MarTalks - Alex Hase and the Marketplace Magic with Mirakl

** Alex Hase and the Marketplace Magic with Mirakl**

🎙️ *What happens when you mix entrepreneurial grit, a love for building teams, and a passion for eCommerce innovation? You get Alex Hase, CRO of Mirakl, and one of the most dynamic leaders in the marketplace revolution and an awfully nice fellow.  

In my latest MarTalks episode, Alex brought us along his trek in eCommerce—from joining his first startup at 28 to leading Mirakl’s Americas division through explosive growth. His career has spanned everything from pre-revenue startups to scaling global teams at companies generating hundreds of millions in revenue. Alex lives to build—whether it’s a team, a strategy, or a new market.  

Here are the high points:  

1️⃣ **Entrepreneurial DNA**: Alex thrives in environments where he can roll up his sleeves and build from scratch. Whether it’s designing go-to-market strategies or assembling high-performing teams, he’s done it all—and isn’t afraid to be the first one carrying the bag.  

2️⃣ **Marketplaces Are Transforming Retail**: Under Alex’s leadership, Mirakl has surpassed $10 billion in GMV and onboarded iconic brands like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Christian Louboutin. Why? Because marketplaces empower retailers to expand assortments, build brand partnerships, and unlock new revenue streams—all while giving consumers more choice and control.  

3️⃣ **Luxury Loves Control**: Lux brands are digging Mirakl because their marketplace model allows them to maintain control over pricing, merchandising, and brand storytelling. For Nordstrom, this means each and every luxury brand gets a full expression consistently across all channels. 

4️⃣ **Retail Media Is the Next Big Thing**: Alex is spearheading Mirakl’s push into retail media—it’s game-changing brand-new revenue stream that democratizes ad inventory for smaller brands while delivering relevant ads to consumers. Who doesn’t love a win-win-win for retailers, brands, and shoppers!

5️⃣ **Curiosity Feeds The Cat**: Alex thinks his success is due to his insatiable need to geek out on new industries and tech. If it’s cutting edge, he’s got the paper cuts, and he hasn’t change since those early days of SaaS or diving into cross-border eCommerce at Flow Commerce (later acquired by Global-E), he’s always been driven by a desire to learn, adapt and change his spots. 

Alex’s story is one of transformational leadership and extraordinary outcomes, along with a really great attitude. If you’re considering how marketplaces or retail media could transform your business, now is the right time to explore these opportunities.  

💡 What do you think? Are marketplaces part of your strategy for 2025? Let me know in the comments!  

#MarTalks #Marketplaces #ComposableCommerce #Leadership

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Rosenstein Group is the only martech-specialist exectutive search firm. For over 20 years, we've been matching leadership talent in sales, marketing and customer success to pioneering startups in ecommerce, supply chain and sales enablement, and for digital agencies.

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Visit RosensteinGroup.com to find out more.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Martalks, the number one podcast for e-commerce and marketing applications. Mar Talks is devoted to covering the latest technology developments that drive the global commerce ecosystem from advertising to last mile. Enjoy all of our content at Rosenstein Group.com slash Mar Talks-Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Welcome to Mar Talks, where we discuss contemporary issues in the e-commerce economy. Today we're going to be speaking with Alex Hayes of Miracle. Marketplace is one of those areas of e-commerce that has really come into preeminence here over the last several years, particularly in the area of composable commerce. And Miracle is the preeminent provider of marketplace solutions. So we're going to talk to Alex a bit about why they've been seeing so much success, what values retailers have experienced as a result of adopting marketplace solutions, and why everyone should have a marketplace in their backyard. Anyway, Alex, thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Yeah, it's my pleasure. It should be fun.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Well, I, you know, we'll we'll see about that. Uh, but uh before you know we we launch into this, uh, I always uh afford my guests an opportunity to essentially defend their honor because they are appearing on this podcast. And uh I figure you should probably set the record straight with uh your story before we launch into miracles.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Sure. Yeah, so just a little bit of background on myself. So I've um been in software and software sales as a CRO in various different associated roles, um, gosh, going on about 25, 30 years now. Um, had joined my first startup in uh when I was 28 years old and um have huge entrepreneurial bones. So I've been a part of companies that have been pre-revenue, early stage revenue, uh, ones that are in the hundreds of millions, and so organizations associated with that, um, you know, very broad organizations of you know, hundreds of people that I've managed all the way down to startups where you know it was just myself, and then we built a team around that. So I have a huge passion for that whole building process. As I said, sometimes that's early stage, sometimes it's late stage. And then I've been involved in a lot of different verticals from financial services, uh the pharma biotech space, and then spent most of my career in retail. And then roles have uh typically been CRO, where the responsibilities are heavy orientation around sales, uh client success, uh, marketing, and partnerships. So um I have a fair bit of experience in a lot of different areas, um, even reflecting back on when SaaS became a thing and explaining to people moving from on-premise to something that lives in the cloud, which was an interesting experience.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Wow. Yeah. Those early days where you needed a tractor trailer full of servers sitting in your basement to run a spreadsheet. Yes, we've we've come a little ways since then. We've come just a little ways. So any verticals that you absolutely will not ever deal with again?

SPEAKER_02 3:16

No, I don't think so. I mean, you know, for me, um I I love learning about new areas and new spaces, and I find that I've even over my career hopped orbits because I just love that learning experience. Um, but I will say that uh retail and then my experience in pharma biotech uh were more interesting to me than financial services. But uh right opportunity, right place, uh, and and something that's interesting, I would dive back in.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

Ding, ding, ding. Curiosity always wins. Curiosity always wins. If you're curious, you're gonna be successful in enterprise software. That's just it. You gotta you gotta be psyched about learning. Well, you know, there's been a lot uh of news about Miracle, especially recently. I mean, just let's recap. You know, first up, Miracle announced surpassing 10 billion in GMV with over 100 million in sales just this last Black Friday. I mean, that's a humongous milestone for Miracle. And you know, how do you see it influencing the whole marketplace ecosystem?

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yeah, I I mean, again, for for me, I reflect on those numbers, and you know, you just think about, and for those that aren't aware, the company was founded uh about 13 years ago. And so obviously there's been a progression of growth from a startup. Um, the company was essentially, you know, the definer of the category of marketplaces that were not Amazon, and just getting to those thresholds, you know, essentially just shows that it works. And again, the business model is taking, for the most part, existing retailers that uh want to take advantage of the marketplace model, so in combination with what they've historically done uh with their traditional e-commerce business, and achieving those types of numbers just reinforces that the model works. And frankly, uh, we're seeing a lot of momentum with the realization that it is an opportunity for uh a lot of retailers that prior may have thought it wasn't something that fit into their strategy.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Well, yeah, I had uh an opportunity a couple weeks ago to interview Lisa Walsh, who was formerly uh the head of digital at uh, well, Party City, amongst others, but Restoration Hardware and uh a number of other luxury merchants. Uh, and we were also joined by Nat Pavick, who's Salesforce Commerce's uh product marketing leader. And uh we were talking about luxury a lot and the need for you know uh better sustainability and re-commerce, but uh Miracle actually has a really strong footprint in luxury. You know, you you work with retailers like Christian Laboutin and Bloomingdale's. I mean, why are those guys and those upscale merchants uh picking Miracle?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Well, I so I again I guess a couple of things. One, um, I think we've built a great reputation over time. So um one thing that I certainly observed when I joined the company about two and a half years ago is that there was a great foundation of great brands. So you mentioned you know Bloomingdale's as a retailer, Macy's was a customer, Nordstrom became a customer of ours uh about a year and a half ago, um, a whole bunch of European equivalents. But suffice to say, um, you know, we were in that world of where some of the top retailers and brands associated with them existed. And so, you know, given that we've been as successful as we have at kind of delivering on the uh the potential value, I think that has just built up the momentum and and the flywheel of wanting to be associated with us. Um but even if I take uh you know an example of you know Bloomingdale's or or uh Macy's, you know, their whole strategy was really around trying to build relationships with brands that they didn't know and extend and um have those brands that they were working with, you know, where they were representative of more of the portfolio. In fact, you know, Nordstrom, just shifting to Nordstrom for a second, you know, their rationale was they wanted to be able to have those luxury brands be able to provide um full expression of the brand. And so if you think about it, a couple of things happen. One, they're able to have that full assortment represented. And in this model of marketplace, you know, the the third-party sellers of the brands actually are the ones that are doing the merchandising and the pricing. So one of the cool things for these luxury brands is that they end up having a level of control and making sure that all of the imagery and product description, whatnot, are all up to date and you know, current in conjunction with any campaigns that they're running. So, you know, we've just seen again, you know, where this maturity element is what the driver was, but you know, then it's just built on um all these different organizations, both on the retail and the brand side, seeing how they can collaborate more effectively, you know, ultimately delivering um what the consumers want.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

Well, are are are there any verticals that are kind of unexpected where you know Miracle is is seeing success? I mean, especially any that are selling vintage airline memorabilia or aviation-related goods. I mean, just from uh anybody that would be curious about something like that.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

Yeah, so um I I would say uh not unexpected necessarily. So, so you know, you can, you know, and I think you just started a couple of examples of the theme of how marketplaces can really exist in a lot of you know somewhat uh unique places. Um but I will share a couple of observations that that I have seen in particular in the past uh two years, which is around um the initial focus has been general merchandisers and you know department stores. And what has built from there is more of the you know vertical specialty retailers. So those that are focused on like consumer electronics or beauty or DIY home improvement, that those retailers have now seen how this fits into a strategy, and there's been a lot of momentum around that. So that's on the B2C side. And again, our company, we actually go to market with um a B2C team and a B2B team. Reason being that the frankly, the language is different, the use cases are different, and so on. Uh but within B2B, you know, there's some really unique examples. So in the food services industry, we have some very large customers that are leveraging the marketplace approach. Um there's a company that many people haven't heard of called Henry Shine, that's a huge distributor of medical and dental supplies. And they essentially, you know, instead of just doing what they've always done, which is the rubber gloves and the dental devices, there's no reason that they can't expand into supplying everything that a dentist office might need. That's a sales opportunity for them, but it's also a service opportunity and and makes those that you know own these small dental offices uh their lives easier. So you know that would be an example of where I can't say that we said, hey, let's focus on you know one of the largest you know dental distributors in the world and see what happens. Um but lo and behold, they saw the opportunity, and I guess I would say many others are seeing where that potential lies as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Well, they are the uh the biggest dental uh equipment wholesaler, but you also landed the biggest furniture uh distributor and and a retailer in Mathis Home. And they found that the adoption of the retail ads uh was a major uh source of income for them, a major uh contributor to the bottom line. Macy's also uh seeing the the adoption of uh a marketplace and the associated retail ad front uh frontage uh contributing tremendously to their success. And you know, what kind of lessons can other retailers or business-to-business merchants uh take from those new revenue streams?

SPEAKER_02 11:21

Yeah, and and it's a it's a great question. And I I guess I would characterize it as the clear understanding of how um the the different retail models play off of one another. And so what I mean by that is that marketplace, again, it it's allowing third-party sellers to sell products and brands, and it's about expanded assortment and uh product availability and so on. Um, but you know, one of the other sides of the coin, so to speak, is retail media and the ability for retailers to you know maximize the potential there. And I think you know, you you see um uh the likes of Amazon and Walmart and and some other really large retailers taking advantage of retail media. And I think the smaller retailers were saying, well, does that really make sense for us? The reality of it is that in the the current model of retail media, there's only a handful of companies, you know, usually 10 or 20, that actually have the ability to buy ads on an e-commerce site. And so one of the big shifts that we have are driving with our strategy is there's no reason that you cannot expand that inventory to be accessible by all brands and sellers that would like to uh participate in that advertising. And so Mathis is a perfect example of where they had implemented their marketplace, um, but then very quickly saw that a retail media strategy in conjunction with that uh was a great opportunity for them. And the other part that I think is really interesting that gets lost in all of this is you know, the conversation is always around dollars and opportunity to monetize. But the reality of it is a big winner in all of this is actually the consumers, because the consumers now actually see relevant ads either for things they're looking for or things that are complementary. And it's really the only opportunity for a brand to serve up these ideas and for a consumer to see them and you know take advantage of that if they so desire. So from my perspective, everybody wins the brand, the retailer, and the consumer.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

It's almost like you're democratizing the advertising access by providing a marketplace. You're you're creating additional uh uh inventory for smaller brands, for niche brands, to advertise on that the major media agencies may can't dominate. Uh so you're you're allowing those emerging or you know, niche niche vendors uh a place to uh connect with their customers and again control that content and that brand image as they do it. But if you could, could you could you explain how retail media differs in the roles that it plays by vertical?

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Uh so I don't actually think it's too different actually from vertical to vertical. I I with with, I guess, one you know, one significant exception, which is uh the number of participants on the demand side. So again, if I I take the kind of ecosystem of a general merchandiser, they've got you know almost an exponential number of different brands and and and sellers and and and companies that may want to invest in that retail media. Um when you get into a more vertical specific retailer, then obviously that may narrow down or limit the number of brands that you know would be interested in making those investments. Um and I think furniture is even a good example of that as well. So long story short, is there's still plenty of opportunity, but you know, for me, the the value proposition still exists from you know one vertical to the next and and frankly are not too dissimilar, with the exception of what I uh what I just shared.

SPEAKER_01 14:58

Well, with the emergence of marketplace in in general, how how do you see this technology transforming the retail media landscape for your customers?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah, so the I think the easiest way to look at it is, you know, uh you there's all these different systems and and all the different platforms where you're trying to manage everything from your product inventory, your merchandising, you know, my my ad buys, and they all sit in different places. And the way that we're looking at it is that within our platform, um, we have obviously the ability to participate in marketplaces. So again, across the miracle ecosystem and frankly, extensions beyond that. Um, we've added a dropship solution. So now you could actually manage all those relationships with your retailers in one place. And then in conjunction with that, um, in that same system and platform, you can make your uh media buys or your ad buys, and then be able to do all the performance analytics and manage what's working and what's not all in one place. And so um, you know, from our perspective, it's that whole ease aspect of it, and there's a huge efficiency element of it. And then we've obviously um, much like many other companies are investing, have invested in AI as an enabling mechanism to frankly make decisions easier and um you know improve on some of those investments that are made.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Oh, shocker, AI, it enters the conversation. Yeah, I couldn't I could not have predicted that. You know, uh AI is certainly making a big play in terms of being an add-on for existing technologies because clearly, as as we have discussed thus far, Miracle is an over decade-old software and company, and this AI capability has been grafted onto it and is doing wonderful things. So, I mean, with the you know, one of the things that I'm seeing uh a lot of talk about within a the AI community uh and retail is the rise of AI-powered agents. Essentially, individuals will have an agent that's gonna do your shopping for you. They'll know what your your preferences are, what events are coming up, where where you're going out to dinner, you know, how you know who uh they'll probably even know the profile, who your prospective date is, and be able to predict, okay, you really do not want to be wearing earth tones. This is definitely a print kind of uh person that you're gonna want to impress. But anyway, the agent's gonna be doing a lot of shopping for folks. And with the rise of those, how do you envision marketplaces adapting to this shift in buyer behavior?

SPEAKER_02 17:54

Yeah, well, it's the picture you paint is an interesting one for sure. Um, I I I mean, I think there's a lot of change that comes with it, but um A, I think it's it's gonna be a bit of a long journey. Um, and I don't think it's gonna be as perfect as people would like to believe, and maybe in in 20 years it will be, but I'll give you an example. Um, me personally, I tell my family, don't try to buy me a Christmas present. They think they know me, they think they know what I want, but they don't. So I'm I get nothing.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

I I get nothing now. I have clues all over my office. Nothing. Nothing.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah. Just a hug and a little peace and quiet is all I ask. Um, but anyway, my my point being is that you know, I think that choice has always been something that we want when we're buying. The notion of yes, there's some repeat buying you know items, and if you think about subscriptions, there's a place for that for sure. And I do think it's gonna make it much easier uh for some of the buying experiences to occur. But I guess a couple things that I would share. One, um, for me, it actually makes the notion of marketplaces that much more necessary. And I always think about things in the context of um customer lifetime value. And in fact, I think it's not spoken about enough that we as consumers we go to a place that we trust and that you know we we believe in their brand promise and their value proposition. And when we want what we want, if they have it, positive reinforcement, you know, we've now got a more galvanized relationship in that experience. Or they end up not being able to deliver what I need, and then guess what? You go somewhere else. And in today's world, when you go somewhere else, you could be gone for a very, very long time, if not, you know, potentially forever. And so when you think about this AI, you know, AI agent generated shopping, you better make sure that you have everything that your consumer is going to want so that you're able to serve that up to them as an option based on that relationship that you have with them. So that's that's part one. The second of it is related to um ads and retail media. That's where I think it gets a little bit more interesting because the path to purchase has now changed quite dramatically. And so instead of it being a multi-step process getting to that point at which somebody you know to executes on that on that purchase, um, as as you well know, it could take you right to a buy page of a product because it believes that's exactly what you want. And so how that manifests itself, I would love to say I fully understand, but I do think it's gonna reshape how um you know investment in in things like ads is gonna happen in the future.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Yeah, it well, I mean, it'll be very curious to see which at which agent models take preference because some are going to respond to ads, track ads, look at ads because of the loyalty uh component, you know, a discount, um, a free shipping, good take it, whatever you uh want to provide your customers to add value to increase their experience. The agents, presumably, are gonna want to save you money, unless they're a dumb agent, which would be essentially probably what I'll end up with. I'll probably beta something that's gonna bankrupt me even faster than I have been able to do myself. But um I I I love to bring in the composable commerce ecosystem because I'm a believer. I think that going with fully composable uh digital commerce stacks uh is is what smart retailers are doing and smart businesses are doing to future proof their businesses to make it make them innovation engines to provide ever new, different, exciting experiences for their customers. And uh Miracle has joined the largest uh industry group of composable commerce providers in in the mock alliance. And uh, you know, kudos. to that kudos to Adrian for for doing that. Uh I wanted to get your experience of how do how do you see um composable and and marketplace uh in uh miracles integration to composable as providing a seamless experience for their customers.

SPEAKER_02 22:22

Sure. Yeah and I and I I guess a uh couple couple words worth noting that one um if you think about it the notion of composable is about taking you know the best in breed or the selected pieces and being able to put them together and have them um operate well together and deliver on on the promise of doing something that's incrementally better than it was prior. And Miracle essentially fits that for uh marketplace. So again as I mentioned before really our model is not to disintermediate or take away from an existing e-commerce experience it's actually to complement it. And so our customers when they're delivering their e-commerce experience you'll just notice some small nuances about what's happening in the in in the background it'll be on the product page like sold by and and and whatnot but as a whole it actually looks like a regular e-commerce transaction.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

And so I think we fit very nicely into that whole notion of composable the second thing is you know we have numerous implementations that have been done um with composable companies so the the commerce tools of the world and as we know a lot of the um uh the longer standing uh e-comm platforms have kind of reconfigured themselves to be more composable in nature and again you know we're up to 450 customers plus or minus you know all with different variations of the different uh types of uh e-com platforms that exist and you know frankly even custom built so um we've built with that desire to be flexible and to kind of you know sleeve into these very unique circumstances that a lot of retailers have and you know many of them as you know are carrying a lot of legacy systems so by definition we've had to be flexible with you know everything we've done around the APIs you know building connectors uh and so on well you know I've uh I've mentioned it before I'll mention it again I I'm a shopaholic and it's it's what's really since I bought my first pair of pants online uh in nineteen ninety nine uh I I've been suck I've been suckered in I can't get away but I I recognize a fellow junkie when I see one and uh you fit the you fit the mold dude you fit the mold so I mean what what initially really got you into e-commerce and what keeps you you know passionate about at this point you know you know this is your current role is leading miracles America's division and I I should add you know I I know Brian Callahan your your pre uh your your your precursor there very very well tremendous amount of respect for Brian after many years we were talking about this off camera many years of working with him supporting his building his sales teams at demandware but uh you know what's your deal man why are you why are you so fired up of being there miracle well you you you got you nailed me with um being uh a victim of e-commerce so I I uh I do not go to stores anymore at all and in fact um I overbuy and I probably return the retailers you're gonna hate this but I probably return 80 or 90 percent of what I buy but I will tell you one of the big shifts and I'm actually I want to ask you a question but in observing the shift towards not having uh free shipping or not having free return shipping it's changed my behavior and so I'm actually fascinated by these nuances as you try to you know um you know both not allow people to do what I just described that I do um but also you know drive towards profitability in an e-commerce world so anyway that's just me like you know riffing a little bit on um some of what I've seen that again has I think pretty significant shifts in in in behavior and speaking about me see me personally um but I guess to answer your question so how my whole e-commerce journey interestingly enough I've been in as I mentioned multiple different verticals um most recently heavily oriented around retail a lot of it was you know focused on um data and analytics so around POS inventory data um consumer purchase behavior again I was always really fascinated by it but you know got a phone call one day to have an exploratory conversation with a company called Flow Commerce that was in the cross border e-commerce space and long story short is loved what they were what their objective was and you know essentially I it it's not um it's totally understandable that I could see what the potential was you know based on all the momentum that was built in e-commerce take that into a cross border concept and it just made perfect sense to me I had the good fortune of joining right when COVID began and so we had the um pleasure of the tailwinds that occurred obviously a terrible um event for the world in general but as it related to e-commerce obviously was a huge driving force and so at that point it just started to make this realization of what was taking a long time from an adoption standpoint and just accelerated the hell out of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

And so um that company ended up getting bought by uh Global E, which is a public company and um there were two board members one of whom I think you know is Tom Ebling and another gentleman Scott Friend who are both on the board at uh Flow Commerce also are on the board at Miracle. And so they made an introduction and what I absolutely love about this company is they just the the the the notion of being such a strong category leader in this space that continues to progress and develop and what we do is just incredibly intellectually stimulating. And by that I mean you know we have these very long journeys with companies that we've been educating them over the past four, five, seven, eight years as they're trying to really understand how this marketplace concept fits into their strategy. And I have so many stories about companies that have told us what that intellectual journey was, but we're selling to the CEOs. We're engaging with board members of those you know very large companies and really helping them wrap their heads around how this concept fits into what their strategy is. And so that's like that could be another two hour long conversation but it's pretty cool. It varies from one company the next sometimes it's just hey it's a growth you know growth vector for us let's pursue it because purely from a growth standpoint others are it's all about customer lifetime value others are it's all about assortment you know others are all about SEO or it's some combination of those things. And so for me again back to what I was commenting about being a pretty curious person um this has just been something that uh has been really enjoyable and challenging.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Well you know you could have stopped at Tom Eveling and Scott Frent I mean they're just two going back to demandware just two of the nicest guys in the biz just absolute gentlemen uh I I had the the incredibly good fortune of having Tom Ebling be the CEO of several of my clients uh going back to profit logic back in the early uh early 2000s and then lattice engines and then demandware and when you've got a leader like that in charge of an organization it makes the recruiter's job a hell of a lot easier you know you know it really really does. But you know I another thing I love about you is you you know you're you're a startup veteran. You kind of as you bro as you said in the beginning yeah you know you've you've been at the big ones and the little ones and you weren't you weren't afraid of being the first seller in addition to being the head of sales where you're having to essentially I'm gonna invent the process I'm gonna invent the top of I'm gonna invent the go-to market I'm going to pioneer the first sales pitch and get shot down three million times and I'm gonna you know modify it a hundred times in that process in order to get to one that doesn't get the phone hung up in the first 10 seconds but I mean uh in my 25 years of recruiting now for for for startups uh and building that really high performing uh new business team uh you know it's critical obviously to have that leader what what for you has been your biggest challenge and most rewarding experience in in building your team there at Miracle Yeah well um the challenges vary considerably and um I would say that in each one of the circumstances where I joined one of these companies and again at very various stages of maturity um my approach has always been I I just ask a ton of questions and that's at the highest levels of the organizations to all the individual contributors and you know I get to the point of where I create hypotheses and then I pressure test those but it's essentially being extremely inquisitive and and by contrast there are some people that are in in roles that I have that walk in with kind of a predetermined playbook and they immediately just try to overlay that onto whatever situation that they roll into I I actually try to you know go through that period of inquisition and then operate from first principles.

SPEAKER_02 32:05

Like what what you know what is it that's actually going to from an execution standpoint improve upon existing state and and what the objectives that have been set before me. And I'm also a huge efficiency buff. So and and you're gonna love this but one of the first things I do is do we have a crystal clear target uh of who which customers we want to pursue or which prospects we want to pursue. And in every situation I've been in the answer's always been somewhat vague and and for me it just doesn't make any sense because every calorie of energy that we do as a business should be focused on a very clear direction. And then from that you design your go to market, you start to build out a team that supports it and there's various different models inside outside sales how much technical sales engineering do you need et cetera et cetera um but then even you know I think one of the hardest things is really just getting people that are as driven as as I feel I am to try to help the business be successful and that comes on an individual basis. You can't really teach that fire in the belly and it's frankly my number one priority in hiring because if you can take that fire in the belly point people in the right direction good things happen. But it's not something that can be taught. So I guess I would um characterize my biggest challenge as being able to find enough of those right people that actually can help you drive the level of performance that's expected and possible.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Well that's leaning from the front I mean it's leading from the front having that energy having that inquisitiveness having that curiosity you you seek it out in others you need to you can't instill it you can't instill that fire they have to have it and great enterprise sales executives always have that fire that that inquisitiveness and the most important the best ones always have it how can I solve that my customer's problem how can I solve it how can we map our solution to make them better at whatever they're doing and if uh you know if you find those people you got a jump you got you got a diamond in the rough well you know I've I've heard it said that uh you know a a sales leader when they come into an organization an existing organization with the team if they in the first 30 days haven't either brought someone in new uh or fired somebody on their team that they're too slow. What do you think of that in enterprise software sales?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Uh I would not agree with that because that's driving an action without a purpose. And again I I I guess even when I'm talking about my level of inquisition I actually try to contextualize you know even why there might be areas that are underperforming. So I essentially try to get to root cause and examples of that even if I just take on the sales rep level is you have to actually look at are they doing all the right things but there's something that's actually not driving the performance. And are they actually somebody that you know has all the potential but for whatever reason is not representative. And I do think there are some people that just show up look at the numbers and it's ready fire aim I I just take a much different approach to it. So in short if I see something that needs immediate change by all means I will make that change as quickly as I possibly can however I think to walk in with a I have to take action because there's a perception issue if I go about it the wrong way, I just wouldn't subscribe to it. So if I thought it was the right thing to do I would do it. If I didn't think it was the right thing to do I wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

I you know I couldn't agree more uh especially as you just mentioned you come into half of these situations you don't even know if the company has the right ideal customer profile in terms of who they're going after. You don't know if they've got the right product market fit. You don't know if they've they're telling differentiation story the right way. You don't know if they've pulled their customers to find out how their customers are succeeding or failing using their solution to know where they need to improve it. And that takes more than 30 days and I I've always found that you know why shoot from the hip when you can take the time to uh extend and get a good beat on your target uh and then squeeze you're always gonna hit the mark then you're gonna hit the mark then when you take the time to aim um well looking forward what excites you most about Miracle and the journey that uh you're taking folks on there with Marketplace well um I mean again it's been it's been a hell of a ride even in the two and a half years I've been here the amount of change that we've gone through has been quite significant you know both you know organizationally and and you know frankly what we've done from a strategy standpoint.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

So again if even two and a half years ago we were essentially a single product company we had we were all about marketplace and we built extensions off of that so we've got a a payout reconciliation solution so that you can manage the relationship with your sellers um we have a catalog onboarding tool that's AI driven so it makes that process more efficient. They're essentially extensions of the same concept but since then we've actually made significant investments in other growth opportunities and frankly other products that I think are going to be big winners for us. And one of them we touched on it's not the only one but it's probably the one worth highlighting the most is related to retail media and ads. So you know we placed that bet with an acquisition about two years ago of a personalization engine. You know the whole theme there was to make sure that all the ads that were being delivered you know were personalized and relevant. And that has built up some great momentum talking about Mathis Brothers as one example of that. So for me it's been um super exciting to see the company make really good decisions fiscally responsible but then also building on that with the strategy and saying hey what else can we do in addition to this business that we've been so successful at. And then even with again our core marketplace solution we've just continued to innovate make it better and better and the moat keeps getting wider and wider. So it's really I I think of all the companies I've been involved in you know Miracle is the category leader by a larger margin than I've experienced within any other company and that makes it you know fun because you're operating from a position of strength. The product is frankly it's amazing and I love to tell a story about when I first joined and I went through the holiday period um and I wasn't on any phone calls of customers that were upset. And I was like why is nobody telling me what's going on? Like where are the upset customers? And it was because everything was functioning the way that it should and so you know again these numbers these Black Friday numbers that we were talking about earlier are reflective of being able to you know have a solution that does what it's designed to do and you know frankly does it pretty flawlessly so that that builds confidence as a sales leader. It builds confidence as somebody that you know has a lot of empathy and wants to see all of our customers be successful and you know I think those are kind of the core tenants of uh of what excites me about the future well I love hearing that uh uh would you like to know what I'm most excited about with Marketplace?

SPEAKER_01 39:52

I would love to well uh what what excites me most about uh Marketplace from Miracle is that you can take a maker who is outstanding at providing their core brand offering I don't care what it is I don't care if it's shoes I don't care if it's pants I don't care if it's toothpaste but they've got a customer that visits them that's excited about them. Marketplace gives them the opportunity to give that customer a real journey an affinity based journey that they're gonna be interested in and that they're going to explore together. And that I think is the real magic of Marketplace is providing that whole experience to that customer based on what they're really interested in.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Well said two cents Alex um I can't say we've wasted the last 40 minutes it's been a pleasure really has it's uh it really has I really enjoyed it I I appreciate what you've what you're doing there and uh I'm sure your team really enjoys having you at the helm I appreciate that I appreciate that and maybe we get a chance to do it again we'll see where we're at in a year's time how about that that sounds great I will definitely be at NRF and for all of those retailers and uh e-commerce vendors listening we'll see on the floor take care thank you over now thanks for listening to MarTalks the number one podcast for e-commerce and marketing applications be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and while you're at it leave a rating and review. To find out more about how the Rosenstein group can help you find the right leaders for your client development teams in Martech and e-commerce please visit our website at Rosenstein Group dot coming