Show notes
In Part 2 of this conversation on Selling the Cloud, Glenn Poulos dives deep into what it really takes to scale a distribution business from startup to successful exit. From growing Gap Wireless from 1 million dollars in revenue to 84 million over 15 years, Glenn shares the strategic decisions, mindset shifts, and leadership disciplines that enabled sustainable growth in the telecom technology sector.Glenn unpacks the importance of franchise vendor relationships, why brand positioning determines sales velocity, and how to structure an organization with the right people in the right seats. He also tackles one of the most critical dynamics in distribution: building trust with manufacturers while managing the real risk of going direct.The episode closes with a practical and grounded perspective on AI in sales. Glenn explains how to use AI as a powerful assistant across departments without sacrificing the human connection that ultimately closes enterprise deals. Plus, stay for the rapid fire segment where he shares hard lessons from selling his first company, advice for his 21 year old self, and the sales habits he still practices today.What You’ll Learn:Scaling from Startup to Exit: The key inflection points that helped grow Gap Wireless from 1 million to 84 million in revenue.Brand Strategy in Distribution: Why representing top tier brands is essential for competitive sales positioning.Right People, Right Seats: How organizational structure and disciplined hiring drive long term growth.Manufacturer Trust Dynamics: Navigating co-selling, exclusivity, and the risk of vendors going direct.AI as an Assistant, Not a Replacement: How to use AI for research, prep, legal review, and financial insights without losing the human edge.Sales Discipline That Compounds: Daily habits that create visibility, opportunity, and long term career growth.Key Topics:Franchise distribution models in telecom and technologyRelationship first selling in enterprise B2BOrganizational design and leadership evolutionManaging vendor partnerships and channel conflictAI in sales operations, finance, marketing, and legalCareer defining mistakes and lessons learnedGuest Spotlight: Glenn PoulosGlenn Poulos is a sales expert, author, and serial entrepreneur with over 40 years of experience in complex B2B selling. He co-founded Gap Wireless and scaled it into a multi million dollar distribution company before its acquisition. Today, Glenn leads ProgUSA and is widely recognized for his thought leadership on sales growth, leadership, and the practical application of AI in business.🎧 Listen now and follow Selling the Cloud for more conversations with leaders shaping the future of enterprise sales.Mark (00:31)So let's move to topic three, scaling a distribution business from startup to exit in the telecom technology sectors, as a whole. So let's talk a little bit about your journey building Gap Wireless. You co-founded it in 2007, hit a million dollars in revenue that first year.Glenn Poulos (00:33)Okay.Sure.Mark (00:51)and I believe it was 15 years later, sold to 10 WS. What were the major inflection points or really what were the decisions that enabled you to scale in the way that you scaled?Glenn Poulos (01:02)So numerous things. at the end, we were 1 million in the first year when we sold it to NWS and we did 84 million in revenue. So over the 15 year period, we grew from 1 to 84 million. And again, we were a small company, right? So I mean, was, you know, and at the, when we exited, there were 44 people.Right. So it was pretty good, pretty good growth. Right. So, in a distribution company or in many, I've been into the distribution my whole life. So really can't comment much on any other kind of company because I've never really experienced them. Right. But, it's the first thing is always focusing on the relationships before the transactions. Right. So that no need to really beat that to death.the people piece is very important. The relationships with the, the customers, the employees and the suppliers is critical, right? when you're a distributor, the key is having the key, the killer brands under your moniker, right? Like you need access, franchise to access.to the key brands, right? And the kind of world that we were in ⁓ and I've been in is one where it's kind of a, we'll call it monogamy based franchise relationship. Meaning I wasn't, I'm not the Rexel or Ingram Micro that has every brand and I'm a trillion dollar corporation, right? That's not what we are, right? We're a multimillion dollar company. And so, the screws, we would only represent this screw company.Right. There were other competitors, but our goal and our job was to get a franchise relationship with ABC screw and sell their screws and their screws only no competitive. Right. And so we would build the market for them. We were approached that company. They were maybe in Italy. They make the best screws in Italy. And we'd say we want an exclusive franchise relationship.with you guys in Canada, the US, North America, Central America, wherever it was we were selling, wherever the territory was available. And so you get that, you wanna build that relationship with the vendor early and that's the most important thing really because you wanna be having the best brands to present to the customers. Then it shifts and the customer becomes the most important, right? But if you, let's say you have the customers but you have the D, E and F brand.it's game over, right? Like I won't even, I challenge people, sales guys and gals that when they get a job, spend a few months and figure out where you are in the pecking order of the world of your market, right? Are you guys the number three, the number four, the number five, the number two, the number one? If you're below number two, I say quit and get a better job at a better company because you can't, you can't replace today, right? Once today's gone, it's gone. And so if you're trying to promote brands that are well down the stack ofwhat people want to buy and what have you, you waste too much time selling the company and not enough time selling the solution and the product, right? So you want to have those vendor relationships. and so ⁓ some of the other things about about building the business, you know, is learning how to step back and put the right people in the right seats, right? So ⁓ structure first, people second.And everything has a process, right? So what do I need in order to be successful? And then do I have the right people in my organization to occupy those seats? And if not, I find the right person and put them in the right seat. I don't say, hey, our finance things are growing. We got more challenges in finance and we've got,Jack and Sally and you know Sally's been here longer and she's doing a good job and whatever let's give it to Sally. No it's like I need a director of finance now or I need a CFO what are the rules for the CFO? Does Sally or Jack have possessed that? Anyone else in the company? No I have to recruit out of the company.And I'm sorry, don't, it's nothing personal, right? You got to the right person in the right seat. And so, and that allows the founder to step back a bit and focus on the higher level visionary type functions of the running the company, right? And guiding the direction, knowing that the different, the different roles are well covered, right?so I'll just take a quick breath and see if there are any specific questions about that orKK Anderson (04:48)It's so,it's fascinating and so interesting. we do a lot of, and I do a lot of work with distribution companies and with manufacturers alike. And so one of the things that comes up a lot is trust, right? Distributors worry about manufacturers going direct. Manufacturers worry about losing control of the customer experience and conversation and getting to talk about their product. So from your perspective as the distributor.what actually builds that trust with the manufacturers? And is that, from your perspective as well, difficult to be able to trust the manufacturers with your pipeline, with your customer base, going, know, co-selling, if you will?Glenn Poulos (05:28)so yeah, that is like the key of it all. Like, I mean, that's really like, that's like a like a masterclass what you're just asking there, right? Like, you can go in so many different directions. But but ⁓ and I hear you so well what you're what you're asking me the theyou have to be a little bit paranoid. You have to be pragmatic, and, sometimes you just have to, you you just have to let it be what it's going to be and accept it and, sometimes move on. Right. In the sense that, the company I'm in now, it's not a huge company. we have 11 franchise relationships. And so I have to balance the needs, wants and concerns of those companies, but some are bigger than others. Yeah. My main brand and what have you. And yeah, II if I get them to a certain point, they might go direct, right? So it's a bit of a balanced mediocrity, right? If you grow them to a certain value, it's cheaper for them to open an office in that country and put in direct salespeople. But the thing is, it'll happen, right? And so you always want to be using that brand to leverage new brands coming on board.in the possibility that you might lose it. Because you can't defend against an inevitability, right? And so I sort of like trust.KK Anderson (06:36)to you beforewhere lost like a manufacturer's gun directGlenn Poulos (06:40)Yeah, so essentially we sort of, unless they're a company that's pure distribution focused, ⁓ where they only sell through distribution, it's just about doing a good job and stuff. But if when it's a difference between going direct and distribution, if they might go direct, then if they hit 5 million, you can, you can basically count your days until they go direct.because mathematically it's cheaper to go to rec at 5 million. So if you can get them from one to 5 million, you're kind of in the sweet spot making lots of money. They got a lot of ifs and buts about whether they will or won't go to rec, but above that, it starts to get risky, right? In terms of...like sharing the information and what have you, I believe in, like I call it humble bragging early and, and always. Right. And so I like, for instance, with my guys, they'll, they'll call me and they'll say, Hey, I'm just on the way home from, you know, XYZ. And they're looking at a new, discombobulator 50 grand, like blah, blah, blah. I go, that's amazing. Did you tell the vendor?Right. And they're like, no, I said, you should have called the vendor and told them. And I said, you got a humble brag, right? and, what I mean by humble bragging is like, you don't want to do it in a, in a way that's like negative in, in any kind of capacity. You want to say, you know, Jack, my God, I just had an amazing call. I just had to share it with you. We're in an XYZ. They're looking at a discombobulator. They might need two of them. It's 50, a hundred K. my God. I might need your help with the demo, And so what's the vendor doing? He's thinking, ⁓Mark (07:37)ThankGlenn Poulos (08:03)Bob's in at XYZ, Bob's got two discombobulators on the go. That's a hundred grand. I could really use that towards my quota. What can I do to help Bob get the deal? And also what's happens is, that Sally from the competitor who maybe there's two distributors, right, calls and says, I got wind that there's like a week later calls. got wind that XYZ might be looking for some discombobulators. Nope. That's covered by, by Glenn's company or whatever, right? Stay away.And they, because that's what just manufacturers often do. They divide up the landscape, right? It's like, nope, we've already, we're already working with someone there back off, right? And, and so I believe in being very liberal in my new company here, small as we are, my ERP system, I had custom programming done so all my vendors can log in and look at the funnel and see only theirfunnel items, obviously they can't see my other vendors, but, and, they can see most of it, but not all of the records, right? Like the internal chatter box notes they can't see, but there's a more generic note section. can, they can see probabilities, dates, products, who's involved in center, et cetera. Right. and so I'm not sure I directly answered your question, but I mean, Oh, okay.KK Anderson (09:08)For good, you absolutely did.You did, thank you.Mark (09:11)Beautiful.All right, well, let's move to our final topic. you know, this is a popular one or maybe popular is not the right word. It's it's just out there everywhere we look. AI and technology and sales. how do you use tools without losing that human connection that you've shared within your book and within a lot of the work you do online? What's what's great about what you've achieved in thesocial media world and the media world. you're a LinkedIn top voice. your focus and a lot of what you do today, you describe yourself as an AI and sales growth expert. But after spending 40 years building relationships, mostly face to face and mostly over the phone, how are you thinking about AI's role in sales with all this new capability we all have?Glenn Poulos (09:58)Okay, so my, and of course this is my opinion, right? Obviously. And, and so some people might argue or they touted it for different, there's so many things on social media now about using AI and I'm like, yeah, no, no, I don't think so. But, so I, I think of AI and I want to use AI to remove friction and, not replace the connection. Right. And so I treat it like a strong assistant in every department.Right? Finance, marketing, operations, sales, legal. And so it can help you with research, with prep, with summaries, with drafts, with ideas. Right. And but not to replace it. Like, for instance, I know I didn't try this, but I mean, we have.you know, we, in my organization, have like BDRs and they're actually in the Philippines and they phone customers and they try to get new names onto our list. And do you use the stuff that prod sells? Right? Yes or no, blah, blah, whatever. Then they pass our insight guys who try to massage it any opportunities that it goes to the outside people. Right? There's literally no way that could be done by AI because maybe in a few years it might be able to, but,But not right now because I mean the stuff we're selling is to like super geeky guys that drive pickup trucks and climb towers with 500 kilovolts on it and it's just too There's no way you can have a meaningful conversation. It's very very specific, right? So It can assist you but it can't replace right? We like we don't get appointment setting or anything like that. SoIt's like building a deck, right? You can screw the screws into the deck with your, with a hand by a screwdriver, you can get a power drill, right? I mean, you're still building the deck. It's still your design and whatever the other area, for instance, you want to do some social media posts, right? And it's like, okay, well, you know, this, this week's topic is on this or this month's topic is on that. I mean, if I say to myself, Glenn, give me 30 ideas that I can talk about this month on sales growth, right? Or on funnel management.I mean, I could come up with two. If I need to come up with 30, I would take a month, right? But AI can give me the 30 in a few seconds, right? And you could even say,…
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