Hunters + Unicorns: The 33 CxOs - Vance Loiselle #019

“I was never a six-foot, four-point shooter, I always played a lot of sports and was good at the sports that I played, but at the end of the day I was a grinder. You put me in something, and I will grind my way out of it and figure it out and work as hard if not harder than anybody to make it successful.” - Vance Loiselle

 

Hunters and Unicorns shares the playbooks from leaders, founders, executives and investors from high growth technology companies. In this special edition series The 33 CXOs we investigate the greatest success story in the history of software sales. Discover how thirty-three sales execs from one organisation, BladeLogic, became CXOs in the world’s 100 fastest growing technology companies. We uncover the stories and playbooks of the most prolific sales leaders in the industry.

Episode 19 features Vance Loiselle, President & CEO Propertybase. Vance is an accomplished enterprise software leader with more than 20 years of experience building high-tech companies into market leaders. As co-founder of BladeLogic, he helped lead the company from an idea and initial funding to IPO and subsequent $900 million acquisition by BMC Software. After BMC Software acquired BladeLogic in 2008, he remained with the company for four years serving in various executive positions, including Worldwide Vice President of Global Services, sales operations, field marketing and software consulting. After BMC, Loiselle was president and CEO of Sumo Logic, leading the company from launch through multiple years of hyper-growth in employees, customers, and revenue. In 2017, he made the transition into real estate, joining Boston Logic as President and Chief Executive Officer and becoming responsible for driving company strategy and expansion. Now, categorised as a “Software Champion,” Loiselle is applying his vast experience in cloud, data analytics and machine learning software companies to Propertybase, driving growth, and enabling brokers, teams and agents to embrace technology at an accelerated rate. “Not all of the companies that I've been affiliated with had a great product and great sales. We used both of those things, the product that we were building coupled with trying to figure out how to get even a sliver of the John McMahon playbook into what we were doing. You learn a lot, but boy it was great to fall back on the playbook that I had learned at BladeLogic. Hiring John McMahon to lead the BladeLogic sale force marked the beginning of a new era of progression and accomplishment for Vance and the entire BladeLogic team. Witnessing John and Dev Ittycheria’s absolute confidence in a playbook centred around number-driven sales strategies and a dedication to the success of others, Vance discovered the “science to sales,” and learnt how to adapt and develop the proven formula to achieve huge success in his career thereafter. Since co-founding BladeLogic, where he gained a deep understanding of how to address application and infrastructure problems at large scale, Vance has developed a unique skill set. He has impeccable instincts and a proven track record in taking a compelling technology that solves the biggest enterprise problems and transforming it into a high-growth company primed for rapid expansion. “The same things that I learned at BladeLogic and the playbook I apply here, everything from, how do you recruit folks? How do you enable and train them? How do you move on from decisions quickly? How do you make sure you put your team ahead of yourself when you're coaching and figure out what their personal wins are? I apply all that stuff here with both people that I've worked with in the past and new people that I have in the organization.”

In this vodcast you will discover:

The genesis of BladeLogic – a behind-the-scenes story from the co-founder.

John McMahon’s influence - how he transformed BladeLogic with his playbook and mindset.

The pillars of Vance’s playbook. How and why Vance transitioned into the real estate industry and what the future holds. Vance has deep experience in not only founding and growing start-up technology companies but running large-scale enterprise businesses and building unicorns. We discuss the genesis of BladeLogic and Vance’s incredible journey through the SaaS landscape from his initial indoctrination at Andersen Consulting to management and leadership roles, through to his current position as President and CEO of the leading software provider to the real estate industry. This is a truly inspirational conversation for those with an interest in sales strategy, as well as anyone with a passion for the technology space.