The Playbook to Sales Excellence | Tom Lavery, CEO & Founder at Jiminny
Tom Lavery joins James on this episode of the award-winning podcast, Tech Salescraft. As CEO and Founder of Jiminny, Tom is brilliantly poised to deliver expert marketplace advice, including his thoughts on what it takes to be a renowned Sales Leader in such a competitive space. Tom guides us through his professional chapters before founding Jiminny and shares how that has informed his current approach to mentorship, coaching and networking. This episode is an essential playbook to sales excellence, containing some exclusive insights into unlocking your sales potential.
“There’s many opinions on what a sales leader looks like, but the modern approach is that they should be a connector of people. It’s about asking how you inspire your team to produce great results through mentoring and coaching them.”
In a past era of sales, leadership was very top-down, mimicking a funnel process. Leadership was about direction and targeted placement. Tom and James reveal how this approach has now evolved, and it is far more collaborative, removing the hierarchical constraints. It is now the job of a leader to empower their sales team and mentor them to a point where they can confidently acquire their own leads. It is also about collaboration. Rather than a question being met with a direct answer, it is instead followed with constructive debate. Conversations between leadership and team become developmental and a learning experience for both sides. Tom reveals to us the intricacies of this new, increasingly common style of leadership, and just how firms can evolve away from former practices.
“A formula in one business may not work in another. There are so many dynamics and relationships to manage, and different styles of leadership.”
Whilst there are many commonalities amongst firms adopting this modern style of sales leadership, they still remain unique formations in countless ways. Tom reminds why it isn’t fair to pressure ourselves into directly replicating the practices of another organisation- it’s simply impossible and not sustainable for your team. It is why on Tech Salescraft we proactively bring a diverse range of voices to the table to demonstrate just how brilliantly unique each firm is. And whilst you may leave each episode with new advice for your playbook, it’s about how you apply them to your own context that’s important. Throughout this episode, Tom discusses what he does at Jiminny and how the firm thrives; but he is encouraging of other firms to take what Jiminny does as a basis, and build your own individual professional persona around that. A competitive marketplace needs innovation, fresh ideas, not copies and replicas.
Thank you Tom for joining us on the show. This was a brilliantly refreshing take on business, and confirms to us all just how important self-development is. We can’t wait to see what Jiminny does next!