Harvard in Tech Spotlight: Josh Isner, Chief Revenue Officer at Axon
I spoke with Josh Isner, Chief Revenue Officer at Axon (NASDAQ: AAXN), which connects people, devices, and apps to Protect Life and Protect Truth. Axon is the law enforcement market leader in cloud computing, wearable cameras, and less lethal devices.
Josh had met Rick Smith, the founder and CEO of Axon, through a social organization at Harvard and felt that he was an innovative and ambitious entrepreneur. So he joined Axon right after graduating from Harvard in 2009 and has been there ever since. He started in the Leadership Development Program, a rotational program through which he spent time in the legal, marketing, and product departments before joining sales.
Josh started off as a development rep on the sales team, creating leads through creative tactics like sending handwritten letters to police chiefs. After spending some time as a account executive in the Northeast, he then took over the video cloud team, which grew quite quickly under his leadership. Afterwards, he took over domestic sales and most recently, the full global sales function as CRO.
Josh shared his advice for building strong customer and prospect relationships, identifying and doubling down on strengths, leveraging sports to shape his leadership style, and effective leadership, collaboration, and communication.
Invest in customers holistically. Law enforcement is a relatively small market, so since the early days, Axon knew it was crucial to maintain strong customer relationships. Happy customers who are delighted with products are much more willing to purchase more, churn less, and share the product through their teams and networks. Consequently, NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a metric that Josh and the broader Axon team track very closely to determine not only how satisfied customers are but also how much they would voluntarily recommend the product to others. In achieving their now very high NPS score of 63, Axon has invested in customers holistically beyond the sale itself through organizing customer events and earlier this year at the height of the pandemic, donating PPE to all customers.
Be authentic and upfront. Police are trained to determine who is lying and who is telling the truth, so they are especially sensitive to insincerity. Consequently, Josh looks for sales reps who are very authentic and who can present the product with tons of genuine conviction in a truthful, transparent, and respectful manner. Instead of overpromising or introducing crucial details only later in the conversation, Josh coaches sales reps to be upfront in explaining the dynamics, such as where and to what extent pricing can be negotiated and what timelines pertain to each discount or offer.
Leverage the power of compounding. While Axon has a Leadership Development Program to help new, early career hires better understand the company holistically, the Company recommends that these hires come in with some understanding of their interests.
Josh knew from the start that he wanted to be in sales. However, it was still valuable for him to rotate through other groups, including and especially product since that deeper understanding helped to build stronger customer relationships. Because he was able to focus on sales early on, Josh was able to begin reaping the benefits of compounding in learning, building relationships, executing on projects, and establishing trust from the very start.
Get work experience early on. While academics are of course important, Josh found his work experience during college was most instrumental in shaping him as an employee and preparing him for the professional world. Navigating a workplace is complex and often much more challenging than it sounds. Learning to work with other people in a corporate setting, owning responsibility for collaborative deliverables, and driving business progress are things that you can only internalize by doing in real work or internship settings.
Take time to find your authentic leadership style. One of Josh’s favorite quotes is one by Miles Davis: “Man, it took me a long time to sound like myself.” Too often, leaders focus on what they should say instead of what is true to them. Your team members want a leader who is human and a leader who is honest and focused. People trust you more when you are authentic in your communication and true to yourself.
Focus on what other people hear, not what you say. Oftentimes, the message itself matters much less than the way in which it is communicated. How you position your message is incredibly important. It can be motivating or demotivating, which makes a meaningful difference in your relationships, culture, and team morale.
Don’t pigeonhole yourself in an identity. For a long time Josh always thought of himself as an executor. But over time, he realized that this characterization of his strengths sometimes led him to lose sight of the bigger picture and underestimate his ability to grow into other strengths. In breaking away from this identity, he was able to not only think of and manage what was urgent and immediately ahead but also the long term, which was crucial for his transition into leadership roles.
Apply learnings from sports to business leadership. At Harvard, Josh was on the golf team and was also a manager for the basketball team. Looking back, sports has been the best manual for him in learning how to lead. Through sports, he was able to take away lessons around being competitive and a self starter, fostering mental toughness, responding to adversity, and being flexible and versatile, which have all been crucial to success in sales.
Reflecting on his time at Harvard, Josh appreciates his time working with incredible coaches, like Coach Amaker. So many of the lessons he has later applied to life and work have been inspired by his time working with coaches who have a special ability to inspire and communicate with a group of diverse people and push them collectively in the same direction. Some of Josh’s favorite lessons from them:
Stay ready so you don’t have to get ready. From sports, Josh learned about the importance of always being on his toes, both literally and figuratively, able to preempt and capitalize on each opportunity even before it is fully apparent.
It’s amazing what can be achieved if nobody cares who gets the credit. Through sports, Josh experienced first hand just how much a team could achieve if no one is focused on getting credit. With that time and mental energy freed up to focus on the common goal, any team can efficiently reach new heights.
You can’t only work hard on the days you feel good. This is perhaps Josh’s favorite lesson. You need to show up everyday, not just the perfect ones. Instead of just getting through a bad day or moment, focus on getting something out of it. Make every day, every meeting, every interaction count.
