Sales POP! Podcasts: Insights from Top Experts in Sales, Marketing, Leadership & More.

Warren Kornblum, CEO of Shadow Branding and former Global CMO of Toys "R" Us, joins John Golden to break down how brands earn lasting emotional loyalty. Kornblum explains how to win share of heart by defining a clear brand purpose, delivering it consistently from the CEO to the front line, and adding human empathy where AI and automation fall short. Learn more at https://shareofheart.com/

Christopher C. Papin, attorney, CPA, and insurance producer at Papin CPA and Papin Law, explains how professionals move clients past price objections by anchoring proposals to the client's stated goals and framing fees against measurable ROI, such as spending $5,000 to save $15,000. He also shows where AI helps advice and where credentialed judgment must take over. Learn more at https://www.papincpa.com/

Ron Johnson, creator of the Apple Store and author of Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple's Genius, explains how to build winning retail by designing stores around people rather than transactions — empowering frontline employees, keeping spaces radically simple, and treating every visit as a step in the sales cycle. Johnson also shows why physical retail is thriving, with 85% of all revenue still flowing through stores or their online arms. Learn more at https://ronjohnsonshopsdifferent.com/

Keith Wyche, leadership consultant, Brink's board member, and author of Uncommon Leadership, explains how leaders rebuild trust by keeping promises consistently, listening to frontline employees before prescribing solutions, and choosing people over power. He shares the listening discipline that helped him turn around operations at Pitney Bowes and win customers back. Learn more at https://keithwyche.com/

Edward M. Brady, CFA, a realtor and author of Awaken Your Financial Star, explains why high earners still feel financially insecure and how anyone can build lasting wealth using four simple principles: Savings, Time, Assets, and Returns (STAR). Drawing on 25 years as an SEC examiner, Brady shows how to avoid lifestyle creep, spot investment fraud, and treat money as a tool rather than a moral failing. Learn more at https://edwardbrady.exprealty.com/.

Fred Marshall, founder and CEO of Quantum Learning, explains how to thrive in the age of AI by moving from overwhelm to agency — directing your attention across priorities, obligations, and noise, and using AI as an accelerator for what matters most. Marshall, author of Thrive: The Antidote to Future Shock, shares practical systems to future-proof your work and life amid exponential change. Learn more at https://thrivefutureyou.com/

John Fees, Co-founder & Managing Partner of GradGuard, explains how salespeople stay irreplaceable in the AI era by asking the human questions AI can't — and by leading with his "three A's": Ask, Authentic, Authority. He and host John Golden also weigh whether a college degree is still worth the cost and what skills students need to thrive alongside AI. Learn more at https://gradguard.com/.

Tayo Lusi, Founder of The One Percent University, explains how IT professionals can scale their income to $500,000 a year by mastering the right mindset, building real cloud engineering projects, and negotiating their true worth. He shares how he went from a $55K help desk job to nearly $500K, and why he now teaches $500,000 as a baseline minimum rather than a dream. Learn more at https://apexedu.io/.

Callum Kennard, Head of Sales at ClickSlice, explains why overplanning can be worse than bad execution and how to fix it by baking in iteration, defining a narrow ideal customer, and prioritizing citation quality over volume in SEO and AI search. He shows sales and marketing leaders how to stop confusing activity with progress and set realistic timelines for SEO and AEO results. Learn more at https://www.clickslice.co.uk/.

Juan Munoz, a top-producing Denver realtor, licensed lender, and former NASA aerospace engineer, explains how he left a secure engineering career to build a referral-driven real estate business rooted in "Trust, Value, Results." He shares how he overcame self-limiting beliefs, handles tough pricing conversations with data, and has earned 136 five-star reviews by putting each client's best interest ahead of his own. Learn more at https://www.homesindenvernow.com/.

Franchise Coach and Consultant Giuseppe Grammatico explains how to build financial and time freedom through franchising by choosing the right brand, preparing real numbers, and treating year one as a "builder year." He busts the common franchising myths, details what it costs to qualify, and shows how franchisors now use AI to run leaner. Learn more: https://www.ggthefranchiseguide.com/press-kit

Laura McCracken, Founder & CEO of Blackheath Advisors and The Board Alchemist, explains what a board of directors really does — providing oversight, managing risk, and owning company culture rather than conferring prestige. She shows how management teams can turn the board into a strategic asset and shares a five-part resilience model that ends in a live crisis simulation. Learn more: https://www.blackheathadvisors.com/

Rob Snyder—serial startup founder, Harvard Innovation Labs fellow, and author of The Power of Pull—explains why customers buy: they have "blocked demand," meaning they're already trying to do something urgent but their current tools fall short. He shows founders how to stop pushing, spot real pull, and find the customers who rip a product out of their hands instead of wasting months building for people who won't buy. Learn more at https://robsnyder.org/

Kevin Cope, Founder and CEO of Acumen Learning, explains how salespeople earn a seat at the table by mastering business acumen — reading a prospect's P&L, mining earnings calls for buying signals, and pairing that insight with the EQ that AI can't replace. He shares why two-thirds of salespeople don't understand their clients' industry and how to close that gap. Learn more at https://www.acumenlearning.com/.

David Dean, author, keynote speaker, and business AI realist, explains how to future-proof your job in the AI era by strengthening the human judgment, lived experience, and accountability that AI cannot replicate. He shows why managing AI is more behavioral than technical and why your inbox holds the real map of how your organization works. Learn more at https://edwardbrady.exprealty.com/

Jim Effner, Founder & President of P2P Group, explains why AI won't replace financial advisors: personal financial services is a human-behavior business where clients need an advisor they can implicitly trust, understand them, and genuinely care. He breaks down the traits, courage, and language that set elite advisors apart. Learn more at https://jimeffner.com/

Maximos Lih, founder and CEO of Emboldened LLC and former Google Ventures operating partner, explains how leaders win in the agentic age by treating AI failure as a business opportunity rather than a layoff equation. He shows how IKEA reskilled 8,500 service agents to build a $1.4 billion interior design business rather than cutting headcount. Connect with Maximos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximoslih/

Glenn Fleischman, Chief Revenue Officer at AYTM, explains how sales teams can adopt AI successfully by fixing their human processes first — then scaling with AI rather than multiplying a broken motion. He shares why enterprise sellers who master AI will out-earn those who resist it, and how AYTM builds research expertise directly into its platform. Learn more at https://aytm.com/

Glenn Sandifer, a 20-year sales and marketing executive at Securos USA, explains how sales leaders can adopt AI responsibly by automating manual tasks like list-building and follow-up while keeping a human in control of every first touch and close. He makes the case that AI's biggest gift to leaders is time — time to return to the weekly one-to-one coaching that builds rep confidence. Learn more at https://www.glennsandifer.com/

Charlotte Johnson, founder and CEO of Drew and Rose, explains how to bridge the sales and marketing gap by making marketing accountable for lead generation — tying marketing compensation to leads, putting both teams in the same weekly meeting, and mapping the full funnel together. She shares her agency's results guarantee and a three-step "do it for you, do it together, you do it yourselves" framework that builds lasting alignment. Learn more at https://drewandrose.com/

Chad Coe, Founder of Coe Financial Group and author of The Power of Peopleizing, explains how to win more sales by leading with genuine care instead of a pitch — using his 3% rule and a long-game follow-up system that reframes ghosting as testing. He shares why patience and faith separate the top 1–2% from everyone else. Learn more at coefinancial.com.

Dilip Chetan, founder of Recursion Lab and creator of the Defensible Zone framework, explains how leaders can win with AI by flipping the question from "What can we automate?" to "What human value must we protect?" He shares his three-moat test, why first-contact sales must stay human, and where AI still can't reach. Learn more at julianlighton.com.

Executive coach Julian Lighton, author of Navigating Your Next and a former McKinsey associate partner, explains how to take control of your career by clarifying what you truly want and building a deliberate path to get it through his seven-step framework. He breaks down the four unavoidable career transitions, why no meaningful goal is reached alone, and why success always comes at a cost. Learn more at https://www.julianlighton.com/.

Curtis Sprouse, Founder & CEO of Eureka Connect, explains how to develop better leaders by using validated behavioral-science data to build self-awareness, trust, and consistency across a team. With 30+ years in pharma, healthcare, and executive coaching, he shows why even accomplished CEOs miss their own blind spots—and why AI won't replace human judgment. Learn more at https://eurekaconnect.com/.

Deri Llewellyn-Davies, Strategist & Board Advisor and Founder of Freedom Founders, explains that peak performance is a state problem, not a motivation problem — you shift it by choosing flow, focus, peak, recovery, and connect states through breathwork, phone-free mornings, and purpose. He shares flow research showing 500% productivity gains from two protected morning hours, and why burnout stems from values misalignment rather than workload. Connect with Deri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thestrategyman/

Bruce Cleveland, CEO and Founder of Traction Gap Partners and author of Market Engineering, joins John Golden to explain why product engineering is now table stakes and how CEOs can apply a five-tenet discipline — category design, positioning, messaging, storytelling, and thought leadership — to build enduring market leadership. Learn more at https://www.tractiongappartners.com.

Lee Benson, Founder and CEO of Execute to Win and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, joins John Golden to challenge the growth-at-all-costs mindset and unpack the three categories of value creation that powered his 21.6x EBITDA exit at Able Aerospace. Learn more at https://www.etw.com/about.

Chris Maduri, Retirement Planning Specialist at Vibrant Retirement, joins John Golden on the Sales POP! Expert Insight Interview to unpack the Retirement Red Zone, the five red flags that derail retirement, and why predictable income beats chasing returns. A practical conversation for anyone within ten years of leaving work. Learn more at https://vibrantretirement.com/.

Greg Hoover, author of Lead Anyway and former CEO of Bekins Van Lines, Arnold Relocation, and New World Van Lines, joins John Golden to challenge the idea that leadership belongs only to those with titles. He shares the habits — decisiveness, simplicity, and intentional mentorship — that empower any employee to lead from where they stand. Learn more at https://www.thirdstar.net/.

Menil Vukovic, CEO of Pear Shadow, joins John Golden to discuss software engineering practices in the era of AI — including the engineer's new role as an AI orchestrator, why experience is now an advantage rather than a liability, and how teams move from chaotic adoption to structured AI workflows. Menil shares the three stages of AI integration his team worked through, why documentation matters more than ever, and the rules that keep vibe coding from destroying production codebases. Learn more about Menil and Pear Shadow at https://www.pearshadow.com/.

Dustin Kenyon, Chief Revenue Officer at Motivosity, joins John Golden to explore what human leadership looks like in an AI-driven world. Dustin shares why the learner's journey is now non-negotiable for every professional, how to cut through AI-generated noise, and why his executive team operates by a simple rule: no dinosaurs. Learn more at https://www.motivosity.com/.

Athena Brownson, a Denver-based real estate broker, developer, and chronic illness advocate, joins John Golden to share how she built a thriving referral-only practice in one of the country's most competitive markets. Drawing on her background as a former professional freestyle skier and her decade-long battle with Lyme disease, she explains why relationship-based selling, daily discipline, and authentic vulnerability outperform transactional tactics. Learn more at https://athenabrownsonrealtor.com/.

Ilana Golan, CEO and Founder of Leap Academy and a former F-16 flight instructor turned Intel VP, joins John Golden to unpack why portfolio careers and the Adaptability Quotient (AQ) now matter more than any title in an AI-driven job market. She shares the four-step reinvention framework she teaches to mid- and late-career professionals worldwide. Learn more at https://www.leapacademy.com/.

Chad Coe, Founder of Coe Financial Group, joins Sales POP! to share his concept of people tithing — a giver-first sales approach that builds trust quickly, sustains persistent outreach without burning bridges, and turns generosity into long-term client relationships. Learn more at https://www.coefinancial.com/.

Jürgen Dauk, Transformation Consultant and Founder of The Leadership OS, joins John Golden to explain why AI without organizational transformation is destined to fail. Drawing on 25 years of senior leadership and NLP coaching expertise, Jürgen walks leaders through the vision, structure, and mindset shifts that turn AI investment into real competitive advantage. Learn more at https://theleadership-os.com/.

Ann Padley, Senior Partner at Untapped Pricing and co-author of The Pricing Sprint, joins Sales POP! to explain behavioral pricing — why identical prices perform differently and how three clear options change the sales conversation. Learn more at https://untappedpricing.co.uk/thepricingsprint/.

Travis Hahler, Senior Director of Global Strategy & Transformation at Salesforce and founder of The Neurological Nomad, joins John Golden to explain why resistance to change is biology, not rebellion — and how leaders can read resistance as diagnostic information instead of personal pushback. Learn more at https://www.theneurologicalnomad.com/.

Brad Farris, founder of Anchor Advisors and executive leadership coach to agency and expert-firm owners, joins Sales POP! to explain why most service businesses plateau between $1M and $2M — and the founder mindset, pricing, and hiring shifts that take them into a profitable $3M-$5M business. Learn more at https://anchoradvisors.com/.

Kelly Faetanini, founder and lead designer of Kelly Faetanini Bridal, joins Sales POP! to share the customer-centric playbook that turned her brand into a leader in luxury bridal — covering authenticity, hiring for emotional intelligence, and why a grounded leader outperforms a frantic one in any high-pressure industry. A practical conversation with lessons that apply far beyond wedding fashion. Learn more at https://www.kellyfaetanini.com/.

Dominic Forth, CEO of Thought Leaders America and former BBC broadcast journalist, joins John Golden to explain why the most qualified person rarely wins the deal — and how visibility, storytelling, and composure under pressure build the authority that does. Learn more at Thought Leaders America.

April Martini and Anne Candido, co-founders of Forthright People and authors of The Power of Your Personal Brand, join John Golden to explain why middle managers stall and how a deliberate personal brand becomes their competitive advantage. They share a four-part framework built on 45 combined years of branding experience and show how to apply it in 20-minute chunks. Learn more at https://forthright-people.com/.

In this Sales POP! Expert Insight Interview, John Golden talks with Cory Dunham, Executive Leadership Coach and Co-Owner of Dunham Marketing Services, about how founder-led service businesses win by clarifying their message, aligning their teams around real values, and turning those values into decisive action — especially in the fragile moments right after a sale. Learn more and connect with Cory at https://corydunham.com/.

Jon Benson, copywriter, entrepreneur, and founder of BNSN AI, joins Sales POP! to explain how marketers can shift from writer to conductor — directing AI agents, injecting human values into copy, and producing in days what once took teams of ten. Learn more and grab the free Buyer Profile at https://bnsn.ai/.

Justin Goodbread, founder of Relentless Value Coaching and creator of the Deca Millionaire Way, joins John Golden to explain why so many service-based founders get stuck at the epicenter of their own businesses — and walks through the five-step Relentless Framework he has used to build and exit seven companies. Learn more at https://www.justingoodbread.com/.

Laura Kriska, founder of We Building Solutions and author of The Business of WE, joins John Golden to share her We-Building framework for bridging invisible us-vs-them divides that quietly drain deadlines, revenue, and trust inside Fortune 500 companies. She walks through the four stages of trust every working relationship moves through and explains why hybrid work has made the climb harder than ever. More at https://www.laurakriska.com/.

Derek De Vette, Co-Founder and Head of Strategic Communications at Halo Communications, joins John Golden to explain how AI search has rewritten the PR playbook and why niche earned media now outperforms marquee placements for sales pipeline growth. Derek shares fresh data on ChatGPT and Claude citation patterns and a practical playbook for becoming the cited source inside AI answers. Learn more at https://halocomms.agency/.

Antoniette Roze, CEO of WPC Global, joins Sales POP! to explain how six- and seven-figure experts stop treating speaking like a lottery and start building predictable, high-value speaking businesses through sharp positioning, clear messaging, and realistic timelines. Learn more and take the free Speaker Fit assessment at https://speakpact.com/.

In this Sales POP! Expert Insight Interview, Jessica Rhodes, Founder of Interview Connections, explains why she dismantled her sales team after six years and how founder-led selling restored client fit, retention, and company cohesion at the world's first podcast booking agency. Learn more at https://interviewconnections.com/.

Carmen Sederino, Founder and Performance Master at Illuminated Story, joins John Golden to explain why the live keynote is a competitive advantage AI cannot replicate — and how leaders and sellers can build real executive presence through voice, body, and emotional choreography. She shares the 50/50 rehearsal rule, how authenticity works as a range rather than a fixed pose, and why pause is the most underused tool in business delivery. Learn more at https://illuminatedstory.com/.

Jacquelyn Goldberg, VP of Sales at Unframe AI, joins John Golden on Sales POP! to explain why resume pedigree is a shakier hiring signal than ever and why she screens for grit and intellectual curiosity instead — lessons she's used to scale her team to multi-million ARR in under a year at a Series A AI startup. Full conversation and more on Unframe's managed AI delivery platform at https://www.unframe.ai/.