Strategic Partnerships / Enterprise Sales

Context

Civitas Learning was a SaaS company using machine learning to help universities harvest their own data (SIS + LMS in particular) in service of student success — retention and graduation rates.

Tim's initial mandate was Partner Success: upskill the team on delivering hard truths gracefully. He quickly segued to Sales once leadership saw his talent for opening doors with university chief administrators (Presidents, Provosts, and equivalents) — the exact buyer profile Civitas needed to reach.

Territory: Southeast US — considered the hardest region for selling into universities because of relative apathy toward higher-ed innovation and the added complexity of performance-based state funding in Florida and North Carolina (which made "student success" a competitive vendor category rather than a nice-to-have).

Numbers

• On the sales leaderboard in 5 out of 6 quarters (Q1 2015 – Q2 2016) — the peer set was Civitas' Top 5 enterprise sales performers.Sales
• Instrumental in landing Arizona State University, the largest contract in Civitas' history at the time and Civitas' first enterprise deal over $1M ARR.SalesStrategy

How Tim got the job

A former boss at GLG was hired at Civitas and immediately came to recruit Tim — knowing he was the right person to teach the Partner Success team how to deliver "tough love" to clients in a way that generates thank-yous instead of complaints. The former boss reportedly demanded Tim be hired.

Interview-safe stories

• "Arizona State — the first million-dollar deal." Ask Tim for the full arc. This is a marquee story he underweighted in earlier CV versions and should feature prominently.SalesStrategy
• "How do you sell into universities in the Southeast?" — Alliance strategy with consultants and keynote speakers; ecosystem plays; ask Tim.SalesGTMStrategy
• "Tough love that gets thank-yous." The Partner Success training module Tim built at Civitas — reuses the GLG "pushback" muscle in a higher-stakes context.ManagementGTM

Skills exercised

Enterprise SaaS sales into a difficult vertical, strategic partnership development, ecosystem play (consultants + conference keynote speakers who recommended Civitas into institutions), Partner Success leadership and training design, C-level (of universities) doorway-opening.