Mark Kesti has over 25 years of experience building, developing, and leading sales, marketing, and business development teams and is currently the Chief Revenue Officer and President at Innovo.

Mark has held VP Sales and other senior executive-level leadership positions overseeing US and international Fortune 500 companies such as GE, Omron, and BD (Becton Dickinson).

His diverse and accomplished background also includes Vice President, P&L, and Corporate Officer leadership success with VC-backed startups, small to mid-size turnarounds, and private equity portfolio companies.

Mark is a hands-on leader who believes in building process-driven, high-performance cultures that are laser-focused on maximizing revenue and profitability.

He is a published author and recognized thought leader within the sales industry, where he has been a guest lecturer for the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and invited presenter at national and international sales conferences.

Mark has also served as a Board of Advisory Board Member for the Eastern Technology Council, University City QED Program, GE Integration, and Eagle Scout Review Board for the Chester County Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is a graduate of the Temple University Fox School of Business and Management. Here are a few of the topics we’ll discuss on this episode of Cache Flow:

• The practical uses and underlying value of crypto in business
• What caused the FTX to collapse.
• The next tech innovations that will change the world.
• Three key aspects startups need to be successful.
• How to effectively get appointments with new prospects.
• The average lifespan of a VP of sales in a startup.
• The dangers of growing too quickly.
• The benefits of startups focusing on a very specific niche.

Resources:

• 'Pharma Bro' Martin Shkreli to LUNA's Do Kwon: 'Jail Is Not That Bad'
• OpenAI
• Turing
• Innovo Sales
• Innovo Sales Leaders

Connect with Mark Kesti:

• LinkedIn
• YouTube

Connecting with the host:

• Brian Dainis on Linktree

Quotables

• 12:20 - “Vietnam, Russia, China not as much because they crack down on those sort of things, certainly Mexico, almost every South American and Central American country you don’t need to exchange currency just bring dollars and they’re fine with that, they’re totally fine with that.”
• 34:18 - “Every member of the leadership team needs to have prior experience, whether successful or unsuccessful, experience, in a previous startup. If they don’t have that you’re going to run into problems that someone who’s done that before had already tackled, seen, knew how to deal with, or better yet will know how to avoid it to begin with.”
• 41:19 - “Sales is about one thing and one thing only it’s about the number of hit backs, the more often we get an opportunity to speak to someone who may have a benefit of the value we have to offer, the more often that can occur, the more likely they are to say hmm.”
• 55:23 - “[OpEx] It’s so critical . . . because getting them in the door is one thing, but now you have to do the hard work of delivering and keeping them happy.”
• 59:03 - “Doctors are the best salespeople because they spend so much time learning before they diagnose, they want information information information, start connecting dots and they come to a conclusion reasonable one or a couple of options possibly before they prescribe treatment, we’re the same way as I think any good consulting firm should be.”
• 1:08:18 - “They have to be unemotional and that’s easier said than done, you’ve built this business it’s your baby, you started it from the beginning and you’ve done every job and every job relatively well but you can’t continue to do that just the amount of information that changes so quickly it’s just not feasible to be on top of those things.”