Nicholas Biron
Chief Executive and Research Officer
nbiron@3sixtyinsights.com

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Nick has more than 25 years of experience in high tech, including 24 years of corporate sales and organizational growth experience in the enterprise software, high tech and technology research industries. Over the past 18 years, he has specialized in building and managing a variety of organizations & territories in the enterprise research industry. As a team leader with Boston’s Aberdeen Group, Nick was responsible for the initial launch of new and emerging enterprise technology research practice areas, such as Wireless & Mobility, Network & Application Performance Management, and Unified Communications. This role was dedicated to building out and maintaining these new areas along with creating the initial research and account planning. As Co-Founder of Boston’s Blue Hill Research, Nick was responsible for the initial business plan, launch, and continuous growth overseeing Sales, Marketing, and Operations. Later, Nick served as the US North East & United Kingdom business lead overseeing account and research strategies for the territory for Mercator Advisory Group. After spending the past 24 years strategizing with businesses of all shapes and sizes, Nick noticed a pattern of challenges within the software buying cycle, both on the buyer and seller side and founded 3Sixty Insights with a goal of helping organizations make better and more efficient decisions.

When in Doubt Take it to A Vote

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When in doubt take it to a vote! It’s a simple but effective management tool that I’ve used over the years to help make some fairly strategic (and quite small) decisions time and time again. I’ve found over the years, that business leaders do not always have all the “right” answers but they always do tend to have answers. Let’s remember, good business leaders typically do not make it to where they are today without knowing a thing or two. Most of the time, they are able to use their extensive knowledge for good strategic decision making. However, I’ve found that not all decisions are cut and dry…. Some decisions put business leaders on the fence, struggling to make a decision one way or another. Sometimes, […]

Changing of the Sales and Marketing Funnel in the New Age of Business Buyers

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A few weeks ago I read a Blog article [How the Marketing Funnel Works From Top to Bottom, by Rebecca Lee White with TrackMavern] describing the changing dynamic of the technology sales and marketing funnel, shifting responsibility about 80% of the funnel to marketing. The essential argument was that overall responsibility for the funnel now rests on marketing’s lap. I tend to agree and don’t know many marketing executives that would say otherwise. The point that often gets overlooked in these sorts of discussions is that sales responsibilities have undergone corresponding changes with the times as well. Ten years ago, the buying process was fundamentally different. The CIO received a budget and was left to make use his or her best judgment to direct technology purchases for […]

The Morale Killing Compensation Plan

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As fiscal budget planning comes to a close for most businesses, I wanted to share a little food for thought as compensation planning comes into full swing. Over the years, I’ve seen more than a fair share of commission and bonus structures (Some good, some bad). Historically I’ve found best plans to be ones that do not require an abacus or legal degree to comprehend. However, there is one type of compensation plan that I always urge caution around developing…. The “all or nothing” compensation plan: hit 100% of your metrics – get your bonus, miss by 5% – get nothing. Nothing can kill the morale or demotivate a team more than the feeling of working for nothing. There are few core reasons “all or nothing” […]

16 Tips to Being A Great Leader

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The other day I was having conversation regarding how a great leader can make work life that much better, greatly affecting the business as a result. Regardless of the company, leaders are the ones that can directly impact the individual’s everyday lives. Great leaders can make people look forward to coming into the office and want to work that much harder. On the flipside, a bad leader can make work a miserable experience. Where people count the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until the end of the week… Great leaders can have significant impact on the business; happy employees = higher productivity. In the same breath; bad leaders can have detrimental impact on the business. Resulting in lower team performance and increased employee turnover, significantly […]

What Makes Your Business Different?

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The other day skimming though LinkedIn and came across a post getting a great deal of attention. It was someone complaining about a response they received from a CEO after sending three prospecting emails…. The response from this CEO was fairly blunt, telling this person to stop wasting their time and the rep was offended by this response. While reading, I thought to myself most reps tend to forget there is big world out there and everyone is fighting for executive attention. Just think, how many times has sales management said that in order to win “you need to be at the executive level”? As an example of the current state of the market; this article points out over 700 Sale Enablement Technology providers out there […]