If you’ve ever been employed by a big company, or worked with the federal government, you’d know that (by necessity) these are the homes of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is usually hostile ground for creatives and entrepreneurs.
On this edition of The Pitchwerks Podcast, Scot visits with Andrew Milisits - an entrepreneur who is so comfortable in these large environments that he can actually see pain points and opportunity. The two talk about custom software development, Bell Labs, and Andrew’s secret weapon for developing a winning solution.
Few people embody the spirit of this show as well as Brandon Womack, the Executive Vice President of Phazzer Electronics, the President and CEO of Homeland Intelligence and Protective Services, and the majority partner of Blue Line Training and Consulting. Brandon has five kids, three businesses and a wife...and if he didn’t have enough going on, he’s moving to Florida.
Devon Sioui is a celebrated visual artist from Ontario, who has moved on from working in the social media marketing space and made her art into her full-time job. As a working artist, she’s not afraid of art criticism, but she dreads writing the descriptions and artist statements that explains her work and its value to viewers, buyers and patrons.
Few people have interviewed and hired as many people as Joe Fink, who visits the Pitchwerks crew at the Epicast studios just as he himself is going through a change in his career. Joe speaks with Scot about his unique perspective as both hiring manager and employment candidate.
Topics include resume layout, personal branding and spray-on hair.
...but only after his “hippie” “woo-woo” “holistic” approach makes you more successful.
Coach Aaron Schiller came to eat cake and reveal objections...and he’s all out of cake. A Silicon Valley all-star, Aaron has worked with Facebook, AT&T and Yale University. He joins us by remote to talk about his emotionally intelligent brand of selling, and finishes up by offering his direct number and a free half-hour to our listeners!
Our conversation continues with Hadley Pratt and Joel Johnson, and Lisa Davidson of The Outsourced Sales Manager. The group explores the nature of closing and the step-by-step sales process, culture gets a long look, Hadley asks a hard question, and Scot and Lisa disagree on the answer.
Breaking from the show’s usual format, Hadley Pratt and Joel Johnson stop by the studio to talk about BoXZY, their breakthrough product for makers and schools. The group talks about how a small tech company that prefers not to sell can still meet Scot’s stated goal of “getting BoXZY into every school”. Lisa Davidson of The Outsourced Sales Manager joins as a special guest.
Joey Vallarian wants you to call him when your CFO gets arrested. After weeks of guests talking about how they achieved tremendous success, Scot invites crisis PR specialist Joey Vallarian of Communication and Crisis (communicationandcrisis.com) on to the show to talk about the curveballs that life and luck can throw a startup or a sales team, and how to manage it when things get rocky.
Pittsburgh City Councilman Dan Gilman works at the grocery store. OK, he’s really there to shop...but as a local councilman he is always selling the constituents, city council and local media on his vision for the city. He rightly points out that despite the fact that he is always on stage, his pitches normally get cut down to a single tweet or one-sentence soundbite. For his pitch, Councilman Gilman makes a convincing case for opening an office in Pittsburgh.
Earl Wyatt writes pitches for other people. Technology and digital advertising specialist Earl Wyatt, founder of Feedigital (feedigital.com), has worked on every type of ad campaign - and now he’s working on the ad networks of the future.
Gerald Fong is building a CRM cleanup tool, but to do it, he has to give you some free sales leads first. Soon after emerging from Y Combinator’s Winter 2016 batch, Elucify (getelucify.com) CEO Gerald Fong talks about sky-high San Francisco rents, gets frustrated about how hard it is to reach people, and how a high-achieving engineering guy embraces salespeople as his target market.
If you’re listening at work - you may want to turn down the volume for the spicy little F-bomb in Gerald’s answer about why he decided to build a tool for salespeople.
Nicholas Jordan does not have time for sleep. A consultant, venture capitalist and charity fundraiser, Nicholas Jordan calls into the studio from Washington, DC to discuss networking, venture capitalism, time management and piranhas.
Jim Gibbs says that infrastructure sounds expensive. The CEO behind the Meter Feeder parking app (meterfeeder.com) comes into the studio to talk about startups, kickboxing, Y Combinator, and the evolution of the Meter Feeder pitch.