Sound of Sales
By Sound of Sales
In this podcast, Bram talks to top sales performers, CEOs and other business professionals about the "sound" behind their growth. What struggles have they encountered, professionally or personally, how do they address mental well-being, and how do they balance the challenges they face.
Sound of SalesJan 13, 2022
#28: Mitchell Omer - Leaving the golden cage to lead the revenue team at a startup.
Mitchell Omer left Thomson Reuters just over a year ago to return to the startup world. He currently leads the revenue efforts at Trust Keith.
It's a challenging job to say the least with many things he's never done before, but also super satisfying to be at the forefront of leading a startup's growth engine.
This episode tackles the different parts of what keeps Mitchell busy and where he gets his energy from.
► Mitchell:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchellomer1/
https://www.trustkeith.co/
► Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/8XNGhda38b8
► FOLLOW:
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#27: Liam Halpin - The man who led LinkedIn's sales team to 7X their EMEA business.
In this episode of Sound of Sales, we invited Liam Halpin. He led his team to a sevenfold increase in the LinkedIn Sales Solutions business (EMEA) in the short span of 6 years.
Today Liam shares his vision of leadership and how he got where he is. A hugely inspiring sales leader to me, and I'm sure he'll be to you too.
Liam is the VP of sales at LinkedIn Sales Solutions (EMEA & LATAM) and is also on the Global Leadership Team for LinkedIn Sales Solutions.
#26: Nasri EL-Sayegh - Insights into the blueprint of building a sales growth engine.
Nasri is the VP Sales at Hokodo, leading the commercial SDR & Account Executive teams and is responsible for revenue growth across Hokodo’s key geographies. Primarily focused on developing and scaling Hokodo’s growth engine and consistently delivering value to merchants at each and every interaction.
Nasri has previous scale-up experience as a sales leader at Zencargo who scaled to a $42m Series B raise and other start-up environments. Nasri started his career in financial services at Bloomberg LP.
Nasri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nasri-el-sayegh-6a97ab33/
► FOLLOW
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#25: Vitorio Martini - The principles of fixing your sales team when things get tough.
What do you do when you notice your team is constantly missing quota?
After listening to this episode, you'll call Vitorio. Several companies have already done so, because this man makes it happen.
After a career at Thomas Reuters, Hitachi and now Dell, he has revved up sales teams and crushed quotas (Hitachi even brought him in twice!).
His secret? Unless what you might think, firing people is his last resort. He has 3 core principles that can make any sales team successful, if you apply them properly (tip: he shares them in detail in the episode!).
Let me know what you think!
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Vitorio has developed a reputation as a strong leader, manager, coach, and mentor with the ability to uncover root causes and train teams to discover previously unrealised solutions with focus on values and culture. On various occasions he was brought into companies to fix their revenue, not by firing people but to work with what he has and uplift the whole team to a new level.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vitoriomartini/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#24: Ethan Parker - Success in sales has everything to do with hustling smart and knowing yourself.
When I ask people how they got into sales, I get a variety of answers. Truth be told, Ethan Parker's was rather unexpected.
Being successful in life is not given, it is earned. And if you hustle smart, you can basically achieve anything you set your mind to.
Ethan's take on "the hustle" and his level of self-awareness are inspiring to me.
Be prepared to learn the mix to succeed in your sales career.
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Throughout Ethan's career he has been a top-performing salesperson, as well as building and managing sales teams. Most notably, he launched Evolt's (an AU-based company) US operation and brought in over $10M in revenue and over $50M in contracts in just over 3 years. Ethan has also been a successful entrepreneur and was the youngest multi-unit franchise owner at Self Esteem Brands (Anytime Fitness).
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanlparker/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#23: Fernando Pucci - The human approach to managing people and being a better leader.
How do you become a people manager?
There are about 7,680,000,000 results on Google alone.
Authors have written tons of books on the subject (personally, I would recommend The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo).
A good people manager is someone who can get the best out of their team, but also takes one for the team from time to time.
One such person is Fernando Pucci, today's guest.
Fernando has stepped up for his team several times, challenged management to rethink their plans, and helped employees reach the President's Club by constantly challenging them to go the extra mile and think with them.
Several people have told me about Fernando and his way of managing, so I am very excited to share this story with a wide audience to get to know this amazing guy!
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Fernando is a sales and growth professional in the SaaS industry who has been working across the world building go to market strategies, multi-functional teams, starting operations from scratch and growing businesses. He has seen it all, from startups to scale-ups and large enterprises. He has built strategies and lead teams to go beyond their expectations.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fernandofpucci/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#22: Harold Roquet: How to create an uplifting sales culture and be the best manager possible.
Show note: something went wrong with the audio recording, apologies for that!
How do unicorns grow? 🦄
Let me tell you, it’s by putting great leaders in charge of your teams.
Today’s episode of Sound of Sales is with Harold Roquet and honestly, he’s one of the most humble sales leaders I’ve met.
It surprised me when he mentions he has never fired someone in the last 3 years. Not only because he’s good at hiring talent but also because when quotas aren’t reached, the first person he looks to is himself. Making sure, time and time again, he creates the best possible environment for his team to thrive.
He started at the Ghent-based unicorn Deliverect as employee 50 (now over 400) and has grown the sales team to over 30 people strong in about 1.5 years time. Pushing Deliverect’s growth globally.
► ABOUT THE GUEST
After starting his career cleaning windows in condos, he soon found himself with the challenge of bringing Uber Eats to market in Canada and other regions. From there, the world opened up. Harold now works at Belgium's fourth unicorn, Deliverect, where he leads about 30 people across the EMEA region.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haroldroquet/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
Episode sponsor: https://leadcamp.io
#21: Sanjoy Bhose: The art of combining being bold with 5 killer sales principles.
What do you do when you feel like nothing is working?
Indeed, you keep pushing your limits and trying to fix it. Let that be exactly what Sanjoy did in his early days.
For two years, he wrote down everything that worked and didn't work in a notebook. Then he distilled the contents to find common denominators in his actions.
Guess what! There were 5 core principles that came to light and 3 of them are related to used language!
In this episode he shares what he learned the hard way, why he thinks it's time for sales leaders to embrace a bolder approach and gives a real example on how to do discovery calls using his exact framework.
Listen carefully, it may just give you that push you need to pick up the phone and try it out!
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Sanjoy Bhose is a sales leader and sales enablement professional who believes that selling with integrity, humility and empathy goes a long way. He learned the trade through discovery and analysis in various sales leader positions at large companies when training teams at scale.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raulalanadean/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
Episode sponsor: https://leadcamp.io
#20: Stefan Avivson - How to find out what really makes customers tip with 1 simple question.
Why do people buy your product or service?
It seems to be the hardest question to answer. Many companies don't even ask their customers, when in fact it's a simple question that can elevate your entire business! Today on our show, we have Stefan Avivson who is dedicated to finding these why's.
Everyone has heard of the "Start With Why" while many sellers suffer from not understanding the real why, when it's right in front of you: just ask the question. If you ask 100 people, you will probably understand the common denominator that makes people tip.
After listening to this, you'll probably want to pick up the phone and take action. It will drastically affect your sales process if you find out!
Enjoy!
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Stefan Avivson is a father, a serial entrepreneur and a musician. Who, after a hurricane of lifelong challenges found himself on a mission: to do his best to make a positive impact on this planet and the people on it. His outlook is that happiness makes the world a better place for all of us, so why not help good entrepreneurs make a difference? Stefan is all about making an impact! His passion and experience allow him to create traction in both startups and mature B2B companies, including his own portfolio of businesses.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avivson/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#19: Cedric Royer - If you want to scale your business properly, you need to think about systems.
How do you build a sustainable business?
When growth kicks in, many sales leaders tend to focus on the "fires". But to really grow, you need to focus on building processes, and let that be just what Cedric brings to the table.
In this episode, we dive into his experiences hiring, managing a team and his learnings in building meaningful career paths.
Cedric's experience is insane from a broad background on mentoring scale ups, working on his own startups and on big tech companies like Indeed.
Something that I'm sure will stick with you after this episode: it's all about humans.
Enjoy!
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Cedric is passionate about helping startups and scale ups grow. He is in the business of scaling high performance teams and high revenue streams. During his career, he has had the opportunity to work across EMEA, mentoring scale ups in AI, Blockchain, 3D Printing, LMS, ... and worked on his own startups as well as for large tech companies in HRTech, storage, semiconductors/compute and security.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cedricroyer/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#18: Aydin Kintziger - The positive mindset for sellers - how to become limitless.
How do you think about mindset?
Its importance is often overlooked, especially by young salespeople or in training.
Some think that a good mindset means that you have great ambition for the future. Well, you'd be surprised…
Today I am super proud to share this episode. After the first few minutes, it took an unexpected turn and turned out to be a super deep conversation about culture, mindset, and seeing the future, among other things.
This is an episode I would recommend to anyone.
Whether you're in sales or not. It will make you think about your own actions and might just change your future.
Sounds cliché, but it just might be true.
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Aydin Kintziger lives in Ghent, Belgium and is currently responsible for platform partnerships at Stripe. He has previous experience at LinkedIn and In The Pocket, among others. He spends a lot of time reflecting and finding out why we do what we do. A great guy, with an awesome vision!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aydinkintziger/
► USEFUL LINKS
Manifestation meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVPrxcR_RZI
View on Youtube: https://youtu.be/rjwaluM95Oc
#17: Stef Verbeeck - The secret to personal branding to win in sales
Let's talk about personal branding!
Not something easy to accomplish, but increasingly important for sellers today. Creating a trusting relationship with your prospects can make or break many deals.
I invited Stef Verbeeck, a true personal branding expert, on Sound of Sales today.
After speaking with many listeners and receiving your questions, we tried to cover them all in this episode.
Things like why companies should embrace employees building their brand (and how to do it successfully), how to start creating a brand and why human-to-human sales is so important.
Here are the top take-aways to start with:
1 - Who do you want to reach? (Understand your target audience well!)
2 - Devise a strategy for yourself (what's achievable?)
3 - Don't just sell, sell, sell
Enjoy the episode, and remember, branding has nothing to do with marketing.
► ABOUT THE GUEST
Stef Verbeeck can be considered a Flemish pioneer in the field of branding with more than 20 years of experience. He wrote four books on the subject and a fifth is on the way. Currently he is a partner and brand strategist at Pavlov, a niche company specialized in brand strategy, customer experience and brand identity.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefverbeeck/
► FIND US ONLINE
Website: https://soundofsales.co
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/soundofsales
Instagram: https://instagram.com/soundofsales
Twitter: https://twitter.com/soundofsales
#16: Jens Massaert - From a trip around the world to a VP Sales
On today's episode of Sound of Sales: Jens Massaert.
How do you become a VP of sales? There is no one-size-fits-all answer to that question, nor is Jens' answer the one you expect.
Jens traveled the world after he got tired of selling insurances and ended up launching 45 ecommerce products in Malaysia. From start to finish, from research to pricing and sourcing.
As a result, he realized he knows what makes people buy a product but also that he's not a true sales guy. Jens knows sales.
Enjoy this story of a man who loves making an impact and guiding his team to more "Closed Won's".
Jens: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensmassaert/
Episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/Ij1990C43xs
Life is what happens to you, and how you react to it - Snippet #3
From the first moment I spoke to Neil, he was the most humble person I had ever met.
As time went on, we kept in touch and one day he let me in on his past and the things he had faced.
I have tremendous respect for this man. When things get tough, this conversation is one of the things I look back to.
I wanted to share this snippet from Sound of Sales because I believe that not only does everyone need to hear it, I want you to know you're not alone when things get tough.
Whatever life throws at you, you got this.
Talk to people, put your vision on the wall and go them 'em.
Neil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilbhuiyan/
Full episode on Youtube: https://youtu.be/0M1MsH9EcKo
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4Os39BLXyat2r4V78yUZYN
Others: https://soundofsales.co/episodes/neil-bhuiyan
#15: Adriana Romero - The best way to manage a sales team and make them top performers
What does an engineer do in the sales world?
In this episode, I had the honor of talking with Adriana Romero. She is a seasoned sales enablement professional, currently working at Salesforce.
Her passion is tremendous. I had a great experience talking to her and wrote down many things for future reference. She lives for people, helps them grow and makes sure they become the best version of themselves.
This episode contains very practical advice on how to strengthen your sales team and making them quota-killers.
A great episode. Enjoy!
Adriana: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianaromero/
View on Youtube : https://youtu.be/fTIRVw0gcek
How to fix your outbound machine? - Snippet #2
In these 'Snippet' episodes of the podcast, we'll be selecting our favourite insights from previous episodes of Sound of Sales.
Michael Humblet is obsessed with designing, building and scaling sales engines and founder of Chaomatic, focused on unlocking & maximizing revenue growth trusted by over +230 companies. He is a seasoned sales strategist who served in different Sales Leadership functions. He is also the host of The Sales Acceleration Show.
Michael: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhumblet/
Listen to the full episode here : https://soundofsales.co/episodes/michael-humblet
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OF6qOG0TaeY
#14: Carly Lehner - Building valuable enablement programs and pushing for the basics.
Today on the Sound of Sales: Carly Lehner.
In sales enablement you have people from all kinds of backgrounds. Carly came into sales enablement because of her training experience and her passion for combining data with creativity.
In this episode, Carly opened up and shared how she escapes a bad day, how she hates it when salespeople forget the basics, and how her sorority has shaped her as a leader.
A super interesting conversation though I say so myself!
Enjoy!
Carly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlylehner/
View on Youtube: https://youtu.be/VEgV4gyXR30
Snippet 1 - Build a sales team like a McDonalds franchise.
In these 'Snippet' episodes of the podcast, we'll be selecting our favourite insights from previous episodes of Sound of Sales.
Guillaume Moubeche is the founder and CEO of Lempire, also known for their Lemlist product. They surprised the world by growing MASSIVELY while not taking a single euro from outside investors.
Listen to the full episode here : https://soundofsales.co/episodes/guillaume-moubeche/
Watch the episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pcEz0fDj-Q
#13: Crystal Nikosey - Turning chaos into scalable sales processes.
On this episode: Crystal Nikosey.
Crystal started in sales for the glorious income and quickly discovered her passion for it.
Her goal is to keep getting better so she's doing what it takes to prepare herself for the future of enablement.
She sees herself as a lone wolf with a drive to turn chaos into scalable processes.
Enjoy this conversation with an amazing female leader!
PS: somewhere in this episode, there's a great human-to-human calling tip!
#12: Malvina EL-Sayegh – Managing being a mom and a sales leader and making an impact on both.
For this episode, I invited Malvina EL-Sayegh.
After working at a corporate for over 10 years, she decided she wanted to make an immediate impact and jumped into the startup world where she is currently a sales enablement lead at Reachdesk.
We had a super interesting conversation about how motherhood has changed her way of looking at work and the human approach to sales.
#11: Maarten Bovée - From working on the factory floor to closing a €100M deal.
On this episode: Maarten Bovée.
Maarten is a man who started in the trenches (as a Youtube-taught engineer) and has the passion and drive that brought him to where he is today. He is passionate about everything related to digital transformation and sales.
On this episode we had a deep dive into his learnings along the way, all the way to how he closed a € 100.000.000 B2B deal.
Enjoy this episode!
#10: Al Graves - A deep-dive in sales enablement and why it shouldn’t be your last priority.
In this episode: Al Graves!
We hear the entire journey of starting out as a window seller to starting his own business and leaving it all behind to open a school in Honduras. After 3 years he returned to “invent” a job where he could combine his passion for sales and teaching… Al did sales enablement before it was a thing!
He shares with us:
- when to best implement enablement;
- it’s core elements;
- the red and green flags of a successful salesperson.
(If you don’t change something, you can’t expect that the results will change. So why wait?)
#9: Yannic Schelfhout - Diving into learnings for cold calling and why sales are dope
For this episode, I invited Yannic.
We met years ago when he did his first internship in sales. Now years later, Yannic explains how he grew from SDR to Account Executive in only a short year and a half.
Since Yannic is a big fan of cold calling, the secrets about cold calling that he learned along the way were not to be left untouched as well as how to apply them within your sales process.
Bottom line: be proud and aware of the journey ahead of you, because sales is not like in the movies.
Enjoy this episode!
#8: Will Koning - Learnings to build an early sales team and creating a positive culture
In this week's episode, I invited Will Koning of SaaSLeads.io. Having built over 40 SDR teams through his Academy, he is in a great position to share his key lessons on what to look out for, creating a positive culture and how he sees sales of the future.
Enjoy the episode!
#7: Jeroen Poels - A journey of challenging yourself, going nearly bankrupt and climbing back up.
Today on the show: Jeroen Poels. A young entrepreneur from Antwerp, Belgium who started his business 10 years ago at the age of 18. A college dropout who discovered "business" the hard way. Ups and downs, almost going bankrupt and climbing back up, all the way to the Forbes 30 under 30 list. A man to keep an eye on!
Enjoy this episode!
#6: Cédric Vercauteren - The power of documenting a startup journey and knowing yourself to play to your strengths
Today I invited Cédric on the show. While building MeetRoger, Cédric documented his entire startup journey and built his personal brand (now 18k LinkedIn followers strong). Along the way, Cédric discovered his strengths and how to capitalize on them to get sh*t done.
Enjoy this episode!
#5: TJ Macke - Knowing what matters, appreciating the growth curve and bring good news
For this week's episode, I invited TJ Macke. He started his career as a coffee shop and roastery owner, jumped into retail and is now Senior VP of Strategy at Sapper Consulting. A great conversation about how to prioritize things in life, how to value your personal growth curve and how sales is actually about sharing "good news".
Enjoy!
#4: Neil Bhuiyan - practice makes progress, F.A.I.L., learning the lesson
If you want to turn your SDRs into top performers, Neil is the man you need. In this episode, however, we're not talking about SDR coaching, we're diving deep into Neil's values-based approach to learning, how he tackles personal growth, along with some great tips for anyone working on their business or career.
#3: Guillaume Moubeche (Lemlist) - Tactics from growing a company with just $1000
In our third episode, I have a conversation with Guillaume who founded Lemlist about 4 years ago. His company now does $10M ARR and is valued at $150M, but there is a catch... he and his 2 co-founders founded the company with only $1000 and no external capital! In financial terms this is called bootstrapping, and what an example this is!
Enjoy the episode!
Let me know what you think of this episode!.
#2: Michael Humblet - the power of personal brand, build your own machine, and stop being afraid
In today's episode, we speak with Michael Humblet. He is known as a Belgian sales guru and founders talk about growing their business, his name is probably mentioned. In this episode, we're not just talking about sales tactics. Michael is actually a great marketer, so we talk about how to grow your business (sales-wise) by creating your own machine and building a personal brand.
Enjoy! Let me know what you think of this episode!.
#1: Peter Snauwaert - how to hire for culture, level up sales skills, and manage your inner self.
Today's episode is a special one, it's our first episode. With Peter Snauwaert, we talk about a broad range of things related to sales, from hiring to preventing burn out. It is very easy to get caught up in the pressure of starting (and growing) in sales but the bottom line is, take a step back and deploy a bit of gratitude for the things you have and where you're currently at. Then find a mentor and make your own playbook.
Enjoy!
Let me know what you think!