John Massel
Portland,OR
Summary
Account Executive and former first-hire BDR with 6+ years in B2B SaaS sales, expansion, and sales operations. The only AE at revVana, an early-stage Salesforce-native forecasting platform, selling to CROs, VPs of Sales, and RevOps leaders; carries a $650K net-new ARR quota and has added $150K+ in expansion ARR alongside Customer Success. Self-sources roughly 70% of pipeline with no SDR. Grew a 30-account book $300K+ at 90% retention at Knack Collective. Built Prodly's BDR function and ran Salesforce for a 10-rep team, so the SDR and AE workflow is familiar from every seat.
Overview
7
7
years of professional experience
Work History
Account Executive
revVana
04.2023 - Current
- Run full-cycle sales as the only AE at an early-stage startup on a $650K net-new ARR quota; reached 100%+ in at least three quarters and 85 to 90% annually on $35K to $100K deals, 2- to 12-month cycles
- Partnered closely with Customer Success on expansions, generating $150K+ in expansion ARR through seat adds, upsells within the same team, and new divisions; stay on through go-live with Solutions Engineering
- Sell to CROs, VPs of Sales, and RevOps and Finance leaders through MEDDPICC-qualified, multi-threaded discovery, then build the ROI case and structure pricing and discount packages for the economic buyer
- Self-source roughly 70% of pipeline with no SDR: about 30 calls a day plus personalized HubSpot sequences (10% and 7% reply rates); 12 cold-call meetings a month, 45% to opportunities, 15% win rate
- Worked with the founder and leadership to refocus ICP and messaging on MedTech and Life Sciences after testing several markets showed where messaging landed; buyer feedback passed to Product turned into roadmap items
Account Executive
Knack Collective
10.2021 - 03.2023
- Managed 30 strategic accounts in the Microsoft and AWS partner ecosystems, holding 90% retention while growing the book $300K+ in expansion revenue through new campaigns, upsells, and add-ons
- Sold expansions directly to clients' marketing leaders by listening for new priorities and extending programs that were already working, backed by the proposals, scopes of work, and presentations that grew each engagement
- Served as primary point of contact from strategy through reporting, turning clients' GTM, co-sell, and partner priorities into demand generation and seller enablement programs, with up to 10 live at once
- Ran campaigns through Madison Logic and DemandScience and sequences in Outreach, using performance data to guide optimization and spend, with a post-campaign review alongside each client
Business Development Manager
Prodly
01.2021 - 10.2021
- Built Prodly's BDR function as the first hire (inbound and outbound prospecting, qualification workflows, messaging, and playbooks), then mentored and trained new BDRs as the team scaled
- Built $400K+ in qualified pipeline and 60+ sales opportunities, lifting lead-to-opportunity conversion 85% by tightening targeting, messaging, and qualification instead of adding volume
- Booked 12 to 13 discovery calls a month against a 10-call quota, converting 46 to 58% to SQL, and partnered with AEs on target-account research, decision-maker mapping, and opportunity handoff
Sales Operations Manager
Karma Originals
03.2020 - 01.2021
- Part of the Salesforce implementation from the ground up (requirements, configuration, data migration, rep training), then administered it for a 10-rep sales team
- Owned forecasting and pipeline reporting, and built territory planning and sales processes from scratch
Education
Bachelor of Science - Business Communications
Aquinas College
Grand Rapids, MI05-2015
Skills
Expansion & Account Growth: Upsell & Cross-Sell, Seat Expansion, Multi-Division Expansion, Retention, Onboarding
New Business: Full-Cycle Sales, Outbound Prospecting & Cold Calling, Signal-Based Prospecting, Inbound Conversion
Discovery & Deal Execution: MEDDPICC, Multi-Threading, Executive Engagement, ROI Cases, Deal Structuring
Sales Development & Enablement: BDR Function Build-Out, Sales Playbooks, Sequence Design, New Rep Onboarding
Technology: Outreach, Salesloft, Gong, HubSpot, Salesforce (Admin), ZoomInfo, Apolloio, Claude, ChatGPT
Timeline
Account Executive
revVana
04.2023 - Current
Account Executive
Knack Collective
10.2021 - 03.2023
Business Development Manager
Prodly
01.2021 - 10.2021
Sales Operations Manager
Karma Originals
03.2020 - 01.2021
Bachelor of Science - Business Communications
Aquinas College