Building Engines - Woman of the Year in Sales

Company: ValueSelling Associates, Carlsbad, CA
Company Description: ValueSelling Associates equips B2B sales professionals to compete on value, not price, using a time-tested methodology with proven results. Our expert Associates deliver custom sales improvement training globally in over 17 languages. With ValueSelling, sales professionals get the tools, skills and processes to effectively qualify, advance and close more sales with higher margins.
Nomination Category: Sales Awards Individual Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Woman of the Year in Sales

Nomination Title: Building Engines: Colleen Honan, Chief Sales Officer

Colleen Honan is a true business leader of world-class direct sales, channel sales, inside sales and sales management teams. What makes Colleen unique is her extensive experience ensuring high levels of customer satisfaction and retention, in addition to delivering new business and customer growth.

As Chief Sales Officer for Building Engines, Colleen has led the company to success, culminating in an acquisition by JLL in November 2021 for a cash purchase price of approximately $300 million. The acquisition reflected JLL’s commitment to applying technology to solve real estate’s biggest challenges—in this case, the siloed ecosystem of property management technologies.

Prior to Building Engines, Colleen was Chief Sales Officer of Brainshark, a leading sales enablement platform. With her unique quality of holding everyone accountable to the organization’s goals, all while maintaining an energetic and fun atmosphere, the sales team tripled its ASPs on new logo sales over an 18-month period. Her ability to transform the sales team into a predictable growth engine, positioned Brainshark to be acquired by BigTinCan in August 2021.

She has consistently demonstrated her expertise in helping mid-size technology companies obtain the exponential revenue growth and customer retention needed to push them into the big league.

Building Engines is a corporate real estate software company focused on helping property managers of office, retail, and industrial buildings to manage those buildings more efficiently. When she entered as CSO of Building Engines in June 2020, Colleen saw a talented sales team that lacked a single sales process, forecasting process, and formal sales training.

From experience, Colleen knew the team needed an easy-to-comprehend sales process that would create a more productive pipeline and close ratio. She had been introduced to the ValueSelling Framework sales methodology when she was VP of Worldwide Sales at Sirius Decisions (which was acquired by Forrester) and saw firsthand the impressive sales growth they achieved globally.

Because her tenure as CSO began in the middle of the COVID pandemic, Colleen looked for virtual sales training that would be interactive and engaging. Colleen selected ValueSelling. Her sales team was skeptical at first. To turn the team around, Colleen and ValueSelling Associates brought real life examples into the workshops so the sales team could brainstorm how to get a deal unstuck. After the training, the team had full visibility into the pipeline, spoke a common language when reviewing deals, and advanced opportunities by asking the right questions.

Not only was the sales team moving deals through the pipeline quicker, they were also qualifying things out faster, which led to very accurate forecasting. In less than one year, Building Engines enjoyed a record month, a record quarter, and closed the biggest deal in the company’s 20-year history.

Colleen has a history of preparing technology companies for successful exits, including OneSource, SiriusDecisions, Brainshark, and Building Engines.

Building Engines is the market-leading building operations platform that transforms how properties are run by streamlining everything from work orders to maintenance scheduling and tenant engagement in one place. More than1,000customers rely on Building Engines to manage critical operational needs across more thanthreebillion square feet and 35,000 properties worldwide.

As Chief Sales Officer, Colleen established a common sales methodology to improve sales productivity. Building Engines grew roughly 25% over 2019 and 37% over 2020 ending 2021 with record growth, making it a prime candidate for acquisition.

The company was acquired by JLL (NYSE: JLL) a Fortune 500 company with annual revenue of $16.6 billion in 2020, operations in over 80 countries, and a global workforce of more than 95,000.

At Brainshark, a data-driven sales enablement and readiness platform, where Colleen was CSO, she ensured high levels of customer satisfaction and retention, delivered new business growth, and conducted due diligence that led to Brainshark acquiring Rekener, a leading sales scorecard provider, in December 2019.

Colleen was instrumental in Brainshark achieving an 89% increase in Q1 2020 of net-new customers; over 60% YOY growth in 2020; and a 38% increase in win rates, all of which led to BigTinCan acquiring Brainshark in August 2021.

Colleen has the unique ability to foster exponential revenue growth that results in increased company value and acquisition.

The following press releases capture the success that Colleen Honan as Chief Sales Officer has facilitated at both Building Engines and Brainshark.

JLL Closes Acquisition of Building Engines for $300 Million: https://www.buildingengines.com/company/newsroom/jll-closes-acquisition-of-building-engines-for-300-million/

Building Engines Recognized in the Mature Growth Category by CREtech’s Real Estate Tech Awards: https://www.buildingengines.com/company/newsroom/building-engines-recognized-in-the-mature-growth-category-by-cretechs-real-estate-tech-awards-retas/

PropTech Outlook: Building Engines Revolutionizing the CRE Landscape with Prism: https://www.buildingengines.com/company/newsroom/proptech-outlook-building-engines-revolutionizing-the-cre-landscape-with-prism/

Brainshark Announces Record Growth in 2020: https://www.brainshark.com/company/in-the-news/press/brainshark-announces-record-growth-2020

Brainshark Closes Q1 with 89% Increase in Net-New Customers: https://www.brainshark.com/company/in-the-news/press/brainshark-closes-q1-89-increase-net-new-customers