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Leadership Lessons from a Trailblazer – Naomi Brezi, CRO, Growth Catalyst and Board Advisor

Meet Our Guest: Naomi Brezi

Naomi Brezi is a highly confident and innovative executive leader with over 15 years of C-suite experience. She consistently delivers exponential growth, operational efficiency, and commercial transformation across diverse sectors. Like, Learning & Development, Higher Education, EdTech, and B2B and Sales Leadership.

As a transformational catalyst, Naomi has:

> Led high-impact turnarounds and strategic market expansions.

> Driven multi-million-dollar revenue gains and profitability improvements.

> Spearheaded go-to-market strategies from the ground up.

A hands-on, people-first leader, Naomi has managed large sales teams of over 120 and has a proven track record of unlocking hidden talent to build high-performing, results-driven organizations. Her strategic and operational execution has led to exceptional Year-over-Year (YoY) revenue growth and operational efficiency.

She’s also skilled in board engagement and investor communication, often securing buy-in for bold initiatives that generate lasting shareholder value.

Naomi’s core strengths include:

> Cross-functional alignment and interdepartmental collaboration.

> Client-centric innovation and customer success strategies.

> Data-driven decision-making and analytics-based sales management.

> She’s an active board member, deeply committed to advancing women in leadership and mentoring the next generation of revenue leaders in today’s competitive market.

Podcast Episode: Trailblazing Sales Leadership with Naomi Brezi

Join us on the Sales Lead Dog Podcast for an inspiring conversation with Naomi Brezi, a truly pioneering leader in B2B sales strategy and commercial transformation. She’s known for her remarkable ability to transform underperforming sales territories into global market leaders. Discover her incredible journey of resilience, ambition, and excellence in revenue generation.

In this episode, Naomi shares her captivating story, including her courageous decision to step back from a high-profile role to achieve better work-life integration. This sets a powerful example for a healthier executive lifestyle.

Listen as she recounts overcoming significant industry challenges and market fluctuations to become a top-performing salesperson, sharing invaluable lessons in sales methodologies and professional development.

Career Realities & Empowering Women in Sales

The podcast delves into the nuances of career expectations versus reality, particularly for women in male-dominated business sectors. Naomi provides an eye-opening account of her early career in New York City’s finance industry, where she swiftly moved into strategic leadership without formal training.

She candidly discusses the obstacles she faced managing seasoned sales teams and navigating a culture of prevalent misogyny. Her insights reveal how these formative experiences shaped her authentic leadership style and fueled her passion for empowering women in sales leadership roles and driving gender diversity in the workplace.

Transparent Sales Leadership & The Future of Sales Technology

Naomi also explores the evolving dynamics of modern workplace culture and the critical role of transparent leadership in talent development and employee engagement. She emphasizes nurturing environments where team members can thrive, highlighting the vital need for diversity, equitable representation, and robust mentorship programs to support women in sales and executive leadership.

The conversation also covers the transformative power of CRM systems (like Salesforce) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) in modern sales processes. Get a glimpse into the future of sales technology and digital transformation.

This episode is packed with meaningful insights on effective leadership, personal growth, emotional intelligence, and the human-centric side of sales – a must-listen for anyone aiming to excel in high-performance sales and business leadership.

Key Takeaways You’ll Learn:

> Strategies for transforming underperforming sales territories into global market leaders.

> How to achieve sustainable work-life integration in high-pressure executive roles.

> Insights into navigating male-dominated industries and overcoming career obstacles for women professionals.

> The importance of transparent leadership, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and mentorship programs in talent development.

> The transformative impact of CRM solutions and AI tools on modern sales processes and sales productivity.

> Valuable lessons on personal growth, emotional intelligence, and the human-centric side of sales leadership.

0:01
Welcome to the Sales Lead Dog podcast hosted by CRM technology and sales process expert Christopher Smith.

0:09
Talking with sales leaders that have separated themselves from the rest of the pack.

0:13
Listen to find out how the best of the best achieved success with their team and CRM technology.

0:20
And remember, unless you were the lead dog, the view never changes.

0:26
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog.

0:29
Joining me today on this episode is Naomi Brezzi.

0:33
Naomi is a very forward thinking progressive executive with transformational catalyst driving abilities, exponential revenue growth, just a tremendous track record of leadership.

0:48
Very excited to have you on the show, Naomi.

0:50
Welcome to Sales Lead Dog.

0:52
Well, thank you very much, Chris.

0:54
I’m a big fan of your show and super excited to be here.

0:58
And I really love how you explore the intersections between sales and really the human side of like who we all are around leadership.

1:09
So I’m really looking forward to our conversation today and just kind of jumping in.

1:14
Awesome.

1:14
So Naomi, you’ve had a tremendous career.

1:16
You’ve done quite a few things in, in and around sales and sales leadership.

1:22
When you look back over your career, could you boil it down to three things for me that have really led and contributed to your success?

1:33
I’ll try.

1:35
You know, I think at the core of who I am, I’ve always been a pretty ambitious person.

1:43
You know, I was, I’m, I’m a little bit maybe older than some of your listeners, So I’m probably older than most of our.

1:53
I, I, I came up in corporate America when there weren’t really a lot of women going into leadership positions.

2:02
And I was really fortunate in that both of my parents really instilled in me kind of like that American dream that you could be whatever you put your effort into.

2:11
So I always grew up very ambitious, very competitive.

2:16
And the, I, I would say like my biggest driving force is that I have been a single parent for many years.

2:28
And I always wanted to be able to provide, you know, the education and the means so that my child would have a little bit more than my parents were able to afford me.

2:43
And they did a great job.

2:45
So I grew up with a great amount of grit and determination.

2:49
There was actually a point in my career where I left a very lucrative sales leadership role.

2:57
I was, I was, you know, it was early in my career, I was reporting to the CEO and I had to take a giant step back ’cause I just couldn’t do the kind of travel as a single mother that I had been pursuing.

3:11
And I took a substantial cut and pay to be able to have a more equal balance.

3:18
And within 12 months, I became that organization’s one of the top sales people in that organization and built a territory that was unfailing and unworked and turned it into one of the top three territories globally for that organization.

3:38
Just because I knew that I needed to get to a certain salary level to be able to provide the things that I wanted to provide.

3:47
So I’m pretty focused and driven always by my own kind of growth and journey.

3:52
I’m also a self learner.

3:54
So I became a sales leader early in my career when I probably had no business being one.

4:02
And a lot of it was on the job training, Hard Knocks, trial and error and just self learning so that I can lead my teams more successfully because I knew that if I LED them more successfully, I would be more successful and the organization as a whole would be more successful.

4:24
That’s awesome.

4:26
I tell you.

4:27
There’s nothing like having to provide for your family to motivate, you know, that it’s especially as a single mom, I’d imagine it.

4:41
It’s extremely strong force within you, driving you forward.

4:49
Yeah.

4:49
And, you know, I’m raising a daughter.

4:52
She’s an adult now.

4:53
But I also want it to be able to set that example for her that, like, you know, there’s going to be.

4:59
Nobody’s life is perfect.

5:00
We all have our ups and downs.

5:02
And I know that this is a little bit of a cliche.

5:05
We all get knocked down at varying points in our life.

5:09
And it’s not how you end up getting knocked down.

5:11
It’s how you dust yourself up, you know, off and get back up and move forward.

5:15
And, you know, start a new day with as positive of, of a mindset as you can with your goals ahead of you and, you know, wanting to achieve and move those goals forward.

5:27
Hey, we’re taking a quick break to thank you for listening to and supporting the Sales Lead Dog podcast.

5:33
I want to take a moment and tell you about my book.

5:36
CRM Shouldn’t Suck.

5:38
If your CRM feels more like a black hole for data than something that actually helps your team sell, you’re not alone.

5:46
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5:54
No fluff, just real strategies that work.

5:58
So go to crmshouldntsuck.com to order your free copy right now.

6:05
That’s right, we’re giving it away.

6:07
And while you’re there, take two minutes to check out the CRM Impact Score.

6:13
It’s a quick diagnostic that shows you how your CRM is really performing, where it’s helping you, and where it’s hurting you.

6:22
You’ll get a personalized report with clear, actionable next steps.

6:27
You can start right away to maximize your CRM investment.

6:31
We’ve also got blogs, videos, and a bunch of other resources to help you finally get the results you were promised when you bought your Sierra.

6:41
And if you’re watching on YouTube, hit that like button and make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes of Sales Lead Dog.

6:50
OK, let’s get back to this episode of the Sales Lead Dog podcast.

6:55
When you were beginning your career, or even before you’re beginning your career and you’re kind of figuring out what I’m going to do, what was your vision for your future?

7:07
Oh, Chris, that’s so funny.

7:10
So I went to school in New York City, and I went to Business School and I, you know, knew that I was going to enter finance.

7:21
And I had these visions of like, having this grand corner office with a beautiful glass, and I would be looking out over, like, this beautiful Manhattan landscape.

7:33
And I thought I was going to retire by the time I was 30.

7:36
Well, the reality was quite different.

7:38
I was on a trading floor in a very tiny, tiny space doing analytics for foreign currency traders.

7:47
That was extremely transactional.

7:50
And when I was in college, I thought that was going to be my life career.

7:55
And here I was actually doing it right.

7:57
I achieved this goal of mine and I absolutely hated it.

8:01
It was very transactional and it just wasn’t like from a, from a passion fit, from a person fit, personality fit.

8:13
It wasn’t just, it wasn’t good.

8:15
And I was really fortunate at that time to be seen as a high potential employee and I was approached by one of the presidents of one of the banks operating units to really take on a role to lead the sales and marketing efforts of a new international payroll product the bank was going to launch and it was going to be my job to sell it in the enterprise space throughout the US and Europe.

8:43
So here I was, my mid 20s, traveling, you know, not quite around the world, but traveling pretty extensively and having the time of my life and selling to like the top 100 companies in the US that had the need for international payroll products.

9:02
And that was really my entry into like what we call consultative selling today.

9:10
Again, I didn’t really have any formal training.

9:12
I think that I just had the ability to observe and learn about people and learn what they needed and be able to transcribe that, what I was selling into how that could potentially help them solve a problem or a challenge or meet a goal.

9:35
So I mean, that’s amazing that you’d like jump right into a role like that.

9:41
That’s like a dream come true for people that have been doing it for 20 years.

9:44
You know, how what were those early days like?

9:49
I mean, did you fall on your face a lot?

9:50
Was it just a lot of hard knock learning by Hard Knocks and falling down or, or did you have a mentor?

9:55
What was that path through that, that first job?

9:59
It was a lot of fun actually.

10:02
And I didn’t have a mentor.

10:04
And a lot of it was just like learning on the fly.

10:08
And I just think that I was so naive and so like green that I didn’t even if like if failure came, I didn’t even know what it was.

10:16
And I, I was very good at if, you know, I had been selling into, if I had a sales opportunity and I was, you know, driving it down the sales funnel, what we think of the sales funnel.

10:32
And they decided not to buy.

10:34
I always said to myself, OK, they might not be ready today, but I’m going to continue to foster this relationship in other ways and they’re they will buy at some point in time.

10:49
It wasn’t until I actually left banking and went into my first leadership role that I really got knocked on my on my **** a couple of times because I was entering my first real sales leadership role again.

11:09
I was in my mid to late 20s and I was managing a team of men that were older than me and had a ton more experience than I did in sales, in the industry, in our clients, in market segmentation, in everything.

11:30
And I came in with a real chip on my shoulder and I came in a bit cocky and I came in with the attitude that it was going to be my way or the highway.

11:41
And I had no idea what I was doing or what I was talking about.

11:45
Very fortunate in that role to to have a senior vice president that I reported to that really mentored and coached me.

11:57
I still hadn’t had any formal leadership training or even formal sales training at this point.

12:06
But I was very fortunate to have that person as a mentor to me as I was going through like a lot of failure with my team, with the culture, with our clients, and really had to take a step back and reflect on what I was doing wrong.

12:26
And it was a tough lesson.

12:28
It was a humbling pill to to swallow because I had to really reflect on what I was doing wrong and not try to make it what they were doing.

12:38
And I really had to change my approach in the way that I was working with this much more experienced, older group of, of salespeople.

12:48
What was it like in those days?

12:49
Because back then in a lot of roles, a lot of organizations, there weren’t a lot of women.

12:56
So I imagine you were the lone woman a lot of those times and, you know, in different roles early in your career.

13:03
What can you for those people that maybe are a lot younger less that don’t understand that what that was like for you?

13:09
Can you talk about that for a little bit?

13:12
Yeah.

13:13
I mean, it was tough.

13:14
I mean, you know, I’m I’m probably going to say the The Dirty M word, which is there was a lot of misogyny.

13:23
You know, there was a lot of just what people would never accept today in the workplace.

13:35
A lot of, you know, just placate, placating me to placate me, you know, not really taking me seriously.

13:51
And at the time, I honestly thought that this was just the way it was.

13:57
You know, I just had to like push through it and work through it.

14:00
A lot of those experienced, especially on a trading floor and my early first couple of my first leadership role, certainly those experiences I would not tolerate at all today.

14:16
And some of it has to do with the time, some of it has to do with my lack of maturity and how to handle situations like that.

14:25
But it was, it was in reflection.

14:28
It was not fun in the moment.

14:31
I didn’t know any better.

14:33
Yeah, No, I mean, I look back early career, the first job I had, the vice president of the department, I’m not going to go into detail about what he did, but he basically configured a director, female director’s computer to show some images on her computer.

14:51
Today, you would totally get fired.

14:53
You get sued.

14:54
I mean, the company’s such huge.

14:55
But back then everyone just kind of laughed like, oh, ha, ha, ha.

15:00
But that was the norm back there, you know, which is mind boggling, I think for most people, younger people today, like, no, there’s no way.

15:08
It’s like, yeah, that was the vice president of the department, her boss or direct boss doing this to her.

15:16
And I, I was, this is my first job out of college.

15:19
I just like, is this what happens all the time?

15:23
You know, I had no idea.

15:25
Yeah.

15:25
I mean, so, you know, nowadays, you know, we’ve evolved, thankfully, from a cultural standpoint, from a societal standpoint, to to know that those things are not, they’re egregious and and they shouldn’t be allowed and they shouldn’t be allowed anywhere in society, but especially in the workplace.

15:52
Yeah.

15:53
So how was that shaped your view and your role as a leader in terms of team development, mentoring, coaching?

16:02
You’re just your whole approach to leadership.

16:07
You know, I always try my best to make opportunity available to everybody on my team.

16:18
One of the things that I’m I’m proud about being able to achieve, Chris, is that I have a very keen eye for talent.

16:27
So whenever I’ve started a new role with a new organization and I’ve LED some pretty large teams, I’ve LED, you know, teams of up to 120 people with very complex, sophisticated books of business covering everything from technology to SAS to consulting to AI.

16:49
But one of the things that I really try to do in my first 90 days is to meet with every single person that rolls up to me because I really want to, you know, it’s twofold for me.

17:02
It’s one to really understand the culture of the organization.

17:06
It’s to get some information about what’s working, what’s not working.

17:10
But I’m also looking for untapped talent OR hidden talent OR people that are in the wrong roles.

17:18
You know, if somebody’s in the wrong role, let’s get them in the right role so that they can really thrive and, and be successful.

17:25
And this is not something that I was taught.

17:28
It’s just something I started doing.

17:31
And through this, I’ve been able to identify a lot of really untapped talent and I really look to develop that talent and to place them in roles where they can be successful.

17:48
Couple of roles prior to my last one, there was somebody that was an account manager.

17:57
She was reporting to a leader that really like to micromanage and kind of be like the face of her book of business, which is fine, but was really not allowing this person to grow beyond the the role responsibilities.

18:16
And through meeting this individual, I really saw that she had a lot more to offer.

18:22
And when I left that company and went to my next, I was able to bring her with me and really help expand her role and responsibility.

18:33
And she has thrived incredibly in her career.

18:37
In my last role again, I there was a individual contributor who was really hungry for the next step in his career.

18:48
And I was able to through a reorg that we were doing through a transformational restructuring we were doing.

18:56
I was able to offer him a sales leadership role in a new market segment that we were going to test and tackle.

19:04
And he like, was one of the best sales leaders I’ve ever coached and mentored and really understood what was needed in that job.

19:15
And we have remained in, in, in we, we’ve remained friends, professional friends.

19:23
And he’ll probably be ready for the chief revenue officer seat in the next like five to seven years if he continues on the track that he’s going.

19:32
And, and I think he will and I hope he gets there.

19:35
So I, I look for those opportunities to find that talent and to really help people achieve from a career perspective what they’re looking to achieve.

19:47
So let’s go back.

19:49
So what was it in that, that woman that you talked about that you saw that untapped potential, you know, and you said you have a keen eye for talent.

19:57
How did you develop that keen eye so you could identify with her?

20:02
You know, there’s, there’s potential here that we’re not utilizing.

20:06
How’d you develop that eye for that town?

20:09
I’m a real observer of people and I really use like listening skills a lot.

20:17
I know that in sales, sales people often get accused of talking too much.

20:22
And, you know, so I’m very much in talking mode today.

20:26
But I really listen with intent to what people are saying.

20:31
And I ask a lot of questions.

20:33
And I always give whoever I’m speaking with the permission to say, you know, I don’t want to answer that or, you know, that’s too personal because there might be reasons why, you know, somebody doesn’t want to answer a question.

20:49
But, you know, if I, if I see a performance problem, I’ll give you an example.

20:53
If I see a performance problem and I talk to them, somebody might want who never had a performance problem before, they might not want to talk about the fact that they’re caring for a sick parent right now or a sick child or whatever’s going on in their life.

21:08
So I always give folks permission.

21:09
But with this particular individual she really had strong initiative and I kind of started testing her by giving her small like side projects to do and whenever we would have our regular one on ones she always exceeded my expectations when she showed up and she would ask questions if she wasn’t sure about something.

21:33
But she wasn’t afraid to try and fail or to take the the step forward to make the attempt on moving the project in a forward direction.

21:45
And I really liked that about her.

21:49
She was also really smart and very professional, always showed up ready to go professional If we needed to talk budget numbers or revenue numbers or projections, she was always very ready to do that.

22:03
That’s awesome.

22:04
Now what about the gentleman that you you talked about?

22:08
There’s a potential CRO.

22:10
What did you see in him?

22:13
I saw a certain intensity, a certain passion, a real drive.

22:17
He was in a in a tough role with where the organization was from a new logo acquisition perspective, and he was still in it all the time driving forward.

22:36
He also showed up very professional, always had his numbers ready.

22:43
Like when I came into my last role, there was not a lot of clarity around revenue or numbers or forecasting or pipeline.

22:53
They didn’t really use our CRM system.

22:57
And I really, you know, within my first 30 days, I said, this is not an option folks.

23:04
If it’s not in the CRM, if we can’t pull data from the CRM, it does not exist to me.

23:09
And if it doesn’t exist to me, that’s a problem for you because I’m going to begin to like be like, what are you doing?

23:16
Like, why are you like not, you know, why are you, why are your, why is your forecast so off or why are your projections off or why are we not seeing the opportunities move through the funnel?

23:28
He was always prepared, always had an intensity.

23:31
And the other thing that he did, which was he said, I want to be in your seat in 10 years.

23:38
How do I get there?

23:41
And I really admired and appreciated that about him when I asked him the question, where do you see yourself in five or ten years?

23:48
What do you want to do?

23:50
Let’s make sure that we build a, a road map for your career success.

23:56
And he shared that, you know, with me in the early days.

24:00
What role does vulnerability play for you as a leader?

24:04
I’m very vulnerable.

24:06
I’m very transparent.

24:08
In my last several roles.

24:10
I always within my first 30 days have an all team town hall where I share my personal and professional story about who I who I am as a person, my leadership philosophy, what I’m going to expect from the team, but what the team can also expect from me.

24:34
I think it’s OK to be vulnerable.

24:36
It’s OK sometimes to be like sad when you don’t win a deal.

24:40
I certainly am like bummed out when we’ve put a lot of time and effort into a sales opportunity or an RFP that’s, you know, going to help our our organization move forward or help somebody get that big Commission check or meet a big, a big revenue or growth goal.

25:00
And it’s OK to talk about those things.

25:02
And it’s also OK to make mistakes and talk about why we lost and what we could have done differently because that’s the way we learn and that’s the way we get better.

25:14
If we don’t talk about those things, we can’t improve.

25:17
So I’m a very vulnerable person.

25:21
I know it doesn’t work for everybody and that’s OK.

25:23
But this is who I am.

25:25
And you know, you’re going to get transparency and clarity and direct communication from me at all times.

25:34
Do you think it’s gotten better for women in sales organizations over your career or are there areas that we could still improve?

25:45
Well, I was reading recently an article from a very well known human capital consulting company that said of all of the Fortune 1000, or I think maybe it was Fortune 500 companies, only 10% are CEO females.

26:03
So yes and no.

26:07
Like, right, yes, there are more women that are coming into the C-Suite.

26:12
But I can tell you, just from my own personal experience, I’m typically the only woman sitting at the C-Suite table.

26:22
And I’m definitely 90% of the time the only woman you know at those borderly quarterly board meetings.

26:33
Excuse me, the vast majority of board members are white men.

26:42
And I really think that that needs to change.

26:46
And one of the things that I’ve worked hard at throughout my career is with my teams is really ensuring that there’s an equal balance between men and women, that people of color have opportunities within my organizations.

27:00
One of the things that I’m very proud of in my last in my former in my former job was we’re selling into the higher education space.

27:11
I did a listening tour of, of our clients and when I met with the presidents of our historically black colleges and universities, one of the things that I heard loud and clear was please don’t send me another white male to sell into our college or our university because they don’t understand the unique needs of HBCUS.

27:34
And I’m, I was very proud of the fact that I was able to hire not only women, but people of color that came from HBCUS that really understood the unique dynamics of that market segmentation.

27:53
And we’re able to be very successful on in selling into our clients that were HBCUS and were even more successful in selling some of our early adopters of some of our AI technology products.

28:13
I really think it was a result of having the right team interfacing with those clients.

28:19
Yeah.

28:21
What advice do you have for any women that are listening or people that are of color that you know, that maybe like, hey, I want to be where you are in 10 years.

28:32
What advice do you have for them?

28:37
I would say this is this is the unfortunate reality of of us in in the workplace.

28:47
You always have to be prepared.

28:48
You always have to look the part, know your know your numbers and be clear with your communication.

29:00
And it’s OK to ask the hard questions.

29:04
In several of my last rolls, sometimes there were things that kind of made me go, huh, that didn’t seem right or why did they ask me that question but not ask my male colleague a similar question?

29:20
And it’s OK, you know, choose your timing, but to talk to your immediate manager in, in my instance, in the my last couple of roles, I reported to the CEO.

29:34
So I would, you know, show up with vulnerability and say, you know, I’m wondering if this was just coincidence or if this is a pattern.

29:46
This is kind of how I felt when XY and Z happened.

29:51
What do you think?

29:52
And kind of let them it’s, you know, be very open-ended in in my question and and see what they felt at the situation.

30:05
Doing that will tell you a lot, you know, leaving it open-ended like that, but see where they go.

30:11
I mean, I would say just keep moving forward, Build your network.

30:16
That is going to be really, really important and look for mentors.

30:22
Sometimes a mentor or coach doesn’t need to be in your immediate company.

30:27
One of my one of my best mentors and coaches is somebody that’s in my industry but I’ve never worked for and I met through a consulting gig I was doing.

30:40
He’s, he was on the board and I just really began to develop a relationship with him outside of that consulting opportunity I was doing.

30:52
And he’s one of the best coaches that I have.

30:56
Like I go to him when something feels weird or not right or I’ve had a success or I’m looking for a new role.

31:03
And he’s really been extremely helpful in helping to guide me.

31:09
I would also say, you know, pay it forward.

31:13
So when somebody helps you help them.

31:15
There is an amazing Madeleine Albright quote that says there’s a special place in hell for women that don’t help other women.

31:24
And it’s one of my favorite quotes.

31:26
So I really try to pay it forward not only to the women that are in my professional life, but also to the men.

31:34
I believe in good karma yeah.

31:36
Oh yeah, me too.

31:38
Changing topics here a bit CRM, do you love it or do you hate it?

31:45
I love it.

31:47
So what about CRM makes you love it?

31:51
Well, you know, listen, as a, when I was an individual contributor, maybe I hated it because to me, busy work, but it was a necessary evil to be able to show that like, yes, I am prospecting and yes, I am moving things through the sales funnel.

32:09
And then when I had success and could see that like I was ahead of goal or making goal, I loved it, right?

32:17
But as a sales leader and as a sales executive, it’s really imperative for us to be able to have eyes on the data, to be able to analyze the data and to be able to understand what’s happening in the market.

32:34
Because if COVID taught us one thing, it taught us that life could change on in a moment’s notice.

32:41
And we have to be fluid and agile in in how we go to market.

32:47
We might have a new competitor coming out.

32:49
There might be a war, there might be 1000 different things that could occur that are outside of, you know, our ability to, to manage and drive that we have to be fluid and agile for to be able to adopt, to continue to be successful.

33:05
So it’s a tool that really allows us to gather that data to see trends, positive and negative, to be able to to to tweak our value, prop our market offering, but also to make sure that we’re making our goals and we’re growing in the way that we want to continue to grow, expand and scale.

33:26
If you could change one thing about CRM, it could be the technology, maybe it’s the approach to how people are leveraging CRM.

33:33
What would it be?

33:39
I would love it if like what I’m visualizing in my brain, I could take out of the CRM and put like in a presentation that I need to present to the board.

33:51
I think with the advent of AI, we were we’re going to get closer and closer and closer to that.

33:59
There are some great tools out there that can help put together really amazing presentations now beyond, you know, maybe what we were using 5 or 6 years ago.

34:12
The other thing that I’ll say about AI along the, the CRM route is that, you know, in my, I’m an early adopter of technology.

34:21
I really love it.

34:23
And if it’s going to help us, let’s use it.

34:26
So whether it was my marketing team or my sales team or my leaders or my client success team, like go, go use AI.

34:37
If you’re struggling to write an e-mail, put it in, ask it to like, you know, tell it what kind of tone you want and it will take your written work and make it better.

34:52
Like now just don’t go and send that because you still need to like make sure it’s got the right intent and it’s not putting erroneous information in there.

35:02
But there is going to come a time in the very near future where CRM, data analytics are all going to merge into one to be able to begin to build that story.

35:16
The data will be put in a in a, in a more visually appealing storytelling fashion so that when you have big presentations, whether it’s to a board or to a client to show return on investment, that’ll be more fluid in the next couple of years.

35:32
Oh, I couldn’t agree more.

35:33
You know, I think it’s a great tool to help you learn, you know, So, yeah, if you are struggling and writing an e-mail, leverage AI, see what it’s putting out, use that to learn and get better, you know?

35:43
Yeah, absolutely.

35:44
Yeah.

35:45
So it’s yeah, it’s, it’s mind boggling the stuff that’s coming and and the change that we’re going to be seeing over the next few years.

35:52
Naomi, we’re at our time here on sales.

35:54
Lee, Doug, I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing your story.

35:58
If people want to reach out and connect with you, what’s the best way for them to do that?

36:03
Well, I’m an active, so not to give a plug to anyone place, but I’m an active LinkedIn, you know, user.

36:11
So please, I’m the I I think I’m the the only Naomi Bresi out there.

36:16
So please reach me there or certainly Chris, they could reach me from the link of our show today and I’d be happy to connect with them and you know, just continue to build out each other’s networks and you know, help each other.

36:32
No, that’s great.

36:33
So if you didn’t get that, no worries.

36:35
It’s going to be in our show notes.

36:36
You can get that at impellercrm.com/sales Lead Dog where you’ll get not only the show notes for this episode and be able to connect with Naomi.

36:45
You’ll get all our 150 plus episodes of sales Lead Dog.

36:48
So be sure to check that out and subscribe that really help us out and you get all our future episodes.

36:53
Naomi, thank you again for coming on Sales Lead Dog and welcome to the Sales Lead Dog pack.

36:58
Thank you so much.

36:59
I really had a great time.

37:01
It was great to be here.

37:02
I appreciate the conversation.

37:06
As we end this discussion on Sales Lead Dog.

37:09
Be sure to subscribe to catch all our episodes on social media.

37:13
Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram, watch the videos on YouTube and you can also find our episodes on our website at impellercrm.com/sales.

37:25
Lead Dog Sales Lead Dog is supported by Impeller CRM, delivering objectively better CRM for business Guaranteed.


Quotes: 

“I’ve always believed in the power of grit and determination. It’s about getting back up every time you fall and pushing forward with a positive mindset.” 

“Navigating a male-dominated industry taught me invaluable lessons in leadership and resilience, which have shaped who I am today.” 

“It’s crucial to foster an environment where everyone on the team feels they can thrive and grow. Transparent leadership plays a key role in talent development.” 

“The journey to the C-suite as a woman is filled with unique challenges, but it’s also a path of immense opportunity and growth.” 

Links: 

Naomi’s LinkedIn 

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