Ready Set Sell

In this episode of Ready Set Sell, Hannah sits down with Jeffrey D. Hatchell, an author and the Vice President of U.S. Sales Enablement & Global Leadership at American Express. Jeffrey has experience working in sales as both a sales leader and a performance coach, and he has also authored a book on inspirational leadership called The Inspired Career. Today, he leads a sales enablement organization to equip sales people and their leaders with the skills to become more effective with their customers and prospects. Hannah and Jeffrey discuss what it can look like to lead an inspired career, how sales professionals can begin to gain a better awareness of their own potential, and some of the first steps people should take when they’re looking to improve their leadership skills. Jeffrey also shares his perspective on why he believes it’s important to transform “followers into leaders and leaders into agents of change,” and how he acts as an advocate for the Black community in the business world.

When it comes to the success of any modern sales team, effective sales operations tactics can play a critical role. By addressing common gaps and bottlenecks, the entire process can be made much more efficient, which will in turn pave the way for improved outcomes overall. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with someone who can speak to all this and more: Anna-Luisa Fisher-Jeffes, the Sales Operations Manager at Unily, a global SaaS company that provides an employee experience platform to its customers. She recently moved to the UK from South Africa, where she spent most of her career in management consulting and sales management. During the episode, Anna-Luisa shares several key strategies for making the sales process more efficient, including why sales team leaders need to look at the data to determine where the team can make tangible improvements. She also touches on scalability, the modern sales tech stack, forecasting and much more.

Building and scaling an effective sales team is no easy feat. Leaders need to take so many different elements into consideration today, and managing a team full of different personalities and working styles isn’t always a straightforward task. However, some people somehow make it all look easy. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Asad Afzal, the Director of Sales at Formstack and an expert in building and scaling successful sales teams. During the interview, he shares key tips for building and scaling effective sales teams, strategies for approaching sales training and onboarding in today’s fast-paced environment, advice for leaders and much more.

When it comes to growing, scaling and developing an excellent sales team, there’s truly a fine art to it that can’t be learned overnight. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Stephanie Valenti, the Chief Revenue Officer at SmartBug Media. In her role, Stephanie leads sales, marketing, and all client services and delivery departments at the company. She’s also spent more than 15 years learning the best strategies for fostering sustainable growth, leading a team, and helping B2B sales organizations scale up, so she has plenty of wisdom to share about leadership and the customer journey overall. During the episode, Stephanie shares lots of insightful advice and plenty of actionable tips that you can benefit from, no matter your current role within your organization.

In this episode, Hannah and Tony explore the reasons why a great salesperson should also be a great storyteller, and how you can brush up on your own skills. They sit down with Nick Capozzi, the Head of Storytelling at Demostack and an expert in crafting compelling video content to boost sales and strengthen the narrative surrounding a brand. As someone who got his start in sales sailing on cruise ships, Nick has an intimate awareness of the power of storytelling and the key elements of a great piece of content. He shared more about the fascinating backstory behind his career, as well as some of his best-kept secrets when it comes to leveraging storytelling as a sales tool. Nick also provides listeners with an overview of how to create an Oscar-worthy demo, which you definitely won’t want to miss if you’re hoping to take your brand storytelling to the next level.

It’s rare that someone is born an amazing sales leader, which is why it’s essential to maintain a growth mindset, a flexible outlook, and a willingness to learn new things. Remote work and new technologies are forcing organizations to adopt new strategies for keeping their teams educated and engaged, and this episode’s guest reminds us why a personalized approach to training is so important today, and how sales teams can adopt a similar strategy. In this episode, Hannah and Tony explore the latest and greatest strategies for training, development and onboarding in the sales world with Amy Lord, the Global Sales Enablement Manager at Unisys. In her role, Amy designs and implements onboarding, continuous learning, and coaching programs for hundreds of sales professionals. 

In many ways, finding success in sales is all about your mindset. The sales professionals who are able to maintain a flexible and optimistic mindset no matter what’s happening in the market around them will already have a major advantage over the competition and a greater chance at achieving their goals. In this episode, Hannah and Tony explore some of the key elements of sales success, and what makes some companies thrive in challenging times while others fail. To inform their discussion, they sit down with the President and Founder Listen and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://fal.cn/readysetsellappleListen on Spotify: https://fal.cn/readysetsellspotifyIn each bi-weekly episode of Ready, Set, Sell, hosts Hannah Ajikawo, Practice Lead at Skaled Consulting and Tony Germinario, Director of Sales at Mindtickle sit down with industry thought leaders to provide listeners with smart insights, tangible advice, and actionable tips they can apply to the work they do in their own roles. Want to learn more about creating a culture of sales excellence? It starts here: https://fal.cn/3mr6VConnect with Hannah Ajikawo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-aj...Connect with Tony Germinario: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-germ...Connect with Colleen Francis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colleenfrancis/

In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with the President and Chief Operating Officer at Qualified, Eric Sikola. During their conversation, they explore tips and tricks for leveling up your sales game, strategies for staying fresh and innovative, and how to keep rolling with the punches as the digital world continues to evolve. Eric shares his perspective on sales as an ever-evolving process, the value of building trust and credibility in the industry, and how to develop a solid reputation as a salesperson today. He also offers key insights and advice for leaders who are hoping to take advantage of new innovations in the sales world while maintaining the human element along the way.

When it comes to finding success in any industry, pursuit, or discipline, perspective is everything. This is especially true for sales and marketing teams because in any organization, these two teams need to work together synergistically to produce the best results. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Jeff Davis, the Associate Director of Business & Brand Strategy at AbbVie, and the Founder & Principal of Aligned Growth Strategies. Jeff has spent much of his career helping B2B leaders align their sales and marketing teams to optimize outcomes overall, so he has plenty of valuable advice to share. During this episode, Jeff shares his top tricks of the trade when it comes to sales and marketing alignment, digital-first selling, and some of the key ingredients of accelerating revenue growth. Listeners are sure to walk away from this episode feeling more inspired, knowledgeable and motivated to optimize their sales outcomes.

If sales people hope to stay competitive in the industry, they need to stay on top of the latest and greatest tech tools in the game. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Jacki Leahy, the Head of Revenue Operations at Winning by Design. Specializing in solving startup growth challenges and streamlining business practices to uncover insights and drive growth, Jacki has plenty of sales wisdom to impart with listeners. During this episode, Jacki shares more about her career background (hint: it’s an interesting one), offers her tips for adopting new tech tools that can help you hit your targets, and lets us in on all her best-kept sales secrets. She also provides some advice for sales executives hoping to find their niche and play to their strengths to optimize performance.

It’s clearer than ever before that people are a company’s best asset. The organizations that prioritize and invest in their people will have an easier time retaining talent and driving better outcomes in the future. For companies hoping to attract and retain top talent in a competitive hiring market, placing a stronger emphasis on learning, growth and development is a great place to start. In this episode, Hannah and Tony discuss the benefits of creating a culture of continuous learning by taking a top-down approach. To explore this topic, they sit down with Christine Rogers, the President and COO of Aspireship, a platform that helps people reskill and pivot into the world of SaaS sales. Christine offers her tips for helping sales professionals on your team learn new skills, stay curious and unlock new talents. She also explains how learning and development can ultimately improve sales enablement, sharing the top areas sales execs should be focusing on this year to maximize performance.

 For a business to be effective, all teams need to work synergistically together and avoid operating in silos, especially sales and marketing. Optimizing outcomes for both teams means they need to prioritize constant communication and strong alignment on their end goals. In this episode, Hannah and Tony chat with Chris Lynch, the CMO of Mindtickle. During the episode, they discuss how sales and marketing teams can come together in pursuit of a company’s mission and vision to work more effectively, how to tell your brand story, the importance of being truthful as marketers and salespeople, and finding success through remaining adaptable to change.

Establishing synergy among teams is essential for sales leaders hoping to optimize outcomes and meet or exceed targets. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Reid Oliver, Enterprise Sales Director at Splunk, a platform that helps companies aggregate, investigate and analyze their data in a cohesive way. As a sales director, Reid has found a few different leadership strategies that work for him and his team. During the episode, Reid shares his advice for finding cross-functional alignment to achieve excellence in enterprise sales. He also explains why cross-functional collaboration is all about striking the right balance between working effectively as an individual and keeping communication channels open with your team, and how celebrating small wins can help to keep teams motivated along the way.

Outstanding leadership skills will take you far in any field, but they’re especially important in the world of sales. Learning to lead and manage a sales team effectively will not only help you make a name for yourself in the sales industry, but will also help you drive better outcomes for the entire company. In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Alice Heiman, a speaker, podcast host of Sales Talk for CEOs, and the founder and chief sales energizer of her self-titled management consultancy. As an expert in helping CEOs strategize, grow and lead their businesses, Alice offers her insights into the most important skills to develop if you’re hoping to take your career to the next level and master sales leadership. She also shares the reasons why she’s particularly interested in helping people at the CEO level grow their skills, the key pillars of a winning sales strategy, and her top tips for improving the training process overall. 

 In this episode, Hannah and Tony sit down with Bob Apollo, the Founder and Chief Outcomes Officer of Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners. During the episode, Bob shares his sales secrets including his proven four-step approach to rapidly putting Outcome-Centric Selling® principles into practice within your sales organization. He also offers tips for becoming a more future-focused sales leader, and shares his predictions for the upcoming year in the sales industry. Based in the UK, Bob is also a Fellow of the Association of Professional Sales, a founding contributor to the International Journal of Sales Transformation, a member of the Sales Experts Channel, a recognized Sales Futurist and the driving force behind Inflexion-Point Strategy Partners, the leading B2B outcome-centric selling experts. Following a varied and successful career spanning start-ups, scale-ups and corporations, Bob now works with B2B-focused CEOs and sales leaders, equipping and enabling their sales organizations to accelerate revenue growth and transform sales effectiveness. 

Ready Set Sell is a new Mindtickle podcast dedicated to helping revenue and sales professionals improve their sales outcomes through tangible advice, actionable tips and expert insights. Hosted by sales consultant and coach Hannah Ajikawo and sales leader and coach Tony Germinario of Mindtickle, each episode features exclusive interviews with sales practitioners, leaders and experts exploring themes like becoming a better sales coach, how to ramp reps faster, winning sales behaviors, how to leverage data to create more top performers and all the latest and greatest tools you should know about. Along with their guests, Hannah and Tony offer their perspective on the ins and outs of sales readiness, tricks of the trade, success stories and honest accounts of what didn’t work so well in order to help you and your teams improve performance. Listen to the first episode dropping this February and be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts.