Zach Vidibor on the elements of a powerful sales team
Enterprise account executive Zach reflects on his career in sales and shares his thoughts on what makes the Dropbox sales team unique.
What did you do before Dropbox?
It’s always been some flavor of sales. Just prior to joining Dropbox I was doing sales at DocuSign, helping companies eliminate paper-based processes and streamline workflows by leveraging eSignature technology. Before that I was in sales at LinkedIn, working within their Talent Solutions business. At LinkedIn I was responsible for helping employers discover, engage, and recruit new talent.
You’ve been doing sales for a number of years now. What drew you to sales in the first place?
I wish I could give the romantic answer that it was one of those careers I always knew I wanted. After college I saw sales as something that was challenging, offered more rapid advancement opportunities than other types of careers, and also seemed fun. While my first sales job (selling copiers door-to-door) wasn’t necessarily the most fun job on earth, it helped build my confidence and inspired me to further explore sales.
What do you do at Dropbox?
I’m on the enterprise sales team. It is first and foremost my job to help companies learn about what we do, and how Dropbox for Business can help them become a more productive and collaborative company. Ultimately, it is my job to sell them our software, but that is just the final step in the process if we both agree Dropbox is a good fit. First, we need to consider: the customer’s priorities, their use-cases, how we fit into their IT environment, their requirements, how we need to integrate with other technologies they rely on, and so on. Then we need to actually demonstrate our product, build project plans, do proof of concepts, implement and deploy Dropbox, and so much more.
Why did you decide to join Dropbox?
Dropbox has been a company I’ve known about for a long time, and I’ve been a Dropbox user for many years. But there is a huge opportunity here as Dropbox continues to make its push into the business space. When interviewing I met a team that was extremely intelligent, offered an amazing product, had a huge runway before it, and was truly excited to bring new people and perspectives into the fold. That is ultimately why this was the right time to join. The company is small enough that every person has an opportunity to impact make an impact.
What things do you look for when choosing a place to work?
The most important thing to me is the people and culture. You spend most of your life at work so making sure you get along with and enjoy the people around you is paramount. But there are other things to think about too. Of almost equal importance to me is the product, and specifically my passion for it. If you don’t love what you sell it will make your job much harder, and most people can sense if you’re not being genuine when you talk with them.
To me it is also very important to look at the people in charge, and who is getting promoted. This will give you a sense for where the company is going and what they value as an organization.
Lastly, I ask myself what type of opportunity the company has in front of it. Are they simply trying to make something that already exists incrementally better, or are they trying to fundamentally change how something is done? I want to be a part of the organization that has goals that are ambitious, and even sometimes scary.
What surprised you about Dropbox when you joined?
The people, hands down. I have been on a lot of sales “teams” in my career thus far, but Dropbox is different. Dropbox is actually a team — one I honestly didn’t think existed. Everyone here is invested in each other, everyone wants to see each other succeed and is really doing what it takes to make that the case. It is really incredible, there is a feeling of “being in this together” that is just awesome to be a part of.
What, in your view, is unique about doing sales at Dropbox?
It’s unique that we don’t even know all the ways our customers use our product yet. We know a lot of the ways they do, and have a lot of ideas for them, but we are still at the point where we are learning all the different and varied ways customers are leveraging our platform. It is pretty cool to be to learn about Dropbox use-cases from your customers.
Which aspects of sales at Dropbox do you enjoy the most and which are most challenging?
I think the most fun part about sales here is that you get to hear people talk about how much they love our product. So many people have used Dropbox in their personal lives and have a really strong emotional connection to it. This also leads to some challenges because many people have been using Dropbox for free. It can sometimes be challenging to convince someone to pay for Dropbox for Business when they are already using the basic version for free and loving it. However, once we are able to explain what deploying our business platform actually means, they have an entirely new perspective on Dropbox. Our customers love all of the additional features and controls, but when they understand the collaboration layer we enable across the entire business and all of their other applications, this is where the conversations really get exciting!
What qualities, in your view, does it take to be successful at sales?
I think the most important quality (and this is by no means just my opinion) is the ability to really listen to people. And listening doesn’t mean just hearing their words, you have to really care about what they are saying and what problems they are trying solve. I also believe that you need to be curious. Being interested in what other people do every day and how other companies work really helps your sales conversations. There are a lot of other skills that will help you close deals, but I think ultimately if you listen and are truly interested in the people you are speaking with they will be able to sense this and you can start to form the type of relationship that will ultimately lead to a sale.
What have been some of your favorite moments at Dropbox so far?
I think watching Drew and Arash sing “I got you babe” at karaoke after a sales kickoff event was probably my favorite moment so far. Also finding the drawer with the endless supply of gum was pretty great. I just really love gum, ha.
What makes you excited about the stage Dropbox is in at this point in time?
For me, what’s most exciting is the opportunity that lies ahead. We are all very optimistic and the signs are encouraging, but there is also a lot of unknown. To me the unknown isn’t scary, to me it means opportunity. We are still the size where every single person has an impact on the business, and has an ability to shape how we build and scale out…it’s really exciting!
What have you done that’s unusual?
I took a year off before college and worked for my dad’s company. His company designs and installs home audio video systems, home theaters, custom speakers, you name it. So I spent a year running wires in attics, under houses, cutting open walls, mounting TV’s, hanging projectors and more. It was really fun and completely different from what I do today. The only problem is whenever a TV or stereo isn’t working my friends expect me to be able to fix it. My secret: unplugging and plugging back in usually does the trick!
If you weren’t doing sales at a tech company, what would you be doing?
I would probably be trying to find a way to get paid for eating sushi and building LEGO sets all day. But I’m not sure anyone on the planet that has figured that one out yet. So I think maybe something involving cars. I have always loved cars and their design. Helping to source the materials for cars — the paint colors, leathers, different plastics, buttons, switches — all the different things that ultimately merge into something beautiful — I just love it!
How would you describe Dropbox in three words?
Fast. Focused. Fun. I like alliteration, first off, but I think this is an accurate selection. We are in a very fast-paced environment at a company that is growing like crazy. People here have insane focus and attention to detail that I’ve seen nowhere else. And it really is fun. This is just a great place to be. I laugh every day here.
Dropbox is growing. We’d love for you to join us.
