Accelerate! With Andy Paul

Cole Baker-Bagwell is the founder and Chief Kindness Officer at Cool Audrey, a consulting firm that teaches companies how to put kindness to work in business. In this conversation we discuss how to thrive in a 21st-century company requires building a new set of core competencies based on awareness, meaningful connection and a shared commitment to kindness. Then we dive into why kindness isn't an intangible soft skill but something that can be quantified in the impact it has on people and business outcomes. Plus, we get into how kindness plays out in a sales environment and is interwoven into the way buyers experience you and your company. _ Arm your team with the tools they need to work from anywhere. Watch the video @ www.ringDNA.com/andy

Vishal Sunak is the Founder and CEO of LinkSquares. In this conversation we dive into an important (and often overlooked) topic for sales teams: Contract Lifecycle Management. We explore why it’s important to write better agreements, why companies don’t truly understand the agreements they're signing, why that’s a problem and how to avoid it. We also get into why contract management departments are such an essential function. From both a strategic and tactical standpoint. And why too few growth companies are investing in them. _ Arm your team with the tools they need to work from anywhere. Watch the video @ www.ringDNA.com/andy

Luigi Prestinenzi is the Founder and Head of Growth at the Sales IQ Global. In our conversation we talk about essential mindsets for sellers. I know, I know. This topic can make your eyes glaze over. But stick with me. Most don’t fully understand what mindsets are and how important they are for sellers. Most people think of mindset as determination or hustle. That’s not it. I call those attitudes. Mindsets are the lens through which people filter and process how they experience the world. And in this episode Luigi and I dig into some of the critical mindsets for sellers: growth mindset, open mindset, and a few others.

Nick Kane is the Managing Partner of the Janek Performance Group. This is such a fun conversation. We dig into three important topics. First and foremost, we talk about Nick’s passion for bourbons. In fact, he posted a list of what he considers the very best bourbons to help you celebrate a big sales win! Then we dive into what's required, to develop a good salesperson and how to engage the empowered B2B buyer.

Christine Lagorio-Chafkin is a senior writer at Inc. Magazine. In this episode we discuss her recent article, "Business Leaders Spoke Up After the Capitol Riot. Will Their Voices Remain Strong?" and the response of the business community to the events of January 6. As Christine puts it, these dramatic events cause a real surge in activism among business leaders (or at least stop them from hiding behind a professional curtain of non-partisanism). So we dig into the issue of what the appropriate role of business is, or should be, in driving societal and political change. When the stakes are so high, is it possible for business to stay on the sidelines?

Andrew Sykes is the Founder of Habits at Work, and author of an excellent book titled, "The 11th Habit: Design Your Company Culture to Foster the Habits of High Performance." This is such a fun conversation. I love it when I have the chance to talk with people who I believe really get it. Who live in reality, not the fake world of so many sales trainers, and understands what it takes to connect with other people and help influence the choices and decisions they make to achieve the business outcomes they desire. In this episode we talk the 10 Habits of High-Performance that Andrew spells out in his book.

Gopkiran Rao is the Chief Strategy and Marketing Office at MindTickle. In this episode we discuss why now it is more important than ever for organizations to effectively and appropriately – engage their customers and prospects in conversation, not in sales cycles. We explore what that means in terms of the business acumen and agility that sellers need to possess to effectively engage in today’s environment. Plus, we dig into what it means for sellers these days to be sales ready.

Zorian Rotenberg is the CRO at Infotelligent. In today's episode we dive into how and why a CRO is different than a VP of Sales. Titles are thrown around pretty easily these days. But as we dig into, there are substantive differences between the two roles and Zorian shares some details about how they should be viewed. Which includes his very interesting perspective that good CROs are like a "Hedge Fund Portfolio Manager" So we talk about the steps CROs can take to hedge their risks as they scale their operations. Plus, Zorian shares his 9 steps for scaling revenue.

Ralph Barsi is the the VP of Global Inside Sales at Tray.io and one of my favorite people in this sales universe. In this episode we talk about Ralph’s music career. As in rock and roll. His band has been together for 30 years. They toured in the past, still play gigs, and are getting ready to record a new album. I watched some videos online and they rock! No conversation with Ralph ever takes place without talking about books. Ralph reads as much as I do. And he always has interesting book recommendations. I share a few of my own as well. We then segue into talking about sales. Ralph shares some of his management processes. We talk about Team Tuesdays and prospecting day. A day during which most business units contribute to the pipeline. Company wide prospecting. Very cool. Ralph shares his process for effective communications; Using his weekly updates to manage up and down the chain with clear, consistent communications

Rob Johnson is the Managing Director for Onit, leader in the enterprise legal ops space. Rob sent me one of the more interesting pitches to be a guest on this show. He said he wasn't trying to promote anything. He just wanted to talk about the challenges people face when they have dyslexia and the opportunities it presents for sellers. In this episode Rob shares his story about developing into a top sales professional and sales leader despite having dyslexia.

Lars Helgeson is the Founder and CEO of GreenRope, developer of the Complete CRM. Today we discuss why managing data in a business is a leadership issue first, and a technology issue second. We also dive into why Lars believes traditional CRM systems are a giant waste of resources for companies that aren’t large enterprises, and why companies can’t treat their CRM as just a data utility but have to be proactive about establishing an effective data policy.

Catie Ivey is the regional Vice President responsible for all new logo acquisition in the mid-market space for DemandBase. In this conversation dive into a number of interesting topics: (1) How she had an epic fail on her first sales interview, a s did I, (2) how she’s dealt with self doubt, (3) why she believes that working in sales has given her the ability to accomplish more than she ever dreamed possible. and (4) how she’s overcome the obstacles that are placed in the way of women in sales.

U.S. Congressman Bill Foster is my guest on this special inauguration episode. Representative Bill Foster represents the 11th congressional district in Illinois (In the Chicago area) and serves on the House Financial Services Committee where he chairs the Task Force on Artificial Intelligence. He also serves on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus, which is examining the Federal government's response to the COVID-19 crisis. Before becoming a member of Congress, Bill worked as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and a successful entrepreneur, co-founded at age 19 with his younger brother, Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc., which now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States. Finally, before that, he was one of my best friends in junior high school. Needless to say, we cover a lot of ground in this conversation. 

Mike Smerklo is an entrepreneur, investor and author of the book, "Mr Monkey and Me". In this episode we hear the story of Mike's struggles with self-doubt as he grew from an entrepreneur and CEO at a small business that he grew into a category-leading publicly traded company. Plus, we dig into the SHAPE mindset framework that is at the heart of Mike’s fun book about conquering the self-doubt that plagues us all at one time or another,

Dan Crum is author of the book titled "The CIA Method" about best practices in hiring and recruiting for sales. Dan has had one of the most interesting journeys into sales. He started as a polygraph examiner and special investigator for the CIA. He administered lie detector tests to people the agency was going to hire. From his experiences Dan learned that the key to effective hiring is to have a process that minimizes the subjectivity inherent in making hiring decisions. Plus, we dig into why Dan advocates that portions of the hiring process be blind, some interesting ideas about verification, and why you should make audio and video recordings of all interviews.

Chris Anthony is the Vice President, US Consumer Goods and Marketing Cloud at Salesforce. This is another in a series of conversations I’ve been having on this show about mental health, sales, and business. In June 2020, on the 15th anniversary of his sobriety, Chris went public with his story for the first time. He took this step, publicly revealing a private story, in order to help end the stigma attached to sobriety and recovery in business. In our conversation Chris shares the story of his struggles with alcohol, his journey in sobriety, and why today he believes sobriety is his superpower. Chris also shares some of the warning signs that sellers need to watch for during these stressful times. Hey, let’s face it, between Covid, politics and an uncertain economy there is a ton of stress out there. Chris gives some good advice for those who are feeling this.

Nick Runyon is the CMO at PFL.com, a leader in the Tactile Marketing Automation space. In this episode we get into everything Tactile Marketing Automation. You know, sending things to prospects and customers as part of your playbook. We talk about how PFL got into this space. Normally I don’t spend a lot of time on founding stories but this one is very interesting. Tune-in to learn how PFL evolved from a small local print shop into an organization with global reach. Plus, Nick shares some ideas about how to implement tactile marketing automation as part of your ABM campaigns.

Vince Beese is the head of Enterprise Sales at Kustomer (which was just acquired by Facebook). Vince has been selling big deals into the enterprise and leading enterprise sales team in the SaaS space for a long time, so settle in for a great conversation about the big changes we’ve seen in enterprise sales this past year. We'll dive into which changes we think will be permanent and which were, or are, just temporary stopgaps. Plus, we dig into the topic of whether the whole “modern selling” movement has been oversold and is leading too many sales organizations down the wrong pat

Jake Dunlap is the CEO of Skaled. In this episode Jake and I discuss an article he posted on linkedin about 5 predominant myths in sales. You’ll really want to listen to this conversation because I think it’s safe to say that, well, I had a few issues with Jake’s myths. However, I really enjoyed sparring with Jake because this is the type of open discussion that needs to happen more frequently in sales. Because, quite honestly, B2B Sales is a mess. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. And it’s only by engaging in these types of conversations that we’ll be able to start moving the ball forward. 

Stephen Diorio is the Executive Director at The Revenue Enablement Institute. The pandemic has been an eye opener for business leaders, many are doubling down on changes made during the transition to remote selling in order to increase client access and coverage while retaining the cost savings. Stephen and I dig into whether it’s realistic to assume that remote selling can be a cure all and drive: (1) Revenue growth, (2) improved performance, and (3) improved productivity. I have to admit that I'm fairly skeptical of some of this new found enthusiasm bosses have for remote selling. Remote selling is nothing new. Sellers have been doing it since Bell invented the telephone. And, In most cases I believe it’s going to be used a pretext for companies to continue to underinvest in developing the talents of our sellers. This is an interesting conversation about a topic front and center for many sales bosses.