Did you ever run across an organization that you want to model your business against because they just get it? Well, I have and for me that organization is OpenView Venture Partners.

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We find them to be open, sharing, knowledgeable and some of the best networkers around. Since we have a love fest going with them, we wondered if their portfolio companies feel the same way. So I asked if we could interview one.

What follows is a conversation I had with Isaac Garcia, Co-Founder & CEO of Central Desktop.
Central Desktop delivers a cloud-based social collaboration platform that allows people to connect and share information to drive profitable business results.

Heads up all you technology companies considering funding…. you may want to keep reading and add OpenView to your list!

The number of Inside Sales departments is projected to grow from 800K (in 2009) to over 2M (in 2013) - according to SKKU/infoUSA research (PDF).

Steve Watts from The Sales Insider argues:

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But what happens when an Inside Sales Rep is ready for something new and different? Does their career path always mean staying “inside?”

Some view Inside Sales as a stepping stone. But the days of "hungry", first job out of college-Reps pounding the phones are largely gone.

Over at For Entrepreneurs, David Skok (VC at Matrix Partners) shared a slide deck he presented at the Boston Lean Startup Circle on Building a Sales & Marketing machine.

The presentation covered:

What was most interesting for me was thinking about David’s presentation in light of a recent free trial of some SaaS software I just completed. Actually, I didn’t just complete it – I endured it.

But first to David’s points. Note: the deck is 124 slides deep – so I thought I might pick out a few and share my thoughts.
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With all the buzz around sales and marketing alignment we thought it was time for a sanity check. Analysts, consultants and technology providers have all thrown their weight behind the requirement for sales & marketing to be on the same page. But, having said that, how are we doing in moving towards that goal?

Rather than ivory tower it, we decided to take the question to the people in the trenches. We partnered with VorsightBP (a great sales training company) and surveyed 1,150+ B2B Sales Reps. The results were so interesting, we wrote an ebook:

Sales Speaks: Perceptions and Ponderings on Marketing Leads

(Note: this wasn't a witch hunt or a slamming Marketing/Sales session. We took a look at what the Reps had to say and tried to make actionable suggestions for moving the ball forward.)