Oz Merchant

I've had 3 "Acts" to my career. Act One was in brick and mortar retail, wholesale, and manufacturing. Act Two was high tech SaaS companies, building out sales and customer success teams and strategizing on go-to-market and pricing models. I have built out companies in the US and in Europe. In addition, over the last 30 years, I studied with some of the top mindset experts focused on personal and professional development like the teachers of Tony Robbins to top trainers in SPIN Selling and Sandler Sales Training. Whether you are struggling to get your sales org off the ground, deciphering where your customer success team should focus on first, or needing a mindhack to get out of your own way, schedule some time with me and we'll get to work. I have helped launch and scale 6 SaaS startups and helped to raise $147.2M in VC funding. Currently, I'm a startup and ecommerce coach and help with prepping founders to pitch to investors.

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  Bootstrapping

  After having worked in a number of early stage startups during the pre-funding days and having bootstapped my own company, I have gotten a few lumps along the way. Happy to share where things went right and where things went wrong.

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  Building a team

  Building SaaS Sales or Customer Success Teams is my jam. From sales operations (conversion metrics, systems and technologies) to comp/incentive plans, building a strong, motivated performing team is at the heart of any organization. Getting the structure right early on will set your business up for success.

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  Customer success

  While the field of CS is relatively new and growing, I was fortunate to get an early start and help build multiple teams. Customer Success can comprise of account management, best practices, implementation, NPS management, renewals management, expansions management, and even customer support in some cases. CS is at the heart of every successful organization connecting many different departments together as the customer advocate internally to ensure their success.

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  Mindset coaching

  In the Art of War, Sun Tzu states that "Every battle is won before it is fought." The idea alludes to the impact of a mindset and its impact on any endeavor. The startup journey is full of ups and downs and requires a level-head to navigate the waters. Ping me when the waters become rough.

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  Sales

  From door-to-door to retail sales and from outside to inside sales, I've done it all. I've been in B2B SaaS sales in some capacity for the last 15 years, whether selling directly or building sales teams or training sales teams. From quick transaction selling to longer enterprise sales, the philosophy is the same, the execution differs. In enterprise sales, you just have a million little sales to get to the big one.

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  Venting frustration

  Having spent many years coaching individuals, I know life in general can become frustrating. I offer 5 min of venting and the rest of the time will be focused on getting to the crux of what's going on. The feeling "behind the feeling". It's laser like and cuts to the heart of the matter. The ego sometimes doesn't like hearing it, but it'll make you a better leader, hence having a rippling effect throughout your organization.

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  ActiveCampaign

  6 years of experience

  From creating landing pages to newsletters, AC is a great solution when you are needing something more robust than Mailchimp and less costly than Hubspot.

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  Basecamp

  16 years of experience

  Basecamp is a very simple PM tool and I used it exclusively until I moved to Trello. Basecamp is still a fantastic tool and can be the right solution for many organizations.

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  Freshworks

  9 years of experience

  Freshsales and Freshdesk and Freshchat make for a wonderful suite of products at a great price. Using all three helped me keep all customer channels of communication tied to the CRM for deeper and more meaningful insights.

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  Hubspot

  16 years of experience

  Hubspot has grown a lot over the years moving into many markets. My experience has been specifically on using it to build out newsletters and email marketing campaigns and landing pages.

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  Intercom

  6 years of experience

  I've built out the custom bots, product tours, surveys, banners in both staging and production and then integrated it with Salesforce and Slack. Very powerful solution. Only thing I haven't used is their Marketing platform.

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  Mailchimp

  10 years of experience

  I've used it for a few years with several companies. Great solution for starting out and scales quite well. They keep adding features to make the solution more robust without impacting usability.

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  Salesforce

  20 years of experience

  Salesforce is a beast. My experience is with their Sales and Service Cloud. I can make it do a lot of things without being able to code in APEX. Admin-focused not Developer-focused. I've also worked with solutions like SalesLoft and Outreach which make Salesforce even more powerful.

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  Trello

  15 years of experience

  I love Trello so much that I use it as my own personal to-do tool. Works great with teams and individudals. I built out implementation boards, marketing boards, go-to-market boards, product planning boards, etc. A great tool with a simple UI.

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  Zoho

  17 years of experience

  I see ZohoCRM as Salesforce lite. I've been impressed with the robustness of their offering and for a far better price. I've implemented it at smaller companies.

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  FinTech

  Building a digital bank for ecommerce with funding and cashflow management capabilities. Leading the sales, success, and support teams to scale the business for online sellers around the world.

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  E-Commerce Platforms

  I have worked with hundreds of ecommerce brands and resellers to analyze their business, reviewing their financials, and helping them make more sound decisions as they scale.

• https://www.founderslocal.com/blog/rehearsing-for-success-or-failure/
• https://www.founderslocal.com/blog/quick-hack-quieting-the-monkey-mind/
• https://www.founderslocal.com/blog/my-first-sales-development-rep-sdr-role-7-critical-skills-you-need-to-set-more-meetings-in-2021-and-win-the-inner-game-of-sales-success/
• https://ozmerchant.com/blog/becoming-a-visionary/