When Meredith graduated from college, she taught English as a second language in Spain. She had graduated in 2011 and from Spain saw and heard that her friends back in the San Francisco Bay / Silicon Valley area were all getting tech jobs. Friends encourged her to hurry back and get on with a big tech company.  Using her background as an NCAA varsity field hockey athlete, she walked into a sales role at Yelp - a super fast growing company at the time.  We talked about office dynamics at...

If you have ever wanted bigger deals to build or to work on, you need to know our guest this episode, Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith. Having known Barbara for the last 10 or so years, I don't know why she hasn't been on the show sooner - and today she is talking about a new service she's launched utilizing generative AI, "Barbara AI" and the launch of her online Whale Hunters Institute.  Barbara runs The Whale Hunters and is entirely focused on helping people win bigger deals through a process...

It started for both Cherilynn and me by selling Girl Scout cookies. Like me, she LOVED selling cookies, and it seems to be one of the commonalities in our sales careers.  Cherilynn Castleman wants to empower 1 million women for C-suite success by 2030! She is a force to be reckoned with - listen to our conversation and how we both want everyone to know how selling is really helping others.  Learn sales skills and become "too good to be ignored" - as Cherilynn says.  Follow her on...

Hannah and I had a rousing conversation about all things sales. Hannah is founder of Revenue Funnel and is based in London. She and I talked about many topics - including:  A Conversation with Hannah Ajikawo - Journey from Sales to CEO and Founder of Revenue Funnel In this episode, Hannah Ajikawo, CEO and Founder of Revenue Funnel, discusses her journey through experiences in Sales to forming her company. Raised in inner-city areas heavily influenced by crime, Hannah obtained a degree in...

In a candid conversation, communication expert and sideline reporter for the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners, Jen Mueller shares her perspective on maintaining focus and supportive beliefs amidst challenging times, such as a difficult economic climate or personal setbacks. She discusses the significance of honesty in assessing failures and emphasizes the importance of competing against oneself to improve. Jen also highlights the value of small, incremental successes in boosting...

Carole Mahoney has written an excellent book for sales professionals and entrepreneurs on collaborative selling and in changing the sales industry. She mixes in stories, anecdotes and statistics to help one learn and improve around critical sales skills and mindset for success.  00:00 Introduction and Guest Background 00:59 Carol's Journey and Book Contribution 02:48 The Impact of 'Buyer First' on Salespeople 04:57 The Concept of Collaborative Selling 09:20 The Importance of Mindset in...

I hadn't planned an episode about "She Sells" but jumped at the chance when a wonderful interviewer, Caroline Jones, offered to ask me about it. This session is dedicated to those who helped me with their stories and stats which are included in the book. It is exciting, too, that it just won "FIRST PLACE" in Top Sales Magazine's Sales Book of the Year. Wow.  00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 00:26 Discussing the Impact of 'She Sells' 03:06 The Importance of Male Allies in Sales 05:20...

Kristie's parents were both in real estate sales and Kristie grew up hearing her parents  talk at the dinner table about commissions, sales, and more. After getting a degree in Journalism from University of Kansas, she ended up as a waitress and then worked for the legendary Kansas City department store called The Jones Co (later became Macy's)  Kristie worked as a sales leader for companies like Network Solutions, Gainsight, and Netskope. Listen how the universe conspired for her to start...

We had a big year at Women Sales Pros and now are going through the review of all of our wonderful podcast guests in 2023. I would like to thank all of our guests for their focus and contribution to topics we discussed such as: Getting into sales in the first place as a woman or another "only"  Growing in your sales career Becoming a sales leader - what is required?  Dealing with a "male majority" environment and if you are a leader, how you can improve it.  Various industries, like...

Riley Blaisdell is currently a Major Market Account Executive at Paycor. In his AE role, I'd say Riley has done more for helping shine a light on women in sales than many senior leaders I know. He has done this through his growing visibility on LinkedIn. Right now during "Women in Sales" month, he's talking up different women in sales each day.  I noticed that Riley has this list of women he gladly shares anytime one of the "bro's" in sales will post a number of guys and here will come...

Rana Salman, MBA PhD, is the author of the new book, Sales Essentials: The Tools You need at Every Stage to Close More Deals and Crush your Quota. She is CEO of Salman Consulting, started in research, and stumbled (as she says) into sales and consulting.  Rana is also co-founder of WISE (Women in Sales Enablement) We had a great conversation about her childhood and how her dad's sales role made a huge impact on her.  For more info: www.salmanconsulting.com Follow us on Twitter:...

Miram (Mimi) Ebrahim is Brand Sales Leader for the GTM Team at Yelp. She has been in sales and sales leadership for more than eight years and has a background in television production and has an MBA. We talked about how she got into sales in the first place, what she loves about sales, and has tips for reaching prospects in addition to lots of other great advice. "When I think of No, I think of KNOW" and she tells her reps, "Your goal is to build momentum"  Miram talked about staying...

After hearing Rhasheeda Hughes on a panel webinar, I had to invite her to join our podcast so that others could learn about her journey and her strategies for being a successful woman in sales leadership.  Rhasheeda has a proven record as a sales expert, trainer, and team leader with a reputation for enhancing organizational capabilities. She led a national team of 10 Account Managers with full responsibility for team hiring, development, and performance coaching. She is adept at...

It was a LinkedIn post that got my attention.  Sales managers are acting poorly, according to Tara Ryan's coachees. As an Executive and Leadership Coach, she's heard more complaints from women in sales roles about managers with lack of empathy, perhaps fear-motivated.  I couldn't let the conversation go - so we recorded.  What is important to you in a sales manager?  I wrote about making reps more coachable, with some very interesting data.  Learn more about what a coach does in this...

When you think about careers for women in sales, we typically talk about revenue responsibility roles plus sales leadership. In the past 5-7 years we started to see sales enablement roles as well as RevOps. .Personally I get a little confused between enablement and ops, so I brought on a team of RevOps leaders at Xactly to help us understand what their roles are and how they both got into them. Meet Bayley Fesler, Director, Revenue Ops, and Annie Jones, Revenue Ops Business Partner. Together...

Jaquelin Jenkins is Executive Director of Client Services at Tangible Security, having worked previously at Citrix and other orgs. She graduated from University of Alabama with degrees in Political Science and Communications - so how'd she end up in sales roles? Listen to this episode and learn how she pivoted once she realized how much she loved working with people and the idea of sales in her head for some reason.  As a 5th generation North Carolinian, Jaquelin has a passion for serving...

Radhika Shukla is a long time sales leader in the tech sales space, working for big brands like Microsoft and IBM. in Radhika’s own words, she wants everyone to master the art of Sales: Serve passionately, Connect authentically and Thrive collectively. We have a wonderful conversation about all of the skills and traits that women bring to the table when we are able to be our authentic selves.  Join us to learn more. Reach out to Radhika on Linkedin. 

This is an important episode for anyone who has ever been paid less than their peers doing the same role, or who was fired while pregnant (yep, it still happens in 2023) or who got downsized and didn't negotiate severance - my guest, Dan Goodman will cover it all.  Dan is Founder and CEO of TruCommish, an app that helps verify true commission - and Dan also has been shining a light on horrible compensation situations that companies have been doing quietly - to advocate on the part of the...

Niya Khatri is a long way from her home of Kathmandu, Nepal. She is a Millenial b2b seller who has lived in Pune, India, Colorado Springs, Toronto, and now the Bay Area, SF. She brings a wonderful and different perspective as a woman of color, as a woman "up and coming" in sales, and has openly helped her employers to improve revenues by looking through a different lens. We had a fun conversation. 

Katherine Andruha has been leading sales teams for 14 years at brands like Aruba Networks, Anaplan, Sugar CRM, Cloudflare, and now at Simpplr. Katherine's advice, "Focus on your job, and hit your numbers - you'll be OK" -  She also advises to speak up about your career goals and be intentional.  Katherine is now focused on strategy in her leadership roles. She encourages women to not just settle for a position - "life is too short to work for a crappy boss" - words to live by. 

Lori Harmon is a consummate tech sales leader. I've had the pleasure to know her over 8 or 9 years. In her recent role at Cloudflare, Lori is Global Head of Business Development.  Reflecting on her 20+ years of building, leading, and transforming inside sales organizations, and as author of "42 Rules for Building a High-Velocity Inside Sales Team: Actionable Guide to Creating Inside Sales Teams That Deliver Quantum Results," Lori has an immense passion for developing meaningful strategy,...

Karen Keating is a Strategic Account Director at Salesforce. She's created a great life through professional selling - and always working at the Enterprise level of selling. She lives in Utah where her passion for the snow continues. We had a great conversation about how she got into sales in the first place and someone "saw" something in her to encourage her to consider selling. Once she got bit by the sales bug, she has spent her career selling.   

It doesn't seem fair that our society has developed boys and men who can be loud and agressive and everyone thinks that is fine. When a woman is not even agressive but assertive, and speaks up, she is often labeled one of an assortment of names - one is five letters and starts with a B. Women who thrive in sales leadership learn the "dance" between not being "too much" and being "enough".  There is no road map for this - that's why we talk to amazing leaders like Ang McManamon, who has been...

Stephanie Chung is a transformational expert and a commercial strategist with passion for people. Stephanie serves on many boards. She's led businesses through significant change in unprecedented times which has given her great appreciation and resolve to align organizational goals and amazing teams behind a shared vision and purpose to achieve the desired results.  As an accomplished, innovative leader, Stephanie has  20+ years of demonstrated success of steering companies from...