In this 6‑questions‑in‑7‑minutes interview, Professor Pete Alexander talks with sales leader and author Todd Caponi. Caponi introduces himself as an "accidental author" of The Transparency Sale and a neuroscience‑enthusiast who moved from a high‑volume CRO role to teaching and speaking. He explains that his work focuses on applying neuroscience and behavioral science to rebuild trust in sales, a profession that Gallup consistently ranks among the least trusted. Caponi shares how finding passion transforms work into life, and argues that compensation should be a reward, not the primary motivator; instead, he emphasizes a six‑factor engagement model where pay is only one‑sixth of what drives employee happiness and reduces turnover. He recommends fellow leader Jeff Rossett, founder of Chicago’s Sales Assembly, as a valuable guest. The conversation ends with a light‑hearted story about his first job at a golf driving range and details on how listeners can connect with him via LinkedIn, his website transparencysale.com, and his book (available in print and audiobook).
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, tell me who you are and what you do.
Well, Professor Pete, thanks for having me on. My name is Todd Caponi. I am an accidental author. Successful author of The Transparency Sale. I am a neuroscience nerd, and that combination kicked off from a long career in sales leadership as a chief revenue officer, multi-time head of sales, and kind of a B-, C+ sales rep. And so now I speak and I teach for a living.
Todd, great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?
Well, as a sales leader, senior sales leader, I was having 30 to 35 meetings a week. I probably had 100 to 150 emails that I had to go through on my hour-20 commute each way in and out. And now with this transition, I just have a blast being a nerd for neuroscience, behavioral science, and basically looking into doorways for the sales professionals and sales leaders that don't have time to do that. They're busy sprinting written down the hallway. And I'm looking for kind of the clues and the hints and the ideas that'll help them be better at what they do. And that's really number one. You know, number two about it is when you think about the book, The Transparency Sale, it's about being authentic and honest, and it's using neuroscience to kind of disarm our resistance to being sold. And Gallup every year comes out with a list of the most to least trusted professions. Sales keeps ending up on the bottom. Part of what I love is creating a new impression for the sales world and hopefully moving sales up that Gallup list to at least in the middle, maybe not to the top, but we're going to try to make some progress there.
I love that goal. Question number 3: I hear from other business leaders that staying in a good work-life balance for them and their team members is a challenge. What are your thoughts?
Well, for me, it absolutely was. My VP of HR in my last role used to joke because at about 2 o'clock in the afternoon every day, I would walk by her desk, she had a little medicine cabinet and I would get Advil. Like I, I was just, I was grinding myself down. I had young kids at home and it was just hard to balance that out and be my best when I got home. There's a couple of things, you know, number one is when you find work that is your passion, it no longer becomes work, right? It's like your life is your life and you're living every minute of it at its maximum. But the second thing is, When we think about creating work environments where salespeople are incentivized and motivated by money, if you're using compensation to motivate your sales professionals or any professionals in your team, you're doing it wrong. You've got to work on maximizing all of the engagement levers that create happiness at work, and then compensation becomes the reward instead of the motivator. So, so give that some thought. But when we started doing that We lowered turnover dramatically. People couldn't wait to come in every day, and the work-life balance kind of took care of itself because we were just happier individuals.
Wow, that's a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Question number 4: What other successful business leaders like yourself should be on my podcast?
Well, I think the great thing about what I do now is I'm no longer in my bubble as a CRO just working with my team and my customers, and I've gotten to know an incredible array of leaders, especially here around Chicago. There's one guy specifically that I was just with this morning. His name's Jeff Rossett. Uh, Jeff Rossett is the founder of a company called Sales Assembly here in town. And basically it's a membership organization for technology companies that allows leaders to get together, network, to create sales programs for their reps, client success programs, marketing programs, sales enablement programs. And what he's built is an incredibly successful, a B, this kind of ecosystem of sales professionals and sales leaders in Chicago that's made up about 150 companies. And it's amazing what he is doing for kind of the Midwest tech ecosystem.
Awesome. I'll reach out to Jeff. I appreciate that referral.
I'm happy to make it.
Yeah. Oh, okay, great. Thank you. Question number 5: What insight or advice would you give to other business leaders?
Well, I think it goes back to focus on engagement. I think if you're— you know, one of the things that we had done wrong, or otherwise organizations is think that our ping pong table, our pop-a-shot, our— we had at one point in my last company, we had 4 taps going at all times. So there's 2 beer, there was a cold brew, and there was a wine, like a white wine on tap. And we thought, hey, that's how you drive engagement. That's something that I've heard another author refer to as perk inflation. You're not going to win that battle. The key is to focus instead on all of the drivers and engagement. There's a model that I created that I won't nerd out on you around now because we don't have enough time, but it's basically looking at the 6 things that drive engagement. And like I said before, compensation is only 1/6 of it. There's 5 other things that you can do to drive a workplace where people want to be, want to stay, and want to tell their friends. And that should be the focus of the most successful sales leaders.
I couldn't agree with you more. I really, really appreciate that. And, you know, we're going to definitely give you an opportunity to mention your book there too at the closing. So it's, it's good that you bring that up because I think a lot of the viewers are going to be interested in knowing what those 6 things are.
Yeah, that's book number 2, hopefully out a little bit later on this year. I've got some writing to do.
Okay. Sorry to get ahead of the game there with you. And question number 6, tell me about your first job.
Oh gosh, I love this question because my first job was awesome. Like who knew, but I was on the golf team. I was never very good, but I was on the golf team. And then I got a job working at a local golf driving range. So I was one of the guys driving the truck around that people would try to hit with the golf balls. And then at the end of the day, I would walk around the field and just hit the balls that were kind of stuck along the fence. And you know, I'd get 500 swings in, it helped my game, but it was so much fun to be there honking the horn when people would hit me with their golf balls. So that was a great job. I loved it.
I absolutely love that too, because I've been on the, on the driving range too and thinking that, oh, it's 500 points if you hit somebody. But I didn't realize that you enjoyed that.
So that's great to hear. Yeah, yeah, I would drive right at people, flash the lights, honk the horn. It was great.
Awesome. So Todd, thank you for being on the show. How can people find you?
Well, I can be found on LinkedIn. So I share a lot of my nonsense there. So follow me. Connect with me there. If you're going to connect though, I'd love a little note that says where you found me. That would certainly help and increase your odds of me accepting it. You can get the book anywhere books are sold, Amazon. I did the audiobook myself, narrated it myself. So if you need the sultry sounds of Todd Caponi to lull you to sleep at night, you've got that. And then transparencysale.com. I've got my blog there, lots of additional information, and I would love to connect or hang out with any of your listeners. So that's awesome.
Awesome. Thank you so much. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. For more insights and ideas, please go to LinkedIn, YouTube, or Facebook and search for the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
