Teaching Startups To Fish

In the sprint of startups, catch phrases like resilience, tenacity and rebound are brandished as the crowning qualities for success. But who personifies these better than athletes? Immersed in a world of discipline, diligence and constant iterations to improve, they bring in a fierce wave of value into the business landscape. Join us in this episode of Teaching Startups To Fish, where we dive deep into the potency of this ground-breaking synergy.

Chartering this exciting territory with Mladen Jovanovic is no other than Alex Opacic, the brains behind Athlete2Business and a former professional basketball player. Opacic opens up about his personal transformation from athletic stardom to stupendous success in sales, inspiring the establishment of Athlete2Business. Join us to explore how athletes channel their indomitable spirit into pushing groundbreaking strides in sales roles, emerging as true game-changers in the corporate field.

Timestamps

1. Introduction and Background (00:00:15 - 00:04:56): Introduction to the episode, welcoming Alex Opacic, providing a quick introduction about his professional background, his origins, journey to professional basketball, and the transition to sales.

2. Life After Basketball and Beginning in Sales (00:04:56 - 00:09:33): Rehabilitation, interest in PR jobs, transferable skills from professional athlete to sales, and Alex's successful start in sales.

3. Sales Skills and Experiences (00:09:33 - 00:16:18): Keys to successful salespeople, learning through failure, the importance of commercial awareness, and introduction to Athlete2Business.

4. Athletes in Business (00:16:18 - 00:20:49): What sports produce successful salespeople, sectors where athletes excel, business and athletes.

5. Evaluating Skills and Hiring (00:20:49 - 00:34:41): Evaluating various skills such as communication, humble confidence, emotional intelligence, commercial awareness, tips for hiring salespeople, the difficulty of hiring salespeople, interviewing and understanding personal values, changes in the recruitment process, the three stages of interviews, and roleplay in sales interviews.

6. Sales and Recruitment Future Outlook (00:34:41 - 00:41:06): Importance of the discovery call, future predictions about the world of sales, evolution of recruitment and sales roles, discussing technology's potential and limitations, automation in the sales process, the role of humans in sales in the future, final thoughts and wrapping up the discussion, and Alex's contact information and concluding remarks.

Here’s how to get in touch with Alex Opacic: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexopacic

Here are three ways generative AI is able to empower Account Executives and the broader teams within the company: 

1) New generative AI tools are perfect for Account Executives to leverage the opportunity to learn from their peers and foster a collaborative environment within the company.

2) When AEs are torn between giving their full attention to their customers during meetings and taking notes. With generative AI tools, AEs are now able to give their full attention to the customer and run thorough discoveries, with the AI tools taking care of the heavy administrative lifting. 

3) Further to fostering a collaborative environment, generative AI tools are able to provide summarise of the sales conversations the teams are having to the broader team to improve the sales performance of the other AEs and ADRs. 

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro to Shruti, Wingman and Clari

08:40 - The impact of having alignment between product, sales, marketing, and all other departments within the company

11:00 - When new generative AI tech is introduced into an organisation, what is the response from AEs and how does that improve their performance?

20:20 - How sophisticated will AI get into the future and what capabilities will companies have with these tools

33:00 - What generative AI will hold for future job opportunities

27:00 - How sales team structures will change in the future due to AI

29:00 - How sales people can stay relevant in this new world of AI and sales tech

Here's how to get in touch with Shruti Kapoor: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shrutikapoor/

Here are three things to consider when expanding your company to the US from Evan Augustine: 

1) Generally, things are much more formal in the US regarding meetings. Have an agenda, leave some time to get to know the people you're meeting, and make sure you dress to impress on the first meeting - it's always easier to dress down. 

2) If you have a specific vertical you're targeting, go where your customers are. If your customers are broad and you need to be everywhere, base yourself somewhere central where you have direct flights to East Coast and West Coast.

3) Start small, then go big. Find some reference clients that would be happy to speak on your behalf, then expand to the bigger contracts. 

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro to Evan and how he attained success

08:00 - Transactional vs relationship-driven sales and how they differ between countries

14:27 - Communication styles and cultural differences to consider

20:30 - Other things to consider when expanding your company to the US

33:10 - Structuring your sales teams and how it's changing

37:20 - What the future world of sales looks like

Here's how to get in touch with Evan Augustine: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-augustine-b94b0114/ 

Three key reasons why startups have long sales cycles:

1) You're talking about your product far too much

2) You don't understand the risk to the organisation

3) You don't understand all of the key parts of how an infrequent buyer makes a buying decision

Timestamps

00:00 - 3:25: JD's history and the impact he has made so far with Sales Director Central

3:26 - 10:40: Biggest mistakes founders make when scaling from $0-$1M

10:41 - 18:20: When to hire salespeople and how to get customer buy-in for you to help them write the internal business case

18:21 - 23:30: How to align your sales process with your customer's buying cycle and how not to use templates

23:30 - 34:05: How to have run thorough discovery and have impactful conversations with customers

34:06 - 39:59: How do you build rapport with customers

40:00 - 45:45: How to find your champion

45:46 - 51:00: How the world of sales is going to look in the future

Here’s how to get in touch with John (JD) Dean:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdthekatalyst/