The Goats of Growth

My guest today is Mike Restivo, the Chief Revenue Officer for Bullhorn, the global leaders in software for the staffing industry.  In this episode we cover a varety of topics ranging from : -The business plan he wrote in college that started it all -What it was like to be one of the first employees and why he almost quit  -How is inflated ego prevented him from getting promoted sooner -Stragetic d...

My guest today is the Andre Riley, the CRO of iHire, a platform that uses innovative technology to connect industry-focused and career-minded candidates with employers across 57 talent communities. Andre is a top-performing SaaS Revenue & Growth Leader with a proven track record of achieving hypergrowth revenue targets through aggressive sales and marketing initiatives that deliver market share an...

My guest today is the Brendon Bornancin, the CEO and inventor of Seamless AI, which delivers the worlds best sales leads using AI. He is also a motivtional speaker and the author of 4 best selling books, including "Whatever It Takes". In todays episode we cover: - How being put on a performance plan was the catalyst to everything - The orgins of Seamless A.I. and the moment he broke down and cried...

My guest today is Steven Messer, who is a serial entrepreneur and the Co-Founder of Collective[i], which provides the most comprehensive solution on the market for companies seeking to optimize revenue using AI, connections, and collaboration. Prior to Collective [i], he co-founded Linkshare, an affiliate marketing service provider, which eventually sold to Rakuten for a $425 million. In todays ep...

My guest today is Ken Ferguson, the CRO of Virtualitics, which offers innovative next generation enterprise AI, machine learning, and 3D data visualization solutions. Ken has a proven track record of success as a revenue leader and enjoys building teams and solving complex problems. In todays episode we discuss how differentiantion can and should be used as a go-to-market strategy, along with othe...

My guest today is Dustin Gransberry, Vice President of Sales for Pico Mes, which is a factory operations platform built for small and medium size factories. In todays episode we discuss, - Onboarding and developing yourself and your team - Assesing the right candidates. - Micro habits that elevate your skillset in sales - The link between personal growth and sales success - Always remaning curious...

My guest today is Denice Sakakeeny, a Corporate Finance Consultant and outsourced CFO that helps executives and investors remove impediments to organizational growth. In todays episode we talk about, Signals of organizational distress indicating layoffs might be coming Highest and best use of company assets Operational excellence as a strategic advantage Economics of a organization Strategic align...

My guest, Steven Hoffmen, also known as Captain Hoff, is the CEO and chairman of Founders Space, a global innovation hub for entrepreneurs, corporations and investors with over 50 partners in 22 countries. Captain Hoff is also a venture investor, founder of three venture backed and a bootstrap startups as well as the author of several award winning books.   In todays episode you will here how Capt...

My guest, Dale Brown, is the Chief Revenue Officer at PachyDerm. P achyderm is the leader in data versioning and pipelines for MLOps and they provide the data foundation tha t allows science teams to automate and scale their machine learning lifecycle. Dale's vast career has consistently put him at the intersection of sales execution, revenue, product development, and go-to-market results. In toda...

Don Hammond, COO at Lightning Fit, the undisputed industry leader in EMS fitness technology, has scaled start-ups from 0 to 8 figures, and from 8 to 9 figures. In this episode we unpack some of the keys to his success. Including: The 3 legs of the stool needed for a start-up to scale. How to build a scalable and repeatable process. The importance of teaching the basics. How VPs can grow into CROs....

I'm celebrating episode 100 with David Barron, Global Director of Sales, leading teams in North America for HubSpot, the unquestionable pioneers of inbound marketing software and a leading marketing automation. Since it's early days, HubSpot has evolved into much more, including the products that David's team sells, which are HubSpot CMS, Service Hub and Operations Hub.   In todays episode we disc...

I just finished reading "The Qualified Sales Leader" by John McMahon, 5X CRO at start-ups that IPO'd, and a Board member and Advisor to a number of other notable companies--- which make him the G.O.A.T. If you're a Founder, CEO, Sales Leader, or anyone else in the sales ecosystem, especially if you want to know how the GOATS of Growth lead and scale world-class sales teams, this is a must read.  T...

My guest, John Sheffield, is the 'Vice President of Sales' at Yottaa, which the the leading cloud platform for eCommerce acceleration.  In this episode we discuss: Developing sales methodology Behavior traits and successful sales habits Building confidence in your sales team. Sustaining low a attrition rate Evaluating and hiring new team members Overcoming setbacks and encouraging your team The va...

Joe Breen, a senior sales leader who has led start-ups through hyper-growth, including SecureWorks, which grew from $1M to $300M---leading to an eventual acquisition by Dell. Most recently, he led Nuspire, an MSSP, to a 5 year revenue goal in just under 3.5 years, while scaling the sales team from 14 people to 40.  In this episode we discuss the strategic decisions he made that had the biggest imp...

My guest, Rouzbeh Rotabi, is the Chief Revenue Officer at Orum, which is  a platform for frictionless money movement. He's also a Limited Partner at Stage 2 Capital, a venture capital fund led and backed by elite go-to-market professionals. In the is episode we discuss: The importance of maintaining discipline The big strategic decisions he made shortly after at Orum which took a great deal of dis...

My guest, Brent Keltner, is making his second appearance on Over Quota. After this episode, go back and listen to episode 73 where he talks about the 3 pillars of growth acceleration. Brent is the Founder and President of Winalytics, which helps clients reach their top growth potential by shifting from product-driven conversations to authentic conversations that anchor on buyer-defined value. Prio...

My guest,Manuel Rivera, has held leadership roles with global technology and pre-IPO companies managing domestic and international partner programs, alliances, and channel sales. He's currently the Vice President of Global Channel Sales for Constella Intelligence, which provides Digital Risk Protection for some of the world's largest organizations. In the episode we discuss the mechanics of how to...

I didn't interview a guest for this episode. Instead, I give a summary of my recent trip to San Francisco at the SaaStr event where 10,000 people got together to network, learn and have fun. It was worth all the time and eevry day.  I also give a quick update on The GOATS of Growth, which is a book I'm working. on.

Rob Stevens is one of the people that I consider to be on my personal Board of Directors, who's made some fantastic introductions and opened up others doors along the way–including helping me with getting guests for this podcast.  We met on the heels of his successful 7 year run at Kiva Systems, which culminated in a $775M acquisition by Amazon Robotics back in 2012.  He then led sales, marketing...

In this episode you will hear me highlight the 10 most cited traits, mentioned by my guests this year, that are present in top salespeople they've managed. I was reluctant to do it in order of most cited to least cited, because they are all paramount to the success of top sales reps, but I did it anyways to make it more interesting.  Over Quota is sponsored by the j. David Group, a retained sales...

If you're a Founder or an early-stage Sales Leader, you'll appreciate and recognize many of the topics covered in my latest podcast interview with Brian Benedict, Global Vice President of Sales at Narrator.  If you aspire to be, on the precipice of, or have just started your journey as an expeditionary sales leader, you'll appreciate learning about the mechanics of what it takes to get the flywhee...

Teaching and coaching enterprise sales reps to become HIGH-PERFORMING enterprise sales reps is difficult–to say the least. There are many variables to reaching greatness that sales leaders and coaches need to navigate. Is a rep struggling because she doesn't understand the value proposition well enough? Is a rep struggling because he's in a new territory and simply hasn't generated enough activity...

(Republished from June 2020.) I recently interviewed Samuel Clemens, Partner at Accomplice VC & Founder of Reprise, which helps customer facing teams capture, edit, and assemble the perfect demo every time.  We discussed the 3 types of sales leaders critical to early stage start-up success. The first type is simply founder-led sales because they know the product best and should be able to close th...

Whether I'm interviewing a GTM leader on my podcast or confidentially for a retained search, I tend to geek out over the "how" of how success was achieved by my guest. It's like when we first learned long division. It wasn't enough to give the right answer, we had to show the teacher "our work". How we got there, so they know it wasn't simply luck, memory, or a hidden calculator. From onboarding t...

Graham Collins has given more than 400 compensation consultations over last 2 years, so I couldn't think of a better guest to have on to learn all the ins and outs of how comp plans and quotas are established. Whether you're a Founder trying to get your arms around hiring your first sales rep, an established sales leader, or a quota carrying AE, you'll learn something from this episode, including:...