In this Business Blast podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Bradley Watkins, a sales leader at Townsquare Interactive. Bradley shares a personal story about leaving a low‑pay customer service role for an entry‑level sales position to provide a better life for his newborn daughter, illustrating the power of taking calculated risks. He outlines his core sales framework: three areas of required buy‑in—credibility, product/solution fit, and price/value perception—necessary to close deals. Bradley emphasizes that building a sales organization hinges on hiring the right people, referencing the book Hiring for Attitude as a guide. He advises setting clear, written goals and committing to them quickly. On happiness, he describes servant leadership and aligning with a higher purpose as key, contrasting it with self‑will. The most influential book for him is Tony Robbins' Awaken the Giant Within, where he highlights the concept of modeling successful people’s habits. His favorite quote is from Alabama coach Bear Bryant, underscoring shared ownership in success. Finally, he provides his social media handles for listeners to connect with him.
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All right everyone, welcome back to the Business Blast podcast. This is your host Tyler Wagner, and today I have Bradley Watkins with us. He's the sales leader with Townsquare Interactive. So welcome to the show, Bradley.
Hey, thanks for having me, Tyler.
Of course, man. So we'll dive right in. The first question I have for you is, what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Oh man, there's so many, but I'm just gonna go ahead and grab one. So I'm gonna use the story for my first transition into a sales job. I actually got into sales because I didn't want to be a customer accounts representative and make a customer service type salary after I knew my child was on the way. So the year that I found out that my daughter was going to be born, I made a transition into entry-level sales as an SDR, and I was offered a minimum wage base salary with 10% uncapped commission on tax consulting fees. And the year prior I had made $32,000 that year. I knew that if I kept doing what I was doing, that we were going to be pretty much guaranteed to live in a, not a great quality of life and not the way that I wanted to raise her. So I made the jump. Everybody thought I was absolutely crazy for doing it. My parents told me that I was crazy for doing it. You know, my wife told me I was crazy for doing it. Um, all the people around me thought I was crazy for doing it because it only paid about $16,200 a year on the base pay side. And they said, that's just not secure for a new child coming. Um, well, I made $68,000 that year. Um, and no one thought I was crazy since. So I was actually able to double, uh, double my income the first year that my child was born. And so I really found out that if you wanted something bad enough, you could go get it no matter what anybody said.
Congrats on that too, man. That's awesome. Thanks. Um, the next question is, what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Definitely. So first off, nobody buys products, they buy solutions to problems. For example, what I like to say to a lot of my guys is no one buys a vacuum cleaner, they buy a clean floor. And on every sale, whether it's tax consulting or online marketing, you have what I like to call 3 areas of required buy-in. Really for you to create an exchange of the solution for money, or in other words, the close, how to create the close, you gotta have 3 areas of required buy-in. And those for me have been credibility, credibility in your company and in yourself. Number 2, buy-in on the product or solution. Does it address the client's problem? Do they believe it will work? And number 3, price, the perception of value that I have to create in my product or solution has to be greater or equal to the price that I'm charging for it, or an exchange won't occur. So that's essentially one of the most important lessons that I ever learned.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific.
100%, um, piece of overall business advice, because I've always been on the sales and business development end, I'll speak to that. Um, the biggest lesson that I learned over the years was you can't grow a sales organization or any organization by putting just bodies in seats. They have to be the right bodies, and everyone in every organization is going to have a different definition of what the right person is in their organization. So determining what the definition of that quote-unquote right hire for your organization is key in hiring, developing, and retaining the right talent. There's actually a great book on this, a book called Hiring for Attitude by Mark Murphy. It goes into a lot of depth on this.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Oh, this is easy, man. Set solid goals, write them down, quit telling everybody that you aren't sure what you're going to do in your life and become really, really sure about what you're going to do in your life. Put it on paper, then go make it happen. Get serious quick.
And in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
Um, you know, I actually went through this, man, and I was talking about, you know, thinking about things, you know, finding your why and pursuing it with passion. But the reality is when it breaks down to me finding happiness, a lot of times is with me being in servant leadership, trying to walk within what I like to call God's will. I'm being a servant leader to my people and those that I employ and those that I help support in my personal life and really being a servant to those people and helping them. A lot of times though, it's self-will run amok. And I found out when I live in my self-will, and all those flaws like selfishness or jealousy, those type things, life gets very unhappy very quick. But when I'm focused on being a servant to those that I care about and those that I love, it works very, very well.
And what's the best book you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from it?
100%. So the best book that I've read, in my opinion, the one that really changed my life, about 8 years ago was Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins. The biggest thing that he talked about that really worked for me there was the way he talked about modeling. You know, by modeling the habits and strategies of the world's most famous people or world's most successful people, making those habits your own, you can dramatically shorten the learning curve and save yourself a ton of time, effort, and energy on getting to the goal that you want to get to. So looking at the people that were where I wanted to be, looking at how they got there, and then modeling my life to take the same path.
And what's your favorite quote and why?
Oh, I'm a huge Alabama fan. So I pulled one out from one of the famous Alabama coaches. Bear Bryant, "If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes really good, then you did it." That's all it takes to get people to win football games for you. and I found that's the same in business.
I love that. Thank you so much for, uh, for coming on, man. And the last question I have, uh, uh, for our listeners is, is where is the best place, uh, for them to find you online?
100%. You can find me on LinkedIn and Facebook at Bradley B. Watkins, and you can find me on Instagram and on Twitter @BradleyBWatkins. Um, appreciate you having me on the show, Tyler Wagner.
Of course. Thanks again for coming on, man.
Hey, have a good afternoon.
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