Everybody has a different idea of success. But one thing is for sure: it’s all about forging relationships with the right people. In this episode of the Upside with Arianny podcast, our hosts Rob and Arianny talk to Riki Gironi, a leading Enterprise Account Manager at Quantum Metric. Riki talks about his own sales journey and how it is all about surrounding yourself with the right people, understanding each other, and helping them as well. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Sales is about understanding and helping other people
• What winning really means for Riki
• Selling is a little different across cultures 
• Learning the language is the first step to understanding the culture
• Always surround yourself with the right people 

QUOTES

Riki on his love for sales as a kid: "I enjoy sales. Since I was a kid, it's something that's just a part of me. I still remember when I was a kid I was trying to make some sort of necklace and bracelets to sell them to locals in the summertime. It was just something that I really enjoyed."

Riki on recognizing the contribution of others to his success: "If I'm here today, yes it's true. It's definitely defined by the hard work that I put in. But there's a necklace system of people that helped me also to be where I'm at. So it's more about how much I can give back and the way I see it is through my team, through my clients, through my partners; whoever it is I'm working with."

Riki on surrounding yourself with the right people: "You need to be surrounded by the right people. And if you give the good energy to the right people, these people will always give you back, sometimes times two, times ten."

Connect with Riki in the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/riccardomgironi/

Connect with Arianny on the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianny-arias/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Arianny9

To find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

The first step to solving a problem is to be aware and admit that there is one, just as the first step to improving yourself is being aware of your own weaknesses. In this episode of the Upside with Arianny podcast, Rob and Arianny talk to Virgil Belen, a Sales Development Representative for Demandbase. 

Virgil talks about what it’s like to be working in tech sales in the era of remote working, his drive to improve himself, and his involvement with Strively, a program that helps people with a background in incarceration get into sales.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Self-awareness is the first step to self-improvement 
• Life as an SDR working from home 
• The role of relationships in the buying process 
• Sales is about helping people
• Finding second chances with Strively  
• Honesty and authenticity go a long way
• How salespeople can add more value

QUOTES

Virgil: "Making calls, especially working from home, I've never got the chance to work in an office environment due to COVID, but to me, being at home in the comfort of your own house and making calls, it's kind of soothing. You're just there, you're really relaxed." 

Virgil: "Things are just shifting. As you can see within the last two years with the pandemic, buyer behaviors are shifting. And this is where we come in and we're helping companies identify that and say, hey, we need you to start focusing here instead of going the traditional way." 

Virgil: "No matter what you've been through in life, you believe in yourself and you have other people who believe in you. It'll be wasted time that they believed in you all this time for you to not do good. So I just carry that on my shoulder." 

Connect with Virgil in the links below:

• Email - vrbelen88@gmail.com
• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/virgil-belen-217475192/

Connect with Arianny on the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianny-arias/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Arianny9

To find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

In this episode of the Upside with Arianny podcast, Arianny and Rob talk to Jill Barrientos, Account Executive for Twilio and the chief executive officer of DocDomi, a culture-centric digital health club. Jill talks about the upside of working in sales and why it’s the ultimate opportunity to make a difference in your community. 

As a company executive herself, Jill also talks about the different ways in which leaders can engage with their employees and fill the gap between what companies promote for their brand image, and what they actually incentivize as an organization. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Always be working on something bigger than yourself 
• Something always needs to be improved 
• How to get jobs that you may not be qualified for 
• Be intentional in all you do 
• Sales is the ultimate opportunity
• How companies should handle non-revenue company goals 
• Leaders need to know their people deeply

QUOTES

Rob: "Sometimes you have to ask permission, sometimes you have to earn the right, but when you get the right to solve somebody's problem or to help them solve a problem they have, you see the results and you see the personal and professional impact you're gonna have on people." 

Jill: "I am a natural problem solver. I don't like the status quo at all. If somebody who is a manager, somebody came to me saying, no, we're perfect nothing needs to be fixed, that's wrong. Something always needs to be improved." 

Jill: "You also have to be mindful of, is this going to help me in my next move. If it's not, then even if you stay there just make every week, do the interviews, do the resumes, train yourself in something different. And eventually you'll be able to find that job that really is aligned with your goals, long term and short term." 

Connect with Jill in the links below:

• Email: Jill.barrientosr@gmail.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-barrientos-futurebuilder/

Connect with Arianny on the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianny-arias/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Arianny9

To find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

In this episode of the Upside with Arianny podcast, Arianny shines the spotlight on her co-host, Rob Chapple. Rob shares some important lessons in dealing with failure, as well as his vision for the future of sales. 

As Co-Founder and CEO of esellas, Rob also talks about the problem that he saw with salespeople today, and what he and his co-founder Chris intends to do about it. It’s all about giving salespeople the tools and training they need to become heroes for their clients by becoming effective and empathetic problem solvers. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Always have something to look forward to 
• Failure is just redirection
• Salespeople are not getting the training they need 
• Rob's vision: Augmented Reality for salespeople
• Show conviction for solving your client's problems 
• Rob's superpower: Connecting the dots
• We are who we are in the context of others 

QUOTES

Rob: "They don't have the time, money or even the inclination to really try and grow in salespeople. They just need salespeople to come in and sit on an assembly line and do this one little part. We just saw that sales was going in the wrong direction. People were trusting salespeople less, and sales was becoming very compartmentalized."

Rob: "Whenever I pop open my account list, ultimately what jumps off the page are the best opportunities. Whenever I start looking at personas and the people who I believe own the problems in the companies, what I want to jump off the page is the real insights about them, what they care about and how I could approach them and be empathetic and contextual."

Rob: "Showing and demonstrating conviction for their problem shows up whenever you genuinely are thinking how you can solve their problem and they see that you're bringing contextual, empathetic insights and you don't always say yes. Sometimes you say, ‘I don't know, let me think about that.’" 

Rob: "Buyers, like I said, have a really hard job. And if you've built a small amount of trust with them and you are convinced that this can help them solve their problem, then now they have twice as many people as they did before."

Connect with Rob in the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/robc-007/
• Email - rob@esellas.com

Connect with Arianny on the links below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arianny-arias/
• Twitter - https://twitter.com/Arianny9

To find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

In this episode of the Upside with Arianny podcast, Arianny and Rob talk to newly-minted Chief Revenue Officer for Esellas, Megan Dimmer. Megan talks about her journey so far in the world of sales, and the things that drive her to do better. For her, selling is more than just about making money, it’s about helping people and providing value through whatever it is that you’re offering. 

Mgan also shares her experience working tech sales as a woman, how she has coped with the challenges, and how the industry looks to be more welcoming and open to diversity than ever before. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Thoughts on the new CRO post and helping other salespeople 
• Why Megan loves sales so much
• Selling is as much helping yourself as it is helping others 
• The challenge of being a woman in tech sales 
• Balancing motherhood and professional leadership

QUOTES

Rob: "People help other people because of the rush it gives them. Humans are humans and the irreducible denominator is that we're all humans. As much as I like to think that I like solving problems because it gives my customer or the person I'm working with some value, it gives me value. It gives me this gratification that there was either something that wasn't there before and now it is, or there wasn't an answer there before and now there is." 

Megan: "What's more important, work or life? Work takes up most of our life. You better enjoy it." 

Megan: "It's absolutely harder as a woman in tech. And so, the challenge, the war wounds have built me, helped me, and frankly, now, I'm in a state where I can really look at other women who want to be in the field, who want to enter, and have such a strong desire to have a positive impact on them. Like how can we get more women into tech sales and into tech." 

Connect with Megan in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megandimmer/

Connect with Rob in the link below: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robc-007/

To find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

HIGHLIGHTS

• There's more to life than work 
• The wealthier you get, the less empathy you have 
• The role of sales in product development and other fields
• Getting a sales job after the dot-com bubble crash
• Take charge of who you are and be who and what you want to be
• Habit-forming can be both beneficial and harmful
• The key to fulfillment is growth
• Don't wait too long to make an action 
• Ajay's superpower and the circle of 5ths

QUOTES

Ajay: "As you accumulate wealth, the main thing you buy as your wealth goes up is isolation. You don't travel in public transport anymore, you start doing things a lot more privately, you get a big estate that is far away from other people." 

Ajay: "If you're not giving it away when you don't have money, people don't get rich and then all of a sudden become huge donors." 

Ajay: "I made a decision that there's nothing that I really care about more than being a good father to them and a  good husband to Maggi, who's my wife. Outside of that, the rest of that identity, I think was worth abandoning."

Ajay: "We want to remain totally open-minded to doing new things and having new experiences and avoid the sort of habit-forming, let's-get-into-this-rut. Because the key to life is really growth and in order to grow we got to get in these new experiences and in some cases, make ourselves uncomfortable. 

Connect with Ajay in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ajayrayasam/

Find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Getting to know Rachel Gasparini
• Selling in the developer space with LaunchDarkly
• Sales is also about helping people
• Empowering more women to enter the sales profession
• What is Rachel's superpower?
• Intent counts more than technique
• Why women struggle with self-belief
• Use feedback to elevate yourself
• What we're all grateful for

QUOTES

Rachel: "Sales is a tough job. There's a lot of highs and lows and I think to have that determination and fire, you have to determine your 'why'. Like what is the bigger thing that you're working towards so that if you're having a good day or a bad day in sales, you're still fueled by it."

Rachel: "It's so important for women in particular to have role models that look like them, talk like them, have similar interests. I think we work with amazing people across the board, but we all got to have some role models to inspire us to believe that it's possible to get to the next step."

Rachel: "Being different can be good. Our buyers are becoming more diverse with different levels of interest and different ways they can communicate. It ended up being a really big strength for me and I started to lean into it rather than trying to fit the mold."

Rachel: "People who are willing to accept a mistake or misstep or maybe even you doing something without the highest degree of polish, as long as your intent is right."

Connect with Rachel in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rsparini/
• Website: https://launchdarkly.com/

Find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Live to work, or work to live? 
• Switching from finance to sales 
• It all comes back to motivation
• Most salespeople don't practice at all
• Nothing replaces hard work and real-world experience 
• If you're not failing, you're setting too easy goals 
• Money is a means to an end 
• Make good money and use it wisely 
• Don't be a slave of instant gratification
• Work your pay raise like a sales deal 
• Top dollar should be equal with top performance 
• Find the balance between competition and cooperation

QUOTES

Chris: "It's like Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, right? The first level is food, shelter, basic protection. You can't be up this higher level of ascension when you're not even sure if you can make rent every month. How can you focus on your spiritual wellbeing when you're like, I don't know if I'm going to get evicted or not." 

Chris: "You're not gonna fail in sales unless you give up."

Chris: "You got the wrong mentality if you're like, 'how do I not fail'. It's 'how do I not stop', that's the better question you need to ask yourself."

Chris: "Right now, most people trade hours for dollars. That is the worst way to make money. Because you're taxing ang limiting yourself. Meaning, if you're not working, you are not making money. You need to find other ways to make money that don't require you trading hours."

Chris: "People give too much power to money. Money is like god to them, like 'oh my god, it's this thing I can never attain.' But when you create that dynamic in your head, of course you can never obtain it. But if you look at it like, 'money is a way for me to keep track, it's a scoreboard, it's the way I keep track of points,' okay, now, money is not equal to me. Money is something I utilize." 

Chris: "Your pay raise is a sale. You are selling yourself. Your prospect is your company, so you need to work it like a sales deal." 

Chris: "The way you do one thing is the way you do everything." 

Connect with Chris in the links below:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvonhuene/

Find out more about Esellas, visit https://www.esellas.com/.