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”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 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
Monday Jun 21, 2021
Monday Jun 21, 2021
Ken Grohe, President of LeverageGTM has an impressive history as a leader executing productivity, security and storage in SaaS industries. Some of his success stories include:
- Rapidly grew SignNow (now part of airSlate) from $200k ARR to well over $59M ARR more than doubling annually with negligible churn to win 2018 Gartner and 2016-7 Top Enterprise Software
- Pivoted CUDA from $300M of appliances to $400M of SaaS via the award-winning Essentials for Office365 (Microsoft Partner of the Year)
- Drove Virident (Sequoia funded) from <$3M of bookings to successful $685M exit in less than 18 months
On today’s episode Ken gives some great insight for those interviewing or just starting out in their first sales career. “You should probably bob and weave and move companies every 2-3 years. If you're not getting promoted it's time to go.” Ken got his start in sales at a young age selling greeting cards door-to-door out of the back of a magazine. He’s since leveled up as consultant for start-ups in Silicon Valley.
Tune in to today’s episode to learn from a leader in sales whose hustle and tenacity has helped him rise to the top!
Quotes
“If you're in a world where 90% of the time you ask a question, the answer is no, you get used to it.” (7:52-7:57)
“You should probably bob-and-weave and move companies every 2-3 years. If you're not getting promoted, it's time to go.” (10:11-10:18)
“It doesn't really matter the type of school you went to or even your overall GPA. If you have a natural curiosity, and you have great empathy skills, great.” (18:16-18:23)
“If someone says they never lose, never lost a deal, they’re foolish or their activities are low, or there's some blind spots they are not aware of.” (27:31-27:38)
Links
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
Thursday Jun 17, 2021
Lauren Bailey, Founder and President of Factor 8 and #GirlsClub is on a mission to change lives by helping more people find confidence and success in sales. Known on the speaker circuit for her “No B.S.” style and spunk, look for Lauren to make you laugh, keep things moving quickly, and help you take immediate action with her tactical tips.
On today’s episode, Lauren takes us through her journey as an inexperienced sales rep all the way to now, where she’s proven to be a top coach in sales and a champion for women who’ve gotten stuck in the confidence gap- not feeling good enough to apply for jobs they qualify for.
“This is a passion project. This is meaningful, this is changing people's lives. And it's awesome. It's really awesome. So, our mission is to change the face of sales, by helping more women earn leadership positions in sales.”
Tune in to hear how Lauren is changing the face of sales and championing for more women leaders in the field!
Quotes
“We won't apply for the job until we know we can do the job perfectly even though we've never had that job before it doesn't make any sense, but this is what happens.”
“I don't know where it came from Christopher but out of nowhere I looked at him like, I’m really not interested in that, so if you'd like to have me join your company, I'd be happy to accept the sales management position. And I got it.”
“I'm going to help these women get trained for the job, and build their confidence to apply for the job, but it's working. Over 70% of our cohort every year has been promoted before the end of the six months.
“This is a passion project. This is meaningful, this is changing people's lives. And it's awesome. It's really awesome. So our mission is to change the face of sales, by helping more women earn leadership positions in sales.”
Links
Monday Jun 14, 2021
Monday Jun 14, 2021
“Unless you're passionate about what you really do, day in and day out, you're not going to last, you're not going to excel….” Sebastian Shahvandi, Chief Revenue Officer for Hypori (formerly known as Intelligent Waves) is incredibly passionate about the impact sales can have on a business and why it drives him to excel.
His company, Hypori is an innovative SaaS enterprise software company that provides virtual mobility technology to federal agencies and corporate enterprises. They are a trusted virtual mobility solution ensures zero data at rest and 100% Separation to mitigate data leaks.
In today’s episode, Sebastian discusses his start in sales working for his father’s business where his social anxiety evolved into a love for customer relations and solving problems.
Tune in to this week’s episode to learn about Sebastian’s passion and drive that has propelled him to succeed as a sales lead dog.
Quotes
“One of the things I always say to my team is always better never best meaning today is always going to be better than tomorrow but it's never going to be my best work because tomorrow is going to be even better.” (20:37-20:45)
“Unless you're passionate about what you really do, day in and day out, you're not going to last, you're not going to excel. My number one focus when I when I get up every morning, is am I passionate about what I'm doing today, is it exciting?” (14:52-15:06)
“My biggest mistake sometimes was I was afraid to say I don't know the answer. And I think it's important, even when, especially when you have a team. If you don't know an answer to something as a leader, it doesn't discredit you and only discredits you if you lie.” (22:21-22:34)
Links