Daniel Disney

The KING of LinkedIn & Social Selling 👑 Keynote Speaker 🎤 Consultant - LinkedIn & Social Selling + Sales Navigator Training - B2B Influencer Marketing - Author - Investor & Strategic Advisor

Helping companies unlock millions in revenue using LinkedIn & Social Selling 🚀
One of the world’s leading voices on LinkedIn sales strategy

LinkedIn isn’t just a social network — it’s the most powerful sales tool on the planet. I help companies, sales teams, and business leaders turn LinkedIn into a high-performance revenue engine.

And I don’t just teach it — I live & breathe it. Here’s what that looks like:

✅ £50M+ in closed revenue directly from LinkedIn-generated leads
✅ 1.1M+ LinkedIn company page followers (growing by 10,000+ every month)
✅ 140K+ personal followers and counting
✅ 10M+ monthly content views
✅ World-class Sales Navigator trainer
✅ 50,000+ salespeople trained globally
✅ Best-selling author of The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide & The Ultimate LinkedIn Messaging Guide

What I help companies achieve:
📈 More pipeline, sales, and revenue from LinkedIn
📈 Sales Navigator mastery & team adoption
📈 Proven social selling system implementation
📈 Industry-leading personal brand growth
📈 High-performing, engaging LinkedIn content
…and so much more.

Who I work with:
From high-growth startups to global giants like Amazon, Salesforce, Adobe, Canon, Ricoh, Gong and others — I help sales teams perform at the highest level on LinkedIn.

What I offer:
🎤 Keynotes & Sales Kickoffs that energize and inspire
💻 Virtual Social Selling Training Programs that deliver results
🧭 Sales Navigator Training that drives adoption and ROI

💬 "We gained $2–3 million in new business because of DD’s training."
💬 "Dan’s energy captivated the company at our SKO — his tips gave them so much to apply immediately."

I’m also the founder of The Daily Sales — LinkedIn’s most-followed page for salespeople with:
🔹 1,000,000+ followers
🔹 230,000+ newsletter subscribers
🔹 44,000+ email subscribers

Want to drive more revenue with LinkedIn?
Let’s talk about keynotes, training, partnerships or custom programs.

📧 Email: danieldisney@thedailysales.net

Author - "The Ultimate LinkedIn Sales Guide"

This might be the most important career advice in sales.
Because here's the truth:

Your reputation travels faster than you do.
Your name comes up more than you think.
Decisions about your future happen without you.

Every. Single. Day.

Think about it...

That promotion you're hoping for?
Being discussed in rooms you're not in.

That big account you want to work?
Being decided by people you've never met.

That leadership opportunity?
Being influenced by what others say about you.

The uncomfortable truth?

Success in sales isn't just about crushing quota.
It's about having advocates.

People who say "Give them a shot" when others doubt.
People who defend your approach when it's questioned.
People who mention your wins when you're not around.

Here's what ACTUALLY happens when you have real advocates:

↳ Opportunities find you before they're posted
↳ Your mistakes get context, not just criticism
↳ Your ideas get championed, not stolen
↳ Your growth gets fast-tracked, not delayed
↳ Your reputation becomes your strongest asset

But here's the part most people miss:

To have people fight for you...
You need to fight for others first.

That SDR grinding it out? Mention their progress in the team meeting.
That peer who helped you close a deal? Make sure leadership knows.
That manager who coached you? Tell their boss what it meant.

Because advocacy isn't luck.
It's reciprocity.

The rep everyone wants on their team?
They've been building others up for years.

The manager everyone respects?
They've been defending their people consistently.

The leader everyone follows?
They've been fighting battles for others quietly.

Here's what fighting for others ACTUALLY looks like:

When someone's not in the room:
- Correct misconceptions about them
- Highlight their strengths
- Share their wins
- Provide context for their challenges

When opportunities arise:
- Recommend them even if it doesn't benefit you
- Connect them with the right people
- Put their name forward
- Open doors they can't open alone

The magic of advocacy in sales?

It compounds.

Every person you genuinely support becomes part of your network.
Every battle you fight for someone builds trust.
Every time you elevate others, you elevate yourself.

Not through manipulation.
Through genuine support.

So ask yourself:

Who are you fighting for when they're not around?
Whose potential are you highlighting?
Whose success are you championing?

Because the people who win biggest in sales aren't just the best closers.

Be the person who fights for others.
Watch how many start fighting for you.

Your career will never be the same.

The KING of Social Selling - LinkedIn, Social Selling & Sales Navigator Trainer - LinkedIn Influencer (1Million+ Followers) - Keynote/SKO Speaker - 4 X Best Selling Author

It's easy to count every "no" in sales like they were failures.
But the truth is the opposite...

Think about it...

That rep who got rejected 47 times this week?
Still winning if they made the 48th call.

That SDR who missed quota three months straight?
Still winning if they're refining their approach.

That sales leader whose top performer just quit?
Still winning if they're building the next one.

Because here's what ACTUALLY happens in sales:

↳ "No" isn't failure - it's filtering
↳ Lost deals aren't failure - they're lessons
↳ Missed targets aren't failure - they're data points
↳ Rejection isn't failure - it's redirection

The ONLY failure? Giving up.

The pattern is crystal clear:

The rep who stops making calls after a bad week? Failed.
The rep who keeps dialing through the rejection? Closes deals next month.

The manager who stops coaching after pushback? Failed.
The manager who keeps showing up for their team? Builds champions.

The leader who stops innovating after one bad quarter? Failed.
The leader who keeps testing new approaches? Finds the breakthrough.

Every sales legend has one thing in common:

They got told "no" more than anyone else.
They lost more deals than anyone else.
They faced more rejection than anyone else.

But they NEVER stopped trying.

Not when the CRM crashed.
Not when the territory got cut.
Not when the product wasn't ready.
Not when the competition undercut them.

They kept going.

Because success in sales isn't about avoiding failure.
It's about outlasting it.

The moment you stop trying?
That's the moment you actually fail.

Everything else is just part of the process.

So whatever knocks you down this week...
Whatever made you question if you're cut out for this...

Remember: You haven't failed.

You're just not done yet.

Keep dialing.
Keep learning.
Keep pushing.

The only way to fail is to stop.

And you're still here.

Inside Sales Expert

Taking new clients only on a referral basis.

Helping leaders at early stage tech companies avoid mistakes in all aspects of growing their sales team in the US.

CRO and Founder

SmartBound

Sales development is changing rapidly with the advent of artificial intelligence.

For most CROs and sales leaders, asking "How can I use AI to power my pipeline generation team" leaves more questions than answers.

The team at SmartBound have an answer.

SmartBound combine two powerful things that make pipeline generation easier and more consistent: AI tooling and a conversation-first methodology.

I'm excited to join them as a Strategic Advisor as they grow their business.

Strategic Advisor

It Happened on the Sales Floor-100 Sensational Stories About Sales Leadership Screw-Ups and Big-Wins

📢 Exciting News! 🎉 My audiobook "It Happened on the Sales Floor: 100 Sensational Stories About Sales Leadership Screw-Ups and Big Wins" is now available on Audible! 🎧📚

In this audiobook, I share 28 years of sales and sales leadership experience at tech startups. Learn from mentors, my countless mistakes, and the resilience that led to success in building sales teams. Topics covered include hiring, training, coaching, firing, sales processes, leadership challenges, and more.

This audiobook is an easy-to-read companion, not a heavy instruction manual. Pick it up with your morning coffee, read a couple of stories, and gain valuable takeaways for the day. I wish I had this book 20 years ago to avoid mistakes and achieve success quicker.

Get your copy on Audible and learn from my sales leadership mistakes: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0C6FRZ1MC/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-353065&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_353065_rh_us 🎧📖

#SalesLeadership #AudiobookRelease #SuccessStories

Author

IVP Paragons are hand-selected operating executives with unique skills and a willingness to advise IVP portfolio companies become enduring market leaders. Paragons are experts at their craft, have a desire to give back, and actively want to participate in the start-up community (anywhere from Series B to newly
public companies).

(Full Disclosure:  I do not work FOR IVP.  This is an advisory role for their portfolio companies)

Paragon Advisor

Trellis Research

Advisor

Schmoop, LLC

Managing Member

Wonderway

Boldr

SEON Fraud Fighters

Hirect App

Helping leaders at early stage tech companies avoid mistakes in all aspects of growing their sales team | Advisor

Kevin has made 1000s of mistakes but that has made him successful. After building, fixing and growing sales teams at 8 startups and 3 liquidity events, he loves sharing these mistakes and learning lessons from over 25 years at pre-IPO tech companies so that you can avoid these mistakes and see faster success.

With KG, you get experience, not inexperienced opinions.

✅ 3 startups I’ve been with have had liquidity events (none fire sales)

✅ Helped build 3 businesses into Inc 500/Deloitte Fast 500 companies (that means fast revenue growth)

✅ Built sales teams at 8 Startups since 1997

✅ Built teams of 30 salespeople - 550 salespeople with GREAT gross margins

✅ Built multiple Inside Sales, SDR/BDR, Account Management and Enterprise Sales teams.

✅ Been in Sales Leadership since 1997

✅ Started 3 of my own businesses (Recruiting, Advising, Real Estate)

✅ Named to the AA-ISP Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals 6 years in a row

✅ Made lots and lots of mistakes

Check out the recommendations section below to read what other people have said about me. 👇

Kevin Gaither

I hired this woman to sell for me and let me tell you, she absolutely sucked in her 1st 90 days.

But then she made President's Club 🎉

I was thinking, "Boy, I think I've made a hiring mistake with this one. Maybe I should let her go."

In her first 90 days, she wasn't ramping like all the rest. Wasn't nailing demos. Wasn't closing sales.

But she kept working at it. Hard. REALLY HARD. Following the playbook.

And she was unbelievably coachable. We listened to calls together. She listened to her calls by herself. Whatever I coached her on, she put it into place on the very next call.

And then it started clicking for her and by the end of the year, she made President's Club!

Learning Lesson: There's 4 types of salespeople:

➡️ Not coachable, not hitting goals. Term quickly. Like ASAP.

➡️ Not coachable but hitting or exceeding goals. Leave them alone and don't let anybody else on the team try to emulate them. These are naturals. They don't know why they're successful but they are.

➡️ Coachable and hitting goals. These are the examples you use for the rest of your team.

➡️ Coachable/Hard-Working but not hitting goals. Keep working with them in a defined, limited window. You'll be surprised how many will make it through when you give them good, solid coaching.

In your experience, how long would you work with a coachable salesperson who is not hitting their goals? 

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople like this, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #sales, #startup, #leadership, #insidesales, and #peoplehelpingpeople

CEO @ InsideSalesExpert.com Helping sales leaders avoid galactically ridiculous mistakes in all areas of building, fixing & growing their sales teams

6 of my sales reps forced me to hire a woman as their sales manager. 

Don't be so surprised. She was one of the best sales leaders I've ever had the fortune to work with.

But the way this all went down was crazy and a learning lesson for me.

We were ramping up our sales team and I started hiring a bunch of people from a failing daily deal site.

I personally do reference checks and I kept talking to this one sales leader, Lauren Delfino.

Finally, I had hired 6 reps that had worked for her and they finally came to me and said

"KG, you have to hire her. She'll be a game-changer for our sales team!"

And so I did. And she was. Grew one of our sales teams from 50 reps to over 150 reps. Helped open up a new sales office in AZ. Crushed it.

💡 Learning Lesson: When you're hiring for new sales leaders, ask your sales reps who were THEIR favorite former sales managers and start networking with them to recruit and hire them.

What are some creative tactics you've used to recruit sales leadership talent?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

This dude legitimately showed up to an interview with me for a B2B tech sales job with neck tattoos & sleeves. 

I actually hired them!

At first, I was shocked. Couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Really? This isn't very professional. AT. ALL.

But I stuck to the objective hiring process I had created. Asked all my questions and remained open-minded as I listened to the answers.

I was blown away. Behind all that ink was one of the most humble, hard working, positive and motivated people I had ever interviewed. Not cocky and assumptive.

I hired that person and they turned out to be one of the best salespeople I have ever hired in my entire career.

Good thing I didn't judge the book by its cover right?

💡 Learning Lessons: 

✅ Develop your salesperson hiring benchmark with objective characteristics, 

✅ judge them based on their answers and their actions and not by how they look. 

✅ Reserve judgement on the candidate for after the interview, not before.

Removing bias from the interview process is critical. You miss out on great hires when you introduce bias into the interview process.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

My rep laughed when she got hung up on. 🤣

I hired this rep whose only previous sales experience was selling lingerie at Nordstroms. No B2B. No phone sales. No tech.

But I observed that she scored very high on optimism, resiliency and coachability during the interview.

So I took a chance on her anyway to break into B2B tech sales. What a great hire!

We were all on an open sales floor. I had a low-walled cubicle right on the other side of hers. 

When she got hung up on, she would stand up, peer over the cubicle at me and laugh about how she got hung up on. "Their loss," she would say.

And then sit down and go right back to making more cold calls without skipping another beat. My word.

The learning lesson here: When you're a leader hiring for new reps, sometimes the ones with NO relevant experience can be your best reps if they are optimistic, resilient and coachable.

Make sure you build that into your interview scorecards.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Hiring and Interviewing Bundle in the the first comment.

The last time this person worked for me was exactly 18 years ago and I just got this text from them a few months ago.

This kind of stuff makes me so happy to read. A salesperson who worked for me nearly two decades ago still wants to share their successes with me long after we worked together.

If you're a sales leader and you're having a rough time, getting messages like this from salespeople who used to work for you is extremely up-lifting.

Wanna share some messages former reps have sent you in the comments?

For most sales leaders, you're not just in it for the titles and the money.

Heck, if you were in it for the money, might as well be an IC and not have to deal with all the BS of being a sales leader.

No, you're in it because you can really make a positive and indelible mark one someone's life for decades to come.

Go do that.

PS: he took a chance working for me too...

I hired an "experienced" sales manager and boy what a mistake that was. 🙇

We were scaling my inside sales team and needed to hire a bunch of new sales managers.

And I was referred to a guy who was literally at a direct competitor.

Nearly the exact same product. Same sales cycle. Same inside sales motion. Same deal size. Why wouldn't that be a fit?

My word, what a mistake that was. This guy was a train-wreck.

👎 He was a micromanager

👎 Managed through fear and intimidation

👎 Wouldn't listen to me or any of his supervisors 

👎 Made excuses for why he behaved the way he behaved

I fired him in less than 90 days. 

💡 Learning lesson: Just because the sales manager came from a direct competitor don't assume that they will be a good fit for YOUR TEAM and YOUR CULTURE.

Include the cultural questions in your sales manager hiring benchmark such as...

"Tell me about the last time you had an underperforming rep, what did you do about it?"

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

You don’t “own part of the company” when you join a pre-IPO tech startup and get stock options.

You own a promise.

And most promises never cash out....like 90% chance your stock options will be worth NOTHING.

To make matters worse, Founders rarely explain your stock options to you.

And most employees never read the fine print either and/or self-educate, that's on them. They just sign and cross their fingers. Stupid.

Stock options in that sexy new AI startup sound like magic. The next big rocketship in flight. The HUGE potential payday.

Of course, it's a story we all want to believe but it rarely happens and if it does, it's rarely material.

I've been at 8 startups. 3 have had liquidity events, but that means that 5 did not have liquidity events.

So from experience, here’s what actually happens:

The valuation is inflated.
The vesting schedule is brutal.
The exit timeline? You think they're going to tell YOU?

Liquidity? Don’t hold your breath. If you're lucky you have a 1 in 6 chance of a liquidity event and even then, it won't be helicopter money like you think it should be.

Oh and here's one you'll learn the hard way...

You still owe taxes...even if your shares end up being worthless.

And if you have vested stock options but leave before some sort of liquidity event...God help you....

You’ve got 90 days to buy them or lose everything.

So should you ever join a startup just for the equity?

In my experience and in my opinion, never.

Equity is a lottery ticket. It's the icing on the cake.

Your cash comp is critical. If you can’t live on the cash, don’t gamble on the stock option upside because the chances of it happening are slim to none.

And if the Founders can’t back up the value of the options with a real, competitive TOTAL offer, to me, that’s a red flag.

Join for the mission.
Join for the team.
Join because you love the work (because you'll be working your ASS off, no quiet quitting)

But don’t join because someone promised you 0.03% and told you it’ll be “worth billions one day.”

That's just a trick. Don't be a fool.

Learning lessons: if you're going to work at pre-IPO tech startups, you had better learn about Employee Stock Options so that you can assess if you're getting a good deal or not and manage them properly.

Which is why I created a FREE course on Employee Stock Options, How They Work. I took all my learnings and dumbed it down so even a 3-year old can understand it.

Check the link in the first comment to sign up for the free course.

I hired a stay-at-home mom / photographer with no B2B tech sales experience and I should have seen what happened next.

She CRUSHED IT!

We were interviewing for another large hiring class and at that time, I was really involved in the hiring process.

All hands on deck at another startup!

And I was tasked with interviewing this woman who was a single-parent, stay-at-home mom, side-gig photographer.

She hadn't been in sales for 12 years as she was focused on raising her kids. And even then, the "sales role" she had wasn't even B2B sales.

I thought: "Why did this person make it through to the in-person interview?"

But she crushed her interview! 

You see we were interviewing for behavioral characteristics like Coachability, Organization, Competitiveness, Need for Achievement, Optimism and not experience and she had lots of recent stories that demonstrated that she possessed those characteristics.

I made sure we hired her and I'm glad we did. She made President's Club several times!

💡 Learning Lesson: Especially for sales roles at startups, interview mostly for behavioral characteristics that you CAN NOT teach above experience. You'll find diamonds in the rough that others, who are only interviewing for experience, won't find. It will be your competitive advantage. 

Trust me.

What do you think? Does this apply to all sales roles? Even Enterprise?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

I once hired a woman who crushed quota but had NEVER played a single sport in her life.

No soccer. No basketball. No volleyball.
But yoga? Oh, she dominated yoga.

She was a “front of the class” type. The kind who could hold poses others fell out of after 10 seconds.

But here’s the kicker.

While the rest of the class focused on breathing and balance...
She was peeking out of the side of her eye to see who was falling down.

She didn’t just want to master the pose just for inner peace.
She wanted to kick the other students asses and win.

But that’s when it hit me.

We keep throwing around this idea of hiring “sales athletes.”

We say bullshit things like:

"Find people who played D1"
"Look for team sports backgrounds"
"Only hire competitive athletes"

But it’s lazy logic.

Competitive doesn’t always look like cleats and sweat.

This woman was one of the fiercest reps I’ve ever hired.
Not because of her athletic background.
But because she had the Drive most reps don’t.

She was calm on the outside.
Cutthroat on the inside.

And she didn’t need a scoreboard to tap into it.

I've seen ex-athletes coast and non-athletes outgrind everyone.
The difference?
Real competitiveness is internal.

The best salespeople I’ve hired?
They don’t always talk the most.
But they are driven to win.

🔥 Lesson: Stop filtering your pipeline for sports. Start filtering for characteristics that you can't teach.

Leave room to be surprised. That’s where the killers hide.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

Google asked for my college transcript but I instantly knew I wasn’t getting the job.

They wanted to know my GPA. I gave it to them: 2.685 from UC Davis, class of '94 (If you want to see a screenshot of my transcript, ask me in the comments).

That was the first, and only, time in my 30-year career anyone asked for my grades.

Not when I became a VP. Not when I became a CSO. Not when I ran a 550 person sales team.

I’ve hired hundreds of salespeople (maybe 1000s). I’ve never once checked their GPAs from High School or College.

Why do we act like grades predict success ESPECIALLY in sales?

In my experience, they don’t. Drive does. Integrity does. Grit, effort, continual learning, coachability, taking action...that’s what matters.

Would a 4.0 have changed my career? Maybe I get that job at Google. But I wouldn't trade where I’ve ended up for anything.

💡 Here’s my advice to founders and sales leaders: stop overvaluing academic stats when hiring.

They don’t measure the things that actually help you win.

👀 Look for Drive, Need for Achievement, Competitiveness, Coachability, Continual Learning, Hunger, A bias for action, Self-accountability.

Those are the signals that really matter.

And you won't find those on some dumb transcript. 🎓

PS: If you want to start hiring like a real pro, check out my Hiring Bundle in the first comment.

Doug Noll

When the CEO gives you massive goals for next year, don’t say:
❌ “We can’t hit that number.”

Say this instead:

✅ “Under what conditions could we hit that number?”

That one sentence changes everything and sends a pretty killer signal to the CEO...

It signals problem-solving instead of resistance.
It opens a door instead of slamming it shut.
And it shows you’re thinking like an owner, not a victim being handed unreachable goals.

I’ve been on both sides of this conversation.
The leader who says “this is impossible.”
And the one who asks, “what would make it possible?”

One shuts down conversations with their closed mindset.

The other starts a great conversation with their growth mindset.

CEOs don’t set easy goals. No. We all know they're crazy AF.

They expect you to test the limits of what's possible

But if you come back with a "now way we're gonna hit that" instead conditions that could exist that will help you hit that goal, the CEO is gonna be giving you the side-eye.

And then they start networking with other sales leaders.

Reframing the conversation with “under what conditions...”
makes you the person who can be reasoned with,
not the person who needs to be replaced.

It shows you’re solution-oriented, not just looking for easy street.

Lesson I’ve learned?
As the VP of Sales, you had better not be the "yes-person" and just agree to everything.
You BETTER challenge your CEO with diverse and divergent opinions.

But if you're gonna just say "there's no way we can hit those goals," instead of saying "under what conditions CAN we hit those goals," why are you even there?

Especially at a pre-IPO tech startup.

PS: if you want to quickly know if your VP of Sales is gonna make it or not, check out my free guide in the first comment.

"I can tell in one conversation if I'm going to hire someone."

Then why do only 30%-50% of your sales hires actually work out?

You can hire better if you stop thinking....

👎 I know what to look for in a sales hire but I haven't written it down

👎 I can hire successfully but I've never read a book on interviewing before.

👎 I'll ask them to "sell me this pen" and that's a good way to assess a salesperson (I saw it in the Wolf of Wall Street movie so it must be credible)

👎 Why would I measure my hiring success rate?

👎 "Do you hate to lose or do you love to win?" is one of my favorite interview questions.

Hiring successfully is a methodical process.

According to TopGrading, "The average mis-hire rate for companies ... is approximately 70% (if you want the source, ask me in the comments)

These aren't the only myths sales leaders believe when hiring salespeople.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Hiring and Interviewing Bundle in the the first comment.

Not every sales leader knows how to say no to the CEO.

It takes guts.
It takes practice.
It can be risky.

Especially when the CEO’s “suggestions for sales” start rolling in...and they've never run a sales team before nor have the ever been in sales:

“Why aren’t we doing more outbound?”
“Shouldn’t we be doing more demos?”
“I heard this company tried X, why aren’t we?”
"We should have ChatGPT do sales coaching"

Sound familiar?

The instinct is to say yes. 
To avoid friction.
To keep the peace.
You don't want to piss off your boss

But that’s not sales leadership.

That’s compliance and total weak sauce.

The best sales leaders I know know how to manage up.
They don’t shut the CEO down.
They don’t argue (in an angry way).
They don’t get defensive.

They listen, ask questions, then get back to doing the real work.

Because great sales leaders aren't winging it.
They believe in what they're doing.
They have their strategy.
They’ve earned the right to stay the course.

And guess what?

The CEO WILL hold them accountable either way.

So when the CEO starts pushing random tactics they saw on TikTok last night, they don’t cave.
They anchor back to their strategy.
They hold the line.
Because they know where the team is headed and how they're going to get there.

Great CEOs respect that (read: "great").

They don’t want “yes” people.
They want leaders who can challenge assumptions with data and calm and conviction.

I’ve seen sales orgs fall apart because a VP of Sales didn’t have the backbone to manage up and they just do whatever the CEO wants THEM to do
I’ve also seen orgs thrive when Sales and CEO work as true partners...not in hierarchy, but in trust. The CEO asks questions, learns, suggests but ultimately gives the sales leaders the latitude to do their job.

Lesson?

Leading sales doesn’t mean blindly taking orders from the CEO.
It means staying the course, even when it’s uncomfortable, especially when you know you're right.

CEOs: Are you giving your sales leader latitude to do their job or are YOU basically the Head of Sales and your titled Head of Sales just does whatever you tell them to do?

Sales Leaders: Have you learned how to manage up or do you do whatever the CEO wants you to do even though you know better?

If you want to figure out if your sales leader is 
gonna make it or not, check out my free guide in the first comment.

I had this one VP of Sales I worked for tell me to hire salespeople with a "sales personality." Here's what they meant by that:

Hire salespeople that are loud, extroverted and gregarious.

But I learned over time that if you're hiring "loud, extroverted and gregarious" salespeople, you're doing it wrong.

In fact, one time I hired this rep who the quietest salesperson on the sales floor but was also the #1 salesperson.

I could barely hear what this dude was saying to me during the interview. His answers were very brief. Yet his answers were solid and he knew his numbers and his track record of success was demonstrable.

Thankfully several people on the team referred him to me and told me to hire him. But he still went through my difficult interview process. No free rides here.

And I kept thinking 

"salespeople are usually more gregarious"

"salespeople are usually more talkative"

But instead of giving in to the stereotypes we lay on salespeople, I stuck to my hiring benchmark and hired him.

He quickly went on to become our #1 salesperson in no time at all. And I never heard him on the phones and yet he was always on the phones. LOL

Learning Lesson: Don't listen to the stereotypes that you think you have about great salespeople. Create and stick to your hiring benchmark, put the person through the full interview process without premature judgement and look at the whole picture of the candidate.

What are some other salesperson stereotypes us hiring managers should look to avoid applying when hiring salespeople?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

#Sales #Leadership #startups #InsideSales #ExperienceNotOpinions"

When new salespeople start working for me and they say this 1 thing during new hire training 
 
I know they're not going to work out and likely will be gone in 120 days or less. 
 
❌ "I got it, I got it."
 
or they regularly have no questions for me when they're going through new hire training. 
 
Jeez, tell me you're going to fail out without telling me you're going to fail out. 
 
Why? 
 
Because they DON'T get it. Even if they're a really experienced salesperson in our industry, they don't know: 
 
-our sales process 
-our tech stack 
-our resources available to them 
-our culture 
-our policies and procedures. 
 
If you're a sales leader, and you have a new hire saying "I got it, I got it" during new hire training, pull them aside in private and have a heart-to-heart with them. 
 
They might be thinking that they should know it all, especially if they're "experienced" and might be thinking that YOU think they're a bad hire if they ask questions or don't know something. 
 
Let them know 
👍 it's okay to ask questions and 
👍 okay if they don't know everything and 
👍 you 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 that they won't know everything and will have questions. 
 
Do this early and this will create a great foundation between the two of you moving forward. 
 
If you found this post useful - you might like my free guide: Best Practices for Onboarding and Training New Sales Teams 
 
The link is in the first comment

Some workplaces call this “unprofessional.” Others call it…

Tuesday. 

Now imagine the person I said it to is a woman. 
Now imagine that the person is actually overweight. 
Now imagine that the person is an overweight woman of color.

Now you tell me what would happen to me?

I would expect severe consequences, wouldn't you?

If I said something like that to anybody in a work environment or to a customer, I would expect to get fired within 24 hours. No questions. No chance to defend myself (what's there to say?).

But the reality is that if your culture accepts that kind of behavior, you might get away with it. You might not even get a talking to. Heck, you might not even think you did anything wrong.

When you're a leader, words matter.

We can't just say whatever schoolyard crap that comes to our mind. We have to be better than that...especially if we want to be respected and keep our jobs in a corporate environment.

All salespeople are competitive. As a result, we should be hiring "sales athletes."

"Sales Athletes." I wanna puke when I hear that phrase.

Thankfully I learned early in my career that not all salespeople are competitive.

I once hired somebody who was a Div 1 Water Polo player at a Pac 10 school. He's got to be competitive right? How can you be a Div 1 athlete and NOT be competitive?

Never assume.

This guy couldn't close his way out of a paper bag. 

Turns out, his parents had pushed him his whole life in sports. He didn't like doing it but because his parents pushed him so hard, he made the college team. And that's where it ended.

💡 Learning Lesson: Just because somebody WAS/IS an athlete, doesn't mean that they are automatically competitive NOW.

So make sure you're interviewing them to determine if they're competitive NOW.

✳️ "Tell me the last time you were competitive." Great. "Now how about another time before that"

Has anybody else made a boneheaded hiring mistake like I made?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

I chose Goo Goo Cluster for client gifts this year. BIG mistake. 

I even sent a personal, overnight letter to the president, Laurie Spradley that cost me an additional $68.
 
No reply.

What a shitty brand experience.

If your a vendor, and you screw up. Own it and make it right so the customer wants to do business with you again.

Screw ups happen. It's what the vendor does AFTER they screw up that makes all the difference.

In this case, they made ME jump through all the hoops to do all the work and only resolved after I disputed the charge on my credit card.

And that's not "making it right" either.

The "customer service" or "sales support" person probably thinks they are following company policies and just "doing their job."

Clearly nobody taught them about brand experience...and that's a leadership problem. Leadership doesn't care...so "customer service" doesn't care.

Guess how many people I'll be telling about this crappy vendor experience?

Goo Goo Cluster

President at Goo Goo Cluster

Some sales leaders act like sandbagging is the biggest threat to your number this quarter.

Like all of their sales reps are out here scheming, hiding deals, and orchestrating contract delays with precision timing.

Child please.

If reps actually had that much control over when a deal closes…
1️⃣ Forecasts would be 100% accurate.
2️⃣ Pipeline reviews would be a formality.
3️⃣ And every sales leader would be calling their number and never worrying about it.

Um, but they’re not. Because that level of control doesn’t exist....especially across your entire team.

Yeah, sandbagging is a REAL thing.
 
Some reps do it. It happens.

Usually for reasons that point back to leadership, not the rep:
💩 Fear of quota hikes.
💩 Bad comp plan design.
💩 Getting punished with a higher quota next quarter for one big quarter.

But is it happening at scale?

No.

Is it happening often enough to justify the paranoia?
 
Uh, definitely not. You're just afraid it will happen.

Most deals don’t close on rep timelines. They close on buyer timelines.

Reps are not withholding POs like they’re sitting on a nest egg of contracts just waiting to pull out when they need it.

They’re fighting for deals, herding those stupid buying committees, negotiating with Procurement 🤮, and dealing with other buyer excuses and delays...same as always.

If you’re a sales leader and you're losing sleep over sandbagging, you might be fighting the wrong battle.

Instead, fix the bigger problems you're likely dealing with:

And for the love of Pete… stop assuming every slipped deal that closes a few days into the next period is sabotage.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

If your reps had the power to sandbag at will, you wouldn’t need a forecast.

You’d just ask them what revenue number they feel like hitting.

That’s not how sales works.
 
That’s not how buyers work.

Let’s stop acting like it is.

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The Battle

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