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Meet Mark Goldberger, Head of Enterprise Sales at Ramp 👋
Mark was born to sell. At only seven years old, he was making door-to-door sales in his neighborhood, and by high school, he built a business reselling Costco candy bars to his classmates.
Since then, Mark has held multiple roles in the hospitality industry before finding his way to the tech world. He was the first enterprise rep at Navan (bringing in over $100M in ARR), and today leads the Enterprise Sales team at Ramp.
We recently talked with Mark about:
- The defining qualities of a 10x seller
- How to hire, train, and coach top performers
- The impact of AI on the future of SaaS sales
Prefer to watch instead of read? Catch the full conversion:
The DNA of a top-tier rep
Sales is more than selling a product – it requires persuasiveness, passion, and resilience.
Mark believes some folks naturally possess these qualities, but he has seen reps without the “sales gene” crush their quota through hard work and perseverance.
“It’s not that everyone is in one category or the other, but some people are more comfortable selling and persuading people. And these people tend to gravitate toward positions in sales.”
And great sellers don’t always come from traditional sales backgrounds.
“When you think about sales, it's very much about the intangibles, those abilities which are not necessarily exclusive to sales.”
Mark is the perfect example, having spent time in theater and as a server and sommelier. In these roles, he learned how to stand in front of an audience confidently, articulate clearly, read the room, create a great customer experience, and juggle multiple conversations.
So, it’s not surprising that, when hiring, Mark looks for relevant traits rather than specific sales experience.
How to hire 10x sellers
Mark is a firm believer that you can teach reps new sales skills and tactics, but changing their mindset is far more challenging.
“I can't teach someone passion. I can't teach them heart. I can help coach them through a lot of these things, but I can't teach them how to have these traits. For me, that desire to win, that grit, to take punches and keep going, willingness to outwork everyone, that's something that they have to come to me already having formed. And if they have those traits, then it's easy to teach a product.”
To find sellers that’ll drive the business forward, Mark looks for candidates with the 4Hs:
- Hunger: Desire to win and improve daily
- Hustle: Willingness to put in the work
- Humility: A coachable attitude and interest in learning
- Heart: Resilience and ability to overcome adversity
How to coach reps and encourage winning behaviors
Your work isn’t done after hiring reps – you need to help them reach their full potential.
Here’s the advice Mark gives his team to help them get better every day.
- Be an active listener and read the room: Listen to what prospects are saying rather than running a pitch on autopilot. Preparedness leads to much more engaging and productive conversations. And don’t overlook visual cues – how someone is physically responding to a situation can tell you if a deal is on the right track, or about to go off the rails.
“If you know your product and pitch so well that you don't have to think about it, then you can focus all of your mental energy on the prospect.”
- Have healthy paranoia: Great reps identify deal blockers to get ahead of issues before they arise. Mark advises sellers to write out 10 reasons you could lose a deal and determine how to address each.
“There are a million reasons you're going to lose this deal – figure out what they are and how to overcome those objections in advance.”
- Take a beat: Build a culture of inquisitiveness – Mark calls this “slowing down to speed up.” He encourages his sellers to gather context before immediately jumping to a solution.
- Make the call: Winning reps avoid relying solely on email. Picking up the phone and giving a prospect a call can drive a sense of urgency and elicit an immediate response.
- Always be learning: Even top performers have room for improvement. Mark is an avid reader and recommends reps read Switch by Chip and Dan Heath to learn more about the psychology of sales and Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara to learn how to build a human connection and great customer experience.
- Focus on outcomes, not functionality: When a prospect mentions a specific feature, dig deeper to understand what they are trying to achieve and how your solution can help. “If you can align best to their outcome, you will win,” shares Mark.
AI’s impact on SDRs and AEs
AI is another topic on all sales leaders’ minds, with many wondering if it will replace or augment current sales roles.
In the short term, Mark believes AI will be a power-up for SDRs and BDRs, helping automate routine tasks like researching, reading an annual report, and crafting messaging. With more time in the day, SDRs can spend time on strategic selling rather than manual research. At Ramp, AI helps sellers be 4x more effective.
In the long term, Mark anticipates AI replacing SDRs entirely. As technology advances, AI may be able to perform all the functions of an SDR.
“I think that the SDR function is going to evolve and likely go away at some point.”
However, Mark believes the Account Executive role is here to stay, especially in complex enterprise sales organizations. The human touch will still be necessary to navigate the nuances of intricate sales.
The future of SaaS sales
Sales leaders, AEs, and SDRs have a lot on their mind – and rightfully so. New advances in AI, increasing competition, and a volatile market make it a challenging time to be in sales. But, Mark believes the future of sales is bright.
“The next year or two might be a little bit messy – we still need to distill signal from noise. There’s a lot of money that's being spent on this space, which is exciting because it means we are more likely to get to the right outcome, but it's going to take time to figure out who does it best and what works and what doesn't. It’s an exciting time we're living through.”
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