Sell By Being Human

How do you win a case when the facts are against you, the law is against you, and everyone in the room knows it? How do you persuade a jury to see your client as a human being instead of a headline? And what does that have to do with selling, leading, or having a difficult conversation with your spouse? In this episode of Sell by Being Human , host Alex Smith sits down with Jennifer Gardner, a Los...

What if the secret to building a brand people love isn’t about being the biggest or the loudest, but about winning something deeper? Warren Kornblum calls it “share of heart.” After a career that took him from creative director to Global CMO of Toys “R” Us, he’s convinced it’s the only metric that truly matters. In this episode of Sell by Being Human, host Alex Smith sits down with Warren Kornblum...

Can you really learn to sell by watching a course, memorizing a script, or practicing with an AI bot? Alex Moses says no, not if you want the skill to stick. In this episode of Sell by Being Human , host Alex Smith sits down with Alex Mozes, CEO of Gravity Learning and one of the first employees at Udemy. Alex shares his journey from scaling a learning marketplace to founding a company built on a...

The clock is ticking. You have 30 seconds before someone decides you're not worth their time but there are people you can't stop paying attention to. Every time they post, you read it. When they speak, you listen. When they reach out, you reply. You don't know exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the way, they became impossible to ignore. They didn't get there by shouting louder or postin...

How do you become the kind of person people trust enough to refer? How much does your reputation influence a sale before you ever have the chance to make your pitch? And in a world where AI can create the perfect sales message, what makes people trust the person behind it? In this episode of Sell by Being Human , Alex Smith sits down with Stephen Uman, a sales leader, coach, and speaker with more...

What if the biggest leadership advantage isn't experience, strategy, or authority—but your ability to genuinely connect with people? In this episode of Sell by Being Human , host Alex Smith sits down with Wayne Barrington, founder and CEO of The Jaro Group, executive coach, leadership consultant, and former Boeing executive who transformed one of the company's lowest-performing teams into one of i...

Do what is hard, and your life will be easy. Do what is easy, and your life will be hard. It's a simple idea, but for Josh Mastel, it became the philosophy that transformed every part of his life. In this episode of Sell by Being Human , host Alex Smith sits down with Josh Mastel, co-owner of Innovien Solutions, a tech solutions and staffing firm serving onshore and nearshore talent that's approac...

What if the biggest obstacle standing between you and success isn't a lack of skill, talent, or opportunity but a story you've been telling yourself for years? In this episode of Sell by Being Human , Alex Smith sits down with Coach Monique DeMonaco, founder of EQ Wize, emotional intelligence expert, executive coach, and author of Most People Don't Need a Therapist, They Just Need Change . With mo...

Could the most powerful sales skill have nothing to do with persuasion and everything to do with seeing someone's potential before they can see it themselves? In this episode of Sell by Being Human, Alex Smith sits down with Maximos Lih, a former Google recruiter, Google Ventures coach, and founder of Emboldened LLC. Maximos has helped scale everything from early-stage startups (including Uber in...

In sales, they always say: stay professional and never rock the boat, right? But think about it. Who do buyers actually remember? The professional who checks all the boxes or the real human with smiles, energy, and personality? In this episode of Sell by Being Human, host Alex Smith sits down with April Palmer, Account Executive at Duckbill, adjunct professor at VCU, and self-described "hot mess b...

When was the last time a salesperson helped you make a truly confident decision? In this episode of the Sell by Being Human podcast, Alex Smith sits down with Mark Kosoglow, Chief Revenue Officer at Deutsche Bank and former CRO at Catalyst Software, to talk about what selling actually looks like when you strip away the scripts. From selling shoes as a teenager to helping scale Outreach to $250M, M...

Did you know the idea of closing might be the single worst thing to ever happen to sales? In this episode of Sell by Being Human , host Alex Smith sits down with Steve Heroux, founder of The Sales Collective, author of The Sales Contrarian , and former #1 Cutco salesperson in the country, to dismantle everything you thought you knew about selling. Steve’s journey started exactly where you might ex...

What if I told you you’re struggling in sales because you’ve been approaching it the wrong way? In this episode of the Sell by Being Human podcast, Alex Smith sits down with sales coach and entrepreneur Natasha Hemmingway to flip the script on everything you think you know about selling. Her message is simple but powerful. Sales is serving. And hustle? It might actually be pushing your dream clien...

Summary: Today I bring on executive communications coach Amos Balongo, who shares insights on the importance of human connection in sales. I'm always interested when people come from completely different cultures to sell themselves and what they do. They are corced to learn how to see people as individuals and Amos will share how to do that in your own life. It seems unlikely that a boy from Afric...

Summary: This episode I speak with Mark McDougall, a web designer and developer, about the importance of human connection in sales as a product designer. In Mark's line of work. he has to connect to business owners, marketers, and entrepeneurs on ways to make their websites more effective. Notice I didn't say, he has to tell people their baby looks ugly? We talk about how empathy and understanding...

Summary: I'm kicking off 2026 with a conversation with Rick DeLisi, a thought leader in customer service and AI. Rick co-authored "Digital Customer Service: Transforming Customer Experience for An On-Screen World and is a leading researcher on providing world class customer experiences. If you have ever had to contact any company for a customer service issue - you know what it feels like to get po...

Summary: What can you learn about sales and connections from a guy on a mission to connect housands of people via cocktail parties? Today I bring on Eric Melchor, a channel manager at Honeywell, and a Texan at heart living in Bucharest. Those two things may not go together but Eric followed his wife to Europe and he's connected hundreds of people over conversations at local cocktail parties. We ex...

Summary: Today we bring on Jen Mueller, a seasoned sports broadcaster and communication expert. Jen Mueller is a business communication expert and the founder of Talk Sporty to Me, where she helps companies level up their communication skills with actionable strategies inspired by her 25-year career as a sports broadcaster. An Emmy-award-winning producer, Jen is in her 16th season as the Seattle S...

Summary: Today I speak to Jared Cook, a seasoned expert in customer success and sales. Jared has most recently been a SR VP of Customer Experience at Docebo and has held senior roles in Customer Success at companies like Domo and Adobe. He is the founder of Crush Churn Consulting where he helps companies reduce churn by 30%. Our conversation explores the importance of human connection in sales, th...

Summary: Today I bring on Kevin Yates, known as the L&D Detective, to explore the intersection of authenticity, resilience, and effective learning and development practices. I knew that I needed to talk to Kevin after seeing him present at our conference. He was able to connect with the crowd in a unique way with his engaging talk and also shared inisghts of how he sold big ideas in previous r...

Summary: Today I sit down with Dr. Miriam Kirmayer, a renowned expert on friendship and human connection, to discuss the importance of building meaningful relationships in the workplace and how we underestimate principles of friendship. As she likes to say, "We overestimate the amount of both energy and discomfort that can come from reaching out, initiating plans, And we underestimate the amount o...

Summary: Today's episode is with Stephen Steers, a sales consultant, keynote speaker and author. We explore the art of storytelling in sales. Not how to tell your story but how to help people tell a better version of their own story. When you can help someone better understand themselves and through your interaction you better understand them., that's where magic happens. Stephen has come through...

Summary: Alot of people reach out to me to inquire about being a guest but this one stood out amongst almost 150 episodes. Dre Baldwin was the first to make me a personalized video and it landed with me. Dre Baldwin is a former professional athlete turned entrepreneur and performance coach. Dre shares his unique framework for success, emphasizing the importance of discipline, mental toughness, and...

Summary: Have you ever wondered if or how human connection happens in the military? For someone that's never been in the military like myself, I've often thought the military is about a chain of command and an order structure. That's it. You follow orders or else. Human connection and order seem to be opposing forces. But today's guest says that's not always the case. People get sold on staying or...

Summary: Have you ever wondered what the best people do to build high quality business relationships? Today I talk to a guy that devoted seven years of his lif studying just that. And the insights he's gained from asking exdecutives one simple question. "Can you think of the best person you've ever worked with from a vendor/partner perspective and what made the so great?" Today, Dr. Ryan O'Sulliva...