Employee Spotlight: Lauren Duerr, Director of Enterprise Sales – North America

“Imparting a human touch into each customer interaction truly sets us apart.”

Building relationships with global enterprises is critical to our North American market expansion, but we need seasoned sales leaders to reach that goal. Lauren Duerr, our Director of Enterprise Sales in North America, joined our team in December 2023. We spoke with Lauren about her background, her perspective on Arelion’s culture and her vision of Arelion’s go-to-market enterprise strategy in North America.

Q: Can you tell us about your background?

I’ve been in telecom sales since I graduated from college, mostly as an individual contributor. I moved into a leadership position 7 years ago. When I joined Level 3, it had 3,000 employees. Then, it grew to over 27,000 people through mergers and acquisitions. When I was contacted about my current position at Arelion, it was a unique opportunity to work with a smaller team and specialized product set at a company with a long legacy of customer excellence. There is huge growth potential here, which I value highly.

Q: What does Arelion’s culture look like on the inside?

In sales, you work with many departments, from marketers to solution architects, networking engineers and more. From day one, Arelion’s culture has been welcoming and collaborative. The company is big enough to have a well-defined structure but not so big that our size hinders impact from individual contributors. It’s also evident that our people take pride in supporting the connectivity needs of global customers every day, no matter their size. We have a unique story and culture because many network operators are now moving into managed services, while Arelion has stuck to its roots and embraced core network services. We know who we are and where we excel; we’re not trying to be anything else.

Q: What is your day-to-day experience?

Every sales engagement starts with a customer that has a specific need, whether they’re expanding their business, or unhappy with their current provider, or integrating a new technology. From that initial engagement, it’s our job to provide more than sales quotes and technical specs. We explore how our solutions meet their business needs and solve their root problems. Above all, we must educate potential customers on Arelion’s differentiators: reliable connectivity services and expert support. So, I must ensure my teams have the resources to engage customers and execute with Arelion’s trademark efficiency and expertise.

Q: What are the Enterprise Sales team’s goals? How will you achieve those goals?

Our team focuses on growing Arelion’s presence in the North American enterprise space by increasing market penetration with new and existing customers. Some of our strengths lie in serving the financial, retail and manufacturing sectors, among others. My work centers around helping our sales team apply strategic selling principles to provide solutions to our customers. I also help the team to navigate internal and external challenges to reach those goals. Collaborating with our Conflict-Free Channel Program is crucial to our enterprise market expansion, so fostering alignment with the Channel’s go-to-market strategy is also key. To reach these goals, we must improve our North American sales coverage, particularly on the West Coast, and develop relationships with enterprise customers based on transparency and world-class customer experiences.

Q: Anything else?

Arelion’s sales strategy is unique because we’re not just following a formula. We’re genuinely connecting with our customers. That’s how you build mutually beneficial relationships in this industry. This means asking questions that help us understand customers’ problems while getting to know them on a personal level, instead of just treating them like another email address in a sales database. Ultimately, our business is still based on human relationships. Imparting a human touch into each customer interaction truly sets us apart.