BusinessEntrepreneurship

Sales Talk for CEOs

Alice Heiman

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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S18 · E2
Thursday · 14 min
Why Sales Feels So Hard: Alice Heiman on Mindset, Process, and Finding the Right Customers
Sales shouldn't be this hard. In this solo episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman breaks down why so many CEOs and sales teams are struggling to generate consistent revenue - and why working harder isn't necessarily the answer. Alice explains how outdated sales mindsets, the wrong metrics, mismatched team members, and processes built for yesterday's buyers can make selling far more difficult than it needs to be. Instead of measuring activity for activity's sake, leaders need to focus on meaningful customer connections and understand how today's buyers actually want to engage. She also walks through the importance of mapping the customer journey rather than simply mapping your sales process. By understanding what customers are doing before, during, and after interacting with your team, CEOs can build a sales approach that meets buyers where they actually are. Alice explains: ◼️ Why believing sales is hard can make selling harder across your organization ◼️ Why sales activity isn't the same thing as sales effectiveness ◼️ How to determine whether you have the right people on your sales team ◼️ Why your sales process needs to evolve as buyer behavior changes ◼️ How to map the customer journey instead of only mapping your sales process ◼️ Why email, phone, LinkedIn, and other channels work differently depending on your buyers ◼️ How targeting the wrong customers makes sales unnecessarily difficult ◼️ Why defining and continually refining your ideal customer profile is essential ◼️ How the right target, methodology, team, and mindset can make sales easier Connect with Alice Heiman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/ Website: https://aliceheiman.com/
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S18 · E2
Tuesday · 45 min
Why Persistence Matters: Melissa Faith Hart on Building eBodyGuard, Facing Rejection, and Betting on Her Mission
Building something new requires more than a great idea. Sometimes it requires years of rejection before the market is ready to listen. In this episode, eBodyGuard Founder and CEO Melissa Faith Hart shares the deeply personal journey behind building a personal safety technology designed to connect individuals, first responders, and law enforcement when help is needed most. Melissa takes Alice inside the realities of leaving corporate America to become a founder, investing her own money, raising a son as a single mother, and spending years developing a technology that law enforcement initially resisted. She explains why listening to the people you serve became central to building eBodyGuard, how she learned to navigate complex public safety systems, and why persistence mattered when acceptance took far longer than expected. The conversation also goes beyond business. Melissa and Alice discuss the cognitive load carried by female founders, letting go of guilt, simplifying life during demanding seasons, and learning to recognize that doing your best doesn't mean doing everything. Melissa explains: ◼️ How a moment at a parking meter sparked the idea for eBodyGuard ◼️ Why she left corporate America to pursue the idea full time ◼️ How she used customer and survivor feedback to shape the technology ◼️ Why law enforcement initially rejected the platform and what she learned from those conversations ◼️ How patience and listening changed the way she sells as a CEO ◼️ What it took to keep going through years of rejection and uncertainty ◼️ How she balanced building a company with raising her son as a single mother ◼️ Why founders need to forgive themselves for what they can't get done ◼️ How simplifying her life helped her stay focused on the mission ◼️ Why celebrating what you accomplished can be more powerful than focusing on what remains undone Connect with: Melissa Faith Hart: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ebodyguardllc/ Website: https://www.ebodyguard.org/ Alice Heiman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/ Website: https://aliceheiman.com/
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S18 · E1
October 6 · 43 min
Building Without a Plan B: Tamar Gill on Bootstrapping, Better Data, and People-First Growth
Building a company without outside funding requires more than a great idea. It requires resilience, focus, and knowing exactly what you refuse to compromise. In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman sits down with Tamar Gill, Founder and CEO of eCore Services, to explore her journey from practicing law in the Republic of Georgia to building a 150-person, fully remote B2B data company. Tamar shares how becoming a mother reshaped her career, why an unexpected remote job introduced her to the world of data, and how she eventually took the leap into entrepreneurship during COVID. Rather than pursue venture capital, Tamar chose to bootstrap eCore, protecting the people-first values at the heart of the company while learning how to grow through referrals, delegation, and disciplined financial decisions. The conversation also explores a growing challenge for sales and go-to-market leaders: bad CRM data. Tamar explains why organizations need reliable data before layering AI and automation on top of their systems - and how poor data can quietly drain sales productivity. Tamar explains: ◼️ How she rebuilt her career after moving from the Republic of Georgia to the US ◼️ Why remote work became the foundation for the company she would eventually build ◼️ How she landed her first client and grew through relationships and referrals ◼️ Why she chose to bootstrap eCore instead of pursuing outside funding ◼️ How she built a fully remote team of 150 people while keeping people at the center ◼️ Why founders need to learn how to delegate instead of trying to do everything themselves ◼️ Why unreliable CRM data creates hidden problems for sales teams ◼️ What CEOs need to understand before adding AI and automation to their go-to-market strategy ◼️ Why Tamar believes committing fully - and leaving no Plan - is critical when building a company Connect with: Tamar Gill: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamargill/ Website: https://ecoreservice.com/ Alice Heiman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheiman/ Website: https://aliceheiman.com/
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S17 · E8
September 2 · 44 min
Why the Best Leaders Slow Down: Elatia Abate on Reinvention, Presence, and the Future of Leadership
Leading through uncertainty doesn't require moving faster, it requires thinking differently. In this episode, futurist and leadership strategist Elatia Abate shares practical frameworks to help female founder CEOs lead through rapid change without defaulting to outdated strategies. She explains why slowing down can become a competitive advantage, how to shift from past-anchored planning to future-led thinking, and why the quality of the questions leaders ask ultimately shapes the future they create. Drawing from nearly a decade of research into the future of work and leadership, Elatia offers a new perspective on strategy, decision-making, AI adoption, and embodied leadership, helping founders build businesses that are resilient, intentional, and prepared for what's next. Elatia explains: ◼️ Why leaving corporate leadership led her to an entirely different purpose ◼️ How one conference in 2016 changed the direction of her career ◼️ Why today's leaders need to slow down instead of constantly accelerating ◼️ The Think, Do, Be framework and how it changes decision-making ◼️ Why future-led thinking begins by asking different questions ◼️ How women leaders can create space for presence instead of constant busyness ◼️ What leaders should understand before introducing AI into their organizations ◼️ Why she believes the future belongs to leaders who trust themselves
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S17 · E7
August 26 · 52 min
From Retail Shelves to Every Bathroom Stall: How Denielle Finkelstein and Thyme Sullivan Pivoted a Period Product Startup
Denielle Finkelstein and Thyme Sullivan are Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Unicorn in Every Stall. Before becoming entrepreneurs, Denielle spent more than 20 years in fashion leadership, including executive roles at Ann Taylor, Coach, Kate Spade, and Talbots, while Thyme built a 27-year career at Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Nestlé. Both were the primary breadwinners for their families when they made the decision to leave corporate life and pursue something entirely new. Their journey began with a Facebook message between two cousins who hadn't seen each other in more than 30 years. What started as a conversation about cleaner period products quickly became a shared mission to build a company together. Although their backgrounds were different, they discovered their skills complemented one another, and within weeks they were working side by side. Throughout the conversation, Denielle and Thyme reflect on what it really means to become a founder later in life. They discuss walking away from successful careers, building a business while raising children, leaning on supportive spouses, and creating a company that reflected the life they wanted to live rather than repeating the burnout they had experienced in corporate leadership. They explain why they committed to putting themselves first, their families second, and the business third—and how that promise helped sustain them through the inevitable highs and lows of startup life. The episode also explores the difficult decisions that shaped their company. They share how listening closely to customers led them to rethink their original business model, why they chose to leave retail behind despite having momentum, and how they navigated fundraising while preserving the flexibility to build the company on their own terms. Rather than chasing certainty, they learned to trust their instincts, embrace change, and give themselves permission to make mistakes along the way. More than anything, this is a conversation about the founder journey. Denielle and Thyme offer an honest look at entrepreneurship as a second chapter—one built on courage, partnership, patience, and the willingness to keep moving forward even when the path isn't obvious. Denielle and Thyme explain: ◼ Why they left successful corporate careers to become founders later in life ◼ How reconnecting after more than 30 years led to an unexpected co-founder partnership ◼ What they learned about building a company while raising families and supporting one another through startup life ◼ Why they believe taking care of yourself first, your family second, and your business third creates a stronger foundation for leadership ◼ How listening to customers gave them the confidence to completely rethink their business ◼ What fundraising taught them about resilience, patience, and finding the right partners ◼ Why having a trusted co-founder helped them navigate uncertainty and make difficult decisions ◼ Their advice for founders on embracing risk, building a strong network, and trusting the journey over the destination
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S17 · E6
August 19 · 37 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.
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S17 · E5
August 12 · 54 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
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S17 · E4
August 5 · 48 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
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S17 · E3
July 29 · 46 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.
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S17 · E2
July 22 · 54 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.
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S17 · E1
July 15 · 10 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
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S16 · E9
Dec 29, 2025 · 45 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
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S16 · E8
Dec 23, 2025 · 31 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/
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S16 · E7
Dec 16, 2025 · 38 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
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S16 · E6
Dec 9, 2025 · 32 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
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S16 · E5
Nov 25, 2025 · 36 min
From Cafe Marketplace to Commercial Art Powerhouse, Gavi Wolf’s Sales Journey
In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman talks with Gavi Wolf, CEO and Founder of IndieWalls, about how he scaled a creative business, turning an art marketplace into a commercial art consultancy serving major brands. Gavi discusses founder‑led sales, when and how he realized it was time to build a sales leadership function, and the hard lesson about motivating and compensating a high‑performing sales team.Rapid‑fire picks Book: Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.Podcast: Freakonomics with Stephen Dubner.CEO Advice: If you want top sales talent, they need to see a clear path to earning real money. Show them others are winning, give them a comp plan they can believe in and the right people will come and perform. Connect With Gavi Wolf: LinkedIn | Website Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website
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S16 · E4
Nov 18, 2025 · 26 min
Stop Burning Your Budget: Modern Lead Gen Tactics Every CEO Should Know
Stop wasting money on lead generation that doesn’t work. In this solo episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman delivers a powerful, no-nonsense rant every B2B CEO needs to hear. She challenges the outdated playbook of cold calling and SDR-driven outreach, revealing why it's costing you more than it’s delivering and what to do about it. Alice shares real examples and modern strategies to generate high-quality leads that fill your pipeline without burning out your sales team. From leveraging marketing properly, to holding the right kind of events, to mining your customer base for referrals, this is the wake-up call CEOs need to redesign their go-to-market motions. Connect with Alice Heiman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliceheimanWebsite: https://aliceheiman.com
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S16 · E3
Nov 11, 2025 · 52 min
Cracking the Sales Code: How Ryan Reisert Built a System That Outsells Entire Teams
What happens when a math major turned cold-caller gets frustrated with broken sales systems? He builds a better one, then builds a company around it. In this episode of Sales Talk for CEOs, Alice Heiman sits down with Ryan Reisert, the co- founder of Outbound Operators and CallBlitz, to trace his journey from burned-out rep to process-driven founder. Ryan reveals how years of trial, error, and dialing taught him that sales doesn’t scale on brute force, it scales with math, process, and precision. This is the inside story of how a rep-turned-CEO rebuilt outbound from the ground up - more than once. Connect WithRyan Reisert: LinkedIn | CallBlitz | Outbound Operators Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website
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S16 · E2
Nov 4, 2025 · 39 min
When Complex Deals Stall, It’s not What You Think with Brent Adamson & Karl Schmidt
What if your sales team is focused on the wrong thing? Brent Adamson and Karl Schmidt, co-founders of A to B Insight and co-authors of The FrameMaking Sale, reveal why traditional B2B tactics like BANT are outdated and how to win by building buyer confidence in their own decisions. Connect with: Brent Adamson: LinkedIn | A to B Insight Karl Schmidt: LinkedIn | A to B Insight Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website Link to The FrameMaking Sale
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S16 · E1
Oct 28, 2025 · 49 min
Hard Lessons in Early Sales: How Collin Stewart Found Real Product-Market Fit
From hockey stick growth to flat on your face, it hurts and Collin Stewart can tell you firsthand. He had one customer before he left his full-time job, the problem was he still had one customer 18 months later. In his first endeavor this entrepreneur built what he thought everyone needed and kept showing them and expecting them to say how great it was, but they didn’t. “I was building my idea. I wasn’t building what the customer’s wanted.” The lesson, it’s all about the customer, what they need and want. Rapid-Fire Mentions Book: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumell Podcast: Acquired FM Advice to CEOs: Lead with relationships and real value. Outbound still works, but only if your product-market fit is strong. If you’re early-stage, skip the pitch and focus on helping first. Connect With Collin Stewart: LinkedIn | Website Collin’s book: The Terrifying Art of Finding a Customer Alice Heiman: LinkedIn | Website
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