What was it like to be a woman in sales 35 years ago and how have things changed since then? Describing herself as a 'small blonde woman from England making her way in the Italian property market' in the 1980s, my guest in Episode 6 is Linda Travella , founder of Casa Travella, the leading Italian property specialists. From difficult, rather prejudiced, beginnings, Linda has built a great name in the international property market and her company has continued to thrive, both through the financia...
Dec 22, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 3Ep. 6
We're focusing exclusively on Women in Sales for this series and my guest in Episode 5 is Alison Rocks , Senior Business Development Manager at Sprint Logistics. What I liked about having Alison on the show is the fact that she remains 100% an active salesperson; ie. her job focuses on sales and sales alone. When she first came into the working world, Alison answered a job advert listed in the back of a newspaper (remember them?!) to join the world of media sales and quickly realised that she'd ...
Dec 08, 2022•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 5
Women are under-represented in sales so this series focuses exclusively on Women in Sales. My guest in Episode 4 is Caroline Mastoras , Client Director at Salesforce. As well as her day job with the tech giant, she is also Bloom President 2022 and a winner at Women in Sales Awards 2022. Caroline's varied career, from a short stint in teaching to years of sales in both media and tech, has brought her success and an insight into the importance of diversity in the workplace, not least the role of w...
Nov 24, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Women are under-represented in sales so this series focuses exclusively on Women in Sales. My guest in Episode 3 is Nicola Cook , Founder, CEO and Chief Opportunity Officer of Company Shortcuts, a specialist in sales acceleration. As well as running her successful and fast-growing company, Nicola is also an award-winning entrepreneur , a busy (and award-winning) public speaker and the author of 2 bestselling books . Nicola's vast business experience, expert sales insight and no-nonsense style of...
Nov 10, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Women are under-represented in sales so this series focuses exclusively on Women in Sales. My guest in Episode 2 is Dr Cindy McGovern , Founder and CEO of Orange Leaf Consulting, bestselling author of 2 books and an inspirational keynote speaker on sales and business growth. After starting her career in academia, Cindy switched to the business world to help people understand that we're all in sales so why not do it properly?! Based in San Francisco, California with a global client list, she pass...
Oct 27, 2022•54 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Women are under-represented in sales so this series focuses exclusively on Women in Sales. My guest in Episode 1 is Helga Saraiva-Stewart , a passionate and inspirational sales leader with a successful international sales record. After 2 decades of successful selling in London with Bloomberg, Reuters and HSBC amongst others, Helga is now based in Lisbon wearing 3 hats, each one with sales leadership at its heart. Tune into this episode as we explore Helga's view on cold calling , one the most fe...
Oct 13, 2022•57 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Host Paul Owen reflects on his interviews with 6 business leaders across Series 2. Each leader was asked 3 core questions: 1. What makes a successful sales team? 2. How to motivate yourself and your teams when growing a business; 3. The role of leadership in company growth. In this episode, Paul shares one or two highlights on each point from each leader to give you a flavour of what they said and a prompt you to listen to the interviews in full (for the first or second time!). In addition, each...
Jun 30, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 7
Host Paul Owen meets John Barrows, Founder and CEO of JB Sales, specialists in sales training and consultancy services. John and his team have worked with the likes of Salesforce, Google and Dropbox as well as many other fast-growing names in the tech world. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, John has helped teams across the USA and around the world, clocking up 2 million air miles as he takes his message of 'Sell Better' to every continent. 3 key areas are discussed in each episode with an experie...
Jun 16, 2022•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 6
Host Paul Owen meets Julie Rodilosso, insurance entrepreneur and now Global Sales Director at 360Globalnet. In 1995, Julie founded Rarrigini & Rosso, building it from scratch to a leading name in the insurance industry with 200+ employees. In 2003, it was sold for £12 million. Having worked since age 14, I'm not sure Julie will ever stop and she is now using her expertise to help 360Globalnet grow their market share in a role that brings together technology and insurance. 3 key areas are dis...
Jun 02, 2022•51 min•Season 2Ep. 5
Host Paul Owen meets Royston Guest, Founder and CEO of Pathways Global. A fast growth consultancy and technology business, Pathways Global helps business owners avoid costly trial and error in growing and scaling their business. As well as running the company and working with clients, Royston is also a best selling author, a sought-after conference speaker and executive coach. Since selling his first business after just 3 years, Royston has since built multiple businesses and works with a portfo...
May 19, 2022•46 min•Season 2Ep. 4
Host Paul Owen meets Michael Tobin OBE, CEO of Telecity from 2002 to 2014, a company he took from £6 million to £1.7 billion market cap during his tenure. Now wearing many hats as entrepreneur, investor, mentor and philanthropist, Mike focuses much of his fund-raising efforts on children's charities. In 2016, Mike ran 40 marathons in 40 days to raise money for the Prince's Trust and, in 2020, he completed an immense 60-mile nautical trek across the Antarctic plateau to the South Pole to raise fu...
May 05, 2022•47 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Host Paul Owen meets Chris Brindley MBE, former MD of Metro Bank, who stepped away from the corporate world to undertake a portfolio career as NED, International Speaker, Executive Coach and Consultant in business and sport. Chris's current roles include Chair of Rugby League World Cup 2021 and, in the football world, Business Mentor to the Premier League. He was awarded an MBE for services to sport. 3 key areas are discussed in each episode with an experienced business leader: 1. What makes a s...
Apr 21, 2022•40 min•Season 2Ep. 2
Host Paul Owen meets Nicola Cook, Founder and CEO of Company Shortcuts, a consultancy that specialises in helping companies achieve rapid growth. As well as training and consulting on all things sales, Nicola is the author of 2 bestselling books and a highly respected international speaker on sales and business growth. 3 key areas are discussed in each episode with an experienced business leader: 1. What makes a successful sales team? 2. How to motivate yourself and your teams when growing a bus...
Apr 06, 2022•45 min•Season 2Ep. 1
Series 2 of our podcast takes us in a new direction and with a new name. SECRET SKILL. HIDDEN CAREER: The Truth About Sales is being re-branded: The Sales Talent Podcast: GROWTH. PROFIT. VALUE . The new series will focus on those 3 words. Host Paul Owen will welcome guests with proven track records of success in scaling teams through the improvement of the sales function. His questions will unlock the secrets of their success and will reveal ideas, structures, processes and insights that you can...
Mar 02, 2021•4 min0
Dominic Cotton , former BBC broadcast journalist and now co-founder of fast-growing start-up Cyclo Technology, hosts this final episode of Series 1 to ask Paul Owen to review the ups and downs of 24 episodes of the first series. What went well? Best guest? Who turned down an invitation to appear? Has the podcast gone global and has it changed negative perceptions around sales? Finally, Dom asks Paul ‘So What Now?’ and hears about plans for the next series of the podcast, taking it up a level or ...
May 07, 2020•31 min•Season 1Ep. 24
Our first guest from the USA, Dr Cindy McGovern joins host, Paul Owen, to talk about her journey from academia to sales and why she believes Every Job is a Sales Job (the title of her book, a Wall Street Journal bestseller). Based in San Francisco and working with clients across the world, Cindy now specialises in helping companies grow their business through the improvement of their sales performance with much of her work focused on non-salespeople. In this episode, she explains why sales is mu...
Apr 23, 2020•43 min•Season 1Ep. 23
50 years of sales experience is shared in this episode as host Paul Owen explores the art of closing with guests, Maz Ahmad and Angus Buckle . (NB. Recorded online during the Coronavirus pandemic, the sound in this episode is occasionally less clear than usual but please stick with us – 99% of the content is loud and clear, with thanks to our technical team!). Maz, Angus and Paul dedicate a large proportion of this episode to the mindset of closing conversations well, including how to be confide...
Apr 09, 2020•51 min•Season 1Ep. 22
Joining host, Paul Owen, in this episode is Emily Macdonald who started her successful business career in the world of wine in her home city of Auckland before leaving for a 2-year experience of travelling in Europe. A couple of decades later and she’s still here, still selling wine and still having a ball! Having pitched herself into her first job in sales, she faced the old-fashioned world of wine and hospitality which was not always particularly welcoming to women in those times. She explains...
Mar 26, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 21
Passionate salespeople want to share the wide range of benefits their products or services offer but the danger is that verbal diarrhoea is the result. They talk, they list, they explain and they prove. Or so they think! What actually happens is that they lose their audience and run the risk of losing the deal. In this episode, Paul Owen is joined by successful sales leader, Patricia Tosi , and one of most outstanding young salespeople Paul has met, Alex Roberton , to explore ways in which to ke...
Mar 12, 2020•45 min•Season 1Ep. 20
Having worked for media giants Newsweek, Bloomberg and CNBC, John Pentin has had an amazing career and a fun-filled life. Now Head of Sales at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council, he connects the world's most powerful and influential business leaders to share ideas and discuss issues shaping the future. His sales career started at 19 when his father kicked him out of the house, telling him to come back later when he’d found a job. After a day in the pub, he got a job from a call on the journey...
Feb 27, 2020•28 min•Season 1Ep. 19
When the time comes to sell, we can be tempted to jump into a description of how our product or service will solve the problems uncovered but buyers don’t just buy a product or service; they also buy the company offering it. In sales conversations, it’s important to make sure our company’s qualities are clear before we talk about the products and services we offer, yet many salespeople don’t sell their company – it’s a huge omission. Why don’t we do it? And, if we accept we should, how do we add...
Feb 13, 2020•40 min•Season 1Ep. 18
Julian Miall is back with us, talking this time about his own career and the lessons he learnt in sales. Julian, along with his business partner, led a management buyout of Ad2One – a specialist digital sales company - when it was generating just £20,000 revenue a month and built it to annual revenues of $50 million and a team of 100. In 2016, they sold the company and exited the business. Going back to the beginning of his career, Julian found that the corporate bigwigs to whom he was applying ...
Jan 30, 2020•34 min•Season 1Ep. 17
Learning how to ask sales questions is one of the most difficult things to do when you first start to sell because there are so many variables. In this episode, Paul Owen welcomes successful entrepreneur Julian Miall and sales leader and university lecturer Tim Chapman to discuss some of the fundamentals of sales questioning. How do you get started with your sales questions? What’s a good framework for assessing a client’s needs? With stories from their lives in media sales, big pharma and globa...
Jan 16, 2020•32 min•Season 1Ep. 16
Having had high hopes of becoming a pilot, Barney Stinton never meant to become a salesperson. However, 15 years later, he now works at the top level of sales with global names across many industries. His sales career began shortly after graduation with a Eureka moment whilst racing cars as a gamer. He ditched the game and landed his first sales job selling Ferraris for Joe Macari, a job that combined his passion for cars with his skills (then unknown) in sales. Host Paul Owen asks Barney questi...
Jan 02, 2020•35 min•Season 1Ep. 15
To become an outstanding communicator, you must ask questions and listen to the answers. They will tell you everything you need to know as you search for the most important thing in sales: the truth. Too often, though, people don’t find out the truth and their ability to satisfy their customer becomes a lucky dip. There are five key benefits to asking questions in sales conversations and these are discussed with sales leader John Pentin and entrepreneur Jamie Lester. With host, Paul Owen, they e...
Dec 19, 2019•39 min•Season 1Ep. 14
With 20 years’ sales experience, Catherine Schalk is a certified coach, speaker and trainer for The John Maxwell Company. She also runs her own sales enablement business - Inkwazi Communications - and has been involved in over 3,000 sales enablement initiatives across the globe. In 2015, Catherine was named the Top Female Executive for Excellence in Professional Training and Coaching. In this episode, Paul Owen asks Catherine about the lessons learnt early in her sales career in South Africa (in...
Dec 05, 2019•35 min•Season 1Ep. 13
The words you say matter most but the way you say them helps too. In this episode, our host, Paul Owen, is joined by entrepreneurs Josh Cohen and Dominic Cotton as they discuss the key factors to help present your stories (and your business messages) in the right tone of voice to create the right impression. How do you add credibility, gravitas and humanity to the words you use in business conversations? *Series 1 of our podcast - Episodes 1-24 - was branded differently and so might initially co...
Nov 21, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 12
Having created and grown a company, BigHand, with his brother’s best friend, Gordon McAlpine sold it and is now an Executive Mentor and Coach plus a bestselling author. Despite being responsible for sales at BigHand, Gordon started his career with no interest in sales, only applying for marketing jobs. A quiet kid at school, he thought sales wouldn’t suit him yet soon discovered that salespeople are made, not born. In this episode, you’ll hear why Gordon believes his first job in sales was the m...
Nov 07, 2019•38 min•Season 1Ep. 11
The first step of a sales conversation is the shortest part, it’s the easiest part to prepare and it’s the easiest to practise. However, it remains the hardest part to do when you first start selling. Our host, Paul Owen, is joined in this episode by Catherine Schalk and Ben Rowland as they discuss how to create the best first impression when starting conversations, whether over the phone or face-to-face. Get the first few seconds right and you’re in with a chance of success; get it wrong and th...
Oct 24, 2019•41 min•Season 1Ep. 10
Former MD of Metro Bank and one of the UK’s most prominent executive leaders, Chris Brindley MBE left his Manchester school at 16 with very few qualifications. The excellent reports on his people skills from teachers were a far better indicator of his future success than any exam result or academic achievement. How did Chris turn those skills into the secret of his incredible success and what can we all learn from his life? *Series 1 of our podcast - Episodes 1-24 - was branded differently and s...
Oct 10, 2019•32 min•Season 1Ep. 9
