Chris Cicconi

Paying it Forward 👉 One Day at a Time

Salesperson 💸 --> Coach ✍️ --> Leader 🙋‍♂️
Sometimes a content creator 🎥 - always a goofball 【ツ】

I love building things, but not physical things.

I have a passion for building teams, networks, processes, procedures and revenue but most importantly people. 

This had led me to helping founders pivot from founder led sales to a sustainable and scalable sales engine.

Hit me up if you want to talk sales, fractional leadership, 👟or ☕️.
--------------------
I was once given an opportunity that has allowed me to build my wonderful career.
I want to make sure others have the same chance.
#payitforward

Content Creator

Host of "The War Room: The Kards Pre-Game Show" by 983 Media (a game by 1939 games)
Host for all Kards Official eSports events, including the World Championship Series
Host of "The Frontline" The Official Kards Podcast by 983 Media
Gwent Qualifier Caster and Gwent Partner (a game by CD Projekt RED)

Chris 🦄 Cicconi

I help salespeople become sales leaders w/ the Salesblazer Method™️ | Executive Sales Leader

Over the last decade, I helped build multiple multi-million dollar medical device territories by developing new markets and strategic sales teams. I also helped customer-partners build their personal brands and land consulting contracts, which led to developing new products/techniques and enhanced patient outcomes.

Then, in 2023, I hit a fork in the road. Do I continue building someone else's company at the expense of my convictions, or do I risk my comfortable life to gain personal agency, take complete ownership over my future, and craft something worth telling a story about?

Building something on my terms and diversifying my income would be the best pathway towards control over my calendar, autonomy over the work I get to do, and the direct impact I can have.

While this pathway has not been easy, the results have been remarkable.

Since leaving a sales executive role with a great brand, I have been able to replace my income by working for myself with less effort (working smart).

I have launched Sparkbound, a medical sales & marketing organization that goes beyond the transaction and seeks to enrich the lives of others.

Sparkbound not only helps our people build influential careers, increase our partners' influence, or improve our practitioners' patient outcomes, but we also want to help aspiring difference makers become the change they wish they could make... and then help them make positive change happen.

My mission is to help you see that you're not stuck. You don't have to labor and live as others expect you to. My mission is to help you challenge the status quo, lead by design, and choose the impact you wish to have.

I love writing about leadership, specifically leadership without titles, about how high-impact professionals can earn personal agency, purposeful productivity (doing more good, better), and meaningful work.

Francisco Martinez

Don't be the sales boss who kills careers.

Be the one who:

1) Prepares people for future promotion
2) Takes on the blame for their team
3) Gives credit where credit is due
4) Champions people behind closed doors
5) Knows their purpose and passions
6) Teaches sales principles on repeat
7) Allows for personalized sales processes 
8) Invests in their development
9) Helps align their revenue goals with team goals
10) Follows up on 1-on-1 meetings

Because when your team knows you have their back,

Everything changes.

They trust you more.
They take bold risks.
They own their growth.
They grow faster.

And they stick around longer.

Because you make it hard for them ever to want to leave. 

Your job isn't to hoard all the success. 

It's about building a room full of people you want to support and setting them up to win in sales and life. 

Be the boss who doesn't just want their team to be successful,

But who puts in the work to make it happen. 

Have you had a boss like this?

---

♻️ Repost to encourage people-first leadership.

And follow me, Francisco Martinez, for more leadership content

Francisco Martinez (Out of Office)

Making Leaders Remarkable | Follow for systems & strategies for effortless leadership & remarkable work | Founder & Principal building an 8-figure sales agency from scratch

Find a leader to work for. Not a job to do. 

The wrong manager can hold your career back for years. 

The right managers see your potential, help you unlock your potential, and champion your promotion. 

The best leaders are agnostic to the logo they represent. 
They are believers in the people they are responsible for. 

The best managers prioritize people first, then profit. 

I've worked for great leaders. 

- They believed I had potential.
- They asked about my wife & children. 
- They invested in me even when I deserved to be fired. 
- They designed comp plans around revenue goals, not quota.
- They created roles to solve problems that fit my passion and strengths. 
- They listened - and did not turn on me - when I considered outside offers.

I once struggled because I wasn't sure I wanted to be in this industry. 
My leaders noticed my decreasing excitement, put their arms around me, and said, "Where do you want to be? We'll help you get there." 

They are why I stayed, even though I was offered better pay elsewhere. 
They are the reason I haven't quit the medical device industry.

Ultimately, their leadership has led to several promotions, bigger paychecks, and once-in-a-lifetime career opportunities. 

Choose leaders who want to see you grow today. 

Agree? Let me know your thoughts👇

If you're only trying to get smarter, AI will replace you. 

Because the best leaders aren't the smartest in the room. But...

AI will never be able to replace people trying to get wiser. 

Here's why:

🤖 AI gives you infinite knowledge at your fingertips. 
🦉 Wisdom helps you know what to ignore.

🤖 AI generates faster answers. 
🦉 Wisdom helps you patiently listen to others.

🤖 AI follows the prompt you give it. 
🦉 Wisdom teaches you how to ask the best questions.

🤖 AI can give you the most probable outcome. 
🦉 Wisdom gives you the courage to do what seems improbable. 

🤖 AI can summarize a meeting. 
🦉 Wisdom reads the room AI can't see.

🤖 AI collects data at scale. 
🦉 Wisdom connects dots others can't see.

🤖 AI can study human emotions. 
🦉 Wisdom helps you see and feel where people are at. 

The leaders who are being promoted right now aren't the ones with the best AI tools.

They're the ones who know when to follow the data and when to go with their instincts. 

AI is a multiplier. But it multiplies whatever you bring to it.

Bring knowledge, you'll get more information. 
Bring Wisdom, you'll get better decisions.

Stop learning more with AI. 
Start cultivating the Wisdom to use it well.

Your career will thank you.

How are you balancing the wealth of information AI brings? 👇

--

♻️ Repost to help your tribe lead wisely in the AI era 
➕ Follow Francisco Martinez for more leadership insights

It's not your fault that you aren't getting promoted.

Companies love to promote the wrong people: 

People with seniority, big numbers, and loud mouths. 

But don't let that stop you from getting promoted the right way.

Promotion the right way is simple.
It's not about being extraordinary. 
Nor is it about being high performing. 

It's about being a high-impact person. 

High-impact people don't chase what others chase:

🏷 Executive titles
🏢 The corner office
👏 Praise and recognition
🎓 Fancy MBA degrees

High-impact people are simply leaders without titles. 

Lead where you are. 

No hierarchy.
No entitlement.
No permission needed.

✅ Seek impact, not impressions.
✅ Take initiative when others are complacent.
✅ Pursue excellence when no one's watching.
✅ Lift morale when others stick to themselves.

The gap between insignificance and influence shouldn't be authority.

It's the choice to become the leader you wish you had.

What do you think?

Most people wait for the perfect opportunity to start leading.

The perfect promotion.
The right work/life balance. 
The sales kickoff meeting.
A bigger team.

But here’s what I’ve learned after building sales teams:

There is no perfect opportunity.

The promotion won't make you a leader.
There is no such thing as work/life balance in sales leadership.
Leadership happens before the title. 

The people who get promoted don't wait. 

They start.
They lead anybody.
Create opportunities to serve. 
They find solutions that everyone has been aching for. 

Because they understand something most people ignore:

You don’t build influence by a title. 
You earn it by leading. 

Serving builds trust.
Solving problems makes you indispensable.

That’s exactly how I've gone from a sales demotion to now running my own sales organization.

Not with a perfect plan.

But by showing up every day seeking to enrich the lives of others.

What about you?

Character is king. 

Character > Competency.
Character > Credentials. 
Character > Commissions. 

Character lasts forever.

If you want to get promoted in 2026, stop acting like your boss and start acting like a true leader. 

Know the differences between a sales boss and a true leader (and how to apply these now to earn a promotion):

1 - Stop criticizing teammates and start praising

🚫 Bosses criticize in public and praise in private. 
☑️ True leaders do the inverse. 
✅ So train yourself to see the good in others and encourage and praise them.

2 - Be an example worth following

🚫 Sales bosses drag their people across the finish line
☑️ Sales leaders inspire their people to success by showing them the way. 
✅ Master the basics of your sales job and help elevate your teammates. 

3 - Own your development

🚫 Sales bosses dictate plans. 
☑️ True leaders develop people. 
✅ Take ownership of your role. Don't have SOPs on what's expected? 
- Ask what's expected of you. 
- Create your own SOPs. 
- Don't wait for instructions. 

4 - Embrace an owner's mentality

🚫 Sales bosses are ruthless taskmasters. 
☑️ Whereas leaders care about outcomes. 
✅ If you want to get promoted, stop asking what you should do next. 
Start asking what results are desired, create a game plan, and execute. 

5 - Trust their team

🚫 Bosses withhold trust
☑️ Leaders give it upfront with guardrails.
✅ I know many sales professionals who withhold information because they want to keep their cards tight to their chest. It never works out in their favor. 
Learn to trust and to give trust. 

6 - Fall on your sword

🚫 Bosses and toxic performers blame everyone else but themselves. 
☑️ Leaders own up to their mistakes. 
✅ The aspiring leader admits defeat, failure, or when they mess up. 

7 - Design how you win

🚫 Bosses demand results but give no instructions on how 
☑️ Leaders design a clear path to winning
✅ If you want to get promoted and have no design on how to win, propose scorecards, create your own, and ask for accountability from your manager. 

8 - Build systems

🚫 Bosses are chaotic and sporadic at best
☑️ Leaders win consistently because they have systems
✅ Design a system with high-revenue habits that help you win consistently. For me, it was my quarterly planning, my weekly plan, my daily system of preparation and follow-up. 

9 - Rely on Reality
🚫 Bosses solely lead reactively on their gut
☑️ The best leaders lean into the data for decisions. 
✅ Aspiring sales leaders, be consistent with your CRM and create impactful dashboards that tell you the truth and show you where your best effort should be spent. 

10 - Communicate thoughtfully

🚫 Bosses don't think before they speak
✅ True leaders use their words wisely. 

11 - Be cool under pressure 

🚫 Bosses create more chaos under pressure.
☑️ The best leaders bring clarity in the midst of chaos. 
✅ Be aware of how you respond to pressure and learn how to grow from it. 
- Make contingency plans before the storm hits. 
- When the storm hits, pause, think, and react. 

Which one has worked the best for you?

After 14 years in medical sales (18 total in sales), I've had to reinvent my career several times. 

I have been demoted, stuck, and promoted. 

I have represented large brands and startups. 

Every time, it has come down to these basic but powerful habits. 

Here are the 17 powerful habits of high-impact salespeople:

1. Focus on what you can control: your attitude & actions
2. Learn to say, "I don't know, but let me find out." 
3" Give, don't take. Give away your time, expertise, & self. 
4. The day starts the night before. Wake up to execute. 
5. Practice patience, not passivity. Growth takes time. 
6. Like Navy Seals, train with a pod of peers. 
7. Sundays are for strategy. Plan an ideal week.
8. Get aligned every quarter with your values and mission
9. Always be checking in on your character. 
10. Do what you say you will do, even if it costs you. 
11. First impressions are for impact, not to impress. 
12. Time block high-revenue activities. Ruthlessly stick to it
13. Send a weekly highlight report to your boss. 
14. Send a weekly lessons learned report to your team. 
15. End each day with a self-assessment review of yourself.
16. Solve big problems instead of reacting to fire drills. 
17. Go beyond the transaction and seek to enrich lives. 

Medical sales, and all sales, is more than hitting quota. 

It's about becoming the person you would rave about doing business with. 

What did I miss? 

--
♻️ Repost to help your network become a high-impact salesperson
➕ Follow for more tips on how to grow your sales career

Your company will never fully develop your leadership potential. They can't.

Their model only works if you stay productive in your current role — not preparing for your next one.

A great way to close that gap is to develop yourself.

1. Start with WHY you want to lead.

Leadership is about taking people on a mission towards a better future.

2. Align your work, sales pitch, and company mission to your purpose.

Your why inspires passion, but alignment maintains it.

3. Turn on the lights.

Spotlight everyone's shared problem, inspire hope with those who want to fix it, and fix it together.

4. Build a tribe of mentors.

Find one mentor in your organization, 3 mentors outside your org but within your industry, and 5 models you can read that inspire you.

5. Do generous work that makes your colleagues more successful.

Build a reputation as someone who creates value for others, not just climbs ladders.

Stop waiting for your company to prepare you for what's next.

Develop yourself.

What else would you add?

The best way to avoid hitting quota is to plan everything before you start. 

After 18 years of sales, I have learned this the hard way (and a simple fix). 

I'm OCD about having a meticulous sales strategy. 
It has overcome my deficiency in selling skills. 
But it has also paralyzed me. 

So many times, I could've achieved my sales goals so much sooner if it weren't for my overplanning. 

Here's why:

1) Hyper planning is a dopamine hit

It feels like progress, but you haven't moved. 

2) Analysis paralysis is a real thing

Overplanning creates lots of options and freezes your brain when it attempts to take action. 

3) You don't train a bias for action 

You train your brain not to get into the habit of taking action. 

Learn from me, who often gets stuck in the planning phase.

Instead, try this simple fix:

✅ Calculate your ideal revenue goal
- How much money do you want to make this year? 
- Making it personal helps you take more ownership. 
- Just ensure it is aligned with company and team goals

✅ Identify the top opportunities that are right in front of you
- Create an opportunity Eisenhower matrix
- List the top 3 most important opportunities in your high-volume customers (existing business) with High opportunity (more room for growth)
 - Second, find your top 3 low-volume opps with high opportunity (with HOT leads). 

✅ Take the next best step

- Identify the next best step for each opportunity
- And execute. 

You are your worst nightmare. 
Not your boss.
Not the culture you're in.
Not your lack of opportunity. 
You. 

So train yourself to master yourself. 

What's a quick fix you would add to help someone overcome overplanning?

You don't need permission to lead.
You don't need to work 60-hour weeks.
You don't need approval to implement AI.

Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. 

The biggest lies we tell ourselves:

"I need to wait until the culture improves."
"I need to be promoted before I can lead."
"I need to stay in my lane.

Here's the truth:

You have everything you need to make change happen in your company.
The work isn't waiting for permission.
The work is taking responsibility.

How many people do you know who spent years taking orders instead of taking initiative?

The most successful people didn't wait to lead and do great work.

They had a vision.
They took small bets.
They chose to lead and make a change.

Stop waiting to get picked.

Pick yourself and make positive change happen. 

♻️ Repost to help your tribe be the change they wish they had
➕ Follow for more insights on getting unstuck and doing things better.

99% of people overcomplicate career moves.

So, in 2023, I simplified the riskiest career decision of my life. 

What they won't teach you in school or corporate America is that all you need is:

1. Direction - where do you want to go in life? 
2. Anti-goals - what are you not willing to give up?
3. Convictions - Why and what must you do no matter what?
4. People - whom do you have as your personal board of advisors?

Things you don't need:

1. To listen to your heart.
2. 5 & 10-year plans.
3. Large network.

The key is to decide on your career before you need to choose. 

And no matter what, be excellent and intentional. 

Because none of this matters if you suck at your work.

What would you add to this career decision framework?

Being great at sales delays becoming a great leader.

I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly across high-performing teams:

Top sellers get promoted because they hit numbers, then struggle because leadership demands a different operating system.

Selling rewards individual optimization.
Leadership rewards collective progress.

This leadership gap shows up in four quiet skills most high performers miss:

1) Teaching what you know

Top reps protect their competitive edge. Leaders create leverage for all.
If others can’t replicate your success, the team stays dependent on you.

Leaders elevate the entire team to own their success. 

Start small:
Write your sales process end-to-end
Coach one underperformer
Help get them a quick win.

2) Fixing the system, not your pipeline

Sellers ask how to hit their quota.
Leaders ask what’s slowing everyone down.

They create a system that fixes what is holding everyone back. 

3) Holding uncomfortable conversations

Sellers are used to being customer-centric and "appeasing" their customers. 

When leading, it's all about the people until they put themselves in danger.

Can you tell someone their performance isn't good enough? Can you wisely push back on your boss when they're wrong? Can you mediate conflict between teammates?

4) Prioritizing people over personal numbers

Sellers optimize for wins. Leaders optimize for growth.

That means developing others even when it costs you short-term output.

I’ve been the rep who thought quota was enough.
It wasn’t.

Numbers prove you can sell.
They don’t prove you can lead.

Leadership isn’t a title you’re given.
It’s a lifestyle you practice before you’re promoted.

Which of these are you actively avoiding right now?

♻️ Repost to help high performers make the shift to leadership 
➕ Follow Francisco Martinez for daily insights on advancing your sales career

Want to quit your toxic company? Go for it. 

Want to make work easier for your bad boss? That's fine. 

Want to ask for a promotion? Do it. 

Want to jump ship for more pay? More power to you. 

If you are unhappy with the way your career is going or stuck with a mediocre compensation plan, one thing must happen:

Change.

Nothing changes if nothing changes. 

But change must start with yourself. 

- Change your plans. 
- Change your goals. 
- Change your habits.
- Change how you lead.
- Change how you work.
- Change your perception. 
- Change how you treat others.

Stop wishing for your company to change or your boss to leave, and start making change happen in your life and the areas under your control.

What else would you change?

The best way to sell more is to stop worrying about quota. 

Start focusing on these 17 sales habits:

1. Focus on what you can control: your attitude & actions
2. Learn to say, "I don't know, but let me find out." 
3. Give, don't take. Give away your time, expertise, & self. 
4. The day starts the night before. Wake up to execute. 
5. Practice patience, not passivity. Growth takes time. 
6. Like Navy Seals, train with a pod of peers. 
7. Sundays are for strategy. Plan an ideal week.
8. Get aligned every quarter with your values and mission
9. Always be checking in on your character. 
10. Do what you say you will do, even if it costs you. 
11. First impressions are for impact, not to impress. 
12. Time block high-revenue activities. Ruthlessly stick to it
13. Send a weekly highlight report to your boss. 
14. Send a weekly lessons learned report to your team. 
15. End each day with a self-assessment review of yourself.
16. Solve big problems instead of reacting to fire drills. 
17. Go beyond the transaction and seek to enrich lives.

Stop trying to hit quota once. 

Start putting it on self-driving mode by implementing systems. 

James Clear says, "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." 

Systematic selling reduces anxiety and stress. 

Habits and systems help you win over and over again. 

What habits would you add?

The best leaders don't just get more stuff done 
or try to accomplish more...

They aim to do more good.

So before asking, "Will this have a high ROI?", ask, "Will this accomplish the most good?" 

Start with purpose.
Then align with the profit. 

That's how to ensure your work stays meaningful. 

What do you think?

Trust me when I say:

- mastering influence
- excelling in your role
- crafting solutions as a niche
- teaching others to create success

And above all, being worthy of remark...

Will make it 100x easier to get promoted.

Waiting for an opportunity isn’t reliable. Go create demand for your skills.

"People over profit" is not only for leaders. 

Everyone must learn to choose people over profit.

In 2021, I rejected my dream job.

And all that came with it:

- Fancy title
- Diversified
- More money
- National influence
- Unlimited benefits
- My own career ladder
- Accelerated career growth

The role was everything I would create in a perfect world.

But I had to turn it down.

Why?

Because of everything I would lose:

- A great culture heading in the right direction
- Freedom to do my best work on my terms
- Freedom to manage my calendar
- Church influence and leadership
- Trust that comes with longevity
- Opportunity to craft a culture
- Work still left to do here
- Friendships
- Family

Nothing wrong with accepting or rejecting any of those things.

What's wrong is going against your convictions for what matters most in life.

For me, I would lose what was most important.

And that's priceless.

What would you prioritize in your career decisions?

➖ 
♻️ Repost to inspire success in what matters most
➕ Follow me (Francisco Martinez) for more like this.

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Chris 🦄 Cicconi

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