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Samuel Deese
Senior Sales Leader at Amazon Business
Professional Background
Samuel Deese is a polished sales management executive with a dynamic career that spans over seven years in the realm of sales and leadership. With a focus on exceeding quotas, building effective teams, and cultivating a winning culture, Samuel has established himself as a prominent figure in the SaaS sales domain. His extensive experience encompasses diverse roles across various organizations, where he has consistently demonstrated his ability to create successful go-to-market strategies, build robust sales pipelines, and establish the necessary infrastructures to ensure sustained success.
Samuel’s collaborative approach to management has earned him accolades within the industry. He has an exceptional ability to execute budgets, build talent pipelines, and foster strong client relationships. Known for his outstanding communication skills, he has co-authored important documentation for national sales processes and has developed deal review procedures along with negotiation best practices. His commitment to continuous learning and mastery in the field has allowed him to significantly impact the organizations he has been a part of, always striving to make a difference in people's lives and within the organizations he serves.
Education and Achievements
Currently enrolled in Business Administration at Concordia University-Portland, Samuel is dedicated to furthering his education and honing his expertise in business management and sales. His academic pursuits complement his extensive work experience and contribute to his strategic approach to leadership.
Samuel boasts a number of key accomplishments that highlight his effectiveness in sales management. Notably, he achieved an impressive 164% of his $13 million quota while managing a team with two open headcounts, showcasing his ability to drive results under challenging circumstances. His work ethic and commitment to talent development are reflected in a remarkable 50% team promotion rate over three consecutive years, indicating that he does not solely focus on sales numbers but also on nurturing talent and growing the next generation of leaders. Furthermore, Samuel's exemplary performance led to him being ranked #3 nationally in a Fortune 500 company, a testament to his dedication and effectiveness as a sales leader.
Areas of Expertise
Samuel Deese brings a wealth of expertise to the sales industry, specializing in areas such as SaaS sales, sales coaching, leadership development, management, and inside sales. He effectively utilizes messaging and positioning strategies, data analysis, and CRM tools such as Salesforce (SFDC) to drive process improvements and build a strong talent pipeline. His comprehensive skill set underpins his strategic approach and positions him as an invaluable asset in any organization he works with.
Values
Samuel adheres to a strong value system that shapes his professional actions and decisions. One of his core beliefs is that choosing the right people to work with sets the foundation for success. He emphasizes that while leadership may not be complicated, it requires diligence and a commitment to mastering the fundamentals. Leading by example forms the basis for his approach, as he instills a culture of hard work and resilience among his team members.
Another tenet of Samuel's philosophy is the emphasis on curiosity over mere knowledge. He understands that the SaaS landscape constantly evolves, making flexibility and a willingness to learn essential traits in navigating its complexities. He places great importance on data, advocating for informed decision-making that balances intuition with empirical evidence. Samuel firmly believes that the most significant achievements in life often lie on the other side of fear, encouraging a courageous approach in all endeavors.
Moreover, Samuel holds the view that success is amplified by being generous, echoing the sentiment that helping others achieve their goals is vital in attaining personal aspirations. Inspired by motivational figures, including Zig Ziglar, he embodies the principle of being a giver, contributing positively to his community and industry.
Notable Roles
Throughout his career, Samuel has held several influential positions in reputable organizations. He began his journey as an Inside Sales Representative at The Wireless Source before quickly rising through the ranks to become Sales Manager, Operations Manager, and Assistant Manager at the same company. His foundational roles provided him with the skills and experience necessary to thrive in increasingly demanding positions.
Samuel transitioned to Symantec, where he held various roles including Enterprise Field Account Manager and Commercial Field Account Manager, consolidating his expertise in enterprise sales. He then joined Veritas Technologies LLC as a District Manager of Inside Sales, where he successfully managed and drove sales initiatives.
His experience at Khoros as Strategic Sales Director and Senior Manager, Agency Sales further solidified his leadership capabilities and showcased his talent for coaching and developing high-performing sales teams. Following that, Samuel held significant leadership roles at Amazon Business, serving as Senior Sales Leader and Sales Leader, where he mainly focused on implementing successful sales strategies and enhancing team dynamics.
Conclusion
Samuel Deese exemplifies the qualities of a successful sales management executive. His combination of experience, education, and outstanding accomplishments uniquely positions him as a leader in the sales industry. With a focus on continuous improvement and a dedication to people-oriented leadership, Samuel is committed to fostering a positive work culture and delivering exceptional results. As he continues his journey in the world of sales, there is no doubt that his impact on individuals and organizations will be profound and lasting.
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Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
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- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
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- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of 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. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
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.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
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.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
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.