Most Powerful Salespeople 2019: Proofpoint's Tyler Murphy

The Most Powerful Salespeople is an annual list from ColoradoBiz highlighting the outstanding performance of nine salespeople around Colorado. The 2019 sales standouts were selected by our editorial board from nominations submitted over several months on Coloradobiz.com, based on sales performance, persistence demonstrated in achieving or surpassing sales goals, and factors such as challenges surmounted or indications of exceptional effort to get deals done.

Tyler Murphy, 36

Director of Global Strategic Partnerships & Managed Services, Proofpoint

In his role with Proofpoint, a publicly traded cloud cyber security company, Murphy has worked with a small team to develop and expand a new global MSP (managed service provider) partner program. Focused on strategic partnerships that can each deliver tens of millions of dollars annually, Murphy has worked to execute agreements, manage relationships and develop go-to-market strategies with a “who’s who” list of global Tier-1 MSPs and systems integrators.

“My favorite part of being in sales is seeing a partnership and business plan that I have developed transform and differentiate the go-to-market strategy for my business partners,” Murphy says. “To develop and enable a new global strategic partnership from scratch takes significant resources and cross-functional collaboration. Being able to then stand back and watch those efforts transform into a flourishing business is incredibly rewarding.” 

Favorite sales book:

“Secrets of Question-Based Selling,” by Thomas Freese. “When you ask the right questions, you uncover genuine needs. Having this understanding then allows you to position relevant solutions that align with the customer’s goals and solve tangible business problems. I have found this technique to be one of the most effective ways to differentiate myself from my competitors.”

Biggest misconception about your work:

“I travel frequently, but I also work from home. I think my friends and family sometimes confuse that with vacationing and working very little. In reality, I do visit some interesting places and have quite a bit of flexibility, but I also work significantly more than they probably imagine.”

Are salespeople born or made?

“Early in my sales career, a mentor said to me, ‘I can mold a tiger, but I cannot create one. I cannot teach passion.’ All things being equal, everyone prefers to buy from the people they like. I think building rapport with a stranger quickly is easier if you have natural passion and an extroverted demeanor. Personally, I had my first business cards in third grade so my neighbors could contact me to buy more of the homemade products that I would sell them door-to-door.”