The biggest myth that movies like The Wolf of Wall Street propagated about sales is that you need to be an a$$hole to succeed.

The truth is that most great salespeople who later move on to lead high-performing teams and start companies, typically begin by adopting a lone-wolf, success-at-all-cost mentality, which only gets you so far before limiting you from unlocking your true potential.

Today’s episode welcomes Adam Jay - a seasoned sales leader and ex-CRO who now runs Revenue Reimagined - a GTM Special-Ops team that gets in the trenches with their clients and helps them achieve their revenue goals. He’s also the co-host of the Revenue Reimagined podcast - a top 10% podcast designed for founders and revenue leaders looking to uncomplicate their revenue engines.

Adam calls himself a “recovering CRO”. He’s led sales in 7 different startups over 15 years, with his earlier experiences stemming from the healthcare industry. He’s been involved in many different industries over his career, all of which made him realize that the biggest problem founders face is getting their product to market and scaling revenue.

A great go-to-market strategy doesn’t save a bad product. Prior to working with a client, Adam’s team does a full audit of the business to understand the product and the problems they’re trying to solve. This process determines if the startup will sink or swim, ultimately answering if a potential engagement is the right move.

Adam speaks on his early sales career. He was the type of performer that gets to set his own rules and ignore collaborating with others. He knew that by asking the right questions and truly listening to his prospects is the key to success, but he wasn’t a big fan of sharing this knowledge with others - which ultimately held him back when he decided to pursue management positions. 

Unlocking the skill of truly understanding your prospects is no easy task - otherwise everyone would be a top performer in sales. Adam’s background in healthcare helped him a ton, because when you’re working with doctors you really need to understand what the true priorities and north stars of your prospects are. He recalls a situation where one of his teammates had tried to play the ROI card on a doctor, who sent them packing as the teammate didn’t understand the true priority of the prospect - saving lives.

Tune into the full episode to learn more on how to get ahead without being an a$$hole!

Connect with Adam - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambjay/

Connect with Alan - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-j-zhao/

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• (02:52) - The biggest problem founders face
• (05:39) - Is the consultancy space oversaturated?
• (06:43) - Unlocking the privilege of being an a$$hole
• (08:23) - The secret to becoming a top sales performer
• (12:14) - The problem with discovery calls
• (13:12) - Where competitive sellers fail
• (19:08) - Going from Sales Manager to VP of Sales
• (22:07) - Top performing rep to top performing leader