Do Hard Things Podcast

"Most sales teams don't have a tactics problem. They have a trust problem. For decades, we have taught our buyers to not trust us." - Leslie Venetz, Founder of Sales-Led GTM and USA Today Bestselling Author Leslie was on track to become a CRO by 40.  The offer was on the table: $460,000.  She turned it down the same day, walked away from the goal she'd spent her entire career building toward, and paid herself $50,000 in year one of her own business. The philosophy behind her agency came from a mistake she made early.  Six months into her first corporate job, her manager got fired and she inherited a team ten years her senior. She assumed the title came with trust. It didn't.  From that experience she built what she now calls the earn the right framework: before you do anything, ask yourself whether you've actually earned the right to ask for this person's attention. Most teams skip that question entirely, which is why their pipeline looks like a tactics problem but is really a trust problem. On curiosity, she doesn't accept "I'm just not naturally curious" as an answer.  If someone told you that you needed a 50% free throw percentage, you'd know immediately the path there was practice.  Curiosity works the same way. "Grit isn't doing one hard thing for two weeks. It's showing up for months and years toward a bigger purpose, even when it doesn't feel like it's working."

"I did a reverse image search, found his wife's bakery in Illinois, and put in an order for cakes with a note inside. He called me at 6:30 the next morning." - Paul Higgins Paul's sales career started on an ice cream van. Before that, he was upselling cologne to classmates at school for 50p a spray. He talked his way out of a post room job after hearing the buzz of the call center floor and deciding that's where he belonged. From there, it was pensions, then insurance, then recruitment tech, teaching himself HTML and CSS along the way. A mentor once handed him two VHS tapes: Boiler Room and Glengarry Glen Ross. He says they changed his career, cutting his daily call volume from 150 dials to just 40 because they taught him something volume never could: how to actually close. What sets Paul apart today is his ability to sit with a CTO and talk architecture, then walk into the CFO's office and talk about cost savings that same afternoon. Most reps only speak one language. He learned to translate between technical and commercial conversations by understanding how the products actually worked, not just how to pitch them. That same mindset shows up in his prospecting. One unicorn account had gatekeepers he couldn't get past for months. So he reverse image searched the decision-maker, found his wife's bakery in Illinois, ordered a box of cakes, and tucked in a handwritten note asking for a callback. It worked. That single conversation became a five-year, $1.2 million contract. His research is just as methodical. Before his team calls a prospect, they already know how many job boards the company uses, how many developers they employ, and roughly what their current setup is costing them. That level of preparation helped improve SQL-to-close rates by 40%. Not by making more calls. By making smarter ones. "Don't dwell on the things you messed up on. I've lost millions. The more you put in, the more you get out."

"If you're operating in survival mode, that's when it leads to burnout. That's when it leads to the rock bottom moments that a lot of reps struggle with." - Malisa Nguyen, Mental Performance Coach and Founder of MTN Collective Malisa went from top performer to burning out in a role she earned through a promotion she worked hard to get.  She did everything sales culture told her to do: more volume, more hustle, longer hours.  She worked weekends and twelve-hour days and still couldn't find her footing. The pressure gave her anxiety attacks at night and made her unable to be present in her own life.  She went to an Anderson .Paak concert and spent the whole time thinking about quota. That experience sent her down five years of studying mental performance and nervous system science, and what she found reframed everything she thought she knew about sales inconsistency. Her core argument: inconsistency isn't a skill problem. It's a nervous system problem.  Spraying and praying is a fight response. Procrastinating on cold calls is flight. Freezing in analysis paralysis is exactly that. Over-discounting to please a prospect is a fawn response.  None of those are fixed by more roleplay or more pressure.  In fact, piling on pressure usually makes all of them worse. The reps who bounce back from rejection quickly aren't tougher.  They've just stopped making it mean something about themselves.  The moment you tie the outcome to your self-worth, the spiral starts. "You can only go so far hustling and grinding your way through. Eventually you're going to hit a wall. I hit that wall."

"You can't just follow up with someone when you have an agenda. Staying in touch with people without even talking about your product is probably one of the most impactful things you can do." - John Melton, Marketing Veteran and Entrepreneur John started out as a kid who hated school, was getting into fights, and had no direction.  Two weeks before 9/11, a friend brought him to a marketing presentation. He thought it was a genius idea. But the company eventually got shut down, but what he learned there became the foundation for everything that followed. He took those skills into mortgage sales, made real money for the first time, and eventually came back to network marketing when social media arrived and changed everything.  His organization has done $450 million over the last decade. He calls it a 16-year overnight success story. What separates the people who make it from those who don't, in his experience, has nothing to do with talent.  It's coachability.  On content, the formula is simple: be entertaining, empowering, or educational, and don't be boring. The algorithm doesn't care how many followers you have. But the principle he keeps coming back to, the one he's built 25 years on, is follow-up.  Not an aggressive follow-up. Just staying in touch. Wishing people a happy birthday. Sending a voice note. Checking in without an agenda.  People who had been watching from the sidelines for years finally reached out when the timing was right, because the relationship was already there. "The fortune's in the follow-up. Be a friend first and a marketer second. It's amazing what you attract."

"People don't actually do the thing for hours on end every day consistently. They just talk about theory." - Tony Brophy Tony started cold calling in a boiler room in Dublin. His first day on the job, someone handed him a phone, a stack of magazines, and a script, then told him to start dialing.  He had no idea what he was doing, but he kept showing up anyway, and two years later he built a business around it. Not a coaching program. Not a course. Actual cold calling, for clients who hand him a list and expect results.  Six hours on the phone the day he recorded this episode, running hour-and-a-half call blocks five or six times a day, speaking to roughly 20 people per block, a quarter of whom hang up the moment he opens his mouth. He calls it getting kicked in the teeth for a living. The reason he went all in on one channel and one service, no multi-channel strategy, no fancy funnels, is simple: he's got ADHD and if he doesn't lock onto one thing, he goes off the rails.  So he picked the hardest thing in sales and did it every single day until the discomfort became background noise. His advice to new SDRs comes down to a few things.  Set call blocks and protect them. Follow the script instead of trying to be clever before you've earned the right to improvise. Speak like a normal person, not like someone auditioning for a movie. And when a prospect asks if you're AI, have something ready. His line: they don't have the Irish accent on AI yet, mate. Everything else is just showing up and making the dials. "The only way you're going to get better is by pushing through that fear and that discomfort. Nobody else is going to do it for you."

"The GTM bar is quite low. And that's a good thing for those of us who get it." - Neil Weitzman, Fractional CRO and Founder of Weitzman Go to Market Neil's philosophy comes down to three words: get it done. Not more frameworks, not more slide decks, just execution. His take on the say-do ratio is simple: If you say you're going to do something, do it. If you can't, communicate it before someone has to ask. Sounds obvious. Yet most companies still miss the mark. The follow-up that never comes, the quote promised on Tuesday that's still sitting in the drafts on Friday. The proposal that takes two weeks instead of two days. Neil's point: the bar is so low that simply doing what you say you'll do already puts you ahead of most of the market. When he joins a company as a Fractional CRO, he starts with the data. Do they know what good looks like in their funnel? What's converting? Where are deals getting stuck? Most companies have fragments of the answer.  Very few use that information to coach, hire, and improve consistently. Build the foundation, create repeatable systems, get the team running, and eventually hand it off to a full-time leader. And for founders who say they want honest feedback? He'll give it. The best ones are willing to hear it.

"You still have to have some form of human personalization. You still have to pick up the phone. You still have to build relationships." - Sam Hollander That's Sam Hollander's view on AI in sales. Not because he's anti-AI. Quite the opposite. After 18 years building revenue in markets where the traditional playbook doesn't exist, he's seen firsthand where technology helps and where it doesn't. He's led two companies through successful exits, and his first 90 days always look the same: talk to customers, pressure-test the messaging, and build operating structure. Because in startups, ambiguity is the biggest challenge. The only way through it is to create your own anchor. When it comes to outbound, Sam doesn't think the answer is more automation. At a conference last month, he watched a friend open her inbox: 1,000 unread emails from vendors. Just sitting there. That's why he's building LynkUp, a marketplace that connects high-intent buyers and sellers at conferences, turning random badge scans into intentional, confirmed meetings. The biggest deals of his career didn't start in an email sequence. They started in person. His advice for enterprise sales is simple: map stakeholders early, identify champions and blockers, and stay in touch consistently. Momentum matters. AI is great for saving time.  Great for research, writing, and prep work. But relationships still close deals.

"Do you have the grit necessary to see it through? That's where I see a lot of people struggle." - Zack Schneider, Founder of Agency 15 Zack started his first agency at 19. Not because he had a plan, but because he had nothing to lose. By 26, he had scaled it to an exit. He'll be the first to tell you that naivety was the advantage. At Agency 15, every team member keeps a carabiner on their desk with 30 fundamentals on it.  Not values. Fundamentals. Specific, observable behaviors that managers can coach in real time. One fundamental each day. Every day. Until they stop being reminders and become habits. Today's fundamental: Practice blameless problem solving. Apply your creativity to solutions, not finger-pointing. Learn from mistakes faster than everyone else. Simple doesn't mean easy. In fact, most of the things that actually work are surprisingly simple. The biggest leadership lesson Zack learned came later. Growing the company wasn't about strategy. It was about replacing himself, over and over again, with people who were better than him at the things he used to do. He compares it to mountain climbing. As the altitude changes, some people adapt and keep climbing with you. Others reach a level where they can't go any higher. That doesn't diminish what they contributed. It just means they aren't the right people for the next stage of the climb. The companies that succeed aren't built by people who never struggle. They're built by people with the grit to keep climbing anyway.

"We tell our stories because we do not heal in isolation. We need each other." - Tom Farley, Recovery.com Tom will tell you upfront that he doesn't walk into a room to motivate anyone.  He walks in because he needs to be there just as much as the person sitting across from him. He grew up in a big Irish family in Madison, Wisconsin, where drinking was just how you handled anything uncomfortable.  By the time he got to Georgetown, then Wall Street, he had built an entire identity around being sharp, polished, and put together, with no idea how hollow it felt underneath. The moment that cracked something open came before his own recovery.  He went to an AA meeting with his brother Chris Farley, in a basement in Hell's Kitchen, and watched him stand up and be more honest than Tom had ever seen him, in front of a room full of strangers.  He didn't understand it yet. But he never forgot it. Years later, when he found his own way into recovery, he finally did.  The only place he has ever felt real belonging wasn't his family, his career, or his religion. It was a church basement with people he never would have thought to sit with otherwise. He's been to recovery centers, prison programs, veterans' groups, and boardrooms since.  What he keeps finding is the same thing: people don't lack the desire to get better. They lack permission to be honest about where they actually are. His take on stigma is simple.  It comes from fear, and the only way through it is real human connection, not awareness campaigns, not likes or shares, but someone looking you in the eye and saying, I've been there too. "Recovery exists on the other side of fear. Every time you walk through it instead of drinking it away, you get stronger."

"The brand is the most important thing. Everything you put out into the universe has to align with your three pillars. And if it doesn't serve you, cut bait and move on." - Brianne Price, CPG Executive and Chief Revenue Officer Brianne didn't get into consumer brands from a business school case study. She got in from a salon floor, sweeping hair, when a new line called Bumble and Bumble came in and she thought the packaging and messaging was the coolest thing she'd ever seen. That moment launched a career scaling brands from under $10 million to over $100 million. The hard part was never the product. It was knowing when to stop protecting what was built and start being honest about what needed to change. Her take on where most brands get stuck: they get really good at one channel, Amazon, DTC, or retail, and struggle to make the jump to the next. The brands that break through aren't necessarily the ones with the best product. Everyone has good products now. What separates them is whether consumers see the brand as part of their lifestyle, not just something on a shelf. Her advice to founders stuck between $5 million and $20 million comes down to one question: What is your customer's experience like right now? The longer you're in business, the easier it is to see your brand through internal eyes instead of customer eyes. That's when growth stalls. The brands that reach the next level are willing to challenge their assumptions, stay aligned with what the brand stands for, and adapt before the market forces them to. They stay honest about what's working, what's not, and what needs to change.

"A lobster knows when it's time to shed its shell when it starts getting uncomfortable. If it never felt uncomfortable, it would never grow." - Ari Barmapov, Co-founder of Foundations Ari didn't start in a boardroom. He started at Blockbuster, selling membership add-ons from behind a cash register, just asking everyone who walked in.  The more he asked, the better he got, and he ended up the top salesperson in the entire district.  That was the whole formula, and it hasn't changed since. No auto-dialer, no real CRM. Just a phone, a phone book, and 150 to 200 manual dials a day.  Brutal reps, but invaluable ones.  Four President's Clubs later, he built Foundations to give founders what nobody gave him. His take on why founders stay stuck in founder sales: they try to delegate before they've done the work themselves.  BDRs aren't there to figure out your business, and a VP of Sales isn't going to cold call for you.  The only way out of founder sales is through it.  Do it yourself, do it a hundred times, know what works, then pass it on. On cold calling being dead: it isn't.  People say it's dead because you can't sell a $99 course on it.  You actually have to pick up the phone, and most reps today won't sit down and make focused calls for 90 minutes. Not because they don't have the time, but because they don't want to be uncomfortable.  That discomfort is the whole point. The one question he leaves every founder with: when was the last time you booked a meeting with someone you didn't know?  If you can't remember, you already know what to do next.

"We don't just flip eggs. We flip lives." - Chason Forehand, Founder of Transformation Kitchen Chason is a HR advocate with 45 years spanning culinary, human resources, and DEI.  He is someone who knows exactly what it feels like to need a sandwich and have no idea what comes next. Chason grew up as the oldest of six boys in an abusive home. By college, the guardrails were off. Straight-A student to academic probation in under a year. Drugs. An attempt on his own life. Incarceration. Then a chef found him. Ten years clean and sober, someone who cared as much about people as he did about food. He became a mentor, a sponsor, a friend. That changed everything. The hardest thing Chason ever did wasn't build a program. It was putting his hand up and asking for help. Now he makes it easier for others to do the same. Transformation Kitchen isn't job training. It's what he calls a forge. You come in, you transform, and you never age out. The metric isn't who completed the 12 weeks. It's where you are five years later. Still housed? Still employed? Still clean? Because if all you hand someone is a sandwich, you've handled today. Nothing else. "The most profitable companies are driven by purpose." Doing hard things isn't just a personal challenge. It's an organizational one.  It means paying people what they're actually worth.  It means building culture that outlasts any one quarter.  It means showing up for your community when there's no immediate ROI. For companies that want to get involved beyond writing checks: volunteer, join a board, post about an organization you believe in.  Your social circle is different from theirs. That difference has real value. Start there.

"People are just waiting for permission to go after their dreams. I never ask permission. If I want it, I go after it.” - Julee Gracey Former international model, People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful, NBC's Deal or No Deal, Top real estate agent, and now a business coach who helps entrepreneurs stop hiding and start showing up. She's been called human Red Bull and you'll understand why in about 30 seconds. Julee grew up on a farm, worked construction, and then flipped through magazines one day and noticed all the models were traveling the world.  So she became one. Not because she dreamed of runways, but because she wanted to see what was out there. After a decade in LA, she came home and went into real estate. Everyone told her it was a terrible idea.  She got quiet, went under the radar, and became the top agent in her office. Her first showing was a disaster. She couldn't unlock the door, couldn't answer a single client question, and got fired on the front porch.  She cried for a day, then walked up to the number one agent in the office and said: take 50% of everything I make. I just want to sit in your meetings and hear the words you use. Within months she was posting the biggest numbers on the board. She's never tackled anything since without a mentor. What she figured out that most people won't say out loud: burnout isn't from doing too much. It's from doing the wrong things. And most entrepreneurs struggle to talk about what they do because they were taught growing up to sit down, be quiet, don't brag.  Then they start a business and every one of those rules becomes the obstacle. Her fix: face the thing you're avoiding. That's exactly where your growth is. She wrote it all down in Highly Confident, now a number one Amazon bestseller. The core message: get clear on what you want, make better decisions, and stop waiting for permission. Nobody's coming with that slip.

"When you open your mouth, the world will discover who you really are." - Larry Raskin 38-year veteran in sales and marketing, former VP of Leadership Development, and the man I credit to teaching me how to communicate and build businesses. This one is personal. Larry didn't start in sales, he started in pro baseball.  An injury ended that, so he pivoted into the only world he knew: fitness.  Managing health clubs through the fitness boom, 10 to 10, six days a week. At some point the math became obvious. The harder he worked, the richer other people got. He was the engine with no equity. So he answered a newspaper ad, walked into a strip mall meeting that looked nothing like the six-figure promise in the listing, and almost left.  He stayed because he loved the concept, not the product. Business ownership with income that worked beyond his own effort. And he never looked back. Over the next 38 years became one of the most successful producers, sales trainers and leadership speakers in his company’s history.  Then the pandemic hit and Larry went from the top of the mountain back to zero. He didn't coast. He started over. At 43, heart blockages. More stents in 2005. Bypass surgery at 66. Back in the gym after every single one. "It isn't what happens to you. It's what happens in you that matters." Now at Zinzino, a science-backed preventative health company built around test-based, personalized nutrition, he's more fired up than he's been in decades. His philosophy hasn't changed in 38 years: your organization will never outgrow your personal development.  Treat it like a business or don't. Find the voices worth emulating. Repeat until it sticks.

"We are so much stronger than we are ever told we are." - Scilla Andreen  As an Emmy nominated costume designer, co-founder of IndieFlix, award-winning filmmaker, CEO of Impactful Networks, and Mother of six, Scilla knows what doing hard things is all about.  She lost her son to suicide, and her daughter to cancer on her birthday.  Three days after her son passed, she got on a plane to a conference on men's and boys' mental health. Not because she was okay, but because she had questions, and she refused to stop asking them. It's who she is. Long before any of that, a friend named Tina, the executive director of her foundation, kept asking her to make a film about mental health. She kept saying no… nobody wants to watch a movie about mental health. Then Tina passed by suicide. Scilla had no mental health background; she had grief, guilt and questions.  She did the only thing she knew… started filming anyone who would talk to her, from Harvard researchers to six-year-olds, with no script and no money.  That turned into her film, Angst. It sat for six months, then screened in 90 countries within 14 months. The insight that drove all of it: the power of a film isn't in the watching, it's in the conversation after.  When people feel safe enough to talk, they share what they've been carrying alone. The mission isn't therapy, it's education.  Mental health literacy is a population-level problem, and the solution looks more like CPR training than a clinical appointment. Everyone needs access. Human connection matters more than ever right now. 

"You don't need to post something groundbreaking every time. Just post your story. People are going to like that because they can see themselves in you." - Kade Hinkle Kade’s a young SDR in the game and he's been on LinkedIn longer than most sales reps you know. Not because someone told him to. Because he watched a YouTube video at 16, figured out LinkedIn was where the jobs were, and started connecting with people before he ever graduated high school.  By the time he did, he had 2,000 connections and a job offer waiting in his inbox. He started in landscaping and now he's cold calling executives every afternoon and booking meetings from LinkedIn DMs in between, with over 12,000 followers. He's not doing anything magical. Prospecting in the morning. Emails around noon. Calls from 3 to 5.  Video messages when he remembers to push himself. Posts at the end of the day from whatever he wrote in his notes app. The difference is he started. At 16. While most people his age were doom-scrolling Instagram. The rejection question came up. How do you handle getting punched in the face all day as a brand new SDR? His answer was pretty simple: "I know it's not personal. So you just keep moving to the next one." No elaborate mental framework. No morning routine. Just the understanding that a no isn't about you, and the next call is waiting. Here's what stuck with us though. Kade wants to be an AE by 20. After that it gets blurry. Maybe leadership. Maybe his own business. He's not sure yet. But he knows one thing: he's not waiting until he has something impressive to say before he starts showing up.  He's posting the journey in real time, figuring it out in public, and letting people grow with him. In the age of AI, that's exactly what cuts through.

"You're only going to go as far as your identity takes you." - Leo Martinez Leo is the Co-founder of Martinez and Associates Consulting. 25 years in business with his wife Clarissa. A 21-year-old company that now runs 99% without them in it. He didn't learn that in a classroom. He learned it after spending seven years inside Patrick Bet David's inner circle, having 15 to 18 conversations a day, six days a week, with founders and CEOs running companies from $2 million to $12 billion. After all of that, the pattern was clear. But before we get there, here's what actually built the foundation. Leo is the dreamer. Big vision, moves fast, commits before he has all the answers. Clarissa is the one with 27 objections and 30 questions. She pumps the brakes. She asks what nobody wants to ask. Her words: "You need two people that are almost opposites coming together in order to balance each other out." That's not just their marriage. That's their entire operating model. Most entrepreneurs live in the "if it is to be, it's up to me" trap. All the pressure on their shoulders, nobody empowered to carry any of it. The business grows to a point, then stops. Not because the market ran out. Because the founder's identity did. Clarissa added what most people miss: founders think they're doing the right thing by pouring everything into the business. But while they're winning at work, they're quietly losing at home. You don't have to pick one. But you do have to be intentional about both. Their ops manager Diana has been with them 14 years. Not because of the salary. Because Leo and Clarissa invested in her life, not just her output. "You have to love them. If you love them, they will go through walls for you." That's not soft. That's the whole system.

"My success is actually when a client stops working with me." - John Zurowski   John is the Founder of JZ Sales Consulting with Twenty years of corporate sales leadership before going fractional. And that line is the most honest thing you'll hear from a consultant this year. His goal isn't to become indispensable. It's to build companies to the point where they can replace him with a full-time leader. He calls that the win. Most founders hitting a growth ceiling make the same move: rush to hire a senior sales leader. Big salary, fancy title, high expectations. And more often than not, it doesn't work. Not because the hire is wrong. Because the foundation isn't there yet. John sees it constantly. You sit down with a company's employees and ask a simple question: what does your company do and what problem does it solve? You'll get five different answers. Every time. If your own team can't align on that, no sales leader in the world is going to fix your pipeline. That's where John starts. Not with a CRM. Not with a headcount plan. With clarity. Get the team aligned on what you do and who you help. Build process that's designed to flex, not break. And when you're stuck, stop looking for a new tactic. Go back to the fundamentals. He put it simply: "When you're in a rut, it just takes one small win to get that wind in your sail again." Make the extra calls. Review your proposal with fresh eyes. Do the basic things well. The breakthrough rarely comes from doing something new. It comes from doing the right things consistently. John's also direct about AI: it's a productivity tool, not a replacement for genuine human conversations. People still buy from people. That hasn't changed, and the market fatigue with AI-driven outreach is only going to accelerate it. The sales leaders winning right now are the ones combining structure with hustle, and knowing the difference between a phase and a ceiling.

"If it's not producing pipeline, it's not a partnership. It's a coffee club." - Pierce Brehm  Pierce is the Founder and CEO of Holland Lane Global Advisers. And if you've ever announced a new logo, signed an agreement, done a webinar, and wondered why none of it turned into revenue, this ones for you.  Most companies know partnerships should be part of their growth strategy and the data backs it up.  Deals close 53% more often when a partner is involved and close 46% faster.  A recommendation from a trusted source is up to 50 times more likely to result in a purchase than a cold outreach. So why do so many partnerships go nowhere? Pierce has a simple answer, there is no ideal partner profile, no activation plan, no shared revenue target, and no measurement.  Companies are treating partnerships like a branding exercise instead of a revenue channel. Pierce's framework starts at the foundation: define your ideal partner profile.  Who's selling to the same types of companies, the same personas, the same industries?  Who compliments you without competing? Get that right first. Everything else builds from it. Then comes consistency. Not a logo swap and a LinkedIn post. Consistent communication, proactive introductions, and a clear way to track what's actually converting. When you get it right, partnerships stop feeling slow and unpredictable. They become one of the most efficient growth channels in B2B. The companies winning right now aren't making more noise. They're building stronger relationships, on purpose, with a plan.

“AI is just an extension of software. It essentially makes what we have been doing much better.” - Gabe Naviasky In this episode, Gabe shares a story about a company that chose not to work with his team simply because they were using AI. At first glance, it sounds cautious and even reasonable. This company had experienced a security breach the year before, so their hesitation around vendors like OpenAI made sense. But here’s the part that’s harder to reconcile: Avoiding a specific vendor is one thing. Avoiding AI altogether? That’s a different story. Because opting out of AI today doesn’t just mean skipping a tool, it means stepping away from the infrastructure of modern software itself. It means: • No Google search • No Siri or voice assistants • No smart automation quietly improving workflows in the background AI isn’t a feature anymore, it’s becoming the baseline. As workflows become more automated, the nature of work itself is changing. The repetitive, manual, and process-heavy tasks? Those are increasingly handled by systems. What’s left, and what becomes more valuable, is the work that requires judgment, creativity, and real-world experience. The human layer doesn’t disappear, it sharpens. So the question isn’t whether to use AI. It’s how intentionally we choose to use it and where we decide human expertise matters most.

“We all have agency to speak up, and it’s incredibly liberating.” - Karen Laos Karen came to this realization after a moment that could have easily been dismissed as just another bad day at work. She was in a boardroom giving a presentation when she suddenly froze. Instead of pushing through, her boss stopped the meeting.  Later, she pulled her aside and asked a simple but powerful question: why didn’t you just table the discussion, and why do you keep asking for permission? That question stayed with her. As she reflected, Karen recognized something deeper, she didn’t actually agree with what she had been presenting.  But she had been raised to respect authority, not challenge it, and certainly not push back in a room like that. In that moment, she saw how much she had been holding herself back. What started as an uncomfortable experience became a turning point.  It led her to rethink how often people stay quiet, even when they have something important to say, and ultimately inspired her to help others find the confidence to use their voice. It’s easy to stay silent, especially when speaking up feels risky. But over time, that silence can become a kind of prison we create for ourselves. Speaking up isn’t about being difficult or confrontational, it’s about being honest and bringing your full perspective to the table. If something doesn’t sit right with you, it’s worth saying so. You’re in the room for a reason, and your voice carries more value than you might think.

“You need to get comfortable with you. You are the reason you are going to fail. You are the reason you are going to succeed.” - Matthew Beaudin It’s easy to point fingers to market conditions, pricing, competition, or timing when things don’t go our way.  But the truth is, the biggest variable in any outcome is us. Our mindset. Our consistency. Our willingness to have uncomfortable conversations. Our discipline to follow up when others don’t. The same is true on the flip side. The wins? They come from preparation no one sees.  From resilience after rejection.  From choosing to improve instead of making excuses. If you’re in sales right now, here’s the real question: Are your daily habits aligned with the results you say you want? Because growth in this field doesn’t start with a new script or tool, it starts with ownership. And when you fully own your outcomes, everything changes.

“Get out there and make it happen. Don’t sit back and wait for it to come to you, it probably never will, not in the time you want it to.” - James Bissell  Success in sales isn’t something that just shows up at your door. Nothing is handed to you in this game.  No shortcuts, no easy wins. It takes grit.  It takes consistency.  It takes showing up even when you don’t feel like it. And above all, it takes action. You can’t afford to be lazy and expect results.  The people who win are the ones who go after it, every single day. Go make it happen.

“When you’re competing at the executive level, everyone is qualified. What separates you is who you genuinely are.” - Teegan Bartos Your network is your net worth, but only if people truly understand who you are and what you stand for. It’s no longer enough to look good on paper. Titles, resumes, and credentials may open doors, but they don’t build trust or lasting influence. Legacy is built through visibility and authenticity. Share your journey. Show your impact. Let people see the results you’re driving. Not just within your organization, but in the broader community around you. Because if people can’t see what you’re building, they can’t be part of it. And if they can’t understand your value, they can’t advocate for it. Your brand isn’t what you say it is, it’s what others consistently experience and recognize. Make it visible. Make it real.

“There is so much opportunity in B2B for content.” - Justin Zelik LinkedIn has changed the game. Years ago, LinkedIn was just a place to find a job. If you weren’t hiring or job hunting, you barely logged in. Now? We’re on it every day. Not just to prospect. Not just to network. But to build. To build personal brands. To build trust at scale. To build relationships before a single call ever happens. The biggest shift isn’t the platform, it’s the behavior. Buyers don’t want cold pitches. They want context. They want credibility. They want to feel like they already know you before you reach out. And content is how you get there. In B2B, attention used to be rented (ads, outbound, events). Now it can be owned. The people consistently showing up, sharing insights, documenting their thinking, they’re the ones winning long before deals are on the table. If you’re in B2B and not creating, you’re invisible. If you are creating, you’re compounding. The opportunity isn’t coming. It’s already here.

“Choose your hard. You can do hard things.” - Katy Rey You are selling in every part of your life. Not just at work, but in your relationships, your energy, and how you show up daily. You’re selling: Your character Your consistency Your belief Every interaction builds trust or breaks it. Because at the end of the day, connection is what wins. People don’t buy into ideas, they buy into people. And strong teams aren’t just talented, they’re connected. It will get hard. That’s guaranteed. So choose your hard: Growth or staying stuck Discipline or regret Connection or distance Choose the one that builds something real.

“I would rather have so much pipeline and my deal acquisition be lower and some will have to drop, but I keep the pipeline going so that it is almost impossible to fail.” - Laura Skinner This is what most people miss about cold outreach: They chase perfection… the perfect script, timing, or lead. But pipeline isn’t built on perfection.  It’s built on volume and consistency. Cold outreach is a reps game. At first, it feels uncomfortable.  You overthink, hesitate, and doubt if it’s working. But if you get obsessed and put the reps in, everything changes. You spot patterns. Your messaging improves. Your confidence grows. And rejection stops mattering because your pipeline is full. The goal isn’t to close every deal. It’s to create so many opportunities that success becomes inevitable. Volume beats perfection. Reps beat everything. Keep the pipeline full and it becomes almost impossible to fail.

“You have to build the right systems in order to insure that you are profitable. And if you don’t have a good system you will fail. And if you don’t solve a problem, you will also fail.” - Jonathan Gryzbowski It’s easy to focus on big ideas, but long-term success often comes down to two things: → Solving a real, meaningful problem → Building systems that consistently deliver that solution When those two pieces are in place, things tend to run more smoothly. You gain clarity, consistency, and a clearer path to growth. And when something feels off, it can be a helpful signal: Maybe the problem needs to be better defined, or the system needs a bit more structure and refinement. A simple check-in: What problem am I solving? What systems help me deliver value consistently? Small improvements in either area can make a big difference over time.

“I want to provide content in two different ways. The authentic content that is aligned with my brand, and content that expresses my essence.” - David Meltzer That’s how David thinks about it. And once you hear him break it down, you realize, it’s not about posting more.  It’s about being intentional. Start with content that’s real.  Not manufactured. Not forced.  Just you, at your core. Then shape it for the platforms.  Same message, different packaging. Then amplify it. Leverage the network, expand the reach. And finally, build a place where it all lives.  A social silo. Somewhere people can go deeper. Because when it resonates… they don’t just like it.  They lean in. They explore. They stay. Billions of people don’t know who he is. But to millions, it feels like he’s everywhere. That’s not luck. That’s strategy.

“The biggest hurdle in writing a book is thinking it is going to be easy.” - Fabi Preslar She knows this firsthand. So many people want to write a book… But then comes the doubt. The overthinking. The imposter syndrome. “Who am I to write this?” “Will anyone even read it?” Here’s the shift: Get crystal clear on why you’re writing the book and who it’s for. This isn’t about proving yourself. It’s about building something bigger than you, something that serves your audience and your business. And yes… Some people won’t care. Some won’t read it. That’s okay. They’re not your people. Write it anyway, for the ones who are.

“As an engineer you learn to balance the left and right side with an equal sign. And the equal sign always ends up being people” - Sugata Sanyal  No matter how you define success in life or business, it always comes back to people. On one side, there are customers.  Their needs, challenges, and expectations. On the other side, there’s the team.  A group of people aligned to solve those problems together. The real work isn’t just in building solutions.  It’s in understanding, connecting, and aligning people on both sides of the equation. People are at the center of everything meaningful. The best outcomes don’t come from optimizing systems alone. They come from investing in relationships, communicating clearly, and building environments where people can do their best work together. Whether you’re building a product, leading a team, or growing a business, the equation stays the same: People → Problems → Solutions → Results And at every step, people are the multiplier.

“Respect my rest” - SOUL COLE Flow state isn’t about doing more; it’s about being aligned. It’s the quiet moment when everything begins to slow down… …and somehow, you speed up in all the right ways. Your thoughts are clear. Your movements feel intentional. Your energy is steady, not forced. You’re relaxed, but fully alert. Calm, but deeply focused. That’s the space where your best work lives. We often glorify the grind, but flow doesn’t come from constant pressure. It comes from knowing when to pause, when to breathe, and when to trust your rhythm. Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a requirement. Protect it. Respect it. Build around it. Because when you honor your rest, you don’t just recover, you return sharper. Season 6 is now live! 

“People think sales is a lot easier than it is.” - Tom Bright They don’t see the effort. The pressure. The sleepless nights. From the outside, it looks simple. On the inside, it’s anything but. So forget the word sales. What did you actually do well in that relationship? How did you make the problem clearer? And most importantly, how did your product or service solve their issue? That’s the work. Not the pitch. Not the closing line. The reason someone trusted you. Once you understand that, don’t keep it in your head. Capture it. Document what worked. Turn it into a playbook. Because great sales isn’t luck. It’s repeatable if you take the time to make it so.

“Your worth matters, no matter where you are. You are always building your legacy.” - Nicky Coburn Legacy isn’t something that starts later in life.  It’s being built right now, in the small moments most people overlook. It’s in how you show up when no one is watching. It’s in the work you choose to do with care. It’s in the way you treat people along the way. No matter what you’re doing today, your job, your passion project, your conversations, approach it as if someone will look back on it long after you’re gone.  Because in many ways, they will. Your actions tell a story about who you were. So whatever you do: - Do it with integrity. - Treat people with kindness. - Do work you’re proud to attach your name to. Your title doesn’t define your legacy. Your character does. And the truth is… you’re writing that story every single day.

“Throughout my career, I have followed really big hard problems. I love digging in.” - Andrea Bumstead After a major restructuring, Andrea found herself in a position many senior leaders know well: deciding what comes next. Her initial focus was clear, network hard, and land the next VP role. But during that process, two important realizations surfaced. Lesson #1: Right now, many companies are hesitant to take a risk on a senior VP. Lesson #2: Andrea realized she didn’t want to take that same risk either. As she spoke with companies, she noticed a pattern. Almost every conversation revealed big, complicated challenges, the kind that required experienced leadership, but not always a full-time executive. That’s when the insight clicked. Instead of joining one company to solve one big problem, she could help many companies solve theirs, with far less risk on both sides. So she built something new. A company designed to tackle the kind of problems she has always loved: the messy, complex, high-impact ones. Sometimes the best opportunities don’t come from avoiding hard things. They come from leaning directly into them. Because when you build your career around solving big problems, you eventually realize… The problem itself might be the opportunity.

“Right now, rawness is real. Human-to-human connection is at the heart of everything we do in sales.” - Christopher Regnier Think about it. When you’re on a call, and you catch yourself wondering, “Is this AI?” When you see a perfectly polished video on LinkedIn and think, “Is this even real?” The moment doubt creeps in, trust drops. And doubt is the last thing you want from a prospective buyer. So if you’re hesitating to send a voicenote or post a video because you stumbled over a word, paused too long, or didn’t sound perfect, leave it in. That imperfection is proof you’re human. And people connect with humans, not perfection. We don’t build relationships through flawless scripts. We build them through authenticity. AI can support the process, but it can’t replace genuine human connection, not yet. Stay real. Stay human. Stay ahead.

“We are all selling on the same sales floor. We are all doing the same things during the day. And then I go home and practice for another work day. By the time 6 months have passed, I’ve had way more time in the role.” - Andrew Hendry Growing up with the philosophy that no one is coming to save you means you learn to save yourself. Sales doesn’t reward clock-watchers.  It rewards those who show up, learn relentlessly, and outwork everyone else. There is more sales training available online for free than in any other industry.  The tools are there. The knowledge is there. What’s missing is action. People who treat sales like a 9-5 get paid like it. If you want to make $200-300k+, you have to work like it. Put in the extra hours.  Study the scripts.  Run the roleplays.  Practice when no one is watching. Because success doesn’t wait.

“I’m looking for real examples. People who have built something before, and maybe even failed, but got back up and tried again.” - Sara Hanegby That’s exactly who thrives in sales. Not the ones with the perfect script. Not the ones with the smoothest pitch. But the ones with grit. The people who can take rejection, learn from it, and show up the next day ready to try a different angle. Sales is hard. Emotionally, mentally, and professionally. We’re not outside doing physical labor.  It happens behind screens. In conversations. In follow-ups. In the quiet persistence no one sees. And that perspective matters. From where we sit, inside the calls, the objections, the silence after a proposal, resilience becomes the real differentiator. The ability to hold a genuine conversation. To listen. To adapt. To fail without folding. Experience doesn’t always look like a flawless track record. And in sales, the people who get back up are the ones who last.

“I wanted to sell an opportunity rather than a product, and that is why I became a recruiter.” - Darrell Clack A lot of people assume being a recruiter is just posting jobs and filling roles. It is way more than that. Recruitment, when done properly, is about changing lives. It’s about opening doors. It’s about spotting potential in someone before they fully see it themselves. Darrell talked about how LinkedIn became a turning point for him. Not because it was a place to post jobs. But because it was a platform to build a voice. A place to challenge conversations. A place to advocate for change. A place to stand for something bigger than “filling roles.” LinkedIn is not just a job board. It’s a stage. And the people who win here are not just recruiters. They’re educators. They’re advocates. They’re storytellers. They’re leaders in their lane. People do listen. People want to see change. And they want to see people brave enough to talk about it.

“I realized I had the pipeline. If I could take the existing high-achieving reps, increase ACV, and get them closing bigger deals at higher rates, they would all overachieve like crazy. We’d still hit the number, and we did.” - Gal Aga Sometimes, you have to step back to move forward. That means making decisions quickly. That means being okay with saying no.  Making the hard calls. A great buying experience takes two to tango. Learning to say no in a sales process saves you time and energy. Because signing the wrong client, the nightmare one, only guarantees a longer, harder road ahead. Sales is tough. Sales is rough. Sales is hard. And that’s exactly why clarity and conviction matter.

Leadership isn’t about getting people to do exactly what you do. It’s about helping people learn how to lead themselves in what they’re already good at. Everyone on the team is working toward the same destination, the same goal, the same outcome. But the path to get there doesn’t have to look the same for everyone. We all bring different strengths, experiences, and perspectives.  We don’t need to be driving in the same car for us to arrive at the same place.  We just need to trust that you know how to use your skills to get there. I don’t specialize in every aspect of the work, and I shouldn’t have to.  Strong leadership isn’t about being the expert in everything.  It’s about recognizing expertise in others. “Being a good leader is finding someone who is good at doing it and motivating them to use their skills to be the special person they are to get to the end point with you.” - Stacy Case That’s the kind of leadership that builds ownership, confidence, and results, not just compliance.

“I know how to light up a room. But early in leadership, I also knew how to bring a room down.” - Ben Wright Twelve years ago, Ben’s business partner asked him a simple question: “What’s going on with you?” That moment changed everything. Ben realized something every leader eventually learns: The energy you bring becomes the energy in the room. And his best side wasn’t always leading. So he leaned into his strengths. Used them intentionally. He failed fast. Not recklessly, but bravely. He owned what went wrong. Because ownership beats excuses every time. And then he made the change. Insight without action is just noise. Today, Ben brings positive energy wherever he goes. Not because everyone agrees with him. Not because the message is easy. But because it’s delivered with integrity and the best intentions. Growth isn’t about getting everything right. It’s about getting better, consistently.

Many people look for relief during times of pain, uncertainty, or change. Tools like reflection, meditation, or journaling can be helpful. But sometimes, without realizing it, they become ways to avoid discomfort rather than move through it. When we sidestep what’s difficult instead of facing it, growth can stall. Real growth doesn’t come from rising above our problems. It comes from turning toward them. We’re often encouraged to look outward for answers, signs, guidance, teachers, or practices that will tell us what to do next.  And those things can be helpful. But the most important place to look has always been inward. Inside is where our beliefs live. Inside is where our values take shape. Inside are the experiences, sometimes painful, sometimes forgotten, that quietly  influence how we move through the world. If we don’t take the time to understand who we are, what we stand for, and why we react the way we do, we’ll keep repeating the same cycles, just with different faces, different  circumstances, different names. “We tend to repeat patterns and cycles because it is what we know. And we are aligned to those experiences.” - Candice Van Dertholen Growth doesn’t come from avoiding what’s uncomfortable. It comes from developing awareness, understanding ourselves, and choosing how we respond.

“My athletic experience is the foundation of who I am.” - Taylor Martino You have to show up on the tough days. Nothing is going to be handed to you. You have to make it happen. Before we can work on any sales skill, we have to work on our mindset. As leaders, we expect a lot. But everyone is carrying things we don’t always see. Our job is to push people to be their best and support them as real humans. Both matter. Fail forward. Learn from the feedback. Take responsibility. That’s how individuals grow. That’s how teams win.

“Our goal is to make salespeople more therapeutic, more human, and guide their own way.” - Jack Frimston As human beings, we don’t take action based on logic alone. We act when emotion comes first, and then we justify it with logic. No emotion = no urgency. No urgency = no movement. That’s why great sales conversations don’t sound like pitches. They sound like therapy. The real skill isn’t talking. It’s asking the right questions and then listening long enough for the emotion to surface. When prospects hear themselves say what’s frustrating them, what’s costing them, or what’s holding them back… Change starts to feel necessary. Your job on the phone isn’t to convince. It’s to create clarity. Emotion opens the door. Logic helps them walk through it.

“Find a beautiful question to pursue.” - Jon Mayo Founders don’t struggle because of ideas. They struggle because people struggle. And leadership is learning to sit with that truth long enough to do something useful with it. Take notes in every conversation. Not just on what was said, but on what was meant. Patterns show up when you pay attention. Learn as much as you can. Then assume it’s still not enough. There is always more to learn, and humility is a competitive advantage. Simple is not always easy. Finding the true answer means resisting shortcuts and comforting narratives. Do the hard part: Figure out what’s actually true. Then turn that truth into action. You don’t need the whole roadmap. Just find the next step, and take it. Never plant yourself where you get stuck. Progress belongs to those willing to keep moving. Keep pursuing beautiful questions.

People are learning to use chat boxes more than ever.  They’re asking themselves:  What problems can I have a machine solve?  A lot of businesses are taking on AI agents. There’s this fear that AI can come in and take our jobs.  But it’s becoming very clear these machines can’t replace humans.  “There is a different type of thinking, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, that machines don’t have.” – Lori Kirkland  If machines can handle transactional work, then what can I do for my customers?  Fear is real.  And when you understand the technology, you see that addressing fear is part of the process.  Your job isn’t going to be replaced by AI.  It will be replaced by someone who is AI-augmented.  Your biggest advantage is adaptability.  Make sure you use it. 

Most companies think the hard part is building a great product. They listen to customers, they build something people love… and then they toss it to Sales and Marketing and say, “Go.” That’s where things fall apart. Because if the people telling the story don’t understand the mission behind the product, the story can’t land. What problem does it solve? Why does it matter? Does everyone actually know how to unpack the mission? Clarity is everything. As Kelly Breslin Wright told me: “Many companies underestimate how important sales enablement, sales readiness, training, and cultivating that learning is.” When your team gets the why, the how becomes natural. When you hire for values, not just resumes, alignment happens early. And in a world where AI is boosting productivity for everyone, trust, emotional intelligence, and a growth mindset are becoming the real differentiators. You can’t automate belief. You can’t fake alignment. Teams win when they’re united by a mission they truly understand.

“I loved people, and I wanted to be great.” - Chris Bussing Sales was the path that made sense for that. But his first big moment? It didn’t feel great at all. His manager looked at him and asked: “How does it feel to be last?” That was the line that flipped the switch. From that moment on, he made a decision: He was going to do everything he could to be the best. So he leaned in. He worked when no one was watching. He learned when others were relaxing. He grinded outside the 9–5 so he’d be ready the second a prospect picked up. And that’s what built the foundation for where he is today. Because when you lean in, really lean in, your future becomes unpredictable in the best possible way. When you lean in, you win. And winning is fun. But here’s the part most people forget: Good things take time. Great things take intention. Chris is proof of what happens when you choose both. This episode is about growth, grit, and the power of deciding you won’t be last ever again.

“We can never predict where we are going. The greatest thing we can do is leave open the possibility of what comes next.” – Jason Feifer One of the biggest mistakes we make, professionally and personally, is thinking we already know what our path should look like. When our definition of “what we do” is too narrow, we end up saying no to opportunities that could change our entire trajectory. Because in every season of life, there are two sets of opportunities in front of us: Opportunity Set A. Everything that’s asked of you.  The tasks, the deadlines, the responsibilities.  The things that keep the engine running. Opportunity Set B. Everything available to you that no one is asking you to do. The initiatives you take on your own.  The skills you build quietly.  The reps you put in when nobody is watching. And here’s the truth: Opportunity Set B is almost always more important. This is where expansion happens. This is where identity changes. This is where the next chapter begins. So ask yourself: What can I do right now that nobody is asking me to do, but will bring me closer to where I want to go? Because time isn’t just something we spend. Time is an investment strategy. And the highest returns come from the hours we put into the things that stretch us.

“When I found my confidence, started believing in myself, believing in that growth mindset, it changed my life.” – Tom Alaimo I never knew sales was a real career path until the moment everything clicked. Tom Alaimo gets it. Because he lived it. He’s shared his journey for years: the wins, the losses, and the belief that kept him going.  Now he runs his own business, built on the same principles that shaped his career. His message is simple: It’s not always about the outcome. It’s about showing up. Good day or bad day, Tom made the calls. He trusted the inputs that would eventually create the outputs. That competitiveness, that consistency, is what changed everything. Confidence isn’t an accident. It’s built through the reps. If you’re in a season of doubt, this episode is your reminder to keep going, bet on yourself, and trust the process.

Unlike any podcast episode we’ve done before, Marc Tyler Nobleman brings a new story to the table. “The dream of a writer is to find an untold story with a high-profile hook, especially one that aligns with your interests.” - Marc Tyler Nobleman He found it. Batman. One of the most iconic characters ever created. But the man who actually helped create him? Erased from history for 76 years. Bill Finger co-created Batman, but nobody knew his name. Marc decided that had to change. Experts told him it was impossible. He didn’t care. Nine years. Against all odds. Tracking down family members, piecing together evidence, refusing to quit. And he did it. Bill Finger’s name is now on the official Batman credit line. All because one person believed that even the most daunting changes can start with just one person. You don’t need permission to fight for what’s right. You just need to start.

“Never give up. It’s only a failure if you quit.” - Seth Greene Bet on yourself.  Always. If the people around you aren’t pushing you to grow, it’s time to find those who will.  Surround yourself with believers, people who challenge you, support you, and expect more from you because they see more in you. Every month, he’s leveling up in business, in relationships, and in the results he delivers for his clients. Because growth doesn’t happen by accident. It happens by intention. The goal? Build stronger connections. Deliver better results. Create experiences so valuable and unexpected that people can’t help but refer others to you. Tune in to the latest episode, it’s all about betting on yourself and never giving up on your vision.

John Kennelly didn’t plan on a career in sales. It was a means to an end.  Everyone around him was working at startups, and he just wanted to get his foot in the door. His first role was a BDR making cold calls. It was really hard work and quite daunting for him. But he hated his other jobs more, and something started to click. Watching teammates get hyped after closing a deal brought him back to his days in sports. The competition.  The energy.  The scoreboard. That’s when it clicked. “When I made the connection between sports and sales, it made me like it that much more.” - John Kennelly Many former athletes find their way into sales for this reason, the parallels are real. But here’s the thing: You don’t have to love sales to get good at it. Talking to customers, getting ghosted, hearing “no,” it’s how you build something people actually want. People overcomplicate sales. If you can have a conversation, you can sell. Most people fear being ignored. But if you’ve been in the game long enough, you know, getting ghosted means you’re playing. Sales is a numbers game. It’s about showing up, staying in motion, and learning directly from your customers.

Tilly Freear helps founders find their voice on LinkedIn and she’s phenomenal at it. The struggle she sees most: "Everyone has a story, everyone has a unique perspective, they just don't know how to put it into words." That's the gap. People want to relate to people, not polished corporate speak. Real-life experiences? Those are what actually perform. Want to build a presence that actually converts? Show up consistently.  The more you post and add value, the more you see ROI. Start small before you scale.  Spread yourself too thin and nothing performs well. Carve out dedicated time.  It becomes routine.  You'll actually enjoy it. Your community holds you accountable.  You can't tell others to show up if you don't. Commit to the process.  Even when it's exhausting.

Jordan Pedron was on track for a PhD in economics. He ended up on Wall Street and realized fast: “Everything is sales. You don’t close, you don’t survive.” That mindset stuck. And when startups started calling, he saw the gap. Founders were building great products, but couldn’t sell them without blowing budgets on full-time hires. So Jordan built a fractional growth team that helps early-stage startups scale sales without hiring a VP too early. Here’s what he’s learned: Founders are the best first salespeople. Confidence ≠ cockiness, believe in what you built. Scrappy still needs structure. High-pressure selling is dead. Value wins.

From mowing lawns to revolutionizing hiring. Matt Baxter hired his first employee as a high school senior for his lawn company. He quickly learned something: technical skills don't matter as much as you think. "I didn't care if someone knew how to mow a lawn or weed whack; you can teach those skills. But I did care if someone can shake your hand, be personable, and if you trust them in front of customers." - Matt Baxter After selling his accounts to a property company, that hiring lesson stuck with him. Because he saw the problem from both sides: → Hirers struggled to find the right people. Interviews sucked. Resumes told them nothing. → His friends graduated college and couldn't land jobs, not because they weren't capable, but because a resume couldn't capture who they actually were. That gap sparked Wedge. Here's what Matt's learned building it: Your hiring process is a mirror of your company. If it's broken, impersonal, or outdated, candidates notice. Make it candidate-driven. Think long-term. Starting young in business taught him this.  Short-term wins don't build companies. Relationships do. Stay true to your network. Check in with people just to check in.  Not when you need something. Your network isn't transactional, it's foundational.

“Come in as the Chief Listener, connect with the teams, and understand what is going on.” - Hans Lagerweij  Leadership isn’t about walking through the door with all the answers. It’s about walking in with the right questions and a willingness to truly listen. When stepping into a new role, especially as a leader, your first priority should be to understand the people, the culture, and the challenges on the ground.  It requires humility, curiosity, and empathy. This mindset is critical, not just for building trust but for laying the foundation of any meaningful change. At the same time, it's essential to think strategically.  Yes, you need a long-term vision, but the vision alone isn't enough.  People want to see progress. They want to know you're not just planning, but also delivering. It’s where short-term wins come in. Quick, tangible results show your team, your stakeholders, and anyone else watching you’re not only listening, you’re acting.  These early milestones create momentum, build credibility, and foster buy-in for the bigger picture. The key is finding the right balance between listening and leading, between long-term thinking and short-term execution. The balance is what sets effective leaders apart.

“The reason I got to where I am today is because I roll my sleeves up and work alongside my team. I'm not just a leader who dictates, I'm right there with them.” – Karissa Kerr Karissa went from being an Assistant to becoming the Chief Operating Officer. It didn’t happen overnight.  It’s not just mental,  it’s physical. It’s long days, longer nights. It’s entertaining clients, traveling, and being there for your team in the trenches, not just leading from above, but walking beside them. So what sets someone apart at this level? A mix of passion, assertiveness, and the constant desire to grow.  That’s the mindset that separates people who want the title from those who earn it. This is modern leadership. Grounded, relentless, and deeply connected to the people who make it all happen. 😎 Do Hard Things.

“Say no when you need to, and ask people to do things when you need them to.” – Lauren McSorley From day one, Lauren understood success isn't just about doing everything.  It's about doing the right things, in the right order, with the right people. The key? Trust. Having a team and a network you can rely on changes everything.  You can't, and shouldn’t, do it alone.  When things pile up, the support of a dependable team is what keeps momentum going and quality high. Yes, you can have a to-do list.  But often, the real work is in the unspoken. It’s about reading the room, sensing what’s off, and fixing it before it becomes a problem. Leadership isn’t always loud.  Sometimes it’s quiet intuition, strong boundaries, and knowing when to ask for help. 😎 Do Hard Things.

“The reason most people say ‘either/or’ is because they’re very confident in that thing, but not the other.” - Morgan Ingram Most execs don’t lean towards social selling because they didn’t use content to get to where they are. They say: “Make more calls.” “Send more emails.” “Host more events.” Why? Because it’s what worked for them. They didn’t close deals on LinkedIn when they were sellers. To them, content and social selling feel like foreign concepts. They think: "Influencers? Dancers? That won’t drive pipeline." But that’s the past. We’ve got to leave it in the past. We’re in a new world now. Social selling wasn’t top of mind for them, but it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be for us. We either adapt or we get left behind.

“Culture starts from the top and trickles its way down to the rest of the team.” – Megan Prince If you want to build an amazing culture, start by being the example. Leadership sets the tone. No individual is greater than the team. Strong foundations create strong teams. Always act in the best interest of the group.  That goes for everyone. Be accountable. Own your actions. As a leader, you’re not just setting the pace, you’re driving it. Practice what you preach. Grow constantly. Learn relentlessly. Knowledge is power. And leadership is responsibility.

“Economics tells you what is, and reminds society of where it should be, and where it ought to go.” – Seung Paik What’s the purpose of economics? In the confusion, chaos, and uncertainty of life, economics helps you find a guiding point, a framework to move forward with clarity. It draws a necessary tension between what is and what should be. It asks: Where are you now? Where do you want to be? And what forces are shaping the gap between the two? Economics tells us: in a market with high demand, prices will rise. But then comes the deeper question: Is that a good thing? Is that right? Want to learn more about the rollercoaster curve and how leadership fits into the bigger economic picture? Tune into the latest podcast episode with Seung Paik. And don’t miss his upcoming book, Leadernomics, launching September 9th. Pre-Order now! 

“Love and sales got discovered at the same time for me.” - Jason Marc Campbell Jason’s first girlfriend came from a sales interaction. Not a pitch. Not a trick. Just a real, human moment. And that’s how he’s seen sales ever since: Not as pressure. But as presence. As connection. When you sell something good, there’s happiness on the other side. Sales doesn’t have to feel like a drag. It doesn’t have to feel manipulative or transactional. When you’re in it for the right reasons… To help. To serve. To make life better for someone else… Your results follow. We talk about all of that in this episode:  Mindset. Ethics. Fulfillment. And how falling in love and falling into sales can sometimes look the same.

“It’s okay if you look around and no one is like you. It’s okay to be the first.” - Devan Felano Being the first can feel lonely.  Uncomfortable. Even intimidating. But it’s also powerful. Inspiring. Transformative. Have thick skin. Prove yourself.  Be the most prepared in the room.  Earn their buy-in. Get to know people.  That’s how you grow. That’s how you lead. Don’t just take up space, shape it. Become a trusted voice. Become a better leader. Make it easier for the next “first.”

“I wasn’t willing to pick plan B.” - Brian Burke That’s not just a quote. It’s a mindset. Brian started flipping phones on eBay in college. Then he made a pivot most wouldn’t: Laser focus on Apple only. No distractions. No backup plans. Because when you’re obsessed with what you’re building, you don’t need a safety net. You need grit. You need resilience. You need to treat customer service like it’s your product. Most people chase convenience. Brian chased excellence. This episode is for the builders. The sellers. The ones who refuse to settle. If you’ve ever been tempted to compromise, don’t.

"I am your sales guy who is actually in marketing." - Justin Ashby Why does content miss the mark? Because it forgets who it’s for. Not for the boardroom. Not for the algorithm. For people. Real ones. The story behind your product is what gets remembered. And when the story sticks? The product moves. One good story can power the whole go-to-market. It’s not about volume. It’s about resonance. This one’s for the marketers who want to sell better, and the sellers who wish marketing actually helped. Let’s tell better stories.

“I thought I was supposed to be a teacher… because that’s what I was told.” – Melissa Gaglione But when the classroom felt more like a chain, there was another path: Sales. The lesson? You don’t need permission to pivot. You need courage. B2B or B2C, it’s all H2H.  Human to Human. People don’t buy what’s loudest. They buy what feels right. Attention is the new currency. Brand is your biggest edge. And the best content? It’s already inside your walls. Let your people lead. Set the right expectations. And let them post what they believe in. This episode is for anyone tired of sounding the same, and ready to sell different. Season 3, Episode 1. Let’s go.

“If you can’t sell it as a founder, you shouldn’t hire sellers.” – KD Sales isn’t just hard. It’s misunderstood. It requires more skill, more repetition, and more discipline than most are willing to admit. Founders: Before you scale, you need to sell. Before you lead, you need to know what good looks like. You can’t outsource the blueprint. Diagnose. Define. Then drill, daily. Because process isn’t the problem. The wrong process is. Proof of performance is the only metric that matters. When we need to hire: We give you the answers to the test. What matters is how you prep, follow, and grow. When a rep says: “Can I take that feedback and try again?” Hired. This episode is for the founders trying to scale sales right, and the reps ready to rise.

“Kan Jam was the start of my entrepreneurial life.” - Gregg Turkovich That one product kicked off a chain of opportunities.  But nothing about the path is easy. Every founder hits hard times. Some push decisions down the road. That road becomes a hole. A hard place to get out of.  The ones who win? They face the data. They make small changes along the way. Stay on track. Good data → Good decisions → Good outcomes.

“Collaborative culture is the culture that wins.” - Richard Washington There are 4 types of hires. Which ones are you making? Most hiring decisions are based on the past. But the real edge? Hiring for the future. Context matters. The stage of the company matters. Resumes? Overrated. Plenty of people ace interviews. The best ones often don’t. We hire for grit, and you won’t find that in a CV. Leaders? They’re people-first. Money-driven? That’s fine… But the real question is: what do they want it for? Chasing more is easy. Chasing meaning is rare.

“You don’t find your purpose. You build it.” – Kat Nichols Sometimes the path isn’t clear, and that’s okay. The journey is yours to craft, brick by brick. In a world obsessed with overnight success and quick fixes, cut through the noise.  Show up consistently.  Be vulnerable.  Build your story authentically. Hiring, leadership, and mindset.  It’s all about intentionality. Being raw and real will always resonate more than perfect polish. And how owning your narrative, professionally and personally, creates a magnetic brand that attracts the right people. No fluff. No gimmicks.  Just real talk on how to move from stuck to unstoppable. If you want clarity in your career and your content, this episode will give you the push you need. Because at the end of the day, only you know what you’re capable of, and it’s time to start showing it.

"I knew I wasn’t the smartest person out there, but I can grind and I have grit." – John Barrows That’s it. That’s the edge. Not luck. Not shortcuts. Just showing up and doing the hard things, the hard way. From art to engineering to bio to marketing. No perfect plan. Just relentless movement. You can’t teach grit. You can’t fake passion. You can’t delgate work ethic. And yet, work ethic is disappearing. The worst career move? Taking a job just for the money. If you don’t believe in what you’re doing, neither will anyone else. This episode is a wake-up call. For anyone who’s coasting. For anyone who forgot what it feels like to earn it.

“If we’re not solving the problem, go away.” - Martin MacArthur Most people don’t want to prospect. They don’t want to pick up the phone. They don’t want to reach out cold. But we do.  Sales is a hard job. It’s not supposed to be comfortable. It’s supposed to be real. Yes, Martin is blind. But that’s not the story. The story is what he chooses to do anyway. He uses a dialer, LinkedIn, and email. That’s it. No excuses. No shortcuts. He is the epitome of doing hard things.  He gets fired up to talk to people when others avoid it. He still believes in the phone. And he knows real conversations are what move deals forward. So how do you win in today’s sales environment? Not with hacks. Not with templates. But with: Curiosity. Coachability. Accountability. If you’ve lost your edge, this episode will help you get it back.

“Once I figured out companies didn’t know how to do that, it all became crystal clear.” — Keenan Most salespeople don’t understand the problems they sell into. They jump to solutions.  Pitch products.  Talk outcomes. But they skip the one thing that matters most: Diagnosis. Keenan doesn’t coach to sell products.  He solves problems. And in this conversation, he makes one thing brutally clear: If you can’t identify what’s broken before you show up, you don’t deserve to offer a fix. It’s not about the pain. It’s about the problem. It’s not about being slick. It’s about being smart enough to slow down. This episode is a reset for anyone who’s gotten too comfortable selling symptoms. If you’re serious about consultative sales, the kind that creates real change, not just commissions, this one’s for you.

“Photos will illustrate your vision and get you engagement.” — Thibaut Souyris Here’s the truth: Vertical video is a smart investment. But creating it consistently and doing it well is a full-time job. Unless you have a team behind you, it’s hard to sustain. So what’s the shortcut? Photos. Yes, they work. Yes, they feel more personal. And yes, they drive engagement if they’re done with intention. But what works best? A mix of both. Quick-hit content for attention. Polished media for positioning. Because let’s be real, the LinkedIn algorithm changes weekly. And if you’re chasing hacks without substance, you're just adding noise. So here’s the play: Write well. Understand the media that moves. Match it to what your audience actually cares about. This isn’t a sprint. It’s a long game of attention, trust, and timing. The goal? Create inbound that drives your outbound. Capture attention. Deliver expertise. Call your prospects on the phone.  Get the meeting. Move the relationship off-platform. Then, it’s real.

“The goal isn’t to be seen, it is to inform and engage” – Tim Savage In a world chasing impressions and going viral, focus on the more important things.  Impact. Because it’s not about posting more. It’s about being seen by the people who actually matter. The ones who: Get what you do. Need what you offer. And are ready to act when the moment is right. It is the shift from chasing gargantuan numbers… To defining the right ones. From treating content as output… To using it as insight. Your content strategy needs two things to actually work. A clear view of where you are. A clear vision of where you're going. Sales, content, mindset.   It’s all connected. This isn’t about performance metrics or CTRs. It’s about clarity, consistency, and the courage to show up with intention. If you're building something real and want your content to reflect that? This one’s for you. Season 2 is here. 

“Begin with the end in mind” - Alexis Scott Where some marketers treat data like numbers on a spreadsheet… Alexis sees something deeper: human signals. She’s built her career by translating those signals into strategy, and more importantly, into connection. If you don't deeply understand your audience, growing something meaningful is nearly impossible. This conversation isn’t about dashboards or click-through rates. It’s about empathy. Intentionality. And the future of marketing that actually respects the people on the other end. Alexis helps brands see people, not personas. She’s lived it. Across startups, global brands, and her own practice. This isn’t a playbook. It’s a perspective shift. Because the best marketing isn’t about flashy tactics… It’s about trust, timing, and telling the right story to the right person. Build with intention. Grow the right way… not just the fast way. If you’re building something real and want your marketing to reflect that? You’ll want to listen to this one.

Ask yourself… What if LinkedIn DMs were as easy to manage as your Gmail inbox? What if your inbox could hit zero, with every message organized, actionable, and never forgotten? That exact frustration is what sparked an idea for Mitchell Tan. No, this isn’t a sponsored post… we just genuinely love this tool and the brilliant mind behind it. As a seasoned sales pro, Mitchell spent years wrestling with LinkedIn’s clunky inbox.  And too many missed opportunities. He kept thinking, “There has to be a better way.” And instead of waiting for someone else to fix it… he built the solution himself. That’s how Kondo was born… not just another CRM or automation tool, but a reimagined experience for how we actually want to manage conversations. This is more than tech.  It’s a story about seeing a broken system and having the guts to fix it. Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at Mitch’s journey, and get actionable insights that could transform the way you handle LinkedIn DMs.

“I just kept creating my own roles.” – Monica Stewart Monica didn’t wait for someone to hand her the perfect position. She made one. Then another. Then another. After carving out her place at three different companies, she made the leap into consulting and never looked back. Now she’s showing others how to build powerful partnerships that actually work. Some of her best insights? Partnerships only work if you take the time to truly know people Your LinkedIn profile is your personal website… use it that way If you can’t give 15 minutes a day to connect with your audience, how serious are you, really? And if you're worried that being transparent online means someone will steal what you do? What we do is hard… good luck copying it. The best content is relatable. The best relationships are intentional. And the best growth happens when you put yourself out there, consistently. You want to be seen? Put in the effort. Your people are on LinkedIn… go meet them.

"Right place, right time... finally." – Jeffrey Schaffer We’ve all been there… working multiple jobs, hustling day and night, trying to make things work. For Jeffrey, it started with juggling two sales jobs, followed by a tough market crash. But even in the face of those setbacks, he didn’t give up. At just 25, frustrated with the grind, he took matters into his own hands and began teaching himself about lead generation. Fast forward, and Jeffrey’s now a marketing pro who understands how the right tools and strategies can fuel growth. One key takeaway?  Figure out who the champion is, then tailor your pitch to solve their pain points. Content is king, and building referrals through thought leadership can set you apart.  If you’re not doing it, you’re already at a disadvantage.

Growth isn’t about putting out fires. “But that’s where 50-70% of leaders I talk to spend their time.” - Frank Ciccia Constantly reacting, handling the urgent, and putting out fires.  If you want to create real growth, you must move from firefighting to growth mode. How?  By creating stability first. You must invest time in building a strong foundation before scaling.  Without it, growth will always feel like a battle. Frank dives deep into the importance of shifting from reactive to proactive. It’s about creating the space to grow, make smart decisions, and focus on what moves the needle.  Stop spinning your wheels and start building the future you want.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, this is a cold call, and I’ve got something to sell to you.” – Giulio Segantini Boom.  Meeting booked. It worked. Cold calling can be tough. But what if it’s also the fastest way to fix your pipeline? Have fun with it. Show humor. Humor humanizes you. It’s easy to reject a salesperson.  It’s hard to reject a human. If you’re struggling with sales or tired of hearing the same old advice, this episode is for you. Giulio’s insights will challenge your perspective and help you level up your sales game.

Success in sales isn’t about giving it a shot and hoping it works out. You have to keep pushing, no matter how tough things get. The key to real growth? Consistency. Mike Belin knows this all too well.  With 25 years of experience, Mike has mastered the art of leadership and sales coaching.  He’s helped countless teams achieve sustainable success by focusing on the fundamentals and never settling for “good enough.” In our latest episode of Do Hard Things, Mike shares his journey and how he’s helped companies scale, boost revenue, and build stronger teams. His story will inspire you to take action, be consistent, and never give up on your vision.

No one built their empire by “giving it the college try”.  You’re giving up too early.  Success has many stages.  The first stage is to outlast everyone else.  If you can outlast everyone else, you’re going to be okay.  The second stage is consistency.  If you outlast everyone, show up, and give it your best every day, you’ll be unstoppable.  You’ll be the top SDR, CEO, or founder.  Whatever outcome you’re working towards, you have to be consistent and patient.  That’s what’ll bring you success.  Peter Roberti share insights like this and more in episode 5 of “Do Hard Things” Give it a listen. 

Not everyone is the same.  What you say and how you say it matters.  Don’t be lazy with language.  Why do we have time tested advice like this? Because all of us have different ways of understanding information.  If we can’t figure out how our audience understands information, you’ll never connect with them.  Patrick Kelley shares how he had to learn this lesson in our latest podcast episode of “Do Hard Things.” He knew how to talk “nerd” not sales.  He had to switch that up if he wanted to succeed.  It took years to figure it out, but he did it.  His story is worth listening to. It’s inspiring. 

He fought for his life for 4 years.  Nothing can compare to that.  Scott Leese has learned how to do hard things.  I agree with his perspective on life, sales, and work. You have to listen to this episode of “Do Hard Things.” Being in sales takes a lot of work.  You deal with rejection and uncertainty every single day.  You must learn what it means to endure and have grit in sales. 

Amelia Taylor was a newly single mother and needed to make money.  She found herself.  She found software sales.  She didn’t know what it was but wanted to make it work.  And she did! She’s a rockstar, and I’m so grateful that I got the chance to hear her story on my new podcast series: “Do Hard Things.” You won’t want to miss this one.  😎 Do hard things.

“I started as a JR. SDR on an inbound program. I thought, wow, I must not be good if I was placed on this project. How can I get better?” At this moment, Jose had a choice.  He could quit.  Or… He could double down on his craft as an SDR. I bet you know what he chose.  This is a new podcast series that I’m incredibly excited and passionate about.   It’s about doing hard things.