Paul Curto, Head of Sales Americas

RetailNext

I am taking on added responsibility as Head of Sales Americas, leading the RetailNext Account Directors (ADs) responsible for all geographies and territories in the US, Canada, and LATAM. In this role I have direct responsibility and accountability for the number our team calls to the Head of Sales, our CEO and our Board of Directors.

Head of Sales Americas

In this role, I have the unique opportunity to combine the areas of sales enablement, sales operations, product marketing, marketing operations, and inside sales development into a holistic revenue generating system. 

I am focused on establishing and standardizing on the MEDDICC sales methodology to the global sales team at RetailNext, empowering reps with new skills and playbooks, new business capture programs, seller excellence, analytic data tied to meeting quotas and forecasting, as well as metrics that tie to sales activity leading to better sales outcomes. 

The Product Marketing and Marketing Operations function I lead is focused on delivering marketing excellence to empower sellers and prospects with more high-quality leads and prospects at scale through automation, content that helps sellers solution sell with best-in-class playbooks, and establishing metrics and KPIs for marketing initiatives data across the funnel. 

The Sales Operations function I lead is focused on optimizing selling time through intelligent reporting and process optimization while balancing the needs of the business, as well as bringing a modern sales technology stack to the field. 

The Inside Sales Territory Development Manager (TDM) team I lead is focused on scaling up deal qualification in targeted accounts as the tip of the spear for the revenue engine. These hybrid inbound and outbound hunters are well versed in the art of hunting and prospecting excellence, the use of personalization - value - call to action (PVC) and goal setting in Atrium for activity that drives results.

The Sales Enablement function I lead is new to RetailNext, and establishes an onboarding, everboarding, and excellence program tied to a modern enablement technology stack for bringing new sellers to productivity as rapidly as possible and upskilling the field as a whole.

Head of Sales Strategy and Operations

Vengreso | Type Less. Do More.

Vengreso (a minority and female owned business), has had an amazing track record of success as a service company over the last five years. I now have the honor of guiding them and their visionary leaders as they pivot into a SaaS company with FlyMSG, serving the 1 billion knowledge workers worldwide. 

Vengreso is the creator of FlyMSG®, the free text expander and personal writing assistant. FlyMSG helps individuals and teams automate the written word by removing the time drain it takes to find, copy, paste or write messages. 

Vengreso’s cloud-based productivity platform saves users 1-hour+ a day by expanding text of any length - anywhere online - with just a few short keystrokes. 

Talk about a time saver for any business professional!  

Best of all… there is a free plan, and it works! 

Who should use FlyMSG?

If you work behind a computer all day… then, regardless of your role (HR, Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Customer Success, Business Owners, Accounts Payable, Recruiting, or…), you likely can use FlyMSG.
 
Today, professionals around the globe, in companies like Uber, St. Luke’s Health System, 1-800-Contacts, Google, use FlyMSG to save 1/hour a day, communicate more consistently, and drive better personal and business outcomes. 

Vengreso has a history of innovation and product development as evidenced by five consecutive Gold Stevie Awards (2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 (2X)) for product excellence and innovation🏅

In the words of one FlyMSG user:

“WOW! FlyMSG knocks my socks off! They help you with copywriting sales notes for emails, LinkedIn, special events, follow-ups, birthdays, etc. Cuts down on the time needed, stores your custom copy in the cloud and is always ready! If you haven’t tried this, you are working too hard on your copy!”
Steve Benson

For more information about FlyMSG visit https://vengreso.com and see the media below.

Specialties: Text Expander | AI Writing Assistant | Automate Repetitive Tasks

Early-Stage Investor

Modern Sales Pros

Modern Sales Pros is the world's largest community for leaders in sales, operations, enablement and related disciplines. Our mission is to help our community learn how to solve the biggest challenges they face (and would otherwise bang their head against the wall trying to solve). Our 15,000 members learn from each other through our online message board and through amazing in-person events.

Member

Juniper Networks

In this role, I am tasked with improving effectiveness with a modern approach to accelerating sales productivity for Juniper sales, services, and partner communities. I am focused on developing scalable enablement frameworks to drive a business outcome-base customer-centric holistic model for all Juniper sellers across the portfolio. I am leveraging MEDDICC and other best-of-breed sales methodologies to create dominant strategies to win key business, sell value throughout the customer path, boost seller confidence and capability, and create best-in-class content such as sales playbooks to arm the sellers with the tools they need to be successful. I am developing the orchestration and governance necessary to identify the prioritized initiatives, programs, objectives and metrics we will use to track progress and tie into ROI. I am collaborating cross functionally with leaders and partners throughout the organization including sales and marketing leadership, product management from the cross-functional business teams (XBTs), and other stakeholders to drive these programs and execution.

Head of Global Sales Methodologies

Aruba Networks, an HP company

Built next-generation holistic enablement program for all Aruba sellers, supported the global sales organization in winning large new business, developed global accounts program for strategic customers, gave time back to the sales organization, and helped drive top line revenue growth. 

* Consolidated and launched holistic next generation enablement function. 
* Developed enablement mission tied to onboarding, new product introduction, and sales skills development for direct and indirect sellers. 
* Expanded and evolved next-generation HPE Edge training and certification program, expanding training business by 23% and certifications by over 50% year-over-year.
* Accelerated NPI process to facilitate rapid adoption of new learning materials and enablement outcomes for key program launches.
* Established new business pursuit program leading to $750M+ total contract value pipeline and 75%+ win rates consistently over several years.
* Established new global and strategic account program to strengthen key account relationships leading to hundreds of millions in incremental new opportunity value.
* Led sales cultural adoption of Miller Heiman sales processes, became a certified expert in Miller Hieman Strategic Selling and Large Account Management, coached and trained a large portion of the sales force.
* Launched expanded and more focused Request for Proposals (RFP) team, doubling revenue impact and increased sales team productivity.
* Integrated and expanded HPE Aruba Proof of Concept (PoC) program, doubling size of revenue impacted, leading to sales productivity gains and putting HPE Aruba’s best foot forward in competitive technical sales.

Vice President, Global Sales Advocacy and Enablement

Led the exploration of a large scale, cross functional, next generation business model in partnership with a large telecommunications service provider focused on the small to medium enterprise in a nationwide rollout. 

* Program managed large initiative to analyze and deploy new business model. 
* Prioritized schedules and worked across functions to coordinate Operations, Legal, IT, Product Management, Customer Support, Sales, and R&D tasks; served as primary partner contact throughout JV and contract negotiation. 
* Company decided not to pursue business and exited gracefully.
* Launched large deal pursuit team, new global accounts function, and took on and expanded the RFP function.

Sr. Director, Business Operations

Led Aruba’s Technical Marketing function and grew from 3 to 12 TMEs while creating new competitive team, design guide team, and proof of concept team. Hired TMEs focused on different subject matter expertise areas as Aruba acquired several companies and broadened the portfolio. 

* Launched Aruba competitive technical marketing and analysis team. 
* Developed TME mission, developed competitive testing team, hired and developed product experts who could evangelize and train technical sales team. 
* Team expanded from 3 to 12, leading highly-competitive, offensive push that ultimately led to elimination of 12 competitors. 
* Pioneered new Proof of Concept program, built out 30k sqft high-density testing facility to showcase mobile-first networking capabilities to key customers.
* Revitalized validated reference design (VRD) guide program for customer-facing authoritative guides vetted by senior technical leads, resulting in over a dozen prioritized guides published and over 500,000 downloads in under two years.
* Developed high density open air competitive test report with industry testing expert David Newman, arming the Aruba sales organization with highly competitive report that put key competitors on the defensive.

Director, Technical Marketing

Meru Networks, Inc.

Launched new Technical Marketing Engineer (TME) function for Meru, became the expert in competitive high density real world client scale testing, authored a variety of technology best practice guides, led several third party validated test reports, and led the Location Manager product development.

* Led Meru Networks new E(z)RF Location Manager product development. 
* Worked with key partner to develop location product for IT administrators to track assets, isolate rogue devices, and secure network, resulting in successful product launch in less than 6 months and expanded customer base.
* Pioneered high density competitive testing and developed competitive reports. 
* Became expert in RF chamber scale testing with real clients, shifting the industry towards open air competitive testing in bakeoffs. 
* Led to several key customer wins and put Meru on map as highly-differentiated enterprise WLAN architecture, awoke sleeping competitor giants.

Manager, Technical Marketing

Detecon (Deutsche Telekom Consulting), US

Expanded strategic consulting business focused on mobile service providers, leveraging innovation sourcing and scouting frameworks from Silicon Valley providing ideas for new technologies, platforms, and solutions that could benefit Deutsche Telekom and other large carriers.

* Program managed and developed US wireless carrier technology and platforms study for wireless carrier. 
* Led team of 12 consultants in 3 theaters to create expansive study of competitive technology strategies of wireless carriers. 
* Top management workshop led to multi-billion-dollar investment decision in US-based carrier to expand into 3G technology.

Managing Consultant

iBasis

Designed, deployed, and supported large scale Cisco based voice over IP (VoIP) networks using the Internet for transport with high quality. Managed the network engineering team that owned the global network and created the next generation network design that led to higher quality metrics and capacity. Led implementation of overlay QoS IP and H.323-based design for optimizing end-to-end QoS over the Internet for VoIP traffic.
	
Led network performance steering committee to optimize network quality. Tasked by CEO office to identify and solve all network bottlenecks; met weekly with executive team to track findings, required resources, and progress. Led to enhanced call and signaling quality, higher average call duration, and grew network-wide voice minutes leading to higher revenues and margins with no incremental CAPEX outlay.

Sr. Network Engineer

Verizon

Designed and deployed GTE’s first nationwide VoIP network. Became IP networking expert and designed, staged, and deployed large scale Cisco-based VoIP networks. Led team of network engineers to deploy and upgrade multiple sites; served as level 3 escalation support. Deployed a dozen sites to deliver high-quality enhanced VoIP service leading to rapid customer growth.

Worked closely with core engineering team in Dallas for GTE Media Ventures Hybrid Fiber Coax network on next generation IPTV and high speed Internet services in Tampa and Los Angeles.

Worked closely with core RF engineering team for GTE PCS Wireless division to expand the wireless CDMA network in Seattle.

Worked closely with Corporate Technology Planning group in Stamford, CT on next generation packet core network for use by GTEs business units for transport.

Engineering Associate Development Program

I am deeply passionate about enabling sales teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences, and helping customers achieve positive business outcomes for the pain they might be experiencing. 

The health of some brick and mortar retailers is in distress, while others struggle to scale and grow efficiently and effectively, but there are clear solutions out there. By helping brick and mortar retailers deliver e-commerce style analytics tied to the customer's experience, our customers can leverage data to vastly improve results leveraging fact-based decision making.  

Allow me to explain a few of these challenging problems we solve for:

👉 How to accurately count customer traffic, isolate abandonment rate, thus optimizing conversion

👉 How to increase sales by aligning staff to predicted traffic, putting the right salesperson at the right place at the right time

👉 How to improve marketing campaign effectiveness, measuring the success or failure of campaigns to drive traffic to the store or sales for a given set of SKUs

👉 How to optimize merchandising category performance with store layout changes, evaluating changes before rolling out to the full fleet and optimizing investment

👉 How to reduce shrink and speed up investigations to protect assets, leveraging point of sale exception reporting and video tied to the riskiest transactions

👉 How to ensure optimal customer experience with full journey analysis, looking at the why behind what the data is telling you

👊 Helping retailers solve these problems is paramount, and is a huge motivator for me personally. 👊

If you like the ideas here and need help, please feel free to connect with me. If you are a retail enthusiast, please connect with me as I'd like to learn more from you!

Specialties: Retail Analytics | Sales Leadership | Sales Enablement | Sales Strategy | Strategic Planning | Key Account Management | Management Reporting | Multi-functional Team Management | Program Management | Mobile-First Networking | KPI and Analytic Reporting | Competitive Analysis | Product Management | Organizational Design | Leadership Assessment | Proposal Response | Pricing and Contract Negotiations | Technical Marketing

Please contact me at:
paul.curto@retailnext.net, paul.curto@gmail.com, 650.455.9407
https://hubs.ly/H0LjNrf0

I’m grateful to have spent the last 16 years working with a passionate team and collaborating with leading brands across the globe.

Today, it’s an honor to be recognized by Inc. Magazine on the #FemaleFounders 250 list, alongside some of the most creative and tenacious honorees.

💙 Kudos to the entire RetailNext team, whose tireless dedication and innovation continue to inspire. Despite the challenges in operations, we remain committed to best serving our customers, making our product the best fit in the retail industry. I would also want to thank our partners, willing to continue to work with RetailNext, grow with RetailNext. 

Congratulations to my fellow honorees: https://lnkd.in/gdEfNCCR.    

#Women #Business #Leadership #Founder

I had the opportunity to take my kids to the #beverlyhills location of RetailNext customer Zegna while doing college tours in the LA area. 

The first thing that jumped out at me was the engagement with the lovely staff who greeted me immediately and walked me through some of the products that were on display.

The triple stitch shoes were "buttery" to the touch. I don't think I could wear them personally, but she assured me I would if I had them.

The coat I believe is camel based and took many hours of personalized touch to get the color and feel. 

Throughout the conversation we talked about conversion metrics and how the customer experience is really driven by the interaction between the shopper and staff. It's about educating customers on the reason why owning these premium products might be worth the investment.

The financial results seem to tell a similar story. With a large global company with over 500 stores in 80 countries, data-driven #retailanalytics is a critical part of any performance goaling strategy to identify top performing stores to learn from, and low performing stores to enable through training and process improvements.

Check out this Fashion Dive article for more details on this strong financial result and congratulations to the Zegna team.

https://lnkd.in/gyTUgqNc


More tech in stores <> fewer workers

That's the tag line in this Retail Dive article. There are labor saving automation and technologies that are being deployed in stores, from pricing to inventory and of course self checkout. 

There is a callout that theft prevention needs humans, and while I agree, we at RetailNext does have a solution that helps empower those humans with faster investigations and reduced shrink using PoS exception reporting tied to video as an automation workflow.

As for customer service and brand engagement, I agree wholeheartedly. That's where the education and the CX come in. 

"Since the height of the pandemic, store operations have grown more complex, as omnichannel services like online fulfillment, pickup and delivery have become entrenched." 

🧐 agreed, and this is an area we are brainstorming with customers to help bridge that gap for BOPIS and related use cases.

Stores running leaner on fewer staff is another callout, and Macy's who leverages our technology to optimize staffing and conversion has reduced to 18% fewer since 2019. 

📊 This means having high-quality data to place the right people in the right location at the right time leveraging highly accurate predictive analytics.

“There’s a major misalignment in terms of what customer expectations are when it comes to the self-service experience and what brands and organizations are actually delivering.” 

🛒 Exactly! How should we measure that?

"Tractor Supply Company is one example of a retailer that has embraced AI to foster customer service, using it to alert store associates when lines are too long or help customers get information", CEO Hal Lawton said at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show earlier this year.

We have a use case to help solve for this as well - DM me for more info.

The key here is that sometimes fewer workers means more problems, and can damage the brand as well as the top line target. 

💪 Optimized labor and optimized CX is where it's at, and any investments can be funded with new revenue streams tied to testable ROI. Again, DM me if this is of interest to you.


https://lnkd.in/g32BagXu


retaildive.com • 9 min read

Why more tech in stores shouldn’t mean fewer workers

The American consumer is fickle. 

Flavors and tests change with the tides and the weather, and like an entrepreneur c-stores must anticipate and innovate to stay ahead of trends.

This C-Store Dive article captures some of the thinking and planning going on as summer here arrives. A few things that jumped out at me:

Datassential’s top flavors report may be useful in determining what flavors to focus on: https://lnkd.in/gS2dJSmv - consultants are already predicting what will work:

🍭 Sweet & savory with 🫚 spice / kick to it combinations will be in favor

ATL-based RaceTrac "has had previous success with items such as Spicy Hawaiian and Cheeseburger pizzas, the PepperJack’d sandwich and a Southwest Scrambled Breakfast Tornado."

🍉 Fruits with global recognition will begin to dominate - think guava, coconut, mango, dragon, and more..

Clifford Fuel Co. Inc & Cliff's Local Market "plans to offer a “tropical parfait” from Memorial Day through Labor Day that offers vanilla yogurt, mango, raspberries, pineapples and shredded coconut in a plastic cup, with a small container of granola that can be mixed in." 😋😋😋

🐼 Asian flavors, such as Korean gochujang, to lead global influencers

🇲🇽 Mexican flavors including birria and mezcal as well as chamoy are likely leaders as well.

Barbecue flavors such as Carolina Gold, a South Carolina-influenced flavor profile featuring mustard, vinegar, brown sugar and spices, are hot in the summer months and will likely be influenced regionally this year 🍔🌭🍗🍖🍺🌽🍉🍴🔥👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

Whole Foods Market has a top 10 food trends report has some great insights: https://lnkd.in/gMqA2-4T

🍄 Veggies to take a starring role in foot items this year, notably 🌽 corn and 🍅 tomatoes, as well as elote chips, or use an elote dry rub on wings

Cliff's Local Market "will bring back its summer salad, which includes spinach topped with strawberries, blueberries, goat cheese and sweet Vidalia onion dressing."

OK ok.. now that I've made us all hungry with this post.. question for you is **how are you establishing benchmarks and measuring performance in your #c-stores this summer** as you try new items and experiment with new engagement strategies? 

DM me for a conversation about how RetailNext and our ecosystem partners may be able to help!

https://lnkd.in/gC3Ggh-G

cstoredive.com • 1 min read

4 hot c-store flavor trends for summer

📢 Check out our newsletter for the latest updates on a few key trends in #retail

In the March issue we cover: 

1️⃣ How brick and mortar retailers can achieve a higher level of personalization

2️⃣ Beauty as a category is perceived as essential thus resilient in the face of a spending squeeze

3️⃣ How retailers can learn from innovation at McDonald's

4️⃣ RetailNext is honored to receive a #retailinnovation award from Fast Company in 2024

Check out more details in the article linked below, and look for more newsletter updates each month:

https://lnkd.in/gTTueM-p

#RetailAnalytics #MarchNewsletter #RetailInnovation RetailNext

Taplio

Paul Curto, Head of Sales Americas's Linkedin Analytics