Catalyze Growth Partners

Founding Head of Business Development

Pilot

Investor

Upgraded

Advisor

Founding Head of Partnerships and Revenue

I head up revenue for Upgraded, a profitability operations consultancy for Canadian SME tech companies. We help unlock hundreds of thousands of dollars in working capital for each client through four pillars:

1. Government Programs/Financing (the average mid-sized company leaves $86k/employee on the table)
2. AI Solutions/Automations (47% of white collar work is automatable)
3. Tech Savings/Rewards (we can help our average company save 20 to 50% on their tech spend)
4. Financing (~50% of founders regret their VC financing)

We are completely performance based. So:
1. If we don't think we can help unlock more than $100k, we don't take on a client. It's not worth our time.
2. We only make money if you do. 
3. Our interests are closely aligned because of this.

Founding Head of Revenue

Planswell

-Promoted to Sales Manager in May 2022
-Promoted to Interim Head of Sales from July to November 2022
-Met daily in leadership team meetings from July to November 2022
-Scaled team from 11 to 32 AEs in Q3 2022
-Led team to an EBITDA-positive monthly revenue record in September 2022
-Granted 5x my existing stock options for high performance in September 2022
-Oversaw 64% growth in revenues in under 3 months (~ >$500k to ~$800k MRR)
-Guided fully-ramped AEs to 108% attainment

Stepped away from role in November 2022 due to kidney cancer prognosis and treatment.

Sales Manager / Co-Head of Sales

Trained, coached, and managed 4 SDRs while continuing to maintain the same quota as the rest of the AE team.

Achievements:
-Top AE on team in sales for all 5 months of 2022 until next promotion.
-143% to quota in first half of 2022.
-113% to quota of SDRs on my team. 
-3 of 4 of my direct report SDRs promoted to AE.
-Won 4 of 5 monthly sales spiffs.
-Only AE on team to achieve President's Club in 2022 (120% to quota over >6 months).
-Promoted to Sales Manager in May 2022.

Senior Account Executive / Business Development Manager

Achievements:
-#1 on sales leaderboard in 7 of last 8 months as AE (of 15 AEs)
-118% to quota in 2021
-2nd on team (of 15 AEs) in sales for 2021
-Granted 20% more stock options for high performance in 2021
-1st on team with 10% more dials than next closest AE in 2021
-1st on team with 21% more talk time than next closest AE in 2021
-1st on team with 23% more demos booked than next closest AE in 2021
-1st on team with 11% more demos held than next closest AE in 2021

Account Executive

CIBC

Product lead on the Strategy, Projects, and Delivery team in Digital Business Banking at CIBC. 

I have been responsible for strategy and/or project delivery on digital business banking projects related to:
-Platform analytics
-Onboarding improvement
-Client outreach 
-Market research
-Marketing and sales enablement
-Workflow improvement
-Client feedback and net promoter score
-App decommissioning

Some of the accolades we have earned as a team while I have been with the bank include: 
-Bank Innovator of the Year from the Digital Finance Institute's Canadian Fintech and AI Awards 
-Best Bank for Cash Management (North America-wide in 2019) and Best Treasury and Cash Management Bank (Canada-wide, and winner for 6 of the past 7 years, including 2019, 2020, and 2021) from Global Finance Magazine

Senior Product Manager, Digital Business Banking

Citi

Consulted for Citi Ventures with a small team of Rotman MBA students.
Created a prototype of a marketplace enabling organizations to transact anonymized, corporate IoT data from smart cities projects. 
Heavy focus on data risk management, tech strategy and infrastructure, and data compliance. 
Earned top grades on project from panel of Citi Ventures employees and other fintech professionals and executives.

MBA Innovation Consultant

Oracle

Created and validated enterprise blockchain use cases for Oracle in the telecom industry.
Final product was hyperledger blockchain-enabled C2C and B2C marketplace allowing for mobile data trading, exchange, and payments.  

In an innovation case competition judged by a panel of industry experts and senior Oracle management, my team was awarded first place in the telco sector, and second place overall.

We were invited to author a White Paper on our use case for Oracle.

MBA Blockchain Consultant

Allegheny Holdings Ltd, A Real Estate Corporation

Analyzed, reported on, and consulted on entry and exit of real estate markets and properties, including analysis of: tenancy, rental, and leasing statistics; interest and mortgage rates; market pricing trends; and socio-political, zoning, taxation, and regulatory factors in the acquisition and sale of real estate (roughly 70% commercial; 20% land; 10% residential).
Responsible for sales enablement efforts in organization: liaised with brokers to set sale prices; provided value prop and market-related collateral to support property sales.
Led organizational change initiative aimed at reducing errors leading to suboptimal investments, and instituted new investment framework within organization.
Responsible for contracts and relationship management with construction contractors, facilities contractors, real estate brokers, and others.
A family corporation.

 Director, Operations and Research

Western University

Graduate Student Teaching Assistant

Global Affairs Canada | Affaires mondiales Canada

Based in Arequipa, Peru, while working on a business development consulting grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (now Global Affairs Canada), administered through Niagara College.

Directed and consulted on 4 projects: 
-Led change initiative to improve fundraising and related digital capabilities for a welfare provision charity; 
-Developed and project-managed a cultural tourism marketing plan and implementation for a large municipality;
-Created a multimedia educational partnership program for an underprivileged school, procuring donations of seed money, computers, and digital cameras; 
-Developed a home-stay tourism model and marketing plan for a rural community tourism not-for-profit organization.

Economic Development Consultant

Growth 📈 @ category-defining orgs | Working on a top-secret project 🤐 | MBA @ iE | Lean 6σ Green Belt | Cancer Survivor | Girldad | Per aspera ad astra 🌌

I am the Founding Head of Revenue at Upgraded, a tech-enabled working capital advisory for Canadian SME tech companies. We help our clients access hundreds of thousands of dollars in working capital through four pillars: government programs, AI solutions, tech savings, and financing. We are performance-based, meaning we only make money if our clients do.

I have over six years of experience in SaaS revenue generation, with a track record of exceeding quotas, driving growth, and leading high-performing teams. I have an MBA from IE Business School and a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification. I am passionate about helping tech entrepreneurs scale their businesses, avoid layoffs, and achieve their goals. I am also a cancer survivor, a girldad, and a lifelong learner.

👹Daniel Schloss

Modern Day Sales

Are you an SDR or AE looking to book 60% more meetings in the next 30 days?

Founder

Payscale

They laid off all their new hires including me :-)

Mid-Market Account Executive

ZoomInfo

YTD 2024 105% to quota
H1 2024 - 117% to quota

Mid-Market Account Manager

Presidents Club 2023
H2 2023 - 100% to quota
Q4 2023 - 105% to quota

Corporate Account Executive

Q3 2023 - 110% to quota
H1 2023 - 153% to quota
Q2 2023 - 116% to quota
Q1 2023 - 405% to quota

Commercial Account Executive

Sales Enabled Podcast

Co-host

Coursera

- 2022 Q3 100% to quota
- 2022 Q2 108% to quota 
- 2022 Q1 600% to quota

Enterprise Sales Development Representative

memoryBlue

Sales Development Representative

Gigamon

Gigamon is the recognized market-leader in network visibility, analytics, threat detection and response for critical performance and security needs. We enable your organization to run fast, stay secure and innovate. We are the first company to deliver unified network visibility and analytics on all data-in-transit. Across your physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure, we aggregate, transform and analyze your network traffic to meet your critical performance, rapid threat detection and response needs, freeing your organization to drive digital innovation. Global 5000 companies and government agencies rely on Gigamon solutions to increase the efficiency of their security stack, reduce complexity and save costs.

KingCollector LLC

- Achieved monthly sales of 4k for the last year
- Consistent ROI of 500% per month selling collectible items
- Established excellent rapport to keep a consistent flow of customers
- Communicated with customers to resolve any issues and to provide further information of the products being sold on multiple platforms (facebook, amazon, ebay, offerup, or in person)

American Medical Response

Emergency Medical Technician

In 2021, I got into Dominican University for Physician Assistant (PA) school. I quit my EMT job, and took a break for 3 months. During this break, I realized all I was doing was fulfilling my immigrant parents "American Dream". 

I decided to reject my acceptance to find my own version of the "American Dream" and broke into tech sales as a first gen Latino-American. 

Since then I've surpassed my quotas (>100%), brought in over 2M ACV Closed Won deals, spear-headed the company-wide implementation of an auto-dialing tool, & mentored aspiring SDR's. 

I plan to empower non-traditional backgrounds in tech sales by talking about my own challenges, successes, & learnings.

This is my story📚

Elmer Lopez 🏆

Dear Prospects,

I’d much rather get a fast no rather than be ghosted.

Best,

A Sales Rep

Account Executive @ Popl | 1x Presidents Club

Welcome to a day in the life in tech sales.

Tonight we’re hopping on a redeye to Costa Rica.

For what?

Well, I work at a startup & we get to have a yearly company retreat outside of the country. 

Which is pretty cool.

My girlfriend dropped me off at the airport around 9pm.

I was supposed to land in Costa Rica by 6am but then…the craziest thing happened.

Something I couldn’t have ever expected.

Right when we were about to land in costa rica, I noticed something strange.

On the map, it showed that we were just going in circles around the airport we were supposed to land in.

A few minutes go by.

Then finally the Pilot makes an announcement.

“We will not be landing in Costa Rica due to some issues with the air traffic control

We will now be landing in Guatemala.”

All I could think was, Damn…
 
I haven’t slept all day.

So, sleeping at a nice 5 star hotel sounded really nice.

But oh well, things don’t always go as planned.

A couple hours later, we landed in Guatemala & we got put into a random hotel until we could take the next flight to Costa Rica at 8pm.

& sure the whole situation sucked but I truly think everything happens for a reason.

Because at the end of the day, as corny as this sounds, being a part of a team means overcoming challenges together.

& the fact that we overcame this one, was a big trauma bonding experience.

What’s funny is that the rest of the trip went so smooth.

& Costa Rica was absolutely beautiful.

We got to do some ziplining & a ton of other bonding activities.

I’m honestly pumped to see where we go next year for our company retreat.

Hopefully no roadblocks though haha.

Peace!

❌️ Things I'm not falling for (sales edition)

🔹️”We’re good to sign by the end of the month”

🔹️"I can make a decision on this on my own”

🔹️"We’re not looking at any competitors”

🔹️"Pricing won’t be an issue”

🔹️"Just send some times over email”

🔹️"Send me a proposal & we’ll get back to you"

Salespeople - What's on your "not falling for it" list?

Dear salespeople,

Don’t be that sales rep who updates their whole pipeline 1 hour before the forecasting call.

At that point, you’ve most likely forgotten important details about the calls you had 3 days ago.

Then you have to jump in-between tools just to grasp what happened (CRM, email, call recorder, notes).

I mean, I get it, as sales reps we’re stacked with things to do.

This is why learning to manage your time efficiently is everything.

& when I found out about Reevo, I was mind-blown…

It’s the all in one tool that uses AI to handle:
👉🏽CRM updates
👉🏽Call transcripts
👉🏽Personalized follow up emails

At that point, I’ve reduced 90% of my clicks.
 
Which of course leads to more time selling —> more revenue for the company —> more money in my pocket.

That way, you’re not freaking out & scrambling every-time a forecasting call shows up on your calendar.

Have you tried using an all in one tool like Reevo?

(P.S. they just announced $80M in funding, definitely check them out)

Brand partnership • Account Executive @ Popl | 1x Presidents Club

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The Battle

👹Daniel Schloss

Elmer Lopez 🏆

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The Battle

👹Daniel Schloss

Elmer Lopez 🏆

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Elmer Lopez 🏆's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreElmer Lopez 🏆's LinkedIn Performance