189: James Nielsen: Using Discipline and Structure To Become A Sales Star

Today's guest has one of the most impressive pedigrees of my 189 podcasts guests to date. At UCSD, James Nielsen was a 4X NCAA All-American Track Athlete, 2X National Champion, 3X Academic All-American, and President of his fraternity. While getting his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering at Stanford, James made the US Olympic Trials and was a Professional Ironman TriAthlete. His professional journey started at Qualcomm as an Engineer. After a chance encounter with the VP Sales, he was recruited into Sales Engineering. He spent 5 years in that role before several Director and VP Sales roles over the next decade. He was involved in 3 separate acquisitions during that time. In 2015, James founded Vendition, a Sales Development Apprenticeship program that gives individuals the training and experience needed to earn entry-level jobs in tech sales. He also runs Sales Bootcamp, Vendition Sales Society, and is an Advisor for CreativeVentures.vc. In this conversation, James and I discuss: Why James wakes up at 4:30 to run every day How being an Engineer helps him run a more structured sales process The work Vendition is doing for underrepresented groups in sales James' world-record beer mile (!?) SUPPORT: First, follow and connect with James on LinkedIn. Second, show some love for Millennial Sales. Please subscribe on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube and leave a comment or review wherever you listen. It helps me to spread my reach and get more great guests on the podcast. I’d love to connect with you on social media on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. All other content is also hosted on MillennialMomentum.net. Let’s get after it this week.