Our 81st guest is Andy McCreadie, Managing Director at Sandler South West. Owen and Andy discuss the challenges that sales teams face as they grow.Including:– Why do salespeople fail?– What mistakes are sales leaders making in the current environment?– The do’s and don’ts of growing out a sales team– The crucial shift shift every salesperson must make to start seeing results– What sales leaders and managers should be doing to support their teams– The important role training and coaching plays in an SDR’s development

Our 80th guest is Arden Styles, CCO at CEGEN Environmental Group. Owen and Arden have a discussion around discovering the true essence of a brand.Including:– What ‘brand essence’ means and why it’s important– Real life examples of brand essence– How brand essence can represent much more than the product you are selling– How brand essence works in a B2B environment– Increasing the degree of certainty: what it means and why it’s important for your clients– How to define the essence of your brand, and at what stage it should be done– Aligning a personal brand with an organisation’s brand, and the part digital presence plays– The know, like, trust funnel– The types of content a marketer should be producing to promote the essence of the brand– Real life examples of marketing campaigns that have done this effectively

Our 79th guest is Adam Graham, Managing Director at Gray Matters and Founder of BD Matters. Owen and Adam discuss the topic of diagnosing the root cause of sales inefficiency and offer practical solutions to address it.Including:– Most common factors behind sales underperformance– The ideal mindset and culture of a leadership team– Common mistakes vs quick wins of positioning and branding– Pros and cons of being niche and the internal challenges that brings– Getting buy-in from your sales team– Go-to-market strategy: what’s working and what’s not in 2023

Our 78th guest is David Allison, Founder of The Valuegraphics Project. Owen and David discuss how tapping into customers core values can unlock the ability to understand them on a deeper level and influence them more effectively.Including:– The difference between demographics and valuegraphics– How to use valuegraphics effectively– The concept of humans being values-driven– 3 key questions to ask your potential customers to reveal their core values– Getting to the ‘why’– Demographic dominance– How old habits need to change around targeting your ideal customer– The most common values from around the world

Our 77th guest is Shaun Doherty, Owner of the555club. Owen and Shaun discuss making space for clarity of thought, alleviating stress and being intentionally grateful; and how these things can elevate our lives both professionally and personally.Including:– Tools and techniques for managing stress, mental health and wellbeing– Living with stress and why it can be a good thing– the555club: Breathwork, Meditation, Gratitude – what are they and how to use them– How to differentiate yourself from your thoughts– The responsibility on employers to promote and enable mental wellbeing in the workplace– The misconceptions around meditation– The importance of taking care of your body physically– Things Shaun would do differently if he were to go back and do the last 10 years again

Our 76th guest is Dale Dupree, Founder & CSO of The Sales Rebellion. Owen and Dale discuss how to ‘sell more and suck less’.Including:– An introduction to Dale and The Sales Rebellion– How to stand out as an SDR in a crowded market– The ideal traits and skills of a high performing SDR– Advice for dealing with rejection, failure and lack of confidence– Most common things that sales reps do which ‘suck’– The importance of humanising your sales strategy– The Sales Rebellion’s ‘R.E.A.S.O.N.’ theory

Our 75th guests are Julia Nimchinski (Co-Founder & CEO at HYPCCCYCL) and Justin Michael (Co-Founder at HYPCCCYCL). They discuss alignment of sales and marketing teams; the role of salespeople as marketers and vice versa; and how today’s business world can benefit from customer-centric virtual events.Including:– How to truly align your sales and marketing teams– The role of salespeople as marketers and vice versa– Benefits of customer-centric virtual events– Encouraging sales and marketing teams to learn from each other– The journey from SDR to marketer and vice versa– Tips for fostering collaboration among sales teams– Generating pipeline and revenue through virtual events– The best tech stack for modern virtual events– What it takes to run a customer-centric event– The book ‘Reinventing Virtual Events‘ – why you should read it and where to find it.

Our 74th guest is Alastair Banks, Co-Founder at Optix Solutions. Alastair and Owen discuss personal brand – how any salesperson trying to drive new business can build a personal brand and use it to their advantage.Including:– An introduction to Alastair and Optix Solutions– Why would an SDR/Account Executive/Head of Sales/Founder spend time building a personal brand, when they could be out selling?– How long does it take to build a personal brand, and are there quick wins along the way– For junior-mid level roles, how do you decide on a tone of voice for your personal brand?– How do you decide on the right channels for your personal brand?– What does good personal brand content look like?– How to build and reach your target audience

Our 73rd guest is James Shakespeare, Founder at Evosite. James and Owen discuss the various growth stages along the journey of growing a small business (SME).Including:– Key challenges along the journey of growing a small business– When does your business outgrow your first 5-10 hires?– Intentional desire and ambition to grow, and how that mindset can change over time– Focusing on sales and marketing strategy vs. relying on organic growth– Letting go of control as a Founder and utilising your leadership team– James’ best and worst business decisions over the last 15 years

Our 72nd guest is Kate King, Head of Recruitment at Seed Talent. Kate and Owen discuss the world of SDR recruitment, as it looks now.Including:– Who is Kate and who are Seed Talent?– The current state of SDR recruitment and how it’s changed in the last 12 months– What does it look like heading into 2023?– What’s working and what isn’t for organisations growing out their SDR functions– The soft skills recruiters look for which make a good SDR– What the top companies are doing to differentiate themselves when recruiting for SDRs– The importance of culture and employer brand when recruiting for SDRs– The ideal hiring process: speed vs. quality– Kate’s ‘SDR shopping list’: three things SDRs should do before applying for SDR roles

Our 71st guest is Adam Weekes, Sales Lead for EMEA at Bigtincan. Adam and Owen discuss prospecting via email.Including:– The do’s and don’ts when prospecting via email– The current trends around sales enablement– How salespeople are using data to make decisions at a strategic management level vs rep level– Where Adam has seen the most success with email prospecting in 2022– Adam’s top-secret recipe for email prospecting– How to personalise your emails in an authentic way– The best types of content to include in your prospecting emails– Open rates, reply rates, booked meeting rates – what does good look like?

Our 70th guest is John Richardson, Founder & CEO at ExP. John and Owen discuss all things coaching for SDRs.Including:– What is coaching and why should managers be doing it?– The differences between training and coaching an SDR– How to coach effectively and productively– How to guarantee training sessions are not wasted– How does external coaching work?– How SDR managers’ roles have evolved over the last 10 years– 1-2-1 coaching vs. group coaching

Our 69th guest is Robert Smart, Enterprise Account Executive at Haiilo. Owen and Robert have an interesting discussion about Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).Including:– The definition and purpose of an ICP– What elements define and document your ICP– A new concept: Acceptable Client Profile (ACP)– The downfalls of a scatter-gun prospecting approach– How your prospecting time could be better spent with research & data– How to approach a broad ICP from a targeting perspective– Deviating from the ICP plan – should it be done?– How to validate your thesis for your target market– Scenario: How to deal with an inbound enquiry that does not fit within your ICP

Our 68th guest is Jack Shepherd, Co-Founder at The Social Shepherd. Owen and Jack have an in-depth discussion around ‘demand capture’ and ‘demand creation’.Including:– Definition of the terms ‘Demand Capture’ and ‘Demand Creation’– The main differences between the two tactics– When you should focus on one over the other, and when to leverage both– Difference in quality of opportunities and how they behave when coming from capture vs creation– Insight into The Social Shepherd’s marketing strategy in the early days

Our 67th guest is Omri Chosnek – Regional Sales Director at Salesforce. Owen and Omri have an “all about sales” discussion…Covering:– Salesforce’s strategy for Demand Generation– The biggest challenges for sales leaders in today’s economy– Managing a multigenerational and multicultural workforce– Dealing with buyer hesitation and delayed decisions in the sales process– Big changes that have impacted what Salesforce are focusing on in 2022

Our 66th guest is Hannah Ajikawo – LinkedIn Top Voice in Sales 2021, Practice Lead for EMEA at Skaled Consulting and Director of Global Partnerships at Sistas In Sales. Owen and Hannah discuss the sales process, with a particular focus on the discovery phase.Including:– What the discovery phase is and how it should be approached– Common mistakes sales organisations make during discovery– Where most companies are losing their way in the sales process– The downfalls of a rigid sales process– How the sales process has changed in the last 15 years– The fear of breaking the learning trend in young SDRs– How being ‘human’ and adding personality to your conversations makes you a more effective salesperson– Being customer-centric: what it means and how SDRs can achieve it

Our 65th guest is Nicki Paterson, Chief Growth Officer of Solutions Driven.Owen and Nicki discuss the importance of a growth plan in a business.Including:- What a growth plan is - The importance of being informed by data and the important metrics when it comes to growth - Nicki’s take on demand vs headcount growth

Our 64th guest is Charles Smee, Founder & CEO of Transaction Focus. Owen and Charles discuss best practices for expanding your business into international markets and territories.Including:– Most common reasons for companies choosing to explore new territories – Misconceptions around moving into international markets– Frequent mistakes made by leaders when breaking into new markets– Adapting to cultural differences in business around the world and adjusting internal company culture accordingly– How to ensure you are recruiting the right people in different countries – Are there certain countries or markets which are easier to break into than others?– Setting expectations for the ‘bedding in’ period– Three key bits of advice for leaders who are considering taking their organisation global

Our 63rd guest is Chris Loveridge, Regional Sales Manager for EMEA at BigPanda, previously Account Director at SAP Customer Experience. Owen and Chris discuss leveraging the team around you through a sales process and managing the politics within enterprise.Including:– What are you typically doing and who are you working with through an enterprise sales process?– Who is accountable for the end result?– How to effectively manage internal and external relationships and how you should split your time and effort between the two– The most common politics you have to navigate through an enterprise sales process– When and why you would break the process– How to get an ‘A-team’ on board– In-fighting: what does it mean, when do you tend to experience it and could it be a good thing?

Introducing our 62nd episode of ON AIR: With Owen – our latest interview video series with honest conversation about scaling revenue, hosted by our Founder & CEO, Owen Richards.Our 62nd guest is Kevin Dixon, Founder of Boxxstep. Owen and Kevin discuss a brand new topic: Buyer Enablement.Including:– What does it mean, where has it come from and why are we talking about it?– No-decision outcomes: how they’ve changed over the last 15 years and how to avoid them– How to get a sales representative to change their mindset to focus on “why change? why now?” instead of “why us?”– What actions should you take when focusing on buyer enablement?– What a good ‘mutual action plan’ looks like– Why it’s important to evaluate the decision-making process, whatever the outcome– The downfall of rigid sales processes– How to stand out and find the right customers in the sales tech space in 2022– Buying committees: how are they broken down and what are the common profiles you see within them?