WMYT - What makes YOU Tick? Tech Leaders Career Stories

Want to build a tribe of mentors - this is a masterclass in HOW. Why it matters? Most teams are obsessed with pipeline. The best operators are obsessed with access. In this best bits clip, Jessica Robertson, CRO at Orbb in NYC breaks down why the people you have access to — your network, your mentors, your customers — are becoming the most important advantage in modern go-to-market. Because when c...

What does it take to build elite sales teams, create real ownership, and scale your career over decades? In this episode of What Makes You Tick, we sit down with Benjamin Caller — a veteran revenue leader with 25+ years across marketing, sales, and leadership at companies like VMware, Medallia, and now with a new role (which we introduce on the pod). From building one of the first PSG fan websites...

Get first access to Buyer Coding here: https://www.buyercoding.com/ Most “closed lost” reasons are complete BS. “It was price.” “It wasn’t the right time.” “They went with a competitor.” In reality, you lost the deal because you didn’t understand how that buyer makes decisions. In this best bits episode, Rich Patterson breaks down the 5 Buyer Codes — a simple framework that helps you read buyers p...

When you step into a new VP of Sales role, you expect challenges. You don’t expect to have to rebuild that many things to make it ready for scale. In this episode, Elitsa Zaimova Miller (VP of Sales at CloudTalk, formerly Preply) shares the hardest decision she’s had to make as a sales leader — and what it really takes to scale a team and develop a world class culture. This is a What Makes You Tic...

Everyone says sales teams need more pipeline.3x pipeline.5x pipeline. More leads. More activity. But what if the real problem isn’t pipeline at all? In this Best Bits episode of Making Revenue Tick, veteran sales leader Mike breaks down why the traditional sales process is fundamentally broken — and why throwing more opportunities into the funnel often makes things worse. After 30+ years in B2B sa...

Why does manifestation work for some people — but not for others? Is the Law of Attraction misunderstood… or completely backwards? In this episode, ‪@JustinMichaelMethod‬ explains why the Law of Attraction needs rewriting. For decades the personal development industry promoted the same formula:Visualize it. Affirm it. Believe harder. Millions followed it exactly. And when nothing changed…they assu...

If you think great sales teams are built on scripts, dashboards, and quota pressure, you’re missing the point. Full episode: https://youtu.be/r4tZVfGkEw8?si=DApVrPsrL8bwgVRCIn this Best Bits segment, Chris Bair breaks down how great sales leaders actually build multiplier teams—the kind of teams that push each other to win, hold each other accountable, and attract top performers. We get into:• Why...

What builds great sales leaders? In this episode of What Makes You Tick, Jennifer Nguyen breaks down how rejection, adversity, and resilience shaped her career in sales, account management, and revenue leadership. From missing out on Junior Olympics competition to interviewing three times before landing a leadership role, Jennifer shares how mental toughness is developed — not learned — and why re...

Most executives run sophisticated go-to-market strategies… …but abandon that thinking when managing their own careers. In this Best Bits segment, we break down the operator mindset behind career leverage — how top revenue leaders create opportunity, build optionality, and position themselves for roles that are rarely posted publicly. This isn’t job search advice. It’s career strategy. What you’ll...

Most companies attend events. Very few dominate them. In this masterclass, Itai Manor explains how founders, revenue leaders, and go-to-market teams can turn events and conferences from “nice-to-have networking” into a repeatable, scalable revenue engine. Learn how to generate pipeline, close deals, and drive revenue from conferences with a proven B2B event strategy. This isn’t about showing up. T...

In this Best Bits episode, Richard Washington shares the hiring framework that separates average hires from true revenue multipliers. Full length episode on Do Hard Things with Gabe Lullo here: https://youtu.be/N2guh2HeO6c?si=Xyp5RMWFpLISYFoL If you’re a founder, CRO, or sales leader scaling from early traction to repeatable growth, hiring the wrong sales talent can stall momentum, drain cash, and...

Here’s a question most companies get wrong: Who really owns growth in a scaling company? Sales says, “We close it.” Marketing says, “We generate it.” Customer Success says, “We expand and retain it.” They’re all right. And that’s exactly the problem. In this episode of What Makes You Tick, we host a live debate between senior revenue leaders across Sales, Marketing and Customer Success to answer o...

“What if your sales team only did the 1% of work that truly matters?” Watch the full episode now https://youtu.be/pz8066MnkZo?si=9-a2m24B2LspKNYW In this high-impact masterclass segment, James Smith (SVP EMEA at ThoughtSpot) breaks down the exact framework he’s using to redesign his sales process with AI — not for 10% efficiency gains… but for 10X productivity. This isn’t about writing better emai...

Hiring great SDRs and expecting them to perform without the right data, tools, or structure is like putting a Ferrari on cobbled streets, then blaming the car when it can’t go fast. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, Richard Washington sits down with Matt Caloras, enterprise SDR leader and NYC chapter lead for SDR Leaders of the USA, to unpack what actually separates high-performing SDR teams...

Are you hiring Multipliers, or Dividers and Subtractors? Take the scorecard now: https://www.multiplierscorecard.com/ Most companies are trying to fix their hiring problems by adding more AI. More automation. More screening. More tools. And it’s making recruitment worse, not better. In this episode, Richard Washington joins Heath Barnett on the Maxed Out podcast to unpack why AI is being applied t...

70% of sales leadership hires fail in year 1. Hire too early, and you burn cash, confuse the market, and stall momentum. Too late, and founder-led sales becomes the bottleneck that caps growth. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, I sit down with Charles Talbot and Douglas Mancini of Closing Foundry, to break down one of the most expensive and misunderstood decisions in early-stage startups: yo...

Why are so many enterprise sales teams missing target, even with experienced reps, strong leadership, and proven products? In this Best Bits episode of Making Revenue Tick, Sean McCarry, GM UK at Trustpilot and a veteran enterprise sales leader, explains why unachievable sales targets are breaking enterprise sales teams from the inside out. Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/bwsz4FailgI?si=j...

How do you take a tech startup from a raw idea, through the grind of founder-led sales, all the way to a successful exit? In this episode of WMYT? What Makes You Tick, we explore the complete "circle of life" of a founder with Simon Black. Simon, a UK based tech veteran with over 20 years of experience at companies like IBM and Autonomy, walks us through his seven-year journey founding A...

Most startups don’t fail at product. They stall at go‑to‑market maturity. In this Best Bits episode of WMYT – What Makes You Tick: Tech Leaders’ Career Stories, we bring back one of the most valuable sections from our masterclass with Campbell Williams (CMO, CCO, operator, investor, and scale‑up leader). This episode zooms in on the exact moment where growth breaks — typically between £3M and £10M...

Alina Vandenberghe — Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Chili Piper — shares what happens when survival mode ends and success no longer motivates you. In this episode of What Makes You Tick, Alina reflects on leadership, belief, and the moment she realised that thinking about joy is a luxury when you’re in survival mode — and what it takes to rebuild your inner operating system once survival is no longer...

Welcome to a Best Bits episode of What Makes You Tick - Tech Leaders Career Stories. In this brilliant clip from our full-length conversation, I’m joined by Grant Richardson, Founder at Arden Insights and CEO of Sunamp, to break down a high-stakes question every tech founder and investor must face: “Which CRO model is right for my business - full-time, interim, or fractional?” But this episode goe...

This is a best-bits episode from a conversation I recorded last year with my great friend James Bissell — also known as @TheRevenueEnabler — on his podcast, Hit Your Numbers. If you’re actively job searching — or quietly thinking about your next move — this episode will change how you think about your CV, interviews, and how hiring decisions are actually made. We break down why most CVs fail in se...

We honour great leaders, and we honour great leadership. This retrospective from 117 episodes and 2.5 years of WMYT shares the lessons we've learned - and out outlook on 2026. In this special WMYT Live episode, Richard Washington and Tolu Adebekun explore how the most effective founders, sales leaders, and operators grow their careers and companies - not through volume, but through relationships,...

Why do some products just click—while others miss the mark, even when they’re built “right”? In this episode of What Makes You Tick?, we sit down with Christina Hamlin—a product designer, brand builder, and creative leader who’s helped scale design and product teams in high-growth startups and global tech environments. Christina shares what most companies get wrong about UX, why product design sho...

When U.S. startups look to expand into EMEA, they often bring the same playbook that worked back home — and hit a wall fast. Get the main episode https://youtu.be/5t8ZUiwbxvY?si=3UsxdHQi29bT6O5e In this Best Bits episode, Kevin Shirley (former RVP EMEA at Udemy and senior sales leader at LinkedIn, Lattice, and more). Now leading Enterprise Sales and Partnerships for Goodwall. In this conversation...