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Episodes
”Unless you are the lead dog, your view never changes.” On the Sales Lead Dog podcast, CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith talks with exceptional sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest and achieved a sales leadership role in their organization. Hear what they did to become the alpha, lead their pack, and how they leverage CRM technology to drive sales for their organization. If your goal is to rise higher in your sales career or you currently are the alpha, this podcast gives you useful insight on how the best-of-the-best achieve success with their team and CRM technology.
Episodes
Monday Oct 11, 2021
Monday Oct 11, 2021
Tony DeSpirito, Chief Revenue Officer for Cenergistic is a seasoned high-technology marketing and sales executive with deep domain expertise in enterprise software and managed services. A veteran of entrepreneurial startups and large, global companies, Tony’s skills range from C-Level selling, relationships to operational sales management of both channel and direct teams.
On today’s episode, Tony discusses his 3 keys to successful leadership- self-discipline, relentless focus on client or customer success, and follow up. He also touches on his hiring practices- which he currently is putting to use since Cenergistic is currently hiring.
Tune in to today’s episode, to learn about Tony’s expertise as a leader in sales and why you should consider Cenergistic as your next place of work!
Quotes
- “So I was brought on to really professionalize and modernize our sales effort. And in fact, I'm actively hiring now across the United States.”
- “Those are my three, my three keys, self-discipline, relentless focus on client or customer success, and follow up, follow up, follow up.”
- “You provide a vision, you set goals and objectives, you equip the team to achieve those goals and objectives. And then you step out of their way, and you let them achieve and you're always there for them.”
- “It is the most important thing you could do is hire the right people, because ultimately your success will depend on their success as a sales leader.”
Links:
Monday Oct 04, 2021
Monday Oct 04, 2021
Blake Morgan is a leader in customer experience. She is a keynote speaker and customer experience futurist and author of two books on customer experience. Her bestselling second book is called “The Customer of The Future: 10 Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow’s Business” identified by Business Insider as one of the top 20 books executives are reading to deal with COVID-19.
Blake contributes to Forbes, the Harvard Business Review and Hemispheres Magazine. She is the host of The Modern Customer Podcast and The Be Your Own Boss Podcast. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband, their two children and two dogs.
In today’s episode, Blake dives into the importance of companies staying competitive during a pandemic and making sure their customer is at the forefront of their business campaign. Tune in to hear from an amazing keynote speaker and customer experience futurist, Blake Morgan.
Quotes
- “That's why I've traveled the world doing my speaking events, is to bring this human message to businesses of treating people while caring about one another. It's very simple, but in practice, it becomes hard for these corporations to implement.” (4:20-4:35)
- “It resonates with people, because the customer of the future is really the customer of the present, but we don't see her, we don't understand how pressing it is to make life happen for her.” (6:21-6:33)
- “I believe that we're in really complicated times, and leadership should be visible- should be reachable. We need transformational leaders.” (21:37- 21:50)
- “The most customer focused companies today are very data driven. So, they don't just track data, but they do something with it.” (25:20-25:26)
Links
The Customer of the Future Course on LinkedIn
Monday Aug 09, 2021
Monday Aug 09, 2021
Today’s guest, Gal S. Borenstein, is the Founder and CEO of the Borenstein Group. He is a B2B digital branding & marketing strategist. The Borenstein Group is one of Washington D.C.'s most influential business-to-business agencies. Since its founding in 1994, the Borenstein Group has helped hundreds of startups, early-stage, growing, and mature companies optimize their brand promise and maximize their brand equity.
On today’s episode, Gal discusses why identifying what differentiates you from your competition and the importance of knowing who your competition is will put you miles ahead in your marketing strategy. Gal also talks about understanding the unique choice you offer companies when selling your services, “What you're dealing with is really three choices, which is you're either the safe choice, the best choice, or the innovative choice.”
Tune into this week’s episode to learn from an author, leader, and innovator in the field of sales, Gal Borenstein.
Quotes
- “What you're dealing with is really three choices, which is you're either the safe choice, the best choice, or the innovative choice.” (13:29-13:40)
- “Know thy enemy. You're always selling against a strongman.” (17:37-17:43)
- “If you don't know what your competition is your chances of succeeding is pretty much zero, because, you're kind of guessing that somebody is going to want to buy your product.” (19:44-19:56)
Links
Monday Aug 02, 2021
Monday Aug 02, 2021
Shannon Mulligan is the CEO of VAST Results and she understands the importance of sales, as well as its challenges. She has more than 15 years of experience in B2B sales.
After being laid off from a national sales manager role at five months pregnant Shannon quickly realized that small businesses had a desperate need for follow up sales support... Vast Results (along with her son Myles) was born. She and her team work with those small businesses to create and improve follow up processes and then act as an extension of their team to execute those systems.
On this week’s episode listen to hear why Shannon believes strongly in the power of her "Mom Squad" and why she is working hard to build a platform for moms to create flexible work opportunities while helping her clients get to yes!
Tune in to hear Shannon’s amazing story of success in the field of sales as a Gen X who found an accidental career on this sales path, but quickly found her passion!
Quotes
- “I call them my Mom Squad of moms that want to do part-time selling work and they actively go after our clients leads for them and either get them an appointment or re-engage a conversation, get another proposal sent out, and they just follow those leads to their natural conclusion.” (11:50-12:11)
- “That's what my Moms Squad does. They’re business development directors. They're consistently reaching out with different touches: LinkedIn, emails, phone calls, all the things just to try to re-engage that qualified lead.” (13:50-14:04)
- “So, for us it's different because we're a part-time resource- none of my moms work more than 10 hours a week for any of our accounts.” (26:15-26:23)
- “I would love to see more women in the career of sales, I would love to see more women sales leadership, I would just love to see more women in leadership in general.” (29:07- 29:12)
Links
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Monday Jul 26, 2021
Kristie Jones, Principal of Sales Acceleration Group is the go-to expert for privately owned, VC-backed or bootstrapped technology companies needing to build or improve their sales process, strategy, and people. She is passionate about helping companies select top talent and create a sales accountability culture to ensure revenue growth.
In today’s episode, Kristie sat down to discuss her approach in helping companies build their revenue whether it be improving their sales process, strategy, or hiring practices. A big part of being an outsider looking in is helping her client’s take off the rose-colored glasses so they can get to the heart of the issues that need fixing.
Tune in to learn about Kristie’s straight-forward, no-nonsense approach to helping businesses improve their process, strategy, and hiring practices!
Quotes
- “I started the company about five years ago, I have about 15 years of SAS sales leadership experience. I made a decision that I could help more than one company at a time.” (8:15-8:26)
- “Helping them understand that the only way to be successful building top of the funnel with an outbound prospecting strategy is consistency.” (14:15-14:20)
- “That's an embarrassing conversation to bring up- everybody's sitting around looking successful and all of a sudden you haven't been making any money for two to three years.” (19:32-19:39)
Links
Sales Acceleration Group LinkedIn
Monday Jul 19, 2021
Monday Jul 19, 2021
Sandy Ellis is the Chief Revenue Officer for Activus Connect- a premium provider of customer experience outsourced solutions that operates across the Continental US & Puerto Rico.
Sandy describes herself as an executive with a talent to discover underlying business needs, strategically design innovative solutions, and develop and inspire leaders through career development, professional writing, and speaking.
On today’s episode, Sandy dives into some of the tough lessons she had to learn in order to better connect with her team and her clients. “As a leader, I think it's important to learn that life is intermingled and being able to figure out how to embrace that and build upon it, versus fighting it will save you a lot of angst.”
Tune into today’s episode to learn from our conversation with a wise, self-aware leader!
Quotes
- “We're primarily domestic in the United States and Puerto Rico, and we're able to attract and design our support structure on behalf of what the client means based on both geography, as well as skills, and tap into the millions of Americans that want to be able to work from home and have chosen to do that.” (9:38- 10:00)
- “I learned early in my career to extend grace and accept grace- everything does not go as planned, life is messy, and things happen.” (11:55-12:08)
- “As a leader, I think it's important to learn that life is intermingled and being able to figure out how to embrace that and build upon it, versus fighting it will save you a lot of angst.” (26:38-26:54)
Links
Sandy Ellis LinkedIn
Activus Connect LinkedIn
Activus Connect Website
Monday Jul 12, 2021
Monday Jul 12, 2021
Sally Duby, Chief Sales Officer & Partner for The Bridge Group, Inc. is a veteran in the field of technology inside sales. Having started out with Oracle in their early days as an inside sales rep, Sally learned the power of building strong foundations and where that success can lead.
In today’s episode, Sally dives into what her experience in sales leadership has taught her about building strong process, rallying a team through a pandemic, and how pivoting is vital in times of change.
Tune in to today’s episode to learn about strong leadership in the face of adversity!
Quotes
- "They don't care how you help somebody else. At the beginning, they want to know what you're going to do for them, what problems can you solve and what's the business value bringing." (33:32-33:41)
- "You have to do a minimum of 25% more activities to get that first meeting versus pre-COVID and email responses rates have plummeted." (44:03-44:44)
- “That’s going to be our recommendation, capture the data because it leads to such great information and ways to pivot and change your business to get the best benefits out of it.” (39:49-40:29)
Links
Sally Duby LinkedIn
The Bridge Group LinkedIn
The Bridge Group Website
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Joe Paranteau is a leading authority on selling, a sales coach and mentor, keynote speaker, a small business owner and entrepreneur, and an investor. He has generated more than $1.8 Billion in revenue as a professional salesperson.
Joe wrote Billion Dollar Sales Secrets to help sellers and non-sellers alike. He delivers real-world strategies and insights from thousands of sales engagements he led with Fortune Global 500, SMBs, startups, and government organizations. He leverages these experiences to help others achieve their full sales potential.
In today’s episode, Joe discusses a few different chapters in his book that break down his different philosophies as a sales leader. Starting out as a door-to-door salesman on an Indian Reservation in Montana to now serving as a Sales Director for Microsoft, has given him a unique perspective.
Tune in to hear from an incredibly insightful sales leader whose journey in sales has made him wildly successful and how he remains incredibly humble through it all.
Quotes:
“The one tip that I think would be beneficial to hear is spend time engaging people and spend time connecting and being curious. You'll be a much better and more effective salesperson.” (3:22-3:38)
“I had sold a billion dollars in a five-year span. It's two and a half million dollars a day. After I did that, I was like, okay, I think I know something about selling that I could add to people.” (5:43-5:55)
“I would go door-to-door with my brother and sister, because I grew up poor, we didn't have very much money, I'm the first generation of my family to grow up off the Indian Reservation.” (7:39-8:02)
“When I wrote this book, I set out to take all the things that I learned about from a sales standpoint, conscious and unconscious. And I put all these post-it notes on my wall, and I started questioning everything.” (35:55-36:06)
“Give something back, show gratitude, think about what you can do to make the world a better place. Save some money, develop your walkaway fund, really think about what you can do.” (38:17-38:30)
Links:
Thursday Jul 01, 2021
Thursday Jul 01, 2021
Mary Grothe started her sales journey at 22 working with a Fortune 1000 Payroll/HR company working for only $13/hour in an admin role. She now is the CEO of House of Revenue, a consulting firm building revenue foundations set for scale by focusing on all aspects of the revenue engine — marketing, sales, customer success, and RevOps.
On today’s episode Mary discusses some of the issues that hinder a company’s ability to continue growing and reaching their goals. “So my favorite way to build process, align with the way your buyer buys, because a lot of times people build the process based on the way they think it should be and the way that works for them and their organization, but it actually creates a lot of friction for the buyer.”
Tune in to today’s episode to learn the importance of scaling as a company!
Quotes:
“Think about us as you're making the decision of hiring a CRO or for less than the cost of that CRM is base salary you can actually get a 5-7 person revenue team, being the house of revenue team that goes to work for you for 12 to 18 months to build the right revenue engine inside of your company that will last.” (9:49-10:07)
“And so I think gone are the days that if you have a sales problem that you isolate the problem to the sales department specifically to the sales VP or the individual sales performer, you actually have to look at how the brand is performing.” (12:46-13:00)
“So my favorite way to build process, align with the way your buyer buys, because a lot of times people build the process based on the way they think it should be and the way that works for them and their organization, but it actually creates a lot of friction for the buyer.” (20:32-20:48)
Links:
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Monday Jun 28, 2021
Loyalty and hard work are what allowed Jeffrey Diamond to climb the ladder at LexisNexis Risk Solutions Group and after 14 years he’s now the SVP of Commercial Operations. During his tenure at LexisNexis Jeff has helped drive new market expansion and new capability offerings servicing the healthcare sector.
On today’s episode, Jeff outlines sponsorship and mentorship as the keys to his success and how to leverage those relationships as stepping stones in any sales career.
“Creating sponsorships and creating relationships and knowing how to leverage mentors and sponsors in an organization to not only benefit yourself but to benefit them was a huge part of my early success.”
Tune in today’s episode to learn about leveraging the relationships at your job to level up.
Quotes:
“It's just a part of who I am. I just keep grinding, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving and I think that gets recognized pretty early on in your career.” (11:51-11:59)
“Creating sponsorships and creating relationships and knowing how to leverage mentors and sponsors in an organization to not only benefit yourself but to benefit them was a huge part of my early success.” (12:49-13:02)
“He made it very clear- I'm not going to hand you anything; that is not my role as a sponsor and certainly I'd be failing you as a mentor if I did that. But what I will do is give you access.”(16:15-16:23)
“Knowing how to say no and turning down business and moving forward with the opportunities that have high probability of success.” (19:17-19:23)
Links:
LexisNexis Risk Solutions Group LinkedIn
LexisNexis Risk Solutions Group Website