By Zorian Rotenberg
5
11 ratings
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.
Vice President, Sales and Marketing at SmartBug Media, Speaker, Sales Mentor
Jen Spencer is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for SmartBug Media, an Intelligent Inbound® marketing agency of experts in digital strategy, revenue operations, public relations, content marketing, and marketing automation. She's also a founding coach at SDR Nation and a past board member of the Phoenix chapter of Girls in Tech. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we’re all in this together,” and great communication leads to great partnership. She loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch.
Chris Lytle has conducted more than 2200 seminars throughout the English-speaking world. A gifted speaker and teacher, Chris inspired and educated countless radio advertising sales professionals for 44 years. He is famous for providing “more usable information-per-minute” than anyone else in the business. Chris is the author of the business bestsellers, The Accidental Salesperson: How to Take Control of Your Sales Career and Earn the Respect and Income You Deserve and The Accidental Sales Manager: How to Take Control and Lead Your Sales Team to Record Profits. His company, Instant Sales Training, continues to deliver his sales training in easily digestible knowledge bites. This automatic sales improvement process revolutionizes the way sales managers develop the people who develop their profits. Chris’ mission is making successful people and companies even more successful.
In this episode:
- About the "Forgotten Rookie" & Sales Management Trap
- Why there is so much risk when promoting an AE to a Sales Manager
- How a new Sales Manager mitigates the "Unknown Unknowns" in the role
- Why companies do sales training yet they don't do manager training
- Where to focus as a priority - why a Sales Manager is more important as a driver of results than sales reps
- Why companies promote their A-Players and top performers away from the role where they are highly successful into a role where they don't know anything about and don't always perform well as a manager
- How and why sales are won in the Discovery phase
- What makes someone a good sales rep & the value-add concept
- What is a Sales Pipeline Angioplasty and how to purge out unlikely Opps
- The difference between Prospects & Information Seekers and about engagement metrics and next steps in the sales process
Currently the VP of Inside Sales at PatientPop, Kevin has had an extensive sales career. He's been listed as an InsideSales Top 10 Sales Leader and Sales Development Exec of the Year, and his REVstar nomination called him "a true leader who can combine the vision it takes to plan ahead down to the day-to-day with the sales reps he's helping."
In this Episode:
- How do you use Analytics and tie it to humans (re data & Human element)?
- How do you drive behavior change?
- How KD scales sales faster - if the board asked to figure out a way to grow much faster in 2021, how he would approach it.
- Thoughts on Behaviors vs Processes vs Skills vs Metrics
- About managing Process vs developing People and skills
- Leadership style of Demanding vs. Commanding
- About "slowing down to speed up" and rebuilding and resetting to go faster
- What are the biggest mistakes KD made in his career (one relating to how to communicate to the Board of Directors about "risks")- Board Talk - on the balance of Risks vs. Upside when communicating messages to the Board
- What KD does when he is behind the goals in any Qtr (and the How vs. What vs. Why of either missing or hitting your numbers)
- The key reason why, when the quota is missed, KD is still perfectly OK
- And what is the reason that, when the team hits quota, KD is unhappy
- About the concept of "Defend when Defendable"
- What is "POE" and why it is the most important thing in sales
- On Specialization vs. the prospecting AEs and the insight of AE1 vs AE2
- Asking the question "Is it working?" first and foremost
- About developing a training Bootcamp for new AEs promoted from SDRs
- KD's insights on "earning promotion, not earning the role"
Brent Gleeson is a Navy SEAL combat veteran with multiple combat deployments to Iraq and Africa. Upon leaving SEAL Team 5, Brent turned his discipline and battlefield lessons to the world of business and has become an award-winning entrepreneur, bestselling author, and acclaimed speaker on topics ranging from resilience, mental toughness, leadership and building high-performance teams to culture, and organizational transformation.
Brent is the Founder and CEO of TakingPoint Leadership, a progressive leadership and organizational development consulting firm with a focus on business transformation and building high-performance cultures. Brent was named a Top 10 CEO by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2013.
Brent holds degrees in finance and economics from Southern Methodist University, certificates in English and History from Oxford University in England and a graduate business degree from the University of San Diego. He is the bestselling author of TakingPoint: A Navy SEAL’s 10 Fail-Safe Principles for Leading Through Change, which was a #1 New Release on Amazon in Organizational Change and Business Structural Adjustment. Brent latest book, Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life, publishes on December 22, 2020.
In this episode:
- "The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday" - how this Navy SEALS motto relates to business and sales management in SaaS
- How Navy SEALS become mentally tough and survive Hell Week - what SaaS CROs and sales leaders can do including engaging in health and wellness activities, taking short breaks, journaling and better sleep
- Hear a real life and death Navy SEALS "capture & kill" combat story from Baghdad
- On grit, resilience, "emotional maturity", stress management and compartmentalization and learning what is in your control
- The Navy SEAL way of "leaning into adversity"
- About changing people on the team before changing the team
- On the upcoming book "Embrace the Suck: The Navy SEAL Way to an Extraordinary Life"
- Insights on "leading change"
- The rituals, beliefs and guiding principles
- Leadership - why great leaders have empathy
- The Navy SEALS and the "Rule of 7" & the "Rule of 40%"
- Understanding people's behaviors and what motivates them and measuring team engagement at work
- How to get a team to click and enhancing the performance of your team
- Insights from Navy SEALS research/studies in the boat with good leaders vs. bad leaders (and what happens when you remove a good leader and bring in a bad leader to a well-functioning team)
- Z asks whether Brent knows other Navy SEALS like @Jocko Willink and @Leif Babin as well as @David Goggins
- How CEOs and CROs can hire Navy SEALs into SaaS sales roles with Elite Meet and the Honor Foundation
Mike Volpe is the CEO at Lola.com, Spend Management & Travel Management Software
Previously, he has joined HubSpot as the fifth employee and as CMO helped the company grow from about a dozen beta customers to over 15,000 customers, 1,000 employees, $150m in revenue, and an IPO leading to a $1.7B market cap. He has also made more than 25 angel investments with 4 exits so far (HubSpot, Locately, GroSocial, ThriveHive).
Mike serves as an advisor to a number of companies and is on the board of directors of Repsly, a mobile CRM company and was on the board of Attend until they were acquired by Event Farm. He has worked in marketing at a number of different startups in Boston and San Francisco and loves talking about marketing and growth with other marketers and entrepreneurs.
In this episode:
- As one of the original founding team members of Hubspot and someone who co-invented Inbound Marketing, Mike shares top insights on how Inbound changed over time and the future of Inbound going forward
- On why so many companies still erroneously don't believe in or don't do Inbound Marketing despite the fact that it works better than any other type of marketing
- How Content Marketing is not the same as Inbound Marketing
- Discussion about PLG (Product Led Growth) as Mike was one of the originals in the PLG game with WebsiteGrader.com which generated millions of leads
- How Mike went from a world-class SaaS CMO to a CEO
- What are some of Mike's favorite Marketing Campaigns that you can learn from
- Why "Made to Stick" is one Mike's favorite books for marketers
- And some of Mike's favorite Marketing executives
Kyle Porter is the founder and CEO of SalesLoft, the provider of the #1 sales engagement platform. SalesLoft helps more than 2,000 companies provide better selling experiences to their customers and was named the 7th Fastest-Growing Technology Company in North America by Deloitte. Recognized as the #1 best place to work in Atlanta for the second year in a row, SalesLoft has more than 400 employees in its offices in Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, London, and Guadalajara, Mexico. Kyle is a fervent champion of organizational health and is focused on creating an environment where people can learn more, do more and become more.
In this episode:
- Why every great CEO prioritizes "Organizational Health" and culture over everything
- Why great leaders set Vision, Mission and Values
- On using Core Values to gauge who you let into your company and how they guide the behaviors you celebrate vs those you tolerate
- The story that inspired Kyle from Patrick Lencioni's "The Advantage" and Southwest Airlines & how "it's below me" is the reason most CEOs don't pay attention to Organizational Health
- Why the Sunday Night "Weekend Update" email is so important
- Cultural rhythms like the "All Hands" meeting every friday
- About team members who get an applause 3 times
- Managing remote teams with 2 types of Fridays - the "Rest Days" and the "Focus Days"
- Why Kyle developed his own internal "Leadership Program"
- On why Kyle had strategies to be: "Best Place to Work" and "Best Place to be a Customer"
- How to do exceptional Marketing in SaaS - on not talking about yourself, ranking the problems you will solve, finding influencers and repackaging their messages
- Stories of how Kyle used "risky marketing" which led him to meet @Marc Benioff
- About the KPIs/metrics and how the goals for Meetings Scheduled by Outbound SDRs are 70 / quarter while Inbound SDRs is 100 / quarter
- Learning from Kyle's leadership style about empowering his lieutenants and being a Leader who is "biased to approve his executive's decisions"
- The way to fill gaps with Trust
- Why leaders say "I intend" and how to learn Intent-Based Leadership Philosophy from "Turn the Ship Around" by @David Marquet
- Great leadership and expecting the best - giving lieutenants big goals outside of their experience or comfort zone and say "I expect from you" while also saying "I will help you and support you"
- What it means to be a "Level 5 Leader" based on John Maxwell's leadership methodology
- The importance of being exceptional at attracting great talent and the difference between "Recruiting" vs. "Hiring"
- Using a "Role Clarity" spreadsheet
- Profound insight: how Kyle learned to scale his own knowledge faster to scale as his SaaS company grew from zero to $80+ Million in $ARR and Kyle's point: "I intend to learn faster than the rate of my experience"
- Why the ultimate compliment to someone is to "take advice and do it" then come back and tell them you did it
- What is "#SalesLove", why it's an internal culture plus what the reps give to clients and about the mural behind Kyle in the video
- Why it's critical to read your Customer NPS Reviews and G2 Crowd Reviews while listening to your rep's calls
- Why Kyle loved the "Above the Line" concept from reading the "15 Commitments to Conscious Leadership"
Paul Melchiorre is an Operating Partner at Stripes focusing on SaaS portfolio companies, specifically assessing and advising on go-to-market strategies. Currently, Mr. Melchiorre is an independent director at R3, an enterprise blockchain technology company, and was previously an independent director at Scout RFP, a sourcing and procurement software company that was acquired by Workday (NASDAQ: WDAY). He also sits on the board of nonprofit Spark.Org. Previously, Paul also served as Global Customer Officer and Chief Revenue Officer at Anaplan, a leading SaaS platform to facilitate financial planning and management, where he contributed to a successful IPO in 2018 and saw the company grow from $80 million to $300+ million in Annual Recurring Revenue and to over a $7 billion market cap.
Mark Petruzzi has worked in the enterprise software and cloud software ecosystem for 25 years. Today he is an industry leader with a distinct focus on channel and alliance program development and execution. Mark started his career at The MAC Group, a Harvard-based strategy consulting firm, and has held senior leadership positions at Deloitte, Oracle, Ultimate Software and HCL, driving exceptional growth and consistently delivering over-target revenue performance. In addition to his operating success, Mark is an author, speaker and an adjunct faculty educator at Duke CE, Trusted Advisor Associates and The R Group. He specializes in Cloud Software Sales, Trust-based selling and Cognitive and Behavioral-based Sales Team Development.
In this episode:
- Insights from the new book "Selling the Cloud: A Playbook For Success In Cloud Software And Enterprise Sales" {@Lisa: please hyperlink it to Amazon}
- How enterprise software selling has changed over time and the acceleration of those changes with the current environment around the work from home efforts
- What is the future profile of the top enterprise sellers and how to identify them and compete for the scarce talent
- Why Empathy and Authenticity are key when recruiting your most successful sales professionals
- How has the role of Customer Success evolved and where do you see its role in the future of the high growth SaaS companies
- Why growing revenue from existing customers is 3x-5x easier than finding new customers
- How the acceleration of sales transformation is happening in 3 months that otherwise would take 3 years
- What is the CRO role (Chief Revenue Officer), why it is more than just a VP of Sales and how will it evolve in the future
Scott Leese is one of the top startup sales leaders in the USA. Through domestic and international consulting as a strategic advisor; he has trained an army of salespeople and sales leaders thousands strong. Leese puts his nearly two decades of sales and leadership experience to use as the CEO/Founder of both Scott Leese Consulting, LLC and SurfandSales.com.
Scott is a 3-time winner of the Top 25 Inside Sales Professionals by the American Association of Inside Sales, and a highly sought-after consultant, advisor, leader, and sales trainer.
While learning both the fundamentals, and higher strategy of sales, Scott Leese’s students come away motivated, and empowered. He has helped to create many successful organizations and has shaped thousands of individuals into highly sought after sales leaders.
In this episode:
- Why Scott thinks any problems encountered in day to day sales are no biggie and how to learn from Scott's experience to look at life and sales differently
- How Scott founded Thursday Night Sales which is the biggest such podcast and community in the sales world
- How Scott created large presence and brand awareness
- About how every professional wants to play on a Championship Team
- Why messaging focus is so important
- What are the biggest problems Scott sees in companies when he helps them grow
- Why these are so important: getting your ICP right, building a great Sales Playbook and having a Sales Process
- A big lesson of what most companies do not have enough of and where every company under-invests but really should not
- What happens when you are 1 degree off course in sailing navigation and how that's relevant to leading sales teams
- Where to find great sales talent - the one great place where you'll find it today
Jason Jordan is a founding partner of Vantage Point Performance, a global sales management training and development firm, and co-author of Cracking the Sales Management Code. Jason is a recognized thought leader in the domain of business-to-business sales and teaches sales and sales management at the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business.
In this episode:
- What Jason learned from research for "Cracking the Sales Management Code" and running companies between $20 Million in sales to $450 Million in sales
- What makes a good sales team or Sales Leader
- Why a sales team or Sales Leader that missed their team quota target is not necessarily a bad team
- Inversely, why a Sales Leader or salesforce that hit their target is not necessarily good
- It's not about metrics but about which behaviors and outcomes you want
- Figuring out what drives Business Outcomes / Results
- What is the difference between Data, Reports and Insights
- Why having too many reports in your CRM is not what you want and what you should be looking for
- On Leading Indicators vs. Lagging Indicators
- Discussion on how you cannot manage Sales Outcomes / Results even thought that is what everyone always talks about at the Board of Directors meeting
- Why the Board and PE / VC investors should spend more time with their portfolio CRO / VP of Sales
- Why an Incentive Plan should be called a Reward Plan
- What is sales team productivity (and efficiency vs effectiveness in sales)
- How your Pipeline Mix analysis can help you avoid missing your number
- What to do if you are behind your number and how to communicate to the CEO and to the Board and PE/VC investors if you are not going to attain the sales target any given quarter or year
- On simplification of creating just 3-5 simple metrics for each separate role and why that's important
David Cichelli helps companies achieve their sales objectives through a variety of solutions, including improved segmentation, channel design, sales ROI, sales metrics, quota allocation, selling models and sales compensation. David is widely recognized for his work in linking sales compensation to management's objectives. He is author of The Sales Growth Imperative: How World Class Sales Organizations Successfully Manage the Four Stages of Growth, Compensating the Sales Force: A Practical Guide to Designing Winning Sales Reward Programs.
In this episode:
- Are variable incentives in the Sales Compensation even necessary if there are claims out there that sales people are driven by meaning and autonomy?
- Discussion on how humans respond to a measurement system & alignment
- Shouldn’t all salespeople have unlimited pay, like real estate agents?
- Distinction between market makers ir income producers (100% variable & uncapped) & sales representatives
- On the definition difference between a Commission (at risk) and a Bonus (add-on), and all other fun talk on things ranging from Target Incentives, to Quotas, to ICRs (Individual Commission Rates)
- What is 3x Uncapped all about
- Don’t pay programs reflect industry practices? One industry pays one way; another differently.
- Discuss sales comp principles and how they apply uniformly; including globally.
- How often should the pay plan be revised and why do companies change their sales compensation plans annually
- Should a lot of pay be at risk- low base; high upside incentive? Concepts of pay mix and leverage- upside potential
- Who should own the sales compensation plan? CRO/EVP of Sales? HR? Finance? Is it a program with a “shared responsibility” among various stakeholders.
- What’s the purpose of quotas and how do they affect sales compensation. How quotas set expectations and equalize earnings for dissimilar size territories.
- Who should be eligible for sales compensation - for instance, should Sales Engineers be eligible and who are the roles that truly persuade the customer to purchase.
- How many "performance measures" should be in an incentive plan, including profit? Can you have more than 3? And what are the “output” measures that the seller can influence.
- Should things like taking good notes in the CRM be one of the key measures in the incentive plan for reps.
- How often should the incentive plan pay? Why it is tied to sales cycle, pay mix and cash flow considerations.
- Is double crediting bad for two different sales reps in various situations? We discuss the implications of multiple sellers (aka persuaders). What factors should serve quota retirement/relief.
- Should there be a clawback clause in Sales Comp Plans?
- Why the revision to the sales compensation is a time to discuss objectives for the next year and is an excellent communication/leadership opportunity?
The podcast currently has 20 episodes available.