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Today’s show featured an interview with Amy Belcher, Director, WW ISV Sales & Go To Market Strategy, AWS.
Find Amy on LinkedIn.
AMY’S TIP: “”Own it. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to grow—raise your hand, build your skills, and lead your career.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m very excited. We’re talking with Amy Belcher today. We’re going to get into some great questions about how you can position yourself as a great sales professional, lessons you could implement quickly to take your sales career to the next level. Amy, I’m very excited to get deep into the conversation here. You’ve had a great career in the channel working with manufacturers, and of course working on the distribution side for a long time. I’m really excited for your insights here. First off, before I ask you to introduce yourself, how are you doing? How are things going?
Amy Belcher: I’m fantastic, Fred. I want to thank you for spending time with me today. I’m thrilled to spend time with the Fred Diamond, the legend. Thanks for investing the time today.
Fred Diamond: Thank you for being on the show. Of course, I’m a legend in my own mind, and we appreciate that. Let’s get into it here. Start by introducing yourself and giving us a bit of your background on your journey into tech sales. I’m really curious, for people listening, we’re doing today’s interview in April of 2025, and how you’ve seen the industry evolve especially for women in the field.
Amy Belcher: I’m a Director of Global ISV Sales and Go-to-Market in AWS in the Worldwide Public Sector Division. I actually started my IT career over 20 years ago. My first job in IT was working as a reseller, and I did that for a couple years and I loved it. At the time we were buying all of our products from distribution. For me, the natural evolution was to go work for a distributor and get behind the curtain, if you will.
I was at Tech Data for 11 years and one of the best experiences of my career. In my last role there, I was VP of EMC and VMware before I actually went to go work for EMC. My task was to build a value business and a volume world. Those words still make me cringe to this day when I hear volume and broadline. But that’s the reality of it, was building those value businesses and a high-volume broadline distribution world. It was the best real-world MBA I could have ever received.
Just to give you an example, Fred, at the time, it’s changed a bit now, but at the time high-volume distributors made a penny on every dollar that they sold. One bad day in distribution, that could ruin your entire quarter. It could ruin your year. Learning about the financial aspects, learning OpEx, CapEx, learning how a large business like that worked was invaluable. I carried a huge quota.
At the time I had inside sales and field sales reporting to me directly, and I would actually refer to myself as a sales leader at the time in distribution. I was repeatedly told, “No, Amy. You’re product management. You’re not part of sales.” For the longest time, I believed that. I’d push back on the comment and I would say, “No, I carry a quota. I have inside sales, field sales. I’ve got this business unit.” I was told, “No, Amy. Sales leaders are in-your-face cheerleaders, where you’re more of a quiet leader. You’re more the velvet hammer.” I believed it for a long time.
I went to eventually go work at EMC. Again, great decision. I loved that company. I loved the culture of that company. I was in channel marketing and program management, and I had a couple of executive sponsors. I talked to them about my career goals. I’d say, “I wish I could be a sales leader, but I’m just not in your face enough.” One of the executive sponsors said, “Amy, are you nuts? You’re a sales leader. What are you doing in programs? Whoever told you that was lying to you?” She said, “Why are you letting someone else dictate who you are and what you want to do?” I was like, “Wow.” I needed that. It hit me right between the eyes, but I took that lesson and I remember it like it was yesterday.
Fast forward July 2020, I joined AWS. It was right in the first few months of COVID. I carried that EMC lesson with me from my executive sponsor. I told my first manager, Sandy at the time, my ultimate goal was to lead a sales organization again. About three and a half years ago, Sandy called me and said, “I have this opportunity for you to lead the ISV sales organization. Think about it and let me know if that’s what you want to do.” I said yes. I’ve been doing that for the last three and a half years.
Full circle, thinking about your question, about how the industry has evolved, it’s still very much a male-dominated industry. There are many times, just earlier today, I was in a meeting where there were 11 people and all male, and I was the only female. That’s still prevalent in the industry today. However, we’ve made significant strides. AWS in particular has made significant strides in cultivating diverse perspective, encouraging diverse perspective, driving innovation and success through diversity. I am super proud of the work that we’ve done as an industry to drive more diversity and more women in tech, but there’s still a lot more work to be done.
Fred Diamond: There was a lot of things you said there. The fact that people would say to you that they vision revision sales leaders as those who are in your face and screaming out orders and you got to make more calls. It’s quite interesting. We created the Institute for Excellence in Sales originally to look at the scientific side of sales. Sales isn’t, especially in B2B, business to business, and B2G, business to government, and enterprise, that doesn’t work. It’s about nurturing your team. It’s about helping them find their strengths, which we’re going to be talking about. It’s being empathetic to your customer about what they might be dealing with.
It’s interesting, you mentioned you started with AWS right when COVID kicked in in 2020. We’re doing today’s interview in April of 2025. Someone today mentioned it almost feels like we’re back in COVID because of a lot of the things that are happening with DOGE, et cetera. Let’s talk about scaling someone’s career. It can be daunting. What advice do you have for someone who’s looking to elevate their sales performance and move up in their career?
Amy Belcher: If I had to net it out with three things in particular, I’d say first, don’t minimize the value of lateral moves. Lots of times, especially in our world, you need to move left and right to move up. As you’re taking additional assignments, lateral moves should absolutely be part of the equation, as long as those lateral moves give you incremental skills and experience that you’re adding to your resume. That’s number one.
Number two is raise your hand to take on additional projects and initiatives to build your network and your skills and your experience. Number three, in any sales job, even if you’re new to sales, you just graduated from university and you’re starting out, know your numbers. The one who knows their numbers in a sales environment almost always wins. It’s critical you understand your numbers, know the historical numbers for your business and your accounts, and know your forecast and the trajectory for growth.
Fred Diamond: That is such a great answer. A lot of the junior people that we have at the Institute for Effective Professional Selling, they expect to become a VP after 18 months for that type of immediate reward or gratification, whatever it might be. I love that idea. It’s going to take you some time. I like what you did also, where you went from distribution to the manufacturer and now with a large software developer, if you will, managing the channel. A lot of different experiences. In my career, I spent a lot of time in marketing and I was in brand, and I was in product marketing, and I was in geographic marketing. All of those build you up and provide more value for your company.
It leads me to the next question, which is about the concept of a personal brand. Someone actually in a conversation we had this morning said the quote, “Your brand should enter the room before you do,” which I thought was a fascinating comment. In today’s competitive landscape, how important is it to build a personal brand as a seller, as a selling professional, and how do you go about that?
Amy Belcher: I’ll share a personal story. For years I thought, “If I’m the hardest working person in the room, then I’m good. I’m good.” I could not have been more wrong. Being the hardest working person in the room doesn’t matter if no one knows you. Personal brand is critical to success and it differentiates you from others in a very crowded market. As you move up the ladder, it’s more likely that jobs that are available may never be posted. Or if they are posted, they’re advertised just for legal reasons, and they already have the candidate in mind. The network gets smaller and smaller as you move up the ladder. It’s more about who you know and who they know and what they know. Put yourself in a position to be on that short list of people who are considered for those jobs, who are not advertised, and really step back.
I’ve done this a lot in the last seven years in particular, spend time taking an inventory of yourself and soliciting feedback to cultivate your brand. I tell my team, be able to articulate your personal value proposition in 60 seconds or less. As an example, as an award-winning channel sales leader, I’m passionate about solving mission-critical customer challenges while operating with integrity and meeting and exceeding financial targets. Now, we can say that’s vague and that’s high level, but if someone had to say, “Amy, give me your pitch,” that would be it. I encourage everyone, whether they’re new in sales or mature in sales, to continue cultivating the brand, know your value prop, and be able to give your pitch in 60 seconds or less.
Fred Diamond: A couple things I’m reminded of as you were giving that pitch, and the last bit of it could be, and now you’re a director at AWS. That’s where you’re practicing the value add that you bring. The other thing we tell people too is you’re the CEO of your career. You might be the senior director of channels at AWS, you might be a VP of sales at another company, but at the end of the day, you’re still the CEO of your career. How do you want to be known? As an expert. Maybe the leading cybersecurity expert in the channel, or things like that that people can attach themselves to you, invite you to speak, invite you to be on podcasts, where you can continue to communicate your value. That’s a great answer.
You talked before about even now in 2025, you sometimes have found you, Amy Belcher, as the only woman leader in a room sometimes. I want to talk about breaking through the glass ceiling. At the Institute for Effective Professional Selling, we just launched our Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership, the CEWL. We do a lot of programs for women in sales leaders. A lot of the women leaders from AWS have participated in that program. Women in sales face unique challenges, from biases to finding mentors. What do you think are some of the most important steps women can and should take to navigate and break through these barriers?
Amy Belcher: I think first is to address those challenges head on. Seeking mentorship, you mentioned mentors, is critical, but it’s not just about seeking the mentor. It’s about leveraging that mentor relationship in a meaningful way. I have people reach out to me regularly saying, “Amy, will you be a mentor?” My response is either, “Yes, I’d love to,” or, “No, I’m at capacity right now. Can you follow up with me in a few months?” But if I do say yes, I give them the expectation upfront. My expectation is if I’m their mentor, they need to own the meeting and the cadence. I’m not going to set up the meeting and the cadence for them, because to your point, they’re their CEOs. They need to own that.
Two, I ask them, “What’s the biggest takeaway that you want from this relationship?” Because it is a relationship and it’s a two-way street. I need to know what their expectation is. Then finally, I ask them to come prepared to our mentor meetings with key topics that they want to discuss. That’s first. Finding the mentor and then leveraging that mentor relationship. Second is being bold to advocate for yourself. Women are notoriously hesitant about taking credit for their achievement, but it’s required. You could be the hardest worker in the room, but if nobody knows you, then what’s the point? Third, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need, whether it’s support, resources, recognition. Ask for what’s needed. Do it in an objective mission-critical customer-obsessed way, but ask.
Then finally, know what good looks like. For me, and I’ve learned this the hard way, who I work for is just as important as what I do. Take time and do a self-inventory. What’s your job satisfaction criteria? Over the last six or seven years, I’ve spent time on this really, and I do it at the end of every year, asking myself, “Okay, is my job satisfaction criteria the same by the way it has been for the last six or seven years? What’s most important to me? What does good look like?” When I’m offered a new role, or someone reaches out, recruiter reaches out for a new role, I probe in those areas that are most meaningful. Who am I going to work for? What’s their style? I talk to people on their team because for me, who I work for is just as important as what I do. I need to know a lot about that person and need to know that I’m going to wake up every day knowing that person has my back.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we’re not going to have conflict and we’re not going to debate. In fact, it’s the opposite. We’re probably going to have conflict and we’re probably going to debate because we come at things from different perspectives. But at the end of the day, I am going to learn and I have respect for that person and they have respect for me. I’d say finally is know what good looks like for you. It’s different for every person, not one size fits all, but know that job satisfaction criteria and revisit it every year, maybe at the end of every year, because it’s going to evolve and change as you go in your career journey.
Fred Diamond: I want to ask you a quick follow up, if you don’t mind, before we talk about the AWS Advantage and building sales skills in the cloud. I love the way you described the mentor relationship, where you’re expecting the mentee to lead the meeting. A lot of times we’ve interviewed men and women who are mentors and they all say the same thing, “I’d love to be your mentor if I can make it work, but you have to come to me with the problem that you need my help with,” or, “You need to come to me with a situation.” Maybe off the top of your head, for the people who are listening, for the young professionals, the junior sales professionals, what may be a good question that a mentee might ask you that you’d be able to help them with?
Amy Belcher: One good question would be, Amy, what’s something that you wish you knew when you started this role, or you started in this company, AWS, you wish you knew then that you know now? Amy, what’s something that surprised you positively or negatively about your career journey? Amy, if you were teaching a class on business management or managing up, because that’s super important in a career too, what are some key takeaways and things that you could share with me? Those would be the top questions, Fred.
Fred Diamond: Those are great. Those can lead to so many incisive conversations that would really provide value. Again, you’re with AWS, it’s known for its culture of continuous learning and innovation. How does this culture support sales professionals, particularly those that are new to cloud technologies when scaling their careers?
Amy Belcher: We have a culture of continuous learning and development. In fact, one of our leadership principles is learn and be curious. I’ll admit openly, Fred, it was a game changer for me. In any company there’s new acronyms and new language, but when I first started here and there was so much new coming at me, it was overwhelming. At the time, I reached out to a couple of people that I trust internally at AWS and I made comments like, “Wow, I can’t wait till I know what all these acronyms mean.” Or, “I can’t wait until I understand what I’m looking for as we’re reading these docs,” because we don’t use PowerPoint. We work on narratives. The response was consistent with all the people I asked, “Amy, when you get to the point where you’re comfortable and you understand all the technology, or you understand all the lingo, you understand all the acronyms, time to change jobs. You need to get comfortable being uncomfortable.”
That would be the overarching theme as far as being in a culture of continuous learning and evolving. AI is a great example. Right now, I’m going through AI certification training. If you would’ve asked me five years ago, did I expect that I would be going through AI certification training, this is solution architect level training, I would’ve said, “No, you’re crazy. You’re out of your mind. We have solution architects that do that.” But the technology has evolved such that, especially as a software leader, I need to better understand the AI technology so that I can service my partners and their customers. I’m really proud to work here for a lot of reasons. But one of those reasons is just the plethora of opportunity we have to continue learning, evolving, and continue leaning in to meet the needs of our customers and our clients.
Fred Diamond: Sales professionals now, customers don’t need you unless you’re bringing value. We used the word value before, but it’s real value. It’s stuff that’s going to help them, especially in the government, the markets that you serve, and taking their mission a couple levels beyond where they might have thought about. When you think about a company like AWS, it’s the NFL. You’re a top tier tech vendor. It’s one of a handful of companies that really is one of the elite providers. I have to imagine that the concept of imposter syndrome must come up, and many women in sales experience imposter syndrome, feeling like they don’t belong or they aren’t qualified enough.
So many of the people who work at AWS, you have a lot of people who are seasoned, who worked at great places, who’ve done amazing things. You have the ability to hire the best and the brightest. What are some of the strategies for the sales professionals that you work with to overcome this self-doubt, especially in a high-tech field, like where AWS plays?
Amy Belcher: Imposter syndrome is real. The last question you asked me, Fred, I gave an example of how I was new here and I thought, “Oh my God, I’m so overwhelmed. I’m not going to know these acronyms. I don’t know what we’re looking for in these narratives. I wish we had PowerPoint,” all those things. What I learned in that process is as I was reaching out to that group of trusted advisors and they gave me that very candid feedback, “Amy, get comfortable being uncomfortable,” one of my key takeaways is, I’m not alone.
In fact, even to this day, Fred, it just happened yesterday. I’m in a meeting, they’re using acronyms that I don’t understand. I raise my hand and say, “Can you elaborate or clarify what this acronym ABC, XYZ means? Because I’m not following and I want to participate in this discussion.” People were Slacking me saying, “Thank God, Amy. I’m so glad you asked that question because I felt like I was the only one there.”
My takeaway from that is surround yourself with trusted advisors, people who will be open and help you and support you in your journey. Also, don’t be afraid to say, “I’m not sure what this acronym means. I don’t know what you’re referring to.” Nine times out of 10, when I do that in the meeting, either via Slack or either live in the meeting, people will say, “I had the same exact question. I thought I was the only one.” Don’t be afraid by it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with imposter syndrome. But again, surround yourself with a support system and raise your hand if you need help or additional detail to understand a topic or even lingo, terminology, which is often the case with an AWS, because you’re not alone.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. Actually, in the markets that you serve as well, there are so many acronyms of government programs and things like FedRAMP and various things that you need to know and you might be studying hard. The reality too is, to be successful in tech sales is you got to be a high-performance athlete. You’re not going to make it to even mid-level if you don’t study, if you don’t get to understand how to use the technology, where it plays, how customers are using it. I recommend to people all the time as well, a company like yours, there are people like you. There’s a hundred people like you that junior sales professionals and seniors can reach out to. We talked about career advice before, but also talk about the technology and where it plays and how do we satisfy customers. That’s one of the advantages of working with a great company like yours. There are so many resources available.
You talked about the various stages along your career for women thinking about joining or growing in tech sales. What would you say to those who might not see it as a long-term career path? How do you view the future of women in tech sales?
Amy Belcher: Absolutely consider tech sales as a long-term career move. Absolutely. By far the most rewarding part of my career. Is it high demand? Yes. Do I get anxious sometimes before those forecast calls, particularly where I have to call them with my number? Absolutely. I’m not going to shield that. But at the same time, I know I’m driving value for the business. I like that rewarding part of the job. There’s risk there, don’t get me wrong, both financial and career risk, but I love the reward and the potential upside. The thing about women, we are masters at building and cultivating relationships. At the end of the day, we can talk about tech, AI, this is all great stuff. Sales is about relationships. People buy from people they like and they trust. Since women are masters at relationships, there’s not a better fit than women in sales. My takeaway is absolutely long-term career in sales is a right fit for women. Be a master of your destiny. Be CEO of your career and consider all opportunities.
I’d also say, along the way, be open to feedback. For a long time, I struggled with it. In fact, one of my managers I worked for twice, have the utmost respect for him, Pete Peterson, he gave me feedback so much. I’d say, “Pete, please stop with the feedback.” He’d say, “Amy, I coach you because I care about you.” I remember it again like it’s to this day, and now, it’s the opposite. Now when there’s no feedback and there’s silence, whether it’s positive or negative feedback, I think, “Oh my gosh. Oh-oh, things are quiet.” Be open to that feedback, because that feedback will help you evolve as a sales leader.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great comment by Pete Peterson. It’s so powerful to know that someone who’s successful and who’s done well cares about you, and not just as a person, but as a professional. That you’re going to be able to take your career, because again, you’ve signed up to be in a very challenging career and they’re there to help you. That’s amazing.
I want to thank you and I want to acknowledge you for your success and for your answers today, which were exactly what we like to talk about on the Sales Game Changers Podcast. You’ve given us so many great ideas. Before we wrap up, give us a final action step. Something specific that people listening to today’s show can implement right away after listening to the show or reading this transcript to take their sales career to the next level.
Amy Belcher: If I had to sum it up, I’d do it in two words, Fred. Own it. Don’t wait for someone to invite you to get additional skills development. No one invited me to take this AI certification training. I know that that’s what I need to do to continue serving my partners and my customers. Don’t wait for someone to reach out to you to mentor you. They’re probably not going to. Don’t wait for someone to volunteer you for incremental projects. Raise your hand and make sure that those projects are either increasing your network or increasing your skills and experience and adding to your resume. The world is constantly changing. You said it best, Fred, you’re CEO of your career. Own it and take full advantage of the opportunity we have in the market.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point that you just said, is that, yeah, you might get tapped on the shoulder, but it’s probably not going to happen. Because there’s a lot of great people in your company and there’s a lot of very talented people who people might know about, but you got to step up and you got to volunteer and you got to put in the work.
I remember when I was at Apple Computer, we moved into Unix and one of our SEs said he’s going to be the Unix guy, and he didn’t know anything about Unix. This was about 30 years ago. Then he became a Unix expert in the industry and then he became a sales guy. That led to amazing things for him. Definitely step into AI as you recommended and a lot of other places.
Amy Belcher, I’m so glad we had you on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. Thank you so much for all your expertise. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Game Changers Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo