Creating Distance

We made it to episode 200. I still remember the first podcast I ever did. My friend, Ryan Warner, and I grabbed a six-pack of beer, a recorder and went over to my boss's (at the time) apartment for a conversation. We sipped Grapefruit Sculpins and talked about how attitude is everything. It took two months between conducting that interview and when the public got to hear it. It wasn't due to any t...

Ryan Heaphy is the Director of Sales at Qualia, which recently raised a $65M Series D and is valued at over $1B (unicorn status). Put simply: Ryan Heaphy is focused on creating the Navy SEALs of sales teams - the most disciplined, focused, powerful team in Austin.  Ryan and I had an outstanding conversation talking about his post-grad life in the Caribbean, his failure to success story in sales, a...

Penelope Yamauchi is a Partnerships Account Executive at Vendition, which is an end-to-end Sales Development program for onboarding, training, and preparing aspiring SDRs for a career in Tech Sales. As a former collegiate swimmer, she brings discipline, intensity and creativity to help her stand out from her peers. Here are her 3 tips:  Create LinkedIn content to help your prospects find you  Send...

People - this is hands down one of the best interviews we’ve done and Scott Barker is one of my favorite guests.  If you don’t know Scott, well… you’re probably not in SaaS sales.  Scott Barker is the Head of Strategic Engagement at Outreach, Operating Partner at GTM Fund and Head of Partnerships at Sales Hacker. He’s also involved with the Sales Engagement Podcast, Revenue Collective, an advisor...

Petey Dandini is an Enterprise Sales Development Rep at LeanIX and former fitness coach at Orangetheory Fitness. Petey also runs the Winning By Losing Project, focusing on helping inspire others through his weight loss and fitness journey.  Petey joins the show to give his two tips for success as an SDR: 1) Humanizing the sales process and 2) Actually giving a shit (hat tip to John Barrows). I thi...

Mental health and burnout are two things that are not talked about enough in the world of sales. Bryan Smith is here today to help break it down for us. Bryan is an ex Wellness Professional/Pro Sports Performance coach turned repeat founder and startup advisor. As co-founder at LEON, he hast started the first-ever AI-driven employee performance platform. Previously, Bryan founded AthleteList and w...

Leadership is one of the most challenging skills to learn. And being a first-time sales manager can be a brutal experience if you're not prepared, which I've experienced first hand. In this episode, Brian Marzo gives us his tips for leading a sales team with radical candor and his best tips for retaining the knowledge you gain from reading. Brian is the Director of Sales at RTM Business Group and...

It's easy to get lost in the numbers of your sales career: activities, meetings, pipeline, quota - it never stops. Christine Rogers is here to remind us that it's not just about numbers: it's all about the people. Christine is the COO and President of Aspireship and has spent two decades in the sales and entrepreneurial world. In this episode, we cover: Why people are the most important part of yo...

Ashley Zagst is made a pivot from her marketing career into sales last year, joining Chili Piper as an SDR. She shares her story of why she decided to switch to sales and how her marketing background has been helpful in getting her off the ground. She also shares her top 2 tips for other SDRs: An insatiable desire to learn from groups like RevGenius, SDR Nation and the SDR Defenders Gratitude thro...

2020 was one of the worst sales years in recent memory. There were layoffs, furloughs, missed quotas and low W2’s for many sales reps. We need a big bounce back year in 2021. And there is nobody better to help kick us off the year than Larry Long Jr. Larry is the Director of Collegiate Sales at Teamworks and one of the most passionate and enthusiastic people I know. His energy jumps through the sc...

When I think of infomercials, I think of cheesy products being peddled by even cheesier people. I think of watching late-night TV and seeing the wonders of the Shamwow, The Magic Bullet or the Snuggie. That is NOT what we're talking about today. In one of the more creative prospecting moves I've seen in a while, Carolyn Dorricott decided to create an infomercial for her prospects. It's absolute go...

Today's guest has one of the most impressive pedigrees of my 189 podcasts guests to date. At UCSD, James Nielsen was a 4X NCAA All-American Track Athlete, 2X National Champion, 3X Academic All-American, and President of his fraternity. While getting his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford, James made the US Olympic Trials and was a Professional Ironman TriAthlete. His professional journey...

The traditional sales demo model sucks. There, I said it. Here's a normal demo flow I've seen hundreds of times: salesperson kicks off the call with an upfront contract (do we still have 30 minutes?), they proudly display a slide with logos of all of their customers and then take a hard left turn into whatever software they're showcasing. After 16-minutes of feature-dumping, the salesperson lifts...

As crazy of a year as 2020 has been for most of us, I think we all have bright spots. For me, meeting Richard Harris is absolutely one of those bright spots. Richard is not only one of the brightest minds in B2B sales but he's also one of the most authentic people you'll meet. You're going to enjoy this episode. You may like hearing Richard's story of how he got into tech sales. You may relate to...

Do you feel stuck on the "normal sales path"? Do you feel uninspired going from BDR to AE to Sales Manager? If so, this episode is for you. Maria Bross is the perfect messenger for this topic. Put simply: she's a badass. Maria is currently the Sales Enablement Manager at BoomTown, a top 100 LinkedIn Social Sales Star, active in the Revenue Collective community, and is a South Carolina State Powerl...

Do you know the cure to all problems in sales? A big fat pipeline. Having a sales pipeline helps you to sell more confidently, negotiate better, stay on track, and hit your goals. Without a steady stream of opportunities, salespeople are exposed and vulnerable to miss quota. That's why I'm excited to have John Barrows on the podcast today. I've labeled John the King of SaaS Sales. He owns his own...

Jeff Harris is the Co-Founder of Parchment. Founded in 2003 and venture-backed, Parchment was acquired by Brentwood Associates in February 2020. Jeff was not only the Co-Founder but the main salesperson and evangelist of the company for 17+ years. In this conversation, we discuss: Jeff's first unsuccessful entrepreneurial venture The 17-year path to acquisition Jeff's sales mentality that helped t...

Galem Girmay is an Account Executive at Flywire and Co-founder of RevGenius, a community of revenue generating sales, marketing, and revops professionals. From growing up with two foster families in Sweden, Galem has an interesting background and has built her career and network from the ground up. I got to meet Galem this year while we co-hosted a live webinar series called MillennialX Coffee Tal...

Justin Welsh is the founder of JW Strategic Advisory. Prior to that, Justin spent a decade in sales and leadership positions. After a few failed efforts, Justin landed at ZocDoc helped to grow it into one of the fastest companies in the world. Justin then took on the role of CRO at PatientPop and spent 5 years scaling them from $0 to $50M and from 1 to 150+ salespeople. Along the way, he's grown h...

Tom Short is the Chief Growth Officer at Lappin180. Put simply: Tom knows that mindset is everything. He brings such a great perspective to the sales community, removes his ego, and reminds himself that "nobody cares, work harder". In this conversation, we discuss: Tom's unique approach to networking Tom's 2 hour morning routine How he prospects for 5 hours a day (!) How to have a better conversat...

Ernest Owusu is the Sr Director of Sales Development at 6sense. Before his sales career, Ernest spent 3+ years playing professional football in the NFL, CFL and AFL. Since hanging up the cleats, Ernest has made noise in the world of sales, quickly climbing the ranks and becoming a top voice in B2B sales. In this conversation, we discuss: What Ernest learned from playing football with NFL legend Ja...

Nick Fedotoff is the VP of SMB Sales at Salesforce. Nick recently celebrated his 10-year anniversary at the company, as he's climbed the ranks from BDR to AE all the way up to sales management. Nick was also the 3rd guest of this podcast almost 3 years ago. This is a great episode for anyone looking to sell more, climb into sales leadership or just geek out on personal development. In this convers...

Henry Frazier III is a licensed agent at New York Life Insurance Company. More importantly, Henry's a friend of mine and inspiration of mine. This is a wide-ranging conversation about sales, about life, about why mindset is so important and about Henry's ambitions for helping in the social justice movement. You're gonna love this one. In this conversation, we discuss: Why Henry's getting up at 4 a...

Kris Rudeegraap is the CEO of Sendoso, the leading Sending Platform. It feels like every SaaS CEO is an engineer or product genius that spends the majority of his or her time coding. Kris is an example of a salesperson turned CEO, which gives me hope for my entrepreneurial ventures in the future. As an Account Executive at Talkdesk, Kris had an idea: there has to be a better way to create a connec...

Scott Leese is one of the most recognized sales leader in SaaS. He is a 6X Sales Leader, 3x Founder, 2X Author and Sales Consultant & Strategic Advisor to many people around the world. Scott is like the real superhero of sales. He has experience of scaling companies, he's surprisingly accessible for people to chat with him and he keeps it real 100% of the time. He's one of my favorite people I've...