What happens when you stop treating sales like a numbers game and start treating it like a human game?

In this episode of The Bird's Nest Podcast, Dave sits down with Blake Nolan, a sales leader, startup operator, and fractional CRO who has spent years building sales teams, selling B2B SaaS, and helping companies raise funding and grow.

Blake's career started far from the traditional path. After leaving college, he worked in sales, cold calling enterprise accounts and learning directly from a CEO. He went on to work across multiple sales environments, become an early employee at a SaaS startup, help build and scale a sales organization, and eventually move into consulting and fractional CRO work.

But this conversation goes much deeper than sales tactics.

Blake explains why believing in yourself matters in sales, why the best salespeople constantly sharpen their skills, and why trying to win every deal can actually become counterproductive.

He also shares the sales experience that completely changed how he thought about selling — realizing that closing a deal isn't worth it if the customer isn't actually being helped.

The conversation then moves into goal setting and visualization, including the story of how Blake used pictures of golf courses in Ireland to turn a personal goal into reality and eventually take his father on a golf trip.

Dave and Blake also discuss the post-COVID shift in the workforce, entrepreneurship, happiness, burnout, career changes, and the difficult decision to walk away from a successful job when it was no longer working for Blake personally.

One of the biggest discussions in the episode is the controversial idea of "lowering the quota to raise revenue." Blake explains why unrealistic sales quotas can damage morale, increase burnout and turnover, and potentially hurt revenue instead of improving it.

They also discuss sales team retention, unrealistic targets, leadership accountability, startup growth, fractional CROs, go-to-market strategy, and Blake's vision for his next chapter.

Whether you're a founder, salesperson, sales leader, startup operator, entrepreneur, or someone thinking about making a major career change, this conversation is packed with lessons on sales, leadership, business, career growth, and building a life that actually makes you happy.

Chapters

00:00 – Introducing Blake Nolan
01:42 – From Door-to-Door Sales to SaaS
04:12 – The Sales Experience That Changed Everything
05:30 – Sales Lessons That Apply to Life
06:59 – Goals, Visualization & The Ireland Golf Trip
11:05 – Finding Your Strengths & Improving Your Skills
15:40 – The Human Side of Sales
16:47 – How COVID Changed Work & Entrepreneurship
20:39 – Burnout, Happiness & Betting on Yourself
23:00 – Can Lowering Your Quota Increase Revenue?
26:55 – Sales Burnout, Turnover & Retention
28:23 – Blake’s Vision for the Next 3–5 Years
30:09 – The Daily Walk That Changed Everything
32:54 – Finding Blake & The “Steak” Story
36:13 – Final Thoughts

Questions answered in the episode:

1. How do you become better at B2B sales?
2. How do you close more sales?
3. How do you build a strong sales mindset?
4. How do you handle rejection in sales?
5. How important is mindset in sales?
6. How do you sell without being pushy?
7. How do you build trust with customers?
8. How do you become a better salesperson?
9. How do you sell SaaS to businesses?
10. How do you succeed in enterprise sales?

Startup / Business

1. How do you build a sales team at a startup?
2. How do startups create a go-to-market strategy?
3. When should a startup hire its first salesperson?
4. How do you scale sales at a startup?
5. What does a fractional CRO do?
6. How can startups improve revenue growth?

Quotas / Leadership

1. Can lowering sales quotas increase revenue?
2. Why are sales quotas unrealistic?
3. How do unrealistic sales quotas hurt sales teams?
4. How do you prevent sales team burnout?
5. Why are good salespeople leaving companies?
6. How do you improve sales team retention?

Career / Life

1. When should you quit your job and start a business?
2. How do you know when it's time to leave your job?
3. How do you balance career success and happiness?

Listen to this podcast on Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/show/3nPil3nxiW4uIVrRg4zxze?si=a20c6b2d09434bda

Listen to this podcast on Apple podcasts:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-birds-nest/id1633908324

If you're interested in enterprise sales, B2B sales, AI sales, SaaS sales, outbound

If you're interested in sales, SaaS, startups, entrepreneurship, leadership, or career growth, subscribe to The Bird's Nest for more conversations with people building companies, leading teams, and navigating business in the real world.

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