Conversations With Women In Sales

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 avation, SaaS, and manufacturing.  Fundamentals for sellers.  And other topics.    We also discussed how you can give us a "5 Star" rating and you can post comments on iTunes which greatly helps our visibility. I'll personally give you a shout out if you and two other people go to iTunes, listen to an episode, and rate it - if all 3 rate it, I'll talk you up on the next episode.    Donate to the Sales Education Foundation's Giamanco Memorial Scholarship for Women in sales programs here: https://salesfoundation.org/barbara-giamanc

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 Riley's list of some amazing women in sales and sales leadership he's been introduced to.  We wanted to talk Riley up in this episode to show that as a male ally, you don't have to wait until you have a power role in your company to speak up and support the effort for more #womeninsales - you can do it now. If you like the episode, please comment and share it. Ultimately a 5 star review and comment about the podcast on iTunes is a winning move we'd love to see.  Riley Blaisdell on LinkedIn - connect with him!  He references the

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: @SalmanConsult email me: rana.salman@salmanconsulting.com   Women Sales Pros can be found on Instagram and X @womensalespros Connect with us on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-sales-pros/

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 motivated and being not just a woman in sales, but Egyptian and also a mom.  More on Miram here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miramebrahim/  Conversations with Women in Sales podcast now has over 160 episodes with amazing sales contributors and sales leaders - large companies and small - new reps and seasoned veterans. If you like the podcast, please SHARE it with another woman or a male ally. Please rate it and review it as we do not get many reviews and really could use them. For more help with adding women to your sales team, r

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 consultative sales strategies based on data-driven analysis and a relentless focus on customer service. Rhasheeda has a reputation as an empathetic leader who builds inclusive culture while coaching individuals to develop high-performing teams. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhasheeda-hughes-mba-4a81b313/ Conversations with Women in Sales podcast now has over 160 episodes with amazing sales contributors and sales leaders - large companies and small - new reps and seasoned veterans. If you like the podcast, please SHARE it with another

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 conversation with Tara Ryan, Founder of InfiniDEI.    Host Lori Richardson speaks, writes, hosts this podcast, consults, trains and coaches B2B sales leaders and helps their teams grow. Find out more here. 

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 these women break things down for us and dispel myths about forecasting - it isn't hard anymore, for one thing!  Bayley Fesler, Director, Revenue Ops, Xactly Corp Annie Jones, Revenue Ops Business Partner, Xactly Corp Their latest article about AI and Sales   Podcast is hosted by Lori Richardson, President of Women Sales Pros, a community helping to get more women into sales and sales leadership. Lori is also author of "She Sells: Attract, Promote, and Retain Great Women in B2B Sales" available here on Amazon.  Learn abo

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 her community. If you find this episode inspiring or helpful, please share it! Our goal is to expose more women to all of the roads into B2B sales opportunities and to encourage those in sales to grow in their role - build a career and if it makes sense, to consider sales leadership. 

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 seller or sales leader.  We appreciate Dan as a supporter of women in sales and his work with dozens and dozens of women working to solve employment, PIP, and severance issues - in addition to offering advice to others at the same time.  Follow Dan Goodman on LinkedIn - he is an amazing resource and a treasure for us in a time of big layoffs and sometimes poor leadership choices. 

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, executing tactfully, and working to inspire people early in their careers to perform and advance, which she is working to impart to her teams at @Cloudflare. In this conversation, Lori shares some of her lessons learned and about her journey into sales leadership - a place not enough of us are at. 

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 at Gilt Groupe, Amazon, Knotel (among others) and now VP Sales at Crunchbase. Ang talks about her climb into leadership and how she supports her people so that they feel like she has their back. 

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 start-up into maturity, propelling record sales growth, and building highly engaged and loyal teams for global entities.  Deemed the first African-American to lead a major private aviation company, Stephanie was honored to earn accolades as a “Trailblazer” on the 2020 Ebony Magazine Power 100 list, "Top Visionary Changing The Luxury World Right Now" Robb Report 2021, "Top Executive" 2022 Savoy Magazine, and "Most Influential Female Executive" Women's Inc 2022 . We had a great conversation. I had no idea what her first job in aviati

Tonni has been a sales leader in tech companies for over 14 years. I wondered how she started out in a leadership role so early in her career. We also talked about momhood / parenthood as she now has two kids so juggling family as well as work and a sales team is a lot. We talked about how great leaders who ARE parents can be in hitting goals and being productive. We also talked about how many women coming up in newer sales roles don't visualize that they could actually have a family some day and stay in sales or be in a sales leader role. Tonni's success dispels this myth. We'd love your feedback on this episode - consider posting on iTunes - and thank you in advance!

If nothing else, connect with Nirvanna to follow her LinkedIn posts and shares - she is so great at putting things "out there" on topics like leadership, stress, inspiration, and dealing with change. I met Nirvanna in Boston a number of years ago. She's always been focused on her professional development, and committed to being in a leadership role. Learn how she rose from individual contributor to a leader - she would not settle for another individual role. I am inspired by her "can-do" attitude and how she is sharing what she is learning through her posts on Medium here as well as on LinkedIn. 

Nancy Calabrese is Founder and CEO of One of a Kind Sales - a lead generation and appointment setting firm working primarily with B2B companies, helping them grow revenue. Her team loves cold calling, lead development, and top of the funnel services. Most people don't, so this has given Nancy a robust business for many years. In our conversation she'll share her story, how she grew to love sales so much, and some tips and ideas for success in getting meetings and in speaking with future buyers.  Nancy sees calling as one of the marketing channels and assuming you are professional and use the multi-channel approach to reach prospective customers, between all of the channels, you'll be successful. You need to be open to where your buyer is and where what you say or do resonates with them. 

This is a quick teaser about what is ahead for 2023 on the podcast, Conversations with Women in Sales, as well as with the "women in sales" community. Lori is solo on this one to share some information and perhaps a little inspiration at the end.