WMYT - What makes YOU Tick? Tech Leaders Career Stories

A great product isn't enough anymore. Investors are backing businesses that look scalable, organised, and operationally mature. In this Making Revenue Tick panel, Rich Washington is joined by three of Canada's sharpest operators to unpack what investors are really evaluating beneath the pitch. Dean Leesui brings the technology and digital maturity lens, Deanne Kelleher brings operations an...

This is a WMYT takeover of Field Notes where Rich Washington and James Bissell cover two topics that every revenue leader should be thinking about right now. Topic one: AI in hiring. Most businesses are banning candidates from using AI in their application process — but Rich argues this is exactly the wrong response. If these people will have access to AI in the role, why ban it in the process? Th...

Jenny Hamrick has been working in AI since long before most people knew what to call it. In this episode, she joins Rich and Tolu to explore the questions most people aren't willing to ask about where artificial intelligence is actually taking us. The conversation covers why fear is the primary reason people avoid the AI discussion, what it means that LLMs are already operating at 67 to 78% of...

In this Best Bits episode of Making Revenue Tick, Richard Washington sits down with Dustin Clinard, CEO of Ignis AI, former CRO of Gatekeeper, and a revenue leader who has spent more than 20 years helping companies scale across North America and Europe. The topic? Executive communication. More specifically, why being right isn't enough. Drawing on experience as a CEO, CRO, board member, and gr...

Amit Stark has spent many years scaling revenue for American public listed companies across EMEA — taking businesses from tens of millions to north of 100 million ARR across multiple regions and markets. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, Amit shares the fundamental mistakes that cause companies to fail when scaling to enterprise in EMEA — and what to do instead. Amit also covers why a 180-da...

Why do good people miss quota and bad people hit quota? Revenue only tells you what happened — not why it happened. In this Best Bits clip, Douglas Mancini and Charles Talbot join Richard Washington to discuss why behaviours are a better predictor of long-term success than results, how to define what good looks like before you hire, and what happens when you only measure performance against quota....

Dan Hurwitz, CRO and one of New York's most respected revenue leaders, joins Rich for a wide-ranging conversation on AI, value, and what modern selling actually looks like in 2026.Fresh from a panel in front of 70 enterprise AI tech buyers at New York Tech Week, Dan shares what the room was really talking about — why 95% of AI projects fail to deliver value, why success is still largely undefi...

We are taught to look for a job the wrong way. The same way we did 10 years ago. We update their CV.We click Easy Apply. We submit hundreds of applications. Then wonder why nobody replies. The reality? The best opportunities are often filled before they ever reach a job board. In this episode, Richard Washington, Founder of Tick Talent and host of @whatmakesyoutick breaks down the sales-led job se...

What if half your performance had nothing to do with skill — and everything to do with your mental wiring? In this episode, Rich and Tolu sit down with Kevin Bailey, founder of Dream Fuel and neuroscience master's graduate from King's College London, to explore the science behind high performance, the difference between happiness and pleasure, and why most ambitious people are running on t...

Most hiring failures aren't about skills, they're about behaviours. In this Best Bits episode, Richard Washington, Founder of Tick Talent and creator of The Multiplier Scorecard™, breaks down the CORE4 framework: the four behaviours that separate a Multiplier from an Adder, Subtractor, or Divider, and why the old models are failing modern startups. If you're building a team and making...

Why do enterprise deals stall even when the buyer likes your product? Why do great sales calls lead to “let me think about it”? And why do so many B2B buyers disappear after showing genuine interest? In this Best Bits episode of Making Revenue Tick, Brent Adamson — co-author of The Challenger Sale and author of The Framemaking Sale — breaks down the psychology behind modern enterprise buying decis...

Two topics. Against the clock. James opens with something he sees constantly, deals that look live and aren't. He gets into why champions burn out mid-process, why buyers go dark on the people they like most, and what the research says is the single biggest factor in whether a deal closes or dies. Rich follows with a metric most businesses aren't tracking, even though it takes five minutes...

Startups think they’ve found product-market fit because the graph went up for a few quarters. Mike Peroni explains why that false sense of PMF is exactly what causes so many SaaS companies to stall before $10M ARR. - Messaging confusion. - Founder-led growth. - Feature creep. - ICP drift. the stuff that quietly kills scale. when you know what the difference is, you're much more likely to have...

Two topics. Against the clock. James opens with something he's seeing across almost every sales org he works with right now — pipelines that look healthy and aren't. He gets into why it keeps happening, and what needs to change before you spend another penny on training. Rich follows with something two of the most elite EMEA Sales VPs he's ever interviewed both said, word for word, abo...

What does it actually take to build a revenue team that scales without you? In this episode of What Makes You Tick, we sit down with Rob Wellner — C-suite revenue leader and operator who has helped scale high-growth tech businesses across SaaS, HR tech, fintech, and education into multibillion-dollar companies. From helping scale Velocity Global through hypergrowth and international expansion, to...

Why do so many startup hires fail — even when they look perfect on paper? In this Best Bits episode of What Makes You Tick, Alina Vandenberghe (Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Chili Piper) breaks down the real reason most hiring decisions go wrong — and what separates high-impact “multiplier” talent from costly mis-hires. Most companies hire based on experience, CVs, and past success. But as Alina expl...

Truth: Your SaaS company doesn’t stall because of product capability… it stalls because you’ve lost clarity in your messaging when you've invested in making your product do more, for more people. Scaling from $5M to $25M ARR is where most startups hit a wall. Not because they don’t have product-market fit—but because as they grow, their messaging shifts from clear problem-solving to a confusin...

You can learn more about someone in one question than in an entire CV. This conversation breaks down the interview approach that reveals personality, character, and long-term fit. In this special "how to" episode, Richard Washington and James Bissell break down the interview questions that reveal who people really are, beyond rehearsed answers, polished CVs, and “greatest weakness” clich...

Cold outreach is getting ignored. So why are some sellers still generating endless pipeline? In this Best Bits episode, Stephen Oommen breaks down the referral strategies top performers use to get into rooms, build trust faster, and generate pipeline without relying on cold outreach. If you’re still sending cold emails and hoping for replies… this will change how you sell.🎯 What You’ll LearnWhy m...

When 75% of B2B buyers say they would prefer to complete complex purchases without ever speaking to a sales professional, it raises an uncomfortable question. What would make a customer actually want to talk to you? In this episode, Brent Adamson, co-author of The Challenger Sale and author of The Framemaking Sale, explores how the nature of B2B buying has fundamentally changed. Today’s customers...

Sales forecasting is broken in most startups. Not because leaders don’t care — But because no one actually teaches how to do it properly. Full episode: https://youtu.be/u-7Zve607yM?si=-VOuHMmXiL3GWb9Z In this Best Bits episode of What Makes You Tick: Tech Leaders Career Stories, we break down why forecasting fails, how “poopy pipelines” happen, and what it really takes to build a predictable, scal...

Scaling internationally isn’t just “more of the same.” Most SaaS companies get it wrong. In this episode, David De Paula breaks down how to go from founder-led sales to a scalable global GTM engine. If you're building across EMEA or going global — this is your playbook. In this episode of What Makes You Tick: Tech Leaders Career Stories, we sit down with David De Paula — a seasoned internation...

Are sales teams failing because of skill? Even a lack of will? The fact is, they fail wjen the culture isn't of committment. It's compliance. And that’s a leadership problem. And it's way too common in tech companies where the number is king. In this episode of What Makes You Tick: Tech Leaders Career Stories, we sit down with Amit Stark (ex-Splunk, BMC, Coralogix) — a revenue leader w...

Expanding into the US looks obvious. Biggest market. Same language. Massive upside. But most startups get it wrong. In this Best Bits episode, Bradley Paster breaks down why scaling into America is far harder than it looks — and the costly mistakes founders keep repeating. From hidden operational complexity to cultural nuance and go-to-market missteps, this is a practical guide to entering the US...

Expanding into Europe sounds simple. It isn’t. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, we sit down with Alex Bellon to break down why so many companies fail when entering Europe — and what it actually takes to get it right. If you’ve built traction in the US or your home market and think Europe is the “next obvious step”… this conversation might save you months (or years) of wasted time and budget...