Kenyon Arens
Group Vice President, Digital Native, Oracle Corp
Kenyon is one of the best at hiring sales talent I’ve ever encountered. I went by “gut feel” early in my career, but that approach would not have scaled going forward. Kenyon is responsible for a lot of the growth of our group.
I met Kenyon as he was preparing to leave Oracle’s famous inside sales organization for a role in the field. Called OracleDirect at the time, Tom Siebel had built the original team, and many of us saw it as a wonderful incubator for field sales talent. After two years in OracleDirect, you possessed the latest sales training, were an expert in top-of-funnel skills, knew how to write business with Oracle, and established an early reputation.
Kenyon was honored as Regional Manager of the Year, but I still recall his humble approach with me. We grabbed a cup of coffee at a break at Oracle’s Annual Sales Kickoff in Las Vegas to discuss an opening I had for an individual contributor. Kenyon had done his homework on me and immediately found commonality and established a rapport. I immediately hired Kenyon (gut feeling), which was one of my best moves for the Company.
Kenyon is very dedicated, moving his young family three times, to Denver, Seattle, and Dallas, for roles of increasing responsibility on my team. He is an exceptional team player and well-liked by everyone he encounters. Three things that stand out for me about Kenyon:
1) His character, evidenced by his love and dedication to his family, spills over into his interaction with his team.
2) He is trustworthy. I would trust Kenyon with my family’s well-being, which translates to his team and customers.
3) Kenyon is committed to being the best at what he does, and he has accomplished that in each role: salesperson, sales manager, and sales leader.
Jeff asked for us to answer three questions as a helpful guide to revealing him to you through our eyes:
1) How do I know Jeff?
2) If I were you (the personas who would read this are salesperson, sales leader, or business owner) I’d want to know this about Jeff:
3) One thing I learned from Jeff that made me better:
How do I know Jeff? I worked for Jeff as both rep and manager for 10 years
If I were you (the personas who would read this are salesperson, sales leader, or business owner) I’d want to know this about Jeff:
I trust Jeff. This trust was important because it allowed me to take chances which ultimately helped me grow as a rep and manager. He encouraged me to call high, have an opinion, try a new approach. He enabled me to grow confident which can only come when you no longer fear making a mistake.
Because of his extensive sales and management background he has seen every sales situation. As a result, he’s almost always right and can predict the correct next steps. As a rep, when I ran a deal past Jeff I knew the advice and strategy he would provide would give me the best chance to win.
One thing I learned from Jeff that made me better: be present. It’s easy as a manager to simply do fly-bys or quarterly business reviews in order to check a box. Jeff never did that. When he was engaged in an activity that’s all he did. Whether he was working on a support escalation or working a $50m deal he was fully engaged in that project.