Conversations with Women in Sales

I hadn't planned an episode about "She Sells" but jumped at the chance when a wonderful interviewer, Caroline Jones, offered to ask me about it. This session is dedicated to those who helped me with their stories and stats which are included in the book. It is exciting, too, that it just won "FIRST PLACE" in Top Sales Magazine's Sales Book of the Year. Wow.  00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00...

Kristie's parents were both in real estate sales and Kristie grew up hearing her parents  talk at the dinner table about commissions, sales, and more. After getting a degree in Journalism from University of Kansas, she ended up as a waitress and then worked for the legendary Kansas City department store called The Jones Co (later became Macy's)  Kristie worked as a sales leader for companies like...

We had a big year at Women Sales Pros and now are going through the review of all of our wonderful podcast guests in 2023. I would like to thank all of our guests for their focus and contribution to topics we discussed such as: Getting into sales in the first place as a woman or another "only"  Growing in your sales career Becoming a sales leader - what is required?  Dealing with a "male majority"...

Riley Blaisdell is currently a Major Market Account Executive at Paycor. In his AE role, I'd say Riley has done more for helping shine a light on women in sales than many senior leaders I know. He has done this through his growing visibility on LinkedIn. Right now during "Women in Sales" month, he's talking up different women in sales each day.  I noticed that Riley has this list of women he gladl...

Rana Salman, MBA PhD, is the author of the new book, Sales Essentials: The Tools You need at Every Stage to Close More Deals and Crush your Quota. She is CEO of Salman Consulting, started in research, and stumbled (as she says) into sales and consulting.  Rana is also co-founder of WISE (Women in Sales Enablement) We had a great conversation about her childhood and how her dad's sales role made a...

Miram (Mimi) Ebrahim is Brand Sales Leader for the GTM Team at Yelp. She has been in sales and sales leadership for more than eight years and has a background in television production and has an MBA. We talked about how she got into sales in the first place, what she loves about sales, and has tips for reaching prospects in addition to lots of other great advice. "When I think of No, I think of KN...

After hearing Rhasheeda Hughes on a panel webinar, I had to invite her to join our podcast so that others could learn about her journey and her strategies for being a successful woman in sales leadership.  Rhasheeda has a proven record as a sales expert, trainer, and team leader with a reputation for enhancing organizational capabilities. She led a national team of 10 Account Managers with full re...

It was a LinkedIn post that got my attention.  Sales managers are acting poorly, according to Tara Ryan's coachees. As an Executive and Leadership Coach, she's heard more complaints from women in sales roles about managers with lack of empathy, perhaps fear-motivated.  I couldn't let the conversation go - so we recorded.  What is important to you in a sales manager?  I wrote about making reps more...

When you think about careers for women in sales, we typically talk about revenue responsibility roles plus sales leadership. In the past 5-7 years we started to see sales enablement roles as well as RevOps. .Personally I get a little confused between enablement and ops, so I brought on a team of RevOps leaders at Xactly to help us understand what their roles are and how they both got into them. Me...

Jaquelin Jenkins is Executive Director of Client Services at Tangible Security, having worked previously at Citrix and other orgs. She graduated from University of Alabama with degrees in Political Science and Communications - so how'd she end up in sales roles? Listen to this episode and learn how she pivoted once she realized how much she loved working with people and the idea of sales in her he...

Radhika Shukla is a long time sales leader in the tech sales space, working for big brands like Microsoft and IBM. in Radhika's own words, she wants everyone to master the art of Sales: Serve passionately, Connect authentically and Thrive collectively. We have a wonderful conversation about all of the skills and traits that women bring to the table when we are able to be our authentic selves.  Joi...

This is an important episode for anyone who has ever been paid less than their peers doing the same role, or who was fired while pregnant (yep, it still happens in 2023) or who got downsized and didn't negotiate severance - my guest, Dan Goodman will cover it all.  Dan is Founder and CEO of TruCommish, an app that helps verify true commission - and Dan also has been shining a light on horrible com...

Niya Khatri is a long way from her home of Kathmandu, Nepal. She is a Millenial b2b seller who has lived in Pune, India, Colorado Springs, Toronto, and now the Bay Area, SF. She brings a wonderful and different perspective as a woman of color, as a woman "up and coming" in sales, and has openly helped her employers to improve revenues by looking through a different lens. We had a fun conversation....

Katherine Andruha has been leading sales teams for 14 years at brands like Aruba Networks, Anaplan, Sugar CRM, Cloudflare, and now at Simpplr. Katherine's advice, "Focus on your job, and hit your numbers - you'll be OK" -  She also advises to speak up about your career goals and be intentional.  Katherine is now focused on strategy in her leadership roles. She encourages women to not just settle f...

Lori Harmon is a consummate tech sales leader. I've had the pleasure to know her over 8 or 9 years. In her recent role at Cloudflare, Lori is Global Head of Business Development.  Reflecting on her 20+ years of building, leading, and transforming inside sales organizations, and as author of "42 Rules for Building a High-Velocity Inside Sales Team: Actionable Guide to Creating Inside Sales Teams Th...

Karen Keating is a Strategic Account Director at Salesforce. She's created a great life through professional selling - and always working at the Enterprise level of selling. She lives in Utah where her passion for the snow continues. We had a great conversation about how she got into sales in the first place and someone "saw" something in her to encourage her to consider selling. Once she got bit...

It doesn't seem fair that our society has developed boys and men who can be loud and agressive and everyone thinks that is fine. When a woman is not even agressive but assertive, and speaks up, she is often labeled one of an assortment of names - one is five letters and starts with a B. Women who thrive in sales leadership learn the "dance" between not being "too much" and being "enough".  There i...

Stephanie Chung is a transformational expert and a commercial strategist with passion for people. Stephanie serves on many boards. She's led businesses through significant change in unprecedented times which has given her great appreciation and resolve to align organizational goals and amazing teams behind a shared vision and purpose to achieve the desired results.  As an accomplished, innovative...

Tonni has been a sales leader in tech companies for over 14 years. I wondered how she started out in a leadership role so early in her career. We also talked about momhood / parenthood as she now has two kids so juggling family as well as work and a sales team is a lot. We talked about how great leaders who ARE parents can be in hitting goals and being productive. We also talked about how many wom...

If nothing else, connect with Nirvanna to follow her LinkedIn posts and shares - she is so great at putting things "out there" on topics like leadership, stress, inspiration, and dealing with change. I met Nirvanna in Boston a number of years ago. She's always been focused on her professional development, and committed to being in a leadership role. Learn how she rose from individual contributor t...

Nancy Calabrese is Founder and CEO of One of a Kind Sales - a lead generation and appointment setting firm working primarily with B2B companies, helping them grow revenue. Her team loves cold calling, lead development, and top of the funnel services. Most people don't, so this has given Nancy a robust business for many years. In our conversation she'll share her story, how she grew to love sales s...

This is a quick teaser about what is ahead for 2023 on the podcast, Conversations with Women in Sales, as well as with the "women in sales" community. Lori is solo on this one to share some information and perhaps a little inspiration at the end. 

We had so many wonderful episodes this past year. Lori Richardson, podcast host, will share the top  listened to episodes and some of her favorite topics and guests. Plus she puts out a call at the end for everyone to do a hard look at their past year and review, then set some stretch goals and find an accountability partner or team. Lori mentions free tools to download for helping you evaluate 20...

Laura Colón focused on public relations in college at the suggestion of a counselor. She learned, however, that PR does not pay well right out of college. She went a different direction and ended up in sales, but is grateful for the learning she got about communication and PR which has helped her first as an individual contributor in sales, then as a sales leader. Laura has worked on both coasts,...

Porchia Jenkins is currently Manager of Mid-Market Sales Development at a company called TripActions. But Porchia didn't start out in college thinking about going into sales... nope, she was focused on kineseology and exercise science. Got her Bachelors degree, and then her Masters in it. She was ready for her career in physical fitness - first working with adults, and then with kids. Somehow she...