Conversations With Women In Sales

Shawanda Roberts is a force of nature - upbeat, positive, and always moving forward. She is VP Sales at Frost & Sullivan where she leads a team of talented and energetic Business Development Directors and Managers responsible for selling solutions to C-level executives focused on identifying, prioritizing and implementing growth strategies through research and custom advisory solutions. Shawanda is also a mentor for GirlzWhoSell. We cover a lot of topics in this conversation - I met her in person at the last event I attended prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. We talk a bit about how such a worldwide disruption accelerated change in big ways.  Let's dive in. 

Top go-to-market teams are different. They create an authentic buyer journey by leading with buyer goals and payoffs rather their product across sales, marketing, and customer success . In this session, Brent (our very first male guest) talks about the power of empathy, communication skills, listening, and other traits women bring in big ways to sales conversations.  Brent is President of Winalytics and is focused on building go-to-market strategies across sales, marketing and customer success teams. 

On November 3, 2021 the first ever "She Sells Summit" will be happening. It is a B2B sales virtual event with most of the speakers being women who have founded groups focused on helping get more women into sales or into sales leadership. Learn how this #sales conference came to be, who is participating, and why it is historic. Big thanks to all of the sponsors of this event, as well as the participants. #sales #seeitbeit #shesells #womeninsales #allieswelcome

As a people first leader, Jaime's passion is for building strong teams, running toward complex problems and "digging in" to help clients deliver outcomes during periods of massive organizational change & transformation. Over the last 15+ years while holding sales leadership roles at Gartner & Microsoft, her teams overachieved year over year growth targets by building trust based CXO relationships to drive millions of dollars of net new revenue. Today she consults and advises clients on how to attract, inspire and maintain high performing teams (specifically) during times of change.

Jen Miller is passionate about sales strategy, networking, and training. She is Senior Vice President, Producer Development, at Marsh & McLennan Agency where she has helped thousands of sellers get the onboarding and training they need to be successful in their roles.  Jen has been writing a post a week since the pandemic began and writes about sales leadership, mentorship, trust, the sales journey, credibility and other great topics. She also shares the power of LinkedIn for sales pros. Seeing her content will help grow your career. 

We had a fabulous panel discussion on how to deal with the unique issues women in sales roles - and parents in general need to deal with when it comes to variable pay, ramp up, quota and other issues that standard corporate family leave policies often don't take into account. Listen to Alicia MacDonald of Brandwatch, Jordan Arogeti of Salesloft, and Michelle Benfer of Hubspot speak about their stories, insights, and lessons learned over a number of years discussing these issues. Company leaders should listen to better understand how to attract and retain more women in sales for their companies based on the policies they create. 

Elizabeth Ionita is Account Executive at Allocadia and founder of COMWUNE. She grew up and lives in Canada - was 1st generation Canadian in her family. Elizabeth has raised two kids and been in a sales role, so we talk a bit about her maternity leaves and how coming back can be tough. Listen to her journey as a full cycle rep and what she was looking for when making a move to another role. Good food for thought for anyone contemplating change - to really know what type of company and environment will suit you well.  Also learn how she moved from selling to a different persona moving from one company to another. 

Irina Soriano is VP, Enablement at Seismic and author of "Generation Brand: Controlling your life-brand for likes, loves, and career advancement". She also has a terrific TEDx talk called, "Gender Parity Starts with Controlling our Life Brand". In this conversation we discuss how Irina rose in her career to a VP level, and how your brand can support you (or not support you) in your career growth. 

Tiffani Bova is the Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist at Salesforce and a thought provoking change maker. She's has a storied career currently at Salesforce, formerly as a Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, and as a pioneer in technology launching or advising on cloud services and digital transformation in the 90's 2000's, 2010s up until now.  Tiffani Bova is author of the Wall Street Journal best seller book, Growth IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business. She is host of the podcast "What's Next - with Tiffani Bova". In addition to Tiffani's great successes in business and technology she is committed to helping build a more inclusive tech world - including within sales, where she got her start in tech.  We had a great conversation about building confidence, doing things that make us uncomfortable, establishing credibility, and how age gives us wisdom to not need to shout out the answer. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did 

Skills session: Julie Hansen provides the "missing virtual selling skills you need today.  Customers today are being bombarded with vendor video calls – a never-ending parade of missed connections, bad lighting, worse eye contact, extreme close-ups, and awkward pauses/talk overs.  This session with former sales pro and actor, Julie Hansen - who has written 3 books on presenting skills for sellers will talk through some of her best tips and ideas. This is a "skills session" which we sprinkle through out our sales journey here. 

Heidi is a Diversity and Inclusion champion and change agent, entrepreneur and mentor. She is committed to supporting women and girls by continuing to push for racial justice, workplace and inter-sectional gender equity. Heidi invests in the leaders, companies and products she wants to see in the world. She is an active aging advocate who believes that older women (and men) are not obsolete. Age = Wisdom and Experience. Heidi is truly committed to closing the gender gap in B2B Sales, which is why we had such a great conversation!

In this conversation, Annie shares SO much insight about being good at your sales role, how she got into sales, and how her mom inspired her to do her best and ASK for what she needs. We talked about the need for women to speak up and really advocate for themselves. She says, "You don't have to be salesy to be in sales!" 

Jordan wishes she had gotten the advice about sales being a "long game" - a marathon, not a sprint. Try not to measure yourself based on your dashboard. Jordan Arogeti is Sr. Executive, Financial Services at Salesloft. She is a mom, a wife, and also a partner in Arogeti Endeavors. Jordan says that she is in an intense season in life right now with so much going on. We have a great conversation about her career path since college and some of the wisdom she's learned in sales. 

Jula Pereira can be found on LinkedIn supporting and encouraging others in professional sales - and is helping shine a light on making sales more inclusive. She is an SMB Account Exec at Hubspot and a peer advisor at re:work training. In this episode Jula talks about self acceptance and how she learned to feel at home in her skin. We also talk about the power of resilience in sales and I reference her book, "Six Weeks to Sales Confidence - A Guide for Women" which is available on Amazon. 

Chaniqua "Nikki" Ivey is a force to be reckoned with. She brings high energy and positivity to the B2B sales world, working hard to make it better - to level the playing field for all. Listen how this lover of words, who studied journalism, relates to professional selling - the mark she has made so far, and what's ahead for her. 

Ellen Stafford is Director, Presales and Solutions at Vidyard which means that she leads business development as well as the Solutions Consulting teams - an unusual combination but it works for her. She started selling cell phones after college and then, through connections, got an opportunity at Salesforce.com. She went from the mammoth company to Vidyard which was truly a startup with 35 employees when she started there, and has risen through the ranks. 

Mary Shea, PhD is an innovator in the B2B sales space, and she believes that with an innovation mindset, anything is possible. Now Global Innovation Evangelist at Outreach, Mary had a distinguished career as Principal Analyst at Forrester. She is a change agent and passionate about making the sales department an inclusive place. To think she began her career as a professional musician. Mary shares her thoughts about how we can change the face of sales in our conversation. 

Reva Pellerin has spent over 10 years in B2B sales. She did not know what selling technology even was when she got her first BDR role at Oracle but it opened the door to technology and SaaS sales. She is glad she took a chance and in a roundabout way ended up in a fantastic career - now at Vidyard. We had a fun conversation and Reva discusses her journey that could help others listening in. 

Kelly is a regional sales manager with years of experience managing sales managers and has inspired hundreds of sales reps. She works in a male majority industry and is a standout leader. Listen to how she talks about selling as a helping profession and how a servant leader mindset can help you become a great leader. 

Amy Volas is Founder and CEO of Avenue Talent Partners because "great sales teams aren't built on guesswork." Amy is Co-Founder of Thursday Night Sales, along with Scott Leese. Amy is incredibly proud of TNS because it really has helped create an amazing community where people are heard and can find insights to solve their issues as SaaS sales professionals. We covered a lot of ground in this conversation - good for leaders and reps alike to hear.