Episode Summary:

Travis and Kevin talk with the Director of Revenue Performance at Chili Piper, Michael Tuso, about driving the success that you seek, the power of individualized coaching plans, the importance of diversity, and more.

Michael Tuso Short Bio:

Michael has always had a passion for coaching, which is what drives him to do the work he does today. Michael attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he ran for Student Body President as a freshman—and won. The networking and sales skills he honed as a part of that experience brought him in front of dozens of United States Senators, enabled him to sit in on a US Supreme Court Justice confirmation, brought him overseas on a full scholarship for study abroad, and ultimately a gig running a statewide political campaign. Michael realized he enjoyed the nuts and bolts of how to raise money for a campaign, so he combined that interest with his love of travel and moved overseas as a part of a work abroad program for Citrix. Michael soon fell in love with sales and has worked with multiple startups since then. He currently works as the Director of Revenue Performance at Chili Piper. Michael’s specialties include: training, sales process, tech implementation, account executives, SDRs, sales, leadership, go-to-market, social media, direct-mail campaigns, digital marketing, IT, technology, strategy, and consulting. Michael also received the 2019 BEAST Award for Best Sales Development Leader at Tenbound’s 3rd Annual Sales Development Conference.

Episode Highlights:

Michael’s background - political/how he got into sales

Passiveness and success/ driving results

You can’t be a passenger to be successful, you have to be the driver

Instead of saying go do- be a part of investing in your own growth

Invest them in the process

Using this time to up your game

Creating an ecosystem of learning across all of your teams

Lack of help needed from managers

Steering away from the check the box mentality

Success because of diversity

Being the “only” / finding others like you

Adversity along the way only makes you stronger and better

Treat everything as a learning opportunity

17-19 month stat

How Michael ended up with his unique job title

Too much stress placed on CEO- revenue not up to one person

The importance of coaching

So many companies focusing on enablement

Answering “why” questions/ science-based thinking

Teaching people to their strengths and weaknesses

Getting rid of intuition and building data-driven insights

Empirical hiring- concrete things to look for

You know you have at least middle performers

Focus on different priorities with different people because they are all motivated differently

Favorite Points:

Passiveness/success- driving results

Creating an ecosystem of learning across all of your teams

Success because of diversity

Michael’s story about how he ended up with his unique job title

Tweetable Quotes:

“You can’t be passive and successful at the same time. You have to drive the results that you seek.”

“We’re not successful despite our diversity, we are successful because of our diversity.”

“I don’t let any preconceived notions of what the world is supposed to be like stop me from doing what I want.”

“If I go into a company, I want to be the best at what I do.”

“The era of gut-check hiring is over.”

Links:

Travis King:https://www.linkedin.com/in/travisandreking/ ( LinkedIn)

Kevin Mulrane:https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinmulrane/ ( LinkedIn)

Michael Tuso https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltuso/ (LinkedIn)