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WISE: Women Inspiring Sales Excellence

WISE: Women Inspiring Sales Excellence

Written by: Lauren Palmer
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This show is where we celebrate the brilliance of sales leaders and dive deep into the strategies shaping the future of our profession.

At WISE, we’re all about empowering individuals to thrive in sales by championing diversity, ethical practices, and a values-driven approach.

In each episode, Lauren Palmer sits down with trailblazing leaders who share their insights, challenges, and secrets to success in this dynamic industry. Together, we explore how to elevate sales into a respected, rewarding, and impactful career—one conversation at a time.
Copyright Lauren Palmer Economics
Episodes
  • Your Gut Called. It Says Disqualify the Deal.

    Your Gut Called. It Says Disqualify the Deal.
    Sep 17 2026
    Annie Zavoral-Kurth made the leap from agency life into SaaS sales with limited formal training and learned by doing. Now an award-winning seller at NinjaCat, she’s built her career around buyer empathy, honest relationships and solving real problems—not blindly following a methodology.

    In this episode, we opened Annie’s metaphorical CRM to talk about the wins, the failures and the deals that should have been disqualified three calls ago.

    Topics we covered:

    Saying “fuck it” and making the leap into SaaS sales
    Building genuine trust instead of bribing buyers with coffee, dinners or Gucci sunglasses
    Why buyers can smell a self-serving salesperson
    When sales methodologies help—and when they become box-ticking exercises
    Understanding the buyer rather than interrogating them for your CRM
    Selling through education and honesty instead of pushing every product
    Why rigid KPIs can encourage terrible sales behaviour
    Trusting your gut and disqualifying the wrong opportunities
    The ego trap of trying to be the hero of every deal
    Bringing in the right experts and getting comfortable saying, “I don’t know”
    Asking uncomfortable questions about money, budgets and broken processes
    Why not every salesperson is motivated by commission
    Detaching your self-worth from lost deals and uncontrollable outcomes
    Finding joy in the competition, variety and unpredictability of sales
    Creating more visibility for women in sales and sales leadership
    Raising a child with two salespeople for parents—and accepting that she’ll probably be closing them both soon
    Show More Show Less
    43 mins
  • The Sales Witch 🧙‍♀️ Coaching Top Sellers to Win More & Work Less

    The Sales Witch 🧙‍♀️ Coaching Top Sellers to Win More & Work Less
    Aug 17 2026
    Meg Misiak is a sales coach known as That Sales Witch. After years as a top-performing SaaS seller, she now coaches high performers who look fine on the leaderboard and feel like garbage everywhere else. Her work blends sales mechanics with nervous system regulation, helping sellers crush their quota without crushing their soul.

    Topics we covered:
    • Embracing your true self, even when the industry rewards a performance of one
    • Selling as a deep, soulful and spiritual journey, not just a numbers game
    • Building a professional brand that's completely authentic to who you are, matcha addiction and all
    • Why being polished isn't always the win it's sold as
    • Creating an image of yourself online that's actually real, not a highlight reel
    • What makes someone memorable in sales, and why it's rarely the thing you'd expect
    • Fashion as a form of self-expression, and why it belongs in sales too
    • Letting vulnerability into sales instead of hiding behind the pitch
    • Burnout, and chasing targets and titles that were never really yours to want
    • Self-awareness of who you are outside of work, cats and all
    • What makes you specifically you, and why that's your edge
    • F*ck hustle culture: deepening the magic in your life instead of grinding it away
    Show More Show Less
    50 mins
  • The Leadership Lessons We Learn Too Late with Donna Lin

    The Leadership Lessons We Learn Too Late with Donna Lin
    Jul 24 2026
    The leadership lessons that change careers usually come after the mistakes...but they don't have to. In this episode, we’re joined by Donna Lin to examine the sales leadership lessons that many managers wish they had learned years earlier. Donna shares what she’s learned through leading large teams, returning to an individual contributor role, and eventually building a business of her own. From navigating pressure and earning trust to making career decisions that align with personal priorities, Donna provides fantastic sales leadership insights that only come with experience. Topics discussed in this episode include:
    • How leading managers requires a completely different mindset than leading sales representatives.
    • Why purpose, people, and processes form the foundation of successful sales leadership.
    • What separates great sales leaders from managers who simply oversee performance.
    • Why customer-facing time makes sales leaders more effective decision-makers.
    • Why emotional intelligence is the most important skill for successful sales leaders.
    • How self-awareness helps leaders stay calm during high-pressure situations.
    • What managing up looks like when leaders replace defensiveness with curiosity and feedback.
    • Why vulnerability with senior leaders can strengthen trust instead of weakening credibility.
    • How moving back into a sales role created stronger leadership skills for Donna.
    • What top-performing individual contributors do that makes every sales manager's job easier.
    • Why leadership should be driven by developing people instead of chasing titles.
    • How a career setback became Donna’s catalyst for building an independent leadership business.
    • Why every sales professional should build a personal brand before changing careers.
    • What coaching, communication, and leadership development have in common for long-term career success.


    Donna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/donna-a-lin/

    Join the Sales Revolution community: https://female-leader.com/sales-revolution/
    Show More Show Less
    34 mins
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