Episode Summary:

Travis and Kevin talk with the Director of Revenue Performance at Chili Piper, Michael Tuso, about driving the success that you seek, the power of individualized coaching plans, the importance of diversity, and more.

Michael Tuso Short Bio:

Michael has always had a passion for coaching, which is what drives him to do the work he does today. Michael attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he ran for Student Body President as a freshman—and won. The networking and sales skills he honed as a part of that experience brought him in front of dozens of United States Senators, enabled him to sit in on a US Supreme Court Justice confirmation, brought him overseas on a full scholarship for study abroad, and ultimately a gig running a statewide political campaign. Michael realized he enjoyed the nuts and bolts of how to raise money for a campaign, so he combined that interest with his love of travel and moved overseas as a part of a work abroad program for Citrix. Michael soon fell in love with sales and has worked with multiple startups since then. He currently works as the Director of Revenue Performance at Chili Piper. Michael’s specialties include: training, sales process, tech implementation, account executives, SDRs, sales, leadership, go-to-market, social media, direct-mail campaigns, digital marketing, IT, technology, strategy, and consulting. Michael also received the 2019 BEAST Award for Best Sales Development Leader at Tenbound’s 3rd Annual Sales Development Conference.

Episode Highlights:

1. Michael’s background - political/how he got into sales
2. Passiveness and success/ driving results
3. You can’t be a passenger to be successful, you have to be the driver
4. Instead of saying go do- be a part of investing in your own growth
5. Invest them in the process
6. Using this time to up your game
7. Creating an ecosystem of learning across all of your teams
8. Lack of help needed from managers
9. Steering away from the check the box mentality
10. Success because of diversity
11. Being the “only” / finding others like you
12. Adversity along the way only makes you stronger and better
13. Treat everything as a learning opportunity
14. 17-19 month stat
15. How Michael ended up with his unique job title
16. Too much stress placed on CEO- revenue not up to one person
17. The importance of coaching
18. So many companies focusing on enablement
19. Answering “why” questions/ science-based thinking
20. Teaching people to their strengths and weaknesses
21. Getting rid of intuition and building data-driven insights
22. Empirical hiring- concrete things to look for
23. You know you have at least middle performers
24. Focus on different priorities with different people because they are all motivated differently 

Favorite Points:

1. Passiveness/success- driving results
2. Creating an ecosystem of learning across all of your teams
3. Success because of diversity
4. Michael’s story about how he ended up with his unique job title

Tweetable Quotes:

1. “You can’t be passive and successful at the same time. You have to drive the results that you seek.”
2. “We’re not successful despite our diversity, we are successful because of our diversity.”
3. “I don’t let any preconceived notions of what the world is supposed to be like stop me from doing what I want.”
4. “If I go into a company, I want to be the best at what I do.”
5. “The era of gut-check hiring is over.”

Links:

Travis King: LinkedIn

Kevin Mulrane: LinkedIn

Michael Tuso LinkedIn