This post is based off a podcast with Kenny Goldman. If you’d like to read the summary, you’re on the right page. If you’d like to listen to the full episode, you can check it out here and below!
If you’ve been in the sales and marketing for any length of time, you’re likely hyper-aware that it is a competitive business. There is always someone new, someone up and coming, and someone with drive and passion who wants to make a name for themselves.
But that’s usually the problem: they want to make a name for themselves.
This is where our friend Kenny Goldman is different.
Kenny is the founder and COO of Supercut and is also the founder and host of SalesTO, an organization focused on building and shaping the future of sales through educational, actionable, and unbiased content and events.
On a recent episode of the #FlipMyFunnel podcast, we sat down with Kenny and talked with him about SalesTO, his goals for the organization, and his advice to people looking to break into the sales world.
Meet Someone New, and Learn Something New
SalesTO arose, according to Kenny, from both a selfish desire to get public speaking experience as well as an awareness of the lack of resources in the Toronto area of sales-centric events that allowed him to meet someone new and learn something new.
Simply put: Kenny created the kind of event that he himself wanted to attend.
At most sales meetups, it seemed to him that everybody was focused on what they could get out of it. “Who can I get face time with?” or “Who would help me fill a role?”
So the only rules at a SalesTO event are:
- Meet Someone New and Learn Something New
- No Pitching and No Poaching
That’s it. People so often are focused on “What can I get out of this meetup?” rather than “What can I give to this meetup?”
As the events have grown, he has decided the goal of these events is not making money.
The goal is to bring in talented speakers, have solid content, and provide a place for people to interact.
So he’s partnered with another team to take care of things like the venue, tickets, food, etc., freeing him up to focus on making the event truly impactful.
So how did Kenny get to a point where they’re bringing top-tier talent to these meetups?
Be The Hardest Working Person in the Building
Several years back, Kenny was still in school and looking for a way to break into the sales world.
He approached the CEO of Vidyard at an event, mentioned that he was looking to get into sales, and asked for an introduction to the company.
The CEO obliged, and introduced him to someone, only to tell Kenny that since he was in school full time, they couldn’t really bring him on at the time.
So Kenny told them he’d work for free.
He went to the Vidyard office, with his personal laptop (since they wouldn’t hire him and give him a laptop) and worked for free. He spent his time prospecting leads, for free. Because he wanted to work for the company, and would do anything to make it happen.
On his 3rd day with the company, he found himself being pulled in to do a customer demo. And though the call probably didn’t go as smoothly as he wanted, he moved all his classes to the evenings and started working full time as an SDR.
His advice for people looking to get into the sales?
- Get your foot in the door and start selling.
However, you can make it happen, get your foot in the door and start selling. Reach out to the ideal customer profile ahead of interviews, giving you a better knowledge of the specific pain points customers are having.
- Learn.
Sales can be a lot of fun, but often times, sales professionals can come into an environment and think there’s nothing to learn.
Dedicate time to preparing and being proactive and learning, or you’ll fall short. Read books, understand sales methodologies, and practice tactics.
There were nights when Kenny would spend hours in the Salesforce sandbox environment breaking everything he could, just so he could figure out how to put it all back together again. 
Kenny is an inspiration and an example of the fact that you can literally do anything you want to do, and accomplish anything you want to accomplish as long as you have the drive, passion, and the desire to work harder than anybody else.
If you want to hear more from our conversation with Kenny, check out the full interview on the #FlipMyFunnel Podcast.
