Laura Merkelo

About Laura Merkelo

Summary As an accomplished Partner Sales Leader, I’ve found my successes have been achieved by driving significant revenue growth and customer adoption across market segments through effective partner engagement. I specialize in building trusted relationships to align and execute shared goals that generate joint success, developing go-to-market activities, and positioning relationships with business priorities, growth plans, and sales operations. I am also proficient in designing and implementing strategic initiatives to support sales plans, training and developing sales teams to deliver high performance, and implementing continuous improvements. Areas of Expertise Sales Operations • Business Development & Growth Management • Sales & Marketing Strategies • Solution Selling • Go-To-Market Strategies • Alliance Management • Partner Management • Customer Relationship Management (CRM) • Key Account Management • Teamwork & Leadership • High-Performance Culture • Training & Development • Coaching & Mentoring • Project & Program Management • Strategic Planning & Execution • Change Management • Presentations • Innovative Solutions & Improvements • and more… Key Achievements Consistently increased sales revenue and exceeded goals; developed effective sales and marketing growth plans and established relationships and partnerships. Enhanced operational efficiencies; identified process disparities for sales teams and customers; designed and improved processes. Optimized marketing capabilities of team members; created an employee skills transformation program. Elevated employee engagement; initiated a Sales Council and an Employee Council; improved communication and fostered optimal team cultures; developed team members through coaching and mentoring. Designed and conducted numerous training sessions and workshops for sales and marketing teams, partner managers, and value-add-resellers (VARs).

Experience

1. Continuous Improvement Project Director, North America Office

   SAP

   Jan 2020 — Present · Newtown Square, PA, US

   SAP is the market leader in enterprise application software, helping companies of all sizes and in all industries run at their best: SAP customers generate 87% of total global commerce.In this role, I develop and implement improvement strategies for customers and salespeople’s satisfaction with SAP’s Deal Execution Process including the design of a continuous feedback loop with North America’s (NA) sales, global process, and system owners. Presently on a part-time rotation with the Deal Support Helpdesk team to identify booking process enhancements; foster and manage relationships.My successes included:• Established NA’s Account Executive Persona through sales interviews and activity tracking.• Enhanced the satisfaction with customers and salespeople; reduced the contract negotiation and approval time.• Improved operational cooperation and response times; identified process gaps for customers and sales teams.• Elevated employee engagement; launched a Sales Council to generate leadership support on sales’ needs and role clarity; additionally designed a new communication framework supplying sales teams with best practices.• Conducted training sessions on sales processes, forecasting, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.

Education

• San Jose State University

  Bachelor of Science - BS

Skills

• Cloud Computing
• Go-to-Market Strategy
• Start-Ups
• Software as a Service (Saas)
• Strategic Partnerships
• Software Industry
• Partner Management
• Enterprise Software
• Professional Services
• Crm
• Demand Generation
• Erp
• Customer Relationship Management (Crm)
• Design Thinking
• Analytics
• Saas
• Business Alliances
• Solution Selling
• Sales Enablement
• Solution Architecture