WMYT - What makes YOU Tick? Tech Leaders Career Stories

Richard and Tolu @ Tick Talent
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Conversations with high-performing tech leaders, breaking down the decisions, failures, and strategies behind exceptional careers. It all starts by asking "what makes you tick?" Designed for founders and operators who want practical lessons from people who’ve built, scaled, and led in the real world. No theory. No hype. Just insights you can use.

  1. 10h ago

    E. 150 - What Great Tech Leaders Have in Common

    150 episodes. Three years. Hundreds of the best tech leaders in the world. In this milestone episode of What Makes You Tick, Rich and Tolu sit down, just the two of them, to reflect on everything they've learned about what actually makes a great tech leader tick.No guest this time, just three years of patterns, surprises, and the traits that keep coming up in the people at the very top.We discuss:1. Why kindness and freedom show up in the best leaders, not just ambition2. Why great questioning is the number one skill top sellers develop3. The athlete mindset: why performance without recovery burns you out4. The leaders from 150 episodes Rich and Tolu would most want to work under5. Why everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, and what gets lost6. The American dream, the British dream, and what we're really chasing7. Where they hope What Makes You Tick goes over the next three yearsBrought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/Where to find Rich and Tolu:Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ #techleadership #leadership #salesleadership #careeradvice #highperformance #revenueleadership #entrepreneurship #adaptability #questioning #podcastmilestone #B2Bsales #GTM #whatmakesyoutick #ticktalent #richwashington #toluadebekun #150episodes #careerstories #mindset #futureofwork

    E. 150 - What Great Tech Leaders Have in Common

  2. 3d ago

    How to Hire People Who Actually Take Ownership

    Benjamin Caller has led sales at some of the fastest-scaling companies in tech, and in this Best Bits episode he joins Rich to break down how to hire people who genuinely take ownership, not just the ones who say they do. Benjamin and Rich dig into the multiplier framework: the difference between multipliers, adders, dividers, and subtractors, and the four traits that make a multiplier, collaborative, ownership, resourceful, and execution (CORE). They get into why ownership is the hardest of the four to find, the exact interview questions that expose whether someone really has it, and why, when there's a doubt, there's no doubt. We discuss: 1. The difference between multipliers, adders, dividers and subtractors 2. Why finding talent is the leader's job, not just the recruiter's 3. The traits that make someone a true multiplier 4. Why ownership is the hardest quality to hire for 5. The interview questions that reveal real ownership 6. Why "when there's a doubt, there's no doubt" when hiring 7. The show do, help do, make do, let do coaching method Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Benjamin Caller: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamincaller/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    How to Hire People Who Actually Take Ownership

  3. Sep 9

    How Leaders Can Save the Career Ladder From AI

    If AI takes the jobs of junior salespeople and marketers, who trains the leaders of tomorrow? In this episode of What Makes You Tick, Rich and Tolu sit down with Tony Larks, a field marketing leader with over 30 years in tech, to tackle a problem everyone's worried about but nobody's talking about: AI is quietly killing the career ladder. Tony has spent his career taking chances on young people with potential, and he makes the case for why leaders, not the government, own the responsibility to keep developing early talent, and how to actually do it. We discuss: 1. Why companies now hire the finished product instead of raw potential 2. What happens to the leadership pipeline when entry-level roles disappear 3. Why 92% of marketers accept whatever AI serves them, and why that's dangerous 4. Why the SDR to AE path is broken, and what it's costing sellers 5. Why AI has dried up roles without actually delivering results yet 6. How AI can create opportunity, not just take it away 7. How any leader can start an internship or work experience programme Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Tony Larks: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonylarks/ Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    How Leaders Can Save the Career Ladder From AI

  4. Sep 6

    How Sales Leaders Perform Under Pressure (Without Burning Out)

    Tammy Aguillon is VP of Sales at Webflow, a revenue leader who has risen from an inbound SDR role all the way to third-line sales leadership. In this Best Bits episode, she joins Rich and Tolu to talk about the mental side of leadership: why sales leaders burn out, how to regulate your nervous system under pressure, and why mastering your own mind matters more as AI gets smarter. Tammy shares how she found Dreamfuel, the neuroscience-based coaching that changed how she thinks, makes decisions, and leads, and why she brought her coach in to run a session with her entire leadership team. We discuss: 1. Why the mental side of leadership is now a competitive edge 2. How to lead when every decision is made with uncertainty 3. Why a dysregulated nervous system wrecks your decision-making 4. How metacognition lets you observe your own thoughts 5. Why AI is only useful if your own thinking is clear 6. The difference between therapy, exec coaching, and performance coaching 7. Why so many people in tech are quietly burning out More about Dreamfuel: Mental Performance Coaching for Leaders and Sales Professionals - The same neuroscience-backed mental performance coaching trusted by elite performers, available through the WMYT and Tick Talent community. Book your complimentary session: https://www.dreamfuel.com/whatmakesyoutick Where to find Tammy Aguillon: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tammy-aguillon/ Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    How Sales Leaders Perform Under Pressure (Without Burning Out)

  5. Sep 2

    The Frontline Manager Problem No Sales Strategy Can Fix w/ Olivia Lockwood

    Olivia Lockwood is the founder of Open Up Coaching and a Master Certified Trainer of the Challenger Selling Model, with over 25 years coaching sales leaders at organisations including Microsoft, Google, IHG, American Express, and Lumen. In this episode of Making Revenue Tick, she joins Rich to unpack the problem no sales strategy can fix: the frontline sales manager. Olivia explains why companies keep promoting their best sellers into management without telling them the job has changed, why the player-coach model is often hard to work with, and how frontline managers can become the true force multipliers of a go-to-market org. We discuss: 1. Why promoting your best seller into management so often backfires 2. Why Olivia refuses to work with companies that use player-coaches 3. The four responsibilities of a frontline manager, and the one most get wrong 4. Why strategy fails to become execution 5. Why reinforcement beats "transformation" every time 6. Why customer success is still the toughest role in go-to-market 7. Why 10 to 15% churn a year is healthy, and who you want to lose Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Olivia Lockwood: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/oliviarlockwood/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    The Frontline Manager Problem No Sales Strategy Can Fix w/ Olivia Lockwood

  6. Aug 30

    When the Cuts Come, Which GTM Leaders Survive? with Jacob Warwick

    Jacob Warwick is an executive negotiation coach who helps senior operators negotiate better salary, equity, titles, and severance packages. In this Best Bits episode, Rich and Tolu sit down with Jacob to talk about job security in the age of AI: how to make yourself indispensable, why no one really is, and how to future-proof your career before AI reshapes it entirely. We discuss: 1. How to deepen your roots and become impossible to cut 2. Why cross-functional influence protects your job more than hitting your number 3. Why every employment deal is a win-lose, and how to think about it 4. Why they trade you something infinite for something finite 5. How Jacob replaced a team of eight with AI in a single day 6. Why AI-augmented executives will earn over a million a year 7. Why you should create more than you consume Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Jacob Warwick: Substack: https://www.execsandthecity.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jacob-warwick Website: https://www.thinkwarwick.com Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    When the Cuts Come, Which GTM Leaders Survive? with Jacob Warwick

  7. Aug 26

    Why Nobody Knows How to Sell in Person Anymore w/ Joe Fontana

    Richard is joined by Joe Fontana, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Amzai and one of the New York chapter heads for the SDR Leaders of the USA. He has spent 12 years running hundreds of events a year across 20 industries on every continent, and in this episode of Making Revenue Tick he joins Rich to explain why in-person events, done properly, are the most powerful pipeline engine in modern sales, and why a generation of sellers has never been taught to actually sell. We discuss: 1. How to use events to build pipeline and close deals faster 2. The "weddings and funerals" test of a trustworthy seller 3. What's broken in modern sales training 4. AI, and why sellers have content but no context 5. How the buyer took all the power from the seller 6. The ideal number of guests for a sales dinner 7. A seller's real job: keeping the buyer from getting fired Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Joe Fontana: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-fontana75/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.Joe Fontana is Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Amzai and one of the New York chapter heads for the SDR Leaders of the USA. He has spent 12 years running hundreds of events a year across 20 industries on every continent, and in this episode of Making Revenue Tick he joins Rich to explain why in-person events, done properly, are the most powerful pipeline engine in modern sales, and why a generation of sellers has never been taught to actually sell. We discuss: 1. How to use events to build pipeline and close deals faster 2. The "weddings and funerals" test of a trustworthy seller 3. What's broken in modern sales training 4. AI, and why sellers have content but no context 5. How the buyer took all the power from the seller 6. The ideal number of guests for a sales dinner 7. A seller's real job: keeping the buyer from getting fired Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Joe Fontana: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-fontana75/ Where to find Rich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    Why Nobody Knows How to Sell in Person Anymore w/ Joe Fontana

  8. Aug 19

    E.146 - Why Nobody Knows How to Connect Anymore w/ Ravi Rajani

    We live in the most connected era in history, yet real human connection has never felt rarer. In the first ever in-person What Makes You Tick, Rich and Tolu sit down with Ravi Rajani, international keynote speaker, LinkedIn Learning instructor, and author of Relationship Currency, to unpack why presence has become a lost art, and how to build relationships that actually compound in a world obsessed with shortcuts. Ravi has taught over 80,000 professionals how to communicate with charisma and connection, and worked with organisations like Oracle NetSuite, T-Mobile, Spotify, and Sherwin-Williams. This conversation is a masterclass in becoming the person people remember, trust, and choose. We discuss: 1. Why deep presence has become a lost art 2. Why instant gratification is quietly killing connection 3. The difference between reactive behaviour and true presence 4. Why the depth of your questions dictates the depth of your relationships 5. Why the person who tells the best story becomes the obvious choice 6. How to build a signature talk people repeat when you're not in the room 7. Why AI can give you the answer but not the character to hold it Plus, Ravi is giving away five copies of his book Relationship Currency. Brought to you by Tick Talent, go-to-market recruitment for early-stage tech startups: https://www.tick-talent.com/ Where to find Ravi Rajani: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theravirajani/ https://www.theravirajani.com/ Where to find Rich and Tolu: Rich: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richwash/ Tolu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/toluadebekun/ Subscribe so you never miss an episode. New episodes every Wednesday, Best Bits every Sunday.

    E.146 - Why Nobody Knows How to Connect Anymore w/ Ravi Rajani
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Conversations with high-performing tech leaders, breaking down the decisions, failures, and strategies behind exceptional careers. It all starts by asking "what makes you tick?" Designed for founders and operators who want practical lessons from people who’ve built, scaled, and led in the real world. No theory. No hype. Just insights you can use.

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