Regulatory updates with MLex, LexisNexis company

Most sales tactics are boring and outdated, agree?

"I feel pushy and salesy when I sell"
"I swear, if I hear the word 'funnel' again..."
"Do I really need to send 100 cold DMs per day?!"

You've probably thought the same thing at some point in your career, right? If you work in Marketing and Sales, chances are... you say these every day :)

But... sales doesn't have to be this "pushy" thing that makes you feel like you're cheating someone out of their hard-earned money.

Sales is human understanding. Psychology at scale.

What if selling didn't feel so salesy?
What if you made "funnels" fun and easy?
What if "sales" was more than just "cold outreach"? 

In my last 20 years working as a Marketing Manager and Head of Sales across companies of different size, I can tell you...

Sales CAN be fun.
Selling IS not that hard.
Marketing IS always needed.

Hey, if you've read this far...

I'm Iryna! Nice to meet you.

In my LinkedIn posts, I share lessons from my last 2 decades in business. And when I'm not on LinkedIn, I train my sales team members on how to a better job at growing the business. And when I'm not in the office, I like to speak on stages as a keynote speaker or look out which podcast I can jump on to talk even more... well... Sales and Marketing!

I love what I do. 

And I hope to share some of this love and lessons with you.

Thanks for reading.

------

For workshop and keynote inquiries, please send me a DM on LinkedIn or email at: irabgm@gmail.com

Iryna Begma

Work hard. Party harder. 

Grateful to be a part of an amazing LexisNexis Europe team. 

Dear customers, when you purchase LexisNexis solutions, look how many amazing (and talanted) people are working on the background 💃

2026 gonna be definitely fun 🤩 


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Marketing & Sales enthusiast | personal sales stories and women-in-sales support | Head of Sales at LexisNexis

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These are the exact steps I take in January to generate pipeline.

And no - it’s not about chasing new leads.

That’s where most people get it wrong.

They go prospecting in the wild…
…while their best opportunities are already in their backyard.

Here’s what I do instead - and what I’ll be doing this January 👇

1. Revisit last year’s closed-won clients.
→ Who grew? Who changed roles? Who’s ready for more?

2. Reopen ghosted leads.
→ 30% of “not now” deals turn into “maybe” - if you follow up right.

3. Audit all lost opportunities.
→ Why did they reject? Was it timing? Budget? Wrong contact?

4. Expand the list to 3 years back.
→ Even pre-pandemic leads can come back with the right signal.

5. Filter every inbound lead from last year.
→ Even the weak ones. There’s gold in those who engaged but didn’t convert.

6. Review your “champions” who moved jobs.
→ Former fans in new roles = the warmest intro you’ll ever get.

7. Mine existing accounts for expansion.
→ New teams. New regions. New budget. Just ask.

8. Leverage intent signals.
→ Hiring, funding, engagement, legislation - act when they care, not just because you want pipeline.

Build a “warm list” before touching cold leads.

You don’t need 1,000 new leads.

You need 100 warmed-up ones - with a reason to talk now.

What’s your move in January?

I used to think the perfect team was made of perfect people.

Top performers. 
Big resumes. 
Smooth talkers.

But I’ve been in sales long enough to know - that’s NOT what makes a team win.

The best teams I’ve been part of weren’t the flashiest.
They were the most committed.

People who wanted to get better. 
Together.

Even if they didn’t have it all figured out yet.

What matters to me: 

1/ Curiosity over credentials
2/ Coachability over confidence
3/ Consistency over intensity
4/ Ownership over ego
5/ Progress over perfection

Truth is…

You don’t build a team on paper.
You build it in the hard moments - when people choose to stay, try again, and help each other grow.

That’s what makes the difference.

Which one of these do you hire for?

A sign of a good break - 


when you cannot remember a password to your laptop. 

Working week 1 started. 
We can do it, guys.

Don’t do this during the discovery! 

A good discovery call is a set of questions to qualify the lead. 

If you do the pitch without a good discovery > you lose. 

How I structure my discovery calls - watch the video.

For a long time, I thought being great at sales was enough.
It wasn’t.

I was closing deals. Hitting targets. Coaching reps.
But nobody really saw what I was doing.

No invites. No speaking slots. No opportunities landing in my inbox.

Just more pipeline. More pressure. More staying behind the scenes.

Then I realized something:
Being great at your job isn’t enough if no one knows about it.

So I started sharing.

Not to brag.
But to document. To reflect. To connect.
To make the invisible part of sales work… visible.

And everything changed.

Inbound leads. Talent reaching out. Bigger opportunities.

If you’re a high performer stuck in the shadows - start talking.

You don’t need to go viral.
You just need to show up.

With so many free resources out there - podcasts, newsletters, tutorials, AI tools, courses…

Why do so many people just stop learning?

You might be great today.

But if you’re not evolving - especially with the pace of AI, automation, and tech shifts - you’re already behind.

Doesn’t matter if it’s:

Learning a new language (I’m currently learning two)
Mastering a new tool
Upleveling your sales skills
Understanding a new market

Being in a comfort zone is a choice.
So is growth.

And I’m surprised by how many talented people take their edge for granted.

If you haven’t planned what you’re going to learn in 2026 - now’s the time.

Start small. But start.

Three first steps I would take to build my pipeline. 

Easy. Obvious. Often ignored.

Outreach is super easy. 

You parse the list > draft email > push send > get banned. 

The story was supposed to be good but ended too soon. 

“I did not do anything wrong, but my domain was banned” 

“I created a list of prospects and got 0 replies, the list was good (I think)” 

You don’t need AI or shiny tools:

If your data is bad.
The timing is wrong. 
The people are not relevant. 

Prospeo.io V2 fixed a problem of data accuracy and created a database with:

- 24 filters to target the right people 
- job changes, hiring, funding, stack, and many more 
- double-verified emails + direct mobiles
- and a database which is refreshed at least every week 

If you’re in sales or running an agency, you’ll feel the difference.

P.S. Your reps don’t need more emails.
They need better entry points > and that’s where Prospeo.io V2 does help prospecting.

Not everyone starts strong in sales.

Some reps take off from day one.
Others? They struggle.
Doubt themselves. Almost give up.

This episode is for the second group.
And the managers trying to help them succeed.

🎙️ On this week’s Head of Sales Diary, I sat down with Henry Clayton Principal SDR at Allego.

We talked about what it actually takes to go from:
→ Struggling to hit target
→ To earning a spot in President’s Club

If you’re managing a team right now - or trying to grow into a top performer yourself - this is the episode to listen to.

📌 link to the podcast: https://lnkd.in/ee-NUBMt

PS: The biggest lesson?
You don’t have to be a “natural” to be elite.
You just have to keep going - and have someone who believes you can.

Open video: How to become a successful SDR on youtu.be

AI helps. But being human wins.

Confirmed by Henry Clayton (Allego SDR & President’s Club rep). 

We talked on the Head of Sales Diary podcast about what actually works in sales:

Coaching. Consistency. Staying human.

🎧 Listen now — link in comments.

Most companies fail to scale because their GTM systems break before the business does.

At Harochi, we design GTM Infrastructure: modular systems that unify CRM, enrichment, outbound, inbound, and reporting so revenue teams run on clarity instead of chaos.

Our work replaces fragmented campaigns with enterprise-grade infrastructure that:
• Aligns CRM data with how the business actually operates
• Automates enrichment, scoring, and lead routing
• Connects outbound + inbound so nothing slips through
• Creates executive dashboards that guide decisions in real time

This isn’t lead gen. It’s infrastructure. And once you’ve seen intelligent systems that never stop improving, traditional methods won't cut it anymore.

Macklin Buckler

At 31, running a company with two kids, I failed my driving test.

Last winter, we moved out to the countryside about an hour from Berlin, and I actually needed to drive.

My New York license meant nothing here... so I had to start from scratch. Had to learn how to drive on German roads, driving a stickshift, in German. 

Before I could begin my practical lessons, I had to take a theory test. Took like 3 months to study and pass. 

That's when the fun began: 3-hour lessons twice a week with a 70-year-old instructor who yelled at me like I was 16.

I endured this for 6+ months and then I failed the exam anyway.

I've grown harochi from nothing, managed payroll during tight months, and put out client fires while on vacation. 

But sitting in that car getting screamed at in German like a child? 

That almost destroyed me. 

It hit my ego in a way that I hadn't expected. 

I knew how far I'd come since I was 16 and felt like I was being stripped of all the progress I made. 

There was no getting around it though. No n8n workflow or Clay table could save me. 

The same lesson applies to building harochi: some things just take longer than you want them to.

And the things that are worth doing are worth doing manually first. 

In case you're wondering, I passed on the second try.

Below is actual footage of me driving in the countryside of Germany.

If my life had stayed on its high school trajectory, I'd probably still be in my hometown working somewhere I hated.

Landscaping. Cleaning pools. The hardware store or the pizza place. 

I failed at all of those jobs and was running out of options. 

My biggest fear was getting stuck there, but the odds were not in my favor. 

After college, I kept pushing for "more" without knowing what it actually meant.

A job in tech. 

A life in a new country. 

A career that actually satisfied me.

7 years in, I started harochi, and for the first time, I no longer had the urge to change things up. 

2.5 years later, and I still just want to build this. 

Every decision, every failure, every win is mine. 

I'm addicted.

If you've spent your whole life feeling like you're supposed to want something else, maybe the problem isn't that you haven't found it yet.

Maybe it's that you haven't built it.

I used to run ultramarathons, but after we had our son, that whole part of my life faded out.

I got out of shape in 2025 and started having pain all over, especially in my back. 

After doing physio regularly for a few months, I assumed I could just pick things up where I left off with the same motivation and same goals.

Yeah.. not happening. 

I admit, I am a performance-driven person, and I love measuring and seeing if I am improving. 

But it turns out that's not the right mindset if you want to get back into running after a year of inactivity. 

So I’m rebuilding the foundation and not putting any pressure on myself.

The only goal is to feel better. 

And the only way to do that is to move my body. 

I’ll worry about getting fast again after I’ve returned to baseline.

[edit: these are photos from a race I did in Gran Canaria]

I miss what LinkedIn used to be...

It was a place where I could hear from founders/executives/salespeople about their business journeys

Tales about eating ramen to survive fundraising, IPOs, M&A, etc.

I am so tired of seeing posts about: 
- violent conflicts
- social causes
- politics
- non-business-related legislation

So you know what I did?

I used Claude Code to build a Chrome extension that blocks everything that I don't want to see. 

This is the age of personal software. 

One day you have an idea and 15 minutes later, you have your own tool that solves a problem. 

Very excited about getting to enjoy my LinkedIn feed again

I wasn't included in OpenAI's recent campaign, but here is some inspiration for the next one in case they decide to ask me

One summer when I was a kid, we got free groceries every week from a local elementary school in the town over. 

My mom was driving a school bus and summers could be especially hard if she couldn't find extra work. 

I still remember the taste of the off-brand Oreos. 

I'd often ask my mom if we were going to be okay money-wise. After all, we were on Section 8 housing and there was no real reason to be optimistic that our circumstances would change.

But she always said yes and never let on that she had doubts.  

There have been months at harochi where the bank account was looking like I might have to find a job.

But financial uncertainty is nothing new to me.

Growing up with little money instilled in me a high tolerance for financial pain. 

I don't recommend it as a business strategy, but when you've watched your mom figure it out with less, you develop this stubborn belief that things will all be alright. 

That's why I kept pushing to close new business and learning Clay when I had few clients and was barely bringing in enough money to pay rent. 

My mom always said we'd be okay. 

Now it's my chance to prove her right.

taplio

The Battle

Iryna Begma

Macklin Buckler

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taplio

The Battle

Iryna Begma

Macklin Buckler

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Iryna Begma's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMacklin Buckler's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreIryna Begma's LinkedIn Performance