Episode notes
In this episode, Dejan Leskaroski, Chief Revenue Officer at Mavenir, joins Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson to explore what separates high-performing salespeople from the rest and how revenue leaders can build stronger, more engaged teams. Drawing on his experience transitioning from product management into revenue leadership, Dejan shares how his perspective on sales performance has evolved. He explains why the best sellers do more than close deals and meet quotas. They take ownership of their accounts, understand the broader business impact of their decisions, and actively contribute to the company’s long-term strategy.
The conversation examines how sales leaders can create stronger connections between customer-facing teams and the rest of the organization. Dejan discusses the importance of listening to feedback from salespeople, sales engineers, and operational leaders who interact directly with customers. He explains how incorporating their insights into product strategy can improve decision-making, strengthen customer relationships, and create future growth opportunities. He also shares how addressing meaningful employee concerns, including compensation structures and organizational challenges, can build trust and reinforce a sense of ownership across the sales organization.
Mark and KK also explore Dejan’s approach to leading a large, experienced global team of approximately 140 sales and sales engineering professionals. Rather than applying a single definition of an ideal salesperson, Dejan emphasizes understanding individual strengths, motivations, and working styles. He shares how he earned the trust of senior leaders, encouraged accountability without micromanaging, and adapted his leadership approach to different personalities and regions. The episode concludes with a practical lesson on executive effectiveness: making time for thoughtful decisions can create more value than simply working longer hours. For CROs and sales leaders, this conversation offers actionable insights into developing talent, building organizational trust, and creating high-performing revenue teams.
What You’ll Learn:
• What Defines a High-Performing Salesperson: Why exceptional sellers think beyond bookings and quotas, taking responsibility for account growth, gross margins, customer relationships, and long-term business success.
• Building a Stronger Sales-to-Product Feedback Loop: How customer-facing teams can provide valuable market insights that help product leaders identify customer needs, refine strategies, and support future sales opportunities.
• Creating Ownership Through Employee Engagement: Why involving sales teams in strategic conversations, listening to their concerns, and demonstrating meaningful organizational changes can strengthen motivation and accountability.
• Leading Different Personalities and Strengths: How understanding each salesperson’s individual capabilities, motivations, and working style allows leaders to develop talent without forcing everyone into the same performance model.
• Building Trust and Making Better Leadership Decisions: How CROs can earn credibility with experienced teams, empower managers, establish clear expectations, and prioritize thoughtful decisions over constant activity.
Key Topics:
• The characteristics of exceptional sales professionals
• Treating customer accounts and territories as individual businesses
• Connecting frontline customer insights with product development
• Balancing strategic participation with daily sales execution
• Improving sales compensation structures through constructive feedback
• Adapting leadership styles across global sales organizations
• Building credibility, trust, and accountability with senior teams
• Protecting executive time for higher-quality decision-making
Guest Spotlight: Dejan Leskaroski
Dejan Leskaroski is the Chief Revenue Officer at Mavenir, a telecommunications software company. With a career spanning operations, product management, and revenue leadership, Dejan brings a cross-functional perspective to building and managing sales organizations.
Before stepping into the CRO role, Dejan spent approximately 15 years in product management, following an earlier decade working in telecommunications operations. His experience across these functions has shaped his approach to connecting sales execution with product strategy, operational capabilities, and broader business objectives.
At Mavenir, Dejan leads a global organization of approximately 140 sales and sales engineering professionals, with more than 15 direct reports across multiple regions. His leadership approach emphasizes understanding individual strengths, empowering experienced managers, encouraging constructive feedback, and ensuring sales teams contribute to the organization’s overall success.
In this episode, Dejan shares practical lessons from his transition into revenue leadership, including how he identifies high-performing sellers, builds trust with experienced teams, and creates an environment where accountability and strategic collaboration support sustainable growth.
Resources & Mentions:
• Mavenir: Telecommunications software company where Dejan Leskaroski serves as Chief Revenue Officer.
• LinkedIn: Dejan’s preferred platform for professional connections and direct messages.
• 80/20 Approach to Individual Strengths: Dejan’s perspective on recognizing each team member’s core capabilities while understanding areas where their skills may differ.
• Sales Compensation Plans: Discussion of aligning performance measurements and compensation structures with factors salespeople can reasonably influence.
• Sales and Product Feedback Loops: The importance of communicating customer insights across sales, engineering, operations, and product management.
• Selling Intelligence Podcast: Hosted by Mark Petruzzi and KK Anderson, featuring conversations about sales leadership, revenue growth, and go-to-market strategy.
• Accelerant Growth Solutions (AGS): The organization behind Selling Intelligence, supporting revenue leaders in improving sales performance and organizational alignment.
Website: get-ags.com
🎧 Great sales leadership goes beyond hitting targets. It requires understanding people, building trust, and creating an environment where teams can take ownership of their success.
Listen to Part 2 of Selling Intelligence with Dejan Leskaroski and discover how experienced revenue leaders develop high-performing teams, strengthen collaboration, and make better decisions.
Follow Selling Intelligence for more conversations with CROs, sales executives, and go-to-market leaders sharing practical strategies for building stronger revenue organizations. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so you never miss an episode.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Selling Intelligence (formerly Selling the Cloud) is hosted by Mark Petruzzi and Alan Rudolph.