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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 01, 2022
Monday Aug 01, 2022
Today’s guest on the show is Yair Areli, the VP of Global Sales for DataRails a financial planning and analysis platform that automates financial reporting and planning. Yair relocated to New York City from Israel and took on a leadership role in sales. Between the cultural gap and the new responsibility in his company Yair had much to learn and many hurdles to overcome.
His experience has led him to live by 3 pillars- 1. Innovation 2. Discipline and 3. Coachability. His view on coachability is a great example of what being a true leader in sales means, “if somebody gives me feedback, I coach myself to take a deep breath, not resist it and ask questions- let the rational side of my brain kick back in.”
Tune in to today’s episode to hear how Yair Areli, VP of Global Sales for DataRails took his coachable moments and learned from them in order to be a more humble, effective leader.
Quotes:
- “Now we have a great solution that solves that problem. So, I really, really feel the pain that our customers are feeling and I'm glad to see that we solve it for them.” (1:42-1:49)
- “One of the things that worked for me is persistence, I outwork others and when everyone else gets tired, I know that it's my time to shine.” (4:31-4:37)
- “So if somebody gives me feedback, I coach myself to take a deep breath, not resist it and ask full of questions, let the rational side of my brain kick back in.” (5:27-5:35)
- “I realized that nobody will take feedback from you if you're not demonstrating, you don't lead by example.” (7:39-7:46)
- “He says, you may report up to me all of you, but I work for you. I have no work to do, but enabling you, that's my job.” (18:33-18:40)
Links:
Monday Jul 25, 2022
Monday Jul 25, 2022
Gene Villeneuve is a software executive with over 25 years of experience running small to large teams at Tehama, Cognos, OLAP@Work, and IBM. Coaching, mentoring, endurance sports, and business are his passions.
Gene is semi-retired and now offers advising or mentoring engagements with individuals or team. His passion for cycling has kept him levelheaded throughout his career and now offers more fulfillment now that he has more time to do the things he loves.
Tune in to today’s episode to learn about the risks that paid off and the discipline that has led Gene Villeneuve to be successful and now semi-retired and living his life to the fullest.
Quotes:
- “That's how I got into cycling, that's always been a core aspect of my personality. Not only is it a way to de stress after a long day, but it just becomes something else, in addition to family and in addition to work, and it is something else, that's your own.” (2:16-2:43)
- “I think when it comes to the professional sort of things, it's always, the curiosity, the willingness to take risks and the third one is always be driven to help others be successful as well.” (6:40-6:57)
- “Where I became unique and different is, is that I became an enabler for those sellers. I would have people telling me you're actually on the phone or in people's offices trying to get those issues resolved within IBM, and other sales leaders didn't actually do that for us.” (14:38-15:18)
Links:
Monday Jul 18, 2022
Monday Jul 18, 2022
Amy Walther is the Vice President of Sales and Business Development for Westell, a leading provider of high-performance wireless infrastructure solutions focused on innovation and differentiation at the edge of communication networks where end users connect.
On today’s episode, Amy brings us through her career journey that led her to sales and how maybe an unconventional job as a professional cheerleader prepared her for her role as a sales leader. Amy touches on the challenges of being in sales as a woman and why it’s so important to hire self-starters and go getters.
Tune in to the episode to hear from Amy Walther, VP of Sales and Business Development to become inspired to keep pushing towards your goals and stay engaged no matter life’s challenges.
Quotes:
- “I came from a not so well to do area, and my mother was very ill as a child. So, I had to take care of her when I was little, and I always knew that I didn't want to struggle, and I wouldn't mind to have some money.” (3:04-3:22)
- “I started cheerleading as an older person for a professional NFL team. But the one thing I want to say is that, if you can do that in front of 80,000 people, you literally could do anything.” (11:09-12:06)
- “As a female, things are different. It's still not easy, right? I would get bypassed by people- didn't matter if I was better at it, it did not matter.” (14:16-14:32)
- “I really want to make sure that I don't have to tell anybody, anything twice. So, when I am trying to find those people, you know, there's a lot of questions that I ask to try to extract from them to see, you know, how they live their life and how they would work?” (20:33-20:51)
Links:
Monday Jun 13, 2022
Monday Jun 13, 2022
Jamie Shanks is the CEO of Pipeline Signals- a business built on making life easier for their clients. Based out of Toronto, Canada, Pipeline Signals does account monitoring, as well as map total addressable markets. This gives their clients valuable insights on where they can expand their pipeline, existing networks they can leverage, and other verticals that they can tap into.
On today’s episode, Jamie takes us through successes and failures that landed him in his role as Chief Executive Officer for a data mining company. Initially, he quit his job as VP of Sales of a SAS software company to start his own sales consultancy business, which he admits failed miserably but from his initial research an idea was born.
Tune into this week’s episode with Jamie Shanks, CEO of Pipeline Sales to hear why striking out on your own can lead to great things with unexpected outcomes.
Quotes:
- “At the ripe age of 30 I thought I knew everything there was to know about sales, and I decided I was going to quit my job and start a sales consultancy, which over the next two years failed miserably.” (1:10-1:22)
- “In the pain of trying to build pipeline for myself, I ultimately had to self-discover a new way.” (1:23-1:32)
- “Along that journey sellers would ask me, you're teaching me to mine intelligent sales intelligence out of LinkedIn, why don't you just do this for me?” (2:52-3:01)
- “It's kind of crazy that you ask your sellers to be researchers, so that's the problem we're solving.” (6:22-6:28)
Links:
Monday Jun 06, 2022
Monday Jun 06, 2022
Donna Serdula pioneered the concept of LinkedIn profile optimization, realizing early on that the LinkedIn profile was so much more than just an online resume. A job change in 2006 led her back to LinkedIn as Donna looked for tools to help her build a sales territory. It was during this time she had her LinkedIn epiphany and forged her LinkedIn 4 point methodology. By integrating LinkedIn into her sales process, she found tremendous success.
In 2009, she walked away from her successful sales career and founded Vision Board Media and LinkedIn-Makeover.com. Donna and her team of over 40 writers have helped thousands of executives, entrepreneurs, sales stars, business leaders, and professionals from around the world create professionally branded LinkedIn profiles.
She is the author of the book "LinkedIn Profile Optimization For Dummies," published by Wiley. Donna has been featured on Forbes, Business Insider, Time's Money Section, Wall Street Journal's Market Watch, LA Times, NBC, SiriusXM Radio's The Focus Group, and many other news outlets.
Tune into this episode to hear why LinkedIn Optimization is the key to your success and why Donna Serdula has built her career on leveraging this search engine to help her clients put their best foot forward.
Quotes:
- “I remember looking at it and thinking, this looks a lot like my resume. Let me let me pull up my old out of date, boring resume. Let me just copy and paste these fields right in” (3:07-3:22)
- “We've got to really start utilizing it in a smart, strategic way and at that point I started my company.” (8:22-8:30)
- “Why would I want to go to a place where people are trying to escape?” (12:17-12:19)
- “When a person looks at your LinkedIn profile and it says this person doesn't have any activity for the last 90 days… people like to do business with sales professionals that have a strong brand.” (14:57-15:20)
Links:
Donna's IG: Donna Serdula (@donnaserdula)
Monday May 23, 2022
Monday May 23, 2022
Frank Cespedes teaches at Harvard Business School. He has designed and delivered learning programs in areas such as innovation, talent and performance management, strategy, marketing, sales, leadership skills, and managing change. He has also consulted to companies in consumer goods, information technology, professional services, retailing, telecommunications, and financial services; and has been a Board member of start-up firms, corporations, private-equity companies, and the Education for Employment Foundation.
Frank has also written for numerous publications, but on today's episode we’re talking about his most recent book, Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World That Never Stops Changing. One of his former students said this about the book, ‘It is structured logically, easy to read, and clear. It’s worthy of being a desk reference for any owner or senior executive looking to maximize their sales performance."
Tune into today’s episode to learn about the extensive research Frank Cespedes has done in order to write his most recent book and pick up a copy if you would like to get expert insight on sales management that will work for you and your team!
Quotes:
- “I think it's a book that will help salespeople sell better, it will help sales managers allocate their resources more effectively.” (1:35-1:46)
- “If you look at the amount of money they spend annually on sales, hiring, training, development, etc., that number is often as big or bigger than their biggest capex projects. But it typically gets much less rigorous attention than buying software does.” (7:53-8:11)
- “The job of a manager is not to test people, the job is productivity, and maximizing time, to productivity. All of that is what onboarding is about, in my view.” (13:23-13:35)
Links:
Harvard Business School LinkedIn
Monday May 16, 2022
Monday May 16, 2022
Melissa Matthews is the VP of Sales for AZUL Hospitality Group a hotel management company based in San Diego. They are one of the largest management companies in Southern California that doesn’t typically have an investment or ownership stake in the properties that they manage.
Melissa wasn’t always in sales. It was a windy road from where she started as a graduate in International Affairs. She worked for a nonprofit organization called the National Council on US Arab Relations in Washington DC post graduate college. However, after 9/11 funding for those types of organizations fell by the wayside and she was out of a job. She ended up back in Atlanta with her parents interviewing for job after job until she happened to meet a woman hiring for a sales coordinator position for a hotel.
Tune into this episode, to learn how Melissa Matthews, VP of Sales has honed the art of looking for the uncomfortable in order to avoid remaining stagnant and continue her path of growth in her career.
Quotes:
- “Once you're at the pinnacle- you feel like you've learned all that you need to learn in your current position, don't be afraid to push yourself and look for that next challenge and look for the uncomfortable.” (5:28-5:40)
- “I would say that I have learned probably more in the past two years than I learned in the prior 80 of my career, and it's been an uncomfortable time. But looking back on it, I think its skill sets and knowledge that I wouldn't have gained otherwise.” (7:39-7:48)
- “It was very humbling, being unemployed, and looking for a job and I had really tried to stay in that field and look for a number of different positions and just couldn't find anything.” (9:26-9:39)
- “We invest in training, we invest in culture, we're consistently looking at our incentive plans.” (19:10-19:16)
Links:
AZUL Hospitality Group LinkedIn
AZUL Hospitality Group Website
Monday May 02, 2022
Monday May 02, 2022
Russell Brown, is the Vice President of Sales for Computacenter US, his priorities are to his team, his customers and partners and he supports their success by bringing IT solutions to address the demands of his customers’ businesses. Computacenter is a technology partner, utilized by large corporate and public sector organizations. They help their customers to source, transform and manage their IT infrastructure.
Russell has spent the last 20 years of his life growing and evolving within the Computacenter team. He started his sales journey working in the UK and only recently moved to Los Angeles to lead the sales team for their southwest business. Russell attributes his huge success to many of the people he’s met through his career path and the insight they’ve given him. One lesson he had to learn for himself was the importance of sharing your genuine self when showing up to help, especially as a leader in sales.
Tune into today’s episode to learn from Russell Brown’s success in sales as someone who has chased worthwhile opportunity all the way to sunny Los Angeles to be the VP of Sales for Computacenter US.
Quotes:
- “I'm hugely indebted to a lot of people that have helped support me over my career, and that that ranges from people just giving me time, so that I could listen, ask questions and learn, afford me space to make mistakes and learn from those people that have given me physical opportunity to progress my career.” (2:58-3:17)
- “You know, as soon as I started to give more of myself, I felt that I built deeper relationships.” (5:28-5:33)
- “I eventually learned that failure is actually a good thing you can dive into failure, and you can understand, what can you learn from that process? What can you learn to take forward tomorrow to be a little bit better?” (12:59-13:11)
Links:
Monday Apr 11, 2022
Monday Apr 11, 2022
Rhonda Petit is the CEO & Founder of 3x5 Coaching LLC and author of The Spirit of Selling. Rhonda is a champion mindset coach who works enthusiastically with individuals, groups, and companies to guide them in discovering their deepest desires, reaching their potential, and achieving their personal and professional goals.
In today’s episode, we discuss Rhonda’s book, The Spirit of Selling, as well as coaching style. Rhonda has been leveraging the law of vibration and why it’s important for salespeople to understand that their potential lies in their habitual behavior aka the subconscious mind. Rhonda’s unique coaching style gives great perspective on how one should approach the selling mindset.
Tune into today’s episode to learn from Rhonda Petit, author of The Spirit of Selling and champion mindset coach so you can better train your mind for success.
Quotes:
- “I just kept going and I really believe the book was kind of channeled through me. It was a really cool experience being an instrument for something like this to be produced.” (4:02-4:12)
- “In the first chapter there, what I'm trying to do is pull out most of the misconceptions that hold salespeople, anybody, business owners back from selling- one of the big ones is I think some people have an association of a salesperson with a con artist.” (5:56-6:14)
- “You can give people appreciation, you can acknowledge people, you can be consistent in your performance and consistent in your word and your integrity, you can provide excellence, when you show up, leave the person with an impression of increase.” (11:52-12:12)
Links:
The Spirit of Selling on Amazon
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Monday Apr 04, 2022
Dale Merrill is a sales thought leader and co-author of the Amazon #1 New Release book in Sales and Selling, Strikingly Different Selling: 6 Vital Skills to Stand Out and Sell More. He is a global managing director in FranklinCovey’s sales performance practice where he helps clients dramatically grow revenues and profitability.
In today’s episode, Dale walks us through his book, Strikingly Different Selling: 6 Vital Skills to Stand Out and Sell More. The inspiration of his book came to him after deciding to do a multi-year research project on how sellers can stand out. What was his conclusion? “You have to be relevant, distinct and memorable.”
Tune in to today’s episode with Dale Merrill, author of Strikingly Different Selling: 6 Vital Skills to Stand Out and Sell More to learn about how you can stand out when you’re selling.
Quotes:
- “We decided that there was nothing that was meaningful that had hit the sales world for like a decade and so we kicked off a multi-year research project to figure out how can sellers stand out.” (1:27-1:40)
- “You have to be relevant, distinct and memorable.” (9:53-9:56)
- “It's in the experience and in the engagement- it's the sellers who understand the needs of the buyer the best, and then articulates that in a way that we would describe as relevant, distinctive, memorable.” (17:21-17:32)
Links:
Strikingly Different Selling: 6 Vital Skills to Stand Out And Sell More on Amazon