Sales Success Stories

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!

Tim Zielinski is the RVP of Strategic Acquisition Sales at Dynatrace & the author of Sell with Swagger: The Quick-Hit Guide to Crushing Your Quota. Tim joins the show to share his career path from Java developer to SaaS leader and author. A lifelong individual contributor who has consistently crushed quota, Tim never thought he would end up in a management/leadership position. That is until he was given an opportunity he just couldn’t pass up. Tim is a consummate professional whose technical capability and focus on clients’ needs make him a stand out in his field.

In today’s bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast I’ve got the first of a whole series of hallway conversations that Jeff Bajorek recorded at the Sales Success Summit. This first one is with Ian Koniak who opened up this year’s Summit with what turned out to be the top-rated presentation. We’re still working on editing those presentations, but to get access to them for free when they’re ready thanks to Outreach, Gong, and Sales Hacker, just click over to Top1Summit.com and fill out the form. Here’s Jeff and Ian:

Andrew Claus is a Strategic Channel Manager and, through his partnership co-selling efforts, is the top-producing individual contributor at Kixie, the leading sales engagement platform that boosts sales team performance with ultra-reliable, easily automated calling and texting for Hubspot, Salesforce, Pipedrive, and other leading CRMs. Andrew is passionate about helping companies reach and break through their next level of success. His background is truly unique, with experience as a professional ballet dancer and actor that lead to a sales career working with all sizes of businesses, from startups to enterprise companies. Andrew’s latest passion has been in the SaaS field as he co-founded his own FinTech business in 2019 and experienced and learned all aspects of building a company from scratch. 

In today’s bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories Podcast, Jeff Bajorek is back with Scott Ingram to debrief the Sales Success Summit.

To learn more about what’s coming in 2023 and to get involved in the community, click over to top1.fm/2023 for details.

Make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss my follow-up interview with Jason.

You’ll also find an interview with a top channel partner seller coming soon as well.

As for the Summit, it was our best one yet, again.

The first survey question I asked was: Was this the best sales event you’ve ever attended?

91% said yes, and 100% of those that said No still gave it 5 stars.

To learn more about what’s coming in 2023 and to get involved in the community, click over to top1.fm/2023 for details.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2022 Sales Success Summit.

In today’s bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories Podcast, I’ve got something unique for you. This is an episode that Carson Heady shared on his own Salesman on Fire podcast where he talked through some of the ins and out of both creating and working through a 9-Figure deal. I asked him if I could share this with you here, because there are so many great insights within this particular Sales Success Story. I’ll also mention this again at the end, but if you’d like to listen to my original conversation with Carson here on this podcast you’ll want to go back and look for episode 54 OR you can just point your browser at top1.fm/54 and that’ll take you straight there.

In today’s special BONUS episode, Scott and Lisa share in a rich and engaging discussion on fostering the growth of your sales career. Lisa expounds on the dangers of having unattainable quotas set forth by your manager, the power that your frontline manager has over your ability to succeed as a sales professional, and the importance of focusing on internal relationship building. Scott shares some personal examples of how either he or friends of his have navigated the complex challenges that a career in Sales can often bring. Lisa speaks to how long it should take to get to a level of competence within a new organization and the ability to recognize the right path for you.

Until Tom Barnes very recently stepped into a new Head of Sales role at Praxis Labs, he was the number one Enterprise Sales Director at Humu, an organization with a mission to make work better with science and machine learning. Tom has the privilege of leading the go-to-market function and leads Praxis Labs global growth strategy to help organizations improve equity and inclusion in the workplace. As Head of Sales, he is building the Praxis Labs sales machine by bringing business impact to Praxis Labs customers. He brings a wealth of experience from the Employee Experience and L&D space and was an integral part of driving 3 early-stage pre-IPO organizations through their successful IPOs..

I don’t know about you, but I’m constantly on the lookout for every possible competitive advantage I can find to try to improve myself and my results. It’s a huge reason why I started this show. Selfishly it allows me to build relationships with and learn from the best of the best in sales today. Unselfishly I record those conversations so you can listen in and learn alongside me.

In addition to listening to these stories and gleaning the insights from top performers, one of the most powerful performance enhancers I’ve found isn’t illegal or even unethical. I think of them as Performance Enhancing Events

Of course, I’m talking about the Sales Success Summit where I’m able to bring many of these top performers who you’ve heard on this show together so that you too can meet them, talk with them and learn from them. The most fun part is that they’re just engaged as you are, because they’re taking advantage of the opportunity to learn and network to further improve their own results.

Sebastian Amaya is the top seller at IBISWorld, an organization that provides trusted industry research on thousands of industries worldwide. In his role, Sebastian leverages his experience and acumen to provide businesses with market insights and strategic outcomes. Sebastian is an incredibly thorough and intentional sales professional. It may sound cliché, but Sebastian prides himself on being the hardest working rep in the room. This dedication and tenacity has been a major reason Sebastian has enjoyed so much success in his role. An avid listener and member of the Sales Success Community, Sebastian is thrilled to share some of his own insights in today’s episode.

Steve Reed is the Creator of Experiences and top seller for the Minnesota Vikings. In his role, Steve provides the very best experience in sports for client entertainment by offering the complete package, including food, drinks, a spectacular view of the action and so much more. Growing up as a superfan of the Vikings, Steve is the ultimate believer in the product he sells. He views himself as much more than a sales professional selling tickets and great experiences, which is apparent as he identifies his ‘why.’ Steve’s ultimate goal is to help the Minnesota Vikings win the Super Bowl by packing the stadium with loyal and passionate fans!

And now for something completely different. I sent a newsletter out a couple of weeks ago that wasn’t really directly related to sales at all.

Instead, I was talking about a couple of books that I was reading on macro economics and what the future of the world might look like. It prompted some really interesting conversations and feedback. And one of those bits of feedback was that it was nice to get away from the pure sales content sometimes.

I thought I’d lean into that a bit as we start to wrap up the summer and wanted to share my favorite recent non-fiction read, and by “read” I actually mean listen on Audible. This was “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir. You may recognize the author as the author of “The Martian” which was another book I absolutely loved.

Now, he did a book in between called “Artemis” not my favorite, but “Project Hail Mary” is amazing. I highly highly recommend it. And I’d also love to hear what you’re reading, or your favorite recent reads. I might even include some of those in a future newsletter.

You can email me at scott@top1.fm or feel free to send me a note on LinkedIn, and if you’re not already on the listener list and receiving these newsletters. Click over to top1.fm and drop your name and email address into one of the forms.

Thanks for listening, enjoy the rest of your Summer and make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss my next interview with a top-performing sales professional.

Mike Anderson is the Top Strategic Account Manager at Terryberry out of Chicago, Illinois. Mike strives for excellence and aims to meet all of his customers' needs. For Mike, sales is an adventure, one that should be joyous and fun. Today, Mike talks about his sales origin story and what has kept him at Terryberry for over thirteen years. Mike shares the three things he most attributes to his success. These include having a growth mindset, being a member of the Sales Success Community, and entering every situation from a place of joy, fun, and professionalism.

Lynn Powers is the Top Sales Director at Clari as well as a Board Member of Women in Revenue, a non-profit organization focused on current and future women leaders in technology sales and marketing. Lynn is a two-time LinkedIn Sales Star recipient. Her expertise is demonstrating the ability to think innovatively, maximize efficiency and identify areas of improvement. She's an agent for change and innovation, and has demonstrated an impressive career path with companies that focus on continuous innovation. Lynn is refreshingly optimistic and has a track record of being a leader, an excellent mentor, quota overachiever, and strategic thinker. Lynn fosters trusting relationships with clients, coworkers, and supervisors.

Sean McLean broke records as the Top Sales Development Representative at Semrush and was promoted into his current Account Executive role in less than half the time because of his performance. Sean is a passionate sales professional who enjoys consulting various businesses on how to increase traffic and conversions through the digital space. He has a unique blend of work experience that includes sales, digital marketing, project management, and IT infrastructure support. He has the innate ability to understand his clients' needs and pain points and provides recommendations on how best to overcome them. Sean is showing no signs of slowing down and intends to continue growing his SaaS sales career by learning from the best in the industry and adding thoughtful value to the space.