Shows / The High-Performing Technical Leader
The High-Performing Technical Leader
The High Performing Technical Leader is for founders, CROs, and technical revenue leaders scaling pre-sales and post-sales teams in technical SaaS.
Hosted by Arvi Carkanji, founder of Elite Talent Recruiting, this show goes deep with leaders who are actually building, scaling, and running high-performance technical GTM teams.
From hiring the first Solutions Engineer to managing rapid team expansion, from positioning pre-sales as a revenue function to retaining top talent through growth, we…
Episodes
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.37 - Too Many Tools, Not Enough ROI: Fixing Sales Tech Adoption with Dean Curtis, CEO at Ingage
Give us Feedback on this episode Your sales team is running 5 or 6 tools. How many of them are actually paying off? Most leaders couldn't tell you. Tools get…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.36 - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Job Searching in PreSales (IC or Leadership), with Mattie Stremic of 2nd Connections
Give us Feedback on this episode 9 out of 10 SEs (IC and leaders) are looking right now. Most of them are doing it quietly. The job market has created an…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 35- Why You Should Hire SEs Who've Never Been in That Seat with Tobias Rott, Pre-Sales Career Coach
Give us Feedback on this episode our next great Solutions Engineer might have zero pre-sales experience on paper. I'm going live with Tobias (Toby) Rott…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 34- Before You Buy AI for Pre-Sales, Hear From the Ex-CEO of a 7,000-Person SI. Michael Chanter, Founder & CEO of 1KE
Give us Feedback on this episode Your pre-sales team is the bottleneck. Not because they're bad. Because you need 5 SEs on every deal and you have 1. Every…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 33- Pre-Sales Leaders Are Being Handed More Hats: Here's How to Wear Them Properly, with Anthony "Tony" Francetic
Give us Feedback on this episode Pre-Sales Leaders are being handed more hats than ever. SDR teams. New scope. AI changing the playbook every quarter. And most…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.32- Why High-Performing SEs Leave: Building IC Careers That Stick, with Chris Clark
Give us Feedback on this episode Your best SE just told you they want to leave. Not because of money. Because they don't see a path forward that doesn't…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 31- The Core 4 Skills Every Sales Engineer Needs to Own the Client Conversation with Rew Dickinson
Give us Feedback on this episode Your SE is technically brilliant. But they're not owning the conversation. Most pre-sales leaders think their team is great at…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 30- Stop Losing Deals to Forgotten Leads: A Go-to-Market Fix, with Guillaume Bruere, Co-Founder of Groovin
Give us Feedback on this episode Your team's CRM is missing leads. Not because they're bad at their jobs, but because leads fall through the cracks when…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 29- How Integrations Impact Your Pre-Sales and GTM Team with Cristina Flaschen, CEO of Pandium
Give us Feedback on this episode Your sales engineers are on the front lines of a problem most revenue leaders don't even see: integration challenges that kill…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 28 How To Build A Predictable SDR Engine Without Burning Out AEs with Gabe Lullo
Give us Feedback on this episode We talk with Gabe Lullo, founder of Alleyoop, about why sales development is resurging and why SDR work is its own discipline…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 27- How to Build Outcome-Driven Customer Success (Not Reactive CS) with Andrea Mulligan
Give us Feedback on this episode Your customer success team is only visible when something breaks. Most CS orgs are still stuck in the "I am your advocate"…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.26- Jack Porter Googled 'What Is an Account Executive.' Two Years Later WhiteWhale Ran 1,500+ Demos
Give us Feedback on this episode Most sales leaders are still guessing at top of funnel. More tools, more sequences, more noise, and demo numbers barely move…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 25- How the Sales Engineer Role Is Evolving in Enterprise SaaS, with Ori Weizman
Give us Feedback on this episode Enterprise SaaS deals are getting more technical, and more complex, than ever. So who's actually driving them across the…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 24- Building & Selling Companies: Lessons Every SaaS Founder Needs with Stan Markuze
Give us Feedback on this episode Most founders know how to build a product. Far fewer know how to build a company that can actually scale and eventually be…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
EP. 23- Stop Automating Dysfunction: The Pre-Sales & GTM Evolution with Investor Mark Nix
Give us Feedback on this episode Most SaaS leaders are betting big on AI right now. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most of those bets won't pay off. Not…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep. 22-How to Lead a High-Performance Sales Org Without Owning Every Deal with Alice Heiman
Give us Feedback on this episode Most revenue problems in SaaS are leadership problems and most leaders don't see it until it's too late. If your team isn't…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.21- A Friendly Human in Pre-Sales: The Behaviors That Actually Win Deals with Ron Whitson
Give us Feedback on this episode Most pre-sales pros are incredible at the demo. But the demo isn't why deals die. This Tuesday I'm sitting down with Ron…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.20- How to Hire Fast, Onboard Right, and Scale an SE Team Without Losing the Culture with Diana Cappello
Give us Feedback on this episode Most SE leaders are not ready for what fast growth actually demands. You land the budget. You get the headcount approved, the…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.19- From Sales Engineer to VP: How to Builds Teams People Actually Want to Come Back To w/ Tamir Verthim
Give us Feedback on this episode Most leaders lose their best people and never get them back. The ones who do? They built something different: a culture where…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.18- The GTM Plateau Is a Leadership Problem. How to Break Through and Build a Winning Team with Mike Simmons
Give us Feedback on this episode Most SaaS teams blame the market, the tool, the AI craziness, but they are overlooking one VERY IMPORTANT factor about why…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.17- How to Treat Customer Success as a Revenue Growth Lever and Not Post-Sales Babysitting with Ivan Stefanovski
Give us Feedback on this episode Most SaaS companies treat Customer Success as a post-sales cleanup crew. The handoff is messy, expectations are misaligned…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.16- The Future of Pre-Sales Isn’t Human vs AI with Joseph Lee
Give us Feedback on this episode Joseph Lee, founder of Supademo, joins me live to break down how the buying journey in SaaS is rapidly changing and why…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.15- How to Build a High-Performing BD Engine in 2026 with Danyal Cremerious
Give us Feedback on this episode 2026 is more competitive than ever… and it’s not slowing down. Everyone keeps saying “personalize your outreach.” But AI made…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.14- Inside the RevOps Playbooks of Top Tech Teams with Jacki Leahy
Give us Feedback on this episode Picture this: The company is growing, deals are coming in, revenue is moving… but behind the scenes, everything is duct-taped…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.13- Art of the technical evaluation for presales metrics and AI integration, with Steve Davis
Give us Feedback on this episode Competition in SaaS has gotten a lot tighter. Especially when it comes to running a strong POCs. A strong POC can be the…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.12- How to build a AI-Native Companies with Community-Led GTM in 2026 w/ Ben Hills, Founder of Iris AI
Give us Feedback on this episode What does it actually look like to build a company in an AI-first world… instead of bolting AI on later? Most founders talk…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.11- How PreSales Leaders Scale Without Disconnecting from Customers with Scott Jaworski
Give us Feedback on this episode Should you be a leader or an individual contributor? In a perfect world, you’d choose one. But startups aren’t perfect... and…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.10- How SE Leaders Scale Teams, Influence GTM, and Stay Ahead of AI (with Chris Mabry)
Give us Feedback on this episode In this episode of Pre Sales Unplugged: The Leadership Playbook, Arvi Carkanji (Founder of Elite Talent) sits down with Chris…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.9- Stop being a "Demo Person" and become a "Trusted Technical Advisor" for your clients and your team with Ramzi Marjaba
Give us Feedback on this episode Join me and Ramzi Marjaba, Consultant, Solution Engineer Coach for a live conversation focused on what it really takes to be a…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.8- How Top Performers Stay Consistent When They Feel Like Quitting
Give us Feedback on this episode In this solo episode, Arvi Carkanji breaks down the real version of mindset toughness that shows up in SaaS when the pipeline…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.7- How Elite SEs Think, Adapt, and Win Deals with David Schultz
Give us Feedback on this episode In this episode of Pre-Sales Unplugged: The Leadership Playbook, host Arvi Carkanji sits down with David Schultz, Head of…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.6- What the Top SaaS CROs Are Doing Differently in 2026 with Matt Green
Give us Feedback on this episode Join me and Join me and Matt Green, CRO & Co-Founder of Sales Assembly, for a tactical look at what’s working in today’s GTM…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.5- The Revenue Impact of Enablement Most Teams Miss with Yotam Rotgoltz
Give us Feedback on this episode In this episode with Yotam Rotgoltz ...we explore how unconventional careers lead to strong pre-sales leaders, why enablement…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.4- Beyond the Demo: How PreSales Drives Real Growth w/ Michael McDowell
Give us Feedback on this episode Join me and Michael McDowell, GTM leader and author of Demotainment, for an unfiltered conversation on how PreSales can drive…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.3- The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers with Chris White
Give us Feedback on this episode Super Excited for this Episode with Chris White, Author of The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers, for an…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.2- How Chris Mabry Went from a "basement" Engineer to PreSales Leader (& How You Can Win in the AI Era)
Give us Feedback on this episode Chris Mabry, VP of Solutions & Partnerships at Reprise and a leading voice in the PreSales space, joins Arvi Carkanji (Founder…
- The High-Performing Technical Leader
Ep.1- How to create a career and grow as a Sales Engineer, with Brian Martynowicz
Give us Feedback on this episode Join me and Brian Martynowicz, Head of GTM Engineering for an exclusive LinkedIn Live where we’ll cover: → SE Career Growth…