I’ve had the privilege to work with and study hundreds of companies and their sales organizations. Based upon my experience, here’s my list of the best companies to sell for in 2013. While it includes companies that range from startups to billions in sales, all of these businesses share three common qualities: They provide fantastic technology-based solutions, have great leadership teams and offer high-growth-rate career opportunity environments!
Nimble Storage — Nimble Storage is a revolutionary Silicon Valley flash-optimized storage company. It is the fastest growing storage company in history in terms of both revenue and new customers.
“Nimble Storage was founded and is run by industry veterans responsible for ground-breaking technologies and architectures around primary storage. They’ve built a tight-knit culture of innovation focused on changing the data storage game.”
Cornerstone OnDemand — Cornerstone OnDemand is one of my all-time favorite companies. It’s a phenomenal success story and 2012 annual revenues were up 63 percent.
“Cornerstone OnDemand is helping some of the world’s leading brands get the greatest return on their human capital investment. Cornerstone OnDemand’s Software as a Service provides a simple, user-friendly interface with advanced reporting and analytics features.”
Triple Point Technologies — Triple Point Technologies is fundamentally changing how purchasing departments operate by enabling them to implement proactive “market-based” procurement and risk-management programs.
“Triple Point Technologies provides innovative solutions for managing all aspects of volatile commodity supply chains: trading, procurement, enterprise risk management, logistics, scheduling, processing and accounting.”
Liaison Technologies — Data transformation is a big problem for IT and a big business too . . . no one does it better than Liaison Technologies.
“Liaison Technologies is a global integration and data management company providing unique and high-value solutions to securely integrate, transform and manage complex business information on-premise or in the cloud.”
BeyondTrust Software — Organizations with the most demanding security requirements (banks, healthcare, government, etc.) rely on BeyondTrust to secure their most valuable IT assets.
“BeyondTrust is the only security solution vendor providing context-aware security intelligence, giving customers the visibility and controls necessary to reduce their IT security risks while simplifying their compliance reporting.”
MapR Technologies — MapR Technologies is definitely the hottest player in the Big Data market and has a very exciting future.
“MapR delivers on the promise of Hadoop, making Big Data management and analysis a reality for more business users. The MapR Distribution brings unprecedented dependability, speed and ease of use to Hadoop.”
Össur — Ossur is a very different technology company from any other on this list. They provide incredible bionic technology, hi-tech prosthetics, and state-of-the art bracing and supports.
“Össur offers a comprehensive line of orthopedic devices that provides users with protection, immobilization, pain relief and increased functionality. Products combine some of today’s most effective technologies with over 30 years of biomechanical and design expertise.”
Lenovo — Lenovo has been the fastest growing major PC company for 13 consecutive quarters and is recognized by IDC as the world’s third-largest maker of smart connected devices (PCs, tablets and smartphones). They are on track to becoming #1.
“Lenovo is a $30 billion personal technology company dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices. Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution.”
ON24 — Awesome technology with a proven track record of delivery, ON24 is the undisputed webcasting and virtual events leader.
“ON24 is the virtual communications platform for the global enterprise. ON24 offers an innovative product portfolio including webcasting and virtual events, accessible from any device and supported by robust reporting and analytics.”
Cadence Design Systems — 2012 was a big year for Cadence with revenues growing to $1.326 billion . . . 2013 promises to be even better.
“Cadence enables global electronic design innovation and plays an essential role in the creation of today’s integrated circuits and electronics.”
Visionary Integration Professionals (VIP) — It’s been said IT consulting firms are a dime a dozen. But VIP is very different. The reason for their amazing growth is the quality of their people and their “customer-first” philosophy.
“VIP helps its client partners succeed by providing integrated results through purposeful strategy and process definition, proactive planning and management and smart technology solution deployment.”
Truven Health Analytics — With all the changes happening within Healthcare, Truven Health Analytics’ broad portfolio of solutions uniquely positions them for future success.
“Truven Health Analytics delivers unbiased information, analytic tools, benchmarks and services to the healthcare industry. We help our customers to uncover and realize opportunities for improving quality, efficiency and outcomes.”
Datacert — The top legal firms and legal departments of Fortune 1000 companies use Datacert to strategically manage all areas of their legal operations.
“Datacert is the premier provider of enterprise legal management software and services that empower corporate legal, compliance and risk departments and claims organizations to operate more efficiently.”
BLITZ Digital Agency — I am continually blown away by the websites, mobile and social media campaigns that BLITZ creates . . . you will be too.
“At BLITZ, we find ways to create authentic relationships between brands and consumers — blurring the line between product and service, functional and emotional, physical and digital.”
Other Outstanding Companies
SAVVIS — In Gartner Group Magic Leader Quadrants for both managed services and cloud infrastructure as a service.
Mindjet — Over two million people and 83 percent of the Fortune 100 use Mindjet to plan and map the future.
Thunderhead Software — This innovative customer experience management solution provider had another big growth year in 2012.
Sourcefire — Record 2012 revenues for this award-winning intrusion detection technology provider built on the open source Snort engine.
Recall — 80,000+ customers take advantage of Recall’s document storage, digital management solutions and data protection services.
Akamai — Akamai closed out 2012 with record results on both the top and bottom line.
The content in quotation marks in this article is from the companies’ press releases and websites.
Steve W. Martin is the founder of Heavy Hitter Sales Training. He also teaches sales strategy at the USC Marshall School of Business. His latest book is titled Heavy Hitter Sales Linguistics: 101 Advanced Sales Call Strategies for Senior Salespeople.