Getting to Know Bob Essl, Senior Enterprise Sales Executive, Quark

Organizations are grasping the reality that not only does content play a key role in supporting business growth, but there has got to be a better way to address enterprise content complexities. We're talking about complexities faced by content teams that encompass individual contributing roles who must collaborate together to execute a successful enterprise content strategy. A sales leader who regularly engages with decision makers across the enterprise to learn about their content struggles is Bob Essl, Senior Enterprise Sales Executive at Quark.

Bob has spent countless hours talking with customers and prospects, listening and learning, and guiding organizations on a path to modernize their operations infrastructure so they can address their most pressing content needs today, and scale for future growth.

We recently sat down with Bob to learn more about what he feels constitutes a successful sales relationship, what questions organizations should ask themselves about their content strategies, and what brought him to Quark.

What is the most important factor in a successful sales relationship?

Regardless of the industry your organizations play, successful vendor/customer relationships are about partnership, transparency and trust. Every customer I work with, either existing or new, always knows I'm here to help them. No matter what challenge arises, they know I'll work through them and support their organizations' ability to scale to support their growth. Also, it's important to meet customers where they are. I ask every prospect to tell me what problem they need help resolving today while also providing a more holistic picture that helps them understand what content challenges our solutions can address tomorrow.

What content challenges do you see most prospects struggling with?

The first question I ask prospects is "when it comes to content creation, what are your goals?" Be more efficient? Better collaborate? Save money? Answers are all of the above. And the most common struggles I see is managing documentation version control and poor collaboration between content teams. They are looking for a better way to work together and improve productivity. It's amazing how many similar type documents are floating through organizations and it's wonderful to see that "Aha" moment from a prospect when they see how a mundane, error prone, manual process can be automated and completely change the way content teams work and speed content delivery to market with accuracy. They aren't thinking of how content can be reused for different outputs. Content reuse is fun to talk about, especially when I get to say "Wouldn't you love to update one section and have it automatically update many documents at the same time?" AI of course comes up a lot in conversations too. Organizations know they must capitalize on it to ensure their long-term viability, so I focus on getting prospects to explain how they envision using AI. Responses range from search and indexing capabilities to streamlining content workflows.

Tell me about yourself and what brought you to Quark?

In college I was a graphic design and marketing major. At the time, I thought my long-term career path would be in graphic design. My first job was at a production company and ironically, I landed the job in the print department because of my familiarity with Quark's QXP digital publishing software. Fast forward and my career morphed into marketing roles which segwayed to enterprise sales roles and where my passion has stayed for several years. I've been with Quark for over 2 & ½ years. I feel like I've come full circle as I started my career using QXP and working with creative artists and designers and now I work with enterprise organizations and helping them address every challenge they face across their enterprise content lifecycle. I really love working at Quark. I love the leadership team, I love the culture, and I love working with my colleagues and teams. I call it the 3 Gs: Great company, great people, great products. I get to interact with people every day and help them understand that software exists to address any challenge they face in managing their content ecosystem.

What is your management style like?

As a leader, I approach it similar to how I coach my son's hockey club team. I like to surround myself with people that are stronger in areas with I am not and are receptive to learning. There's strength in a team, tapping individual skills, and learning from others. My sales team is individually strong, and we collectively work better together as a team.

Tell me a bit about yourself.

What do you like to do in your free time? I'm passionate about spending time with family and being active. Hockey and baseball are a big part of my life. I played baseball in college and currently coach my son's hockey team and play myself on a league. I live outside of Phillie and it's a prime location for hunting. I grew up with a lot of friends that hunted and this will be my first year that I'll start hunting.

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