Christian Pallazola is the top Account Executive at NICE Actimize, the leading worldwide provider of financial crime, risk, and compliance solutions. Christian is a Boston-based sales professional with a background in multiple GTM functions. Over the last eight years, he’s worked in a number of unique settings and sold a lot of different things. Having played all roles of a typical growth team, he’s been able to learn how each can do a better job at supporting one another. His specialty resides in creating go-to-market strategies that help brands actually win business with their ideal customers without having to break the bank. Today, he sells the industry-leading financial crime management software and serves as a freelance growth advisor on the side.
Today, Christian joins the show to share his sales origin story, his favorite Sales story as well as his favorite failure (one that directly led him to his current role at NICE Actimize). Christian dissects the top three things he attributes to his success, including his willingness to try new things, going above and beyond, and being authentic and bold. They may sound simple, but these are the fundamentals that Christian has utilized to build an incredibly successful career thus far. Scott asks Christian about what truly motivates him and Christian gets candid by expressing a desire to pursue other interests/paths outside of Sales.
Christian and Scott cover the topics of Artificial Intelligence, the hybrid-model of work that many companies have begun to employ in the post-Covid world and the importance of maintaining face-to-face meetings and interactions in the field of Sales. Finally, Chrisitan and Scott reflect on the incredibly fast pace life tends to go the further along you get and why it’s important to cherish the time we have. They talk about surrounding yourself with the right people and having the right conversations in order to further your relationship-building skills. Scott takes a moment to encourage listeners to attend the upcoming Sales Success Summit.
What We Covered:
00:01 – Scott thanks today’s sponsor, The Sales Collective
01:02 – Scott welcomes to the show Christian Pallazolla
01:46 – The top three things that Christian attributes to his success
02:19 – Number One: Trying new things
08:17 – Number Two: Going above and beyond
09:28 – Number Three: Being authentic and bold
10:29 – Christian quantifies his role at NICE Actimize and speaks to his sales results
13:08 – What Christian would do differently if given the chance
20:11 – Christian’s favorite sales story
23:12 – How Christian is using fundamentals to set himself up for future success
25:55 – Christian’s favorite failure
28:41 – Christian’s proudest accomplishment
29:51 – Chrisitan takes the audience through a typical day in the life
32:45 – Habits and routines that are crucial to Christian’s success
35:02 – Christian’s information diet and tech stack
39:55 – Christian’s sales style and philosophy
44:14 – What drives and motivates Christian
47:21 – Advice Christian would give to a struggling sales professional looking to find that next level
50:45 – How Christian developed his depth of product knowledge
1:01:02 – One of Christian’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:02:28 – Christian’s outbound sales approach
1:11:50 – Christian gives his thoughts on A.I. and our new remote world
1:14:28 – One thing Christian would want to know about top sellers in other organizations
Tweetables:
“I fully believe that what I do and who I am today is a direct result of being told, ‘Try something new.’” (02:43)
“At the end of the day, if you can recognize the fact that your buyer is a human being, you can probably connect with that individual on a human basis versus just being another random number that pops up on a cold call.” (10:11)
“If I were to pick a philosophy, I would pick the [Sales] Rebellion, because it teaches people that you’re talking to human beings at the end of the day.” (41:08)
“Being able to truly know your product, but also know the people you’re speaking to, is going to make a world of difference in actually being able to create a case that’s in line with where the customer wants to go and how you can help them get there.” (50:16)
“We live in a remote world now. I know a lot of companies have a hybrid approach and some have one hundred percent in person. A lot of them are remote. I’m a big believer in the fact that you’ve got to go in person to truly close business and to build that next level relationship.” (1:13:07)
“This is what energizes me: being able to connect with people who not just do it, but do it consistently, who do it while managing challenges I’ve never even thought about or encountered before. This is good for me.” (1:21:58)
Links Mentioned:
[email protected]
ALL Enterprise Sales Episodes
ALL SDR Episodes
Christian Pallazola on LinkedIn
NICE Actimize
The Sales Rebellion
LinkedIn
Podcasts Mentioned:
The Sales Success Podcast
The Surf & Sales Podcast
B2B Revenue Vitals