The Nonlinear Path: Creating the Career You Actually Want
Tom Banton, VP of Solutions Consulting and Enablement at Lean Data, discusses his nonlinear career path in pre-sales, including multiple deliberate step-downs in seniority to pursue deals, enablement, and passion projects. He shares how focusing on strengths over weaknesses and actively nurturing his professional network drove his career trajectory. The conversation emphasizes that career growth isn't always vertical and that financial risk can lead to greater long-term reward.
Summary
In this episode of Pre-Sales Collective's 'Unscripted,' host Tom interviews Tom Banton about his nonlinear career in solutions consulting spanning over two decades. Tom began his career in manufacturing consulting before accidentally transitioning into pre-sales when an SC fell ill and he stepped in to demo. He spent 12 years at Oracle leveraging deep industry expertise in manufacturing software before moving to a startup called Aptis (now Conga).
A pivotal moment came when a new sales rep recruited Tom for what seemed like an impossible deal with IBM. Rather than assign a team member, Tom took the discovery call himself, discovered a massive opportunity, and made the deliberate decision to step down from VP-level management to work the deal as an individual contributor. This led to a multi-year engagement, the creation of a new 'Business Transformation Consultant' role, and eventually a team built around that function. Tom describes this as one of the most lucrative years of his career despite the initial drop in base salary.
Tom also recounts being recruited from Oracle to join Aptis, initially declining three times before accepting. During his first six months at Aptis, he struggled significantly with impostor syndrome due to unfamiliarity with the product, but eventually mastered it. When a director position opened, rather than promote himself, he recommended his former Oracle manager for the role, recognizing both the company's needs and his own developmental gaps at the time.
His passion for enablement grew from building 'Aptis University' to train college hires in presentation skills and demos. This eventually led him to leave a VP role at Eightfold to join Pre-Sales Collective, where he built 'Leader Elevate' — the first management training program specifically designed for pre-sales leaders. From there, a networking conversation led to a full-time enablement role at Amadeus, and eventually to his current role at Lean Data, which he found through a reference call that turned into a job opportunity.
Key themes throughout the conversation include: treating every interaction as a discovery to build genuine relationships, using LinkedIn actively for career networking, focusing on strengths (identified through tools like StrengthsFinder) rather than weaknesses, and being willing to take financial risks and step back in seniority to pursue meaningful opportunities. Tom's self-described weakness — technical coding — reframed as a strength in translating complex technical concepts for broader audiences — exemplifies his strengths-based philosophy.
Key Insights
- Tom Banton argues that deliberately stepping down from a VP role to work a single IBM deal as an individual contributor was both a financial risk and ultimately the most lucrative year of his career, because crushing quota as an IC outpaced his management compensation.
- Banton contends that when a director position opened at Aptis, he recognized he wasn't ready to be a good leader yet and recommended his former Oracle manager instead, arguing this was the right move for the company and enabled his own growth within the organization.
- Banton claims that 'Leader Elevate' at Pre-Sales Collective was the first management training program specifically designed for pre-sales leaders, filling a gap where general management training and pre-sales training existed separately but had never been combined.
- Banton describes how his role at Lean Data came not from a direct job application but from a reference call about a third party, during which the hiring manager pivoted to ask if Banton himself was available — illustrating his claim that staying open to conversations and network interactions drives unexpected career opportunities.
- Banton argues that a manager who trained his team to focus on strengths rather than weaknesses via StrengthsFinder directly shaped his career path into enablement and leadership, and that his non-technical nature — once seen as a weakness — was actually the strength of translating complex concepts to broad audiences.
Topics
Full transcript available for MurmurCast members
Sign Up to Access