Solutions Specialist

Purpose of the role

Part sales overlay and part solution support, Solution Specialists at Redgate are key to the development of new solutions that we bring to market. Solution Specialists will align themselves directly with a specific solution, taking ownership of the education of our sales teams globally as well as direct support on key opportunities.

Key Competencies

The Redgate Way

Acts as an ambassador for Redgate’s values and company strategy, including understanding the business, being tenacious in fulfilling our business goals, and being receptive to learn and adapt along the journey.

  • Brings and fosters positive energy with colleagues. Champions positive change in alignment with Redgate’s strategy.
  • Is determined to succeed. Takes a proactive approach to developing themselves.
  • Contributes to other’s growth. Provides expert advice, as well as feedback in a warm and growth-oriented manner.
  • Uses and contributes to the great calls folder on a regular basis.
  • Is seen as an ambassador for Redgate's values and company strategy, both internally and externally.
  • Actively pursues achieving Redgate’s commercial business goals through commitment and ongoing development.
  • Communicates with other departments and teams and provides new opportunities/improvements as a result.

The Redgate Mindset

Utilises the 3-dimensions of mindset (a balance of responsibility, resilience and rigour) to add value across the customer’s “Buying Cycle” and deliver successful outcomes.

  • Applies a balance of responsibility, resilience and rigour to add value across the Buying Cycle and deliver a successful outcome.
  • Takes responsibility and ownership for proactively influencing the outcome of a given situation, wherever possible.
  • Demonstrates resilience when dealing with setbacks, and proactively aims to reduce their impact through using a range of techniques and approaches to stay focused and continue to plan and execute.
  • Takes a rigorous approach to selling at each step in the customer’s experience of their Buying Cycle, and is prepared to go the extra mile in terms of applied effort, developing skills and following process discipline.
  • Has a good level of self-awareness. Is able to notice when thinking or behaviour is out of balance and then use this to change the pattern to become more productive.
  • Receptive to and incorporates feedback in order to improve.

Competitive Advantage

Balances appropriate use of insight, influence and trust across each stage of the customer’s buying cycle experience in order to create value for clients and stakeholders.

  • Connects ‘what’ Redgate customers buy, (e.g. products and services, company capabilities, people and other e.g. relationships), to the value it delivers for them (strategic, tactical, political and / or individual).
  • Throughout the sales process, focuses on the customer’s Buying Cycle and identifies opportunities to add value to each stage in order to influence the outcome of the sale.
  • Balances appropriate use of insight, influence, and trust across each stage of the customer’s Buying Cycle to create value for clients and stakeholders.
  • Is able to identify and share disruptive insights, and underlying motivational causes, into customer’s needs, solutions and decision process.
  • Influences desired outcomes within each account, through the ethical use of behavioural economics to support momentum in each stage of the customer’s Buying Cycle.
  • Has a good level of self-awareness into how to use insight, influence and trust to impact outcomes.
  • Gains access to key decision makers through demonstrating credibility and reliability. Builds trusting relationships that facilitate insightful and influential interactions.

Redgate Domain Expertise

Understands Redgate's offering and the value our products have for customers.

  • Demonstrates thorough understanding of Redgate’s product and solution portfolio.
  • Aligns solutions to client needs in a manner which is commercially favourable to Redgate.

Essential Selling

Employs a natural selling style to link how customers buy with how you sell, and hones behaviour to best practice standard. Understands how customers see value and which stage of the Buying Cycle they are in.

  • Successfully identifies and maximises how customers see value.
  • Is able to correctly identify which stage of the Buying Cycle the customer / prospect is in.
  • Builds rapport through verbal and non-verbal mirroring, and can adapt to a myriad of social styles. Engages customers with positive and persuasive language, and is able to empathetically think from the shoes of the customer when creating and articulating value for them.
  • Accurately understands how buyers define what their needs are, and what they find valuable including the criteria on which a product/solution selection will be made.
  • Has a broad range of questioning techniques. Is an active listener which builds rapport, trust and understanding with the client/prospect.
  • Proactively scans a broad range of products/solutions and is able to match the suggested solution in alignment with the customer’s needs and decision criteria.
  • Ensures value is presented to the customer through a positive feel-good experience for the customer, reducing the effort needed for them to commit to the deal.

Creating Value

Explores the customer’s objectives (their KPIs, the challenges they must overcome, and their wider goals) and maps Redgate’s capabilities onto these objectives in order to identify, create a solution for, and alleviate client concerns or worries about Redgate’s offering.

  • Successfully identifies and maximises the value of the ‘Sweet Spot’ between what a customer needs now (or in the future) and Redgate’s capabilities.
  • Finds opportunities to create value at all levels of value, i.e. strategic, tactical, individual and political, by identifying and sharing insights into both needs and possible solutions.
  • Creates explicit needs by validating customer objectives, uncovering any barriers to achieving those objectives and the root causes of those barriers. Identifies which of Redgate’s capabilities can address the customer’s needs.
  • Builds momentum through finding or creating a need that is a priority, justifying the cost of a solution, and helping to reframe the customers thinking towards taking immediate action.
  • Creates a compelling Value Proposal to quantify the potential impact of Redgate’s solution, expressed in our client’s own terms.
  • Qualifies and prioritises potential opportunities based on both the attractiveness and achievability of the deal. Where appropriate, reframes the decision back to the beginning stages of the customer’s buying journey, in order to improve outcomes for both Redgate and our customer.
  • Maps key customer stakeholders in terms of both influence and alignment. Develops strategies to improve the political support for Redgate’s solution from multiple stakeholders within the client account.
  • Anticipates, actively uncovers, and takes steps to reduce perceived and actual risks that the client/prospect may have in relation to working with Redgate and using our solutions.

Negotiating Value

Spots opportunities and retains goodwill through creating value for both Redgate and our clients, whilst defending margins against price pressure and common procurement tactics and strategies.

  • Understands the key concepts of positional and principled negotiation and how to combine them to create optimal outcomes.
  • Understands own negotiation style and successfully reads that of the client. Leverages strengths to achieve a commercial advantage for Redgate. Identifies opportunities to improve outcomes and knows the best strategies to use in each case.
  • Has mastered the key behavioural tools in negotiation. For example, knows when to use positive vs. negative framing, and how to use anchoring to create an advantage.
  • Explores customer interests to create a wide range of negotiating variables.
  • Creates value by proactively suggesting “Give/Get trades,” and responds to customer demands to minimise value leakage, uncover more information, and signal a strong negotiating position.

Commercial Acumen

Applies financial fluency when assembling and negotiating on deals, in order to increase deal size, share of wallet, margin, and conversion rate.

  • Acts as a financial detective to analyse customer accounts using a range of techniques, including: trends, ratios and benchmarks. Uses this to support sales activities in order to improve the financial performance of each account.
  • Identifies the impact of Redgate’s solutions on the customer’s business model. Understands how they evaluate this financial impact, including the effects of uncertainty and the time of value of money (e.g. Net Present Value).
  • Reduces cost leakages from active accounts in order to maximise net margin and minimise cost.
  • Is able to manage the drivers of working capital during the sale, negotiation, and implementation process.
  • Understands and can use and explain the P&L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement, as they apply to clients and also to an account.
  • Is able to recognise how to use these to gather insight, build trust and influence account outcomes.
  • Accurately manages price based on the triangulation of cost, competitor, and customer factors.
  • Successfully manages price/volume trade offs and understands the impact on gross margin. Manages the balance between discounting to win and gross margin with sound judgement and insight.

Opportunity Support

Runs scheduled acitivities and responds to ad hoc requests to drive technical adoption of Redgate products within sales opportunities, removing blockers to acheive the technical win.

Global Enablement

Works with the enablement team and local sales teams to increase the technical and commercial knowledge of specific solutions and the portfolio as a whole.

Product Knowledge

Runs self enablement and customer facing experiences to build product knowledge to become a customer facing technical expert across the solution portfolio.

Industry Knowledge

Runs self enablement and customer facing experiences to build wider industry knowledge as is pertinent to the solution portfolio, to further Redgate sales opportunities and guide and assist Redgate customers.

Corporate Feedback

Actively looks to improve redgate technology by owning feedback from new license customers to the relevant product teams, with a goal to improve product revenue long term.

Key Metrics

  • Customer Facing Activities per week
  • Hours on customer facing time
  • Technical wins per Q
  • Solution Aligned Attach rate
  • Solution Aligned Technically won revenue
  • Solution Area performance
  • Spot Objectives