Episode 128: Gartner's Angie Donato - An Intentional Leader

Angie Donato is the top Senior Sales Executive in the HR Practice at Gartner, the world’s leading research and advisory company. Gartner is an organization that equips business leaders with indispensable insights, advice, and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities. Angie is a highly intentional sales professional who takes the time to do things the right way.

In this episode, Angie talks about her sales origin story and how, like most people, she kinda stumbled into sales. Angie lists the three traits she attributes to her success. These include always being prepared, listening more than she talks, and embracing change. Angie speaks to the work she’s doing to coach other women to overcome Imposter Syndrome and why she chose to remain in an individual contributor role despite clearly showing strong leadership capabilities.

Angie continues by taking the audience through a typical day in the life. She starts her morning at 6:30 am or earlier, eats breakfast outside when possible, walks her dog, and enjoys the peace and tranquility that usually accompanies her mornings. Then, it’s off to work by 8 am where she blocks off an hour every Monday for ‘focus time’ so she can plan her week ahead. She doesn’t enjoy back-to-back meetings so she likes to spread out her schedule accordingly. She usually schedules about three to four calls in the afternoon and then has some more focus time to round out her day. To end her day, she likes to cook and have a big family dinner when possible. Afterwards, she tends to either ride her bike, watch some television, or scroll through TikTok before heading to bed and starting the next day. Finally, Angie provides an actionable challenge to the audience. Her challenge is for listeners to approach their conversations with a listen-first approach. By being conscious and reflecting on your conversations you can learn to be a better listener overall.

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott thanks the sponsors of today’s episode, QuotaPath, Vidyard, and Skipio
00:40 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Angie Donato
01:03 – The top three things that Angie attributes to her success
01:19 – Number 1: Preparation
03:04 – Number 2: Listen more than she talks
04:47 – Number 3: Embracing change
05:34 – Angie expounds on her role at Gartner
06:12 – Angie’s sales results
07:11 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, QuotaPath
07:37 – Angie’s sales origin story
11:02 – What Angie would do differently in her career if given the chance
12:03 – How Angie is coaching other women to overcome Imposter Syndrome
13:02 – Scott takes a quick moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, Vidyard
13:50 – Angie shares her favorite sales story and shares best practices for going through an acquisition
18:34 – The decision to remain in an individual contributor role
20:06 – Angie’s proudest accomplishment
20:39 – Angie reflects on the biggest struggle of her career journey
23:47 – How Angie thinks about the pros and cons of working for different sized companies
26:15 – Scott takes a moment to thank the final sponsor of today’s episode, Skipio
27:08 – Angie takes the audience through a typical day in the life
31:42 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Angie’s success
32:41 – Scott talks about United Healthcare’s Motion and how he’s attempted to incorporate more frequent breaks in his day
34:33 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Angie consumes
35:54 – Angie’s tech stack
36:23 – Angie’s sales style and philosophy
38:30 – What motivates and drives Angie
39:05 – Why Angie is so intentional in everything she does
42:27 – One of Angie’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
44:27 – An average sales professional’s belief that Angie thinks is crazy
45:07 – How often Angie uses presentations and slides in her process
46:42 – The most pivotal lessons Angie has learned throughout her career
48:17 – How Angie continues to add value to her clients
50:11 – Angie’s involvement with Top Percentile Collective
50:54 – Advice Angie would give to an upstart sales professional
52:06 – Advice Angie would give to a struggling, middle-of-the-pack sales professional
53:18 – Angie speaks to what she would like to learn from top sellers in other organizations
55:06 – Angie’s actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“I find that being able to be adaptable and change and be agile has really helped me be successful. And I find those who aren’t able to, or really struggle with change, tend to fall behind.” (05:20)

“My advice for going through an acquisition would be not to panic. Take things in stride. Know that change is gonna be coming and, in most cases, it’s good change.” (16:17)

“It’s really about where do you thrive and where do you get your joy from? What’s bringing the joy for you?” (25:14)

“My style is under-promise, over-deliver. I’m never that kind of person who’s promising the world or telling people on the phone that I can solve all their problems. I have a more understated approach.” (37:05)

“Any time that I can help someone see an existing problem differently or identify one that they haven’t thought of, that really motivates me.” (38:43)

“I don’t really think about the numbers. I know the numbers, but I don’t think about them. I really trust that if I do the right things with a customer-centric lens, the results will follow.” (42:34)

“I really love people’s stories, how they got to where they are and what are the things that keep them motivated to be at the top. I mean those are the things that I’m most curious about.” (53:41)

Episode 128: Gartner’s Angie Donato – An Intentional Leader

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