In this episode, our guest is Sarah Thomas, the top strategic account executive at Verkada. Sarah dives deep into the personal and professional principles that have driven her sales success, from embracing her natural strengths and "drinking the Kool Aid" for every company she's joined to cultivating a growth mindset and seeking help from those around her.

She opens up about overcoming imposter syndrome, her journey from higher education to software sales, and how authenticity and vulnerability have been central to her approach.

https://top1.fm/

In this episode, host Scott Ingram sits down with Camden Roncka, the top-performing small business account executive at HubSpot, for a refreshingly candid conversation packed with actionable insights and unconventional wisdom. Camden opens up about the three core drivers behind his rapid rise in sales: his deep personal faith, a relentless underdog mentality, and the power of curiosity and adaptability.

https://top1.fm/

In this episode, Dylan Katcher uncovers what sets an A-player apart in the sales industry: it's not just about hitting revenue targets. We explore the power of recognizing opportunities within failures, and how that mindset can propel a company forward. We'll also share some personal strategies for bouncing back from lost deals, including the vital role of feedback loops with top sales reps and product teams.

Learn more at top1.fm/185

Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast I have a bit of an encore episode for you. I originally shared this follow-up interview with Brandon Fluharty as a bonus episode in early June of last year, but because it wasn't one of the numbered interview episodes it's been a little hard for people to find.

So because of that AND because Brandon has just recently released his 7 Steps to 7 Figures eBook, I thought I'd share this again officially as episode 139. So for all of the links and resources, you can just click over to top1.fm/139. Here it is:

Today we're celebrating International Women's Day with Heidi Solomon-Orlick and the brand new collaborative book she's brought together featuring over 2 dozen incredible women in sales called "Heels to Deals."

Heidi is the Founder and CEO of GirlzWhoSell a company committed to closing the gender gap in B2B sales and building the largest pipeline of diverse, early-stage female career talent. GirlzWhoSell offers training, mentoring, experiential learning opportunities, career placement for college-aged women interested in a professional sales career. Here she is:

Drew Piper is the top SDR at Reward Gateway, an organization that helps more than 1,800 of the world's leading companies to attract, engage and retain their best people with an employee engagement platform that brings employee benefits, discounts and perks, reward and recognition, employee wellbeing, employee communications and employee feedback into one unified hub. Drew is an exceptionally accountable sales professional who understands the importance of being concise and genuine. Drew has a deep respect for the power of learning and takes ownership of his own learning. In fact, that is the number one thing he attributes to his success. The other two are his persistence and cautiously optimistic mindset.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast features a unique panel discussion from the last Sales Success Summit. In the two previous bonus episodes, you got to hear DeJuan Brown and Katie Jane Bailey's presentations from day 1. This was from the second day where I brought them both back up to talk more about the idea of Lifestyle Discovery, but we also turned the tables and included a number of members of the audience as well as most of the previous podcast guests who were in attendance who shared their top book recommendations.

Chris McNeill is the top Enterprise Sales Executive at Infinite Convergence Solutions, an organization that provides innovative messaging and mobility solutions and next-generation wireless communication technologies to mobile operators and enterprises. Chris is an incredibly considerate and empathetic sales professional who always puts his customers first and places a tremendous amount of value on the customer relationship. In his order of operations, it goes: customer, company, Chris; meaning that, in everything he does, Chris puts the customer and the company before himself. Chris is a big fan of puzzles and likes to keep things interesting. In fact, part of the reason he entered sales as a profession was because he wanted to conquer the challenge of selling.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring Katie Jane Bailey's presentation titled Product Led Growth & the Future of Selling from the 2021 Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these video presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com.

Dustin Brown is the Top Global Account Executive at Outreach, an organization that helps businesses improve their sales execution to drive higher win rates, ramp up sales reps to productivity faster, and, ultimately, create better revenue outcomes. Dustin is a highly intentional sales professional who believes in the power of hard work and helping others. Dustin has enjoyed an incredibly successful career in sales and he's not even close to being done.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring DeJuan Brown's presentation titled Managing Up: Collaborating WITH Your Leadership from the 2021 Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these video presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com.

Kaleigh Conners just finished as the top Solutions Advisor for the year at GreyCastle Security and has recently transitioned into a new role as Strategic Account Executive at Terryberry. Kaleigh is a genuinely curious sales professional who values honesty, transparency, and integrity above all. Kaleigh prides herself on being rational, informed, independent, determined and versatile, all traits that have served her well in her short, yet impressive career. Her results speak for themselves as Kaleigh has been able to achieve top seller status and is continuing on her quest to be the best version of herself that she can possibly be.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring Brandon Fluharty's presentation titled 7 Steps to Earning 7-Figures in SaaS Sales from the 2021 Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com, and while this audio is great, having the visuals for what Brandon is about to walkthrough will be super helpful. Again, just fill out the form at the top of Top1Summit.com to get access.

To kick off 2025 we're going to share the audios from the top 3 presentations from last year's Sales Success Summit as bonus episodes between my interviews with #1 and top 1% performing individual contributors. The presentation that was ranked third by the audience and the one that was most impactful for me personally was Luke Floyd's talk on Building Success with a High Performance Operating System. And stay tuned at the end for a couple little nuggets. 

Jenna Phillips was the top Account Executive at Jobvite and has recently joined Authenticx as one of their first Enterprise Account Executives. Authenticx was founded to analyze and activate customer interaction data at scale in order to reveal transformational opportunities in healthcare. Jenna is a relentlessly hard worker and is super competitive. Those traits, coupled with her personality and willingness to be a team player, have helped transform her into an ultra-successful salesperson. She's smart, driven, accountable, and a natural leader. Jenna truly cares about her clients and goes above and beyond to exceed her clients' expectations.

In this final episode of the year, my team and I have selected 2 clips from each of the top 5 episodes of 2021. I recognize that these episodes are often quite lengthy, and we've started pulling out some shorter clips from each episode that we'll be releasing on our YouTube channel. You can get there real easily by going to top1.fm/youtube, and be sure to subscribe when you get there. Our goal is to have clips available from every episode over the course of the next 6 months. I should also mention that every single on of the interviews we do on this show are with #1 and top 1% level performers who are active, quota-carrying, individual contributors.

With that, let's get into this. What I'm going to do is play the 2 clips from each episode and then I'll let you know who it was and what episode it was from. At the end, I'll share a couple of additional ideas on digging into the show, especially if you're a new listener. Here we go.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring David Weiss and Jack Wilson and their presentation on Building World Class Sales Teams from this year's Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Proposify, Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com.

Melissa Gaglione was the top SDR at LivePerson until very recently being promoted to an Account Executive role. LivePerson is a computer software company whose mission is to make life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted conversational AI. Melissa is an incredibly thoughtful and curious sales professional by nature. Her endless curiosity has led her to explore careers in education, media, and SaaS Sales. A yogi and meditation enthusiast, Melissa has taken the practices she learns and applies them to her day-to-day work life. She is super into habit building and is very detail-oriented and driven to become the best version of herself that she can be.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring Irfan Jafar's presentation on Closing Big Deals with a Winning Mentality from this year's Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Proposify, Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these presentations on-demand as well as the slide decks at Top1Summit.com

Briana Stimmler is the top Solutions Advisor in the top Unmanaged Accounts Team within the SMB segment at Microsoft out of Fargo, North Dakota. Microsoft's mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. Briana is a helper by nature; she wants to help her customers solve whatever pain points they may be facing. She is a driven, competitive, life-long learner looking to guide her customers by presenting them with tips, solutions, and best practices.

Vlad Voskresensky is the co-founder and CEO of Revenue Grid, a leading AI Guided Selling Platform that nudges sales teams with step-by-step guidance towards actions that bring the best results, shows deals at risk, and prioritizes tactics with the greatest impact. Vlad has been driving the product vision and leading the company's technology direction for over a decade, reinforced with more than 20 years of deep expertise in connecting enterprise (CRM systems) and personal environments.

Haylee Taylor is the top Account Executive at ClozeLoop, a revenue strategy firm that drives performance for Management, Sales, Customer Success, and Sales Enablement in the fastest-growing companies on the planet. In the less than one year she's been with ClozeLoop, Haylee has watched over twenty sales teams have their best quarter in company history. The impact spans top of funnel pipeline generation to discovery and demo training, account management, management coaching, and all the way up to executives. She's exactly where she wants to be after hitting 268% of her last software sales quota: training sales reps to crush bigger quotas and exceed their leadership's wildest expectations. 

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast featuring Jenn Zhou's presentation on How to Win at Sales or Life from this year's Sales Success Summit is brought to you thanks to all of our summit sponsors. Thanks to Proposify, Outreach, Vidyard, Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Gong you can still get access to all of these presentations on-demand and learn more about them at Top1Summit.com.

Brooke Holt is the top seller at Sales Gravy, a company that delivers the training, resources, and solutions that enable sales organizations to become more agile in the face of disruptive change and accelerate sales productivity, fast. In her role, Brooke delivers her clients the best customer experience and quality training services. She is a top producing representative utilizing her mastery of prospecting, discovery, negotiation, and closing skills to advance sales as a profession. In fact, Brooke did over three hundred percent of her number last year amidst a global pandemic!

Welcome to another episode of Sales Success Stories! Today we're joined by a remarkable guest, Megan Labadie. Megan's journey in sales is nothing short of inspiring—navigating from leasing apartments to mastering complex ESG software sales. In this episode, Megan shares her unique communication style, task management strategies, and favorite sales tools, as well as her powerful insights into leadership and learning.

Learn more at top1.fm/185

In this very special episode of the Sales Success Podcast, host Scott Ingram is celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Sales Success Stories Podcast! Guest host Jeff Bajorek rejoins the show today to break down the results of the recent Sales Success Summit and talk about some of the key takeaways Scott has gleaned from his time doing the Sales Success Stories Podcast. Scott reflects on the origin of the Summit and elaborates on why he prefers attendees who invest heavily in themselves and their personal and professional development. If you know Scott, you know it's very difficult for him to pat himself on the back or take any credit, so Jeff does it for him with a funny little exercise mid-show.

AJ Bruno is the Co-founder and CEO at QuotaPath, the most adaptable compensation solution for sales reps to finance to everyone in between. Prior to QuotaPath, AJ spent six years at TrendKite, the company he founded and was president of in Austin, Texas. Aside from his love of all things tech, AJ is an avid pilot and is very active in the startup community. He's an investor to dozens of startups and advisor and mentor to many. He currently sits as a Board Member of Philly Start-Up Leaders, the largest community of entrepreneurs in Philadelphia.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

Jeff Bajorek is taking over the Sales Success Stories Podcast during the 2021 Sales Success Summit, talking to speakers in the hallway.

In this bonus episode of Sales Success Stories, host Scott Ingram interviews Jonathan Gardner, founder of the J. Gardner Group and seasoned procurement expert with experience at GM, Dell, Starbucks, and Albertsons. Jonathan provides a deep dive into procurement playbooks, revealing strategies and insights that top sales professionals can use to effectively counteract and leverage them.

Learn more about Jonathan: https://top1.fm/jonathan-gardner

Today, in this special episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast, Scott is joined by Jeff Bajorek to give you a bit of a preview and let you know what to expect on the 2021 Sales Success Summit.

Devon Banks is the top Sales Development Representative at HAAS Alert, an organization that builds lifesaving mobility solutions to make vehicles and roads safer and smarter. Their vision is a connected, collision-free world where everyone gets home safely. Devon is an incredibly dedicated and detailed sales professional who approaches sales with humanity, empathy, and an open mind.

This bonus episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Revenue Grid, Outreach, and QuotaPath who are not only supporting this show but also the upcoming Sales Success Summit and the free live streaming of that event on October 11th and 12th. Not only that but for every person who signs up for the live stream they will be making a contribution to UNCrushed, a platform and community for mental health awareness.

So do us all a favor and sign up for the Sales Success Summit live stream right now at Top1Summit.com, that's T-O-P the Number One, Summit dot com. Top1Summit.com and get access to some incredible content and support an incredible cause in the process. Top1Summit.com and while you're there you can click through to check out our sponsors as well.

Angie Donato is the top Senior Sales Executive in the HR Practice at Gartner, the world's leading research and advisory company. Gartner is an organization that equips business leaders with indispensable insights, advice, and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities. Angie is a highly intentional sales professional who takes the time to do things the right way.

In this week's bonus episode, I thought we might try to have just a little bit more fun. What I've got for you here is a series of 5 tips from the Daily Sales Tips podcast where we dialed up the humor a little bit, and the first one is actually a sneak preview because it's not even scheduled to release until this Friday. So I guess you heard it here first. For whatever reason, there's also a fair amount of singing involved here, but I really think you're going to enjoy these. Enjoy:

Pascal Kaldenbach is the top individual contributor and the Head of Sales at EPI-USE Labs in Central & Eastern Europe. EPI-USA Labs is a global software solutions company that helps their clients maximize the performance so they can make faster, more accurate business decisions. Pascal is an extremely successful and knowledgeable sales professional who understands the amount of hard work and dedication required to become a success in this profession.

In today's bonus episode of I wanted to share a bit of a preview of this year's Sales Success Summit. At this point, I've got about 70% of the agenda figured out, which is even more than it sounds like because I try to keep 15-20% of it undefined so we can be flexible in the moment and either go deeper into a particular topic that people are interested in, or explore something important that comes up that we don't already have accounted for in the scheduled talks. So I'll really only be adding 2-3 more scheduled speakers.

While I continue to work on that, let me tell you about what we do have set up so far and if you'll click over to top1.fm/2021preview I'll have all of these details in addition to links to each presenter's episode as well so you can go even deeper in your preparation for the event itself on October 11th and 12th.

Jennifer Zhou is the top Senior Account Executive at Attentive, a personalized text messaging platform built for innovative e-commerce brands. Attentive is the most comprehensive text message marketing solution, driving 18.5% of total online revenue for businesses by creating thoughtful SMS experiences. Jenn is an accomplished and knowledgeable sales professional who knows how to be effective and intentional in everything she does.

Lori Richardson is the founder of Women Sales Pros and a B2B sales and revenue growth strategist at her own firm, Score More Sales. Lori is also the host of the Conversations with Women in Sales Podcast, a show that features women in sales who are doing incredible work and their male counterparts who have become allies. Each episode features topics such as leadership, career management, overcoming adversity, sales and marketing alignment, content creation, and more.

This is the Sales Success Stories Podcast and I'm your host, Scott Ingram. I really appreciate you listening to this show, but listening is such a passive activity so I want to challenge you to get a little more involved in the Sales Success Community and to do something to improve yourself. So today I'm going to issue that challenge.

In this episode, Morgan shares her unique approach to categorizing deals and emphasizes the importance of a robust pipeline. She talks about her successful collaboration with her SDR, her disciplined sales strategy, and her innovative use of tools like Crossbeam and Gong. Morgan also highlights the critical roles of relationship building and trust, both within the sales team and with clients, stressing the importance of in-person interactions, even in our increasingly virtual world.

Learn more at top1.fm/184

Chris Horton is the top Key Account Executive at Workstream, a text recruiting and hiring tool for local businesses, especially restaurants. Chris is also the first rep in Workstream's history to close more than one million dollars, and he did it in just six months! His keys to success include turning ideas into action, bringing a vision of a bright future, and doing big things to change the world. Chris is a passionate sales professional who truly looks to provide meaningful and lasting value to his customers.

In today's bonus episode, Scott sits down with Chief Revenue Officer at Proposify, Conor Cox. Conor joins the show for a deep dive into the impact that proposal software can have on the closing side of the business. Scott and Conor discuss best practices to help you win a higher percentage of your deals and what Proposify is doing to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Conor talks in detail about the importance of having visibility and control over your proposals and speaks to how he structures his team at Proposify to put them in a position to be successful. Finally, Scott and Conor talk about the impact Proposify is having on management and how that is impacting their customers.

Patrick Joyce is a true one-percenter and he's also the first sales hire Scott has officially made in his journey towards building his very own world-class sales organization. Patrick has been a lifelong seller with a diverse background including graduate-level mathematics, secondary education, insurance, and SaaS. He's consulted over 100 startups and has a reputation for his unique ability to craft relevant, multichannel messaging that delivers results. Patrick has worked to successfully coach clients on breaking into new business ranging from SMB to Fortune 100 markets. Now, he's joined Sales Success Media to help Scott build something incredible and lasting!