From: The Bradford Group ( on behalf of Edgenet )
from: Edgenet Promotes Four to Head Up Enterprise Sales
“It’s actually an advantage for Edgenet to be based in Nashville instead of San Francisco or New York.”
“My dream is for Edgenet to be the incubator for the CEOs of the next generation of our region’s tech companies.”
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, November 29, 2018 – Nashville-based technology company Edgenet has promoted four staff members to head up national sales of its new enterprise PXM product, which it rolled out this year and is used by product manufacturers to manage the product information they share with retailers, other distributors and eCommerce sites.
“We have doubled our sales staff to keep up with the demand for our new cloud-based platform that makes it easy for companies to sell their products online and in stores,” said Edgenet CEO Steve Proctor. “The four superstars we are promoting today are the cream of that crop. In my 20-plus years in the technology industry, I’ve never seen anyone do a better job of selling technology to global brands. They are amazing. I call them my sharks, because nothing can stop them. They are closing major deals with Fortune 100 companies like there is nothing to it.”
The four promoted are:
• Mary Kate Schleider – from national account manager to director of strategic accounts.
• Ben Sellers – from strategic account director to director of enterprise accounts.
• Philip Spelman – from national account manager to director of strategic accounts.
• Meredith Ziegler – from national account manager to director of strategic accounts
This unusual group of sales professionals shares a few traits:
• They are young. Most are in their 20s.
• Three out of four went to school to become a doctor or lawyer. (Sellers and Ziegler majored in pre-law in college; Schleider majored in pre-med.) However, all four realized before they graduated that they wanted a career in sales.
• All are natural entrepreneurs and see their time at Edgenet as setting them up for an opportunity to own their own tech firm in the future – something that Proctor actually encourages.
“We’re not interested in handing out gold watches here. I want people to earn the career equity at Edgenet that will allow them to play an important role in the future of the technology industry – hopefully here in Nashville,” Proctor said. “I think Nashville has the potential to be a national center of technological innovation within the next 10-15 years, and my dream is for Edgenet to be the incubator for the CEOs of the next generation of our region’s tech companies.”
And why did these four highly competitive, take-no-prisoners Young Turks choose to work at Edgenet at this particular time in the arc of technology?
That is, why aren’t they in San Francisco, Boston, New York or another more obviously tech-centric region? Because of the evolution eCommerce. Selling things online has come to an inflection point, and Edgenet is at the forefront of this change. Here’s how Edgenet’s four technology sales stars put it:
“When it comes to selling products online, especially consumer products, the world’s largest companies have moved from ‘unknown unknowns’ to ‘known unknowns.’ That is, the first battle was figuring out that they need to do eCommerce. That’s over. It’s now obvious that you have to sell your products online. But what they don’t yet know is how to do eCommerce well – and that is where Edgenet comes in,” Spelman said.
“Our enterprise product experience management software solves the eCommerce problem for product companies. It combines an intuitive interface with all of the tools they need in one place – plus the absolute best customer service in the eCommerce industry. Edgenet takes technology off the table as something for them to worry about, so they can focus on making better products, or improving business operations or the dozen other things a global consumer product company has to do right,” Sellers said.
“Nobody does what Edgenet does in eCommerce, which is why big brands know who we are when we walk in the door. They know we are the only one-stop solution for solving their eCommerce problems and they know we have the partnerships with Amazon and Google and other key players that they need to succeed,” Ziegler said.
“It’s actually an advantage for Edgenet to be based in Nashville instead of San Francisco or New York – because everybody loves to come to Nashville, especially people on the West Coast. We have something called Edgenet Academy, which is user training in our software at our Nashville headquarters, and our customers on the West Coast are the ones most likely to come early or leave late so they can spend more time here,” Schleider said.
About Edgenet
Accurate, current content fuels product experiences. Edgenet combines product experience management and GDSN® in one powerful platform, allowing suppliers and recipients to organize, distribute and analyze all their product content – all in one place. Headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee with a network spanning more than 10,000 brands, Edgenet’s technology is the most complete product experience management platform that simplifies workflows and creates experiences that drive margins and market share. For more information, visit www.edgenet.com.
###
submitted by: Jeff Bradford