Sales Success Stories

In today's bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories Podcast, I'm going to do something I've never done before. It's super personal and super uncomfortable, but given how much it resonated with others on our last Sales Success Community call, it feels like a really important thing to share. I'm trying to Defunkify myself! I have been off my game for almost an entire year, and I'm sure experiencing some mild depression. I won't get into all of the causes, because it's really not that important, and many of us get into this place for a whole variety of reasons. What I want to focus on is getting out of it!

Jack English is the top-performing Account Executive at Zencity, a complete 360 solution that enables local government leaders to understand diverse community needs by hearing from more voices. The platform brings all the essential tools into one place to help government agencies improve services, build trust and increase overall satisfaction with their communities. Prior to being elevated to AE, Jack was a top Sales Development Representative (SDR). Jack is a highly intentional sales professional who believes in managing up, taking ownership, and the power of cultivating meaningful relationships with mentors.

In today’s bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast, I’ve got the complete audio from another of the top-rated presentations from the 2022 Sales Success Summit. This is Lynn Powers, who was the star of episode 147 on this podcast delivering her presentation on Grit & Tenacity For The Win, and just a note having just rewatched this myself, the Q&A at the end is just as good as Lynn’s killer presentation, so stay tuned for that and for a link to the video version so you can actually see Lynn’s presentation, click over to top1.fm/lynn2022. Here it is:

Ian Koniak, a former top performer at Salesforce and now a successful sales coach, shares transformative insights from his acclaimed presentation. He discusses achieving self-worth through goal-setting and the mindset needed for success. Koniak tackles the struggle against distractions and the importance of resilience, illustrated by his marathon experiences. He emphasizes deep work for productivity, urging listeners to eliminate busy work in favor of impactful tasks. Lastly, he promotes a 30-day habit challenge to foster positive behavioral change.

Brantley Atkinson is the top Account Executive at Triple Whale, an organization that compiles data into one easy-to-use dashboard. Brantley is a focused team leader with the ability to leverage research, resources, and emerging technologies to create relevant communications. Brantley has extensive experience building partnerships and retaining customers and today he joins the show to discuss how his non-Sales background at NC State helped him tremendously in his eventual Sales career.

Today’s bonus episode might be a little bit redundant if you’re also a subscriber and regular listener of the Daily Sales Tips podcast, but I thought I’d put together this ultra-convenient set of all 10 of the top sales tips from that show in one bingable pack. Enjoy the countdown! Top 2022 Tip #1 – No Nonsense Strategy to Build More Pipeline – Anthony Natoli Top 2022 Tip #2 – Be Grateful – Jack Wilson Top 2022 Tip #3 – Be Creative in Connecting with Customers and Win More – Irfan Jafar Top 2022 Tip #4 – Use this Trick to Get Any Prospect to Call You – Shari Levitin Top 2022 Tip #5 – Mindset of a Top Performer – Jason Koons Top 2022 Tip #6 – 13 Traits of a Successful Salesperson – Meshell Baker Top 2022 Tip #7 – Resonance: The Only Thing that Matters in Your Messaging – Tyler Lessard Top 2022 Tip #8 – Winning with the Questions you Ask – Katie Jane Bailey Top 2022 Tip #9 – High Conversion Prospecting – Tom Burton Top 2022 Tip #10 – Facilitate the Sales Process – Sabrina Simmers

Leon Baumann is a Senior Account Executive and Client Champion at Dell Technologies. Leon’s focus at Dell Technologies and his career are both centered around being a Champion for his Clients. He is a firm believer in investing heavily in himself, as evidenced by the numerous training programs he’s taken part in at Wharton, Kellogg, and the Professional Selling and Sales Management program from Harvard. As a result of these efforts, and his relentless pursuit to serve his customers with relationships built on a foundation of trust, he is an Authenticated Client Champion.

I've got one more short update episode for you as we wrap up the year. We should be back with a new interview episode the first week of January, so make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. The first update is that the videos from the 2022 Sales Success Summit should be available just in time for Christmas. If you've already signed up and are waiting for those to be delivered. Keep an eye on your inbox. If you didn't fill out the form at Top1Summit.com to get access to all of those videos for free, this is your last chance. You'll need to do that before December 31st. After that, they'll be going up behind a paywall. That said if you're listening to this in 2023 and beyond. You can get a couple of access codes to individual videos by joining our mailing list at top1.fm. That's T-O-P the number 1 dot FM, and the link to the summit page is available there as well. Hit pause and do that now if you haven't already! Now, if you're looking to set yourself up for a super solid 2023 I've got an incredible offer for you in our All Access Pass and as I talk through this you can find the details at top1.fm/2023. You may have heard me say before that I'm really leaning into the community this year. In addition to our two-day Sales Success Summit next October, we're adding another single-day event in May called Basecamp. Both events will feature presentations from the top performing sales professionals that you've heard here on this podcast and as excited as I am about both of those events, the thing I think is really going to make the biggest difference is the way we're working to engage and connect the community in a more meaningful and impactful way. We just kicked off a gamified experience just for All Access Pass Holders that's as much about bringing the community together as it is about public personal accountability and working together to execute at the highest levels.

Thank you so much for listening and subscribing to the podcast. Rather than just skipping this week I thought I'd record a short update for you to share what's going on and what you can expect over the course of the next few weeks. Not everyone knows that all of this Sales Success stuff, this podcast, the Daily Sales Tips podcast, the Sales Success Summit, the books, and everything else is actually one big side hustle. Like many of you, I'm a quota-carrying sales professional, and while I'm well ahead of plan for the year I've still got quite a bit of pipeline to work through in these next 4 weeks before Christmas, as well as a lot of planning and prep to do to make sure that I'm all set for a successful 2023 as well. If I'm really honest I'm also working through a bit of burnout having essentially worked 2 full-time jobs for the last 6 years! So I'm going to intentionally take my foot off of the gas with this podcast for the next few weeks, at least on the public side. I will be leaning into the paid Sales Success Community offering a bit more and you can learn more about that opportunity at top1.fm/2023 I'm also going to keep things going on the Daily Sales Tips Podcast side of things as well, though I'm sure we'll do a big top tips countdown over there in a few weeks, as I'm going to try to completely take off the week between Christmas and New Years. That's it. I just wanted you to know that we'll probably release just one last interview this year, and I'll be resetting and gearing up to make 2023 our best year yet for you and for me. Again, be sure to check out what's going on over at top1.fm/2023 as the best way you can support this effort and yourself is to get involved there. Oh, and I'm also working on booking more interviews, so if you or someone you know is going to finish as the outright #1 top performer for the year. Reach out and make an intro. To qualify, they must be in an individual quota-carrying role and have been a consistent top performer on a team of at least 5 sellers. Thanks again for listening and I'll talk to you soon!

In today’s bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast I’ve got maybe the most unique share yet. Right after the Sales Success Summit in October my pipeline of tips for the Daily Sales Tips podcast was running quite low, so I asked some core members of the Sales Success Community to contribute some tips. Now if you’re a regular listener to that show, you may have heard a couple of these ideas from Jacquelyn Nicholson and Mike Simmons but the raw unedited version was so much fun I thought I’d just share the whole thing here. I’m going to have my audio editor make a few minor tweaks based on his judgement to clean up a couple of transitions, but other than that we’re going to keep it pretty raw and if you click over to top1.fm/JM for Jacquelyn/Mike, we’re going to include the full unedited video. Here they are, Enjoy!