190: Advocate For and Believe in Yourself, Elitsa Zaimova, Sales Director at Preply
Conversations with Women in Sales
Release Date: 12/29/2024
200: Celebrating Conversations with Women in Sales 200th Episode, Alice Heiman, Sales Energizer and Podcast Host
Conversations with Women in Sales
The time has come where we hit 200 episodes and it was a pleasure to have on good friend and "Sales Energizer" Alice Heiman. Alice also hosts a great podcast called . We need to keep talking about more women in sales and sales leadership since we still have huge opportunities for more women in sales and sales leadership. Alice and Lori talk about the last ten years of effort to help create inclusive B2B sales teams, what has changed, and what we still need to do. We remember Barbara Giamanco who started the podcast back in 2018. Her early episodes are really great and we...
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199: It is not What You Know but Who You Know, Cynthia Cross, Cox Business, Kansas
Conversations with Women in Sales
Cynthia Cross was all set for a career in accounting when she went to college. A wise professor suggested she would not like that major and encouraged her to do something else where she could utilize her social skills and outgoing personality more. Upon graduation she moved to Wichita, Kansas and met a sales manager who encouraged her to get into a sales role. Cynthia says the throughline in her entire career has been who she knows, not what she knows. Good question for the audience - how are you building your network? Do you work at it every day or week? Most of us haven't been...
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198: Self Care Strategies for Women in Sales, Katie McDonald, bNourished
Conversations with Women in Sales
Katie McDonald was in sales previously. Now she coaches women in self-care because of so many of us who have gotten burned out or just put ourselves last. Hear some of Katie's suggestions for your crazy busy life. She talks about "ME management" It's all about self-care strategies because the fact is most of us are running on fumes and we're borrowing future energy to get through today. Katie wants to disrupt that. When we think about what we're able to create in a compromised state she wants to leverage the wellbeing that we can create through our habits. Katie also says that to create...
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197: From BDR to AE to Director to GM; A Sales Journey with Sarah Kiley
Conversations with Women in Sales
Sarah Kiley has had a sales caree where she's risen through the ranks. She's built a reputation for aligning people, processes, and technology to deliver measurable outcomes. Whether it’s launching new products, driving cross-functional collaboration, or spearheading strategic initiatives, she has focused on creating value for customers, partners, and stakeholders alike. More about Sarah: More about Women Sales Pros - we have a website, we are on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to our 2x a month news, and share the podcast with others! We'd love a 5 star rating and...
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196: From Teaching to B2B Sales, Samantha Craig, Senior Sales Manager, Semrush
Conversations with Women in Sales
Samantha Craig wanted to be a teacher. She got through school but then had a hard time finding a job. She knew she loved to travel so she wondered if she could travel somewhere and teach. Sam ended up teaching for a year in South Korea. She came back to her home state of Massachusetts and realized she wanted to teach somewhere else so set off for Washington, DC. At some point Sam considered a job "until she got her teaching job" in an office. But not just any office. Sam said that if she had to work in an office, it should be an amazing one. She was interviewed in an...
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195: From Business Analyst to Enterprise Sales - Do What You Love in a Sales Career, Kayla Burke, Microsoft
Conversations with Women in Sales
Kayla Burke is an Enterprise Sales Specialist at Microsoft and Founder of "The Tech Level" helping others to get a tech sales role. When Kayla graduated from college she became a business analyst but found that it didn't bring her much joy in her job. A random person told her about sales hiring going on at IBM and she ended up becoming a Business Development Manager - and has loved technology sales ever since. In addition to being an Enterprise Sales Specialist at Microsoft, Kayla launched a program to help get more folks into tech sales roles and has had great success at it. ...
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194: Focus on Prospecting with the Blitzmaster, Andrea Sittig-Rolf, BLITZMasters
Conversations with Women in Sales
I first met Andrea Sittig-Rolf in the early 2000's - we had both recently launched our B2B sales consulting businesses and she was about to get her first of several books published. Fast forward to now, and she has a 22 year track record of success in helping thousands of sellers and hundreds of companies with the "top of funnel" prospecting part of professional selling. More about Andrea: 2021 - 2024 CRN Woman of the Channel. Trusted co-selling partner for the world's top tech giants since 2002. Her company, BLITZMasters does workshops and has a co-selling platform. In this...
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193: Welcome the New Year with Resources and Shout-Outs, Lori Richardson, Women Sales Pros
Conversations with Women in Sales
Our goal at Women Sales Pros is to help support women in existing B2B sales roles to thrive, to get into leadership if they want to, and to recognize the companies and allies doing great things. This is a short episode with host Lori Richardson to cheer on 2025 and share resources like these ones: Find podcasts, women in sales organizations, and more here at Women Sales Pros - Get an e-newsletter 2x a month with stories about women in sales and more resources subscribe: Contribute: Past News Issues: Follow "Conversations with Women in Sales" for previous episodes here: ...
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192: Be a Lifelong Learner in Sales, Ayana Gardner, Zoom
Conversations with Women in Sales
Ayana Gardner was recently named as one of "300 Women Making an Impact in B2B SaaS" so it is great that she kick off our first episode of 2025. Ayana is a ZCX Channel Leader at Zoom. We are also starting 2025 with our Q1 sponsor, RapidScale. Ayana has been in sales for a number of years and loves her current position which involves working with Zoom channel partners - a huge opportunity in B2B sales as so many companies sell through channels of one type or another. Because she works for Zoom Ayana is virtual, and does virtual events and enablement within her role. Ayana talks...
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191: This Woman WAS Tapped on the Shoulder about a Sales Role, Tania Doub, Mindful Quadrant
Conversations with Women in Sales
I always laugh about how so many women do wait to be tapped on the shoulder by a leader in the company to move into a different role - this did happen to Tania who began her career in her 20's in marketing. Tania now is a successful author, former corporate enterprise seller, and now runs Mindful Quadrant. We had a great conversation covering a lot of ground. Tania is working on a new version of her great planner currently sold as "Work It - a Modern Day Sales Planner" and wrote a book called, "Work It, Girl - a Modern Day Career Guide for Women in Sales" Having worked at...
info_outlineWhen Elitsa and I spoke, we had many stories about competent women in sales and leadership roles who wait to get the "tap" on the shoulder to be promoted. Our male counterparts TELL their boss that they expect to be promoted many times and they initiate introductions with some of their C-level leaders, heads of other teams in their company and proudly state their accomplishments.
Are we too shiy to also do that, or is it in how we were raised - "don't brag," my dad would tell me.
Today in 2025 we say, "It isn't bragging if it is true."
Listen to Elitsa share about her career. Born in Bulgaria, Elitsa visited the US a number of times, going back and forth, then moved to the DC area in 2011 and started working for CEB (which became Gartner later). She got great sales training (these were the "Challenger" folks) and really fell in love with sales.
Due to an opportunity for her husband, she moved to Ukraine back in 2015 (no hint of a future war then). What was amazing was that when they did hear of turmoil happening at the beginning of 2022, they had to immediately leave Ukraine - while she was quickly building a virtual and in person sales team AND was six months pregnant. Any one of those three things is tough, but all together is incredible.
Listen to her story, and also how she created her original role at Preply by giving feedback to the CEO.
More about Elitsa: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elitsa-zaimova-a238a31a/
More about Women Sales Pros - we have a website, we are on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
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