – are almost constantly teaching each other new things. This may be learning about new technical product features only a senior engineer could understand (and love) or mastering the phrasing nuances of an insightful discussion guide. For this reason, each project includes an ebb and flow of novel information that makes both sides vulnerable to mistakes which can quickly derail the productivity of any given project.

Now, combine constant learning/exploration with a smartphone in your pocket that makes you available 24x7 and you’ll find that it’s the urge to please, and over-commit that can get you into trouble very quickly. For instance, I may tell my boss I can crank out three reports in as many days. But the end result is going to be a 60+ hour week, and three reports where a substantial piece of each was written past midnight. To quote my high school golf coach – “Nothing good happens after midnight.” I and my client would have a much better product to show for it had I just inserted a little incubation time for each of those reports. Faster is not always better. Once you fail to meet a deadline or underperform, whether irrationally overextended or not, you’ve just set off a chain reaction that will take a whole heck of a lot longer to sort out than the original extra half day you cut out of the schedule, just to be agreeable.

Now, there are two qualifiers here – 1) you must not overuse this gift and 2) this must never be for solely your benefit. Frequently use “no” and you will find yourself fired for being an obstructionist, as you should be. Too much self-serving “no, because that would require me to work past 6” and you’ll be fired for being lazy, as you should be. My point is that we must strive to exceed expectations. Sometimes, that means that you have to lean hard on a history of achievement and ask your colleagues to “Trust me; you’ll be much better off if we do this…” Sometimes you swallow your dissent, roll up your sleeves and make impossible deadlines looks like a walk in the park.

Clients, and our bosses, pay us (not to be tacky, but) a good chunk of money to exceed their expectations – which is not a matter of killing yourself to crank out deliverables. Exceeding expectations is a delicate balance between building up credibility through over-achieving when your client/boss needs you and then calling upon that reservoir of goodwill when things appear headed off course. Master the art of “no” and they’ll love you for it.