In this episode of Leadership That Sells, I sit down with Jeremy Blain — transformation strategist, leadership expert and four-time best-selling author — to dig into the practical realities of leading in a world that won’t stop shifting. Jeremy has coached leaders in over 50 countries, built award-winning training companies, and previously held senior roles at PepsiCo and P&G. We talk about how leadership has to evolve for the digital age, why the human element is more important than ever, and why managers clinging to outdated models are falling behind fast.

We get into why today’s leaders need a full operating system upgrade, not just a patch or a plugin. Jeremy unpacks what that means in practical terms, and how the best leaders are dropping the need to have all the answers and instead creating the right culture for talent to thrive — including those who just want to do a great job and go home. This isn’t theory. It’s what real leadership looks like now.

Here’s how to upgrade your leadership operating system:

Timeline summary:

[02:24] – Why 20th century leadership needs a digital-age upgrade

Links & resources:

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In this episode of Leadership That Sells, I talk with Chip Higgins — small business strategist, seasoned exec and author of The Bizix Way — about how to lead with energy, focus, and staying power. Chip brings a totally fresh perspective by linking business performance to real physics principles like momentum, force, friction and inertia.

He shares how mass times velocity is more than just an equation from school science. It's a powerful mental model for sales teams and leaders who want to build real traction and keep it going. We dig into how leaders create energy, how to point it in the right direction, and how to build "mass" inside the business by developing people, sharpening value propositions, and improving the systems that make selling simpler.

Here’s how to create unstoppable sales momentum:

Momentum = Mass x Velocity. Mass is the density of your value proposition and team. Velocity is speed with direction.

Don’t confuse activity with productivity. Sales energy must be focused on aligned targets that drive real value.

Increase mass by building weighty leadership, strong culture, and clear differentiation.

Velocity comes from direction. Set the vector: what market, what message, what timeframe.

Friction kills energy. Remove unnecessary complexity, systems drag and pointless admin.

Reinvest in your people. Developing skills and character builds lasting mass.

Bond with your customers. Deep connections create resilience and power, like redwood trees sharing root systems.

Timeline summary:

[02:12] – Sales is the most intense energy field in business

Links & resources:

Chip’s site: https://www.chiphiggins.com/

Book: The Bizix Way (on Amazon, Kindle, Audio, Hardback)

Physics on Demand AI agent: https://www.bizix.com/physics-on-demand

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Some things in sales leadership are easy to say but hard to do. Like being brave enough to push back on customers. Or helping your team give up short-term comfort to build long-term pipeline. In this episode, I’m joined by Zsike Peter, a powerhouse revenue leader at Cognism, to talk about how to lead through those challenges.

Zsike shares how she supports her team to stay consistent under pressure, make the right calls even when it’s tough, and keep leaning into the work that drives pipeline and growth. We talk about building a high-performance culture, the importance of clarity and repetition, and how to create space for both accountability and compassion. If you’ve ever felt the tug between being liked and being effective, this one’s for you.

Repetition builds belief. Keep saying the same message especially when you’re leading change or growth.

Don’t avoid the uncomfortable. Whether it’s a tough customer call or a difficult coaching moment, lean in.

Build a culture of care and challenge. Your team should feel supported and stretched.

Stay in the trenches. You earn trust by staying close to the work not just shouting from the sidelines.

Remember: consistency beats charisma. Day in, day out leadership is what wins.

[03:02] – Zsike’s take on what separates high-performing teams from the rest

Learn more about Cognism

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What happens when you treat frontline hourly workers like mission-critical professionals? In this episode, I sit down with Amrit Dhaliwal, CEO of Walfinch, to explore what empathetic leadership really looks like in the real world—and how it can become your competitive advantage.

Amrit shares the lessons he's learned building businesses from scratch, including a restaurant, a tea room, and multiple home care companies. We talk about the messy middle of leadership: building trust, hiring for mission over money, and solving real human problems like payday loans and car repairs—not with sympathy, but with action. Whether you're running a franchise or managing a sales team, Amrit shows how the best leaders don’t just show up with KPIs, they show up with care.

If you want to hire better, sell with more integrity, and build high-performing teams who stick around, this episode is a must-listen.

Start with empathy, but don’t stop there. Use it to understand what motivates your team—and then align that with your business goals.

Solve problems that matter. Helping an employee get out of a payday loan trap might do more for retention than another bonus scheme.

Hire for values, not just skills. Look for people who would do the job for free (but pay them well).

Reframe your incentives. Reward long-term results, not just quick wins—especially in recruitment and sales.

Don’t accept poor margins as an excuse. Amrit shifted Walfinch to focus on private-pay clients to create space for better staff pay and service.

[02:22] – What Amrit learned about leadership running both a deli and a care agency

Walfinch – National Home Care

Amrit’s book: Time to Thrive: The Home Care Revolution

Amrit’s podcast: Walking with Walfinch

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In this episode of Leadership That Sells, I sit down with Joe Davis, former Head of BCG North America, transformation expert, and author of The Generous Leader. Joe shares a refreshing, clear-eyed perspective on what it means to lead well under pressure especially when you're juggling high-performance targets and a stressed-out sales team.

We talk about how generosity isn’t soft it’s actually a strategic edge. Joe lays out exactly how a leader can be both supportive and tough on performance, why inclusion needs to go far beyond demographics, and how vulnerability builds real trust. It’s practical, honest and powerful. If you’ve ever struggled with how to push your team without breaking them, this is one for you.

How to lead with generosity and still drive accountability

Here’s how Joe Davis defines and applies generous leadership:

Timeline summary

[02:59] - “Generous leadership is giving of yourself freely… to help others grow and thrive.”

[04:43] - Joe’s wake-up call as a 24-year-old manager: “Why didn’t you tell me this two weeks ago?”

[07:06] - “The fastest trust builder? Listening. Not hearing — really listening.”

[08:51] - Inclusion done right: “When you invite me into that room, I want to give you everything.”

[10:45] - “Leadership is a learned performance. You don’t have to be Churchill to lead well.”

[13:26] - Vulnerability in action: “I don’t know, either.” How that one sentence unlocked a stuck team.

[19:04] - “This isn’t about being nice. It’s about outcomes — and how you get there matters.”

[22:04] - Generous inclusion: “It’s not demographics, it’s contribution. Invite, include, then ask.”

[25:10] - Joe’s billboard message to the world: “Listen with curiosity. Listen to learn. Have grace.”

Links & resources

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What if the thing holding your team back isn’t skills, tools or technique—but their mindset?

In this episode, I talk with Umar Hameed—hypnotist, executive coach, and founder of No Limits Selling—about the invisible blocks that keep salespeople stuck in B-player territory… and how to help them break through. Umar shares powerful, practical tools for rewiring beliefs, unlocking confidence on demand, and creating a team of authentic, purpose-driven A-players.

We unpack the real reason pipeline reviews feel like the Spanish Inquisition, why traditional team models fail in modern sales environments, and how to tap into the true identity of a salesperson beyond the persona and self-doubt.

If you want to help your reps stop playing small, feel genuinely good about selling, and perform at their best consistently—don’t miss this one.

🔹 Recognise mindset as the missing piece – Tools and training aren’t enough. It’s the internal belief system that determines whether a B-player steps up or stalls.

🔹 Use memory to boost confidence – Recall a moment you felt unstoppable. Relive it with all your senses. Then use a physical anchor (like a fist and saying “Yes”) to lock that feeling in.

🔹 Change limiting beliefs – Identify the belief behind the behaviour (e.g. “I’m too young” or “I don’t deserve success”) and reframe it into something empowering.

🔹 Create identity alignment – Help reps move beyond their persona and inner doubt to connect with who they really are. That’s where high performance lives.

🔹 Lead with love – A mindset of love (for yourself and others) creates calm, presence and connection. Sales isn’t manipulation. It’s service.

[04:54] – The real gold: how many B-players could be A-players if their mindset shifted?

🎧 Mindset Boosters – Umar’s on-demand mindset toolkit

🏫 Free Parallel Team Playbook – For leading modern sales teams

If this episode hit home, share it with your team, give us a follow, and drop a review. Let’s lead first and sell more.

We’re all using ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude… but let’s be honest — most of what’s coming out of these tools is rubbish. Generic, unfunny, over-formal slurry. M-dashes everywhere. Worse still, it’s killing brands and cluttering our inboxes with AI-written drivel that nobody reads.

So what if you could build an agent that works like a team member? One that understands your tone, writes like you, and plugs straight into your content engine? That’s exactly what Reed Hansen helps us uncover in this episode. Reed’s a Chief Growth Officer and strategic marketing brain who’s helped everyone from Oracle to fast-growing startups. He breaks down exactly how to build and train an AI agent that’s not only useful — but actually saves you time, scales your voice, and makes you look smarter.

We talk about how most people are doing this all wrong, the real value of AI agents, and how to avoid turning your brand into a slurry cannon. This episode is crammed with practical advice you can use right now — especially if you're trying to do more with less and keep your content engine running without sounding like a robot.

✅ Define the agent’s role and constraints: Who’s it for? What outcome do you want? Be specific about tone, topics to avoid, and the format of the content.

✅ Train it like a new hire: Don’t just say “write like me” — give it FAQs, onboarding docs, examples, brand voice guidelines, and preferred content structures.

✅ Attach high-trust sources: Feed it with your own high-quality material — case studies, blog posts, sales copy, anything good. Don’t let it guess.

✅ Connect it to your workflow: Use tools like Zapier or Make to push content into Buffer or your CRM. If you're stuck copy-pasting, you're not there yet.

✅ Supplement with your face: AI can't be you. Mix in your voice, your face, your real thoughts. That’s what builds trust and gets remembered.

[01:54] – Why most teams fail: it’s not the reps, it’s the ICP or the manager

If you found this episode valuable, please do me a favour — rate, follow and review the podcast. It really helps us get the word out to more sales leaders who need to hear it. And don’t forget to share it with someone who’s still letting AI write like a UN lawyer with a thesaurus.

In this episode I sit down with Milam Miller — author of The Charisma Craft and founder of Be Confident and Kind — to dismantle the myth that charisma is innate and to show how it can actually be a powerful, learnable leadership skill. We unpack what charisma really is (spoiler: not glittery and extroverted, but human connection), why it matters for sales and leadership, and how to build what Milam calls your “Riz factor” — your likability, trustworthiness and presence that turns connection into commercial advantage. Expect a practical, no‑fluff framework, real talk about what works, and a challenge to show up with intent.

If you lead a sales team (or want to), manage reps, or sell yourself as a leader — this conversation is a must-listen.

Here’s how you can start turning charisma into a reliable tool — not a luck-of-the-draw trait.

If you’re ready to stop leaning on charm and start building connection as a repeatable skill, this episode gives you a clear path. Try being intentional, curious and human in your next interaction — the results might surprise you.

If you enjoyed this episode, please rate, follow, share and review the podcast. It helps more sales leaders discover leadership that sells.

Most sales teams aren’t teams at all. They’re collections of high-performing individuals running in parallel—lone wolves, each doing their own thing, occasionally gathering for a dreaded team meeting. In this episode, I’m joined by David Kesby, author of Extra Dependent Teams, and together we unpack what’s really going on in your sales team dynamic—and why trying to lead them like a rugby squad is making things worse.

David’s background in the military and years of organisational coaching have given him a black belt in decoding team dysfunction. We talk about what’s broken in traditional sales leadership, how to spot when your team isn’t really a team, and what to do instead. From ditching unproductive team meetings to building a culture of shared learning and mutual identity, this is a masterclass in rethinking sales leadership for the real world.

[04:10] – The moment David knows a team isn’t functioning: finger-pointing and blame

If you enjoyed this episode, rate and review the show, follow us, and share it with your fellow sales leaders. Let’s help more managers lead first—and sell more.

In this episode of Leadership that Sells, I’m joined by Aurelien Mottier, President of MemoryBlue and a man on the frontlines of AI-powered sales. He’s scaled one of the largest outsourced sales orgs on the planet, and he’s not just thinking about how to use AI in sales—he’s doing it. At scale. Every day.

We get into the nitty gritty of how AI is changing the way sales teams operate—from call scoring to pipeline coaching to personalised messaging—and how not to let it turn your reps into lazy robots. If you’ve ever wondered how to keep your sales machine human while automating the grunt work, this episode’s for you.

Aurelien breaks down the tools, the tactics and the mindset required to lead sales teams through AI disruption, while keeping people at the centre of the process. There’s no fluff here. Just insight, experience and some hard truths about what separates good from great in this new era.

Start with AI that boosts productivity, not complexity. Tools like ChatGPT can save reps 10–20% of their time by helping with research, drafting emails and understanding buyer language.

Teach the tools—don’t assume your reps know how to use AI well. Without clear policy and training, you risk spam, laziness and brand damage.

Pair humans and AI where it counts. Use machines for research, data and admin. Double down on soft skills like empathy, listening and building trust.

Leverage AI to coach and develop talent. Use call transcripts and scoring to personalise feedback, track progress and create career paths.

Invest in platforms that surface real insights—tools like Cluster and Gong can flag pipeline issues, coach managers, and help CROs focus on what actually closes deals.

Avoid the ‘build’ trap. Partner with tech providers who are ahead of the curve, and stay agile enough to pivot when the next free tool drops.

Lead with purpose, not panic. In times of change, be the calm in the chaos. Create safety for your team, but keep moving forward.

[02:22] – Why the hype around AI mirrors the early internet days

MemoryBlue

Gong.io – Conversation intelligence

Mentica – AI-powered sales training

Good to Great by Jim Collins – book reference

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