Talent Acquired

Authenticity Wins: LinkedIn Branding InsightsUnlocking the power of personal branding on LinkedIn! Patrick Kelly from Zoom shares invaluable insights on authenticity, content strategy, and overcoming imposter syndrome. He emphasizes the importance of being yourself, embracing failure, and consistently providing value.Key takeaways:Mix business and personal contentFocus on quality over production valueUse a structured approach for postsWant to boost your LinkedIn presence? Watch the full video for more tips and tricks from Patrick's journey.#PersonalBranding #LinkedInTips #AuthenticityMatters

💡 Most leaders think culture is about perks, pizza parties, or slogans on the wall. The truth? Culture shows up in how your team communicates when no one’s watching.I sat down with Curtis, a seasoned organizational leader, and here’s what stuck with me:👉 Communication is the baseline. “If I’m 100% and you’re 100%, that makes 300%. The invisible entity is teamwork. And that all starts with making sure our words mean the exact same thing.”👉 Red flags in culture are always visible. Watch for inconsistent actions, lack of shared ownership, or behavioral drift in how teams interact.👉 Ego-driven leadership kills trust. Curtis said it best: “If you come in forcing your will over what’s already existing, you’re not gonna get the result.” Observation before action builds buy-in.👉 Empowered leaders own their results. “I don’t set goals for my leadership team. We’re the leaders. Why would I try to do something I have 100% control of? I expect it.”👉 Culture must outlast the leader. The ultimate win? When the team can “call their own plays and still score touchdowns” without you.For executives in hardware, software, or tech integration companies, this isn’t just philosophy—it’s survival. High performers won’t stick around in a broken culture. Neither will your customers.The challenge for leaders isn’t building culture for today. It’s building culture that lasts beyond you.

🚨 Most sales leaders underestimate how brutal transformation really is. The truth? You can’t wait for people to get on board; you’ll lose the race before it starts.In our latest conversation, I sat down with Larry and Paul to unpack what it takes to lead effective sales team transformations, especially in private equity-backed businesses.Here’s what stood out:👉 Impatience is a strategy. “The biggest mistake is not being impatient. You have to be impatient.” Waiting for people to adapt costs time and kills momentum.👉 Team transformation is the hardest job in sales leadership. Shifting teams—whether inherited or rebuilt—to align with new goals is where most transformations stall.👉 Frontline leaders reveal the truth. If your frontline managers resist, your sellers will too. That’s the first red flag of deeper misalignment.👉 Sometimes you have to let go of top performers. Larry put it bluntly: “You may have to move away from high performers if they don’t buy into where the company needs to go.” Yesterday’s results can’t outweigh tomorrow’s vision.👉 Succession planning is a blind spot. 90% of companies lack it. Which means when transformation hits, they lose talent they can’t afford to lose.👉 Compensation drives behavior. Shifting from hardware to software models? Incentives must reward the new direction—or the team won’t follow.Transformation succeeds not by strategy alone, but by talent, urgency, and the strength of your leadership.

Most Tech Integrators say they want recurring revenue… but few are actually set up to sell it.🎙️ Just recorded a powerful episode with Andrew Gross from Xyte — and this one’s packed with insight.We talked about:✅ What’s changing in buyer behavior across tech✅ Why managed services still feel out of reach for many integrators✅ The mindset shift companies need to compete✅  What type of Talent is needed✅ Where the industry’s headed — and how to stay aheadThis wasn’t just talk. It was the kind of convo that cuts through the noise. If you’re a Technology Integrator in:➡️ Workplace Technology (AV, Video Conferencing, Digital Signage)OR➡️ Building Technology (Access Control, CCTV, Structured Cabling, Data Centers)And you are navigating industry shifts and exploring new ways to serve your clients while growing revenue — this one's worth your time.

The 30-60-90 Day Plan? Straight to the Trash.Let’s be real – no one actually uses that thing. You put one together for your final interview and straight to the trash it goesThe traditional 30-60-90 day plan is a waste. It’s filled with shallow milestones, checklist-ticking, and rushing through “stages” that don’t move the needle. Plus, the whole process takes way too long.So, what should a new sales leader focus on when they step into a company?I’m 100% aligned with Larry on how he views his entry as a CRO/Global Sales Leader/US Sales Leader.⚠️ Forget arbitrary timelines and pointless checklists.The best Sales Leaders I’ve worked with, recruited for, and strategized with, focus on these things:🟢 Who’s my top talent?🟢 Who are our best customers, and what do they really think of us?🟢 Who are our top vendors or partners, and how do they view us?🟢 Is our sales compensation driving the right behaviors?No predetermined plan here.This is about being strategic, not reactive. Your best sellers, customers, and Vendors/partners will tell you exactly what’s working – and what’s not.The real planning starts when you figure out what's broken and what’s actually working.

The question that I really wanna ask you is because you've led a lot of different teams in different environments and have had a lot of successful teams that you built out, I have no doubt that you've had your fair share of underperformers. How do you deal with underperformers? S1Speaker 100:16 - 01:54The biggest challenge you have as a leader is to figure out why they're underperforming, what the problem is. And, the best way to do that is through coaching. So the first place you look when you have people who are performing, it's are they hitting those KPIs or tables or whatever a business wants to call them, but the 3, they're the 3 or 4 things that a seller has to do to be successful. And so if you find out they're doing those things and yet they're still not being successful, then it's incumbent upon you as the sales leader. And usually this is the first line sales leader. If you find it, this, this person, this individual is hitting all of their metrics that you felt were important to do it. Then a lot of what you have to do is going to involve direct contact with that seller, going out and visiting customers with that seller and having discussions about those visits at the each visit. If you develop a culture of coaching, you can give constructive coaching to the individual. When you look at all those metrics, if you can look at them and be really thinking constructively about how they can improve those tangibles, then you wanna talk to the individual about what they're doing long. What many sales leaders don't do is get involved to the detailed level, why they're not making those metrics. And then when they do get involved, they don't provide proactive coaching because what's important is that that individual has to face up to what they're doing wrong, typically to to try to progress them to become a performer. S0Speaker 001:54 - 02:10Anecdotally, just in conversations with leaders, I could say they're probably not doing this because the feedback I get from candidates is they've been told, you know, or coached out. But the words you use or the tones you use, like how important is that? S1Speaker 102:10 - 04:29You know, words are important, but the frequency of coaching is I think the critical factor. I wasn't the kind of sales leader that looked to try to demean you. What I would like to do is just to talk about where you're doing well, where you're not doing well. And if you're not making your number, it's a problem. And you need to know that it's a problem. Sales leaders are funny. You know, one of the things they don't, most people don't make their quota. Like if I'm a sales manager, it's gonna be hard to make my quota if I don't keep a full staff. So I can't have a lot of attrition and I can't be fired a whole lot of people. A lot of sales leaders will, permit underperformance to relax and just continue along their way because maybe they believe they've got some over performers that are going to cover up for them. I never thought that was a good idea. I always thought that what you needed to do is to build up a funnel of potential candidates that you could always go to. And so you're not, reluctant to have that tough conversation with your underperforming salesperson. So the idea that you go out with a salesperson and they do a whole lot of things wrong, and you say, oh, it was a pretty good call. Yeah. You, you may wanna be able to think about doing this and doing that the next time. No, you can't do that. You have to say, you know, the call was really bad. Okay. That was not a pretty good call. Call was really bad. You got to set the tone really upfront. The call was really bad. I was disappointed that you let these things take place during the call. It doesn't appear to me that you were listening properly, but I set the tone while I lead the meeting with that was not a good call. I'm doing the person a favor, but staying in it extra nights when you're not, because when you, when you don't say it very directly, they may not hear it. And so you're not giving them a chance to fix it because if they don't think it, if they think something was pretty good, but you really thought it was pretty bad, then they're gonna go away with not thinking that they need to fix something. You need them to go away thinking that they need to get something fixed. S0Speaker 004:29 - 04:42I've heard of leaders through the voice of the sellers, like the aggressive nature of just rating. Is there a time and a place for that? Yeah. Or not as even doesn't even exist. S1Speaker 104:42 - 06:04If, if you're being described as somebody just be rating somebody that's usually means that you're not just offering them constructive advice. But I will tell you that it is important as a sales leader, people see you treat everyone fairly. Some people say, well, I would never have a, have any constructive conversation in public, in a public forum, in, in like in a sales manager meeting. Well, I don't think this, I don't agree with that. I think that if your seller is, hasn't been performing and hasn't been doing what they're supposed, it's okay to talk about that in sales meeting. It's okay for me to say Chris, and we've got the other sellers around Chris, you're not hitting any of your metrics. Your funnel is weak and you're not making your number. We're gonna have to talk about that. And the reason I think it's important that other sellers hear the op in the sales meeting environment is because now you're setting, you're setting the tone for the business, you know, and they're hearing it. Now I didn't demean you in any way. I just talked about the 3 things that you're not doing. We can have that dialogue. I doubt we want to have it back and forth, but you did hear me Yeah. In the middle of the meeting. And all the other reps heard too. So if they're in that state, it becomes a culture that can handle that. What I'm S0Speaker 006:04 - 06:16what I'm curious is because you've worked in the bigger companies and you've worked in start ups. What are the differences, if there's any, when coaching people underperformers or dealing with underperformers? S1Speaker 106:16 - 08:07Technically, there shouldn't be any difference. Okay. But in the bigger companies, the formal personal improvement plan is critical in a startup. You should do a formal one, but many times you're every year, every year running so fast. You just gotta go. Hey man, the informal is, hey, look, man. We talked about this last week. We talked about it a month ago. You're still not doing any of these things. We gotta move on. In a bigger company kit, you gotta do the personal improvement plan, even though you talked about it, you talked about it. And the reason I say that there shouldn't be any difference. The key is that the salesperson know that they're not meeting their number. Does the salesperson know that you believe that theirs, they're not meeting their number because they're not hitting the metrics that they should be? Have you told them that? Have you coached them on how to do it? All of that can take place in 3 days. Okay. Yeah. All the things I just thought can take place in 3 days, but it's important that it takes place and that should take place in a bigger company or the smaller company. If you're a frontline sales, normal, Jerry, you have to be touching your sellers all the time, especially the ones that are underperforming. The ones that are hitting their number is fine, but 30% are not. You should be focused on that 30% because you can potentially help them improve to so that you will have an 80% number or 90% number, but you also, but the way to do that is to also be strategic about building your funnel of candidates. Because I think that most sales managers, if they knew they had somebody in their funnel that could come in and do the job, they'd be more likely to coach on a more regular basis. S0Speaker 008:07 - 08:13How do you deal with underperformers that are giving you these sob stories that are very compelling? S1Speaker 108:13 - 09:41Yeah. I'm gonna be very direct with with them. I hear you. And, you know, and I'm I'm I'm quite confident you're gonna be able to work through that. Let's get back to focusing on what you're not being with. Okay. So I'm not, I, I, I'm not getting involved in what they got going on. I hear you too, and I'm confident you're going to take care of it. And as a sales leader, like I said, move me. I can't count a one horn. People who have come up to me with that as it is coming up to bring their personal problems is that we're shooting. That just doesn't happen. And I think it's because I've shut a business tone in my discussions. We coach each other, we talk to each other daily, but it's all business. But I said, I, you know, very, I didn't face that a lot because I did stay in the business lane so much with the one that you should work with. And ultimately by doing that, they found me to be frail. They found me to be, focused on their well-being from a job standpoint. I mean, the job is an important piece of your life. And I'm I am being when they do the job well, I am enthusiastic on giving credit and try to make sure they get as much money as they can get. And when they do the job poorly, I want them to know what they're doing poorly so that they can potentially fix...

Welcome to Talent Acquired, a Chris Edward Consulting podcast hosted by Chris Nakiso, where we bring you the stories, strategies and the viewpoints of candidates, hiring managers and recruiters. Is today’s situation the perfect opportunity for hiring managers to get exceptional talent? Should your corporation be looking at profiles from outside the industry to cover key positions?In today’s episode, Chris talks to Luis Berlanga, Senior Sales Manager for Smart Collaboration North America at Lenovo about recruiting during COVID19 and the opportunities that remote work can offer. Plus, he tells us why the future for IT is definitely the cloud and what we should be looking forward to regarding collaboration spaces. Join this conversation now and learn firsthand how big companies like Lenovo find the best talent for their teams!Jump straight into:(05:22) - Recruiting on times of COVID19: How do successful companies get the best talent - “ I want people that are looking to create momentum and really move from one stage of growth into another explosive growth. And I think that's the opportunity at hand with what we are doing now.”(07:09) - Should you get talent from outside the industry? - “The challenge that most hiring managers have is that the people that you want usually aren't looking for jobs. They're not looking for work, they're not out there.”(12:16) - How to get out of an old hiring mentality - “If you're trying to talk about the old days to customers that are buying now and that are buying differently, those are the things you really have to care and feed for.” (14:54) - What is the future of collaboration spaces? - “The number one priority for IT buyers today is to get their applications into the cloud and their number two priority is to get video turned on everywhere.”(15:49) - The magic of today's accessible technology - “If you look at all of 2020, and up to the pandemic, everybody got shut down and sent home and had to continue working in different ways. You couldn't have done that in the past.”ResourcesConnect with Luis through LinkedInThanks for tuning in, if you want to know more, please visit our website. This show has been produced by StudioPod, for more information about their service, you can visit their website.

Welcome to Talent Acquired, a Chris Edward Consulting podcast hosted by Chris Nakiso, where we bring you the stories, strategies and the viewpoints of candidates, hiring managers and recruiters. It’s a fact, video conferencing went from being a high-value asset to an everyday tool available to everyone via companies like Zoom. The market for video solution integrators has definitely shifted and it’s time for them to change the game to stay relevant in today’s landscape. In this episode of Talent Acquired, Chris sits with Olly Hender, Vice President of UC and Cloud at Kinly, to talk about the future for video integrators and their secret of recruiting the best tech-savvy talent. Olly gives golden advice on what to look for when building a new team and how to redirect your traditional business into a service-oriented company. Jump straight into:(00:00) - Olly’s work at Kinly - “We're a global integrator originally but now thanks to people like myself and a few more progressive thinkers in the organization. We're really trying to push to be a collaboration fronted solution.”(01:51) - The video conferencing market - “There was a seismic shift from classic video conferencing, which was the luxury of a few major corporates. It cost millions of dollars to put infrastructure in, to have it operating at a really good level where it was always on, always in high quality and had that robustness to it.”(03:49) - The shift to easier solutions - “There were millions of dollars in maintenance every year for large environments. Then all of a sudden clients started to change to Teams and Zoom where let's be honest, the slice of the pie wasn't so big. It's become a commodity-driven market.”(05:58) - Finding the right tech-savvy talent - “Our younger techs, the kids that have grown up with PCs all over the house, pulling in and pulling out USB devices, knowing where things are going, those guys are taking to it like ducks to water.”(10:35) - Olly’s recommendation for building your team - “Agility is number one for me, you've got to be agile in your approach, you've got to be agile in who you're looking at, and you've also got to be looking for agility in the people.”ResourcesConnect with Olly through LinkedInThanks for tuning in, if you want to know more, please visit our website. This show has been produced by StudioPod, for more information about their service, you can visit their website.

Welcome to Talent Acquired, a Chris Edward Consulting podcast hosted by Chris Nakiso, where we bring you the stories, strategies and the viewpoints of candidates, hiring managers and recruiters. Let’s face it, the hiring process of any company takes a lot of resources, energy and time, so when it comes the time to get new talent on board, it is crucial for managers to be prepared and plan the entire process. In our first episode, Chris sits down with Boris Seibert, Head of Business-to-Business and Go-to-Market, Global Creativity and Productivity at Logitech, to chat about the importance of process throughout the interviewing cycle when acquiring talent. Listen now to learn Boris’ tips and tricks, so that you too can spot the diamond on the rough and choose the best fit for your team.Jump straight into:(00:10) - How important is the process for the interview cycle? - “When I joined Logitech, I interviewed with 13 people over the course of eight weeks. It was long, painful and crazy.”(06:18) - The tricks of the trade and why every moment counts as an interview - “Until you see, feel, and touch what they're doing every day, you don't really know what you're signing up for.”(10:23) - Common mistakes companies may make during recruiting - “When you get to the final three candidates or the final five candidates, the assumption that one of those people are going to get the job is a horrible assumption to start with.”(12:29) - Tips to improve the hiring process and spot the best candidate - “A resume and qualifications aren't everything. They're a good starting point, but it's really the interview process that really finds the right candidate.”ResourcesConnect with Boris through LinkedInThanks for tuning in, if you want to know more, please visit our website. This show has been produced by StudioPod, for more information about their service, you can visit their website.