Close Call: Real-world sales strategies for startups and SMBs

When it comes to sales funnels and sales reporting, people like to share big numbers. But, don’t buy it until you’ve gotten the full context for the claim. Check out the related post and video here: https://blog.close.com/sales-pipeline-metrics

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Catherine Stewart (https://catherinetaylorstewart.com/) is the Chief Business Officer at Automattic (https://automattic.com/), the company behind WordPress.com

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Danielle Diamond (@dhopediamond) is a Content Creator at User Interviews (https://www.userinterviews.com), the Director of Marketing at Rebel Motion (https://www.rebel-motion.com/), and a Screenwriter at ScreenPower. Danielle was previously a conversational marketer of video at Drift. She’s had numerous experiences in film production and marketing, and graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor’s degree in Film and Television.

Episode highlights:

How Danielle got an early life start in filmmaking

Danielle feels that film sets have a lot to learn from how businesses are operated. This is part of what influenced her desire to orient her career towards sales & marketing

Danielle's storytelling structure, with her piece of advice of how "people don't care about your product, they care about their problem"

How Danielle was able to land her sales & marketing role at Drift without prior traditional experience in the field

Danielle's remote work experience with three companies simultaneously

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Nicole Wolosoff (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolewolosoff/) is the President of the New York Operation of Boston National Title Agency (https://www.bostonnationaltitle.com/en/). Prior to joining Boston National, Nicole served as the Vice President, Director of Operations and Underwriting Counsel at Insignia Title Agency. Before that, she was Vice President and Counsel at Langdon Title Agency. Nicole graduated from New York University’s School of Law LLM in Taxation Program, and earned her J.D. from the New York Law School and her bachelor’s from Towson University.

Episode Highlights

- From an early age, Nicole learn about the law of attraction and knew that she was destined for law school

- How Nicole used a dorky technique as a conversation opener at the early stages of her career

- How Nicole got her first internship, which set her up for career opportunities upon graduating from law school

- Jen's "choreographed" routine at networking events

- Jen's advice to salespeople is to "always be on" and "always be listening”

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Rebecca Kacaba ([email protected]) is the CEO and Co-Founder of DealMaker (https://dealmaker.tech/). She was previously a Partner at Dentons LLP and Aird & Berlis LLP and also a Secondee at the Ontario Securities Commission. Rebecca earned her LLB at the University of Windsor and a Bachelor’s in Psychology at Western University.

Episode Highlights:

Rebecca got her inspiration to study psychology and practice law from her family

When hiring, Rebecca looks for people with cold-calling experience

Rebecca's father was an OG side hustle entrepreneur while running his own legal practice

Rebecca and her co-founder, Mat Goldstein, on their experiences working together at a law firm and howod they started a startup business practice there at the time

How Rebecca uses self-awareness to manage stressful situations

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Zainab Allawala (https://www.linkedin.com/in/zainaballawala/) is a Customer Success Account Executive at Help Scout (https://www.helpscout.net/). Zainab worked as a Strategic Account Executive at Survey Monkey and as an SMB Account Executive at Asana. She’s also previously worked as a recruiting coordinator for the Kiva.org Fellow Coordinator, at Facebook, and Google.

Episode Highlights:

How Zainab's political sciences studies shaped her curiosity in understanding what makes people tick in recruiting and sales

How we can ensure accountability in order to be effective at diversity and inclusion?

How to ensure that diversity and inclusivity is not just a vanity metric, and just not a photo-op?

Resources: “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time)”, Google’s re:work guide on un-biasing, & Project Include on ensuring inclusivity throughout the entire employee life cycle

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Megan Muldary (https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-muldary-2843b625/) is the Director of Sales Operations at TUNE (https://www.tune.com/). Prior to TUNE, Megan was a Sales Operations Manager at thePlatform and has worked at San Gennaro Foods as an office manager and at Salem Media Group in marketing and promotions. She graduated from Western Washington University with a BA in Journalism and Minor in History.

Episode Highlights

How Megan has learned about communication and vulnerability through difficult life situations

How the quote "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” manifests in day-to-day life

Sensitivity as a strength and compliment to empathy, rather than a weakness

Advice on communicating with colleagues that are reserved, hard-to-read, and tight-lipped

Initiating dialogue about an issue or area of improvement so that its clear that its a collaborative discussion, rather than one-way criticism

How to communicate when you feel undervalued

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Shikha Bindra (https://www.linkedin.com/in/shikhabindra/, @BindraShikha ) is the Manager of Business Development at Vidyard (https://www.vidyard.com/.

She’s been an avid community volunteer at several different organizations working on a range of causes including children, education, and health. Prior to Vidyard, Shikha worked as a Direct Support Professional at the Kitchener Waterloo Habilitation, providing daily emotional, behavioural, and practical support. She graduated from Wilfred Laurier University with a Bachelor of Science, Psychology with Biology Minor.

Episode highlights:

How Shikha's science education background shapes her view of sales being a process of trial and error

How Shikha realized that building trust is about being able to help people, as learned through her experience as a direct support habilitation professional

Shikha describes an experience that she was able to prevent from escalating negatively, and shares what she learned about conflict resolution and diffusing tense situations

Selling with a purpose: Shikha's message and kudos to all the BDRs out there showing up each day for the grind!

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES

blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, Close.io Account Executive [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Heidi Grey is a Strategic Account Manager at Skilljar (https://www.skilljar.com/) and the founder/blogger of The Rogue Essentials (www.therogueessentials.com), a fashion and lifestyle blog focused on inspiring women to go outside of the norm to curate their own list of essentials. Her experience in sales, mobile attribution and fashion have all led her to launching and seeing success in her blog. Prior to Skilljar, Heidi worked as a Manager at Nordstrom, before moving to Sales & Account Management roles at AWB, Optify, and TUNE.

Episode highlights:

Heidi's unique measure of her blogging success

How she's applied what she's learned in retail, mobile attribution, and technology to her blog

How she balances her career with her side hustle, and dealing with burn out

How to curate your essentials in your every aspect of life, in areas such as your style, career, creative endeavours, and community

Heidi's definition of the modern woman and why she admires Sandi Lin, CEO of Skilljar

CLOSE.IO WOMEN IN SALES INTERVIEW SERIES blog.close.io/topic/women-in-sales

Host: Rebecca Luo, account executive at Close.io [email protected], @rebeccatluo

Listen: iTunes, Soundcloud, & your favorite podcast app

Watch: YouTube

Jen Wolosoff(https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenwolo/)is the Director of Brand Strategy at Buzzfeed(https://www.buzzfeed.com/). Jen joined Buzzfed as employee #20 in 2010, where one of her many responsibilities has been managing, leading, and executing custom social advertising solutions to Fortune 500 companies. She’s been promoted eight times at Buzzfeed, having been the company’s first Account Manager, the first Ad Operations manager, and the winner of numerous awards. She is the first ever BuzzFeed Sales award recipient to win the Greg Coleman's President's Award and the Doug Weaver's 212NYC Digital Sales Excellence Award, and she’s been awarded to BuzzFeed's Sales President's Club. Prior to Buzzfeed, Jen was a celebrity reporter for New York Daily News, and a media planner for GroupM.