• Comfort with discomfort is key to success.
• Hiring from diverse backgrounds can yield great results.
• Sales reps and leaders require different skill sets.
• Clear communication is crucial in sales.
• Problem-solving mindset is essential for leadership.
• Leaders should prioritize urgent and important tasks.
• Understanding market dynamics is vital for sales success.
• Taking on challenging roles can accelerate career growth.
• Leadership is about impact and solving interesting problems.
• The path to leadership is not always linear.

Join me Daniel Bartels and Simon Peterson as they dive into the essential traits that define top-performing sales professionals. In this episode titled "Be the Sales Rep Every VP Wants to Hire" you will learn:

💪 The Importance of Resilience: Discover how resilience helps sales professionals bounce back from setbacks and continuously improve.

🔥 Harnessing Competitiveness: Understand how a competitive spirit can push your team to exceed their targets and innovate.

🎯 Effective Hiring Strategies: Get actionable tips on identifying and recruiting top talent with the foundational traits needed for success.

Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical advice that can elevate your sales game to the next level. Whether you're a sales leader, an aspiring salesperson, or just passionate about B2B sales, this episode is packed with nuggets of wisdom you can implement right away.

Luke shares his journey into the tech sector, starting from a young age and building his skills through hands-on experience. He emphasizes the importance of mentors and the value of learning and self-training in the fast-paced tech industry. Luke also discusses the path to sales leadership. He encourages individuals to own their own careers and work backwards from their desired end result. Luke also shares his personal experience of being diagnosed with cancer and how it shaped his perspective on leadership and resilience. 

In sport and sales I’ve always been fascinated by culture. How do you instil a culture when you take on leadership of a new organisation?

 Keith brings over a decade of experience as a Sales Leader, and somebody who thinks about this question a lot,

A big Man City fan, I ask him about Pep Guardiola and how he was able to impact the culture of a club in such a significant way. And how this translates in the corporate world.

If you’re interested in sales, sport this is a really fascinating conversation. And, a unique insight in to a VP Sales first 90 days in a new organisation.

We talk elite performance, and the demands, challenges, and joys of scaling internationally. 

 Currently Vice President and Managing Director, APJ at Anomali, Matt has spent more than 19 years APJC experience as a Senior Executive in IT and Cyber Security. With a track record if driving growth, I was curious to understand the secret to building high-performance teams.

I was intrigued by Matt’s approach to commercial success, but also a thoughtful and balanced philosophy to work and life. We discussed:

1. The state of sales in 2023/24
2. Building high-performing teams
3. Balancing stakeholder, corporate and employee value and expectations + much more.

* The views and opinions expressed are the speaker’s own and do not represent the opinions of Anomali.

The rest was down to him. As expected, he's been a fantastic addition to Salesforce and a consistent high performer.

I have so much time for Vinodh Narasimhan so was really pleased to have him on this week's podcast.

We talked through his first 12 months as 'high-performing teacher' turned 'high-performing tech BDR'.

I ask Ankesh Chopra who's led some of the most disruptive, high performing SaaS firms in APAC (AppDynamics, ZScaler and now ClickUp).

We discuss:

What makes a great rep?

Can reps go from good to great?

The roots of success?

Coaching for greatness + much more.

Jamal Reimer is an author, coach, and former Enterprise seller who spent over 20 years in software sales. His book, Mega Deals Secrets published in 2021 documents the art of closing his first $50m deal whilst working for Oracle. He went on to land multiple +$50m deals and ranked in the top 1% of performers. He now offers his insights to aspiring Enterprise Sellers and has coaches reps from businesses including Salesforce, Oracle, VMware, Outreach, Cisco, Seismic, DocuSign, Dynatrace and Gartner.

He joins us to talk about the Enterprise Selling landscape in Australian technology. And, what Sellers can do right now to reach the pinnacle of the profession.

He shares his foundations in sales, built upon an inhererited approach to life from his immigrant family background. 

We also discuss his extraodrindary career with Salesforce, and his biggest learnings for career trajectory and success. Expect to hear insights on strategy, activity and mindset to level up your won carere trajectory.

Finally Nick talks us through his recent decision to join Databricks, and plans for the future.

Few career trajectories beat Michael’s. He’s spent 8 years with HubSpot, as a consistent Presidents Club Recipient and Top Performer. Alongside quota attainment his experience now lends itself to providing subject matter expertise and mentorship to new hires.

Whilst we often see Reps move to different SaaS businesses to ‘move upwards’ in career development. Michael has a unique tenure and record of promotion (no less than 7 promotions in his 8 years from BDR to Senior Enterprise).

His journey has by no means been easy and he shares wisdom on how other reps can navigate promotion and career development.

Interestingly we talk about the question that every rep faces at some point in their career;

"Should I stay with this business, or is it time to make a move? "

Don’t miss Michael’s framework for success.

James brings an authentic and humble approach which has driven his success. We talk through the principles that drive him.

2:44 Childhood and early foundations (early work ethic)

3:40 Work experience outside of technology 

6:00 Taking a non-traditional route outside tertiary education 

6:30 What is a growth mindset?

7:46 How is growth mindset being utilised among top performers?

8:23 Why feedback is a gift

9:00 The best reps seek out and accept change

17:00 Is the software industry too binary in how it recruits sales reps?

19:45 How to articulate your experience to land a role in tech sales

20:50 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

22:20 Purpose 

25:01 Career identity and authenticity

26:10 What’s the downside of having an identity related to work

28:00 Resilience

30:00 Advice for younger reps going through a rough time

32:20 Nobody likes surprises – communicate early

33:29 The best performers build better relationships internally 

35:30 Principles of success: Planning, investing in yourself, craftsmanship, solidarity, empathy, resilience, authenticity

38:50 How do you define success?

40:00 What’s your daily routine?

He describes how he found his purpose - creating a sustainable fundraising model for charities and has given almost $1.5 million away.

A business leader with real authenticity, he proves there's much to be gained, in being yourself.

Tatafu represented Australia ninety times alongside a revered domestic career.

He’s now forging a career in technology sales with Monday.com. We talk about the journey ahead having recently joined the industry,

Tatafu talks about mindset and the foundations that shaped his career, and how he’s utilising them to reach top performance in his new craft.

Mark Baskin is an APAC Top Rep with SaaS business Hubspot. A 3 x Presidents Club Winner for consecutive years he's also been awarded APAC Top Rep multiple times. Highly revered by his peers for his knowledge in methodology and process, he shares the mindset that has helped him become a professional MMA fighter, and high achiever in the business world.

Topics

Early foundations, MMA

Delayed gratification - Natural or nurtured?

How do you define success?

Principles (tenets) of high performance

What keeps you hungry now you've had some success?

Autonomy and fulfilment in sales

What's been the key to your success as APAC top rep?

Sales coaching

Lessons for sellers entering the industry

It’s a topic I’m personally fascinated with so I enjoyed the chat with Cam Elliot of GoodHabitz. Cam brings an extensive career in hiring, coaching and leading salespeople, and has worked with Cam with thousands of sellers. He breaks down his key 3 components for success in sales. 

Topics:

Early foundations and attraction to sales

Why are people drawn to sales?

Are salespeople born or nurtured?

What are your tenets for success in work and life?

The two things all great salespeople have in common

Introvert v extrovert

The three components of success in sales

How much can education improve performance? 

The best environment for learning

Advice for aspiring tech sales professionals