How did you get started in sales? And what led you to the position you now hold and the company you are currently involved with? Shane Mahi, Founder and CEO of SalesDRIIVN, and Gerry Hill, EMEA Regional Vice President of ConnectAndSell, are asked these very questions by our Market Dominance Guy Chris Beall in today’s podcast. Surprisingly, a common answer emerges to the first question: both guests, as well as our host, took their first step into the sales world by selling products door to door — and doing so successfully. Our guests describe the steps that subsequently led them to where they are today, and this leads to a discussion with Chris about funding new companies and the temptation and possible pitfalls of taking venture money to facilitate growth. Follow their conversation in this first of three meetings of the minds on today’s Market Dominance Guys’ episode, “Is Venture Capital for You?”

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About Our Guests
Shane Mahi is Founder and CEO of SalesDRIIVN, a service provided by some of the sharpest minds in sales, generating quality meetings for its customers.

Gerry Hill holds the position of Regional Vice President/EMEA of ConnectAndSell, a Silicon Valley-based sales acceleration company, which provides technology that gets salespeople 10x more live conversations with decision makers.

The full transcript from this episode is here:

Chris Beall (01:29):

Okay, everybody. This is another episode of Market Dominance Guys, and this one is special. So we've had no guests. We did that for, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 episodes, because remember those of you who don't know, we're just trying to get material for a book on market dominance. By the way, the book still hasn't come out. But I am here with Shane Mahi and Gerry Hill all the way from the UK. So we recorded a bunch with no guests. Then we had a bunch of guests and finally, we had woken up to the possibility that there really is business, including sales, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. I think it's amazing that we discovered this. So I feel like, my name is Chris. So I feel like Christopher Columbus going the other way and finding out that, in fact, not only is there sales, there's a level of sales innovation going on in the UK right now that I've thought we should tap into.

Chris Beall (02:24):

So Gerry and Shane, welcome to the show.

Shane Mahi (02:30):

Thank you so much for having me.

Chris Beall (02:32):

And by the way, this is the first time we've ever had two guests at once. So I anticipate this is going to be a total cluster with regard to who talks when. So I'm going to try to be a good host and ask questions when at a time or whatever. But first I'd like to start with beauty and youth. So we'll go with Shane. And Shane, could you tell us how you got to here? You're running this company called Sales Driivn. We just observed you guys, your team knocking it out of several parks. I think in some games it would've been a six and others it would've been a walk-off home run. I don't know what it would've been in fencing, but somebody would've died. ConnectAndSell yesterday. But how did you get here to where we're hanging out on this podcast together?

Shane Mahi (03:12):

I think, I think you're being quite modest, Chris, but I got here from... There's plenty of good conversations with you around growing our business, and yesterday was a definitely an eye-opener, even for our team. We got a chance to trial the weapon. But trialing the weapon, selling the weapon, which is definitely something new for us. And we're able to achieve some incredible results based on our activity yesterday. And lo and behold, had a good conversation after. We are now partnering with you guys, and I am now featuring as a guest on the podcast. So, just really excited to be here and share our story.

Chris Beall (03:51):

Fantastic. Fantastic. And did you grow up in sales or did you intend to be something more productive?

Shane Mahi (03:57):

My dad told me one