Sales Talk for CEOs

Hosted by Alice Heiman

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197

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Aug 2026

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About the show

Welcome to Sales Talk for CEOs, where host Alice Heiman goes deep with female founders and experts on the real story behind building a company and a life at the same time. After 5+ years and 190+ episodes, the show has pivoted to focus exclusively on female founders/CEOs and their journeys on both the business and personal sides. In each episode, Alice explores not just what it took to build and grow a sales organization, but the full picture: getting funded, managing health and family, and driving revenue all at once. This is the founder story most podcasts don't tell.

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60 recent

August 19, 202637 min

How Lauren Goodell Grew Sales by Leading with Humanity, Resilience, and AI

"Nobody knows what the heck they're doing. It's the people willing to go out there and do it that are gonna be successful." Lauren Goodell left a successful sales career to launch a startup while caring for both parents through serious health challenges and managing her own chronic illness. She shares lessons on resilience, leadership, customer discovery, and building a sustainable company. • Left corporate sales and took a pay cut while navigating her mother's stage-four cancer diagnosis, her father's Parkinson's diagnosis, and her own chronic illness • Conducted 300+ customer discovery conversations before building the product, using those conversations to identify design partners and ultimately pivot the company toward a stronger opportunity • Learned through repeated cycles of burnout that leadership requires boundaries, vulnerability, and clear communication with investors, teammates, and the people who support you Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Follow Sales Talk for CEOs so you never miss an episode.

August 12, 202654 min

A Better Way to Sell: Becc Holland on Conviction, Curiosity, and Leading With Care

Most sales organizations are training sellers to do the wrong job. In this episode, sales expert Becc Holland joins Alice Heiman to challenge some of the biggest assumptions in modern selling, from what qualifies as a lead to why buyers ignore outreach and what CEOs can do to build sales teams buyers actually want to talk to. Becc argues that today's buyers are not looking for another product pitch. They are looking for expertise. She explains why sellers should spend less time mastering objection handling and more time understanding the people they serve, why CEOs should prioritize buyer knowledge throughout onboarding, and how helping buyers uncover problems they do not yet recognize creates stronger conversations and better outcomes for everyone involved. Together, Alice and Becc explore what it means to make sales easier by replacing pressure with curiosity, focusing on diagnosis instead of persuasion, and equipping sellers to create value before they ever talk about a product. Becc explains: ◼️ Why CEOs should teach sellers to understand buyers before teaching products ◼️ How learning a buyer's world becomes an act of care ◼️ Why diagnosing problems creates better outcomes than pitching solutions ◼️ What founders can do to build sales cultures rooted in curiosity instead of pressure ◼️ Why buyers are looking for expertise rather than another sales pitch ◼️ How helping people make better decisions creates stronger businesses for everyone

August 5, 202648 min

From Osteopenia Diagnosis to Sold-Out Product: How Marie Berry Built YVO Around Bone Health and Community

"There's never a good time to have a child. When you're a founder, you just do it." Marie Berry built three companies across four continents before a personal osteopenia diagnosis led her to create YVO, a women's wellness brand making bone health modern, feminine, and measurable. In this episode, she shares how a 30-day rucking challenge with friends turned into a sold-out product line and a growing community of 600 women. - Designed a weighted vest specifically for the female body after finding nothing on the market that fit, functioned, or looked right for women - Grew YVO from a small friend group walking challenge to a multi-city community and two sold-out production runs in under a year - Navigated fundraising as a woman, timed motherhood around founder life, and leaned on her network at every stage of the supply chain. Follow Sales Talk for CEOs so you never miss an episode. For Alice’s unique 15% off code – click here Alice15

July 29, 202646 min

How Cheryl Sew Hoy Built Tiny Health During COVID, Two Startups, and Two Kids

Cheryl Sew Hoy, CEO of Tiny Health, built a gut microbiome testing platform from her living room with a newborn, a toddler, and a co-founding spouse. In this episode, she shares the real mechanics of scaling a science-driven health company while designing a support system that actually works. - Validated market demand by testing search keywords around baby eczema and allergies, then used those insights to shape paid and organic channel strategy across Google and Meta - Built scientific credibility by recruiting advisors from Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, and UCSF to fill expertise gaps and establish trust in a category where consumers and doctors alike lacked awareness - Negotiated explicit division of labor at home and hired family members into operational roles, creating a sustainable structure that protected founder bandwidth through three children and a four-times revenue growth year Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. Follow Sales Talk for CEOs so you never miss an episode.

July 22, 202654 min

50 Co-Founder Conversations and 200 VC Pitches Before it all Clicked | Nikita Jain, CEO at Eubrics

After spending a decade building a successful consulting career, Nikita Jain made the difficult decision to walk away from a path toward partnership and become a first-time founder. She shares how she navigated family concerns, found the right co-founder after more than 50 conversations, balanced entrepreneurship with her marriage and personal well-being, and discovered that building a company isn't about having the perfect plan—it's about consistently taking action, learning, and moving forward.

July 15, 202610 min

Driving Revenue while Raising a Family, Running a Household and Trying to Stay Sane w/ Alice Heiman

Life has a way of interrupting even the best-laid plans. After nearly 30 years helping founder CEOs grow revenue - including working with companies that later became unicorns and helping many businesses increase their valuation and successfully exit - Alice Heiman is relaunching Sales Talk for CEOs with a specific focus on female founders. Going forward, the podcast will explore the realities women navigate behind the scenes while building companies and driving revenue, while providing practical strategies, support, and conversations designed to help them succeed. Alice Heiman is the founder and CEO of her sales consulting firm, where she has spent nearly 30 years helping founder CEOs increase sales, grow valuation, and exit, with two unicorn companies among her clients. She has hosted more than 190 episodes of Sales Talk for CEOs and is now building dedicated programs and resources specifically for female founder CEOs. Her approach centers on the premise that driving revenue is a solvable problem, and that the real barriers for female founders are the compounding pressures no one talks about: caregiving, hormonal health shifts, and operating in a system where women receive roughly 2% of venture capital funding. Alice explains: ◼️ Why she stepped away from the podcast for six months without advance planning ◼️ What happens when grief, hormones, and business stress converge simultaneously ◼️ How 30 years of advising CEOs exposed an unmet need in support services ◼️ Why female founders require more than just sales strategy to succeed ◼️ What the 2 percent funding reality reveals about women building companies ◼️ Why menopause should be part of conversations about revenue growth ◼️ What shifts when family life and founder life are no longer treated separately

December 29, 202545 min

Win High-Stakes Sales Presentations. Yvonne Lines on Messaging That Closes

Win more high stakes deals. In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman sits down with Yvonne Lines, a strategic presentation expert, to unpack exactly how B2B sales teams can win their most important, high-stakes sales presentations, the ones that make or break deals. Yvonne shares her proven process for creating audience-centric, story-driven presentations that drive decisions and close business. This episode is packed with actionable strategies for CEOs, founders, and sales leaders who want their teams to win by making customer centric presentations. Connect With Yvonne Lines: LinkedIn | Website Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website

December 23, 202531 min

How Accelevents Grew with Inbound Sales, Customer Focus & Events That Close Deals

Events create demand. In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman sits down with Jonathan Kazarian, Founder & CEO of Accelevents, the all‑in‑one event management platform that’s redefining how organizations run events from 20‑person dinners to 30,000‑attendee conferences. Jonathan didn’t start in events tech, he came from finance. But when he couldn’t find software powerful enough to run a 900‑person fundraiser for his cousin, he built his own. That event was a smash success and the demand for the tool he created sparked the beginning of Accelevents. Want to get better results from your events? Check out these expert tips from Alice (Our Internal Links) 📌 Pre-Event Preparations for Networking Success 📌 How to Make Sure Your Event Follow-Up Doesn’t Suck 📌 How to Get in Front of the People Who Can Buy From You Books & Podcasts Mentioned: 📚 Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara 🎙️ All-In Podcast 💡Advice for CEOs: “Talk to customers to listen, not to talk.” Connect With Jonathan Kazarian: LinkedIn | Website Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website https://www.trykondo.com/

December 16, 202538 min

Trust‑Based Selling: How Ari Galper Accelerated Complex B2B Deals by Earning Trust - Not Chasing Them

In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs , Alice Heiman sits down with trust‑selling pioneer Ari Galper to reveal why traditional sales techniques are failing in today’s climate and what CEOs, Founders, and Sales Leaders must do instead . Ari argues that trust isn’t a byproduct of selling; it’s the core of it. Actionable takeaways for leaders: Train your team to lead with questions , listen until they share the full context of their problem. Replace “follow up” emails with “feedback” outreach. Always end meetings by scheduling the next appointment, don’t leave it to chance . Ari’s insights build on a theme we’ve heard from several standout guests, trust isn’t just part of the sales process; it is the process. If you found this episode valuable, you’ll also want to hear how other CEOs and experts are scaling by leading with trust: 👉 Barb Betts’ system to scale sales through trust 👉 How to scale with trusted partnerships 👉 Why relationships win over sales pitches Connect with Ari and Alice below to learn how to transform your sales model into one built on clarity, empathy, and trust. Rapid‑Fire Picks Book: 80/20 Sales & Marketing by Perry Marshall Podcast: The Diary of a CEO Advice for CEOs to Win Today’s Market: Shift from being the “pharmacist” handing out pills to being the “doctor” diagnosing pain and eliminate any sales behavior that feels salesy or forced. Connect WithAri Galpert: LinkedIn | Website Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website

December 9, 202532 min

From Founder Chaos to Scalable Sales: Adi Klevit’s System to Turn Sales Know‑How Into Company Growth

In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs , Alice Heiman sits down with Adi Klevit, founder and visionary behind Business Success Consulting Group, to expose a powerful truth many CEOs and Founders don’t face, your sales success often lives in someone’s head instead of in a scalable, repeatable system. Adi walks through her proven approach of documenting, optimizing, and implementing processes so companies can finally scale sales reliably, empower their teams, and free the founder to work on the business, not in it. By the end of this episode, CEOs will have a clear roadmap to turn messy, inconsistent sales behaviors into a documented playbook that produces consistent results. Rapid‑Fire Picks Books: 10X by Grant Cardone The Power Questions by Jerold Panas & Andrew Sobel The Go-Giver (and The Go-Giver Influencer ) by Bob Burg and John David Mann Podcasts: Built to Sell Radio Inspired Insider with Dr. Jeremy Weisz Advise to the CEO: Focus on what they can control and let go of what they can’t, like the economy, market fluctuations, or global events. Instead, she recommends channeling energy into how you lead, operate, and continuously improve. Be a lifelong learner. That’s the mindset that keeps you agile, innovative, and successful no matter what the market throws your way. Connect With Adi Klevit: LinkedIn | Website Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website