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Win Win Podcast
Episode 133: Sustaining GTM Success Through a Rebrand

Win Win Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 11, 2025


According to research from Harvard Business Review, in 2022, the average employee experienced 10 planned enterprise changes, driving higher levels of change fatigue. So, how can you lead a change management strategy that helps reps navigate these shifts while maintaining GTM efficiency? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Megan Backus, director of MarComm and Sales Enablement at Culligan Quench. Thank you so much for joining us, Megan. We’re super excited to have you here today. As we’re getting started, I’d love if you could just kick us off by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Megan Backus: Yeah, so Megan Backus. I am based outside Philadelphia, so you might pick up a little bit of my Philly accent. I can’t help it. So I’ve been with Quench now Culligan Quench for about 12 years, the last two in this MarComm sales enablement role. Prior to that it was marketing and I like to joke that I’ve probably touched a little bit of every single aspect of marketing in that time. So always kind of. In the role of creating the content as part of our customer’s buying journey. Another way of looking at it is the content that our sales team needs to close deals. So currently the best way to describe it is it’s kind of this weird crossroads between marketing and sales enablement, where I think with a marketer’s hat on making sure our reps have. The tools, the collateral, and the talking points that they need to combat any sort of questions or objections that they might get in the field? You know, the easiest way of saying, and my wonderful team, and we are a very small but mighty team of five women, we create all the collateral that our sales team uses. So everything from items for prospects at the very top of the sales funnel, everything to lead ’em through the sales funnel, and then even some items for after the sale is closed. RR: Amazing. Well, I think one of my favorite things about talking to folks working at enablement is all of the different weird ways that you come to enablement as a function, and everybody always has a different slant on how the function works and how it operates in their organization. So super excited to get that kind of marketing slant on it today. Got kind of a big question to start us off. I saw on LinkedIn that you mentioned being driven by impossible problems. So what are some of those impossible problems and maybe some of the key initiatives? That you’re focused last year? MB: Yeah, so it’s actually a misnomer. It’s that marketing hat that I wear, but in my view, there is no impossible problems. It’s in a belief in life that I have, whether it’s at work or outside of work, nothing is really impossible. Everything is actually figureoutable and I will be trademarking that. But, so I don’t necessarily view ’em as impossible problems, but I guess the best way, you know, kind of think of it is those problems where you’re just like, I don’t know how I’m gonna tackle this. So this year’s quote unquote impossible problem is finding the time management and the time to accomplish everything that we want to accomplish this year. Quench calling and quench, if you will, we like to have lots of key initiatives happening at the exact same time. My poor customer success manager with Highspot, I feel I always give her like anxiety attacks when we meet. ’cause I’m like, all right. I know we talked about this two weeks ago. We’ve moved on and we’re doing something else. But so some of the things that we’re working on this year, so this past January, we kind of ripped off the bandaid, if you will, and moved our sales team from being very territorial focused in their selling to more, we call it domains, but more brand focused and brand selling. So a lot of this year has been evaluating our newly rebranded content to make sure. It aligns with that focus and realigning it where necessary to support that transition. And like I said, we like to do multiple things at the same time. So last year we did our US rebrand. This year we’re also focusing on finishing up that rebrand, supporting our friends to the North and Canada with their rebrand and our friends to the South and Puerto Rico with their rebrand. While ever supporting our ever-growing sales team, so a lot of things all at the same time. So being the impossible problem, if you will for this year has been being able to juggle all of those key initiatives while maintaining my team. I’m gonna call it sanity, but making sure no one gets burned out or frustrated or just getting to a point of like, no, I don’t wanna do this. Because, you know, with that, we, you know, kind of ask the team to walk through fire. So every once in a while you gotta make sure you’re, you’re not getting burned. RR: Yeah, absolutely. It seems like you guys are no strangers to being agile and being asked to being agile. That is a lot on your plate, so I love that you have that. There’s no impossible problem perspective. ’cause I think you can’t approach this work without it. Especially, and you touched on a little bit on this, knowing just the volume of work that’s been going into the rebrand process, both in the US and in Canada and Puerto Rico, as you mentioned, for one, congratulations. Just knowing how much change that a rebrand like that tends to bring to sales teams. I’d love to know what some of your best practices for helping those teams effectively navigate those transitions are. MB: Yeah, I think, I don’t know whether it’s taking it back to the basics or best practice, but I think the best way of thinking about these big changes in, in our case, these rebrands is. They’re not thinking of them as anxiety inducing events, but thinking of them reframing it in our minds, which helps us reframe it for our sales team of growing opportunities. They’re just opportunities to grow, to learn, to do more, to do more exciting things. And I think that’s kind of really, I guess if I had to put a best practice on something, is recognizing that big change. You know, whatever it is, is just an opportunity to grow and adapt. So with our sales team, we do have some, uh, I affectionately call them nervous Nellie, but those who their first reaction to is not to embrace change, to help those people and they can, you know, hurt your momentum and hurt the morale. But having them kind of come on board and recognize that it’s not as big as it looks. It’s not as daunting or scary as it looks. And we do that by reiterating what’s staying the same. What support they’ll continue to get. And we break down this, these big overarching changes into more bite size and manageable bites to kind of ease those anxieties of like, alright, we have over a thousand pieces of collateral. You know, we have 200 and some odd sales reps and we have to rebrand everything on, you know, new colors, new ev, let’s backtrack it. Let’s do our product sheets first. Sales reps, the products aren’t changing. You can still sell the products. We’re just gonna have different colors. So kind of just breaking it down for them to be like, oh, this isn’t really as big of a change as I thought it was. RR: I feel like I’m getting a philosophy lesson here from you. Nothing is impossible. Change is an opportunity, not a scary thing. I’d like to switch gears a little bit. So we’ve talked about the rebrand, but I also know that as a part of that rebrand and maybe as a. Result of that rebrand, you guys have also experienced like hyper growth over the past year sales team headcount has increased significantly, which again, never an easy problem to tackle, but also a great opportunity. So what challenges have you kind of noticed that came with this growth, and then how have you overcome them or maybe reframed those challenges into opportunities? MB: Yeah. So yeah, hypergrowth, I wouldn’t classify a hypergrowth happen with the rebrand, but it’s one of those things we’re like, we’re gonna do lots of things at the same time. But yeah, we hired 50 reps in a three month period. As with any sort of hiring process, especially, uh, at the hypergrowth. Level, it was the onboarding. How quickly can we get these new reps talking about our machines, understanding our sales process, understanding our customers, and we have a very incredible training team who took on a lot of that, those sort of challenges of how do we get them onboarded as quickly as possible. But I think having Highspot as our content management system. Was incredibly helpful in that regard because it new and tenured reps, so whether the new rep was still in the training class or whether they’re sitting next to Joe Schmo and Joe Schmo needed to help them find an answer, any question, they could go to Highspot. And you know, one of our favorite features at Collagen Quench is. Using the search bar to ask questions, adding that little question mark in that search bar, and it allows the rep, whether they’re new or tenured, to be more empowered to find the answers themselves. Because with onboarding, what we find is there’s a million questions and they can be as minute as, I don’t know what the to price this as, or as big and philosophical as I have no idea how to put in a sale into Salesforce. So by having everything in one spot and. Really honing in with our sales team, our tenured reps, that everything they need is in Highspot. They can help each other. And so for our small Mighty training team, our small mighty sales enablement team is not bogged down in, Hey, I don’t know how to do this. Hey, they can kind of work together. And you have peer leaders to really get them. Using Highspot, finding the answers themselves. And if they do have that, that issue of legitimate issue, then the training team and the sales and need movement team can really focus on the bigger issues, bigger questions that we’re getting from these onboarding teams. But it kinda helps with. Empowering the rep to find the answers, I think is the biggest challenge that we had is onboarding. It’s, it’s a million questions and we have a very wide product line, and having Highspot allows them to find the answers themselves, or at least find enough of the answers that last little bit, the last little 10 yards or whatever. They can come to us and we can help them in that regard. RR: So we’ve heard a little bit about you know how you’re enabling new sellers to deal with coming into the organization and doing so at scale. When you have a bunch of folks coming in new, I’d be curious to know then how the platform kind of helps you during these change heavy moments and how it helps you orchestrate the entire organization. So if you could talk to us a little bit about that, that would be great. MB: The way that we and if for every one of our meetings, reiterate all the time, Highspot is where you’re gonna find your answers. Highspot is where you’re gonna find your collateral. Highspot is going to be where you find your best practices, your recorded trainings. Highspot is where you need to go. So we have a weekly newsletter that goes out to our sales team and everything that we reference in there, we go to Highspot it. We kind of. Drill into them often that any sort of question that they have, any sort of concern that start at Highspot. If Highspot doesn’t have it, then come back to us. We’ll work on it and then get it into Highspot by having Highspot as our one source of truth, if you will. It really enables them to not have to worry about, you know, all the noise prior to having Highspot. There was a point where I was sitting and there was, I think it was like 20 emails all about one topic and sitting there and putting on, you know, well, if I’m a sales rep and I got 20 emails and it’s all in one topic, which email is the correct information? Because this one over here hits one thing this. So, and by having it in one spot and allowing our reps to really recognize that it’s their one source of truth, it forces us who create, you know, the content to make sure we’re all on the same page because we’re only gonna put it once in Highspot to really kinda help the reps steer them in the right direction. RR: I kind of wanna dig into that a little bit more, which is, I know, like you said, you and a small and mighty team of five women, it’s all on you with content. So I’d really like to know how you’re equipping using the platform reps with the content and the messaging that you’re creating all of it in there to help them effectively sell to commercial and workplace buyers. So what is your approach there? How are you making that happen in the platform? MB: So I think we’re making it happen within the platform by being incredibly organized, I think is the best way of putting it, and not being organized in the way that makes the most sense from a marketing perspective, but making it make the most sense from a sales perspective. So oftentimes, you know, with that marketing hat on, you run marketing campaigns and the point of the campaign is to, you know, talk about this feature or talk about that feature. But from a sales rep perspective, it’s not necessarily breaking it out by features. And you know, we do bottles water coolers. So we have seven machines that all feature, and I’m making up seven. We have more, but we have seven machines that all feature touchless dispensing. Well, from a rep’s perspective. It. Have a touchless dispensing spot, not have a spot for that machine, this machine and that machine, and then tell them, Hey, we have seven spots for seven different machines and they all have touchless. We kind of take a point of making sure. Everything that we put in Highspot, the spots make sense from a sales perspective and not necessarily from a marketing or a content subject matter. If I were a rep, where am I going to find this? If I’m a rep, how am I going to ask the question to find this, versus this is our Spring 2024 campaign on, you know, this machine. No, no, no, no, no. This is an ice machine. It’s going in the ice machine spot because from a rep’s perspective, I’m gonna find it in ice machines. It’s an ice machine. RR: I think that’s so key of your reps are your customers and you kind of need to serve them in the way that makes sense to them. Otherwise, you’re not gonna see the usage that you’re looking for, which is what you’re aiming to accomplish there from one marketer to another. I know that a big part of your day-to-day is probably that organization piece governing managing your content just to keep reps on brand accurate, up to date, all of that fun stuff. So could you walk me through your strategy for managing and governing content? So those reps are not only aligned, but also informed and up to date. MB: Yeah, so I don’t really have a very complicated answer to this. It’s actually quite simple of. First, we think all of our content that we create, we’re trying to create it from a perspective of what questions or what objections our sales reps are receiving. And then when we are creating from that perspective, then it allows us to make sure we’re creating the collateral that they want to use. And then, you know, back to, it’s a small but mighty team. We have the advantage of having very few people. Adding new content into Highspot, kind of limit that to I think six people. I think we have one person from the training team. We limit that in the way that to make sure, and we have very clear rules, I guess you could say, that we’ve imparted on what goes in what spot. How it’s tagged, how you upload it, what’s your file name process, so that there’s not too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will. There’s a lot of, you know, pros and cons of having a small team, but that I really think is one of our pros is we can keep it very limited as to who is uploading so that we can make sure the structure stays the way that we’ve decided that that’s the structure we want. We take a point of when we’re creating content to be as evergreen as possible. So when there are changes, we’re not constantly having to update everything. We also evaluate all of our content twice a year. So we put, I guess you could say an alarm in Highspot where after six months, Hey, take a look at this, make sure it’s still accurate, because to our earlier point of. Colligan Quench does a lot at the same time. So it’s important from my perspective to take, and if you’re doing it regularly, it doesn’t take that long, but take that moment to make sure the content that’s available is still answering the questions and the objections that you might get from your customers. And it is still being used by the sales team. If it’s not being used, there’s a reason and reevaluate the content on a regular basis, and I think that’s how we kind of keep our governance in check. We did just recently, I think we’re at like 44% or something, which seems low, but given that we have thousands of pieces of content, our content is being used, it’s accurate, and I think that’s really what we, we strive for. Make sure it’s, it’s being used and make sure it’s accurate. And then the rest will kind of just follow, RR: you know, you started your answer there by saying it’s not a complicated process. And you’re right, but also it’s those core foundationals that are gonna get you where you need to go. So I think you guys are doing all of the right things and you’re doing them on the right cadence. I think oftentimes as marketers we have that intention of like, I will govern my content, and then a month goes by and maybe another. So I love that you guys are sticking to that cadence, and I think this goes back to that LinkedIn deep dive that we started with, which is that you’ve mentioned that effective communication is one of your strengths. But beyond good content management and governance, do you have any best practices that you could share for marketing teams looking to improve how they communicate? Big changes like rebrands or smaller updates, like newly published content to reps? MB: Yeah, so I always frame everything on how it helps the reps. You have to take a moment. ’cause as a marketer you’re like, well, I’m doing this for this marketing reason. Well, if that marketing reason doesn’t resonate with the sales rep, as you express it in a marketing way, the sales rep isn’t necessarily going to use it. But if you can reframe that in a way that allows the rep to understand the benefit to themselves, they’re more than likely to use it. So it’s a very simple thing. As creators, we can kind of get wrapped up in. Well, this is a really cool piece of content because I finally learned how to insert a GIF into a PDF, making that up. But if that doesn’t really help the rep in the objection that you’re actually trying to write the content for, and they don’t put two and two together, it’s just gonna sit on a shelf and high spy and get dusty. It’s always about showing them the benefits of this piece, showing them the benefits of the rebrand and how it helps them specifically as a sales rep, not necessarily how it helps the brand or the marketing team or that product line, how it’s going to help them. RR: And then the rest kind of just follows. I think that’s great advice, and it’s obviously coming from somebody who’s, who’s doing the work, looking at the data, we’ve seen that you’ve achieved a really impressive 94% adoption rate in Highspot. So what are your tips and tricks for driving such like consistently high adoption? Because that is an impressive number. MB: Yeah, we want to be at 97 to reach it and sustain it. Again, I don’t think there’s really any big secret. We kind of base it on like three main tenets. So one, and I’ve mentioned it before, make sure your content is aligned with the needs of the customer. Which will allow you to align with the needs of the sales rep. The sales rep is the person who’s getting all those questions from the customer. So if you’re making sure your content aligns there and it’s accurate, then the sales rep is going to use it. And if you’re using Highspot as we do of your one source of truth, the only place that they’re gonna be able to get to that content so they can use it is with Highspot. And then, you know. Back to that framing, Highspot as the one source of truth. Everything that the rep needs, wants, or possibly wants is in Highspot. Getting them in that habit of using Highspot as that one source of truth is really what helps us get that adoption rate. And the way that we got there, I basically used, uh, sales reps competitive nature to my advantage. So we had early adoption when we launched Highspot because the day we launched it, we actually had a scavenger hunt. In Highspot where we came up with, you know, using our marketing brains, you know, the puns and the brain teasers. We came up with a four item brain teaser scavenger hunt that then had the reps find those pieces of content in Highspot, send a pitch, and this was before digital room. So send a pitch. To myself to A, make sure they have the right content. B sent the pitch correctly. C made sure that part of the scavenger hunt is setting up their profiles and all that. And then the top, the fastest five got prizes. Now the prizes weren’t anything. To write home about. It was very, you know, I think one of the prizes was amok. The prize wasn’t necessarily the goal, but using that competitive nature among reps, we had a crazy high adoption rate. I think our first week we had close to 70% of our sales team in the first week. Something crazy like that. And then we kind of just continue to use that competitive nature. To our advantage. We stack rank our reps daily in what we call our flash report, but it’s basically their percentage to quota as it relates to where we are in the month and the hype of hypergrowth. So we are hiring more people than we can count, basically in a very short amount of time to get to that same, you know, scavenger hunt mentality. What we did is we did another scavenger hunt, but before we launched that scavenger hunt. We actually showed a statistic that our top, and I don’t have the numbers with me, but our top quota beaters, people who are well and above their quota, were also our top super users in Highspot. So we kind of put, you know, as a new rep, I just got hired into this company, I’m getting my sea legs, and as with anyone coming into what is good, how do I get them to be the best if I’m a sales rep? Well, if someone’s telling me the best of the sales reps are also the people who are using this tool called Highspot, I probably should learn what that is. Let me learn what that is as quickly as I can. So I myself can be a top sales rep. So we kind of just take that competitive nature of our sales reps, which I think is easily replicated and use it to our advantage. We, we regularly give out prizes. We’ve done a couple other scavenger hunts and we’ve done a couple other items where, you know, adding a little bit of fun to it. And like I said, none of the prizes are anything super special, like there’s no monetary value to any of these prizes. But I think the sales reps enjoy that competitive nature. They enjoy. You know, the little bit of silliness with it and it gets ’em back in the tool and recognizing that, you know, it’s not hard. It’s not a hard tool to learn, it’s not a hard activity to send a pitch or a digital room, but if you’re. Not experienced. If they’ve never done it before, it can feel intimidating. But by adding a little bit of fun to it, it helps them recognize that, take that first step, do the first pitch, do the first digital room. It’s low stakes ’cause it’s just coming to me and I’m just gonna evaluate to make sure you have the right content in there. It takes away that intimidation factor and they’re like, oh, this took me all of 10 minutes and I got a cup out of it. I think taking that away from it, it really helps us keep that high adoption rate. We don’t do, you know, scavenger hunts for every single new hire class ’cause we’re constantly, you know, growing and hiring. But we do keep that your first pitch, your first digital room. It’s low stakes. It’s not going out to a customer, it’s going to our training team, it’s going to me, it’s going to our, our senior director of sales enablement to kind take out that intimidation factor. And put in a little bit of fun into it. And then that kind of helps them get to a point of like, oh, this is not hard. This isn’t a big change. I’m doing the same thing as I would if I’m writing an email and attaching PDFs. I’m just making it better next level. And I think that’s kind of how we, we keep that adoption rate. But like I said, we’re striving for that 97%. I would love to get to a hundred, but I, I think that might be an impossible goal, but. Who knows, maybe in a couple years we will be, but we’re aiming for 97% and we wanna sustain that. RR: I think it’s always funny chatting with folks about the things that, you know, we feel are successful and almost always the response is, that’s not good enough. We can do better. So we’ll have to check back and I hope in the next couple of months we’ll see that 97% from you. Thinking of other wins that you’ve had with the platform, I’d love to know, since implementing Highspot, what business results have you achieved? Or maybe in addition to that, what wins have you accomplished or goals that you’ve met that you and your team are really proud of? MB: Yeah, so I think the thing that we’re most proud of is we had a very quick adoption of this rebrand, Culligan Quench, and we did the. Rebrand about a year after merging with who was our oldest competitor. So within a year we had onboarded people who. Our tenured reps and I say are, and it’s giving me a trip up ’cause they’re all our reps now, but we’re onboarding people who we used to go head to head with in deals and then we’re in a year in and we’re like, Hey, guess what? We’re now Culligan Quench and everything looks different. We have a new logo. We’re gonna talk about ourselves a little bit differently, and we had a really quick adoption to that and we didn’t get too many objections from it. And I think, I don’t have hard numbers against it, but the attitude around it was very positive, and I think a lot of that stems from. High spas not going anywhere. The content’s all gonna be there on this day. All of your content that you’ve been using for years is all gonna be, it’s just gonna look different. So I think that is a crazy achievement and a win that I will. Keep talking about until the day I retire. But another one is ramping reps. So getting reps up and running quickly is something that we really pride ourselves on. We have a very big product line we have. A very wide customer base. It’s basically any workplace that needs water. Spoiler alert, it’s all of you. From a new hire perspective, it can be a little intimidating. We have over 50 products and you’re, what do you mean? I’m going after every single industry on the world in the United States, but having Highspot, it allows us to ramp our new hires pretty quickly. On average, new hires are, you know, within. Three months, they’ve had at least one of their own first deals. Within six months, we take them off of what we call ramping, where they’re owners of their commissions and their quotas. But given how wide of a customer base we have and how many products we have, it’s pretty impressive that you can go from a Joe Schmo and in six months you’re using this very awesome next level tool to pitch. To every industry over 54 machines. So that’s something that we, we hold pretty high in a win. And like I said, I don’t, and I’ve mentioned this before and I don’t have exact numbers, but the, you know, our top quota beaters, consistent quota beaters that we see month after month, year after year. There also are super users in Highspot. So not only we producing the right content for the team, but the team is adapting to using Highspot and really proving, you know what I thought when I proposed us switching to Highspot years ago, it’s gonna set us apart from our competitors. And it’s, I think that stack kind of proves it, not only do we have reps using the tool, which was a fear that senior leaders had of why are we gonna invest in this tool? And reps are gonna still send emails, they’re using the tool and they’re winning what using the tool. So I think it kind of just furthers that, you know, loop that I’ve mentioned of. Getting reps to use the tool and everything else will kind of fall in all into place. And then the biggest win that I can share and that what I kinda put my hat on is we’ve pitched, and I can’t name names, but we pitched to some. Big international organizations using digital rooms. You know, you have the PowerPoint presentation and we have, you know, links in the PowerPoint presentation to the digital room for more information and a couple of times. You know, we’re pitching to C level of these international organizations and they’re going, this is incredible, this digital room presentation, I’ve never seen something like it. This is, you know, really sets you apart and I think. Because we are one of the few in our industry who are using Highspot. I don’t, I might be the only one in our industry using it, so I don’t wanna calculate a gamble, I guess you could say, on doing something different has really worked out. I think that’s a, a big win that I like to, to hang my hat on and getting you. We had a couple of senior leaders who were very skeptical of the whole process and getting them to a point where they’re like, they get a question or someone asks, they go, I don’t know, go ask Highspot. I don’t think I could say how often people are like, I don’t know. It’s in Highspot right now. We only have our sales team on it, but we have other people in other departments going, Hey, can I get Highspot? And I have to be like, no, you’re not in sales. You wanna come over to sales? I can give you when you’re ever in sales. But I think that’s a major win of just getting everyone on board. Rowing the same direction. Through all this change, we’ve maintained that adoption rate through all this change, through all this hiring. Yeah, I think that’s the biggest win. RR: Well, I think the volume of these wins kind of speaks to that point earlier of things are always changing, there’s new priorities, but you guys are coming out successful on the other side. Time and again, so that’s incredible to hear. So thank you for sharing. Just one last question for you to close this out. If you could share one key lesson that you’ve learned from your experience as a marketer tasked with supporting teams through all of this change, what would it be? I know that’s a big question. MB: I don’t know whether it’s a lesson learned or a lesson reiterated, but it goes back to nothing is impossible. Everything is figureoutable. I guess best advice is take the time to really think it through so you can set yourself up for later success. You know, break it down into pieces and really think it through. And often when there’s a lot of change or you know, big deadlines, you immediately wanna just jump in and start running. And sometimes the fastest way to get started is to actually think it through. Take a moment, think it through, break it down into pieces, and then just keep going. Just putting one foot in front of the other through the big change through the crazy deadlines is my best advice is just break it down part by. Foot over foot, and then next thing you know, it’s 12 years later and you’re like, whoa, look at all this stuff that has changed in the past 12 years. But yeah, it, I think that’s what it is. It everything is figureoutable. You just gotta dedicate a little time to figure it out. RR: I think that’s great advice. It’s that slow down to go fast mentality. I think that’s a great approach to close us out on. So we’ll end there. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. I think we’ve learned a lot from you and we have some really great advice and some philosophical frameworks to take us forward. MB: I couldn’t help it. That philosophy just comes out every once in a while. RR: Well, it’s amazing. To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success at Highspot.

Marketecture: Get Smart. Fast.
Inside B2B Data and Sales Enablement with Ajit Thupil, CPO of Bombora

Marketecture: Get Smart. Fast.

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2025 20:21


In this conversation, Ari Paparo interviews Ajit Thupil, Chief Product Officer of Bombora, discussing the unique challenges and strategies in B2B marketing. They explore how Bombora leverages data to enhance sales and marketing efforts, the importance of audience targeting, and the evolving role of AI in the industry. Ajit shares insights on the competitive landscape and the significance of understanding the distinct nature of B2B compared to B2C marketing. Takeaways Bombora focuses on the P2P space, serving sales and marketing needs. B2B marketing involves long and complex sales cycles. Data is crucial for targeting the right accounts in B2B. Activation of data is available through major DSPs and social channels. Granularity in audience targeting helps overcome company size disparities. AI's role in B2B marketing is evolving but remains data-dependent. Understanding customer behavior is key to effective targeting. Frequency capping at the account level is essential for B2B campaigns. Bombora's partnerships with publishers enhance data quality. Specialization in B2B marketing differentiates Bombora from larger platforms. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Bombora and Its Mission 03:07 Understanding B2B Marketing Dynamics 06:09 Data Utilization in B2B Marketing 08:47 Targeting Strategies and Audience Granularity 11:50 The Role of AI in B2B Marketing 14:58 Competitive Landscape and Challenges 18:01 Lightning Round and Fun Insights Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Win Win Podcast
Episode 132: Accelerating Pipeline Growth With a Unified Platform

Win Win Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2025


According to the State of Sales Enablement 2024, 31% of industry leaders see consistent pipeline generation as a key priority. So how can you effectively leverage your tech stack to drive pipeline growth and maximize revenue generation? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Here to discuss this topic is Alyssa Sigafus, sales enablement and host B2B marketing manager at Lifetouch. Thank you so much for joining us, Alyssa. As we get started, I’d love if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role at Lifetouch today.  Alyssa Sigafus: Sounds good. Thanks Riley. Super excited to be here. So my name’s Alyssa Fuss. I’ve been at Lifetouch for the past three years as our sales enablement marketing manager focusing on the host side, which is like our schools and B2B side of the business. Personally, I have one daughter, two dogs, my husband and I, we live in central, Northern Minnesota. So we love the winter in the cold. Something I like to do in my free time, I make a lot of sourdough bread. But I’ve been in sales enablement for the past little over a decade now, and sales support is kind of the thing that I just really have loved and have loved working with all of the tools and things like that, and just seeing teams succeed from support. RR: Amazing. Well, we are so excited to have you today because of that experience and because of that passion for just helping people succeed, we wanna know how you’re doing it. So we’ve got a lot to talk about starting maybe with some of the priorities that are top of mind for you today. So in your work at Lifetouch, what are some of those key go-to-market initiatives that you’re focused on driving for the business? AS: Awesome. Yeah. At Lifetouch, some of my go-to market focus is all about driving growth and equipping our sales team to essentially, you know, win. This means arming sellers with right tools, messaging, and using data to fine tune our approach, keeping our sales, marketing and operations like tightly aligned and pulled together. This has really helped us build that go to market motion that’s really fast focus and most importantly, customer driven. RR: Awesome. I think, you know, you ask anyone in a go-to-market role about their priorities and things like growth, pipeline revenue, those are the things that are gonna come up. It’s inevitable. They’re core to the business and they’re what’s gonna be top of mind for you. So knowing that, of course those are top of mind for you, what are maybe some of those common recurring challenges that organizations like yours maybe face when trying to achieve those goals? AS: Good question. I think the real challenge isn’t necessarily generating leads. It’s consistently attracting the right ones and moving them to close quickly. So building on this, for our business, specifically Lifetouch school photography, we have a defined set of leads. For example, there are only so many schools in US and Canada, so we have focused on creating like email templates, content that help sellers identify what content the leads are interested in that help that move quickly through their sales cycle and to close. RR: Yeah, I think that’s really interesting knowing that you’re, you know, you’re kind of constrained in a way that some businesses aren’t, so you need to work a little bit more strategically and a little bit smarter to find those right candidates, essentially. From your experience, what are some of the tactics that you’ve seen work to overcome those challenges and enable reps to create more opportunities and achieve those goals that, you know, everyone is thinking about? AS: Hmm, yeah, to help reps create more of those opportunities and then boost those conversion rates. I really focus on a few key practices. The first one’s targeted collateral. We really try to ensure that our reps have UpToDate marketing aligned materials that support their conversations by persona, by industry and stage of the funnel. For us, it’s truly just, you know, education schools, that kind of thing. The second is peer learning. I’ve kind of call it our monthly level up that we do every month with our sellers. And we kind of share best practices. We talk about what’s working, we share what tools have come out or pieces of collateral that have come out in the last month, what we’re looking forward to. Um, sometimes we bring other operations members or other marketing members in to talk about some of the things that are continuing to help support them. And then the last part I really focus on is content alignment. So we regularly audit. Update our sales content to ensure consistency with current messaging and our campaign priorities. RR: Well, it seems like you guys are kind of checking the box on all of the key things to build that really functional engine. We try. It’s always a process and it’s always that never feel like we’re doing enough, but we have heard that you guys are doing some really cool things and we are gonna dig into that in a second, but one thing I did wanna touch on is something that you mentioned earlier of one of the things that drew you to enablement and that you enjoy is the tooling and figuring out what works. So on the subject of enablement technology, what would you say is that strategic advantage of a unified platform in all of the work that you just talked us through? AS: Unified enablement platform accelerates revenue by putting the right content, tools and insights in the rep’s hands when they need them. So really equipping them at the right times, at the right materials. It ensures like consistent messaging, driving that efficiency and gives teams the data, which is something that a lot of people miss, uh, the highest value opportunities that they have. It also gives us a consistent way to measure their success that reps have. The content that we’re using to best share those practices amongst the leaders in the areas so everyone can benefit. RR: I think that all sounds great. I know one thing that you are doing specifically is using digital rooms to scale your outreach. We’ve heard that your reps have, and these are some kind of crazy numbers, just to preface for our listeners, we’ve heard that your reps have created over 2, 600 digital rooms and seen over a hundred thousand external views. Two things there that I’d love to know. How has this strategy kind of impacted your outreach and then for those who would wanna replicate it, how did you do it? How’d you make that happen? AS: Oh, well, using digital rooms have scaled our personalized outreach, driving that higher engagement and faster pipeline movement. Key best practices for us include that tailoring content, keeping our messaging clear, and using analytics to boost results and guide the sellers conversations and timing of their outreach. For an example, we found some of our sellers. Will share a digital room before they have a presentation with a customer, and then the seller will look to see the content that’s being viewed, and then they can tailor their presentation to see what that customer has been looking at. Mostly to make sure in their presentation that they are talking about those points that they’re really digging into. RR: Amazing. I would just love to know, how did you build that high adoption? How did you get reps bought in? I know it’s never easy to drive that behavior change, but how did you get them seeing the value of this? AS: I think honestly the way that we did training is we really built those steps of starting at pitching, moving to some of those other higher like video recording and talking about that really personalized approach. And then we kind of ended with the training part of digital rooms as like the crown jewel of the things that they have access to and they really got excited about it having those months. Like connections, really taking the time to meet with them regularly. When we first implemented this to our entire sales team, we met with them every single week for, you know, an hour with each chin of the us, which we split it into three. So they got an hour with the enablement team every single week, and then continued to meet, we still continued to meet monthly with all of the teams, um, and showing those things. But the digital rooms, they were so excited about. It’s personal. They can, you know. Co-brand them with the school and have those logos on there and auto enable feature that you have where if we update a piece of content, it’ll automatically just push through as we update the version. It’s been such a game changer for them. They love it. RR: Well, it sounds like you’ve really done a good job then of. Building that confidence. They saw the value, but you’ve taught them to use it well, and you’ve put a lot of work into doing so, and you’re seeing that kind of impact now. And that kind of feeds into the next question I had for you, which is that something that underlies successful buyer engagement is rep confidence. And you’ve shared that you’ve seen a. 77% increase in rep confidence after leveraging Highspot. So could you walk us through how you achieved that and then maybe how that boost in confidence is helping reps perform better when they’re having these conversations with schools. AS: So by giving them that instant access to the right content and guidance through Highspot, this is really just. Resulted in more of that effective buyer interactions, that faster pipeline progression, and which moves to the higher conversion rates. When they see that someone has opened their email and they’re already looking at that content with that pitch, or they’ve already gone into that digital room, it really just makes them excited. So they’re just more eager to continue to jump in. They can instantly have that instant gratification and you know. Excited about and keep going. RR: Awesome. Well, I think that’s one of those things that tends to work right for your sales folks is you’re doing the right thing. It’s helping you achieve what you want to, and now you know that you can go run and continue pursuing it. And they see it.  AS: They see it in action. It’s been really fun. RR: Yeah. I mean, I know when I share my digital rooms, you get that ping and you’re like, ah, I can go do the thing. It’s amazing, right? I think that, you know, more confident reps is kind of what everybody is trying to achieve. Better buyer engagement. They’re all key goals. It seems like you guys are making progress against those goals, but I’d be curious to know how you’re using data insights, all of the things that Highspot allows you to do to inform and maybe improve these programs that you’re leading. AS: The insights have led us track engagement, optimize our messaging and focus reps on the opportunities that matter the most, turning data into faster pipeline growth and higher conversions. So we had said, I said earlier, we do those monthly level ups. So not only do we connect on the content and pieces that are, you know, working and not working, we also connect on the data and work with our sales team to make sure everyone understands their performance. How the content is performing, what’s working, what’s not, and then additionally seeing the things that are not working to help tailor their approach and help improve and shape the way that they’re using their Digital Rooms and just pitching in general with the content that we provide. RR: Okay, so thinking then of, of. Data and these monthly syncs that you do to kind of check, Hey, what are we doing well? What do we need to kind of pull back on? I’d love to know, since implementing Highspot and as you’ve been doing these continual gut checks, what results have you seen? What successes have you encountered and maybe any wins you could share or achievements that you’re particularly proud of? AS: So there’s a couple of sides to this. So there’s obviously the physical data side, right? And then the emotional side of it for our sellers, the first one we’ve really been digging into our sales force and kind of comparing and trying to get some more deeper data. Highspot has really helped with some of those pieces. The number one thing I think has been most exciting is seeing that sales cycle shorten, cut it in half is the most common that we’ve seen, but. There’s been times it’s gone down to even from start to finish within 48 hours, and that’s not every single sales, but I’ve actually watched it gone out and done my own ride-alongs and seen they’ve sent the digital room in the pitch and it goes to like, we’re talking about this and we’ve got a contract in your hand. So it’s been really exciting for them to have that. Sales cycle, shorten, they can use their time more effectively and things like that. And then the emotional side, you just really see them, the morale of it, the improved morale. It’s helping them feel supported by their operations, marketing, sales enablement teams, and, and it just really helps us be really great teamwork together and move forward faster. RR: I love that kind of twofold breakdown of what are we actually seeing and then how are we feeling with it? I’m so happy to hear that both sides are positive. The data’s helping you track up and everybody’s feeling a little bit more confident in their work. So for other enablement and marketing leaders that are looking to use digital rooms in the way that life touches, to streamline that outreach, create more opportunities, drive better pipeline growth, what is one, two pieces of advice you’d give them to really help them be successful? AS: My advice is to really take the time to fully explore the platform, support your team throughout the rollout, and then thoughtful deployment and building user confidence will drive adoption and impact regular check-ins. Sharing best practices will lead to that long-term success. RR: Amazing advice. Tidy, short, to the point. Be thoughtful, be intentional. It’s gonna lead you to success every time. Well, I have to, before we close this out, just again say thank you so much for joining us. This is a really great conversation. You guys are doing such incredible work and I’m really happy we got to dig into it a little bit.  AS: Well, thank you, Riley, we have been so excited to have Highspot and it’s been really a game changer for us. So thank you guys.  RR: Incredible. To our audience, thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

Les Héros de la vente
# 189 - Comment créer un tunnel de vente parfait pour votre business avec Lionel Clement

Les Héros de la vente

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 5, 2025 48:05


J'invite dans ce nouvel épisode Les Héros de la vente, Lionel Clément, fondateur de Propuls'Lead - Agence Tunnels de Vente - Pour nous expliquer comment mettre en place un tunnel de vente parfait pour optimiser son business. Lionel nous expliquera : Qu'est ce que c'est exactement un tunnel de vente ? Quelle est la structure d'un tunnel de vente. Pourquoi un tunnel de vente est plus intéressant pour un entrepreneur qu'un site internet ? Est-ce obligatoire de faire de la pub quand on met en place un tunnel de vente ? Quelle est la différence quand les grandes entreprises mettent en place des stratégies de tunnel plus élaborées ? Cet épisode est soutenu par Lemlist, l'outil de prospection multicanal recommandé et approuvé par les Héros de la vente. Testez ici : https://get.lemlist.com/71q26k7imwdlSi cet épisode vous plaît, je vous invite à visiter notre site web https://lesherosdelavente.com/ pour retrouver l'ensemble des épisodes du podcast ainsi que la newsletter les Chroniques de la vente https://herosdelavente.substack.com pour recevoir le meilleur de la veille décalée sur la vente.Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

The Full Desk Experience
Industry Spotlight | The New Sales Playbook: Combining Human Skill and AI-Driven Tools with Shad Tidler

The Full Desk Experience

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 4, 2025 46:22


Sales is moving faster than ever—so how do leaders keep pace without losing the fundamentals that drive real results? In this Industry Spotlight, host Kortney Harmon sits down with sales leadership expert Shad Tidler to explore how AI is transforming strategy, team dynamics, and decision-making while amplifying—not replacing—the human touch. Drawing on more than a decade of experience with Lushin, Shad shares practical insights and “aha moments” from helping organizations rethink how they lead, train, and grow in an AI-driven world.Key insights you can't miss:How AI is reshaping sales leadership, from faster strategic planning to streamlined operationsWhy fundamentals like trust, consultative selling, and decision-making still matter more than everReal-world examples of using AI for role-play training, forecasting, and workflow redesignHow leaders can free up time for high-value work by letting AI handle repetitive tasksWhether you're a recruiting sales leader curious about AI's impact or a professional ready to amplify your results, this episode offers a clear roadmap for thriving in today's fast-changing sales landscape. Press play now to hear Shad's proven insights and discover how to combine human connection with AI-driven tools for long-term success.____________________Follow Shad Tidler on LinkedIn: LinkedIn | ShadFollow Crelate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/crelate/Want to learn more about Crelate? Book a demo hereSubscribe to our newsletter: https://www.crelate.com/blog/full-desk-experience 

Revenue Builders
Scaling Sales Operations with Meghan Gill

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2025 64:30


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Meghan Gill to discuss the pivotal role of sales operations in scaling a company from $100 million to a multi-billion-dollar enterprise. Drawing on her 15 years at MongoDB, Megan shares valuable insights on evolving RevOps functions, the complexities of comp planning, the integration of AI in sales, and the importance of maintaining a robust management operating rhythm. The conversation covers a breadth of topics, including the transition to a consumption-based model, the challenges and strategies in aligning sales and client success teams, and best practices for selecting and consolidating sales tools. Megan emphasizes the necessity of detailed planning and communication, as well as the need to balance protecting the company with serving the sales organization effectively.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESConnect with Meghan Gill:https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanpgill/Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Watch Force Management's Panel Discussion on AI in Sales Leadership: https://hubs.ly/Q03rlW4Z0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:41] Evolution of Sales Operations[00:03:58] Field Operations and Territory Planning[00:06:45] Rev Ops vs. Sales Ops[00:08:20] Effective Territory Management[00:18:08] Metrics and KPIs in Sales Ops[00:22:55] Building a Successful Sales Ops Team[00:33:54] Deep Dive into Sales Ops Challenges[00:34:22] Diagnosing Sales Problems[00:35:05] Trust but Verify: Ensuring Data Integrity[00:37:36] Balancing Protection and Service in Leadership[00:39:51] Choosing the Right Sales Tools[00:43:50] The Role of AI in Sales[00:51:21] Compensation Plans and Their Complexities[01:01:25] Lessons from Scaling MongoDBHIGHLIGHT QUOTES[00:26:06] "The hardest part, to be honest, is getting the data right, because nobody has a perfect CRM with perfectly scrubbed data."[00:35:37] "Every analysis that I've done throughout my years running sales ops is very counterintuitive. It's like the fewer accounts you have, the more productive you are because you can really focus and narrow in."[01:32:06] "People with AI experience and leverage on how to do these roles are going to replace people that don't do that. And I see that happening really, really fast."[01:41:50] "Keep it simple. You want to have one, maybe two elements in the comp plan... Any more than that, they're not gonna know where to focus."

Selling Through Partnering Skills
Tech in Sales: Driving the right outcomes

Selling Through Partnering Skills

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 28, 2025 24:34


In this fifth and final episode of the Sales Today podcast miniseries, sales tech strategist Hanneke Vogels returns to wrap things up with Fred Copestake as they delve into the last part of the modern sales framework: delivering the right outcomes.   But before they get there, the conversation begins with one of the most critical (and often messy) phases in sales: negotiation.   Hanneke shares how tech can help streamline this complex process - from collaborative contract tools to AI-powered note-takers that analyse sentiment and conversation flow.    They explore how sellers can use these tools to track changes, suggest alternative clauses, and avoid getting lost in version-control chaos.   Fred and Hanneke also discuss the importance of staying human during negotiations, emphasising that while tech can help prep and speed up the admin, the face-to-face connection still matters when resolving key sticking points.   From there, the duo turns their attention to outcomes and ongoing customer success. In modern sales, it's not just about closing deals - it's about ensuring delivery, adoption, and long-term value.   They cover: ·       How to seamlessly hand off deal context to delivery teams using CRM and automation tools   ·       The evolving role of customer success platforms in driving upsell, cross-sell, and satisfaction.   ·       Automating smart reminders for relationship touchpoints and renewals.   ·       Using sentiment analysis and stakeholder tracking to proactively manage risk.   ·       The death of the QBR - and the rise of meaningful, value-led customer reviews.   ·       Why tech makes it easier than ever to stay connected with stakeholders after the sale.   They close out the series with a rallying call: Tech doesn't need to be complex or overwhelming. Start small, think in processes, and automate the things you repeatedly forget.   Whether it's helping with negotiation, driving customer success, or building long-term relationships, this episode shows how sales teams can use technology to make outcomes more predictable, partnerships more valuable, and selling a lot more human.   Connect with Hanneke: linkedin.com/in/hannekevogels Subscribe to hear about e-book:  https://stryfes.com/newsletter/   Follow Fred: https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake   Take the  Collaborative Selling Scorecard https://collaborativeselling.scoreapp.com/   Watch this episode on YouTube https://youtu.be/2E-CkUYGn5M

Les Héros de la vente
# 188 - Comment vendre grâce à un bon positionnement marketing avec Sandie Giacobi de My Marketing Xperience

Les Héros de la vente

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2025 35:34


J'invite dans ce nouvel épisode Les Héros de la vente, Sandie Giacobi, Cofondatrice de My Marketing Xperience pour venir nous parler de la bonne utilisation du positionnement marketing dans les ventes. Nous verrons avec Sandie : Le rôle du positionnement en marketing B2B L'impact attendu sur les ventes Comment je sais que j'ai un souci de positionnement ou d'offres ? Comment créer un positionnement au service des ventes ? Et après ? l'évolution du marketing en BtoB et son impact sur la vente Cet épisode est soutenu par Lemlist, l'outil de prospection multicanal recommandé et approuvé par les Héros de la vente. Testez ici : https://get.lemlist.com/71q26k7imwdl Retrouvez Sandie et My Marketing Xperience sur sa chaîne Youtube :    / @mymarketingxperience-   Retrouvez tous les épisodes les Héros de la vente sur notre chaîne youtube :    / @lesherosdelavente   Et devenez un meilleur vendeur grâce à notre newsletter hebdomadaire : https://herosdelavente.substack.com/Hébergé par Ausha. Visitez ausha.co/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast
How Pennant Moldings Uses AI and Traditional B2B Marketing

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2025 29:13


How Pennant Moldings Uses AI and Traditional B2B MarketingB2B Marketing Excellence & AI Podcast with Donna PetersonIndustrial marketing isn't like selling shoes or software. It takes time, trust, and a strong understanding of how real relationships drive long-term results.In this episode, I sit down with Brian Contini, VP of Sales and Marketing at Pennant Moldings, to hear what's actually working for their team right now. We talk about how they're combining traditional methods—like trade shows and in-person visits—with smart use of AI to support research, improve outreach, and build stronger customer connections.Whether you're in metals, plastics, or any industrial space, this episode is full of practical takeaways you can use right away.Top 5 Topics We Cover:Why traditional marketing still works—and when to use itHow Pennant is using AI to streamline sales researchWhat's working in email marketing todayThe importance of knowing your audience in technical industriesHow to maintain trust while integrating new tools like AIWhat You Can Do Today:Revisit your email outreach—are you focusing on the recipient's challenge first?Identify one traditional tactic (like trade shows or phone calls) that deserves renewed attention.Choose one AI tool that could save you time with research or outreach—start testing it in a small way.Talk to your sales team: Where do they feel AI supports their efforts—and where does it get in the way?Let's keep the conversation going:How are you helping your industrial brand stand out and build stronger relationships?Leave a comment, send me a message, or reach out at dpeterson@worldinnovators.com. I'd love to hear what's working for you.If this episode helped you in any way, consider leaving a quick review. It helps us continue sharing real strategies that support industrial brands doing meaningful work.

Selling Through Partnering Skills
Tech in Sales: Creating the right solutions

Selling Through Partnering Skills

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 21, 2025 19:08


In this fourth episode of the Sales Today podcast miniseries, sales tech expert Hanneke Vogels joins Fred Copestake to explore the future of proposals, presentations, and how we bring solutions to life for buyers.   Hanneke kicks things off with a strong rallying cry - “Death to the PDF!” - challenging the outdated way many salespeople still share proposals.   She explains how today's proposal tools and digital sales rooms allow sellers to create interactive, trackable micro-sites that not only look better but also provide rich data on buyer engagement.   From seeing which sections a prospect re-reads to knowing when they log back in, sellers gain insights a static PDF could never provide.   The conversation also touches on buyer experience. Far from being just a sales efficiency play, these tools make it easier for customers to navigate information, watch embedded videos, and collaborate across complex deals.   Fred and Hanneke debate the role of video and avatars in proposals, weighing authenticity against automation, before diving into live presentations.   They highlight the pitfalls of bullet-heavy slides, the power of storytelling, and why the humble whiteboard still creates the most memorable collaboration moments with clients.   From there, the discussion turns to new ways of capturing and amplifying those sessions transforming messy whiteboard notes into professional infographics and valuable touchpoints that keep momentum alive after the meeting.   Topics include how to: • Replace static PDFs with interactive, trackable proposal tools. • Use digital sales rooms for collaboration across complex deals. • Enhance buyer experience with embedded video and personalised touches. • Avoid “death by PowerPoint” with simple, story-led presentations. • Harness whiteboards and collaborative tools to co-create solutions. • Transform workshop notes into infographics or post-meeting value assets. Whether you're crafting a proposal, running a pitch, or co-designing with a client, this episode shows how modern tech when used smartly can make your solutions more compelling, collaborative, and credible.   Connect with Hanneke: linkedin.com/in/hannekevogels Subscribe to hear about e-book:  https://stryfes.com/newsletter/   Follow Fred: https://linktr.ee/fredcopestake   Take the  Collaborative Selling Scorecard https://collaborativeselling.scoreapp.com/   Watch this episode on YouTube https://youtu.be/A2Q7tUFaqeI

Revenue Builders
Mastering Asia-Pacific Market Entry with Andrew Robert Clark

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 65:47


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Andy Clark, a seasoned sales leader with extensive experience in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. Andy shares his journey, which began with an unexpected leg injury that redirected his career towards mastering the Japanese market. He discusses the complexities of business in APAC, the critical importance of localizing go-to-market strategies, and the common mistakes companies make when entering these markets. With anecdotes from his own career, Andy highlights the crucial elements of success, from hiring the right local talent to understanding cultural nuances. He also delves into the challenges and strategies of forming joint ventures, and why companies need to be prepared for a long-term commitment to succeed in the region. If you're considering expanding your business into APAC, this episode is a must-listen for invaluable insights and practical advice.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Andrew Robert Clark:https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewrobertclark/Watch Force Management's Panel Discussion on AI in Sales Leadership: https://hubs.ly/Q03rlW4Z0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:04:26] Breaking into the Japanese Market[00:07:27] Expanding Across Asia Pacific[00:11:09] Challenges and Strategies in the Asia Pacific[00:19:32] Hiring and Leadership in Japan[00:32:50] Entering the Asia Pacific Market: A Strategic Approach[00:34:39] Exploring Japan's Business Landscape[00:35:29] Challenges of Joint Ventures in Japan[00:38:29] Strategies for Entering the Japanese Market[00:40:41] Building a Successful Team in Japan[00:45:47] Pricing and Market Dynamics in Japan[00:47:36] Expanding Beyond Japan: Korea and China[00:55:43] The Expat Experience: Opportunities and ChallengesHIGHLIGHT QUOTES[00:11:51] "The complexity of Asia Pacific is underestimated significantly."[00:17:59] "One of the worst things you can do in APJ is false start."[00:26:37] "Solid leadership and caring for your team... leading from the front and showing them what good looks like."[00:28:33] "Japanification is really the best word... blending both sides into a process and methodology."[00:31:26] "Be the same before you establish your difference."[00:56:42] "The opportunity to go overseas and work should be snatched up by anyone at any time."[00:59:25] "The experience overseas is career building and eye-opening, and I wouldn't change a thing."

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast
B2B Personalized Video Marketing: How to Get in Front of the Right Decision-Makers

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 14, 2025 19:52


In-person meetings will always be the gold standard for building relationships. But in B2B, you can't always sit across the table right away. That's why B2B Personalized Video Marketing is such a powerful tool—it lets people see you, hear you, and understand your perspective before the first handshake.At World Innovators, we've seen this work firsthand. When I send an email with a short, personal video, people who have never met me before click because they want to see what I have to say. That video starts a conversation—viewers hear my tone, see my face, and begin to understand that I'm here to help them succeed.In this episode, I'll cover:What makes a B2B video truly personalized.Why videos in email campaigns increase engagement.How to make sure the right people see your video.Simple ways to use AI tools like ChatGPT to plan and repurpose content.If you have a video you're proud of but aren't sure how to get it in front of your ideal audience, let's make sure the right people are clicking, watching, and starting the conversation with you.Thank you for listening, please comment below and let me know what you are doing with your B2B Personalized Video Marketing.

Homes That Heal | Transform Your Home Into a Health and Wellness Sanctuary
Dust, Mold, VOCs & Headaches: What's Really in Your Air & How to Fix It

Homes That Heal | Transform Your Home Into a Health and Wellness Sanctuary

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 12, 2025 42:08


Episode 61 – How to Improve Indoor Air Quality for Homes with Jerry McGuire of PuriFi LabsIf you're passionate about wellness, it's time to talk about one of the most overlooked factors: the air you're breathing inside your home.In this episode, I'm joined by Jerry McGuire from PuriFi Labs to dive deep into how indoor air quality for homes can make or break your health. We cover everything from mold, VOCs, and furniture off-gassing to the real impact air quality has on sleep, allergies, asthma, and long-term healing.Jerry also shares his powerful story of childhood cancer, how it shaped his mission, and how the PuriFi Labs system helps families track and prove the air in their homes is safe, not just assume it is.Whether you're curious about upgrading your home environment or knee-deep in health challenges, this episode will change the way you think about your space.

Revenue Builders
Preparing and Developing Reps with Joe Eskenazi

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 10, 2025 8:43


In this short segment of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan delve into the importance of preparation and coaching with Joe Eskenazi, CRO at Kong Inc. They discuss how vital it is for salespeople to be prepared to reduce stress and build trust with clients. Joe shares personal experiences from his early sales career, emphasizing the need for genuine conversations over mechanical responses. He outlines various training exercises and strategies for developing a high-performing sales team, highlighting the fusion of preparation and development in achieving success. Listen for valuable insights on how preparation transforms pressure into confidence and effectiveness in sales.KEY TAKEAWAYS[00:00:26] The Power of Preparation in Sales[00:01:23] Embracing Authenticity Over Mechanics[00:02:17] The Role of Preparedness in Reducing Stress[00:02:57] The Importance of Self-Driven Development[00:04:25] Coaching and Training for Sales Success[00:05:41] The Impact of Exhaustive PreparationQUOTES[00:02:29] "The difference between stress and pressure is preparedness."[00:02:49] "You bring the character, the courage, the art, the curiosity by applying your style to the skills and knowledge."[00:03:40] "You gotta participate in your own rescue. You gotta put in the work."[00:07:20] "There's no such thing really as closing. It's how openers are closers and opening the sales cycle is where all of your ground is laid."Listen to the full conversation through the link below.https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/developing-a-performance-mindset-in-b2b-sales-with-joe-eskenaziEnjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox:https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0Check out John McMahon's book here:Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/1K7DDC4Check out Force Management's Ascender platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/

Les Héros de la vente
# 187 - Comment faire de ton service client un super commercial avec Marine Deck

Les Héros de la vente

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 8, 2025 46:54


Dans cet épisode, je reçois Marine Deck, fondatrice de CX Advisor et hôte du podcast Le Client. Ensemble, on décortique un sujet crucial mais souvent négligé : comment transformer ton service client en machine à générer du business ! Au programme : Pourquoi l'expérience client est un levier de vente sous-exploité Comment former tes agents à devenir détecteurs d'opportunités Les signaux pour anticiper le churn L'impact (réel) des voice bots et de l'IA sur la relation client Les bons KPIs pour mesurer le ROI de ton service client Et surtout, un plan d'action concret pour muscler ton service client, même si tu pars de zéro

Conversations with Phil Gerbyshak - Aligning your mindset, skill set and tool set for peak performance

It's kind of funny when I think about it—throughout my entire career, I've taught people how to use tools. Tech tools, communication tools, leadership frameworks, sales systems—you name it. And while the tools keep evolving arp speed, the way I teach them hasn't changed a bit. I teach people, not platforms. I bring a human-first approach to everything I do. Whether it's helping someone close a sale, lead a team, or troubleshoot a network issue, I instill a deep sense of humanity into the process. Because it's never really about the tool—it's about the person using it.That's been true for the last 20 years. And it will be even more important in the next 20.The world has changed a lot since I first dialed into the internet using a modem, taught others how to use Netscape, or delivered top-secret messages while serving in the Navy. And it'll keep changing faster than ever. But one thing hasn't changed—and won't: People still crave real connection, clear communication, and contagious energy that lifts them up.So what's next?I've spent the last few decades teaching, selling, leading, speaking, writing, coaching, and creating. Now, I'm setting my sights on the next 20 years with a clear mission, a bold vision, and a whole bunch of momentum.

Revenue Builders
What Top Performers Do with Eric Erston

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 3, 2025 7:23


In this short segment of the Revenue Builders Podcast, we revisit the discussion with veteran sales leader and CRO of RegScale, Eric Erston, to unpack what truly sets top-performing sales teams apart. From the importance of laser focus and understanding your ideal customer persona to evolving qualification strategies and leveraging modern tools to decode human motivation — Eric shares hard-won wisdom from decades in enterprise sales and leadership. Whether you're a rep or a revenue leader, this conversation reveals why success depends on where you spend your time — and who you spend it with.KEY TAKEAWAYS[00:00:25] Top performers exhibit relentless focus — not just on numbers but on aligning activity with outcomes.[00:01:10] Teams with process clarity and metric discipline stand in stark contrast to disorganized teams[00:01:52] The “measure twice, cut once” principle applies in sales — especially in qualification and time prioritization.[00:02:16] Beyond BANT: Success requires knowing the ideal company profile and persona profile — both matter deeply.[00:03:14] Not all CISOs are equal — role scope and influence vary by industry and product category.[00:03:54] Many teams ignore the depth of the human behind the persona — a costly oversight.[00:04:16] Use modern tools (social, blogs, panels, LinkedIn) to research what excites and motivates decision-makers.[00:05:36] There's a work persona and a human persona — both drive behavior. Understand them both.[00:06:00] Success in scale comes not from personal talent, but repeatable frameworks others can execute.QUOTES[00:00:25] "Top performers are always focused… focused on what they sell, their metrics, and what success actually looks like.[00:01:52] "Measure twice, cut once — you can't qualify without knowing what success looks like.[00:02:38] "I didn't spend enough time thinking about the role of the human… I thought if you get to the exec, you're good. Well, maybe."[00:03:54] "We know how they're measured — but we rarely go deeper into what drives them as a person."[00:06:49] "As a seller, I could get deals done. But when you're leading a team, you realize you have to teach those nuances."Listen to the full conversation through the link below.https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/mastering-sales-leadership-with-eric-erstonEnjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox:https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0Check out John McMahon's book here:Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/1K7DDC4Check out Force Management's Ascender platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/

Grow A Small Business Podcast
QFF: Harriet Mellor of Your Sales Co shares how she helped small businesses boost revenue by 300% using deep-dive sales audits, reignite campaigns, smarter messaging, and a rock-solid follow-up system that actually converts. (Episode 703 - Harriet Mellor)

Grow A Small Business Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2025 25:57


QFF: Quick Fire Friday – Your 20-Minute Growth Powerhouse! Welcome to Quick Fire Friday, the Grow A Small Business podcast series that is designed to deliver simple, focused and actionable insights and key takeaways in less than 20 minutes a week. Every Friday, we bring you business owners and experts who share their top strategies for growing yourself, your team and your small business. Get ready for a dose of inspiration, one action you can implement and quotable quotes that will stick with you long after the episode ends! In this episode of Quick Fire Friday, host Rob Cameron speaks with Harriet Mellor, founder of Your Sales Co, joins the podcast to share how she helps small businesses unlock major revenue growth through strategic sales enablement. With a background in tech and cybersecurity, Harriet dives into how deep-dive sales audits, reignite campaigns, and clear messaging frameworks can lead to a 300% increase in revenue. She emphasizes the importance of qualifying leads properly, following up with intent, and building personalized sales processes. Harriet also highlights common mistakes small teams make and how consistent activity tracking can change the game. Her practical, people-focused approach makes sales strategy accessible and effective for growing businesses. Key Takeaways for Small Business Owners: Start with a Sales Audit: Get a clear picture of how your team communicates, qualifies leads, and follows up—this diagnostic is the foundation for smarter strategy. Reignite Past Opportunities: Don't ignore old leads. Revisit past prospects with improved messaging and a consistent follow-up process to uncover hidden revenue. Messaging Matters: If people don't quickly understand what you do, you're losing business. Use clear, relatable language to explain your offering confidently. Our hero crafts outstanding reviews following the experience of listening to our special guests. Are you the one we've been waiting for? Don't Over-Propose, Qualify More: Most businesses jump to proposals too fast. Spend more time understanding the prospect's real pain before pitching a solution. Follow-Up Like a Pro: One follow-up isn't enough. Use structured sequences across email, phone, and LinkedIn to stay top of mind and close more deals. Track Activity, Not Just Results: Monitor sales activities like calls, meetings, and outreach—not just revenue—to catch issues early and keep your pipeline healthy. One action small business owners can take: According to Harriet Mellor, one action small business owners can take is to implement a structured follow-up process after every sales conversation—by setting the next meeting before ending the current one, they can maintain momentum and avoid losing warm leads. Do you have 2 minutes every Friday? Sign up to the Weekly Leadership Email. It's free and we can help you to maximize your time. Enjoyed the podcast? Please leave a review on iTunes or your preferred platform. Your feedback helps more small business owners discover our podcast and embark on their business growth journey.

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast
How To Optimize B2B Marketing Campaigns For ROI

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 31, 2025 25:50


How To Optimize B2B Marketing Campaigns For ROIHave you ever tried to finish a round of golf as the sun goes down? It gets dark, you swing, but you can't really see where the hole is — you're just hitting into the dark. That's what many B2B brands are doing with their marketing: they're executing campaigns without clearly knowing where the target is or how to measure success.In this episode, I talk with Lori Turner Wilson, CEO of RedRover Sales & Marketing Strategy and author of The B2B Marketing Revolution. Lori shares her 12 Battles Framework, which gives companies a roadmap to bring clarity, focus, and measurable outcomes to their marketing.Together, we discuss how to:Use market research so you know exactly who you're targeting and why.Personalize your outreach to connect with prospects in meaningful ways.Integrate traditional channels like direct mail to complement digital campaigns and reach decision-makers effectively.Adopt authority marketing to position your brand as a trusted resource and help shorten the sales cycle.If you're serious about improving your marketing ROI, this conversation offers practical steps you can start implementing now — so you're no longer “hitting in the dark.”About Lori:Lori Turner Wilson is the CEO of RedRover Sales & Marketing Strategy and author of The B2B Marketing Revolution.URL - marketingresultsguaranteed.com/podcast -- use code "podcast" for special offersA quote from my book - "Defy the apathy the industry expects of you and declare, 'I deserve guaranteed marketing outcomes and anyone standing in my way will be lovingly removed.'" Timestamps:00:00 – Introduction: The Challenge of B2B Marketing00:35 – Meet Lori Turner Wilson: Author and CEO02:52 – The Importance of Market Research04:17 – ROI and Marketing Strategies07:33 – Diversification and Risk Mitigation09:29 – The Power of Direct Mail11:03 – Personalization in Marketing14:53 – The 12 Battles Framework22:30 – Authority Marketing and Giving Value24:31 – Conclusion and Final ThoughtsIf you found this conversation helpful, subscribe to the B2B Marketing Excellence podcast, leave a comment, and rank the show. Your feedback helps us continue sharing grounded, practical insights to help you succeed.

Born In Silicon Valley
CoPilot AI's Human-Centered Approach to AI Sales Enablement

Born In Silicon Valley

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 29, 2025 31:06


In this episode of the Match Relevant podcast, we sit down with Jesse Chen, Co-Founder & CEO of CoPilot AI — a Vancouver-based tech company transforming how sales teams connect with prospects using AI-powered tools. With over 20 years in the software industry, Jesse shares insights from his journey, including his early days as a software engineer on EA's FIFA team to now leading one of the most innovative companies in AI-driven social selling. Jesse dives deep into how CoPilot AI is changing the sales enablement landscape by blending artificial intelligence with human authenticity. From lead generation to meaningful engagement, discover how CoPilot AI helps recruiters, agencies, and sales professionals book more meetings, faster — all while building real connections. If you've ever struggled with cold outreach, lead quality, or scaling a sales team, this episode is packed with valuable lessons. Learn about the power of prediction tools, personality insights, and the importance of aligning your values with your go-to-market strategy. Tune in to hear Jesse's take on: - What makes AI-powered selling successful - The future of sales and human connection - Key strategies for consistent revenue growth - The bold moves that helped scale CoPilot AI For more on CoPilot AI, visit: www.copilotai.com Host: Jake Aaron Villarreal, leads the top AI Recruitment Firm in Silicon Valley www.matchrelevant.com, uncovering stories of funded startups and goes behinds to scenes to tell their founders journey.  If you are growing AI Startup or have a great storytelling, email us at: jake.villarreal@matchrelevant.com

Social Entrepreneur with Nathan A Webster
EP 268 - The Future of Marketing: AI's Impact on Strategies

Social Entrepreneur with Nathan A Webster

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 28, 2025 18:17


Nathan speaks with Joe Kimemia from Nairobi, Kenya, about the evolving landscape of marketing in Africa, and the impact of AI. Joe shares on how AI is transforming marketing strategies, enabling faster content production, and leveling the playing field for smaller agencies. Guest Name: Joe Kimemia Title: CEO & Marketing Expert Company: Shupav Expertise: Shupav Group is supporting business owners to build and scale successful brands in Africa. We do this through pioneering Digital Marketing, PR & Communications, and Sales Enablement solutions. Website: https://shupav.com/ Social: all platforms (see website link) Joe shared how AI is being used for #copywriting and to organize the millions of ideas people have. AI assists in harmonizing thoughts and helps with #leadgeneration. The video explains the #aimarketing strategy in digital communication and #digitalmarketing in #Kenya.

LaunchPod
Inside Apartment List's AI-Powered Product Team | Sierra Hahn-Ventrell, Dir. of PM (Apartment List)

LaunchPod

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2025 31:08


Today on LaunchPod AI, we're talking with Sierra Hahn-Ventrell, Director of Product Management at Apartment List. In this episode, we discuss how they: Analyze customer interviews with ChatGPT, even uncovering a missed insight that led to a full product strategy reset Built an AI Slack bot to flag issues in a new customer-facing tool before they become big problems And transformed sales enablement and automated documentation using NotebookLM and Claude Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shahnventrell/ Apartment List: https://www.apartmentlist.com/ Tools ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/ Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/ Claude: https://claude.ai/ NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google.com/ Storylane: https://www.storylane.io/ Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:47 AI Slack Bot for Property Management 03:59 Hackathon Project and Implementation 07:20 Challenges and Solutions in AI Integration 10:19 NotebookLM for Sales Enablement 13:10 AI in Product Strategy and Market Fit 16:52 Pushing AI to Its Limits 17:44 Using ChatGPT for Product Strategy 18:36 Guiding AI for Accurate Market Analysis 20:53 Leveraging Gong and AI for Sales Insights 24:40 Automating Documentation with AI 26:41 Balancing Innovation and Control in AI Adoption 31:36 Outro Follow LaunchPod on YouTube We have a new YouTube page (https://www.youtube.com/@LaunchPodPodcast)! Watch full episodes of our interviews with PM leaders and subscribe! What does LogRocket do? LogRocket's Galileo AI watches user sessions for you and surfaces the technical and usability issues holding back your web and mobile apps. Understand where your users are struggling by trying it for free at LogRocket.com (https://logrocket.com/signup/?pdr). Special Guest: Sierra Hahn-Ventrell.

Win Win Podcast
Episode 126: Creating a Coaching Culture Built for Sales Success

Win Win Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2025


According to research from Gallup, 21% of employees who voluntarily left their organization said their departure could have been prevented by more positive personal interactions with their manager. So how can you create a coaching culture that keeps teams motivated and drives sales success? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Robin Handley, Senior VP of Sales Enablement at Direct Travel. Thank you so much for joining us, Robin. We’re really excited to have you here. To kick us off, I’d love if you could start just by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Robin Handley: Yeah, I’d love to, and thank you so much for having me. I’m absolutely thrilled to be here. I have actually been in the travel industry for 30-plus years, so I guess you could say I grew up here. I am the SVP of Sales Enablement at Direct Travel, like you mentioned. Under my current remit, you know, I am responsible for sales enablement, managing also what we call the inbound and outbound lead generation with our sales development reps and the proposal writing team.So I’ve got pretty, you know, three different distinct lines of business within my remit. And then I think it’s important to share that in my prior roles, in addition to sales enablement, I also led teams related to reporting, data analytics, CRM platforms, as well as change and transformation. RR: Wonderful. Thank you for sharing. It seems like you have a wealth of knowledge acquired over a lot of different roles, and I’m so excited to kind of dig into it and steal some of your best practices. Thinking about your experience—maybe in data analytics, product, customer success, all of these things that you alluded to—I'd be curious to know how this diverse background kind of comes together to influence your approach to sales enablement at Direct Travel. RH: You know, I think having experience spanning across, you know, many areas, it gives a broad perspective around how things intersect, how they influence, and, you know, how they support each other. So, for example, leveraging data points such as why we win, reasons why we lose, as well as listening to customer feedback, you really start to see trends and start to understand the customer and industry pain points.So from there, you can really start to work with key business partners—I would say in marketing, product, customer experience, you know, those different areas—to make sure that you develop content and assets that are gonna arm your sales reps to overcome objections, to highlight key differentiators, and to align solutions to customer pain points.And when, you know, you’re leading in enablement, I always say it’s like vitally important to ensure that the right content and collateral and training and coaching is available to enable those sales reps to quickly advance through those sales cycles and close, win that business. RR: Wonderful. I’d love to maybe double-click a little bit deeper into that enablement approach and philosophy, especially focused on coaching, because I know on LinkedIn you’ve highlighted the importance of people-centric leadership, especially in sales coaching and feedback.I’m curious to know maybe how you bring this philosophy to life in your enablement efforts, and then how that affects your overarching coaching culture. RH: Yeah, so people-centric leadership, you know, it really isn’t just being caring, empathetic, committed. I think, you know, that’s all highly important, but it’s also about being intentional in how we grow our teams.So developing individuals through coaching, feedback, and recognition is so critical. So one thing I do is I run pitch exercises where reps record themselves, and I always tell them, this is your playground. You know, you can mess up here, not in front of a customer. And it feels like a safe space. So that mindset shift makes a huge difference.And this approach not only helps individuals grow, but it also fosters a culture where, you know, feedback becomes normalized and valued. So over time, this creates, like, that ripple effect as well. And so what I start to see is reps start to coach each other. They feel comfortable sharing tips or tricks or feedback. Even, you know, it’s not so much then from that top-down directive. It feels like it’s more of a collaborative community. And as a result, I think it’s also important just to call out that we start to see reps become more confident and collaborative just in general. So as a result of that, I would say, you know, it even helps increase or improve our win rates and, you know, helps people be better prepared and hopefully, again, win that business. RR: Yeah, I love to hear that. I think the idea of like making a safe space for practice is so important. People need to be able to make mistakes. That’s where you learn. So that’s great to hear. I’d like to switch gears maybe a little. I know that in addition to creating a healthy coaching culture, improving sales efficiency is a key focus for you at Direct Travel.I’d be curious—maybe some of the challenges to GTM efficiency that you’re seeing your teams face today. RH: Oh yeah. I say, you know, quite a few come to mind, and I think that’s normal, right? I mean, in any company there’s always those things. I would say, you know, sellers using old, outdated collateral, sometimes trying to find where are those assets stored, because they could be stored in multiple different areas.I would say another big thing that we’re challenged with is related to long sales cycles, and so, you know, for me it’s always top of mind: how do we continue to shorten and shrink those sales cycles? And then I think a lot of times you’re not getting full visibility into buyer engagement. So without that data, a lot of times the sales reps are using their gut.There’s only a few data points that they have, like, oh, are we able to have another meeting? Are they responding? But you’re not really getting that buyer engagement. And then, in addition to that, you know, really cumbersome and manual ways to coach the sales reps. Just—I can tell you—doing a pitch session a year ago without Highspot, it was so cumbersome. Just having to build out what is the talk track, sharing that video through email that we recorded of the pitch, and then coming together with a rubric and then trying to do all the scoring. It was very labor-intensive. RR: Yeah, I think you’re spot on with these challenges. There are things that we’re certainly hearing from our customers, we feel ourselves, and other organizations are talking about. And I think the big thing is that everybody is trying to solve for them. And so, as you kind of mentioned just a little bit, you have found a platform to help you with that. So I’d be curious if you could tell me a little bit about the strategic advantage of an enablement platform and how it’s helping you kind of overcome some of these challenges that you’re seeing. RH: Absolutely. So using Highspot is a dream come true, to be honest. Number one, you know, having one central hub for sales content is so critical and so important. So I feel like our sales reps that are in the Highspot environment no longer feel like they’re digging through email or SharePoints or going on a team site trying to find that collateral.So that is a huge efficiency gain, but also think of job satisfaction. Those sellers feel like, wow, this is so much easier for me to navigate. I would also say, again, going back to the real-time insights and analytics from buyer engagement—so now we’re able to see what content is being viewed, and it’s also helping us tailor our follow-up as well as being able to close deals faster.The other I would say is consistent coaching and training. So going back to the example I just used—very manual process historically—but being able now to leverage AI to provide feedback instantly is incredible. RR: Wonderful. That’s absolutely what I love to hear, and I’m super excited that you’re finding these wins already so early.Thinking about platforms and enablement technology, I’d like to maybe call out a win that we’ve heard through the grapevine, which is that even though you’re early in your journey with the platform, you’ve already achieved a really impressive 96% recurring usage rate. So I’d really love to hear what some of your best practices for driving that adoption are and how you’ve achieved that. RH: Yeah, absolutely. So right out of the gate, timing-wise, this worked perfectly because we were having our sales kickoff meeting in person, and so we used that as our launch, right? So we were able to get the hype going, and we had sessions where we did a whistle-stop tour of all the tools, key capabilities, and really got people excited about what was coming around the corner.So after our SKO, we then did what we called mandatory kickoff implementation calls to get everyone set up. And what we really wanted to make sure that we didn't do was one big bang because we know there are so many features and capabilities in the platform that we wanted to be really intentional about phasing that out.So the first thing that we did is we focused on content management. Again, you heard that was one of our challenges. So we wanted to make sure that we had one stop shop for all of our content and make it super easy for people to navigate and find anything that they need for their sales cycle.In addition to that, the next thing we wanted to do was roll out digital sales rooms because, again, you heard that was a challenge. We wanted to start to see buyer engagement. So that was really well received by the entire group. So it was very easy for us to get them excited and into the tool and the repeat usage. So that was the starting point.In addition to that, we started and continue to host every Friday an optional drop-in office hours call. And this is really great because people that are available, they'll jump in, they'll listen if they don't have questions, or others will actually ask questions, which then drives conversation and also highlights successes. Because in those moments, you know, people are starting to talk about, oh, you know, this is how we did it, or this worked for me. You really start to see some of those true successes come to life.I think the other important piece is making sure that we had our executive leadership team and other leaders be advocates for Highspot—so making sure that they’re talking about it in their meetings, that they’re highlighting it in town halls.And also, as we're starting to see some of the data and the proof points, I, along with other leaders, are sharing those out through email or on calls for recognition. So things like recognizing top users of Highspot, those that built the most digital sales rooms, those that had the most content viewed, or people viewing their digital sales room.And then I would kind of wrap that up with also—we've had some people create some really creative intro videos that they've included in the digital sales room. We're making sure that we're sharing those broadly so people can spark new ideas on how they want to show up in their digital sales rooms. RR: This is all really great advice, and I think very helpful tips. I love the idea of tapping into that competitive instinct in your salespeople—who has the most pitches, who has the most views. That is something that is gonna ignite activity for sure.So now, thinking that you’ve achieved this adoption and you have your sellers bought in, I’d love to dig a little bit further into maybe what’s next for you. I’ve heard that you’re planning to leverage Highspot AI capabilities to drive scalability and efficiency. So can you share a little bit about how you’re building AI features—things like meeting intelligence—into your enablement strategy going forward? RH: Yeah, absolutely. So we are really excited about leveraging the AI features and meeting intelligence. In fact, that was one of the selling points when we were going through the sales cycle with Highspot.Number one is we love the fact that you can ingest meeting recordings into the platform and right away, using AI, get some feedback on what I would say is like performance feedback.So I love being able to see stats on how much percentage of time a seller spoke versus a prospect—because we want that to be 20%, roughly, right? And we really want to do all of those high-gain questions to have our prospects open up and speak to us, especially, you know, during discovery.The other thing that I really love is using delivery insights. So there’s the pitch variation, pace, and filler words, and that’s really helpful for people that have never used a tool—to share that with them. They maybe have no idea how many times they say “right,” “um,” “you know,” all those different filler words. And so it’s really great to give them that awareness and to also show the pace because some people are fast talkers and some maybe are a little bit slower, so it gives them some intel on how to improve.The other thing that we've actively started using is the follow-up feature. So you can get quick capture or, you know, a transcript that then shows you next steps and actions. So it's a time saver, and you don't feel like you need to take notes. You can just let yourself focus on the conversation and be an active listener. RR: Awesome. I love the value that you’re seeing in some of these features. I really like to hear about the vision, so I would love to maybe hear a little bit about how you’re bringing that vision to life and what that strategy is.In May, you actually joined us here in Seattle for a workshop on our real-world coaching capabilities, and you shared with us that you’re currently testing them with a pilot group.So I'd love if you could kind of lay out how you’re rolling out these capabilities, how the pilot's going, and how you’re kind of empowering users to start leveraging this tool. RH: Yeah, so you’re right. I did attend the meeting in Seattle and it was fantastic. It was such a great opportunity to learn more about the capabilities and start framing up, you know, our go-forward vision of where we want to go with this.And I would say you're right—we are still very much in the early phases of leveraging this, especially, you know, the coaching capabilities. So what is in the works is, you know, we are starting to build out pitching exercises for different industry nuances and buyer personas, and I think that is gonna be super helpful to really get our sellers comfortable with different talk tracks based on different individuals that they’re speaking to.So to me, that is one of the first things that we really want to focus on, and we’ll be coming out of the gate soon. RR: Awesome. Well, I can't wait to hear about how it’s going in a few months. I know a lot of work to be done, but I’m sure a lot of wins in the future.Speaking kind of of down the line, I'd like to maybe turn to your measurement strategy, especially, you know, as we talked about, knowing that you’re a leader with a strong analytics background.I'd be curious—when it comes to enablement programs like this new coaching initiative, what key metrics you’re tracking to measure their impact, and then maybe what success looks like in the next year or so. RH: Yeah, I think we're tracking a blend right now of adoption, engagement, and performance metrics, which I think is really important because we're still in the early phases of rolling this out.So we want to make sure that people are adopting it, and then we want to make sure from an engagement perspective, we’re starting to see people leveraging feedback and things of that nature—and performance metrics. So I'll dive a little bit deeper into that.So definitely we are looking at, you know, the percent of reps who have completed coaching modules and sessions, percent who completed coaching tasks, and feedback ratings for sales reps.In addition to that, we're looking at things like leveraging meetings intelligence metrics, such as, you know, those talk ratios and the objection handling—because the other cool thing is at the bottom of the recording, it shows some key, I would say, like competencies. And I'm not sure how to phrase that, but it's really helpful for a seller to say, okay, this was an area where I should have been focusing on objection handling, and maybe I didn't, right? So some of those things are really important right now.And then performance metrics as well. So we are looking at quota attainment, pipeline growth, conversion rates, sales cycle length. And for me, you know, these seem to be the biggest indicator of success. You know, because you really want to see that ROI.You know, we’re starting to see some of our DSRs that, in the early stages here, we’re winning business. And we do feel like this is a game changer for us because we’re showing up differently. RR: Awesome. I love to hear that. And as I said, I can't wait to hear more about how the momentum grows over time at Direct Travel.Maybe returning to the present, I know you’re still early, but I think it’s important to talk about your wins, right? So I’d love to know—maybe key wins or things that you’re proud of that you’ve achieved so far. Anything you can share with us? RH: Yeah, absolutely. So I would say, you know, through this pilot and launch that we’ve done, we have had sales reps just absolutely elated when they send out a digital sales room, and the very first time someone takes a look at the room, right, and they look at the content, they are sending messages in chat like, oh my gosh, it’s working! And that in and of itself is a testament as to why, you know, we rolled this out.In addition to that, like I was just mentioning, we have already some sellers that have created and used digital sales rooms for the entire sales process, and it has shortened the sales cycle.We have a few individuals where they started at discovery using an intro video, updating some content and collateral about our tech stack and services, and then used it all the way to starting to post the proposal and pricing.And then there we are—we won the business right after that. So it’s pretty impressive. So I think those are the big wins. Just again, you saw the usage, you know, in the high nineties. We’ve got many digital sales rooms that have been created, and we're winning business as a result of it. RR: Wonderful. I think that rep feedback says a lot. If you can get your reps excited, you’re getting exclamation points through Slack—you know you’re doing something right. It seems like you and your team are doing really great work.And I just want to close with one last question. I know you’re deeply involved in mentoring, and you’re a mentor in the GBTA WINiT organization.So to close, I’d love if you could share with us one or two pieces of advice that you would give to other women looking to develop as leaders and drive impact for their organization. RH: Yeah, absolutely. I think the number one thing that I would say to people is: say yes. There are so many times where an opportunity comes up—whether it’s a stretch goal, an opportunity to participate in a project, or to even apply for a position.So many times I’ve talked to women where they feel like, I don't have the skill, I don't have the knowledge, I don't feel comfortable taking that next step. And I always challenge them to say: what's holding you back and why?Right. One of the things I always share with them is multiple examples in my career path where I have said yes. I was nervous. I certainly did not have the experience or maybe even the skill. But I didn't want that to hold me back, because if someone is willing to invest in you, that is the testament in and of itself, right? That is the answer.So take that leap and have confidence in yourself and give it a whirl.And the other thing that I've had a lot of people say many times is: oh, now's not a good time. And there's always reasons to hold back. And I always respond: if not now, when?There's always going to be something. So get over that something and just go for it. RR: That's great advice. I love the idea of just, you know, invest in yourself. There's never a better time than now. I know I'll certainly be taking that to heart.But that's all I want to say—thank you so much for joining us today. It was fantastic to learn a little bit more about you, your work, and the incredible trajectory that Direct Travel is on. RH: Awesome. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. RR: To our listeners, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

Revenue Builders
Developing a Performance Mindset in B2B Sales with Joe Eskenazi

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 3, 2025 59:48


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Joe Eskenazi, Chief Revenue Officer at Kong. Joe discusses the importance of developing a performance mindset over a knowledge mindset in sales, emphasizing the focus on outcomes and achieving goals. He shares insights into training and development practices that enhance sales performance, including preparation, role-playing, and handling objections. The discussion also explores the role of intuition, human behavior, and the application of AI in optimizing API management. Joe highlights how these practices have cultivated a high-performing, collaborative culture at Kong and underscores the company's hiring objectives.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Joe Eskenazi:https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeeskenazi/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:01:45] Performance Mindset vs. Knowledge Mindset[00:02:31] The Art and Science of Sales Mastery[00:05:38] Training and Developing Sales Skills[00:07:21] Handling Objections and Building Confidence[00:17:19] The Importance of Intuition and Experience in Sales[00:30:27] Slowing Down the Conversation[00:31:18] The Importance of Experience in Sales[00:33:04] Preparedness Reduces Stress[00:35:12] The Role of Development in Sales[00:40:19] The Power of Role-Playing and Team Exercises[00:48:56] Empowering Your Team to Solve Problems[00:50:14] The Impact of a Performance Mindset[00:54:37] Kong's Role in the API RevolutionHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"The best leaders focus on the how in sales.""Our development often focuses on what could go right; the real bar is how you handle things when they don't.""Skills need to be done hundreds of times, if not thousands, to be performed flawlessly.""Openers are closers; the groundwork you lay in the beginning determines your success.""You empower people by recognizing and rewarding the behavior you want to see.""You have to give them the way. But make it simple."

Scale Your Sales Podcast
#288 Nick Buxton - Explores the Future of Sales: Value, AI, and Team Transformation

Scale Your Sales Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2025 30:40


In this weeks' Scale Your Sales Podcast episode, my guest is Nick Buxton.   Nick has a background in engineering, 2x CRO, and 5x VP of Sales. Over the past 20 years I've worked my way up from individual contributor at seed, Series A- C, privately held, FTSE and NYSE listed tech companies. He is now helping tech companies deliver revenue transformation projects with a range of partners.   In today's episode of Scale Your Sales podcast, Nick shares his value-led growth approach and why breaking down silos between sales, marketing, and customer success is key to building customer-centric organizations. He and Janice explore the difference between solving user problems vs. business needs, the impact on go-to-market strategy, and the evolving role of CROs as AI and sales enablement continue to reshape the future of sales.   Welcome to Scale Your Sales Podcast, Nick Buxton.     Timestamps: 00:00 Product-Led Growth Challenges Explained 05:51 Embrace Product-Led Growth Strategy 07:09 Customer-Led Growth Insights 13:29 Sales Competency Deficit Analysis 14:41 Challenges in Building Sales Relationships 20:13 Improving Sales Leadership Competencies 22:08 Sales Enablement and CROs Alignment 25:20 Understanding Product Value Basics 28:31 Silent Quitting: Mutual Interview Necessity     https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-buxton/     Janice B Gordon is the award-winning Customer Growth Expert and Scale Your Sales Framework founder. She is by LinkedIn Sales 15 Innovating Sales Influencers to Follow 2021, the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Experience Nov 2020 and 150 Women B2B Thought Leaders You Should Follow in 2021. Janice helps companies worldwide to reimagine revenue growth thought customer experience and sales.   Book Janice to speak virtually at your next event: https://janicebgordon.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/janice-b-gordon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaniceBGordon Scale Your Sales Podcast: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast More on the blog: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/blog Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janicebgordon Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScaleYourSales And more!   Visit our podcast website https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast/ to watch or listen.

Revenue Builders
Mastering Sales Leadership with Eric Erston

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2025 64:19


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Eric Erston, CRO of RegScale. They explore the characteristics of top sales teams and delve into the importance of focus, understanding the ideal customer and persona profiles, and the balance of technology and human connection in sales. The conversation also highlights the critical role of leadership in fostering vulnerability, accountability, and continuous learning within sales teams. Eric shares valuable lessons from his extensive career, emphasizing the importance of hiring the right people, empowering teams, and adapting sales strategies to evolving market demands. The episode is rich with practical tips and heartfelt anecdotes, making it a must-listen for sales leaders and professionals aiming to elevate their game.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Eric Erston:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericerston/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:07] Qualities of Top Performing Sales Teams[00:05:37] Understanding the Ideal Customer Profile[00:07:53] The Importance of Persona Profiles[00:18:43] Creating a Culture of Vulnerability[00:34:17] Leadership Authenticity and Empowerment[00:35:18] Balancing Vision and Execution[00:37:14] Setting Standards of Performance[00:41:14] Accountability and Rewarding Overachievers[00:41:48] The Importance of Simplicity in Leadership[00:44:40] The Role of Coaching and Feedback[00:51:05] Adapting Sales Strategies[00:56:44] The Impact of Video Calls on Sales[01:00:43] Opportunities at RegScaleHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"You have to earn the right to get to that personal discussion.""Enablement without accountability is a failure to lead.""Get the right people, everything is so much easier.""Lots of sales teams aren't focused.""In order to know how to qualify out, we've gotta know what success is.""The most elite people devour the information provided by the company and then invest their intellect and curiosity into getting to know the individual human component.""How you sell can be just as important as what you sell.""In the old days, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was if it's in print, expect that they expect you've read it.""If you're not making enough calls, you're not going to succeed.""Find a culture where it's comfortable being vulnerable."

This is Product Marketing
Episode 64: Nacho Harriague - Building a Holistic Sales Enablement Strategy

This is Product Marketing

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 26, 2025 18:37


In this episode, Nacho Harriague, Director of Product Marketing at InvGate, joins Louise Liu to share his thoughts on how product marketers can build and execute a holistic sales enablement strategy. He also shares helpful tips on identifying enablement gaps, aligning cross-functional teams, and using customer insights to build trust and drive adoption among sales teams.Check out the episode highlights here.All rights reserved. © Product Marketing Hive.

Pioneers and Pathfinders
Dennis Garcia

Pioneers and Pathfinders

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 25, 2025 36:01


This week, we host Dennis Garcia, someone has been a leader at the intersection of law, technology, and business for over 25 years. He is currently Assistant General Counsel at Microsoft, where he leads the legal support function for the Microsoft Americas Strategic Customer Pursuit, Partner Solutions, and Sales Enablement & Operations teams—among many other responsibilities. Dennis' journey into tech law began during law school, where he had the opportunity to support in-house counsel at IBM. That early exposure sparked a lasting interest in the intersection of legal practice and innovation. After graduating, he was hired by IBM for a full-time position, negotiating licensing and sale agreements. Dennis then served as counsel at Accenture, advising the Communications & High Tech and Financial Services Market Units. Today, Dennis shares stories from his early days at IBM, and how he developed his skills as a deal lawyer at Accenture. He also discusses the different ways he has been using Copilot in his work, as well as the ethical considerations of using generative AI in legal practice. Read the full transcript of today's episode here: https://www.seyfarth.com/dir_docs/podcast_transcripts/Pioneers_DennisGarcia.pdf

Make It Happen Mondays - B2B Sales Talk with John Barrows
Nick Hill: Coaching, Training & The Real Role of Enablement

Make It Happen Mondays - B2B Sales Talk with John Barrows

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2025 65:13


Nick Hill is the Director of Sales Enablement at Crunchbase, with a track record of building performance-driven coaching programs at Miro, Sprinklr, and beyond. In this episode of Make It Happen Mondays, John Barrows and Nick dive deep into all things enablement—from structure and timing to coaching reps and aligning with RevOps for real impact.They explore when companies should actually invest in enablement, how to differentiate training vs. coaching vs. enablement, and how to hold frontline managers accountable in the process. Nick shares practical ideas for simplifying call coaching (without listening to 50 hours of recordings) and lays out his vision for how AI will transform sales enablement in the years ahead.If you're in sales leadership, enablement, or just trying to scale a winning team, this conversation is a must-listen.Are you interested in leveling up your sales skills and staying relevant in today's AI-driven landscape? Visit www.jbarrows.com and let's Make It Happen together!Connect with John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbarrows/Connect with John on IG: https://www.instagram.com/johnmbarrows/Check out John's Membership: https://go.jbarrows.com/pages/individual-membership?ref=3edab1Visit our sponsor Website: https://otter.ai/Connect with Nick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasahill Check out Nick's Website: https://about.crunchbase.com/

Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations
#639 ITN Secure-Jean Templin:

Joey Pinz Discipline Conversations

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 22, 2025 25:22


Send us a textStruggling to sell while managing tech? You're not alone. In this episode of Joey Pinz Conversations, we talk with startup founder and product visionary Jean Templin live from ConnectWise IT Nation Secure 2025. Jean dives into the very real sales challenges faced by MSPs and how AI-driven real-time coaching is transforming the conversation—literally.

Secrets of Staffing Success
[Stage] Go To Market Strategy for Staffing Firms | Sales Enablement with Avner Baruch

Secrets of Staffing Success

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2025 47:30


Sales Enablement in staffing is no longer a tactical side function, it's the engine of your entire go-to-market strategy. In this eye-opening episode, Avner Baruch (Author of Project Moneyball) shares how top staffing and recruiting firms are transforming enablement from “content dumping” into measurable impact through coaching, role practice, and feedback loops. This video will inspire you to re-evaluate your GTM systems and explore enablement through the lens of performance coaching and strategic execution. In This Episode: What Sales Enablement in Staffing really means today How to build a go-to-market strategy aligned with sales motion The hidden cost of relying solely on content (and what to do instead) Why role practice and feedback loops are critical for sales acceleration How elite teams reinforce skills—without blowing their budget The enablement tech stack that makes it all possible Avner's Project Moneyball methodology for enabling outcomes across the customer lifecycle Whether you're launching a new GTM motion or trying to reverse stagnant revenue, the insights here are built to drive impact across your customer lifecycle. Timestamps: 00:43 - What is sales enablement? A Moneyball analogy 02:57 - Sales enablement in startups vs. enterprises 03:45 - Why the best companies go beyond content 04:55 - The economic pressure fueling enablement evolution 06:43 - Common pitfalls: Content without context 08:51 - Why content is only half the battle 10:53 - The power of role practice and daily sales routines 12:55 - Real-world staffing challenges and playbook creation 16:29 - Why leaders avoid role practice—and how to fix it 20:52 - Leveraging AI for sales coaching 22:30 - Shifting outdated staffing habits 25:12 - Consistency beats intensity in sales enablement 27:26 - Misalignment of seller skills and roles 31:59 - Coachability and cultural fit in hiring 34:17 - The ideal sales enablement hire 37:01 - Content graveyards vs. actionable insights 41:36 - Meet Avner Baruch and Project Moneyball 44:26 - Moneyball methodology for enablement ROI 46:30 - Avner's favorite book: Crossing the Chasm   About the Speakers: Brad Bialy is host of Take the Stage and InSights, two of the leading podcast for the staffing industry, presented by Haley Marketing. He has a deep passion for helping staffing and recruiting firms achieve their business objectives through strategic digital marketing. For over a decade, Brad has developed a proven track record of motivating and educating staffing industry professionals at over 100 industry-specific conferences and webinars. As a visionary leader, Brad has helped guide the comprehensive marketing strategy of more than 300 staffing and recruiting firms. His keen eye for strategy and delivery has resulted in multiple industry award-winning social media campaigns, making him a sought-after expert and speaker in the industry. As an executive GTM and Enablement leader, Avner Baruch has built and led GTM, Sales Enablement and RevOps functions from the ground up for leading Startups such as Walkme, Imperva-Incapsula, Rapyd and more notable SaaS businesses. As a consultant, member of Advisory Boards and Design Partners, he has helped entrepreneurs and scaling startups implement and reinforce their sales methodologies, fine-tune their Product-Market Fit, design, build and scale their selling motion. In 2020 he founded Project Moneyball (a GTM consulting firm) to help early-stage startups and scaling businesses overcome growth challenges. He is a certified sales trainer holding a B.Eng with Honors in Electrical Engineering & Physics from Coventry University (UK) and the Max Planck Institute (France).   Offers Heard in this Episode: 30 minutes of strategic marketing consultation with Brad Bialy: https://bit.ly/Bialy30 Special Offers! Our Best Savings of 2025: https://bit.ly/bialyoffer What if your back office fueled your growth instead of holding it back? TRICOM makes it happen! From payroll and billing to accounting and asset based lending, they clear the roadblocks and power your path forward. Your team gets paid, your cash flow stays steady and your business scales like never before. TRICOM doesn't just support you, they set you up to soar. Visit https://www.TRICOM.com to learn more. 

Conversations with Phil Gerbyshak - Aligning your mindset, skill set and tool set for peak performance
10 Career Reinvention Lessons from a Navy Cryptologist Turned Sales Leader Turned Educator

Conversations with Phil Gerbyshak - Aligning your mindset, skill set and tool set for peak performance

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 9, 2025 12:44


From the military to tech, sales to social media, and now teaching, my career path has been anything but conventional. Along the way, I've learned invaluable lessons that have shaped my ability to reinvent myself time and time again. Here are 10 key lessons I've learned throughout my journey—from Navy cryptologist to sales leader to educator—and how each experience contributed to my ongoing reinvention.Lesson 1: Sometimes the Most Unlikely Beginnings Lead to the Most Rewarding CareersI started my career in the Navy in 1992, where my job as a cryptologist and delivering messages by hand might not have seemed like the perfect foundation for the corporate world. But it taught me how to handle responsibility, work under pressure, and solve problems—all skills that would serve me throughout my career. From living on a Coast Guard base in the San Francisco Bay area to spending a year in Korea teaching English to a young Korean boy, I learned early on that diverse experiences can provide the foundation for something much bigger.The lesson here? Don't underestimate the value of seemingly unrelated experiences. Every chapter adds a layer to your skills, resilience, and perspective, even if it doesn't immediately seem relevant to where you want to go.Lesson 2: Be Open to Opportunities and Embrace the Learning ProcessAfter moving to Milwaukee in 1996, I started college to become a teacher, but I didn't stop there. I also delivered pizzas and became a peer trainer teaching faculty and students about new technology. Those experiences taught me that no matter your role, you can always learn and grow.What I realized is that even early in your career, the opportunities you take can be just as valuable as the degree or job you're aiming for. The key is to be open, ask questions, and be curious about everything around you.Lesson 3: Don't Be Afraid to Take Risks—Even When It Means Leaving CollegeIn 1998, I made a bold decision. I dropped out of college to pursue a “real job” in tech support, which eventually led to my first sales job selling high-speed internet. At the time, the internet wasn't nearly as fast as we now think of it, and there was a lot of skepticism around the promises we made to customers. But I learned that taking risks and stepping outside my comfort zone would be necessary to continue growing.The lesson here? Calculated risk-taking is vital to career growth. Sometimes, leaving the traditional path can open doors to opportunities that might not be on your radar otherwise.Lesson 4: Show Up and Be Ready to Learn—Even When It's HardBy 2000, I had transitioned into a stockbroker role and was working on a trading team. I was also responsible for teaching others how to use our online trading platform. After 9/11, I realized that technology was my true calling, so I transitioned into IT. Within two years, I earned my first management role, and eventually worked my way up to a VP of IT position.The key takeaway? Show up fully, be ready to learn, and always look for ways to add value. This is how you rise through the ranks and start shaping your own career trajectory.Lesson 5: Leadership is About Stepping Up—Even When You're Not Fully ReadyIn 2003, I finished my degree in computer science and took on a leadership role. About a year later, my manager decided to leave, and I was given the opportunity to lead the team. Even though I wasn't entirely prepared, I stepped up and said yes. That decision was pivotal in my career. It taught me that leadership often comes when you least expect it—and when it does, you need to be willing to take that leap of faith.Sometimes, leadership isn't about having all the answers; it's about being willing to step up and figure it out.Lesson 6: Your Experience and Knowledge Are Valuable—Don't Be Afraid to Share ThemIn 2005, I started my blog, sharing lessons I had learned along the way. I was reading books and consuming other blogs, and I wanted to contribute to the broader conversation. It was a humbling experience, but it also taught me that sharing your expertise—even when you're not a household name yet—can make a huge impact.In 2007, I joined David Zinger to write the Slacker Manager blog, co-authoring content on employee engagement and leadership. This experience taught me the power of collaboration and how sharing knowledge publicly can boost your credibility and open doors.Lesson 7: Self-Belief Is the First Step to Reinvention—Everything Else FollowsIn 2010, I decided to leave my corporate job, something I had been contemplating for years. People doubted I was really going to leave, and many thought I would fail. But I printed business cards, started networking as a consultant, and landed several consulting gigs with small businesses.The key lesson? Self-belief is the foundation of reinvention. When you believe in your ability to solve problems and create value, you can step into new opportunities, even if others doubt you or question your decisions. Your belief in yourself is what will propel you forward.Lesson 8: Clarity of Offer is Key to Digital Leadership and Sales SuccessIn 2013, I worked for a Silicon Valley software company and led the social media strategy. We made three major changes to our product's strategy within 18 months, and as a result, our product didn't sell well. Meanwhile, a more established product with a clear, defined space in the market continued to do well.This taught me that clarity is essential. If your audience doesn't understand what you're offering or why they need it, they won't buy. A clear, consistent message is key to success in sales and leadership.Lesson 9: Tenacity and Simplicity Are Keys to Teaching the UnbelievableIn 2015, I returned to the world of speaking and training, teaching salespeople how to leverage social media. At the time, many people were skeptical about social media as a business tool, and it was up to me to show them its value. I had to simplify complex ideas and be persistent in explaining them until others understood.This experience reinforced the lesson that teaching something new or controversial takes tenacity, courage, and the ability to break down complex ideas into simple, actionable steps. Persistence pays off when you're teaching others to see what they can't yet fully grasp.Lesson 10: Flexibility and Hustle Are Essential for Navigating Life's Unexpected TurnsIn 2022, I joined Bamboo HR in Sales Enablement, but by mid-2023, we moved to Ohio, and I had to give up that role. I pivoted again, working as a substitute teacher while I looked for a full-time position in education.What this taught me was that you have to be flexible when life throws curveballs, and you have to be willing to do whatever it takes to stay true to your goals. Whether it's working a second job to keep things afloat or stepping into a completely different field, staying adaptable and persistent is key to navigating life's unexpected changes.Happiness Practices with Phil Gerbyshak is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Throughout my career, these 10 lessons have been my guiding principles. From learning to step up as a leader before I felt ready, to teaching and simplifying complex ideas, to staying adaptable and flexible, each lesson has helped me reinvent myself at different stages of my career.The road to reinvention is rarely straight, but if you're willing to embrace these lessons and keep moving forward, you can build a career that's uniquely yours, no matter where you start or where life takes you next. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit happyaf.substack.com/subscribe

Revenue Builders
Building High-Performance Cultures with Paul Capombassis

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2025 58:05


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Paul Capombassis, Chief Revenue Officer at MongoDB. They discuss Paul's extensive career from PTC to MongoDB, focusing on his strategies for creating high-performance cultures in sales. Paul shares his approach to hiring disruptors over domain experts, the importance of developing leaders from within, and the transformational programs like BDR to CRO that MongoDB has implemented. The conversation also highlights the critical role of adaptability, the significance of leadership authenticity, and the necessity of consistent leader enablement. This episode is rich with insights on how to elevate sales teams and drive company growth.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Paul Capombassis:https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-capombassis-3684b211/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:01:59] Building a High-Performance Culture at MongoDB[00:04:45] Characteristics of a Disruptor in Sales[00:06:56] Challenges of Selling Disruptive Technology[00:16:11] Importance of Leadership and Enablement[00:21:57] Adapting to Change in a Fast-Growing Company[00:23:58] Coaching and Developing Leaders[00:30:21] Adapting Leadership for Business Growth[00:31:56] The Importance of Authentic Leadership[00:33:32] Recruitment and Enablement Strategies[00:34:40] Domain Expertise vs. Scaling with Hunters[00:38:22] Leader Development Programs[00:41:51] Challenges in Assessing Team Strengths[00:47:06] Second Line Leadership Responsibilities[00:50:23] Inspiring Through AuthenticityHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"When you lead with authenticity, the value that you get out of that and your organization gets out of that is it's game-changing.""Every time you make a hire... it's a million-dollar bet that you're taking.""Change requires discipline. And discipline is really hard.""High-performing companies set up a great enablement program, not just for your ics, but especially for leader enablement.""Great leaders today are the best coaches.""The best leaders today are the ones that can connect technical capabilities to business outcomes."

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast
Real Ways I Used ChatGPT to Save Time & Stay Sharp

B2B Marketing Excellence: A World Innovators Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 5, 2025 17:49


Real Ways I Used ChatGPT to Save Time & Stay Sharp-On my morning walk this week, I looked up the hill and stopped in my tracks — there was a bear. No warning, just a moment that forced me to change direction. And that's exactly what business can feel like today. Things shift quickly, and we need to be ready to pivot.That moment reminded me just how valuable a tool like ChatGPT can be — not for flashy gimmicks, but for real, day-to-day support. In this episode, I share exactly how I used ChatGPT over the past week to stay sharp, save time, and better support clients.You'll hear how I used ChatGPT to:• Research prospects and uncover insights that led to more personalized outreach• Compare LMS platforms to guide a client's decision• Refine an article for an industry publication to sound more helpful, not salesy• Align branding visuals and promotions for a consistent message• Explore topics like stem cell therapy to stay informed and sharp3 Actionable Steps to Try This Week: Use it for research: Ask ChatGPT to break down a company, audience, or trend in plain English. Test it on something small: Try rewriting one email or LinkedIn post — you'll be surprised how much time it saves. Build it into your prep routine: Whether you're heading into a meeting or presentation, let ChatGPT help you get clear and confident.At World Innovators, we believe in sharing what actually works — not what sounds trendy. If you're ready to explore how AI can work in your world, subscribe to the B2B Marketing Excellence & AI Podcast so you don't miss an episode.We also invite you to:Check out our YouTube Channel for step-by-step how-to videosVisit our website for more tactical tips and ideasOr email me directly at dpeterson@worldinnovators.com — if you've discovered a new way to use ChatGPT, I'd love to feature it!Let's learn together and help each other succeed — one smart strategy at a time.

Revenue Builders
Maximizing Sales Success with Chris Scanlan

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later May 29, 2025 66:01


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Chris Scanlan, Chief Revenue Officer at HUMAN. With over two decades of experience in cybersecurity and a history of transformative leadership, Chris shares his insights on key topics such as sales effectiveness, recruiting, enablement, and the importance of a robust revenue operations function. Emphasizing the significance of a well-defined ideal candidate profile and the indispensable role of revenue operations in analyzing data to inform business decisions, Chris provides practical advice and real-world examples that any business leader can benefit from. Tune in for an in-depth discussion that covers the fundamentals of building high-performing teams and driving organizational change.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Chris Scanlan:https://www.linkedin.com/in/cscanlan/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:39] The Importance of Recruiting in Sales[00:05:31] Building an Ideal Candidate Profile[00:09:46] The Role of Enablement in Sales Success[00:14:47] Adapting to Market Changes and Challenges[00:24:17] The Value of Continuous Training and Development[00:29:08] Commitment to Sales Excellence[00:35:37] Doubling Sales Productivity[00:36:07] The Importance of Average Productivity per Rep[00:38:57] Training and Onboarding for Success[00:42:13] The Role of Sales Leaders in Instilling Discipline[00:45:42] The Critical Role of Frontline Sales Managers[00:50:09] Revenue Operations and Data-Driven Decisions[00:56:43] The Ideal Profile for Rev OpsHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"Bad news can't wait because bad news travels really slow uphill.""Recruiting for sure and retainment of those people has always been one of the levers to success wherever I've been.""The best rev ops leaders can take the data and make informed decisions that align with the company's vision and strategy.""This isn't something that I'm doing to you for the next three days. This is something I'm doing for you.""In our business, we have most of them have 50-50 plans...for that base salary, you get paid for waking up in the morning and doing all this stuff."

The Business of Learning
The Business of Learning, Episode 87: AI-Powered Sales Coaching — A New Era of Sales Enablement

The Business of Learning

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2025 31:07


As generative artificial intelligence (AI) continues transforming the way we work and learn, it's also changing how we coach and train high-performing sales teams. From personalized feedback to real-time performance insights, AI-powered coaching tools are helping organizations scale their sales training efforts — without sacrificing quality or impact. In this episode of The Business of Learning, we sat down with Julie Thomas, president and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, to explore how learning leaders can use AI to drive sales effectiveness and improve coaching outcomes. Tune in now to learn: The top challenges organizations face when training sales teams and how AI can help. How AI-powered coaching tools deliver on-demand feedback and real-time performance data. Which sales skills AI can train most efficiently. …and more!

Title Agents Podcast
Outsmart, Outserve, Outtalk: Sam Trimble's Growth Formula for Title Pros

Title Agents Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2025 58:19


Dive into this episode as Sam Trimble unpacks the winning combo of timeless connection and cutting-edge tools. From gratitude-driven client retention to leveraging tools, he shares practical ways title professionals can evolve without overwhelming their teams. Whether you're looking to modernize your outreach or build a sales culture that actually works, this episode is packed with fresh insights that meet you where you are and take you further.   What you'll learn from this episode What title companies can learn from $10 dog bone transactions How tools like CrystalKnows, Scribe, and Alanna can enhance authenticity, not replace it The power of teaching clients how to grow their business and how that grows yours Why video workflows are the secret to slashing repeat questions and elevating the client experience The best way to get a resistant team to embrace new tools without overwhelm   Resources mentioned in this episode  CrystalKnows Scribe Lumen5  Alanna.ai NotebookLM Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara | Paperback, Hardcover, and Kindle  Zero to One by Peter Thiel and Blake Masters | Paperback, Hardcover, and Kindle    About Sam Trimble Sam Trimble helps real estate businesses grow. As VP of Strategic Growth at Fidelity National Financial, he's worked with hundreds of title companies, law firms, lenders, and thousands of agents nationwide—simplifying sales, marketing, and tech into practical steps that drive client growth and loyalty. Before joining FNF, Sam led marketing and tech strategy at MyHome and founded STAR Creative & Consulting, a full-service agency serving clients across the U.S. He also served as VP of Business Development for a Texas title company, helping it expand market share across Texas and New Mexico. With over 15 years of experience as a licensed Realtor, Sam brings a 360° understanding of the real estate industry. A proud El Paso native and UTEP grad, Sam was named Century 21's “Rookie of the Year,” a GEPCAR “Top 4 Under 40,” and has served on the El Paso City Planning Commission and Central Appraisal District board. He's also a contributor to Inman News and a member of Rotary International.   Connect with Sam  Website: Fidelity National Financial® LinkedIn: Sam Trimble    Connect With UsLove what you're hearing? Don't miss an episode! Follow us on our social media channels and stay connected.  Explore more on our website: www.alltechnational.com/podcast Stay updated with our newsletter: www.mochoumil.com Follow Mo on LinkedIn: Mo Choumil Stop waiting on underwriter emails or callbacks—TitleGPT.ai gives you instant, reliable answers to your title questions. Whether it's underwriting, compliance, or tricky closings, the information you need is just a click away. No more delays—work smarter, close faster. Try it now at www.TitleGPT.ai. Closing more deals starts with more appointments. At Alltech National Title, our inside sales team works behind the scenes to fill your pipeline, so you can focus on building relationships and closing business. No more cold calling—just real opportunities. Get started at AlltechNationalTitle.com. Extra hands without extra overhead—that's Safi Virtual. Our trained virtual assistants specialize in the title industry, handling admin work, client communication, and data entry so you can stay focused on closing deals. Scale smarter and work faster at SafiVirtual.com.

Breakaway Wealth Podcast
How to Leverage AI Like a Billion-Dollar CEO with Kevin Surace

Breakaway Wealth Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2025 52:02


What if AI could help you sleep better, think faster, and win bigger? In this episode of Breakaway Wealth, Jim Oliver sits down with Silicon Valley powerhouse Kevin Surace—entrepreneur, innovator, and one of the early voices on AI's transformational power. They dive deep into: Why most entrepreneurs lose not because of bad ideas, but bad timing. How AI can act as your daily decision-making partner—from analyzing supplements to writing business plans. Why grit and risk tolerance are still the ultimate wealth-building tools. And the surprising truth about success: it's not just about making money—it's about finding joy. Whether you're a startup founder, seasoned business owner, or just trying to stay relevant in a fast-moving world, Kevin's blueprint will show you how to adapt, lead, and break away from convention. 3 Takeaways: AI as Your Tactical Wingman Use AI as a daily assistant for research, writing, planning, and decision-making. It doesn't replace you—it amplifies you. Timing > Talent The biggest startup killer? Being early. Mastering the art of timing in business is more important than chasing “great ideas.” Resilience Builds Empires Endurance, not genius, separates winners from wannabes. Show up, survive setbacks, and let compound effort do its thing. Kevin's decades of experience will challenge your thinking—and give you a modern playbook to stay ahead in a world that won't wait. Subscribe and share to help others break away from financial convention   Connect with Kevin Surace: Website: www.kevinsurace.com/  Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ksurace/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/kevinsurace/ Twitter: twitter.com/kevinsurace Tiktok: www.tiktok.com/@kevin_surace Facebook: www.facebook.com/kevin.surace/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/@kskoolstuff  

Jungunternehmer Podcast
Chancen und Herausforderungen als Immigrant Founder in Deutschland | Automatisierung der Compliance für Startups | Remote first und Trust building: Insights von Secfix - mit Founderin Fabiola Munguia und Mike Mahlkow

Jungunternehmer Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2025 72:06


Mike Mahlkow spricht mit Fabiola Munguia, Gründerin von Secfix, über den Aufbau eines Unternehmens, das Startups und KMUs dabei hilft, IT-Sicherheit und Compliance zu automatisieren. Sie teilt ihre spannenden Erfahrungen als Immigrant Founder in Deutschland, erklärt die Grundlagen von ISO 27001, SOC2 und anderen Zertifikaten, und warum sie für Unternehmen, die mit Enterprise-Kunden arbeiten wollen, essenziell sind. Fabiola erklärt, wie Secfix den Zertifizierungsprozess radikal vereinfacht und Startups dabei unterstützt, schneller und effizienter vertrauenswürdige Partnerschaften mit großen Kunden aufzubauen. Außerdem gibt sie Einblicke in die Herausforderungen und Vorteile, als Immigrant in Deutschland zu gründen, sowie Tipps für den Aufbau eines Remote-Teams. Was du lernst: Warum Compliance für Startups wichtig ist: Was ISO 27001, SOC2 und andere Zertifikate bedeuten und wann sie für Unternehmen relevant werden Warum Compliance nicht nur eine Pflichtaufgabe ist, sondern ein entscheidender Faktor für den Erfolg im Enterprise Sales Wie Secfix den Zertifizierungsprozess automatisiert: Wie Secfix IT-Sicherheits- und Compliance-Prozesse mit Tools wie AWS, Jira, und Google Workspaces integriert und Daten automatisiert verarbeitet Der Unterschied zwischen zwölf Monaten manueller Zertifizierung und einer automatisierten Lösung, die in nur zwei bis vier Monaten Ergebnisse liefert Trust-Building durch ein Trust Center: Wie ein öffentliches Trust Center auf der Unternehmenswebsite hilft, das Vertrauen potenzieller Kunden zu stärken und Sales-Prozesse zu beschleunigen Warum ein professioneller, automatisierter Ansatz die Chancen auf Enterprise-Deals signifikant erhöht Immigrant Founder in Deutschland: Welche Herausforderungen Fabiola als Immigrant in Deutschland meistern musste, von Bürokratie bis hin zu Visum-Problemen Warum Deutschland trotzdem ein attraktiver Standort für Gründer ist, insbesondere durch Netzwerke und Förderprogramme wie Exist Remote-First-Company Building: Wie Secfix ein 100% Remote-Team aufgebaut hat und warum Transparenz, Overcommunication und Result-Driven-Work die Schlüssel zum Erfolg sind Tools wie Notion, Gather und Slack, die helfen, ein Remote-Team effizient und kollaborativ zu führen ALLES ZU UNICORN BAKERY: https://zez.am/unicornbakery  Hier findest du Fabiola: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fabiola-munguia/  Website: https://de.secfix.com/  Mehr zu Mike: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemahlkow/  Website: https://fastgen.com Join our Founder Tactics Newsletter: 2x die Woche bekommst du die Taktiken der besten Gründer der Welt direkt ins Postfach: https://www.tactics.unicornbakery.de/  Kapitel: (00:00:00) Wer ist Founderin Fabiola Munguia & was kann Secfix? (00:04:57) Was sollte ich als Gründer über Zertifikate wissen? (00:09:37) Risiken für Startups beim Regelbruch (00:13:12) Der Nachweis von Mitarbeiter-Compliance (00:17:58) Wer braucht die ISO und SOC2 Zertifikate wirklich? (00:23:26) Hilft Secfix auch beim Sales Enablement? (00:28:54) Wie optimiert Secfix Prozesse? (00:33:33) Welche Zertifikate sind noch relevant? (00:41:20) Wie ist die Akzeptanz des neuen ISO 42001 und wann wird das gebraucht? (00:47:37) Immigrant Founder: Warum Deutschland und was sind die Herausforderungen? (00:54:18) Deutschland, deine Bürokratie: Ohne Visum keine Gründung, ohne Profitabilität aber kein Visum (00:58:34) Wie organisiert sich Secfix intern? (01:04:47) 100 % remote: Was sind die Herausforderungen?

Revenue Builders
Scaling High-Growth Sales Organizations with George Mogannam

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later May 15, 2025 68:08


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by George Mogannam, CRO at Celigo. George shares insights from his extensive experience in scaling high-growth businesses and leading world-class sales organizations. The discussion delves into the common challenges startups face as they grow, highlighting the importance of establishing the right hiring profiles, formal onboarding and training, key performance indicators (KPIs), and an operating rhythm to drive sustainable growth. The episode offers practical advice for CROs on building high-performing revenue teams, ensuring effective communication, and integrating sales processes across various departments to maintain a competitive edge in today's market. George emphasizes the need for continuous enablement, cultural cohesion, and the pivotal role of the CRO in fostering an accountable and disciplined sales environment.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about George Mogannam:https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgemogannam/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:05] The Importance of Process in Scaling Startups[00:02:40] Common Challenges in Sales Organizations[00:03:43] Hiring the Right Salespeople[00:04:46] The Role of Sales Enablement[00:06:53] Defining Sales Terminology[00:09:11] Adapting Hiring Profiles for Growth[00:23:44] Onboarding and Training New Hires[00:32:03] Leveraging Tools and Metrics for Success[00:37:59] Understanding the Five Quarter Report[00:40:06] Implementing Sales Disciplines Across Departments[00:44:15] The Role of the CRO in Organizational Growth[00:48:26] The Importance of Operating Rhythms[00:52:44] Challenges in Sales Processes and Technology[00:57:02] The Impact of Remote Work on Sales Teams[01:00:00] The Criticality of Efficient Hiring ProcessesHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"When you implement these disciplines, it helps pull the rest of the company along.""You must have the right people on the bus executing in the direction we need to go.""A common language and definitions become critical as part of the enablement.""Everybody loves to be in an environment where they can be led to a place they couldn't get to on their own.""Creating a hiring profile that evolves with the company is essential; what works at one stage may not work at another.""It's critical to have the tools and metrics in place to provide direction and identify gaps in the sales process."

Bite Size Sales
The New Era of Sales Enablement: Content When Reps Need It Most

Bite Size Sales

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2025 46:29


Are your sales reps struggling to implement the playbook you've invested so much in? Do you wish you could drive higher conversion rates without simply adding more headcount? Wondering how to use modern sales enablement to make your team smarter, faster, and more adaptive in every single call? This episode delivers practical answers for cybersecurity sales leaders striving for dramatic revenue growth.In this conversation we discuss: 

Coach2Scale: How Modern Leaders Build A Coaching Culture
The Science of Sales Enablement with Pam Dake | Coach2Scale Episode #92

Coach2Scale: How Modern Leaders Build A Coaching Culture

Play Episode Listen Later May 13, 2025 54:05


Sales enablement isn't just a support function anymore; it's a measurable, strategic driver of revenue growth. In this episode of Coach2Scale, Pam Dake, Senior Director of Go-To-Market Enablement at Menlo Security, shares how enablement must evolve from ad hoc product training into a disciplined, data-driven engine that shrinks sales cycles, improves pipeline velocity, and makes forecast calls more predictable. Pam challenges outdated views of enablement as an "art" form and shows why top organizations are treating it as a science rooted in customer outcomes, operational consistency, and frontline manager empowerment.Listeners will walk away with clear strategies for transforming enablement into a competitive advantage: focusing on buyer needs instead of product specs, creating scalable and repeatable coaching frameworks, driving real behavior change at the rep level, and equipping frontline managers to move beyond firefighting into true people development. If you're a CRO or sales leader under pressure to deliver results faster and with fewer resources, this conversation is a must-listen.Key TakeawaySales Enablement Is a Science, Not an ArtEnablement must be tied to measurable business outcomes like deal velocity, quota attainment, and reduced stage duration times, not just soft skills or training events.Product Training Is Not Go-To-Market EnablementTrue enablement focuses on customer challenges, value selling, and behavioral change, not just teaching reps how to pitch features.Frontline Managers Are Overwhelmed and UnderequippedManagers today are drowning in administrative tasks and deal management, leaving little time or structure for effective rep coaching and skill development.Consistency Beats Random Acts of EnablementScalable, repeatable programs with predictable operating cadences outperform sporadic, one-off training initiatives every time.Enablement Needs to Be a Strategic Business PartnerWhen properly positioned, enablement acts as the connective tissue across product, marketing, customer success, and sales, driving better internal alignment and faster revenue cycles.Coaching Is the Unlock for Talent Development and RetentionTeaching managers how to coach systematically, not just manage deals, creates higher performing teams and reduces regrettable attrition.Data Should Guide Enablement, Not Just Support ItAccess to CRM, conversation intelligence, and engagement data enables the diagnosis of root causes of performance gaps and the prescription of targeted, timely interventions.The Inflection Point for Hiring Enablement Is Process PredictabilityCompanies should invest in enablement when there is some repeatability in the sales motion, ensuring that coaching scales what's working rather than patching what's broken.Enablement Can and Should Tip the Scales in Competitive DealsOrganizations that embed enablement into product launches, account strategies, and deal execution cycles are better equipped to win high-stakes opportunities.Ways to Tune In:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale CoachEm™ is the first Coaching Execution Platform that integrates deep learning technology to proactively analyze patterns, highlight the "why" behind the data with root causes, and identify the actions that will ultimately improve business results going forward.  These practical coaching recommendations for managers will help their teams drive more deals, bigger deals, faster deals, and loyal customers. Built with decades of go-to-market experience, world-renowned data scientists, and advanced causal AI/ML technology, CoachEm™ leverages your existing tech stack to increase rep productivity, increase retention, and replicate best practices across your team.Learn more at coachem.io

Tech Sales Insights
E198 - What GTM Leaders Can Learn from the Innovation Ecosystem featuring Dave & Joe O'Callaghan

Tech Sales Insights

Play Episode Listen Later May 2, 2025 44:53


In this episode of Tech Sales Insights, Randy Seidl is joined by Dave and Joe O'Callaghan, co-founders of Vation, about their journey and experiences as a father-son duo in the tech industry. They discuss the importance of go-to-market strategies and what leaders can learn from the innovation ecosystem. Sponsored by Sandler, a sales training provider, the discussion delves into the significance of sales training, especially for first-line managers, and explores the evolving roles of technology leaders. Joe and Dave share insights on the challenges emerging tech companies face, the importance of execution and humility, and the growing role of AI and data security. They also highlight the importance of cold calling, the shift in sales training needs, and the evolving skill sets required in the tech industry.KEY TAKEAWAYSFirst Father-Son Duo: Episode features Dave and Joe O'Callaghan, co-founders of Vation Ventures, discussing their father-son dynamic. Business Focus: Highlight on go-to-market strategies from the innovation ecosystem. Importance of Sales Training: Emphasized by Sandler, focusing on training necessity due to promotions during COVID. AI and Security: Special focus on AI trends and the importance of secure AI. Channels and Relationships: The enduring importance of trusting relationships in the channel for effective advice and sales. Cold Calling: Seeing a resurgence, combined with high-quality, AI-supported research. Mentorship and Humility: The fundamental value of being humble, inquisitive, and learning from great mentors. Innovation and Execution: Balancing innovation with execution in today's rapidly evolving technology landscape.QUOTES"Innovation is hard. Innovation at scale is really, really hard." "Humility and inquisitiveness are key in driving innovation and leading teams." "The only person that likes to hear you talk about yourself is your mom." "Distributors can lean into orchestrating everything from Dataiku to Cisco Meraki for a comprehensive solution."Find out more about Dave & Joe O'Callaghan through the link/s below:Dave O'Callaghan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveo4/Joe O'Callaghan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joeyocallaghan/This episode is sponsored by Sandler. Sandler is a world leader in innovative sales, leadership, and management training. For more than 50 years, Sandler has taught its distinctive, non-traditional selling system and highly effective sales training methodology, which has helped salespeople and sales managers take charge of the process.

Revenue Builders
Scaling High-Growth Companies with Marcello Gallo

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2025 69:35


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Marcello Gallo, Chief Revenue Officer at Sigma Computing. The discussion dives into Marcello's extensive experience in enterprise sales leadership, including his non-traditional path, lessons from leading roles at various companies, and the importance of structure, mentorship, and continuous learning. Marcello shares valuable insights on transitioning from technical roles to sales, territory management, and the significance of aligning with customer needs to drive value. The conversation also emphasizes the importance of having a growth mindset, understanding customer environments, and leveraging product-market fit for sustained success.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Marcello Gallo:https://www.linkedin.com/in/gallomarcello/Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Read Force Management's Guide to Increasing Company Valuation: https://hubs.li/Q038n0jT0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:01:53] Marcello's Journey into Enterprise Sales[00:08:13] The Importance of Structure in Sales[00:28:37] Navigating Major Accounts and Complex Sales[00:34:32] Understanding the Champion's Role in Sales[00:35:15] Building Strong Relationships with Champions[00:37:59] The Importance of Predicting and Preparing for Objections[00:39:14] Role-Playing and Preparation Techniques[00:40:05] Leadership and Helping Teams Get Unstuck[00:42:03] Lessons from Climbing the Corporate Ladder[00:43:21] The Value of Enablement and Territory Management[00:46:20] Adapting to Market Changes and Customer Feedback[00:53:59] Choosing the Right Opportunities and Taking Risks[01:04:50] Sigma Computing's Growth and OpportunitiesHIGHLIGHT QUOTES“If you can't bet on yourself, who can you bet on?"“Knowledge is courage.”“You get delegated to those that you sound like.”“Hire the people commensurate to the territory that you have open.”“Don't confuse position with opportunity.”

sALES with ASLAN®
EP. 222 Driving Sales Enablement That Delivers: A Conversation with Tom Kiernan

sALES with ASLAN®

Play Episode Listen Later May 1, 2025 50:00


In this episode of Sales with ASLAN, Tom and Tab sit down with global sales enablement leader Tommy Kiernan (TK) to unpack what truly drives results in modern enablement strategies. From his experience leading global enablement at companies like Visible Alpha and post-acquisition by S&P Global, Tommy K shares battle-tested insights for aligning enablement with leadership, measuring the right outcomes, and using AI to drive performance.You'll learn:Why enablement must start with leadership (CRO, sales, and client success)How to move from measuring competencies to business outcomesThe power of conversation intelligence tools in building better scorecardsHow to manage change and assess team readiness through objective benchmarksWhether you're a sales leader or enablement pro, this episode offers tactical wisdom for building a program that actually drives growth.

PragmaticLive
Getting Your Product Sold: Driving Adoption, Sales Enablement, and Post-Launch Success with Ciara Peter

PragmaticLive

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 25, 2025 42:03


What's the secret to getting your product not just built—but sold, used, and loved? In this episode, we sit down with Ciara Peter, SVP of Product at Robin, to explore the full lifecycle of product success from early design decisions to sales enablement and in-app education. With nearly two decades of experience at companies like Salesforce, Box, and Medallia, Ciara shares tactical strategies for making your product easy to sell and adopt. She emphasizes the product manager's role in business outcomes, detailing how to align with sales, enable customer-facing teams, and build onboarding experiences that actually drive engagement. For detailed takeaways, show notes, and more, visit: www.pragmaticinstitute.com/resources/podcasts Pragmatic Institute is the global leader in Product, Data, and Design training and certification programs for working professionals. Learn more at www.pragmaticinstitute.com.

Revenue Builders
Navigating the CRO Role while Building a Great Culture with Matt Nolan

Revenue Builders

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 24, 2025 65:51


In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by Matt Nolan, Chief Revenue Officer at Redwood Software. Matt shares his extensive experience in developing global revenue strategies, scaling enterprise automation solutions, and transitioning from venture capital to private equity environments. The conversation covers key lessons such as the importance of culture, the significant role recruiting plays in a CRO's success, the complexities of managing a board, and strategies for building top-performing sales teams. Matt emphasizes the critical nature of hiring ahead, discipline in recruiting, the layered impact of having strong leaders, and creating a high-performance, team-based culture that can drive prolific growth. Listeners will gain valuable insights on how to build and sustain a winning sales organization.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about Matt Nolan:https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewanolanhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/redwood-software/Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Read Force Management's Guide to Increasing Company Valuation: https://hubs.li/Q038n0jT0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:02] Lessons from a First-Time CRO[00:03:47] Building and Maintaining Company Culture[00:04:45] Navigating Leadership During COVID-19[00:06:05] Managing the Board and Leadership Challenges[00:07:03] Scaling Revenue and Systems Thinking[00:10:15] Recruitment and Team Building Strategies[00:11:16] The Importance of Authentic Leadership?[00:15:21] Fostering a Team-Based Culture[00:20:39] Recruitment Pipeline and Talent Acquisition[00:21:30] The Relentless Pursuit of Top Talent[00:34:00] The Power of Networking and Recruiting[00:35:14] Building a Leadership Team[00:36:15] The Importance of Recruiting Top Talent[00:39:10] Sourcing and Recruiting Strategies[01:01:21] The Role of Culture in Building a DynastHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"Recruiting is the foundation and culture is what sustains you and allows you to win multiple championships.""Once you see the impact of having great people, you can't unsee it.""You can be bad at everything, but if you're great at recruiting, you can cover for a lot of sins.""Every word you say as a leader is internalized deeply by your team.""You've got to be relentless about recruiting, it can't just be something you do when there's an opening."

Scale Your Sales Podcast
#282 Manoj Ramnani - Elevating Sales Roles: Vision for the Future of GTM

Scale Your Sales Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2025 38:27


In this weeks' Scale Your Sales Podcast episode, my guest is Manoj Ramnani.   Manoj is the Founder and CEO of SalesIntel, a company committed to providing the highest quality B2B contact data on the market. SalesIntel's research team hand-verifies every contact to ensure 95% accuracy on data. As the CEO, Manoj drives the strategic vision of SalesIntel, establishes and fosters key partnerships, and is building out the executive team that will make SalesIntel the leader of the data sector.   In today's episode of Scale Your Sales podcast, Manoj brings extensive expertise in B2B data and entrepreneurship, with experience in both bootstrapped and venture-backed ventures. In this episode, he shares insights on selecting the right financial path for startups, optimizing the tech stack, and navigating evolving go-to-market strategies. Manoj also explores the shifting role of sales teams in response to economic and technological changes, highlighting how Sales Intel leverages human-verified data and AI to drive accurate pipeline generation.   Welcome to Scale Your Sales Podcast, Manoj Ramnani.     Timestamps: 00:00 Bootstrapping vs. VC Insights 04:08 Startup Challenges and Lessons Learned 08:22 Strategic Fundraising and Sales Optimization 11:19 Consolidation of Tech Platforms 16:14 GTM Product Innovation Challenges 17:06 Empowering Buyers, Shifting Sales Strategy 20:23 Innovative Products Need Customer Feedback 24:36 Prioritizing Quality in Data Service 28:11 Optimizing Go-To-Market Strategy 30:16 From Engineering to Sales Intel 34:10 Focus on Events, Community, Partnerships 36:29 Empowering High-Performance Teams   https://www.linkedin.com/in/manojramnani/     Janice B Gordon is the award-winning Customer Growth Expert and Scale Your Sales Framework founder. She is by LinkedIn Sales 15 Innovating Sales Influencers to Follow 2021, the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Customer Experience Nov 2020 and 150 Women B2B Thought Leaders You Should Follow in 2021. Janice helps companies worldwide to reimagine revenue growth thought customer experience and sales.   Book Janice to speak virtually at your next event: https://janicebgordon.com   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/janice-b-gordon/   Twitter: https://twitter.com/JaniceBGordon   Scale Your Sales Podcast: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast   More on the blog: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/blog   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janicebgordon   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ScaleYourSales   And more! Visit our podcast website https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast/ to watch or listen.

30 Minutes to President's Club | No-Nonsense Sales
The #1 Mistake Reps Make When Moving from Disco to Demo | Kevin "KD" Dorsey | Ep. 297 (Sell)

30 Minutes to President's Club | No-Nonsense Sales

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 25, 2025 40:44


Join the 30MPC Discovery Course waitlist TODAY and get first dibs + $25 off your first TWO months of Club Pass: https://clubpass.30mpc.com/discovery-course. FOUR ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS Demo with KPIC + Make Them Hold It: Tie each feature to a known problem and impact, then ask how they'd use it to make the solution tangible and relevant. Use “Assuming We Can…”: Frame your solution as a possibility to lower defenses. This pulls the prospect in and gets them imagining success without feeling sold to. Reference Problem Children: Personalize the demo by naming specific team members or pain points, making it easier for the buyer to visualize solving their real-world problems. Multithread with Purpose: Frame next steps as critical to their success, not yours—“To get you what you want, we'll need Jane's input too. How can we involve her?” KD'S PATH TO PRESIDENT'S CLUB CRO @ Finally SVP of Sales and Partnerships @ Bench Accounting Practice Lead, Revenue Leadership @ Winning by Design VP of Inside Sales @ PatientPop Inc. Head of Sales Enablement & Development @ ServiceTitan VP of Sales @ SnackNation RESOURCES DISCUSSED Read: Join our weekly newsletter Steal: Templates, drips, scripts

30 Minutes to President's Club | No-Nonsense Sales
Use This Discovery Call Formula to Get More Demos Booked | Kevin Dorsey | Ep. 295 (Sell)

30 Minutes to President's Club | No-Nonsense Sales

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2025 40:39


Join the 30MPC Discovery Course waitlist TODAY and get first dibs + $25 off your first TWO months of Club Pass: https://clubpass.30mpc.com/discovery-course. FOUR ACTIONABLE TAKEAWAYS Match Tonality to Questions: Tone discongruence kills trust. If your tone doesn't match your question, prospects get skeptical. Adjust your delivery to align with the intent of your ask. Don't Push Economic Impact Too Soon: Mid-level managers may not care about bottom-line impact. Save deep financial discussions for decision-makers who influence the balance sheet. Three Levels of Problem Questions: First, identify the problem. Second, uncover its effects. Third, quantify the impact in time or money to drive urgency. Use Questions with Leads: Instead of open-ended asks, provide multiple-choice-style prompts. This makes answering easier and positions you as an informed advisor. KD'S PATH TO PRESIDENT'S CLUB CRO @ Finally SVP of Sales and Partnerships @ Bench Accounting Practice Lead, Revenue Leadership @ Winning by Design VP of Inside Sales @ PatientPop Inc. Head of Sales Enablement & Development @ ServiceTitan VP of Sales @ SnackNation RESOURCES DISCUSSED Read: Join our weekly newsletter Steal: Templates, drips, scripts