We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shelley Mann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Shelley thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Please tell us about starting your own firm and if you’d do anything different knowing what you know now.

After spending over 20 years in corporate America, traveling over 170,000 miles globally around the world, and pivoting to support a family-run business during Covid, I made the decision in 2021 to establish my company, Strategic Sales Advisors LLC. I don’t know if you have ever spent a year traveling that much but…it is a lot. I loved the opportunity to dive in and support businesses as they look to grow and scale their sales and found I had a talent at it. The only way I was going to be able to do this was to build and scale my own business!

The key steps I took to launch my business were to investigate the space to see if there was a need for my services, align myself with an organization that provides me tools and resources I can utilize to best serve my clients, and begin to build my business network locally. I was lucky in that I had saved up enough money to support myself for at least a year while I scaled and this would be the biggest piece of advice I can provide to someone looking to launch a new business. Ask yourself how you are going to support yourself while your business develops.

I use my extensive experience to support the commercial efforts of Solopreneurs and Small to Mid-sized businesses in San Antonio and beyond. My passion is to get companies out of a place of panic and into a repeatable sales infrastructure, moving from stagnation to acceleration. In 2024, joined forces with a someone I admire and became Co-Founder and Principal of AdvantEdge Anthology Partners, a consulting firm emerging from a shared vision to revolutionize the approach to business challenges and opportunities. My second piece of advice is to find people who are like-minded…and maybe a bit smarter than you…and join forces if possible.

Shelley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I went off to college intending to follow a law school route into politics and become the first female President of the United States. Realizing quickly that I really did not want to go to law school, I pivoted into business and specifically Hospitality Administration.

I always loved to cook and throw parties and events and quickly discovered there was a whole degree around the business side of this environment. Once graduating, I started my journey in the hotel industry initially with the thought that I would go into food service or event management but discovered quickly that I really loved sales! I eventually joined a large hotel company working my way up to Global Sales and a team lead supporting a performance goal of over $1 billion annually.

Looking for a larger challenge, I took the leap and moved to Washington DC to take a commercial strategy role supporting multiple hotel brands, over 1500 hotels globally, and the ownership and management companies that own/run them. I worked on identifying and building key processes and procedures to help sales run efficiently and predictably. Then I focused on building strategies tied to growing not only sales performance but also growing new hotels and new brand’s performance. I loved what I did but after 6 years and hundreds of thousands of miles on airplanes, I decided I wanted to take a more hands-on approach and joined a small family-owned company that allowed me to move back to my home state of Texas.

Moving to San Antonio in late 2019, I was excited to tackle a new challenge when Covid hit and I needed to pivot quickly to do all that I could in creating strategies to keep doors open and people employed. These were challenging times but I loved the process of being able to rebuild an organization focusing on Sales Analysis, Sales Methodologies, Sales Organization, and Sales Strategies. In my time with this organization – the most challenging time in the industry – we were able to not only keep the doors open but also drive higher performance than our competition.

I loved this process! I loved getting elbow deep in a company, uncovering the challenges it faces commercially, and working alongside the owner to build a high-functioning, high achieving sales teams! This was the onus of building Strategic Sales Advisors. Most small to mid-sized businesses don’t have the capacity or resources to hire a sales leader with the experience needed to drive this type of growth. I can provide this at a fraction of the cost allowing them to benefit from my experience.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Being that I focus on sales, you would think that I would have growing my clientele all figured out. But, growing your own business can be different. My best strategy has and will always be giving of myself. My business works almost exclusively on referrals from other consultants like lawyers, CPA’s, or prior clients. I am genuinely interest in their business and want to understand how I can support them – and then I follow through. Additionally, I make myself available to business owners to talk through challenges or to be a sounding board. I don’t give away my services but I do want to be a resource.

This also leads into my love for presenting to others as a give-back. Presenting on leading sales topics to groups of business owners allows me to pass on knowledge and expertise to groups who need it while also giving my business exposure to those who may need my services.

This philosophy of giving back feeds me in two ways: it allows me to share what I know with those who need it and simultaneously build my business!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

For me, the biggest career pivot was deciding to step away from a Fortune 500 company and senior leadership role to pivot to a small, family owned business. The culture shock of making a change in career trajectory, sell a home and purchase another, and move states followed up by managing all commercial operations of a small company through a global pandemic was a bit of a challenge. The expectation of what I could do for this company during the most difficult time in the world was high based upon my experience in the corporate world – not to mention the salary I was being paid.

This was a scary time personally and professionally as I expect we all experienced. I needed to pivot a company commercially in a city/business community I was unfamiliar with and a team that was unfamiliar with me. It showed me that I could lead an organization during the most trying of commercial time, gain the trust of business owners, and that I had true value I could bring to a business and business leaders!

This gave me the strength and confidence to launch my own company when I was ready.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://advantedgeanthologypartners.com
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/shelleymann
• Twitter: @shelleyrmann
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCktO2NCusoX9RRLRbPicGOA

Image Credits
no credits needed for any of the images.