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D. Scott Karnedy
Founder / CEO at Valhalla Advisors --- Helping businesses with revenue acceleration and optimal sales process.
D. Scott Karnedy is an experienced business executive and entrepreneur with a strong background in sales, marketing, and business development. As the Founder and CEO of Valhalla Advisors, he specializes in helping startups and growing companies accelerate their revenue and optimize their sales processes.12
Professional Experience
Valhalla Advisors: Karnedy founded Valhalla Advisors and served as Managing Consultant & CEO from October 2014 to January 2020.1 In this role, he:
- Assisted client companies in creating and implementing strategies to accelerate revenue and operational excellence
- Guided sales operations teams to follow best practices and control costs
- Helped newer companies, startups, and speed-ups meet and exceed their revenue goals
- Provided advisory guidance and best practice insights, particularly in the cannabis industry2
ecoATM | Gazelle: From January 2020 to September 2022, Karnedy worked as Vice President - Strategic Clients & Partnerships at ecoATM | Gazelle.1 His achievements included:
- Orchestrating account management, in-store representative, and business development teams
- Adding over 3000 new locations to the network of kiosks, growing the market by 50%
- Generating an additional $200M in collections revenue
XM Satellite Radio: Karnedy served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Solutions from September 2003 to October 2008.1 His accomplishments included:
- Developing a team of 55 professionals to drive sales, operations, research, and product development
- Growing revenue from $3.5M to approximately $45M over four years
- Tripling the number of agencies/clients and increasing average order size 30-fold
Earlier Career
- Senior Vice President / Director of National Sales at Infinity Broadcasting
- Vice President / National Sales at AOL Time Warner1
Education
Karnedy holds a Bachelor of Arts in Entrepreneurial Studies & Marketing from Babson College in Boston, MA.1
Personal Traits
Karnedy is described as a motivational and innovative sales leader who drives rapid revenue growth and delivers excellent customer experiences. He is known for his high energy, creativity, and ability to get things done, particularly in startup, early/middle stage, turnaround, and established market environments.1
Highlights
We've been hearing a lot about Fractional Leadership lately. I just picked up a copy of Ben Wolf's book 'Fractional Leadership - Landing Executive talent you THOUGHT was out of your reach'. My favorite chapter was on Fractional Sales Leadership (of course). A FCSO/FCRO can manage, train, and coach your sales team in an ongoing basis through weekly team meetings, holding your team accountable for results and providing support when sales people are struggling. - all at a 'fraction' of what you would pay a full time CSO/CRO. As a CEO It also frees up your time to run your business. If you are curious to learn more, Valhalla Advisors has the answers.
Which companies benefit most from a Fractional Head of Sales? Most established companies have the financial resources to hire their own Sales Leadership team, however, many Startups, or small companies in their first 5 years may not. For most startups sales is critical, yet they simply don’t have the budget to hire anyone with the right experience and credentials. In many cases Startups have no one at exec level responsible for sales or the founder may be responsible. Whilst this can work most founders come from a technical background and have no experience in sales. Often Startups will hire entry level sales and marketing people because that is all they can afford, and again, while this can work, there is an enormous benefit to having a more experienced sales leader who can set the sales strategy, sales process and plan. Other companies that benefit from a Fractional Sales leader are those with a number of full-time salespeople, but not enough to warrant a full-time sales manager. This tends to be companies with less than 10 full time salespeople, but in reality, this can change depending on the complexity of the industry, company and sales structure. Hiring Fractional Sales Managers allows the business owner to focus on other areas of the business that affect growth. In most cases business owners are only to keem to offload the typical sales challenges such as sales process development, sales cycle and sales staff. Good article from Klosers - this part in particular. Valhalla Advisors specialize in early stage start ups and speed ups get to their revenue goals faster with proven tools and techniques. Reach out and let's talk!
