Nelson delivers a keynote speech at the embedded world Exhibition & Conference in Nuremberg, Germany.
Clay Nelson has sales objectives, but he’s not into clinching deals and walking away. He thrives on consulting with leaders, understanding their goals, and mapping out a plan to achieve total organizational change. In fact, the product is secondary to active listening.
“The product doesn’t matter if it isn’t consumed effectively within the organization,” he said. “Good executives include everyone in strategy development instead of foisting the finished product on them. Through that approach, the cultural shift works its way into employees’ bloodstream more quickly than if it were grafted on.”
Nelson currently serves as worldwide industry solutions go-to-market lead at GitHub, a platform allowing developers to create, manage, store, and share their code regardless of location. He’s on a mission to change the way the entire company thinks. The first step isn’t hounding a potential buyer for a demo. Initially, the customer does all the talking. Once a sales rep grasps the client’s problem and the anticipated level of resistance to change, a two-way conversation can unfold on earning company-wide buy-in for a new way of doing things.
“So often, salespeople hear, ‘That’s a fantastic product, but it will never work here.’ In my mind, we’re delivering a package that eases the burden of adopting a solution,” he said. “We explain how the customer will address pain points and objections as they go.”
Nelson speaks at CUBO, a start-up in São Paulo, Brazil.
Nelson started his career as a software developer. He jokes that his code was so bad, he got moved into sales management. By the time he was overseeing a team of eight software engineers at IBM, he had become fascinated by the people part of technology. When his employer launched a tuition reimbursement initiative, he enrolled in Robinson’s MBA program, which allows working professionals to attend class at night. He landed a couple of promotions soon after starting his courses and was handling major global accounts by the time he graduated in 2006.
“I developed a broader perspective and capability to manage at higher levels,” Nelson said. “I elevated the conversation from ‘Here’s how my product works’ to ‘Let’s talk about your organizational objectives.’”
At the end of 2015, Nelson’s former boss recruited him to oversee GitHub’s Southeast regional sales team. Nelson has attracted 10 past colleagues to the company as well.
“I’m proud of the relationships I’ve built over a long period of time,” he said. “We share a language, and our values align.”
Nelson believes in the GitHub product, which ultimately increases the enjoyment level of his job. For example, through collaboration on GitHub, nearly 12,000 developers wrote the code powering the NASA Perseverance Rover’s 2020 journey to Mars. The platform also has enabled developers to build models predicting water pump maintenance needs in Tanzania.
“It’s pretty cool that people can work out of their homes and contribute to something so much bigger than a desktop game,” Nelson said. “They’re moving humanity forward.”