Salesforce Entrepreneur Spotlight with Qualified Founders Kraig & Sean

Recently our two founders were featured in "Trailblazing Entrepreneurs to Know," an ebook and video series by Salesforce

Maura Rivera
Maura Rivera
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August 27, 2020
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X
min read
Apple Podcast LinkGoogle Podcast LinkSpotify Podcast Link
Apple Podcast LinkGoogle Podcast LinkSpotify Podcast Link

At Qualified, we’re all about Salesforce. It’s not an accident that we built our product, our brand, our entire company around Salesforce, the world’s #1 CRM.

Salesforce was created to help sales teams stay aligned and to help sales professionals sell more effectively.  And today, it’s no secret that the conversational movement can help sales reps connect with target buyers faster, resulting in more connections with qualified buyers and ultimately more sales. So if your sales team runs on Salesforce, and you want to get the most out of a conversational sales and marketing platform, you’ll need it to be purpose-built for the exact way you’ve customized and configured Salesforce to run for your business.

Enter Qualified

Qualified is the only Conversational Sales and Marketing platform purpose-built for Salesforce. Our founders, Kraig and Sean have Salesforce in their DNA and are now onto creating their third thriving business on the Salesforce platform. 

Trailblazing Entrepreneurs to know

Recently, our two founders were featured in Trailblazing Entrepreneurs to Know: How The Scaled their Businesses to Success in the Salesforce Ecosystem, an ebook and video series by Salesforce. This ebook features 10 entrepreneurs that are building billion dollar businesses on Salesforce, including:

  • Jennifer Mercer, CEO & Co-Founder, Metazoa
  • Jerry Huskins, CEO & Co-Founder, Fonteva
  • Manoj Ganapathy, Founder & Ceo, SalesTrip
  • David Schmaier, CEO of Industries, Salesforce
  • Kraig Swensrud and Sean Whiteley, Co-founders, Qualified
  • Jaswinder Chadha, President & CEO, Axtria
  • Melanie Fellay, CEO & Co-Founder, Spekit
  • Max Rudman, CEO, Prodly
  • Sean Hoban, CEO & Co-Founder, Kimble

Kraig & Sean: A Long History with Salesforce

Kraig and Sean aren’t exactly new to Salesforce. They built their first business, Kieden, entirely on the Salesforce Platform back in 2006 back before Force.com even existed. They sold Kieden to Salesforce in 2006, where the duo spent 7 years leading core product and marketing functions (Kraig was the CMO). They also co-founded GetFeedback in 2013 which they built entirely on Salesforce and later sold to SurveyMonkey in 2019.

The two created Qualified after noticing a huge problem in the world of B2B demand generation. In the old days, television and radio ads encouraged prospects to dial a 1-800 number. If someone called in, they’d be instantly connected with a live agent. But today when we drive customers to take action in the digital world – for example, asking them to click on a banner ad which links to your website – there’s no one there to greet them. Even if you’re a highly targeted VIP visitor, when you land on a website, you’re on your own (or you have to fill out a form and wait hours for someone hunt you down).

This is a problem for B2B sales teams that need to generate leads and close new customers.  Kraig and Sean sought to solve that core problem with Qualified, a conversational marketing platform purpose-built for the Salesforce customer base.

“Your website should be connected deeply to your CRM. You should know when your target buyers and your target accounts arrive, you should welcome them by name, and the account team that is responsible should be there ready to have an instant conversation," says Kraig "Your website should be your greatest sales and marketing asset, not your biggest blindspot."

Qualified + Salesforce: The Perfect Match

Kraig and Sean believe that aligning with the right strategic partners at the inception of a new venture can pay off for years. That’s why they decided to align Qualified with Salesforce in every possible way. Our company runs our code on the Salesforce Platform, we use apps like Sales Cloud & Marketing Cloud internally, we're funded by Salesforce Ventures, we're the only company in our category to get ISV certified, we're rated 5-stars on the Salesforce AppExchange...and we're set up to do even more. This level of alignment ensures that Qualified is able to grow everywhere Salesforce grows.

From having previously built companies on the Salesforce Platform, Kraig shares his advice for scaling: “If you’re an entrepreneur setting out to build a consumer app, you can go to many different platforms like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. But if you're an entrepreneur who wants to build a billion-dollar enterprise software company, you should be a Trailblazer on the Salesforce Platform, it's a no brainer!”

Qualified is the only Conversational Marketing tool built specifically for Salesforce. The deliberate choice by Kraig and Sean to create such a seamless integration with Salesforce make it the perfect tool for sales teams that already rely on Salesforce. 

In a world where companies are looking to get closer and connect more deeply with their customers, Conversational Marketing stands to revolutionize the selling process. If you’re curious to learn more about trailblazing entrepreneurs in the Salesforce ecosystem, check out the ebook from Salesforce.

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