Bill “PhoneBill” McClain

UponAI

As a Partner at Uponai.com, I will be responsible for a wide range of strategic and operational activities to drive the growth and success of the organization. Playing a key role in shaping the company's overall vision, strategy, and direction, collaborating closely with other partners and key stakeholders.

Key Responsibilities:
1. Strategic Planning: Contribute to the development of the company's long-term strategy, taking into account market trends, customer insights, and competitive landscape. Help identify growth opportunities and potential risks, working closely with the executive team to formulate effective strategies and action plans.

2. Business Development: Foster and maintain strong relationships with key clients, partners, and industry leaders. Identify and pursue new business opportunities, strategic partnerships, and alliances to expand Uponai.com's market presence and drive revenue growth.

3. Operational Excellence: Oversee and improve the company's operational efficiency, including but not limited to finance, HR, marketing, and technology. Continuously evaluate and optimize internal processes and systems to drive cost-effectiveness, scalability, and overall organizational effectiveness.

4. Team Leadership: Provide inspirational leadership and mentorship to the team, encouraging a positive and collaborative work culture. Foster talent development, attracting top talent, and promoting a high-performance culture throughout the organization.

5. Financial Management: Ensure the financial health and sustainability of the company by monitoring financial performance, establishing sound financial controls, and driving profitability. Collaborate with the finance team to develop and execute financial strategies and goals aligned with the company's overall objectives.

6. Industry and Market Analysis: Stay abreast of industry trends, technological advancements, and competitive intelligence. Conduct extensive market research and analysis.

CEO Founding Partner

StratusDial, LLC

Does the idea of switching phone providers for your business sound like a permanent migraine? Here’s what’s worse:

Turning your customers away because you’re unable to provide a good phone customer experience because of lousy support from your business phone provider.

When you entrust ☎️PhoneBill (& the team at StratusDial) with your company’s new voice, here’s what you get:

✔️ Pre-installation audit to locate savings (sometimes $9000!) & lower your operating costs
✔️ Take care of allllllllll the prep, installation, routing, testing… everything done-for-you
✔️ Hold your hand through set-up & advise you on phone experience best practices
✔️ Latest phone features for maximum efficiency (hello, Office365 integration!)
✔️ Custom set-up the big providers won’t do (e.g. overhead paging system)
✔️ 60-day and 90-day check-ins to make sure you love your new system
✔️ Eager-to-help technical support, 24/7

As a smaller (but mightier!) provider, we can deliver the type of boutique service that the large competitors wish they could deliver. 😉

Ready to have your business phone system work for you (not against you) in bringing more clients to your business?

Message ☎️PhoneBill on LinkedIn. I’ll sort you out.

Founder President & CEO

Networking Solutions, Inc.

I take care of your business’s networking connectivity needs in a done-for-you fashion so you and your team can efficiently work from anywhere, anytime.

Here are some of the things we can do for you:

✔️ Set up your network infrastructure (servers, routers, firewalls, etc.)
✔️ Bring internet connectivity to your network
✔️ Install a unified VoIP phone system
✔️ Make sure your business is protected via cybersecurity
✔️ Seamlessly connect your internal resources (servers, storage, printers, scanners, etc.)

The Cloud Voice Alliance

The President of the Cloud Voice Alliance (CVA) is responsible for leading and managing the organization, which is focused on advancing the use and development of cloud-based voice technology. The role involves overseeing the day-to-day operations of the CVA, setting strategic goals and objectives, representing the organization at industry forums and events, and collaborating with members and partners to promote innovation and best practices. The President must have a deep understanding of the voice technology space and be able to navigate complex industry dynamics while championing the interests of the CVA members. The role requires excellent leadership, communication, and organizational skills, as well as the ability to drive consensus among diverse stakeholders.

President

Technology Advisor Alliance

As a member of the Technology Advisor Alliance, I am creating further value for our customers through critical discussions with industry leaders. The TAA is a peer community for solving problems, sharing best practices, & supporting each other

Advisory Board Member

Took a break fix company and created a Networking Services division that became profitable in less than one year and is still thriving today.

This position also gave me the motivation to start my own company with the following quote from one of the business owners: "If you think it is so easy, you should do it yourself"

Senior Networking Engineer

CMS IT Services

Assistant VP Lan Applications

Hunton & Williams LLP

Technology Support Services

You can call Gates, Joel, Murray, or Clinton…but only this Bill has the answer 💪 UCaaS Provider - VoIP- ☎️

Pioneering the intersection of AI and business communications as a 3X founder. 

Currently revolutionizing voice technology through UponAI while leading innovative UCaaS and CCaaS solutions at StratusDial, backed by extensive experience at Networking Solutions.

At StratusDial, I've transformed business communications by:
• Implementing cost-saving solutions that reduce operating expenses by up to $9,000
• Developing seamless Office365 integrations and advanced VoIP systems
• Building a 24/7 technical support infrastructure that maintains 99.9% uptime
• Creating custom UCaaS/CCaaS solutions for diverse enterprise needs

Through UponAI, I'm pushing the boundaries of:
• AI-powered voice recognition and natural language processing
• Intelligent call routing and automated customer service solutions
• Machine learning algorithms for enhanced communication efficiency
• Voice-enabled business intelligence and analytics

My entrepreneurial journey spans:
🔹 Advanced Telecommunications
🔹 Enterprise Network Architecture
🔹 Cloud Communications
🔹 AI/ML Implementation
🔹 Business Process Automation

Proud to be recognized by industry leaders, including Eric Hernaez, Founder & President of SkySwitch, for maintaining exceptional service standards and driving continuous innovation in business communications.

Specialties:
#AIVoice #UCaaS #CCaaS #CloudCommunications #NetworkingSolutions #VoIP #BusinessIntelligence #EnterpriseNetworking #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalTransformation

Looking to connect with:
• Business leaders seeking communication solutions
• Technology innovators in AI and voice tech
• Enterprise clients exploring digital transformation
• Fellow entrepreneurs in the tech space

Let's discuss how AI-powered voice solutions can transform your business communications. Open to partnerships, collaborations, and innovative ventures.


Founder -

Networking Solutions 29 years
StratusDial 13 years
UponAi 2 years

3X Founder - 0X Exits

Bill (PhoneBill) McClain

Inside Sales Expert

Taking new clients only on a referral basis.

Helping leaders at early stage tech companies avoid mistakes in all aspects of growing their sales team in the US.

CRO and Founder

SmartBound

Sales development is changing rapidly with the advent of artificial intelligence.

For most CROs and sales leaders, asking "How can I use AI to power my pipeline generation team" leaves more questions than answers.

The team at SmartBound have an answer.

SmartBound combine two powerful things that make pipeline generation easier and more consistent: AI tooling and a conversation-first methodology.

I'm excited to join them as a Strategic Advisor as they grow their business.

Strategic Advisor

It Happened on the Sales Floor-100 Sensational Stories About Sales Leadership Screw-Ups and Big-Wins

📢 Exciting News! 🎉 My audiobook "It Happened on the Sales Floor: 100 Sensational Stories About Sales Leadership Screw-Ups and Big Wins" is now available on Audible! 🎧📚

In this audiobook, I share 28 years of sales and sales leadership experience at tech startups. Learn from mentors, my countless mistakes, and the resilience that led to success in building sales teams. Topics covered include hiring, training, coaching, firing, sales processes, leadership challenges, and more.

This audiobook is an easy-to-read companion, not a heavy instruction manual. Pick it up with your morning coffee, read a couple of stories, and gain valuable takeaways for the day. I wish I had this book 20 years ago to avoid mistakes and achieve success quicker.

Get your copy on Audible and learn from my sales leadership mistakes: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0C6FRZ1MC/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-353065&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_353065_rh_us 🎧📖

#SalesLeadership #AudiobookRelease #SuccessStories

Author

IVP Paragons are hand-selected operating executives with unique skills and a willingness to advise IVP portfolio companies become enduring market leaders. Paragons are experts at their craft, have a desire to give back, and actively want to participate in the start-up community (anywhere from Series B to newly
public companies).

(Full Disclosure:  I do not work FOR IVP.  This is an advisory role for their portfolio companies)

Paragon Advisor

Trellis Research

Advisor

Schmoop, LLC

Managing Member

Wonderway

Boldr

SEON Fraud Fighters

Hirect App

Helping leaders at early stage tech companies avoid mistakes in all aspects of growing their sales team | Advisor

Kevin has made 1000s of mistakes but that has made him successful. After building, fixing and growing sales teams at 8 startups and 3 liquidity events, he loves sharing these mistakes and learning lessons from over 25 years at pre-IPO tech companies so that you can avoid these mistakes and see faster success.

With KG, you get experience, not inexperienced opinions.

✅ 3 startups I’ve been with have had liquidity events (none fire sales)

✅ Helped build 3 businesses into Inc 500/Deloitte Fast 500 companies (that means fast revenue growth)

✅ Built sales teams at 8 Startups since 1997

✅ Built teams of 30 salespeople - 550 salespeople with GREAT gross margins

✅ Built multiple Inside Sales, SDR/BDR, Account Management and Enterprise Sales teams.

✅ Been in Sales Leadership since 1997

✅ Started 3 of my own businesses (Recruiting, Advising, Real Estate)

✅ Named to the AA-ISP Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professionals 6 years in a row

✅ Made lots and lots of mistakes

Check out the recommendations section below to read what other people have said about me. 👇

Kevin Gaither

I hired this woman to sell for me and let me tell you, she absolutely sucked in her 1st 90 days.

But then she made President's Club 🎉

I was thinking, "Boy, I think I've made a hiring mistake with this one. Maybe I should let her go."

In her first 90 days, she wasn't ramping like all the rest. Wasn't nailing demos. Wasn't closing sales.

But she kept working at it. Hard. REALLY HARD. Following the playbook.

And she was unbelievably coachable. We listened to calls together. She listened to her calls by herself. Whatever I coached her on, she put it into place on the very next call.

And then it started clicking for her and by the end of the year, she made President's Club!

Learning Lesson: There's 4 types of salespeople:

➡️ Not coachable, not hitting goals. Term quickly. Like ASAP.

➡️ Not coachable but hitting or exceeding goals. Leave them alone and don't let anybody else on the team try to emulate them. These are naturals. They don't know why they're successful but they are.

➡️ Coachable and hitting goals. These are the examples you use for the rest of your team.

➡️ Coachable/Hard-Working but not hitting goals. Keep working with them in a defined, limited window. You'll be surprised how many will make it through when you give them good, solid coaching.

In your experience, how long would you work with a coachable salesperson who is not hitting their goals? 

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople like this, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

(2) Feed | LinkedIn

li_at

JSESSIONID

Talks about #sales, #startup, #leadership, #insidesales, and #peoplehelpingpeople

CEO @ InsideSalesExpert.com Helping sales leaders avoid galactically ridiculous mistakes in all areas of building, fixing & growing their sales teams

6 of my sales reps forced me to hire a woman as their sales manager. 

Don't be so surprised. She was one of the best sales leaders I've ever had the fortune to work with.

But the way this all went down was crazy and a learning lesson for me.

We were ramping up our sales team and I started hiring a bunch of people from a failing daily deal site.

I personally do reference checks and I kept talking to this one sales leader, Lauren Delfino.

Finally, I had hired 6 reps that had worked for her and they finally came to me and said

"KG, you have to hire her. She'll be a game-changer for our sales team!"

And so I did. And she was. Grew one of our sales teams from 50 reps to over 150 reps. Helped open up a new sales office in AZ. Crushed it.

💡 Learning Lesson: When you're hiring for new sales leaders, ask your sales reps who were THEIR favorite former sales managers and start networking with them to recruit and hire them.

What are some creative tactics you've used to recruit sales leadership talent?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

This dude legitimately showed up to an interview with me for a B2B tech sales job with neck tattoos & sleeves. 

I actually hired them!

At first, I was shocked. Couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Really? This isn't very professional. AT. ALL.

But I stuck to the objective hiring process I had created. Asked all my questions and remained open-minded as I listened to the answers.

I was blown away. Behind all that ink was one of the most humble, hard working, positive and motivated people I had ever interviewed. Not cocky and assumptive.

I hired that person and they turned out to be one of the best salespeople I have ever hired in my entire career.

Good thing I didn't judge the book by its cover right?

💡 Learning Lessons: 

✅ Develop your salesperson hiring benchmark with objective characteristics, 

✅ judge them based on their answers and their actions and not by how they look. 

✅ Reserve judgement on the candidate for after the interview, not before.

Removing bias from the interview process is critical. You miss out on great hires when you introduce bias into the interview process.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

My rep laughed when she got hung up on. 🤣

I hired this rep whose only previous sales experience was selling lingerie at Nordstroms. No B2B. No phone sales. No tech.

But I observed that she scored very high on optimism, resiliency and coachability during the interview.

So I took a chance on her anyway to break into B2B tech sales. What a great hire!

We were all on an open sales floor. I had a low-walled cubicle right on the other side of hers. 

When she got hung up on, she would stand up, peer over the cubicle at me and laugh about how she got hung up on. "Their loss," she would say.

And then sit down and go right back to making more cold calls without skipping another beat. My word.

The learning lesson here: When you're a leader hiring for new reps, sometimes the ones with NO relevant experience can be your best reps if they are optimistic, resilient and coachable.

Make sure you build that into your interview scorecards.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Hiring and Interviewing Bundle in the the first comment.

Going from 0 to 1 in sales is brutal.

When I joined ZipRecruiter, I was employee #49.
No CRM.
No sales team.
No real process.

Just me, two other reps with no quota, and a phone.
So I picked it up myself.

For months, I sold solo.
Not because I loved cold calls, but because I had to understand how this product sold before hiring anyone else.

We had:
❌ No training program
❌ No reports
❌ No CRM
❌ No commission plans
❌ No quotas
❌ No recruiting process
❌ No onboarding
❌ No pipeline reviews
❌ No forecasting

You know what else we didn’t have?
Office space.

I literally walked around Santa Monica looking for office space so new reps would have somewhere to sit.
When that didn’t work, we turned a glass conference room into a bullpen, right outside of where the engineers sat....they hated that.

Imagine 4 salespeople, shoulder-to-shoulder, cold calling all day inside a glass echo chamber.
It was chaos.
It was loud.
It was glorious.

Because that’s what 0 to 1 looks like.
Not slides. Not strategy. Not headcount projections.
It’s dirty. It’s loud. It’s messy.

And most people don’t want to do it.
They want to inherit.
Not build.

But here’s what I know:
If you’ve never gone 0 to 1, it’s hard to respect how hard it is.
And if you have gone 0 to 1, you never forget it and my hat is off to you.

Takeaway: The best GTM leaders aren’t born in boardrooms. They’re built in broken systems they had to fix themselves.

For most sales leaders, you're not just in it for the titles and the money.

Heck, if you were in it for the money, might as well be an IC and not have to deal with all the BS of being a sales leader.

No, you're in it because you can really make a positive and indelible mark one someone's life for decades to come.

Go do that.

PS: he took a chance working for me too...

The last time this person worked for me was exactly 18 years ago and I just got this text from them a few months ago.

This kind of stuff makes me so happy to read. A salesperson who worked for me nearly two decades ago still wants to share their successes with me long after we worked together.

If you're a sales leader and you're having a rough time, getting messages like this from salespeople who used to work for you is extremely up-lifting.

Wanna share some messages former reps have sent you in the comments?

graphical user interface, text, application, chat or text message

I hired an "experienced" sales manager and boy what a mistake that was. 🙇

We were scaling my inside sales team and needed to hire a bunch of new sales managers.

And I was referred to a guy who was literally at a direct competitor.

Nearly the exact same product. Same sales cycle. Same inside sales motion. Same deal size. Why wouldn't that be a fit?

My word, what a mistake that was. This guy was a train-wreck.

👎 He was a micromanager

👎 Managed through fear and intimidation

👎 Wouldn't listen to me or any of his supervisors 

👎 Made excuses for why he behaved the way he behaved

I fired him in less than 90 days. 

💡 Learning lesson: Just because the sales manager came from a direct competitor don't assume that they will be a good fit for YOUR TEAM and YOUR CULTURE.

Include the cultural questions in your sales manager hiring benchmark such as...

"Tell me about the last time you had an underperforming rep, what did you do about it?"

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

When I was an inexperienced sales leader, I used to think Urgency was something you could coach.

I don’t believe that anymore.

Urgency is either in someone’s DNA or it isn’t.
It shows up in their current and past actions.
It shows up in their business AND personal lives.
And you usually don't have to dig that deep to see it...when it's actually there.

The candidates who follow up without being told.
The ones who are closing for next steps at the end of the interview.
The ones who treat the job interview like a live deal, not some B$ chat.

You can’t fake that kind of pace.
And you can’t teach someone to care more than they actually do.

Yeah, you can force Urgency.
Riding the rep to get stuff done quickly.

But that's no fun, for anybody involved.

So if you’re hiring sales talent, I’ll say the quiet part out loud that many of you might object to (that's okay):

You’re better off hiring somebody with Urgency than hoping you can train or coach for it and then hope it shows up later.

That gamble will cost you revenue and it might even cost you your job.

My favorite interview question to test for it?

“Tell me about a time you were up against a tight deadline or quota. What did you do when it looked like you might miss it?”

What to listen for:

Do they take immediate ownership and problem-solve fast, or do they rationalize and delay?

Do they talk about proactive actions (calling prospects, re-prioritizing pipeline, staying late, asking for help) or passive reactions (“waited to see what would happen”)?

And then ask them to tell you about ANOTHER time.

Urgency, in the truly urgent, shows up consistently and recently. Not every once in a while.

If they can't show you that they already have urgency, you’ll end up begging them to BE urgent later.

And that’s not your job as a sales leader.

Lesson I’ve learned from tons of my own hiring mistakes?

Hire the people who already show Urgency. You can't train that.

You don’t “own part of the company” when you join a pre-IPO tech startup and get stock options.

You own a promise.

And most promises never cash out....like 90% chance your stock options will be worth NOTHING.

To make matters worse, Founders rarely explain your stock options to you.

And most employees never read the fine print either and/or self-educate, that's on them. They just sign and cross their fingers. Stupid.

Stock options in that sexy new AI startup sound like magic. The next big rocketship in flight. The HUGE potential payday.

Of course, it's a story we all want to believe but it rarely happens and if it does, it's rarely material.

I've been at 8 startups. 3 have had liquidity events, but that means that 5 did not have liquidity events.

So from experience, here’s what actually happens:

The valuation is inflated.
The vesting schedule is brutal.
The exit timeline? You think they're going to tell YOU?

Liquidity? Don’t hold your breath. If you're lucky you have a 1 in 6 chance of a liquidity event and even then, it won't be helicopter money like you think it should be.

Oh and here's one you'll learn the hard way...

You still owe taxes...even if your shares end up being worthless.

And if you have vested stock options but leave before some sort of liquidity event...God help you....

You’ve got 90 days to buy them or lose everything.

So should you ever join a startup just for the equity?

In my experience and in my opinion, never.

Equity is a lottery ticket. It's the icing on the cake.

Your cash comp is critical. If you can’t live on the cash, don’t gamble on the stock option upside because the chances of it happening are slim to none.

And if the Founders can’t back up the value of the options with a real, competitive TOTAL offer, to me, that’s a red flag.

Join for the mission.
Join for the team.
Join because you love the work (because you'll be working your ASS off, no quiet quitting)

But don’t join because someone promised you 0.03% and told you it’ll be “worth billions one day.”

That's just a trick. Don't be a fool.

Learning lessons: if you're going to work at pre-IPO tech startups, you had better learn about Employee Stock Options so that you can assess if you're getting a good deal or not and manage them properly.

Which is why I created a FREE course on Employee Stock Options, How They Work. I took all my learnings and dumbed it down so even a 3-year old can understand it.

Check the link in the first comment to sign up for the free course.

I hired a stay-at-home mom / photographer with no B2B tech sales experience and I should have seen what happened next.

She CRUSHED IT!

We were interviewing for another large hiring class and at that time, I was really involved in the hiring process.

All hands on deck at another startup!

And I was tasked with interviewing this woman who was a single-parent, stay-at-home mom, side-gig photographer.

She hadn't been in sales for 12 years as she was focused on raising her kids. And even then, the "sales role" she had wasn't even B2B sales.

I thought: "Why did this person make it through to the in-person interview?"

But she crushed her interview! 

You see we were interviewing for behavioral characteristics like Coachability, Organization, Competitiveness, Need for Achievement, Optimism and not experience and she had lots of recent stories that demonstrated that she possessed those characteristics.

I made sure we hired her and I'm glad we did. She made President's Club several times!

💡 Learning Lesson: Especially for sales roles at startups, interview mostly for behavioral characteristics that you CAN NOT teach above experience. You'll find diamonds in the rough that others, who are only interviewing for experience, won't find. It will be your competitive advantage. 

Trust me.

What do you think? Does this apply to all sales roles? Even Enterprise?

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

99 out of 100 salespeople have common sense. But most policies and rules aren’t written for them.

They’re written for the 1 who either
1) is too stupid even have common sense
or
2) is just smart enough to exploit the gray area.

And that ONE person ruins it for everyone else.

It always sounds like this:

“Well I didn’t know I wasn’t supposed to do that...”

Or worse:

“Nobody TOLD me I couldn’t do that...”

Give me a frickin' break. 🙄

This is why we get 14-paragraph HR policies.
This is why companies build a handbook thicker than a Bible.
Not to guide the 99...
No, to make it stupid-simple clear to the 1.

Because when left alone, the 1 becomes a problem child.

They test boundaries.
Twist intent.
Weaponize ambiguity.
Then play the innocent card when caught.

I once had this clever salesperson who was allowed to work from home but when I learned she wasn't working her leads/accounts, HR and I met with her the next day she was in the office

😡 But she claimed she didn't know the different between "Working from Home" and "Out of the Office."

She played stupid because I hadn't made the difference crystal clear IN writing.

And that’s when leaders start writing policies to cover every angle.

Which restricts freedom for everyone else.

So now, instead of trusting the 99, we start managing to the 1.
Instead of enabling high performance, we’re policing edge cases.
Which sucks.

Every leader knows who their 1 problem child is.
And every minute they avoid dealing with their BS
Is another minute you're asking for trouble.

Want to be untouchable at work?

Stop playing the loyal employee game and start building a war chest.

Here are 3 money rules that saved my sanity when I still had a boss:

1️⃣ Six months of cash in the bank. If you can’t disappear for half a year, you’re not free.
2️⃣ Track every expense. Live way below your means. If your lifestyle’s eating your freedom, you’re doing it wrong.
3️⃣ Build a side gig. Something that generates a little bit of something something at first.

You do those 3 things and you'll breathe a sigh of relief.

You stop saying yes to stupid meetings.
You stop nodding along when a new commission plan comes out that you don't like.
You stop fearing layoffs, reorgs, or your CEO's mood swings.

Because now YOU hold the power.

And with ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) dead and Wall Street breathing down every CFO’s neck, companies are being forced to run real businesses the right way:

🔒 Profitable
🔧 Efficient
📈 Growing

So ask yourself: are YOU running your life like a real Profitable, Efficient, Growing business?

✅ Profitable: Expenses < Income. No excuses.
✅ Efficient: Cut dumb spending. Stack cash. Invest cash.
✅ Growing: Build other income streams. Anything. Something. Learning something new.

If your whole identity is tied to your job, you’re screwed the second it turns on you (not if...when).

Don’t wait.

Because the next round of cuts is already being planned and the people with options won’t beg, won’t cry, and won’t blink.

They’ll just leave and move on.

I've been laid off or fired 3 times in my career and my advice above has saved my bacon every time. And I've quit 2 high paying jobs quickly, with no job in sight when I knew it wasn't going to work out for the long haul.

Takeaway: If you're living paycheck to paycheck, you've let your employer take control over your life. Build the war chest that lets you walk the hell away on your terms.

I once hired a woman who crushed quota but had NEVER played a single sport in her life.

No soccer. No basketball. No volleyball.
But yoga? Oh, she dominated yoga.

She was a “front of the class” type. The kind who could hold poses others fell out of after 10 seconds.

But here’s the kicker.

While the rest of the class focused on breathing and balance...
She was peeking out of the side of her eye to see who was falling down.

She didn’t just want to master the pose just for inner peace.
She wanted to kick the other students asses and win.

But that’s when it hit me.

We keep throwing around this idea of hiring “sales athletes.”

We say bullshit things like:

"Find people who played D1"
"Look for team sports backgrounds"
"Only hire competitive athletes"

But it’s lazy logic.

Competitive doesn’t always look like cleats and sweat.

This woman was one of the fiercest reps I’ve ever hired.
Not because of her athletic background.
But because she had the Drive most reps don’t.

She was calm on the outside.
Cutthroat on the inside.

And she didn’t need a scoreboard to tap into it.

I've seen ex-athletes coast and non-athletes outgrind everyone.
The difference?
Real competitiveness is internal.

The best salespeople I’ve hired?
They don’t always talk the most.
But they are driven to win.

🔥 Lesson: Stop filtering your pipeline for sports. Start filtering for characteristics that you can't teach.

Leave room to be surprised. That’s where the killers hide.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Interviewing and Hiring Bundle in the the first comment.

Every sales leader must HIRE for the "mindset" that they want. But don't be a fool.

You can teach skills, but mindset? That’s a whole different game.

I’ve learned this the hard way.

Every team has a few reps who need coaching.
That’s normal. It’s part of the job.
But when you're expected to be a therapist?
Something’s broken.

Truth is...
You can’t rewire someone who doesn’t WANT to change.
Mindset shifts don’t happen on Slack channels and daily standups and ice cream socials.

No, they happen when someone is open, humble, and ready.

And most people aren’t.

So yes, when you want to effect a big mindshift change on your sales team, roll it out!

Raise the bar. Give the training and coaching to those that are ready to change.

✅ But hedge your bets too.
Start HIRING people who already think the way you need your team to think.

Because trying to coach a salesperson into hunger, ownership, urgency, positivity or resilience...when they don’t even value those things?

Screw that. That’s a fool’s errand.

Mindset is not a module in onboarding.
It’s the foundation people walk in with.
Or they don’t.

And if they don’t?
You’ll spend a lot of time dragging instead of leading.

Lesson I’ve learned?
Train for skills
But when it comes to mindset, hire it.

You'll have a higher probability of success, in my experience.

PS: if you want to improve your changes of making a great salesperson hire, check out my Hiring and Interviewing Bundle in the first comment.

Google asked for my college transcript but I instantly knew I wasn’t getting the job.

They wanted to know my GPA. I gave it to them: 2.685 from UC Davis, class of '94 (If you want to see a screenshot of my transcript, ask me in the comments).

That was the first, and only, time in my 30-year career anyone asked for my grades.

Not when I became a VP. Not when I became a CSO. Not when I ran a 550 person sales team.

I’ve hired hundreds of salespeople (maybe 1000s). I’ve never once checked their GPAs from High School or College.

Why do we act like grades predict success ESPECIALLY in sales?

In my experience, they don’t. Drive does. Integrity does. Grit, effort, continual learning, coachability, taking action...that’s what matters.

Would a 4.0 have changed my career? Maybe I get that job at Google. But I wouldn't trade where I’ve ended up for anything.

💡 Here’s my advice to founders and sales leaders: stop overvaluing academic stats when hiring.

They don’t measure the things that actually help you win.

👀 Look for Drive, Need for Achievement, Competitiveness, Coachability, Continual Learning, Hunger, A bias for action, Self-accountability.

Those are the signals that really matter.

And you won't find those on some dumb transcript. 🎓

PS: If you want to start hiring like a real pro, check out my Hiring Bundle in the first comment.

I used to believe great sales leaders should still be dialing. You know, jump in the trenches, make a few calls. Show the kids how it's done.

Lead by example, right?

It felt noble.
It felt gritty.
It felt like “real” leadership (insert "pound your chest emoji here").

And there's a lot of well-intentioned but inexperienced "gurus" here on Linkedin that think sales leaders should still be making calls.

But I learned it was a friggin' distraction, because here’s what actually happened:

When I was focused on making a few calls myself, making a handful of calls wasn't enough for ME to see patterns in my own calling to make big changes for the sales team. The sample size was just too small..um, since I wasn't do it full time.

When I tried to lead and sell, I was average at both.
 
But when I jumped in to “show how it’s done,” I robbed my reps of the chance to fail and figure it out for themselves. (if you don't believe that failing is a blessing, you have another thing coming).

Sales leadership is not a do-over of your AE days.
It might make you look cool to your reps that you still got it.

But you're missing the point...

Your job as a sales leader is to help your team get better than YOU EVER WERE.

The best leaders I know don’t need to call to earn respect.

👉 They coach.
👉 They challenge.
👉 They strategize.
👉 They lift up the sales floor and raise the bar.

If your rep is struggling, they don’t need YOU to take/make the call.

They need you to help them turn a C+ effort into an A- one. That's what great COACHING is all about.

They need clarity THEMSELVES on where they lose the prospect.
They need sharp questions, not talk tracks that worked "back in my day."

You can still be hands-on....Just not hands-on-the-dialer. And with all the call analytics software out there, seeing the global patterns and running tests with your hypotheses in hand is a way better use of your time than smiling and dialing.

So be honest with yourself:
Do you still dial because it helps?
Because you're guilty?
Because you read some guru on Linkedin (who was an AE 11 months ago) say that great sales leaders still make calls?

If your teams needs you as the sales leader to keep making calls, clearly you're not that good of a coach or teacher and your boss will see that very quickly....and take action.

PS: if you want to see how real great sales leaders model their week, check out my free guide. The link is in the first comment.

Every sales hiring manager says the same thing: "We want to hire driven salespeople."

Cool. But what exactly does that mean?

Because in my experience, "driven" isn't on a resume. You can't really see "driven" on a resume. So here's the real question:

🤷♀️ Can you teach a salesperson to be driven?

Short answer: In my experience, with adults, no.

Drive isn't taught. It's uncovered. You find out if they have it already or not.

🟢 You can coach skills.
🟢 You can develop technique.
🟢 You can build confidence.
🟢 But drive? That comes from inside.

It's baked in. It's who someone is when no one's watching.

You want driven? Look for people who:

-Take action even when not being told to act
-Laugh at rejection and move on
-Ask for feedback before you offer it....and then IMMEDIATELY put that feedback into action
-Work their butts off without having to be whipped
-Go the extra mile without being told

You don't teach adults this. Drive is a character trait. It's WHO they are already!

If someone doesn't need the push, they'll probably go further than anyone you constantly have to motivate.

✅ The best reps I ever hired didn’t talk about how driven they were. They showed it.

They were always coachable.
They were always learning.
They continued to persist.

And when I asked where that came from?

It was never training. Never books. Never ME.

👉 It was always internal.

If you’re a hiring manager, stop asking outright if someone is driven.

Start asking them to tell you stories about how they persisted or worked theri butts off or went above and beyond or took initiative or incorporated feedback.

And if you're a rep trying to break out?

Don’t wait to be taught. Start proving it, daily.

Drive shows up in behaviors and real stories, not just words.

Founders, CEOs, Sales Leaders: What's your favorite question to ask to determine if you have a Driven salesperson on your hands?

PS: if you want to step up your Interviewing Skills and make better Sales Hires, check out my hiring bundle in the first comment.

When the CEO gives you massive goals for next year, don’t say:
❌ “We can’t hit that number.”

Say this instead:

✅ “Under what conditions could we hit that number?”

That one sentence changes everything and sends a pretty killer signal to the CEO...

It signals problem-solving instead of resistance.
It opens a door instead of slamming it shut.
And it shows you’re thinking like an owner, not a victim being handed unreachable goals.

I’ve been on both sides of this conversation.
The leader who says “this is impossible.”
And the one who asks, “what would make it possible?”

One shuts down conversations with their closed mindset.

The other starts a great conversation with their growth mindset.

CEOs don’t set easy goals. No. We all know they're crazy AF.

They expect you to test the limits of what's possible

But if you come back with a "now way we're gonna hit that" instead conditions that could exist that will help you hit that goal, the CEO is gonna be giving you the side-eye.

And then they start networking with other sales leaders.

Reframing the conversation with “under what conditions...”
makes you the person who can be reasoned with,
not the person who needs to be replaced.

It shows you’re solution-oriented, not just looking for easy street.

Lesson I’ve learned?
As the VP of Sales, you had better not be the "yes-person" and just agree to everything.
You BETTER challenge your CEO with diverse and divergent opinions.

But if you're gonna just say "there's no way we can hit those goals," instead of saying "under what conditions CAN we hit those goals," why are you even there?

Especially at a pre-IPO tech startup.

PS: if you want to quickly know if your VP of Sales is gonna make it or not, check out my free guide in the first comment.

"I can tell in one conversation if I'm going to hire someone."

Then why do only 30%-50% of your sales hires actually work out?

You can hire better if you stop thinking....

👎 I know what to look for in a sales hire but I haven't written it down

👎 I can hire successfully but I've never read a book on interviewing before.

👎 I'll ask them to "sell me this pen" and that's a good way to assess a salesperson (I saw it in the Wolf of Wall Street movie so it must be credible)

👎 Why would I measure my hiring success rate?

👎 "Do you hate to lose or do you love to win?" is one of my favorite interview questions.

Hiring successfully is a methodical process.

According to TopGrading, "The average mis-hire rate for companies ... is approximately 70% (if you want the source, ask me in the comments)

These aren't the only myths sales leaders believe when hiring salespeople.

But if you really want to start hiring A-player salespeople, check out my Hiring and Interviewing Bundle in the the first comment.

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The Battle

Bill (PhoneBill) McClain

Kevin Gaither

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The Battle

Bill (PhoneBill) McClain

Kevin Gaither

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Kevin Gaither's LinkedIn Performance

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