Driving B2B Sales Revenue

ABOUT THE GUEST:  Ryann Dowdy, CEO & Co-Founder at Social Sellers Academy  Sales Expert, Ryann Dowdy, helps 7 and 8 figure CEOs generate daily sales on demand WITHOUT more of their time, by building + training high-performing sales teams.  Ryann is passionate about helping successful business owners take back control of the revenue in their business, their time, and their freedom by building a profitable sales team. With her business partner, Kelly Roach, they are on a mission to free CEOs from the role of salesperson in their business.  Before starting her own business, Ryann spent 15 years in the corporate world building multi-million dollar sales organizations for start-ups in the digital marketing and advertising space. From sales rep to individual contributor to Director of Sales - Ryann has mentored, managed, and trained thousands of sales reps.  Ryann’s first crack at entrepreneurship was Uncensored Consulting, where she helped hundreds of women get their first clients, leave their day jobs, and take back control of their lives. By teaching tried and true sales strategies that aren't dependent on social media or trendy tactics, Ryann focuses on the art of building relationships and human to human connection.  Now, building her second business, she’s on a mission to change the lives of CEOs - by giving them back their time, financial peace, and the ability to multiply their revenue through a high performing, empowered sales team.  You can find Ryann on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanndowdy/And can learn more about The Social Sellers Academy here: https://dailysalesondemandforceos.com/ABOUT THE EPISODE:  What is social selling?  Is it different than other kinds of selling - and if so, how exactly?  And why is it that so many folks hate the idea, while others get it so wrong (maybe that’s the answer right there).  In this episode, Ryann Dowdy digs into all of that and more from a real, practical, and thoughtful perspective. Her work is completely focused on helping sales teams succeed with social, and her approach is practical, strategic, and completely grounded in reality.  If you ever wondered what all of the fuss is about social selling, and more importantly how you can think about it - and succeed with it if you choose to do so, Ryann is a great resource and she shares plenty of solid and valuable insights in this episode for you to consider.  

ABOUT THE GUEST: Mark Thompson, Co-Founder of PayKickstart  Mark Thompson is the co-founder of PayKickstart an industry-leading billing and affiliate management platform for subscription-based businesses.  Mark loves the subscription-economy and helping startups and mature businesses maximize revenue.  As a 10-year online Entrepreneur, he has created and sold multiple 6 and 7 figure businesses, while generating over $20M dollars online.    You can find Mark on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrthompson/  And you can learn more about PayKickstart here: https://paykickstart.com/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  To automate or not to automate - is that a question for your sales org to consider?  We’ve all been on the receiving end of crappy automation. Nobody wants to be associated with that...  ...but, most of us have also suffered the drudgery of muscling through repetitive tasks as part of the sales flow that we wish we could automate.  So where is the sweet spot, and how do you A) strike the balance, and B) get from here to there?  This is exactly what we explored in this episode of the podcast with guest Mark Thompson.   Mark has a long history of tinkering with automation within his own sales organization and on behalf of others - which is exactly what it takes to succeed.  Not sure how to even begin thinking about it?  This episode of the podcast can help a lot - Mark really knows his stuff here and has some great insights about getting started and the benefits when you do.  So check it out - I think you’ll enjoy it. 

ABOUT THE GUEST: Ken Lundin, Founder of Ken Lundin & Associates  Ken Lundin found his mission while standing in his front lawn in Atlanta in 2011, when he learned from the people who had purchased it that his house had been sold by the bank. With his business - and the last 6 years of his life - up in smoke, he took a mid-level sales position and over the course of the next 2 years was offered 2 promotions attaining the role of SVP of Sales within two years. With his unique perspective on thriving during difficult times and his considerable sales acumen, he soon became a consultant in order to bring his systematic process to other companies, helping them adapt to difficult changes and to thrive in uncertain times.  Check out Ken on the web here:  https://kenlundin.com/Or connect with him on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kglundin/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Is sales training and consulting broken?  Ken Lundin thinks so. In this episode he starts by painting the picture with a car analogy - where all four tires go flat at once - and if the car is your business and each tire is one part of your sales org, you are not going to get back to driving by fixing just one tire!  Sales organizations are systems, and to help them thrive you need to take a systemic view of them and approach to fixing them.  When sales training or coaching focuses on just one thing, which is usually the case, it just doesn’t work.  Listen in as Ken unpacks not only the problem with this myopic approach so prevalent in the sales training and consulting industry, but the way to fix it and a better approach to sales team improvement efforts.

ABOUT THE GUEST:  Lee Hackett, CEO of BluprintX  Lee Hackett is a professional footballer turned entrepreneur and investor. He has successfully grown 3 companies to $10m+ in sales and engineered trade sales to FTSE200 listed corporations.  Lee advises global CMOs on B2B sales, marketing, and advertising strategy, using his 7-Step C-Suite Framework to build thought leadership, effective funnels, and revenue attribution.  Lee has invested in SalesTech, MarTech, and AdTech startups in the UK, Middle East, Australia and Singapore.  You can find Lee on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehackett/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Sales and sports analogies - love ‘em or hate ‘em, there are a lot of them!  But maybe there is a good reason? Former professional athlete Lee Hackett explores some of these ideas in this episode of the podcast and digs deep into things like team versus individual performance, resilience, and other key crossovers between the worlds of sales and sports, both places where Lee has spent plenty of time and found plenty of success. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it!  

ABOUT THE GUEST: Shawn Rhodes, Chief Sales Sergeant at Bulletproof Selling  Shawn Rhodes leveraged his former life as a war correspondent to become an international expert in how the best teams continuously improve pipelines and performance. He's a Tampa-based TEDx speaker and his work studying teams in more than two dozen countries - some of the most dangerous places on the planet - has been published in news outlets including TIME, CNN, NBC, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and INC. His clients have included Deloitte, ConAgra, John Deere, and dozens of similar businesses. Shawn is also a nationally syndicated columnist with the Business Journals and author of the books Pivot Point: Turn On A Dime Without Sacrificing Results, Universal Export: A Guide For Overachievers in Working Less And Enjoying More, and newest book, Bulletproof Selling: Systemizing Sales For The Battlefield Of Business.  You can find Shawn on Linkedin here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnrhodes/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Here’s a riddle for you - what’s the connection between a Marine in Fallujah, Iraq who is not very good at following directions, and a B2B sales consultant?  Well, in this case, the connection is that it’s the same person - episode guest Shawn Rhodes.  While in the Marines, Shawn was embedded in different units who were working in very challenging urban environments to observe, document, and help codify what was working, what was not, and how to improve.  And sure enough, the process of observing, documenting, and working to improve is a perfect approach to sales team improvement as well - especially over time as the knowledge base of documented observations keeps growing.  In both the military and in business environments, Shawn learned and now teaches how systems and processes built on the successes and failures of past ventures is an incredibly effective platform for sustained improvement and ongoing excellence in execution.  In this episode, Shawn peels back a lot of what all of that means, how it works, and how it can work for sales organizations - you definitely don’t want to miss this!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Emmet Florish, CEO at Ctrl.io  Emmet Florish co-founded Ctrl.io for plate-spinning sales managers to channel the time they spend with their team day to day into sustainable, longer term performance.  He knows what it takes to get a team firing on all cylinders, performing over and above quota, from being a successful individual contributor to first sales hire on the ground. Emmet has led and expanded sales teams to contribute millions of dollars of revenue and quadruple digit year over year growth on multiple occasions.  Through Ctrl.io, he wants to bring that hard won expertise to sales managers in B2B SaaS businesses at scale. By filling the gap where they are managing their teams beyond the CRM with docs, spreadsheets and email and giving them a deceptively simple platform to build a culture of commitment and visibility.  Find out more at Ctrl.io or connect on LinkedIn for regular sales management related updates: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmet-florish-8217172/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  “Developing sales teams one sales manager at a time”  That’s Emmet’s LinkedIn headline, and it hits very close to home with everything I’ve learned about sales teams in my three decades in B2B sales.  Emmet talks about front line sales managers as a “Force Multiplier” - a term I fully intend to steal.  And this episode - it’s all about that.  The power of a good front line sales manager who has the time, ability, and inclination to help their team thrive - and the challenges of getting that done consistently - both personal and organizational that can get in the way.  If you are a sales manager, work for one, have one, or just want to hear a solid perspective about why the role matters and how it can deploy more effectively, then I’m sure you will enjoy listening to this episode just like I enjoyed participating in it.

ABOUT THE GUEST:  Jeroen Corthout, CEO of Salesflare  Jeroen is co-founder and CEO of Salesflare, an intelligent CRM built for SMBs selling B2B, mostly popular with agencies and fast-growing startups.  Salesflare was founded when Jeroen and his co-founder Lieven wanted to manage the leads for their software company in an easier way. They didn’t like to keep track of them manually and built Salesflare, which pulls customer data together automatically.  It’s now the most popular CRM on Product Hunt and top rated on review platforms like G2 for its ease of use and automation features.    You can learn more about Salesflare here:  https://salesflare.com/  Connect with Jeroen on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroencorthout/ABOUT THE EPISODE:  CRM has been around for decades, but talk to a few reps and you’ll find at least a few who hate it (see what I did there).  But why? And what can be done to change it?  CRM - or any tool that helps reps stay on top of the many things reps need to stay on top of can supercharge productivity, but only if they are used and used consistently.  CRM innovator Jeroen has some ideas about how to make CRM more usable and as such more useful, and he has baked those ideas into Salesflare, an intelligent CRM built for SMBs selling B2B. He shares many of the creative ways it helps overcome obstacles to CRM adoption in this episode of the podcast.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Dan Englander, CEO of Sales Schema  Dan Englander is a New York-based author and entrepreneur. As the first employee and Senior Account Manager, Dan helped launch IdeaRocket, the premier studio for high-quality animated explainer videos. He brought in business and managed productions for Fortune 500s and startups like Venmo.  He’s the founder of Sales Schema, a site that helps companies win by melding sales and digital marketing. He’s the author of "Mastering Account Management" and other business books. In addition, he teaches high-level online courses on B2B sales and marketing.  Previously, Dan was Account Coordinator at DXagency, where he increased digital exposure for clients like Monster Cable and Marc Ecko.  You can find Dan on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/danenglander/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  “Sales is all about relationships” - it’s an expression you hear all of the time from experienced salespeople, you know - those who seem to know better.  “We need to scale” - it’s an expression you hear all of the time from business owners and other interested parties. If a business is growing fast, that’s a very good thing and working on making it happen is an awfully smart place to focus.  But can the two ideas work together?  Intuitively not, which is why it’s so intriguing to speak with Dan Englander about what he calls Relationship Sales at Scale. I’ll let him articulate the ideas in the episode which he does well. If the concept is intriguing to you, you should definitely check it out!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Dr. Tom Tonkin PhD, CEO of the Conservatory Group  Dr. Tom Tonkin PhD is an executive in the Professional Services and Software Sales arena and has over 30 years of business and technology experience. He is currently serving as the CEO of the Conservatory Group as well as the Co-Founder and Dean of Students that the Sales Conservatory.  In addition, he is also the Head of Strategic Accounts at SAMI Games, the first crowd-sourced global solution for soft skills, and the CRO at the Liderança Group offering consultative services that identify areas for sustainable growth with actionable strategies to ignite change.  Dr. Tonkin holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Leadership from Regent University (Virginia Beach, VA) as well as a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership, with a focus on Leadership and Management from Regis University (Denver, CO). Dr. Tonkin holds multiple business certifications and is a leadership expert.  In addition, Dr. Tonkin was an Adjunct Professor at the Forbes School of Business at Ashford University where he taught Leadership in Organizations, Organizational Behavior, and various other leadership and management courses.  Dr. Tonkin is an award-winning researcher and author with several blogs, articles, and interviews to his name focusing on Leadership, DE&I, Learning and Development, and Sales Acumen.  You can find Tom on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drtomtonkin/ABOUT THE EPISODE:  There are not enough really smart, bold, experienced, and downright radical people in sales enablement. Luckily, there is one who made a guest appearance on this very podcast, this very episode.  Dr. Tom Tonkin PhD isn’t a sales enablement practitioner like you’ve ever known. Razor sharp, a mind built for critical thinking, and the presumption that salespeople need to experience things in their inner world to be able to internalize any kind of meaningful learnings as a result of sales training.  As for his methods - sorry kids, you’ll have to check out the episode to get a taste of that, but I assure you - you’ll be glad you did.  So brace yourself for sales enablement like you’ve never known it before, but probably should - thanks to our guest in this episode, Dr. Tom Tonkin, PhD.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Henry Kaminski Jr., founder of Unique Designz  Henry Kaminski Jr. is the founder of Unique Designz, a full-service design, branding, and digital marketing agency that is dedicated to helping personality brands; coaches, consultants, influencers, speakers + authors design / grow their brands, scale their profits + increase their exposure online.  He’s is the host of the popular “Brand Doctor’s Podcast” where he talks about strategiesthat help entrepreneurs design reputable and profitable personal brands. As a self-taught graphic designer and brand consultant, he's overcome all the odds to build a wildly successful multi-million-dollar business over the past 12 years. He has worked with a diverse range of business owners and professionals, including celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi + Fabio Viviani as well as Internet marketing expert Russell Brunson who has named Henry the "Million Dollar Brander” and recently has been inducted into the Click Funnels 2 Comma Club, by generating over $1 million with one single sales funnel, using the Click Funnels software.  Learn more about Henry’s work and how he helps brands thrive at https://uniquedesignz.net/   If you want to take Henry’s free branding master class, here is the link to sign up:Uniquedesignz.net/levelupmybranding    ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Personal Brand - all of the cool kids seem to have one these days, but what about salespeople?  It’s actually a bit of a contentious issue.  Some companies are pretty OK with the idea of letting their reps establish a unique personal brand, others worry that a reps online presence might not be consistent with or might conflict with their role as a company representative.  And what about the salespeople themselves? Some seem to throw themselves full boar into the idea and work hard to have a social presence - many swear they even get business from it - while others see spending time on social as something that takes away from time pursuing quota.  So a real mixed back of opinions and ideas - luckily, we were able to have Henry Kaminski Jr., founder of Unique Designz on the podcast to unpack some of these questions and to talk about the value of and the importance of having a personal brand - even for a quota carrying rep and the companies that employ them.  I think you’ll really enjoy this episode - I sure did!

ABOUT THE GUEST:  James Trezona, Author of Humanizing B2B and the Chief Punk and Founder at Rooster PunkJames co-founded Rooster Punk with the mission to become the world's most admired B2B storytelling agency. As James puts it, “with the purpose of HumanizingB2B driving us, we've grown quickly - working with amazing marketing visionaries as clients and talent as peers. The proof of the power of leading with empathy was that we doubled in team size during the pandemic - which we also used to create a distillation of what we have learned over the years - writing ‘Humanizing B2B’ - launched in 2021.”You can find James on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-trezona/And find his book Humanizing B2B here: https://www.amazon.com/Humanizing-B2B-truth-marketing-transform-ebook/dp/B08Y95QY4DABOUT THE EPISODE:  Vulnerability. Empathy. Psychological security.We’re hearing terms like these more and more often in relation to professional selling, but what are they really, and how the heck is a salesperson supposed to incorporate these concepts into a job that has traditionally been about anything but these kinds of squishy concepts?In this episode, James Trezona, Author of Humanizing B2B and the Chief Punk and Founder at business storytelling agency Rooster Punk goes deep into these concepts to help sellers and sales leaders not just understand what these concepts really mean in the context of professional sales, but why they matter so much and how to incorporate them into your work to help boost results where it counts - in relationships and results!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Colson Steber, Co-CEO of Ag Access and Communications for Research (CFR)  Colson Steber is the visionary of the research logistics services business, leading sales, marketing, and finance. Colson is a relentless optimizer, always learning and improving on leading the team to be put in a position to succeed. After completing his Mizzou MBA he joined CFR in 2012 and bought the company in 2016. Colson has served on the Insights Association Great Lake Chapter board for 8 years, serving as President in 2020. He is a board member of Entrepreneur's Organization (EO) Tampa Bay.  You can find Colson on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colsonsteber/  ABOUT THE EPISODE  It’s a common story. A CEO/Owner/Founder starts a company, works relentlessly to get it off the ground and drive growth from scratch, and years later is putting in overwhelming hours doing more than they should, and specifically - most of the selling.  Makes sense - the person who starts the company has more drive, passion, credibility, and subject matter expertise than almost anyone, but it’s hard to run a company (let alone have a life) when you are doing it all.  This is where Colson Steber was in 2017, and he was wise enough to recognize his dilemma and to take deliberate action to change it. It didn’t all come fast and easy, but in this episode, Colson walks us through how he helped his company go from just him and his partner doing all of the selling to the seeds of a truly professional and scalable sales organization.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Sam Ovett, Co-Founder of Mobile Pocket Office  Sam Ovett was a professional whitewater guide who turned his passion for exploration into an obsession with business automation. He Co-Founded Mobile Pocket Office with his father. They help rapidly growing and established businesses grow by leveraging human resources in the form of automated business processes in the five areas of business systems: Attract, Convert, Fulfill, Delight, and Refer to streamline productivity and increase revenue. Sam has translated his experience as a whitewater kayaker navigating Class V rapids to business ventures where he leads businesses towards profitability at scale while staying focused on risks that could jeopardize their bottom line - making him one cool dude!  You can find Sam on LinkedIn here:   https://www.linkedin.com/in/samovett/  And you can learn more about Mobile Pocket Office here:   https://mobilepocketoffice.com/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  When you are selling anything with any complexity whatsoever, there’s a lot to do as you work through the prospecting and sales process with your prospects.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could put some of that on autopilot so that you can concentrate on the parts that you can’t?  Great idea, but what? And how? And what might go wrong? And how can I be sure that it doesn't?  Sam Ovett has spent his professional career answering just those kinds of questions for sales organizations and he shares a whole lot of that wisdom here in the episode.  If you’d like to streamline your B2B sales work - for yourself or your team - this is an episode that you’ll want to check out!  

ABOUT THE GUEST: Heidi Solomon-Orlick, Vice President of Global Sales at VXI and Founder and CEO of GirlzWhoSell  Passionate Business Development leader with 30 years of global BPO experience. Proven professional skilled in solving customer challenges through thought leadership, innovation, active listening and problem solving, team collaboration, exceptional and sustainable service delivery.   I am a Diversity and Inclusion champion and change agent, entrepreneur and mentor. I am committed to supporting women and girls by continuing to push for racial justice, workplace and inter-sectional gender equity. I invest in the leaders, companies and products I want to see in the world. I am an active aging advocate who believes that older women (and men) are not obsolete. Age = Wisdom and Experience. I am committed to closing the gender gap in B2B Sales! My mission is to make a difference, affect change and leave this world a better place for the generations behind me.  Connect with Heidi on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidisolomon1/  If you want to learn more about GirlzWhoSell go to https://girlzwhosell.com/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:   Women in sales. Very under-represented in a field where anyone with experience has seen no shortage of great sellers who happen to be female and significantly underpaid in a field that should be all about performance-based compensation.  Not fair, not right, not even smart - but it still is very much this way. So how did we get here and more importantly what can we do to move towards not just equity, but an intelligent approach to our craft based on things that matter, not just things that happen to be?  In this episode, Heidi Solomon-Orlick digs deep into all of that and more. With over three decades of sales and sales leadership experience and as the Founder and CEO of her passion project GirlzWhoSell, Heidi has a lot to offer on these topics and she brings it all to this episode. If these issues are important to you, I think you’ll enjoy this conversation a lot. I sure did!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Priscilla McKinney, CEO at Little Bird Marketing  Priscilla is the fifth of five girls. She and her sisters traveled the world singing which involved matching dresses, puppet shows and a lot of road trips. Thirty four houses, three countries, five states, four high schools and a degree in Cultural Anthropology later, Priscilla has miraculously found her way into her most ideal place in the world - at the intersection of MARKETING, BUSINESS and MARKET RESEARCH.  You can learn more about Priscilla and reach out to her on LinkedIn here:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/priscillamckinney/ABOUT THE EPISODE:What is digital transformation and why should salespeople - let alone the companies they work for - care about it?Well - don’t get me started, but REALLY don’t get Priscilla McKinney, CEO at Little Bird Marketing started...Why?She’s got some answers to that question that will challenge your thinking and most likely will motivate you to rethink what you are doing in our digitally-driven world to enhance not only your image, but also your chances for getting into more conversations that are more likely to win more new business.Priscilla is passionate and articulate on the issue, so check it out and let your digital transformation begin!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Jon Ferrara, Founder & CEO of NimbleJon is a serial entrepreneur and noted speaker about social, sales, and marketing. He has re-imagined CRM by building Nimble - The Simple CRM for Office 365 & G Suite. Ferrara is best known as the co-founder of GoldMine Software Corp, one of the early pioneers in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Small to Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). He has been recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 10 Social CEOs, Top 10 Social Salespeople In The World and Top 100 Marketing Influencers.Want to learn more about Jon? As he suggested on the podcast, Google him!If you want to find out about Nimble, here you go:  https://www.nimble.com/And if you want to reach out to Jon directly, here is his email address; jon@nimble.com ABOUT THE EPISODE:CRM is a contentious issue in sales. Some salespeople swear by it, some hate it - but why? It’s supposed to be a tool that helps salespeople do their jobs, so what’s the problem?Our guest Jon Ferrara knows all too well! Jon is a pioneer of the CRM industry and the creator of Goldmine, one of the first modern CRMs build in the 1980s. Back then, CRM was all about helping salespeople sell, but since then, it has become much more than that - and not necessarily for the better for many salespeople.In this episode, Jon talks about what inspired him to create one of the first ever and very popular early CRMs, how so much sales tech has moved in a different direction and why that is not so great for reps or the sales organization, and ultimately why he build Nimble and the problems he set out to solve with it.Jon is a very dynamic and charismatic guy - I think you’ll really enjoy this episode!

ABOUT THE GUEST: Don Markland, VP of Sales at 411 Local and CEO of Accountability Now  From Don’s LinkedIn Profile:  I'm an entrepreneur myself in addition to being a full-time Chief Revenue Officer. I own my own executive coaching and business strategy firm, Accountability Now™, so I can stay close to startups and businesses that are looking to achieve hyper-growth but can't seem to get over the hump. I help start-ups, particularly in the SaaS and FinTech industry launch, scale, and maximize sales and marketing operations. For this sales scaling work, I was named to Utah Business Magazine's Top 40 under Forty.  You can learn more about the 411 Local Affiliate program that Don mentions in the episode here:  https://411locals.com/affiliate/  You can find Don on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donmarkland/  Or on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/donmarkland  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Accountability.  It’s one of those words that gets thrown around a lot, and it often feels really good when we do because it’s macho and proactive and tough - but according to our guest Don Makland, it is one of the most powerful concepts in sales leadership, but not when we get it wrong - and most do.  In this masterclass on accountability, Don takes us through how so many get accountability in sales wrong, what it should be, how to get it right, and how to think about it with his framework called “The Four C’s of Accountability”

ABOUT THE GUEST: Chad Burmeister, Founder & CEO of ScaleX.ai  Meet Chad Burmeister - Believer, Husband, Father of two teenagers, and lifelong rebel and rule-breaker. Chad empowers sales professionals to become the best version of themselves by focusing on their mindset, skillset, and toolset.    Find Chad on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chadburmeister/  Here is where you can get his book AI for Sales for free: https://www.scalex.ai/ebooks  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  Even before Google AI made a haircut appointment, folks have been talking about how AI is going to take away all of the sales jobs. Choosing to believe that feels like a big misunderstanding about what sales is, but to be fair, there are parts of the whole that is sales work that AI is getting better at, and if your job is predominantly that, maybe you should be worried.  In this episode, Sales AI expert Chad Burmeister talks about what’s happening in the field right now with sales AI, who should be worried, and why the rest of us have a huge opportunity with this emerging and fast-growing set of tools and technology.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Larry Trenwith, CMC - SMB Growth & Scaling Specialist  Larry has been solving business growth and scaling challenges in a myriad of markets and economic conditions for over 25 years.   Previous executive roles include CEO/President, COO and VP Sales for technology companies from start-ups to $70 million in annual sales. As a business advisor and Certified Management Consultant he has collaborated with the leadership teams of numerous small/medium enterprises and helped their businesses break through barriers to growth and significantly increase value.   Larry’s ability to blend strategic level thinking with pragmatic, results-oriented tactics and execution has helped organizations across several industry verticals effectively scale their business and achieve superior business outcomes in both domestic and international markets.   You can find Larry on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/larry-trenwith-cmc-02944/  ABOUT THE EPISODE:  The word “scaling” in the context of business is one of those words that gets used a lot, but often isn’t really explained or understood. Scaling is used synonymously with growth, which according to Larry Trenwith represents a gross misunderstanding of what scaling is and how to enable an organization to scale in the true meaning of the word.  In this episode, Larry walks us through some common misunderstandings about scaling and what it takes for organizations to set themselves up for scaling success and they progress through various revenue milestones. It’s a masterclass in the right way to grow from someone who has been there, done that, and helped many others to do so as well.

ABOUT THE GUEST: Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell, Inc.  For most of the past 30 years, Chris has participated in software start-ups as a founder or at a very early stage of development. His focus has consistently been on creating and taking to market simple products that can be used successfully the first time they are touched, without having to take a course or read a manual.  His belief is that the most powerful part of any software system is the human being that we inappropriately call a “user,” and that the value key in software is to let the computer do what it does well — go fast without getting bored — in order to free up human potential.  Toward that end, Chris has been involved with Requisite Technology, GXS, Epiance, Qlip Media, Aptara, Cadis, Sun Microsystems, and Unisyn. He is currently CEO of ConnectAndSell, Inc., based in Silicon Valley, and hosts a podcast at MarketDominanceGuys.com.  Chris describes himself as “a little bit unavoidable” on LinkedIn, but just in case here is a link to his profile there:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-beall-7859a4/    ABOUT THE EPISODE:  While you might know Chris Beall as the CEO of a very popular, effective, and highly visible sales tech company, originally he is a scientist - a physicist, a mathematician, and a computer scientist. Why does this matter? Because he brings a very thoughtful, precise, and analytical perspective to  the world of sales and is very generous about sharing what he’s come up with.  One of the core themes of this episode is the idea that the core challenge in sales is gaining trust - so how do you approach that scientifically? How do you quantify and optimize for that? How do you train for that? What can you do in those first moments of contact to establish trust?  It’s a fantastic episode, I highly encourage you to listen and to follow Chris on LinkedIn and check out his podcast. He is one of the most thoughtful and insightful people talking about sales these days. It was an honor and a pleasure to have him on the podcast as my 50th guest.