I made my first ‘sale’ at 14 working as a magician's assistant at a summer fair.

Since then, I’ve worked in technology in roles spanning: sales development, customer success, solution engineering, leadership, enablement, innovation & strategy, and executive coaching.

It wasn’t all roses and daisies. I had a fair bunch of obstacles along the way:

- As an SDR, I almost didn’t make it
- As a customer success manager, I got chewed out by irate clients
- As a sales leader, I was on a plane every other week between cities
- As a field enabler, I realized there is no ‘one size fits all’ learning modality
- As a strategy lead, build vs. buy was a constant debate stalling progress

Along the way, I gained an insatiable curiosity and a well-rounded perspective for the SaaS industry.

I learned from and worked with, some of the best sales professionals and leaders in the game. Studying their craft and adapting my style.

This led me to:

- 8 promotions in 10 years
- A recognized top-performing Solutions Engineer in 2015 & 2016
- 155+% quota attainment as an AE for 2017 & 2018
- A four-time Dreamforce attendee & keynote speaker
- My role as an executive coach to some best & brightest

Currently, I spend my time as an Executive Coach working with new, experienced, and in-need leaders at Salesforce. I help uncover what drives, motivates, and inspires them to show up each day fulfilled and drive personal and team success.

Want to engage more? Here’s how:

- Follow me on LinkedIn for posts on leadership, communication, productivity, and personal growth
- Send a connection request with a note on how you found me or what caught your eye

I enjoy connecting with like-minded folks.

Grant Glaser

Sprout Social, Inc.

I get to work with a select few of the largest brands in the world, helping them drive their business on social. Companies like Salesforce, McDonald's, and Titleist use Sprout to understand their market, deliver exceptional social care, and drive reach and revenue through both brand and employee socials.

Companies like DKNY, Harley Davidson, and Paramount use Sprout to find the right creators, manage influencer campaigns, benchmark against competitors, and maximize earned media value.

Account Executive, Strategic Enterprise

• Finished FY24 at 114% attainment and #1 in the large enterprise organization
• Awarded the 2024 Enterprise “Customer Obsessed Value Award”
• Won President’s Club, recognizing the top performers in the revenue organization
• Recognized as the 2024 Enterprise Standout Achiever for both qualitative and quantitative impact
• Finished Q1 FY25 at 112% attainment and #1 in the large enterprise organization
• Led enablement on Formulating a POV, Mutual Action Plans, ROI and Customer Experience Workshops

Account Executive, Large Enterprise

Klue

Klue is an AI-powered competitive enablement and win-loss analysis platform that helps companies understand what their competitors are up to, why they're winning and losing, and use that insight to empower their GTM teams to win.

Advisor

• Took over the Account Management Function now leading 2 teams (Enterprise AEs and Key Account Managers)
• Lead the teams responsible for all global enterprises over 5,000 employees and a definied portfolio of our most strategic customers
• Measured on team targets across new business (ARR), retention (GRR) and expansion (NRR)
• Lead the transition from enterprise AEs being new business only to both new business and growth in key accounts, immediately impacting revenue
• Launched a new customer scoping and handoff process, in partnership with CS Leadership, accelerating time to value and increasing GRR/NRR
• Launched a new key account review process, in partnership with SLT and CS Leadership, collaborating on our most important customers
• Helped launch a customer SDR function in partnership with Marketing and CS Leadership, immediately driving revenue in current customers
• Wrote and maintained customer challenges, solutions, talk tracks and stories used to onboard all of sales and CS
• Worked cross-functionally with Marketing, Product, CS, SDRs and SLT to elevate how we land, retain and expand key logos
• Supported analyst relations, leading the demonstration for the 2023 Forrester Wave

Manager, Enterprise Sales & Strategic Accounts

• Built Klue's Enterprise Sales Function including people, process and playbook for all global enterprises over 5,000 employees
• Hired, coached and motivated a team of high-performing account executives to achieve 100% full year attainment
• Doubled the team’s average deal size by targeting new personas, finding multiple deals per company and refining how we position pricing
• Launched a new SDR / AE “Pod Model” in partnership with SDR/Marketing Leadership, increasing # of opps and contacts per prospect
• Revamped enterprise forecast calls to include both SDRs and AES, covering pipegen, deal progression and revenue
• Built Klue's first ever named account lists and wrote and maintained our enterprise rules of engagement
• Launched our first attempt at verticalizing our GTM function, in partnership with Marketing and CS Leadership
• Supported analyst relations, leading the demonstration for the 2022 PMA Pulse

Manager, Enterprise Sales

• Account Executive #5 meant balancing sales performance with helping design GTM motion
• Moved to exclusively focus on global enterprise accounts (over 5,000 employees) when we first decided to start segmenting
• Finished at 134% attainment working with some of the largest companies in the world
• Lead the demonstrations with CEO to Salesforce Ventures, key to securing their participation in our $62M Series B
• Helped develop playbook, discovery methodology, ROI analysis and more while consistently hitting targets
• Managed and collaborated with internal selling team, bringing in product, SLT and CS to adapt to the needs of large organizations

Enterprise Account Executive

Bishop's University

• Served two terms representing over 20,000+ proud alumni across the world
• Helped recruit, lead and support a team of 8 Local Chapter Presidents across the country
• Played a major role on the hiring committee for the Principal and other internal university roles
• Helped select and honour outstanding alumni like the Alumni of the Year and Top 10 After 10
• Sat as an observer on the Bishop's University Foundation Board

President, Alumni Association

• Rebuilt the Vancouver Chapter, engaging and connecting with people of all demographics to foster a passionate local community
• Hosted over 15 events, appealing to all demographics, including but not limited to Homecoming Everywhere, Welcome Home and my favourite, our Annual Whistler Ski Day
• Collaborated with admissions and spoke at local recruiting events
• Ensured new alumni were welcomed home and introduced to the local community

President, Vancouver Alumni Chapter

Salesforce

• Finished as #2 on the team and over 100% attainment
• Co-hosted and was key speaker at 2 nationwide webinars on managing work in a pandemic

Account Executive, Commercial Business

Accelerate is a nomination based leadership program for high-potential individual contributors to prepare them to manage people.

This program is designed to provide participants with a comprehensive leadership development experience including classroom training, networking, on-the-job stretch assignments, mentoring, coaching and self-paced learning. The goal of the program is to build a world-class manager community by investing in the development of top talent before their transition to management.

Accelerate Sales Leadership Program

• Finished FY20 as #1 AE in Growth Business and #2 AE in all of Canada Commercial
• Selected as Team Lead 4 months into role to support a nation-wide group of Account Executives
• Mentored and helped onboard 4 Western Canada Marketing Cloud AEs
• Played a major role in building out Salesforce's Western Canada Marketing Community, balancing sales performance with market building activities
• Frequent speaker at Customer Experience and ABM Events throughout Western Canada
• Lead complex customer experience workshops to marketing and business leaders across industries
• Delivered product and sales process training to core and marketing Account Executives

Account Executive & Team Lead, Marketing Cloud

• Working hard and working smart, finishing #3 in activities, #2 in pipeline sourced and #1 in AE-sourced and closed revenue 
• Over 100% in FY19 attainment
• Planned and hosted several events, including leading participation in Edmonton Startup Week
• Conducted complex business process workshops with CxOs and business leaders across departments
• Manage internal resources and engage the right people to ensure our customers' success

Account Executive, SMB

Xerox CAO | West X Business Solutions

• Worked exclusively with named strategic accounts throughout BC
• Only Account Executive to finish 2016 at over 100% of ALL Quotas and Key Performance Metrics
• 2016 Account Executive of the Year
• Mentored and onboarded multiple new hires
• Conducted complex workflow assessments to formulate recommendations for business improvement

Account Executive, Major Accounts

• Part of a nationwide team selected to lead the BC Xerox Agent Channel 
• Providing on-going training to colleagues and superiors to ensure a successful rollout and a 100% adoption rate of Oracle's Siebel CRM System
• Part of a nationwide team selected to lead each phase of Xerox Canada's change management strategy at a local level
• Early access and adoption to feature releases and phases to provide initial feedback to influence roadmap
• Collect front-line feedback to relay to Project Managers at Xerox Canada and Oracle Corporation

Sales Enablement | Oracle CRM Coach

• Promoted to Senior Account Executive in January 2015
• Responsible for the full line of Xerox services, software, apps and hardware 
• Managed the entire customer lifecycle including sourcing, closing, expanding and retaining all customers
• Responsible for multiple quotas across hardware, software and services
• Conducted complex workflow assessments to formulate recommendations for business improvement

Senior Account Executive

PepsiCo

• Identified and secured ideal display locations to support new products and feature activity
• Established and recommended beverage orders to achieve weekly sales targets
• Negotiated order quantities and floor space with store managers

Bilingual Sales Representative

Over 12 years in revenue and revenue leadership roles in different industries, primarily focused on marketing, sales and customer service technology. Learned the basics at Xerox before joining Salesforce where I spent most of my time building out their Western Canada Marketing Cloud community when awareness of their martech solutions was early. Found a startup I was passionate about and became an early employee at Klue, eventually joining the leadership team to build and manage their enterprise sales and account management functions. Led the teams responsible for new business, retention and expansion across all strategic prospects and customers. 

Notable Achievements you may not find below:
• Klue employee #38 seeing the company through Series A, B, an acquisition and to 250+ people
• Supported fundraising at Klue, leading presentations with CEO to Salesforce Ventures, key to their participation in a $62M Series B
• Have spoken at over 10 events on topics including Customer Experience, ABM, Social Customer Care, Competitive Selling, Competitive Intelligence and Change Management
• Bootcamp MVP at both Xerox and Salesforce 

Fun facts about me:
• Have officiated three weddings
• Volunteer Ski Instructor with the Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing
• Traveled with Surf for Life to Sabalo, Costa Rica and Calca, Peru to build schools that support ongoing eductation in rural communities

Favourite quote:
"If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room." - Richard Tirendi

Currently reading:
Sales Leader They Need - David Priemer

Alex Cook

I’m all in on 2026 now but last year was awesome. Just finished registering for Sprout Social’s President’s Club and can’t help but reflect. 

The TLDR:
- Finished at 208% and #1 AE at the company
- Back to back President’s Clubs since stepping back into an IC role
- Recognized as the MVP across Strat, Enterprise and Vertical Organizations

Enterprise is more about the team than the individual and what feels pretty great this year was being consistently recognized alongside my whole account team without whom, I couldn’t close a door 🚪 

Peri MacDonald knew our accounts better than I did when I got my list and immediately helped prioritize accounts. They were the right ones. Excited to celebrate with you. 

Paloma Lowell listened to our customers and showed up radically transparent, telling people when we were a fit and when weren’t. Built so much trust so fast. Wish you were coming!

On to 2026 now and feeling bullish. The systems remain the same. Time to run it back.

Strategic Account Executive @ 🌱 | Enterprise Sales & GTM Leadership | Foundation Board Director, Bishop’s University

I recently heard a CRO tell a group of sales people that the #1 metric they care about this year is GRR.

To a lot of sales people, I bet this would come as a surprise. We're trained to think about signing new deals and expanding customers, but it's rare that our KPIs have anything to do with retention.

Heck, ten years ago I would've had to Google what GRR meant 🥲

GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) is how much of your existing customer revenue you keep year-over-year. Basically, are customers renewing or are they churning? 

The first time GRR was part of my comp plan was when I was managing both an AE team and an Account Management team at the same time. It very quickly became a top 3 metric to me.

So for the AEs out there that might not pay attention to it, here's why it matters:
- Say your company has $1M in ARR and wants to grow 15%.
- If you keep 100% of that $1M, you only need to sell $150K in new business.
- If you lose 50% to churn, you need to sell $650K just to hit the same growth target.

Retention doesn't just impact the business. It directly impacts how much you need to sell. If your company has a churn problem with high growth targets, you will need to sell more for the company to be successful. 

What I didn't realize early on was how much this impacted valuation too. Strong retention shows investors your revenue is predictable and compounds. Weak retention means you're on a treadmill constantly replacing lost customers. So even at the same growth rate, companies with strong retention command significantly higher valuation multiples. That translates to bigger budgets, better comp plans, and equity worth something. 

The lesson: Next time you're selling a deal, ask yourself: 'Will this make them more successful or just pad my deal size?' If it's the latter, you're setting your customer, your company and yourself up to fail. You'll always be more successful selling to a successful customer than overselling upfront and hoping it sticks.

Success breeds expansion. Overselling breeds churn.

Let's go retain some customers out there folks.

Last week I was going back and forth with Brian LaManna about Google Alerts and how I feel they’ve fallen a bit behind for staying on top of your accounts.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been using Google Alerts for years and have them set up today. 

That said, I recently set up a Gem to tell me not just what’s happening in my accounts but why it matters and what to do about it. 

Every day at 8AM I get a notification summarizing: 

- What’s happened in each of my accounts in the last 24 hours
- Why it’s relevant (if at all) to me and what I sell
- How my company could help

Gives you not just the what but the so what. Easy to act on fast from there. 

I’ve prepped a doc that goes through how to set it up. Takes about 5 minutes. If anybody wants a copy, comment here or DM me and I’ll send it your way!

“Every purchase in 2026 will need a bulletproof CFO-ready business case”

- Says everyone ever these days. 

I don’t disagree with this. Budgets are tight and you need to prove that you’re an investment worth making. 

At the same time, I feel like a lot of AEs (and leaders) are mis-using business cases and jumping to “we need an ROI” immediately. 

People don’t make decisions based off of an ROI, they use ROI to justify decisions that they’ve emotionally already made. 

A lot of people jump to the first part too fast. Going to be talking about this and all things business cases with my favourite sales author David Priemer on March 24. Come hang out on Zoom with us! Link to RSVP below.

If you're an AE and you feel behind on AI, here are two things I’d do to start:

Every time you go to ask ChatGPT or whatever a question, pause and ask yourself if you’ll ever ask the question again.
 
—> If yes, build it 

Every time you do a manual task that you don’t like doing, pause and ask yourself if it could be automated.

—> If yes, build it

Simple but these two questions changed a lot for me. You stop using AI like a search bar and start using it like a teammate.

You'll pick up more faster than you think.

taplio

The Battle

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Alex Cook

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The Battle

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Alex Cook

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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);}Alex Cook's LinkedIn Performance

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