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Q&A with Erik Charles, Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation

MEDIA 7 | October 7, 2019

Erik Charles, Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation is an accomplished professional with over two decades of experience in Marketing, Consulting, and Product Evangelization. Erik focuses on helping companies drive expansion and growth by better aligning positions, responsibilities, and incentives.

Erik serves as a subject matter expert in the area of Sales Performance Management to ensure that Xactly’s marketing, sales and product teams have the necessary strategic input for industry leading messaging, positioning, and future direction.

MEDIA 7: When did you start working and what was it?
ERIK CHARLES:  In early 1980s, I wrote software on TRS-80 model II coded in BASIC to enable for computerized quotes for a life insurance agency. I was in middle school at the time, that was a contract work. My next job was at a software store back when software used to be bundled up into a cardboard box with inserted floppy disks and then it went on from there.

M7: You have an astounding experience of over two decades with industry pioneers like Apple, Sun Microsystems, Canon and recently Xactly Corporation. What has been the driving force behind your remarkable career?
EC: There are two things: as a marketer, I don’t believe in mistakes, I only believe in experiments and what we can learn from them, that has kept me moving forward. I keep on trying new things and seeing what works. I assume that just because it worked last week doesn’t mean it’s going to work tomorrow. So, I’ve never allowed myself to get into a rut. I have always been more than willing to find people who can provide excellent advice at critical moments, even on a specific direction. Finding someone that I can speak with, that can give me a few tips, tricks, hints, ideas, direction or path on moving on. So, I have never been afraid to ask just how could I do this better.


"Sales and marketing have to be best friends, they have to be fully aligned with each other, and they have to know what each other is doing at all times so they can partner. Companies that don’t do that cause themselves a lot of heartache."

M7: As the Vice President and Solutions Evangelist at Xactly Corporation, what are some of the challenges that you face and what has helped you in overcoming them?
EC: The biggest challenge I face – it is a changing marketplace out there. As we know, from a pure marketing perspective, there’s plenty of data sources out there. 60-70% of the buyer’s journey occurs without ever talking to the sales organization which puts more pressure on the marketing team.

Over the course of this interview I’ve already received two inbound phone calls that are unmarked/unlicensed or I don’t have in my directory. I just reject them automatically, they go straight to voice mail, I later read the transcribed voicemail and decide if I want to talk to them. So, cold-calling is not necessarily dead but it does take more work. I wake up every morning and delete approximately 50 cold emails, oftentimes from people who haven’t done any research on what my company does. They’ll hunt my name and my company but they don’t even realize what we do. So, I flip that to my own role in supporting Xactly and make sure that our voice is heard in an appropriate fashion.

The biggest challenge that I work on the most is in the area of thought leadership in terms of not ‘the same old all over again’ but actually being able to talk about what is going on in any given industry/market. I provide that advice backwards and set up Xactly and myself as the thought leaders and experts in the space, so customers have someone to turn to, to know where you should be going next.


"From a pure marketing perspective, there’s plenty of data sources out there. 60-70% of the buyer’s journey occurs without ever talking to the sales organization which puts more pressure on the marketing team."

M7: You’ve been in leadership roles for both sales and marketing functions, how do you think this alliance has evolved over the years and how significant is it for upcoming organizations to align both the departments?
EC: If you don’t have sales and marketing aligned, all you’re going to do is go through a revolving door of firing your CMO or firing your CRO every 18 or so months. Sales and marketing have to be best friends, they have to be fully aligned with each other, and they have to know what each other is doing at all times so they can partner. Companies that don’t do that cause themselves a lot of heartache. I believe that everybody should work in sales at some point in their lives. Even if it’s retail sales at the shopping mall, dealing with the general public, dealing with the challenges of a sales organization at minimum just doing ride-alongs with the sales organization to see what their life is like.

How on earth can you create a presentation deck for sales to use if you’ve never delivered it yourself or at least heard it being delivered in a customer or prospect facing situation. If you haven’t done that you get yourself into trouble very fast in my opinion. In smart organizations, the CMO and the CRO should be going out for coffee and cocktails whenever possible and talking about what’s working or not working in a non-threatening, not a senior staff offsite situation but more of a “Huh, we have this challenge how can we work together better?” But too often I’ve seen companies where marketing and sales are not in partnership. One of my advantages has been because I’ve been in sales, because I’ve carried a bag, because I’ve had a quota it has helped me significantly. So, when I’m talking to sales I can say, “Here’s a different way I might present this information, see if it works for you and if it does please let me know and we can share it out with the other members of the team”.

M7: You are a regular speaker at summits. Could you share some insights into being an industry thought leader?
EC: Yeah, don’t sell your product, provide information. Provide interesting, current, actionable information that is backed by both data but entertained with anecdotes. You have to remember things like the Ebbinghaus curve which gets into the fact that within 20 minutes how much people have forgotten and within 2 weeks how much more they have forgotten. I want people to walk out of my sessions and if somebody asks, “What did you learn in there?”, they should be able to list off almost bulletized format, three to five total things that they learned that they’re going to take away and act upon. And if they do that two weeks later, if they didn’t write it down, they’re still left with three of them and they’ll actually be able to get value out of my talk. I work very hard so that when people walk out they don’t think they’ve been sold to.


"In smart organizations, the CMO and the CRO should be going out for coffee and cocktails whenever possible and talking about what’s working or not working."

M7: According to you, what are the key marketing areas that industries will need to focus on in the coming 5 years?
EC: From a marketing perspective, one is to make sure you are adjusting your channels of communication to meet the next generation of employees. Millennials and the follow-on generation are taking over the workforce, and personally I welcome them. I think it’s magnificent, but note how they are communicating – people text as opposed to calling, they are using tools like Whatsapp to communicate. That is slowly shifting the communication medium and how people wish to absorb information on the business side as well. So, that’s going to be critical.

The other is people have gotten very good at detecting false narratives being used solely to sell product. People are looking to learn – constant learning is important for professionals but if you treat your outbound conversations also as constant learning people will respond positively. I had a customer at Xactly ask me, “Look, I’m a customer now, but can I still come to some of the talks and webinars and learn something?” And the answer is, “Of course!” That’s how they became a customer, they were interested in the education that we provided and that actually raised our profile as a company within the marketplace and it makes people want to do business with us.

M7: What have you learned from your experiences?
EC: You’re going to stumble and fall a lot, mistakes will be made, mistakes will happen. You will butt heads with opposing personality and you’ll have to learn to work with people with a variety of different interaction, styles, and skills, introverts and extroverts, people that go on the attack very quickly, etc. Understanding the personal side of the professional world is very important. People can claim that they can turn it off, I don’t think that’s true, especially now that it’s a 24/7 world.

I do international business so it’s always work time someplace on the globe for someplace that my company does business and I just have to accept that. So at the same time, I need to be able to accept that for my employees and for the people I’m talking to. They do have a personal life; unfortunately, personal life is blended into their professional life. Recognize it, accept it, work around it.

ABOUT XACTLY CORPORATION

Xactly delivers a scalable, enterprise platform for planning and incenting sales organizations, including sales quota and territory planning, incentive compensation management, and predictive analytics. Using this powerful sales performance management (SPM) portfolio, customers mitigate risk, accelerate sales performance, and increase business agility. Combined with Xactly Insights™-- the industry’s only empirical big data platform, Xactly empowers companies with real-time compensation insights and benchmarking data that maximize the bottom line. With an open, standards-based architecture, Xactly seamlessly integrates within an enterprise’s existing infrastructure, with the ability to work with any ERP, CRM, or HCM application, while meeting the highest enterprise standards in security, reliability, and privacy.

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OneRail Launches Internship Program to Foster Next Generation of Supply Chain Professionals

businesswire | June 07, 2023

OneRail, a leading provider of solutions in last mile omnichannel fulfillment, is debuting its new paid internship program with the aim to provide real-world professional development and create more opportunities for undergraduate students from both local and out-of-state colleges and universities. OneRail is excited to welcome the inaugural cohort of 10 interns to its Orlando headquarters in SouthPark Center. Undergraduate students and/or recent graduates have been hired for a 10-week program in several departments, including operations, product, marketing, sales, software development and IT. “This internship program is not only integral to building our talent pipeline, but also delivers on our company’s core value of being a catalyst for transformation in the industry,” said OneRail Founder & CEO Bill Catania. “Individuals who are just starting their careers bring unique and fresh perspectives that will help us accomplish our mission of being customer centric and a trusted partner by providing value and smarter logistics for our customers and partners.” Each intern will be paired with their corresponding department leader to serve as a mentor throughout the program. OneRail is providing interns the opportunity to work on challenging projects, as well as developing their own personal growth goals and in-demand industry skills. Throughout the summer, interns will receive mentorship, become familiar with every aspect of OneRail’s business and network with industry leaders. In fact, a core component of the intern program is making a difference by serving the Orlando community. The summer intern cohort will engage in a group project where they set goals and plans that will ultimately benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities. OneRail would like to lift up the organization’s mission by raising funds to help local families. Company culture and recruitment continue to be a top priority at the startup, as the summer intern program arrives on the heels of OneRail being named among Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces 2023, as well as being named No. 23 on Forbes’ 2023 list of America’s Best Startup Employers. OneRail was also ranked No. 48 on the Inc. 5000 list of America’s fastest-growing private companies. OneRail will also host Fall 2023 and Spring 2024 interns, with a focus on local hires in support of boosting the Orlando economy. Each of those programs will be 10 weeks. Those interested in a career at OneRail should visit the company’s careers page and stay connected with OneRail on LinkedIn. Future internship programs are slated for the fall and will be posted later this summer. About OneRail OneRail is a leading omnichannel fulfillment solution pairing best-in-class software with logistics as a service to provide Amazon-level dependability and speed to help businesses meet their delivery promise. With a real-time connected network of 12 million drivers, OneRail matches the right vehicle for the right delivery so brands lower expenses and increase capacity to rapidly scale their businesses. This people-plus-platform approach features a 24/7 USA-based exceptions team who maintain a 99% on-time delivery rate. OneRail was recently named on Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces 2023, ranked No. 23 on Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers and No. 48 on the Inc. 5000.

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SOFTWARE AND TECHNOLOGY, OPERATIONS

Hy-Tek Intralogistics and Hai Robotics Announce Partnership

prnewswire | June 02, 2023

Hy-Tek Intralogistics, a premier integrator of full-service automation technology for the supply chain, has partnered with Hai Robotics, a leading provider of intelligent automated warehouse solutions. With Hy-Tek's IntraOne enterprise logistics platform, the addition of Hai Robotics' automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS) solutions will help reduce a customer's storage footprints, increase workflow efficiency, maximize order pick accuracy, and improve daily order fulfillment rate. "We are excited to start our partnership with Hai, an up-and-coming innovator for the G2P space," said Zac Boehm, Vice President of Robotic Solutions at Hy-Tek Intralogistics. "By formalizing our partnership, it allows Hy-Tek to add to its existing solutions with a technology that allows for an earlier entry point with customers looking to adopt G2P technologies, further enforcing our goal to meet our customers where they are in their automation journey." Changing economic conditions, an increasingly tight labor market and consumer spending habits require today's supply chain to be adaptable and provide a faster ROI for customers than in the past. Hai's technologies, including their brand new HaiFlex and HaiPick A3 solutions, will allow Hy-Tek to provide solutions to their customers faster than ever. "The Hai technology allows us to provide solutions that require fast start ups, future scalability, and competitive costs," says Dave Tavel, Senior Vice President of Sales at Hy-Tek Intralogistics. "There is no reason to delay your adoption of robotics as a strategy for fulfillment. Hai's technology will support your business today and into the future, and Hy-Tek Intralogistics' platform, IntraOne will manage and optimize our customer's operations." With Hai's solutions, customers can further improve operational efficiency and storage density, meeting the needs of warehouses, DCs, and factories in the apparel, retail, e-commerce, and 3PL industries. "Hy-Tek has been a strong organization in the market since before I began my career. I've always had a lot of respect for the quality of their solutions, equipment, and systems," said Brian Reinhart, Hai Robotics CRO. "Hy-Tek's commitment to growth and integration has positioned the company to be an industry leader for years to come and Hai Robotics, having done the same on the manufacturing side, is very excited about the partnership." About Hy-Tek Intralogistics Headquartered in Columbus, OH, Hy-Tek Intralogistics is an automation technology integrator serving clients in diverse end markets and applications, including e-commerce, third-party logistics, and parcel. Hy-Tek is the premier single-source provider of material handling solutions for a wide range of industries including manufacturing, distribution, retail, construction, food, electronics, and automotive. Since 1963, Hy-Tek and its best-in-class industry partners have been providing customers large and small with turnkey solutions. From customized one-of-a-kind handling and storage systems to pre-assembled buildings and off-the-shelf products—Hy-Tek's experienced team of engineering, sales, operations, and project management professionals' partner with customers to help enhance productivity, streamline processes, and boost profitability. With over 500 employees, Hy-Tek serves customers in the United States, Canada, and Mexico from offices in Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee. About Hai Robotics Hai Robotics is a leading global provider of intelligent automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS). Their ASRS solutions provide modern storage density, reach up to 32+ feet high, reduce customer's storage footprints up to 75%, increasing workflow efficiency gains up to 4x, maximizing order pick accuracy to 99.9+%, and improve daily orders fulfilled rate over 170%. Hai Robotics' Autonomous Case-handling Robots (ACR) are the key equipment in their systems. These robots maximize the use of vertical space, managing the storage of goods 32+ feet high. Hai Robotics' ACR solutions are independent of any storage medium, allowing the ASRS to be constructed of almost any industry standard racking structure with most kinds and sizes of bins, trays, cardboard cartons, and a variety of containers and materials.

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