Get FREE Sales Leadership Resources at go.transformedsales.com/pod

In this episode of the Science of Selling STEM, I had a chat with Samantha McKenna, the Founder of SamSales Consulting. Sam is the former head of LinkedIn Sales Solutions, Enterprise, NYC, and VP of Sales at ON24.  She is an award-winning leader, who has broken over a dozen sales records across three different companies, created seven global sales programs for culture, training, and onboarding, and has been named a Top 50 Leader by Outreach.io, and Top 50 Women in Revenue by Engagio.io.  

She has been an individual contributor and executive in sales for the last 12 years and has spoken globally on the topics of sales, leadership, and technology. She is a brand ambassador for Linkedin and a highly sought-after speaker who spent her career doing two things; breaking records for herself, her employers, and now her clients. She always puts others first to ensure every client engagement she delivers has an exceptional experience. Sam will demonstrate (From her own hands-on experience) what successful sales leadership really looks like and how you should go about advancing your sales career. 

She will also share the tactics you can apply to thrive in entrepreneurship, and so much more. You won’t wanna miss this one. And if you ever need help with a sales or leadership issue don't hesitate to book a complimentary clarity session with me HERE. You can also email us at podcast@transformedsales.com with any suggestions or comments about the podcast.

On Today’s Episode of the Science of Selling STEM:

• Falling into sales despite not being into it at first (01:50)
• What sales is really all about (03:52)
• Taking time to build her skills and relationships before moving up the ladder (08:00)
• Great sales leadership: How sales leaders can build great teams (13:25)
• The WHY behind her transition into entrepreneurship (16:53)
• Tips on how to succeed as an entrepreneur (19:33)
• How she efficiently and effectively services her 100+ clients (24:23)
• Building her brand with tons of experience before venturing into business (27:51)

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn
• Wesleyne on Facebook     
• Wesleyne on Twitter
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Connect with Samantha McKenna:

• Samantha on Linkedin
• Samantha’s Website

Rate, Review, Learn, and Share

Thanks for tuning into The Science of Selling STEM! If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn even more about what it takes to transform your sales, don’t forget to tune into our other episodes and share your favorite episodes on social media!

Join The Science of Selling STEM community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit my website for even more content, information, and resources.

As a sales manager, you are judged by the

performance of your team, and you're praised when they do

well. But one thing that you've not been able to figure out is

how to get everyone on your team consistently hitting quota every

single month. On the Snack size sales podcast, we discuss the

science of selling stem sales leadership in the science,

technology, engineering and manufacturing fields is

difficult. You will learn from sales managers just like you

that will give you actionable insights and tips on how to

develop as a leader and achieve your revenue targets every

single month. So pop your headphones in and get ready to

listen to my guest today. They will give you information and

inspiration to ensure that you have actionable insights that

you can put into place today. Hello, and welcome to another

episode of the science of selling stem today I am so

excited to introduce our guest, Samantha McKenna, also known as

Sam, how are you today

are so good. Thank you so much for having me

what a total pleasure to be here.

Thanks so much for taking time today. Let me

tell you guys a little bit more about Sam. She is an award

winning sales leader, brand ambassador for LinkedIn. She is

a highly sought after speaker who spent her career doing two

things breaking records for herself, her employers and now

her clients. She always puts others first to ensure every

client engagement she delivers has exceptional experience. Oh,

so you sound like you are all about the customer experience.

But how did you start your career to how you get to where

you are today?

I think you know, probably like everybody

else, I fell into sales. I don't know a lot of people who have

you know, had a long term vision of like, I'm gonna be a

salesperson when they're six, right? We're all like ballerinas

and lawyers and all that stuff. But I fell into sales, I had

someone offer me a job, I actually turned it down come to

realizing I've turned down a lot of the jobs that I was

originally offered and then eventually took them. But I

thought okay, you know, I'll give it a shot. And I think the

reason I didn't even want to get into sales was the perception of

what it's like to be a salesperson, you know, that it's

like aggressive and salesy and slimy and car salesman and all

that stuff, you know, which, you know, we're actively working to

change that perception. But I got started there as an AE, and

the rest is kind of history.

Hmm. So tell us about your first when you first

dip your toe into the water and became an AE for those first

days or months like for you.

So scary, you know, and I think I think you

you get into a sales role. And you realize that you're

continuing down this path of a sales job is really predicated

on whether or not you can sell, right? So you can't just kind of

skirt your way through. You can't figure out like, oh, how

do I just be a good person and do mediocre work and just

hopefully keep my job like, it's, you know, it's cutthroat.

If you don't sell me, you don't get to hang around. So I was

terrified. And thankfully, I think one of the best things

that I had going for me is that I worked for a small company.

And I had a CEO at the time, who really saw the potential that I

had. So while I didn't succeed right out of the gate, you know,

he gave me so much, you know, advice, he constantly educated

me and then said, you know, let's figure out how to continue

building you. But I was so scared, you know, how do I ask

for a contract? If somebody wants one thing, and we do just

a slightly different thing? You know, Will I lose the deal? It

was so terrifying. And mostly because I'm someone who hates to

inconvenience people. So the thought of calling someone and

being like, Bill, I would love for you to buy my stuff, please.

Thank you, you know, and then he says, I'm not interested. I'll

be like, Okay, thanks. Sorry. Sorry, to inconvenience you by.

That was my early early experience in my early

perception of what sales was.

So how did you get over that? You know, like,

Ah, I don't want to bother people. And I actually have to

ask her things and push a little bit. How did you get through

that?

I think, you know, it's the most amazing

transition when you realize some of the most obvious things that

are in front of you. And for me, the obvious thing I was missing

is that sales isn't this aggressive, skeezy kind of

thing. It is really the art of helping someone. And I think one

of the most influential things my I think was my head of sales

at the time said was, no one's taking a call with you for their

health, like they're busy, they're not going to get on the

horn with you and just listen to what you have to say if they

don't have a challenge that they need you to solve. So if you

shift the idea of sales from you, just trying to push your

product, send someone to thinking about the fact that

you're here to help them to be a pair of hands, right, you'll

really change your lens and start to have totally different

conversations. And that's what we say like my, my mantra, I

think probably since that day has been even thinking about our

discovery calls our first dates, if you will, as an opportunity

to simply solve the challenge of the customer. And it may not be

through us, you know, we get people who call us AMS sales all

the time, and they're like, you know, have you fly us to the

moon? And we're like, oh, fascinating, not what we do.

Right? But like, I need to get to that I need to find out what

the challenges are, what the landscape is what they're

looking for, so that I can be of help to them, even if it's not

necessarily with what we do.

So really thinking about like, Hey, I have

a million different things that I can do. But I said, Yes, I'll

talk to you. So okay, sure. That means there may be there's some

kind of interest, and it's your job as a salesperson to really

say, Okay, this is how I can help you. I like to call it

committing sales malpractice, if you don't actually help the

person when they have said, Oh, I do have a problem here.

Right? Yeah, exactly. Well, and you, you

think about it, like just that even the way we kick off a

discovery call. We talk about this ad nauseum thing so many

people struggle with like, Okay, I want to get to their

challenge. But what do I What do I do? Do I show up on the

Discovery call? And so you know, what interested you in taking

this call today? And it's not what you say? Or do I just go

through my, you know, 17 questions to uncover BANT now.

But instead of you kind of take it like, take some of the words

you just use, right? Even though you were speaking about the

customer side, think about this, you show up to a call, we start

having a conversation. And then I say So listen, I could tell

you a million things about Sam sales. But I'd love to hear from

you. First, can you tell me a little bit about your team, your

challenges, maybe what the overall landscape is like on

your side? Can we start there? If that's okay, and what I love

about this is that you're kind of breaking that question down

into three parts, right? I'm going to tell you about me, I

will. But first I'd love to hear about you. And you kind of build

some EQ and after that, right? If I say like, tell me about

you. And then I just sit there, you're gonna be like, Oh my

gosh, what? A deer in headlights, right? Like, what

about me? So I want to build in some kind of fluffy words there

to give you time to think and give you some crutches and then

ask for permission. The most beautiful part about this,

especially when we teach it to sales reps is that they're like,

Okay, I'm going to try this. They try it, they get two or

three or four minutes of stream of consciousness from that

buyer, right? Their pens are on fire taking notes. And then

they're like, Oh, my God, why haven't I been doing this my

whole career? And we're like, I don't know. But rinse and

repeat.

And then, you know, it's like that aha moment

when you're in a discovery call and it goes, right, right.

Because sometimes you will throw a question out, and people will

be like, oh, yeah, this one word answer. Like, oh, no, I missed

something, right?

Or even if you ask that you know what

interested you in taking this call today? Just think about

like your grumpiest buyer, they can show up to the call and say,

You know what, I'm not really sure your BDR book time with me.

And you know, here I am. And then you're like, then you get

nervous. And then you're talking about yourself for 28 minutes.

So instead, right, let's think about the question that can

really net us something valuable. And it's why just show

up here today in a beautifully said professional way.

Awesome. So you started your world in sales as

an AE, what was your the next step on your career? What did

you do after that?

I stayed in that first role for about four

years. And I really took the time, I think this would be a

piece of advice I would have for anybody is don't try to move too

quickly. And I think especially for younger generation, we are

so quick to want to move up the ladder, right? I've been an SDR

for eight minutes. Can I be an AE? Can I be an enterprise AE?

And we're like, hang on, hang on, hang on. So I stayed there.

For four years I mastered my craft. I took the breathing room

that I had to really figure this out from a foundational

perspective, I learned how to be a great social seller. And then

what was really interesting to me is the company I worked for

resold, a phenomenal product called on 24. And at some point,

they made a decision to go in a different way. They built a

relationship with another vendor and we kind of went from selling

like the Tesla's to selling like, you know, sure to catch on

fire 1978 Pintos. And I was like, Whoa, no. And it's

interesting, because I lasted about 10 days selling that

product. The relationships that I built with countless clients

were really starting to come undone because people were like,

this technology is really bad. It's making us look really bad.

And so I did something that I thought I would never do. And I

quit without having another job lined up, then to me, the brand

that I built, the relationships that I'd worked tirelessly to

build, were too important to leave up to this bad technology.

So I quit. And the really incredible thing was my again,

my CEO at the time, reached out to the head of sales at on 24

and said, Sam just quit, you'd be a fool not to have her like,

go hire her immediately. And that's what happened. So I ended

up transitioning from having sold that product for so long to

then moving to a much bigger organization on 24 and starting

as an AE there, and I'll say to when I got there, having been a

top performer like the top performer at a small company for

so long, you're kind of dropped into that, you know, it's like

you're going from like middle school where you're like the

most popular head to high school where you're like nobody. And

for me, I was figuring out quickly how to navigate the

internal organization and how to succeed as quickly as I could.

So, I'm sorry, I had to take a moment because the

bet on yourself, a lot of people, they don't bet on

themselves, right, like so you realize, like, literally 10

days, it's like two working weeks, you said, I can't do

this, because one thing that you found that was so very important

for you is your personal brand. And a lot of times at sales

people as entrepreneurs, we don't always think about our

personal brand. But I tell people, my word is my bond, if I

come to you, and I say, this is a good product, this is a good

service. I stand behind it. And I know 10 years later, like,

there are things that I sold 10 years ago, and people still know

me for that, right? Because it's like, I stood behind this, this

was a good thing. So when you went from being the eighth

grader to being the ninth grader, I actually have an

eighth grader right now. So I get it. He's like, I'm a big

guy. We're doing all these things. And I'm like, Yeah, next

year, you're gonna be a small chest,

just right.

So how did you make that transition? How did

you start making a name for yourself and kind of going

through the ranks there?

Again, like, same thing, I had great reprieve

from a great leader. The time I had Mike Henry was my boss, who

I still know and was a client of ours, even just in the last

year, but he gave me a little space, you know, well, actually,

quite a few of us came over from that old company. And we came

over in the end of q2. So I basically had six months of

breathing room to figure it out, and to hopefully bring some of

those relationships over. I think that's the first year the

only year I didn't hit quota, because I was just trying to

figure it out. And then all bets were off, you know, in January,

it'll tell you to, you know, looking at the year ahead,

looking at that six months, I knew I wasn't going to hit my

quota. So instead of just thinking like, how do I hustle

and grind and put $3,000 on the board, I really just shifted

into thinking about long term success. So what can I do in q3,

and definitely in q4 to build these deals that will tip in q1

and q2, and q3, taking our foot off the gas and thinking about

what's realistic. And what we can do to be smart for the year

ahead was really important. And I'll tell you, even as a leader,

this is something that I did as well. In fact, during my time at

on 24, our team had obliterated our quota already, but mostly

due to one really strong top performing rep who just kept

closing deal after deal after deal. Two of our team members

had no shot of making it and so for the year, but we knew their

jobs were in jeopardy, but there was just no way they were going

to hit their quota. So at the end of October, I think I said I

don't want you guys to think about closing a single extra

deal for the year, the only thing I want you to do is build

a pipe for q1 and the year ahead. And that's what they did.

And so it was really tough for me as a leader to keep showing

up for those forecast calls and saying, We don't have anything,

we don't have anything for these two reps. But when q1 comes

right, like midnight, and one minute on the 31st when you

know, you're like, I have to start there over way. I mean, we

crushed it, we again obliterated our number that team perform

those reps performed. And everybody was like, how did you

do that? And frankly, I did it through insubordination, and not

trying to close deals when we knew it wasn't gonna pay off for

us as a team. Hmm.

You mentioned having a really great leader a

couple of times. And I'm curious, what about those

previous managers who had made them such great leaders,

I think it's interesting to you, when you've

got great leadership, they see the potential in you, and they

give you what it is that you need to succeed, right. They'll

give you access to resources, they'll give you support,

they'll let you you know, test the waters with a marketing

event or going to some conference or something like

that. And I think it's our job every time we get a little bit

of a line to prove that we've done something meaningful with

it, because that's how we'll continue to get those chances.

And I think for me, you know, I've had on the flip side, I've

had bad bosses, you know, I remember once going to is

running multi by coastal team flying back and forth to San

Francisco all the time. And I don't know it was working 80 or

90 hours. And I remember saying to my leader, I'm dying, like

I'm just dying. And I said, you know, I could use an EA, I could

use somebody who could just even take five or six hours of back

and forth scheduling every single week for me. It I

remember him laughing and saying I don't have an ETA, you don't

get an EA and I was like No Okay, so it just the great

leadership to me is seeing the potential rewarding the effort,

right, especially when somebody goes above and beyond for your

company is always doing more than they're asked for and

delivers, like find out how you can just skyrocket that person,

give them the resources, whether it's personnel, whether it's you

know, additional training, whatever it is, but you've got

incredible people like set them on fire in a good way.

Yeah, right, like, elevate them. Yeah, make

them. And I think that one of the biggest wrong things we do

as a leader is like, I don't have that. I never had that. So

you can have that, right. And the thing is just because it was

hard for you, just because nobody taught you to do this

does it means that when I ask for help, or when your new

person asks for help, that you shouldn't give it to them,

because the past does not always predict the future.

You nailed it. And I think even just you as a

leader, having a conversation with those top performers, or

those people that you're like, there's a spark here, and I want

to turn it on, when you even think about those top

performers. I like, again, one of our best and brightest, one

of the things I asked for her before the days of VDRs was,

let's give her a BDR. You know, she is unbelievable, as a closer

the fact that she's spending so much time prospecting is

bananas, like what a poor division of labor for us as a

company, let's hire even a part time resource that can just book

meetings. So the only thing she's doing is being in front of

customers mountain, if we just thought outside the box a little

bit, had tested the waters with that our revenue would have been

off the charts, because we would have been making the most

effective use out of her brains and her talent. So I think it's

looking for that and even talking to your people and

saying, If I could do something to make you even more

successful, if I could remove a burden from your plate to you

know, just set your talents on fire, what would that be?

Imagine how valued that person will feel, just knowing that

you're even asking,

really valuing each person as a person I'd love

saying salespeople are humans to a lot of times, we just think

about them as these revenue generating machines, because

numbers are humans to write and they have needs, and they have

desires, and they have really key things that we as leaders

should give them to really expand. So you went from being

an AE leaving a team going from coast to coast, and then you

transitioned into entrepreneurship. So tell me

about the why why did you decide to strike out on your own,

I think, you know, as humbly as I can say it

every year, you know, from being an A to then working my way

through leadership, the executive ranks, every single

year that I was in sales, I did something you know, phenomenal

in terms of breaking records, or getting our full team over quota

or being the top performing leader out of six, or seven, or

eight or nine. And I think just at some point, and I'll say

like, there's never been a year in my career, where I've made

less money every single year continues to go up. And I think

to me, there just became a time to say like, if I can make an

impact like this on one team on several teams on one

organization, what could I do if I just went out on my own? And

I'll say it is terrifying. You know, you're giving up your

salary, your comp, your options, your health care, all of that

stuff, right? And you're going out on your own. But to me, what

an ultimate test of salesmanship, can I go on my

aunt, build it from scratch, and sell myself or sell what

services I think our clients would need. And I'll say to

like, I had incredibly humble aspirations, you know, I

thought, well, I'll just go, we'll support I'll support for

five clients, you know, I'll teach them how to sell, I'll

listen to their calls, I'll do all that jazz. And if I can make

X amount of money and help, you know, three or four or five

clients, I'll be happy when you know, we grew seemingly

overnight. We started in September 5 2019. I think we

cleared like $6,000 of receivables for that quarter who

we signed more than that. And then in our next year, we just

blew our number out of the water. I think we hit 312% of

our forecast, we ended 50 to 54 clients and then ended last year

at about 110 or 11 clients. So you know it was again, and I

think for me, I always try to keep the bar low. Try to keep my

expectations low for what we're going to do. And then hopefully

accelerate over that,

huh? So once again, you bet on yourself. All

right, he said, Ah, I can do this really, really well for

this one organization for this one team. But you know, I'll

toot your horn for you. I'm too amazing to keep this secret all

locked up, right? So I share all my magical fairy dust with so

many other people. And literally in less than three years, you've

gone from zero to you know, having over 100 clients. So if

there's somebody here and they're out there, and they're

like, You know what I'm thinking about betting on myself, what is

the single best piece of advice you can give them?

Oh, man, I think there's a few really

important components. So I would say probably the very first one

is follow through and I say that with with it because there's so

few people that say I'm going to do something and then

consistently follow through. If you are that person that makes

New Year's resolutions and keeps them you're probably in good

shape. If you quit at six weeks like the most of us do, right?

Probably not so much but think About that, are you You know,

that's an honest conversation to have with yourself? Are you a

woman or man of your word? Right? Do you follow through on

the things you say we'll do by the time you say we'll do them,

because I think that's the thing that surprises I think a lot of

people about me is that just the follow through, if I say, I'm

going to do it, I will and for your business, especially that's

so important having to wake up in the morning, be alone and

say, I'm going to create content, I'm going to go

prospect, I'm going to go sell without anyone but yourself

holding you accountable. That's a tough thing. So I would say

that first and foremost, I would say the second thing is make

sure you can sell. So if you can't sell, then you need to

have the capital to have someone who can be a partner to you, a

co founder, something like that they can go and prospect,

because I'll say where most businesses fail, as they start a

business, they capitalize on their referrals, their inbound

leads, people that they've had as clients before, just like we

did, but then after two or three years, they plateau. And you

know, that business runs out, or they just focus on executing the

business that they've already sold. And they don't continue to

build that pipeline. So you need to have someone that's capable

of doing that, if that's not you, and then making sure that

you actually follow through. So putting those two things

together. And I'll just say one more thing, like the

entrepreneurs that we coach, and I'll try to spend time with

people here and there. But we'll talk about, you know, their

deals and their pipeline. And I'm like, This is great, you've

got a bunch of pipeline, like what's happening with this, and

somebody will say, Oh, I owe them a proposal. And I'm like,

when, and they're like three weeks ago, and unlike, right, so

making sure if you can sell, but maybe you're not great to follow

through, then make sure there's someone who can do that. Okay,

one more thing. I like it just even on our friend like thinking

about our division of labor. As we've grown, I realized how much

work it was for me to not only be on the call to sell the

product to create the proposal to follow through to nurture. So

instead, you know that most of that work is my Chief of Staff

thinking back to that top rep that I mentioned, how do we

capitalize on her talents, my talents to do what I'm best at,

and then take the things that somebody else can probably do,

and outsource that to someone else so that you can be focused

on the things that really deserve your talent and

attention.

I love it. I love it. I love it. And I 150%

endorsed every single thing that you said. Because you know, like

one thing that you said, you told your boss like, Hey, I'm

working 80 to 90 hours a week and I have an EA literally six

months into my business. That was my the first part I was

like, I can't do all this same say, right? Like, whoa, you

know, it's like you have to have someone you can lean on. Because

if you get I call them leads, if you're always in the weeds, then

you can't do everything. And even for my podcast, I tell my

team, I want to show up and interview all the other stuff

before and all the other stuff afterwards. I'm not gonna do it.

I don't want to learn how to edit a podcast. I don't that's

like, that's not even what I want

to do. And it's not a good use of your

time. Yeah,

exactly. And I think whether you work for a

corporation, or you're working for yourself, you have to really

lean into your strengths and realize that in order to grow,

in order to grow your territory, in order to grow your team, in

order to grow your company, you must reach out and say, Okay, I

can't do everything, I need to hire people. And yes, you do

have to invest, you have to invest to grow.

And that's, I think, the toughest part, right?

Like you and I can account for that, that when you are running

your own business, it's your money that you're taking out,

you know, to pay these individuals to invest in this

business. It's not like we have a budget or that we came from

someone else that you know, has this pile of money for us. It's

literally taking money out of what we would spend it on and

spend it on personnel instead. But to your point, you know, for

me, I'm very, I'm very cautious about how we hire and very, I

guess I always call it I'm cart way, way behind the horse. You

know, I'm never like, oh, we need 16 employees before we

really need them. But that investment, you know, Carol's my

EA God bless her the things that she deals with on my behalf. But

that investment even when I see her invoices come through, I

look at the hours that she worked and I'm like, if she

wasn't doing that, I would be doing that right what an

incredible reprieve and benefit it is to have someone like that

in your life that can handle the minutiae of the everyday.

Absolutely. 150%. So you started your

company a couple of years ago, and you have over 100 clients

now how are you able to service all of them in excellence? Like

how what are you doing to really make sure that client number one

and client number 120 are getting the same amount of Sam,

I think it is again, like just thinking about

division of labor and what I'm needed for and then what the

rest of our teams can do to support them. So as you kind of

said like earlier, the brand for me is the most important thing.

I never want a client to come and have an engagement that they

didn't expect or how Have a subpar engagement. You know, I

think that that's part of our appeal is that people are like

you're gonna be blown away when you work with Sam and Sam's

team. I think that's also what's helped our growth, right?

Because there's so many consultants out there that you

know, do what we do sales training, help you stand up

organizations, LinkedIn training, social selling all

that stuff. But I think that kind of difference with us one

is that experience that responsiveness that being on it,

right, that brand of who we are the two that I think the other

thing is the tangibility and practicality of what we teach.

We're never saying like, hello, you know, be in front of your

clients more, we're like, here's how you do it. Here's what you

write, here's the timing, here's how the medium you use very,

very specific. So it's thinking about every engagement, what is

it that they expect? What do I have to do? And what can someone

else do. And it's interesting, even kind of looking at my

calendar for February, it's definitely not light, but it's

lighter than it was last February. And it kind of gave me

a pause. And I was like, wait a minute, and I'm like, Should I

be worried about this. And I just realized, it's because I

have so many other people on the team that are doing the things

that I was doing before, that's why I've got more room to do the

things that are really important for me to do, right. And then

the rest of the team handles that. I'll say just the other

thing. You know, I talk about our brand a lot I reinforce when

I see great examples of things are when I see poor examples out

in the space, I'm like, take a look at this. This is why we're

different. This is what makes us different. And I think it

reinforces our brand in a really positive way through and through

to our employees. So it's not like taking an example of like,

here's what you did wrong. And here's how we should have done

it better. It's here's how you're doing it really great.

And here's how someone else is not doing it well, and what I

would have done differently, right. So it communicates that

to our team without ever needing to be negative. But I think the

other thing that we do to really think about our growth and who

we are is we're really a culture of growing versus knowing. And I

celebrate when people fall on their swords and talk about a

mistake they made I celebrate when they share that

collectively with our company, I want you to feel comfortable to

you know, screw things up, I want you to know that you're

going to be human and that you're going to disappoint us,

the thing that I care about the most is that we learn from our

mistakes we learn from the things that we do that maybe

don't meet them are, and then we change them. So we continue to

build as a team, just we're not perfect today, and we never will

be right. But we can be better than we were yesterday.

Being 1% better every day. I love that. That is

amazing. And I think that you know, one thing that as a

business owner, as a sales leader that's so important is to

ensure that consistent customer experience, like you mentioned

early in your career, that you were acquired by someone, and

the experience wasn't the same. And I think that when you ensure

that what you believe your mission, your vision is through

the fabric of the organization, that's what really helps you

accelerate and grow and push. So when you think back over your

career, working in the corporate realm now out on your own, what

is one thing that you are most excited about accomplishing? You

know,

I think it has to be this business, I think

just the, you know, both my parents were entrepreneurs, I

dreamed of being able to do that. And I just never thought

frankly, I would have the courage like fear 100% held me

back for however long, but I think I'm proud of waiting to

start this career, by the time I had built a brand. So you know,

not trying to jump the gun or being in sales for two weeks,

and then saying, like, I'm gonna consult on this, like some

people do, right? Like, let me make sure that I've got a well

rounded base of experience. And then I've done this over and

over and over again. And I can use that as my credibility

factor that I think just standing this business up and

building it to what it's been is probably my biggest achievement.

And I'll say to like, there's been two experiences in my life,

kind of thinking about what I said before, like, don't be so

quick to get promoted. But sometimes don't be so quick to

take the you know, sexy job title. When I left that company

where I didn't support the product. When I left, the new

owner came back and said, Would you stay like what can we do to

get you to stay? We're gonna make you a VP of sales. And I

was like, what, like going from account executive and then just

skipping up to be VP of sales. But I remember I got great

advice from one of my clients who said, Well, if you say,

you'll be VP of Sales spears, so gonna be VP of she used another

S word, and then sales. And I was like, oh, and then you know,

when it was the decision to leave on 20 form, I transitioned

to LinkedIn as a leader. And that again was kind of two

decisions final Rose was with LinkedIn and then with another

company that's very well known. And the company at that point,

had about a million dollars in ARR. They've since been acquired

big success, but the role there was to be their head of sales

and to be you know, basically be their CRO because they were so

small. And to me the decision between being CRO for a company

that could take off and then being a head of sales for a

company like LinkedIn was a tough decision. But what I

realized is I didn't feel like My education was perfectly well

rounded yet, you know, I could have gone to be that zero, I

could have figured it out, I could have built it like a built

Sam sales. But I felt like I was just missing that big company

experience and just a few years of education that would really

help me. So again, not taking the Big Sexy role, but taking

the role with a company that, frankly, I was so so fortunate

to work for, and continuing to build on my baseline of

education.

And so many times, especially in this day

and age where people are like, Yeah, I don't want to work at

this company. There are a gazillion companies hiring, it's

like, yeah, that's a really nice title. And I would love to do

that job. But I've never had that experience. And what

happens is, it actually comes back to bite you because you

take the job and you're in the job and you're not successful in

the job, you get demotivated and then you're out there looking

again and you you're taking a step back. So instead of going

up and down and up and down to say, Yeah, you know what, I'm

not quite ready for that yet, I should probably take this

stepping stone before moving on. And while

we talk about Peter Principle, and the

corporate world all the time, and for anyone who's not

familiar with that, it's the idea of being you're promoted to

the highest level of your in competency. So what you

basically do, let's say, you jumped the gun, and you let's

say, I jumped the gun. And I took that VP of sales job, which

I was in no way prepared to take. But let's say I'd taken

it, I might have figured it out and learn and things like that,

because that's my nature. But for most people, they'll take

that job, they'll be excited about the title, they may still

not learn how to do well, they may fail. And then what are they

going to do, they're going to jump to a lateral position and a

lateral position and a lateral position, because they might try

to interview for the SVP or the EVP role, but they don't

understand even their own role. So they don't, they don't

interview properly, right, they can't articulate the value of

what they would bring to that position. So they just continue

to go down that path. And I would say like just a great kind

of hiring alert for anyone that's, you know, an

entrepreneur or seed round Series A, if you're hiring a VP

of sales, one, I've got a great recruiter for you. But to think

about this, in terms of who like what their previous experience

has been like, do they continue to move through the same job to

the same sized companies, or maybe it's the same title, but

they keep going bigger and bigger and bigger in terms of

organization, you should either go bigger with the same title,

or you should go bigger title with smaller or equal sized

organizations. If they're not doing that, that's a signal to

that maybe there's a gap in competency and that they just

are stuck in the same role. Hmm, that's a really great, I love

your man's after they say there's no,

I'm just absorbed we get it's like, I'm

just like eating ice cream and listening, like.

And a lot of the clients that I actually work with, they fall

into that trap, like you're talking about when I'm talking

to their managers or the companies that are hiring me.

They're like, yeah, they were up for promotion, but they didn't

get it. And it's because we noticed 123 things. And it's

like because they've been able to skirt below, right? They've

been able to go below and go with the flow. But now they want

to take a step up, and they're like, I've been with this

organization for 1015 20 years, why can't I move up? You know

what I mean? And they get so discouraged. But it is so so, so

important, you must invest in your own development. And if you

want someone else to bet on you, you have to first start by

betting on

yourself. You're now I couldn't agree with

you more.

Awesome. This has been an amazing

conversation. Sam, you've given me so many little ice moments

where I just want to sit back and eat my ice cream and listen

to the podcast again and take notes. So if people want to get

in contact with you, what is the one best way?

Yeah, so pop over to LinkedIn, of course,

you'll find I post tons of content there. And then if you

also want to come over to our website, Sam sales

consulting.com Sign up for our newsletters. We give you golden

nuggets to use every single week. We've got subscriptions

you can sign up for to learn everything about sales,

leadership, hiring LinkedIn, all without having to spend a

fortune on hiring us directly. And but more than anything, you

know, come in, connect with us on LinkedIn because it's a great

place to have a conversation and attract what we do.

Spoken like a truth sales person. Here is the

free way to get me here is how you can get just the bite of a

cookie. And here's how you can get the whole cookie. I love it.

Awesome, awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for sharing

your time, your talent and your expertise with us today. I truly

appreciate

it. Thank you for this great conversation.

What a pleasure to be here truly

awesome. Well, guys, yeah, that was a nether

lovely episode of the science of selling stem and remember and

whatever you do, in all things, transform your sales until next

time

Thank you for joining us today on a snack sized sales

podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave us

a review. Learn how to continue increasing your bottom line by

getting simplified sales strategies delivered to your

inbox weekly by going to www dot snack sized sales.com. Trust me,

your bank account will grow and love you