Stay ConnectedMeet Gabe Lullo.
Gabe Lullo is the CEO of Alleyoop, a sales development agency working with industry giants such as ZoomInfo, Salesloft, and Adobe.
He has trained over 8,000 salespeople across diverse businesses and, during his tenure in Alleyoop, he has personally hired and managed more than 1,500 SDRs.
With over two decades of experience in sales, marketing, and executive recruitment, his strategies have significantly driven Alleyoop’s growth.
"A lobster knows when it's time to shed its shell when it starts getting uncomfortable. If it never felt uncomfortable, it would never grow." - Ari Barmapov, Co-founder of Foundations
Ari didn't start in a boardroom. He started at Blockbuster, selling membership add-ons from behind a cash register, just asking everyone who walked in.
The more he asked, the better he got, and he ended up the top salesperson in the entire district.
That was the whole formula, and it hasn't changed since.
No auto-dialer, no real CRM. Just a phone, a phone book, and 150 to 200 manual dials a day.
Brutal reps, but invaluable ones.
Four President's Clubs later, he built Foundations to give founders what nobody gave him.
His take on why founders stay stuck in founder sales: they try to delegate before they've done the work themselves.
BDRs aren't there to figure out your business, and a VP of Sales isn't going to cold call for you.
The only way out of founder sales is through it.
Do it yourself, do it a hundred times, know what works, then pass it on.
On cold calling being dead: it isn't.
People say it's dead because you can't sell a $99 course on it.
You actually have to pick up the phone, and most reps today won't sit down and make focused calls for 90 minutes.
Not because they don't have the time, but because they don't want to be uncomfortable.
That discomfort is the whole point.
The one question he leaves every founder with: when was the last time you booked a meeting with someone you didn't know?
If you can't remember, you already know what to do next.
"We don't just flip eggs. We flip lives." - Chason Forehand, Founder of Transformation Kitchen
Chason is a HR advocate with 45 years spanning culinary, human resources, and DEI.
He is someone who knows exactly what it feels like to need a sandwich and have no idea what comes next.
Chason grew up as the oldest of six boys in an abusive home. By college, the guardrails were off. Straight-A student to academic probation in under a year. Drugs. An attempt on his own life. Incarceration.
Then a chef found him. Ten years clean and sober, someone who cared as much about people as he did about food. He became a mentor, a sponsor, a friend. That changed everything.
The hardest thing Chason ever did wasn't build a program. It was putting his hand up and asking for help.
Now he makes it easier for others to do the same.
Transformation Kitchen isn't job training. It's what he calls a forge.
You come in, you transform, and you never age out. The metric isn't who completed the 12 weeks. It's where you are five years later. Still housed? Still employed? Still clean?
Because if all you hand someone is a sandwich, you've handled today. Nothing else.
"The most profitable companies are driven by purpose."
Doing hard things isn't just a personal challenge. It's an organizational one.
It means paying people what they're actually worth.
It means building culture that outlasts any one quarter.
It means showing up for your community when there's no immediate ROI.
For companies that want to get involved beyond writing checks: volunteer, join a board, post about an organization you believe in.
Your social circle is different from theirs. That difference has real value.
Start there.
"We don't just flip eggs. We flip lives." - Chason Forehand, Founder of Transformation Kitchen
Chason is a HR advocate with 45 years spanning culinary, human resources, and DEI.
He is someone who knows exactly what it feels like to need a sandwich and have no idea what comes next.
Chason grew up as the oldest of six boys in an abusive home. By college, the guardrails were off. Straight-A student to academic probation in under a year. Drugs. An attempt on his own life. Incarceration.
Then a chef found him. Ten years clean and sober, someone who cared as much about people as he did about food. He became a mentor, a sponsor, a friend. That changed everything.
The hardest thing Chason ever did wasn't build a program. It was putting his hand up and asking for help.
Now he makes it easier for others to do the same.
Transformation Kitchen isn't job training. It's what he calls a forge.
You come in, you transform, and you never age out. The metric isn't who completed the 12 weeks. It's where you are five years later. Still housed? Still employed? Still clean?
Because if all you hand someone is a sandwich, you've handled today. Nothing else.
"The most profitable companies are driven by purpose."
Doing hard things isn't just a personal challenge. It's an organizational one.
It means paying people what they're actually worth.
It means building culture that outlasts any one quarter.
It means showing up for your community when there's no immediate ROI.
For companies that want to get involved beyond writing checks: volunteer, join a board, post about an organization you believe in.
Your social circle is different from theirs. That difference has real value.
Start there.
"People are just waiting for permission to go after their dreams. I never ask permission. If I want it, I go after it.” - Julee Gracey
Former international model, People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful, NBC's Deal or No Deal, Top real estate agent, and now a business coach who helps entrepreneurs stop hiding and start showing up.
She's been called human Red Bull and you'll understand why in about 30 seconds.
Julee grew up on a farm, worked construction, and then flipped through magazines one day and noticed all the models were traveling the world.
So she became one. Not because she dreamed of runways, but because she wanted to see what was out there.
After a decade in LA, she came home and went into real estate. Everyone told her it was a terrible idea.
She got quiet, went under the radar, and became the top agent in her office.
Her first showing was a disaster. She couldn't unlock the door, couldn't answer a single client question, and got fired on the front porch.
She cried for a day, then walked up to the number one agent in the office and said: take 50% of everything I make. I just want to sit in your meetings and hear the words you use.
Within months she was posting the biggest numbers on the board. She's never tackled anything since without a mentor.
What she figured out that most people won't say out loud: burnout isn't from doing too much. It's from doing the wrong things. And most entrepreneurs struggle to talk about what they do because they were taught growing up to sit down, be quiet, don't brag.
Then they start a business and every one of those rules becomes the obstacle.
Her fix: face the thing you're avoiding. That's exactly where your growth is.
She wrote it all down in Highly Confident, now a number one Amazon bestseller. The core message: get clear on what you want, make better decisions, and stop waiting for permission.
Nobody's coming with that slip.
"People are just waiting for permission to go after their dreams. I never ask permission. If I want it, I go after it.” - Julee Gracey
Former international model, People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful, NBC's Deal or No Deal, Top real estate agent, and now a business coach who helps entrepreneurs stop hiding and start showing up.
She's been called human Red Bull and you'll understand why in about 30 seconds.
Julee grew up on a farm, worked construction, and then flipped through magazines one day and noticed all the models were traveling the world.
So she became one. Not because she dreamed of runways, but because she wanted to see what was out there.
After a decade in LA, she came home and went into real estate.
Everyone told her it was a terrible idea.
She got quiet, went under the radar, and became the top agent in her office.
Her first showing was a disaster. She couldn't unlock the door, couldn't answer a single client question, and got fired on the front porch.
She cried for a day, then walked up to the number one agent in the office and said: take 50% of everything I make. I just want to sit in your meetings and hear the words you use.
Within months she was posting the biggest numbers on the board. She's never tackled anything since without a mentor.
What she figured out that most people won't say out loud: burnout isn't from doing too much. It's from doing the wrong things. And most entrepreneurs struggle to talk about what they do because they were taught growing up to sit down, be quiet, don't brag.
Then they start a business and every one of those rules becomes the obstacle.
Her fix: face the thing you're avoiding. That's exactly where your growth is.
She wrote it all down in Highly Confident, now a number one Amazon bestseller. The core message: get clear on what you want, make better decisions, and stop waiting for permission.
Nobody's coming with that slip.
"When you open your mouth, the world will discover who you really are." - Larry Raskin
38-year veteran in sales and marketing, former VP of Leadership Development, and the man I credit to teaching me how to communicate and build businesses.
This one is personal.
Larry didn't start in sales, he started in pro baseball.
An injury ended that, so he pivoted into the only world he knew: fitness.
Managing health clubs through the fitness boom, 10 to 10, six days a week.
At some point the math became obvious. The harder he worked, the richer other people got. He was the engine with no equity.
So he answered a newspaper ad, walked into a strip mall meeting that looked nothing like the six-figure promise in the listing, and almost left.
He stayed because he loved the concept, not the product. Business ownership with income that worked beyond his own effort.
And he never looked back.
Over the next 38 years became one of the most successful producers, sales trainers and leadership speakers in his company’s history.
Then the pandemic hit and Larry went from the top of the mountain back to zero.
He didn't coast. He started over.
At 43, heart blockages. More stents in 2005. Bypass surgery at 66. Back in the gym after every single one.
"It isn't what happens to you. It's what happens in you that matters."
Now at Zinzino, a science-backed preventative health company built around test-based, personalized nutrition, he's more fired up than he's been in decades.
His philosophy hasn't changed in 38 years: your organization will never outgrow your personal development.
Treat it like a business or don't. Find the voices worth emulating. Repeat until it sticks.
"When you open your mouth, the world will discover who you really are." - Larry Raskin
38-year veteran in sales and marketing, former VP of Leadership Development, and the man I credit to teaching me how to communicate and build businesses.
This one is personal.
Larry didn't start in sales, he started in pro baseball.
An injury ended that, so he pivoted into the only world he knew: fitness.
Managing health clubs through the fitness boom, 10 to 10, six days a week.
At some point the math became obvious. The harder he worked, the richer other people got. He was the engine with no equity.
So he answered a newspaper ad, walked into a strip mall meeting that looked nothing like the six-figure promise in the listing, and almost left.
He stayed because he loved the concept, not the product. Business ownership with income that worked beyond his own effort.
And he never looked back.
Over the next 38 years became one of the most successful producers, sales trainers and leadership speakers in his company’s history.
Then the pandemic hit and Larry went from the top of the mountain back to zero.
He didn't coast. He started over.
At 43, heart blockages. More stents in 2005. Bypass surgery at 66. Back in the gym after every single one.
"It isn't what happens to you. It's what happens in you that matters."
Now at Zinzino, a science-backed preventative health company built around test-based, personalized nutrition, he's more fired up than he's been in decades.
His philosophy hasn't changed in 38 years: your organization will never outgrow your personal development.
Treat it like a business or don't. Find the voices worth emulating. Repeat until it sticks.
"We are so much stronger than we are ever told we are." - Scilla Andreen
As an Emmy nominated costume designer, co-founder of IndieFlix, award-winning filmmaker, CEO of Impactful Networks, and Mother of six, Scilla knows what doing hard things is all about.
She lost her son to suicide, and her daughter to cancer on her birthday.
Three days after her son passed, she got on a plane to a conference on men's and boys' mental health. Not because she was okay, but because she had questions, and she refused to stop asking them.
It's who she is.
Long before any of that, a friend named Tina, the executive director of her foundation, kept asking her to make a film about mental health. She kept saying no… nobody wants to watch a movie about mental health.
Then Tina passed by suicide.
Scilla had no mental health background; she had grief, guilt and questions.
She did the only thing she knew… started filming anyone who would talk to her, from Harvard researchers to six-year-olds, with no script and no money.
That turned into her film, Angst. It sat for six months, then screened in 90 countries within 14 months.
The insight that drove all of it: the power of a film isn't in the watching, it's in the conversation after.
When people feel safe enough to talk, they share what they've been carrying alone.
The mission isn't therapy, it's education.
Mental health literacy is a population-level problem, and the solution looks more like CPR training than a clinical appointment. Everyone needs access.
Human connection matters more than ever right now.
"We are so much stronger than we are ever told we are." - Scilla Andreen
As an Emmy nominated costume designer, co-founder of IndieFlix, award-winning filmmaker, CEO of Impactful Networks, and Mother of six, Scilla knows what doing hard things is all about.
She lost her son to suicide, and her daughter to cancer on her birthday.
Three days after her son passed, she got on a plane to a conference on men's and boys' mental health. Not because she was okay, but because she had questions, and she refused to stop asking them.
It's who she is.
Long before any of that, a friend named Tina, the executive director of her foundation, kept asking her to make a film about mental health. She kept saying no… nobody wants to watch a movie about mental health.
Then Tina passed by suicide.
Scilla had no mental health background; she had grief, guilt and questions.
She did the only thing she knew… started filming anyone who would talk to her, from Harvard researchers to six-year-olds, with no script and no money.
That turned into her film, Angst. It sat for six months, then screened in 90 countries within 14 months.
The insight that drove all of it: the power of a film isn't in the watching, it's in the conversation after.
When people feel safe enough to talk, they share what they've been carrying alone.
The mission isn't therapy, it's education.
Mental health literacy is a population-level problem, and the solution looks more like CPR training than a clinical appointment. Everyone needs access.
Human connection matters more than ever right now.
"You don't need to post something groundbreaking every time. Just post your story. People are going to like that because they can see themselves in you." - Kade Hinkle
Kade’s a young SDR in the game and he's been on LinkedIn longer than most sales reps you know.
Not because someone told him to. Because he watched a YouTube video at 16, figured out LinkedIn was where the jobs were, and started connecting with people before he ever graduated high school.
By the time he did, he had 2,000 connections and a job offer waiting in his inbox.
He started in landscaping and now he's cold calling executives every afternoon and booking meetings from LinkedIn DMs in between, with over 12,000 followers.
He's not doing anything magical. Prospecting in the morning. Emails around noon. Calls from 3 to 5.
Video messages when he remembers to push himself. Posts at the end of the day from whatever he wrote in his notes app.
The difference is he started. At 16. While most people his age were doom-scrolling Instagram.
The rejection question came up. How do you handle getting punched in the face all day as a brand new SDR?
His answer was pretty simple: "I know it's not personal. So you just keep moving to the next one."
No elaborate mental framework. No morning routine. Just the understanding that a no isn't about you, and the next call is waiting.
Here's what stuck with us though. Kade wants to be an AE by 20. After that it gets blurry. Maybe leadership. Maybe his own business. He's not sure yet.
But he knows one thing: he's not waiting until he has something impressive to say before he starts showing up.
He's posting the journey in real time, figuring it out in public, and letting people grow with him.
In the age of AI, that's exactly what cuts through.
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