WMYT - What makes YOU Tick? Tech Leaders Career Stories

Hosted by Richard and Tolu @ Tick Talent

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206

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Oct 2026

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About the show

Conversations with high-performing tech leaders, breaking down the decisions, failures, and strategies behind exceptional careers. It all starts by asking "what makes you tick?" Designed for founders and operators who want practical lessons from people who’ve built, scaled, and led in the real world. No theory. No hype. Just insights you can use.

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October 21, 2026Episode 15330 min

How to hire great salespeople (14 revenue leaders share what works!)

14 sales leaders and founders from our 150 What Makes You Tick episodes on hiring great salespeople: what to look for, how to test for it, what happens when you get it wrong, and the biggest job a founder has.Chapters:0:00 Intro: Richard on hiring elite salespeople0:47 Benjamin Caller: why an empty seat beats the wrong hire2:05 James Smith: SPARK, the 5 traits he screens for3:52 Gal Aga: his mentality on building a team6:44 Simon Black: promote from within, or hire from your sector?9:42 Remy Piazza: why industry experience is overrated11:49 Charles Talbot: bad salespeople are great interviewers12:44 Elitsa Miller: how to spot consistency and grit16:01 Olivia Lockwood: why she counts the pronouns17:37 Michael Schirrmacher: why he looks for failure stories19:12 Heath Barnett: the top-5% rep who lasted 3 months22:42 Simon Black: the top performer holding everyone back24:34 Amit Stark: why mercenary reps kill your company26:55 Scott MacGregor: the bone-dry talent strategy bucket29:36 Abi Williams: competency you can learn, character you can't30:31 OutroFull conversations:- Benjamin Caller (E.127): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyCAat-n8OA- James Smith (E.101): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz8066MnkZo- Gal Aga (E.77): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-ww8FZ9u6I- Simon Black (E.119): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfIs4F_udlI- Remy Piazza (E.99): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxaEqVCIRi0- Charles Talbot and Douglas Mancini (E.120): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBK98ay-Gpk- Elitsa Miller (E.126): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaBxVzHdrj4- Olivia Lockwood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dz8iduYq7o0- Michael Schirrmacher (E.110): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g25I0C5x7lQ- Heath Barnett (E.95): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viv8BikwTNg- Amit Stark (E.138): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIGkpq253vk- Scott MacGregor (E.106): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An8ZNavt5HI- Abi Williams (E.66): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLK27Hbp954Connect with us:- Richard Washington on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/- Tick Talent: https://tick-talent.com- WMYT newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/wmyt%3F-what-makes-you-tick-7083793079794556928

October 11, 202616 min

The Series A to B SaaS Growth Trap: Don't Mistake Success for Repeatability - Joseph Jenkins

Is your SaaS growth actually repeatable, or are you mistaking early success for a scalable sales motion? VP Sales Joseph Jenkins breaks down the hidden assumptions that quietly crack the foundations of early-stage B2B SaaS companies.This is a What Makes You Tick Best Bits extract. Host Richard Washington, Founder of Tick Talent, talks with Joseph, a VP Sales who has hired over a hundred people as a sales leader, about the assumptions founders and first sales leaders make between pre-seed and Series B, and how to check them before they cost you.Watch the full episode with Joseph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWI9Mzg-2roIn this episode, Joseph explains:- Why "is it repeatable?" is the question to ask of every win: a great rep, inbound, an enterprise logo, product-market fit- His definition of repeatability: the same persona, the same use case and the same channel and motion, with a large enough market behind it- Talent vs environment: why the same rep can struggle at one company and crush it at another- Why product-market fit is never permanent, and the false positives that fool founders- The four humility metrics to check before you invest in scaling: CAC payback, repeatability, gross margin and NRR- Why you need people around you with no incentive to agree with youChapters:0:00 Unchecked assumptions can kill a business1:03 The hidden cracks founders build into their sales foundation2:37 Are your sellers actually good?3:48 The star rep whose network ran dry: "It's not repeatable, boss"4:48 Talent vs environment: bad rep or wrong fit?7:09 Product-market fit isn't permanent7:30 False positives: the $1M customer that sank a sales team8:47 When should you actually invest in growth?9:16 Humility metric #1: CAC payback10:09 Good CAC payback, but no repeatability10:42 What repeatability actually means11:45 What happens when your assumptions are wrong?13:53 Find people with no incentive to agree with you14:31 Team of Rivals: build people who challenge you15:13 Don't lose your humilityLinks:- Full episode with Joseph Jenkins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWI9Mzg-2ro- Connect with Joseph Jenkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephdanieljenkins/- Follow Rich on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/- Subscribe to the WMYT? What Makes You Tick newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/wmyt%3F-what-makes-you-tick-7083793079794556928About Tick Talent: Operator-led GTM search for B2B Tech. https://tick-talent.comSubscribe for Best Bits every Sunday, plus our career stories podcast What Makes You Tick and our masterclass format Making Revenue Tick.#SaaS #SalesLeadership #Startups

October 4, 202625 min

The AI Talent Race - What the Rest of Tech Can Learn From San Francisco

Executive pay is being rewritten in real time by AI money, and almost nobody can see the whole board. Jacob Warwick can. In this Best Bits, he pulls back the curtain on negotiating eight-figure deals with some of the most powerful founders in tech, why the old playbook of slowing deals down no longer works, and how he runs the whole operation from three documents and a phone. We discuss: 1. How executive deal timelines collapsed from four months to four days 2. Why Jacob now tells some clients to speed up, not slow down 3. The way billionaires negotiate when time matters more than money 4. Rethinking your fee model when a single call creates millions in value 5. Whether the AI hiring boom is a genuine shift or a bubble 6. Running a high-value advisory business on just three documents 7. Reframing negotiation as expanding value, not taking a bigger slice Brought to you by Tick Talent, the search partner for the founding sales leaders and go-to-market multipliers who actually move the needle. Learn more at tick-talent.com Where to find Jacob Warwick: https://www.thinkwarwick.com/ Where to find Rich Washington: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/AaDdP1iyFd4 If you enjoyed this, watch the full episode and subscribe for more conversations with the best tech leaders in the world. #ExecutivePay #Negotiation #AIJobs #CompensationStrategy #TechCareers #ExecutiveSearch #CRO #ProductLeadership #CareerGrowth #SalaryNegotiation #Leadership #AICompanies #StartupHiring #GoToMarket #TechLeadership

October 1, 20261 hr 37 min

6 Enterprise Demand Generation Mistakes US Companies Make When Expanding into Europe

Most US companies expanding into Europe make the same mistakes: they treat EMEA as one market, throw salespeople at the problem, and wonder why the pipeline never shows up. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, Rich and Campbell Williams walk through the six oops moments that derail enterprise expansion, and exactly how to avoid each one. Campbell is a CMO-level go-to-market leader who has spent his career building demand engines across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa for North American businesses scaling internationally. We discuss: 1. Why treating EMEA as one market can hurt expansion plans 2. The reporting structure that creates sales versus marketing infighting 3. How to win real local autonomy from a North American HQ 4. Defining ICP, personas, and the ABM sweet spot for a new region 5. Why only 5% of your market is ready to buy now 6. What separates great account-based marketing from vanity metrics 7. The first three marketing hires to build a demand engine in EMEA Brought to you by Tick Talent, the search partner for the founding sales leaders and go-to-market multipliers who actually move the needle. Learn more at tick-talent.com Where to find Campbell Williams: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/campbellwilliams/ Where to find Rich Washington: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ If you enjoyed this, subscribe for more conversations that help revenue leaders build go-to-market engines that actually work. #MakingRevenueTick #DemandGeneration #GoToMarket #EMEA #MarketExpansion #ABM #B2BMarketing #SaaSMarketing #ICP #RevenueGrowth #EnterpriseSales #FractionalCMO #DemandGen #MarketingStrategy #InternationalExpansion

September 27, 202621 min

ICP Masterclass: How to Double Sales Without Doubling Your Sales Team

Every revenue leader is being asked to do the same thing: grow sales without growing the team at the same pace. Double the number, but with maybe 20 to 30% more headcount. In this Best Bits special, Rich sits down with Brent Holloway who runs SaaS Sales Advisors, coaching startups and scale-ups on the ICP mapping and unit economics that turn winging it into a repeatable, data-driven machine. We discuss: 1. The productivity math behind doubling sales with only 20 to 30% more headcount 2. How to move a team from 350k to 500k per rep in a single year 3. What an ideal customer profile actually is, and how to build one with data 4. The reasons 74% of reps miss quota, even at strong companies 5. The "Road to Club" waterfall plan for finding exactly where you are missing 6. How focus took reps from 250 to 300k up to 500 to 600k in annualized bookings 7. Matching the right sales leader to your current growth stage Three Takeaways: 1/ Apply the full sales velocity formula. Sales velocity equals opportunity volume, multiplied by win rate, multiplied by average sale price, divided by sales cycle length. Annualize the result and measure it against quota, so you can see whether a rep's current mix of deals can mathematically get them there. 2/ Beware the self-fulfilling prophecy. The industries and segments that look like your "best" are often just the most familiar, not the most optimal. Without data, you double down on what you already know rather than what actually converts efficiently. 3/ Model the alternative efficiency scenarios. Before you assign more people or more time to a play, run the scenarios. Quantify what happens if you shift effort from the bottom half of the bell curve to the top half, and let the numbers guide where you focus. Brought to you by Tick Talent, the search partner for the founding sales leaders and go-to-market multipliers who actually move the needle. Learn more at tick-talent.com Where to find Brent Holloway: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brent-holloway/ Where to find Rich Washington: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ If you enjoyed this, go check out the full episode and subscribe for more conversations with the best tech leaders in the world. #SalesLeadership #ICP #SalesProductivity #RevenueGrowth #GoToMarket #SalesVelocity #SaaSSales #UnitEconomics #RevOps #SalesStrategy #StartupSales #ScaleUp #SalesManagement #QuotaAttainment #B2BSales

September 24, 202658 min

How Leaders Can Solve the Sales Skills Shortage

Everyone's fighting to hire the best salespeople. Ioanna Mantzouridou Onasi thinks that's the wrong question entirely. What you need to be thinking about is how do you develop the talent you already have? In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, the Founder and CEO of Dextego joins Rich to unpack the sales skills shortage, the influence gap holding teams back, and how AI can finally make coaching work. We discuss: 1. Why the world runs on perceived skills, not actual ones 2. The "influence gap" and why it's the skill sales teams miss most 3. Why onboarding everything at once is the wrong way to train 4. Why measuring outcomes without understanding the why kills coaching 5. What actually makes a top performer, and how to replicate it 6. Where AI has the biggest impact: real-time coaching, not role plays 7. Why "train them and they'll leave" is the wrong way to think Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Ioanna Mantzouridou Onasi: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joannemantzouridou/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

September 20, 202615 min

How to Make People Remember What You Say

You can have the best ideas in the room and still be completely forgettable when you present them. That's the problem Ravi Rajani, Tolu and I get into in this Best Bits segment of our recent studio episode. Ravi has spent years helping leaders, founders and salespeople become better communicators, and what I loved about this conversation is how practical it got. We talk about: - Why most people wing important presentations - How to structure a story so people actually remember it - Why tension creates attention - The role trust plays in communication - Why your story should make the audience feel significant, not make you look significant - How to make what you say land with more impact If you lead people, present ideas, sell, speak on stage, or just want to communicate in a way that sticks, this is a great place to start. Ravi Rajani is the author of Relationship Currency. Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Ravi Rajani: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theravirajani/ Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

September 16, 202634 min

E. 150 - What Great Tech Leaders Have in Common

150 episodes. Three years. Hundreds of the best tech leaders in the world. In this milestone episode of What Makes You Tick, Rich and Tolu sit down, just the two of them, to reflect on everything they've learned about what actually makes a great tech leader tick.No guest this time, just three years of patterns, surprises, and the traits that keep coming up in the people at the very top.We discuss:1. Why kindness and freedom show up in the best leaders, not just ambition2. Why great questioning is the number one skill top sellers develop3. The athlete mindset: why performance without recovery burns you out4. The leaders from 150 episodes Rich and Tolu would most want to work under5. Why everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, and what gets lost6. The American dream, the British dream, and what we're really chasing7. Where they hope What Makes You Tick goes over the next three yearsBrought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/Where to find Rich and Tolu:Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ #techleadership #leadership #salesleadership #careeradvice #highperformance #revenueleadership #entrepreneurship #adaptability #questioning #podcastmilestone #B2Bsales #GTM #whatmakesyoutick #ticktalent #richwashington #toluadebekun #150episodes #careerstories #mindset #futureofwork

September 13, 202617 min

How to Hire People Who Actually Take Ownership

Benjamin Caller has led sales at some of the fastest-scaling companies in tech, and in this Best Bits episode he joins Rich to break down how to hire people who genuinely take ownership, not just the ones who say they do. Benjamin and Rich dig into the multiplier framework: the difference between multipliers, adders, dividers, and subtractors, and the four traits that make a multiplier, collaborative, ownership, resourceful, and execution (CORE). They get into why ownership is the hardest of the four to find, the exact interview questions that expose whether someone really has it, and why, when there's a doubt, there's no doubt. We discuss: 1. The difference between multipliers, adders, dividers and subtractors 2. Why finding talent is the leader's job, not just the recruiter's 3. The traits that make someone a true multiplier 4. Why ownership is the hardest quality to hire for 5. The interview questions that reveal real ownership 6. Why "when there's a doubt, there's no doubt" when hiring 7. The show do, help do, make do, let do coaching method Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Benjamin Caller: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamincaller/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

September 9, 20261 hr 1 min

How Leaders Can Save the Career Ladder From AI

If AI takes the jobs of junior salespeople and marketers, who trains the leaders of tomorrow? In this episode of What Makes You Tick, Rich and Tolu sit down with Tony Larks, a field marketing leader with over 30 years in tech, to tackle a problem everyone's worried about but nobody's talking about: AI is quietly killing the career ladder. Tony has spent his career taking chances on young people with potential, and he makes the case for why leaders, not the government, own the responsibility to keep developing early talent, and how to actually do it. We discuss: 1. Why companies now hire the finished product instead of raw potential 2. What happens to the leadership pipeline when entry-level roles disappear 3. Why 92% of marketers accept whatever AI serves them, and why that's dangerous 4. Why the SDR to AE path is broken, and what it's costing sellers 5. Why AI has dried up roles without actually delivering results yet 6. How AI can create opportunity, not just take it away 7. How any leader can start an internship or work experience programme Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Tony Larks: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonylarks/ Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.