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Adam Born
Best Buy
Professional Background
Adam Born has carved a remarkable career path through the dynamic retail landscape, establishing himself as a reputable expert in sales enablement and management within Best Buy, one of the leading retailers in consumer electronics. As the current Senior Director of Category Sales Enablement, Adam plays a pivotal role in optimizing sales strategies, enhancing customer experiences, and driving growth across various product categories. His extensive tenure at Best Buy showcases his multifaceted skills and adaptability within the organization, allowing him to contribute significantly to the company's success across multiple roles and regions.
Before taking on the senior director position, Adam excelled as a District Manager handling both the Kansas/Missouri and Oklahoma/South Kansas territories. In these roles, he demonstrated exceptional leadership skills and strategic oversight, successfully managing operations, boosting team performance, and implementing effective sales techniques that ultimately increased revenue and customer satisfaction. Notably, his prior experience as a District Customer Solutions Manager for Minnesota and North Dakota equipped him with invaluable insights into customer behavior and needs, further enhancing his ability to lead sales teams effectively.
Adam's journey at Best Buy began in various roles that spanned across the organization's operational spectrum. His understanding of field services is rooted in his time as the Field Services Market Manager for Wisconsin, where he honed his technical skills and operational expertise. Moreover, during his tenure as a General Manager, Adam cultivated a deep appreciation for team dynamics and the importance of fostering a positive workplace culture, driving employee engagement, and inspiring his teams to exceed performance expectations.
Throughout his career, Adam has been a steadfast advocate for equipping sales teams with the necessary resources, tools, and knowledge required to thrive in a competitive retail environment. His strategic vision and commitment to excellence have made a substantial impact on Best Buy's sales performance, further solidifying the company's position in the market.
Education and Achievements
Adam holds a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in Finance from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, an educational background that laid the foundation for his analytical and financial acumen within the retail sector. His studies in finance have significantly contributed to his approach in managing budgets, forecasts, and sales patterns, allowing him to make informed decisions that bolster Best Buy's profitability.
Moreover, Adam's achievements speak to his dedication and effectiveness as a leader in retail management. His leadership style incorporates not just a focus on sales metrics but also a genuine concern for employee development and customer satisfaction. His ability to identify and capitalize on market trends has positioned him as a thought leader in category sales strategies, ensuring that Best Buy adapts to the ever-evolving retail landscape efficiently.
Achievements
Throughout his illustrious career at Best Buy, Adam Born has accumulated several accolades and recognitions that underscore his commitment and proficiency in sales enablement and team management. Under his leadership, his teams have consistently exceeded sales goals, achieving substantial year-over-year growth. Adam's strategic oversight has been instrumental in launching successful promotional campaigns and enhancing product category performances that resonate well with customers.
In addition to his contributions to sales growth, Adam has championed initiatives focused on employee training and development, fostering an environment that encourages continuous learning and skill enhancement. By prioritizing teamwork and collaboration, he has built high-performing teams that remain engaged and motivated to deliver exceptional service to Best Buy's customers.
Adam’s extensive experience in a variety of roles at Best Buy has not only equipped him with a vast skill set but has also ensured he possesses a deep understanding of both operational and customer-facing aspects of the retail business. This unique combination of expertise allows him to bridge gaps between departments and lead cohesive strategies that yield impressive results for the organization.
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Related People
Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
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Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
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Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
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User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.