Why I left Concur to lead go-to-market strategy at Brex
Doug Adamic
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7 min read
7 min read
Why I left Concur to lead go-to-market at Brex
Reflection time
Successfully executing on this kind of change doesn’t just happen. It’s a complex transformation that takes deliberate and thoughtful planning across the entire organization.
As I celebrate my 1 year anniversary at Brex, I wanted to reflect on this transformation, look back on how we made it happen, and consider what comes next. What a year it’s been!
Why Brex?
So, why did I leave Concur? Because I wanted to work for the winner of tomorrow, rather than the winner of yesterday. I did not want to fall behind. Customers’ needs have evolved, and technology has progressed such that embedding payments in software is the way of the future. Companies are also increasingly becoming global and distributed in nature. I wanted to work for someone who could capitalize on these trends.
“So, why did I leave Concur? Because I wanted to work for the winner of tomorrow, rather than the winner of yesterday.”
Joining Brex didn’t feel like a big bet. It felt like a done deal. During my time at Concur, I had learned to sell software to enterprises. In fact, my team used to crush sales goals while selling a product neither they nor their customers were inspired by. I was excited about the idea of what a GTM team could accomplish if they sold a product they and their customers actually loved.
Transforming our GTM organization
How? Well, it helps that customers love the solution:
“We switched from Concur to Brex because of Brex’s tech-forward approach to managing spend. We were blown away by Brex’s ability to manage and track compliance in real-time, and automate employee expense reports and our month-end processes all in one system.”
— Alex Moiseev, Financial Controller, Psycho Bunny
1. Fundamentally rebuilt the sales motion
Pre-sales motion: The sales process doesn’t start with the sale. Before the sale we work with the customer to identify their specific pain points and goals. At Brex, we have defined sales territories to always ensure who from GTM is going to be the point person at which time. We have then trained all of our reps to be experts at Brex’s offerings. By the time we start negotiating the actual contract with the customer, we have already spent a lot of time highlighting Brex’s differentiating features and capabilities.
Implementation process: Brex offers a platform solution. When we onboard a large enterprise with thousands of employees, we need to ensure that each and every employee gets as much as possible out of Brex. This is where Implementation comes in.This team sets customers up for success from the get-go. We have built detailed implementation guides & how-to’s for customers and hold regular office hours / webinars on Empower 101. We have even made it easy for customers to schedule 1:1 implementation or support meetings right from their Brex dashboard.
Contracting capabilities: This might seem obvious to some, but building out the muscle to contract with customers in an efficient way that works for both parties is complicated and takes time. While there is an aspect of rinse-wash-repeat to this, every customer has slightly different needs - as such we have built out our billing capabilities (including multicurrency) and added packaging and pricing experts to our team.
Product expansion: We have significantly increased our investments in ongoing customer success post deal signing. This has resulted in many of our largest customers having joined us on a multi-product journey. A customer might join Brex for a specific product or feature, but often realizes the power of our entire platform of expense management, travel, business accounts and bill pay workflows from a single account.
2. Redefined the sales cycle
3. Established tight collaboration with our engineering, product, and design team
4. Prioritized operational excellence
It’s all about the people
We are also more efficient than any other organization I have ever seen. Brex’s remote-first approach, which my colleague Michael Tannenbaum wrote about here, allows us to generate new work faster and connect with customers in a more efficient way. This is crucial for the GTM org, where every minute is precious.
To close out, I am so excited about what Brex will accomplish over the next years and decades. For me it’s never been easier to show up for work everyday. We are building an enduring company and we are still in the very early innings of our journey. Onwards!