Love Your Team

Traci Corazin talks about the power of fear and how embracing fear can set you free.  Traci is the General Manager of Strategic Account Sales, Northeast region at Microsoft.  In this episode Traci shares with us an experience that totally changed how she thinks about fear.  She unpacks her three-part framework that enables her to run towards fear and take on new challenges. What I love about Traci’s framework is it is very actionable and anybody can learn to use it.

In this episode, John Majeski, CEO of Portola Valley Partners talks about how a strong culture is essential to breaking down silos in early-stage companies. This enables engineering, product management, and sales to work collaboratively, which in turn fast-tracks company growth. John Majeski bio: John has a history of being a founder and large IT company exec. He has been a partner in companies that have successfully exited to larger companies. He has worked as an executive with companies like HP, Dell, and Lenovo and helped scale business units organically and through M&A. He is now the CEO of Portola Valley Partners located in Silicon Valley.

Radhika Shukla is back, talking about leading by example and inspiring her team to really listen to customers and focus on solving their business challenges. Radhika highlights lessons learned, “When you appreciate your sellers so they feel valued and you lead with care and empathy, everything else just follows.  It is so important to know your team’s capabilities and invest in their growth. It is core to retaining and attracting talent.” About Helen’s Guest: Radhika Shukla is a Director, Enterprise Sales at Microsoft and Michigan-Ross MBA with over 18 Years of experience in Strategic Tech Sales Leadership. She is a skilled leader with a proven track record of successfully driving up sales, substantial ROI and profitability, delivering remarkable results for Fortune 500 companies and creating growth strategies eliciting best from contributors. Her passion lies in helping customers solve their business challenges through innovative digital transformation solutions and engaging experiences fostering strong partnerships in the tech industry along the way. Leading with care/empathy, my passion drives me to equip and empower my team so they can dream big, achieve the impossible and accomplish remarkable things. Her leadership mantra is- “Inspire, Empower, Appreciate”. Dynamic, decisive strategic thinker driven to succeed through teamwork, creativity, innovation and execution in complex business environments. Keenly attuned to key business drivers, market/industry trends, she has a number of Cloud and AI certifications under her belt. Radhika is a true trailblazer and in 2021, she was recognized at the No 1 spot in TOP 10 Women in Manufacturing by Manufacturing Global Magazine.

In this episode Radhika Shukla unpacks the critical role sales managers play when leading a new team.  She outlines her 5 priority areas to motivate and energize her team and why people first, customers second, and profits third is a winning formula for her team’s success. This episode is filled with insights and actions. Radhika shows us how to lead by example to create a strong team culture.   About Helen's Guest: Radhika Shukla is a Director, Enterprise Sales at Microsoft and Michigan-Ross MBA with over 18 Years of experience in Strategic Tech Sales Leadership She is a skilled leader with a proven track record of successfully driving up sales, substantial ROI and profitability, delivering remarkable results for Fortune 500 companies and creating growth strategies eliciting best from contributors. Her passion lies in helping customers solve their business challenges through innovative digital transformation solutions and engaging experiences fostering strong partnerships in the tech industry along the way. Leading with care/empathy, my passion drives me to equip and empower my team so they can dream big, achieve the impossible and accomplish remarkable things. Her leadership mantra is- “Inspire, Empower, Appreciate”. Dynamic, decisive strategic thinker driven to succeed through teamwork, creativity, innovation and execution in complex business environments. Keenly attuned to key business drivers, market/industry trends, she has a number of Cloud and AI certifications under her belt. Radhika is a true trailblazer and in 2021, she was recognized at the No 1 spot in TOP 10 Women in Manufacturing by Manufacturing Global Magazine.

Janie Wall is back again, this time sharing her sales coaching secrets including what she learned from her mentor that informs her coaching today.  Janie shares specific actions that increase the skill, motivation, and success of her sellers.  About Helen's Guest: Janie Wall joined DefenseStorm in November 2020, bringing with her over 15 years of technology sales experience. Janie is a self-described ‘sales geek’ that is passionate about helping companies develop go-to-market strategies to drive revenue acceleration.  Janie believes that sales coaching is the most under-prioritized responsibility of a sales manager and loves to leverage data to improve performance and drive results – building a data-driven, connected, coaching culture.  It’s important to use key metrics to drive coaching.  But to make metrics and coaching meaningful, it’s paramount to lead with empathy and never forget that, regardless of title, we are all just humans trying to achieve the same goal.  

In this episode, guest Janie Wall joins Helen to explore the power of data in building strong sales team cultures.  It is so critical for sales managers to recognize and utilize the “hard” metrics we are all so familiar with such as pipeline coverage and revenue attainment as not only measures of success, but as guideposts to lead us to opportunities to improve the “soft” skills and culture of our teams. In the data, we can find the real answers to unlock even greater success and the clues to a winning culture. Enjoy! About Helen's Guest: Janie Wall joined DefenseStorm in November 2020, bringing with her over 15 years of technology sales experience. Janie is a self-described ‘sales geek’ that is passionate about helping companies develop go-to-market strategies to drive revenue acceleration.  Janie believes that sales coaching is the most under-prioritized responsibility of a sales manager and loves to leverage data to improve performance and drive results – building a data-driven, connected, coaching culture.  It’s important to use key metrics to drive coaching.  But to make metrics and coaching meaningful, it’s paramount to lead with empathy and never forget that, regardless of title, we are all just humans trying to achieve the same goal.     DefenseStorm DefenseStorm provides CyberSecurity, CyberCompliance, and CyberFraud solutions specifically built for banking. Financial institutions are subjected to more than 80+ million cyber events every day. To mitigate risk, DefenseStorm works as a partner in addressing the unique cyber threats and compliance demands facing banks and credit unions in today’s complex financial services landscape to build a community of trust.  The DefenseStorm GRID is the only co-managed, cloud-based, and compliance-automated solution of its kind, operating as both a technology system and a service. It watches everything on a financial institution’s network to provide real-time cyber exposure readiness while a Threat Ready Active Compliance (TRAC) Team ensures cost-effective coverage.

In this episode, Helen and Angela Cooper discuss strategies for fostering connection and having team members feel valued. Customers want to buy from diverse teams, yet over 80% of sales teams are not diverse according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. What are you doing to attract and retain diverse talent?  Feeling connected and belonging are key ingredients in retaining talent. See below for the list of questions Angela uses to get to know the individuals on her team and what matters to them. Angela's questions - getting to know her team. Give me a little background on yourself? Have you ever managed people (often they have in the past – good to know!) How long have you been at Microsoft? What level are you? What was your latest review like? How would you describe your role? What are the 3 key things you want to deliver this year? How long do you intend to remain on the team? Have you considered leaving this team since joining it? What do you think is your next step in your career? Do you have a personal/career development plan and what is in it? When are you expecting to be promoted next? Has your previous manager given you feedback on this expectation? What are you great at doing? Do you get to do this in your role? What are you not so great at/learning? Is this part of your job? What are you most proud of doing since joining Microsoft? What do you think we could change to improve the results we have? What would you like to change about your role in particular? For you personally - to fit? For the benefit of the business? Is there something you think you are great at that others don't seem to recognize? Is there something others recognize you for that you don't think you're great at or don’t enjoy? How do you like to be recognized? Quietly and privately Publicly and loudly What motivates you to succeed? Is there anything you want me to be aware of and feel comfortable sharing - medical conditions, disabilities, personal circumstances, or perhaps a need for me to be understanding/flexible with you about working hours, etc.? Please listen to this episode, "Can Sales Team Diversity Be a Competitive Weapon?" More about Angela: Angela leads a team of 250 Customer success professionals. She grew up and started her career in the UK. Angela joined Microsoft 19 years ago as the first security seller. After working in the UK for 5 years, Angela moved to Microsoft’s headquarters and has held a variety of sales and corporate strategy roles including working on 9 acquisitions and building sales teams for all 3 clouds; Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365.

This episode features Angela Cooper, General Manager Customer Success at Microsoft joins Helen Fanucci.  Angela shares her approach to building a strong team culture including being humble, listening, getting to know the team, and the surprising importance of fun. Angela explains the critical role of culture in keeping talent. Compensation means nothing if the culture is bad. Companies and managers that don’t maintain a strong culture can’t survive in this competitive environment, especially when competing for talent in this hybrid world.     More about Angela: Angela leads a team of 250 Customer success professionals.  She grew up and started her career in the UK.  Angela joined Microsoft 19 years ago as the first security seller.  After working in the UK for 5 years, Angela moved to Microsoft’s headquarters and has held a variety of sales & corporate strategy roles including working on 9 acquisitions and building sales teams for all 3 clouds; Azure, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365. 

How do we know how our sellers are performing?  Have we set clear outcome-based goals?  Often performance is more than just making quota.  It is also contributing to the team culture, leading the team to secure resources on behalf of the customer, delivering value, and fostering deeper customer relationships.  When talent is so scarce don’t we owe it to ourselves and our team to dig in a bit deeper and really understand what's going on?  In this episode, Helen Fanucci and Susan Finch discuss these questions and more.

There is a tendency for us managers to want to know what our teams are doing and this is exacerbated when our team is remote and we cannot see them at work!  Being remote can drive the instinct to want to exert too much control.  Resist!  The harder you try to control, the more likely they are to slip out of your grasp.  Join us for this episode as we tackle this important temptation. Join Helen Fanucci and Susan Finch for this episode of Love Your Team, "Talent is Like a Wet Bar of Soap."