Episode 51: Strategies for Managing Direct Sales Teams with Tissini
Featuring: Sion Tesone, Founder and CEO of Tissini
Co-hosted by Endeavor Miami
Claudia Duran, Managing Director of Endeavor Miami sits down with Sion Tesone, Founder and CEO of Tissini to discuss his strategies for managing 24,000 independent salespeople and how his passion for empowering women led him to launch Tissini as his second venture.
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EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
(02.30) Claudia asks, “How did your first company come to be? How did this influence your management at Tissini?”
(3.00) Sion says, “I think the first company that I founded came out of necessity. I was struggling financially and I needed to improve my economic situation. I was lucky enough to make a lot of mistakes when I was working at my first company that I learned a lot along the way. I was a rigid leader, disciplined leader, and distanced leader from my employees. Those are the things that I learned not to do moving forward. So, in my new company, what I realized was that I wanted to be a lot closer to my team. I wanted to lead and learn as much as with my heart. That has made a huge difference.”
(04.32) Claudia asks, “Can you explain how you lead with your heart?”
(5:04) Sion says, “I've come to believe that we are all emotional beings. We all think we are rational human beings, but the reality is that a lot of the decisions that we make are based on emotions. And so what I’ve come to realize is through a lot of trial and error, if I can first try to listen to my colleagues and teammates and listen to them with my heart than I can make better decisions with my head.”
(05.46)Claudia asks, “What led you to focus on helping to empower hispanic women?”
(06.00) Sion says, “As you can tell from my accent, I am also hispanic and immigrant. I know how difficult it is to come to the U.S not knowing the language and struggling. So, the hispanic part is very personal to me. And women are also an important part to make a country successful.”If we can help women, we can help communities”
(08.42) Claudia asks, “How do you go about effectively training and developing the professional skills of so many individuals in the Tissini network?”
(08.58) Sion says, “I think we are effective because we actually listen to our clients. We tailor their needs. We have an amazing internal executive team that actually holds their hand and talks daily with the clients. Each call is as much as a client needs.”
(21.09) Claudia asks, “What’s some of the best business advice you’ve ever received?”
(21.10) Sion says, “When you ask for money, you get advice. When you ask for advice, you may get money.”
ABOUT SION TESONE
Mr. Tesone’s personal mission is to empower Hispanic women by creating sustainable, for-profit, social enterprises. The first company Mr. Tesone co-founded, a US direct sales company, he quickly grew to over 30,000 active independent salespeople nationwide, almost all of them Hispanic women. After selling it, Mr. Tesone founded TISSINI, now his second national platform company focused on offering US Hispanic women the opportunity to earn extra income via a simple direct sales model.
Mr. Tesone arrived to the US from Colombia in 1992 at the age of 16. He holds a BS and MS in Civil Engineering and completed Harvard Business School’s Owner/President Management Program. In 2010, Mr. Tesone joined the Miami Chapter of the Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and has held several positions in its Executive Board. In 2018, Mr. Tesone received the Harvard Business School’s Making a Difference Award for making an impact in the community and for his characteristics of leadership, passion, commitment and philanthropy. In 2019, Mr. Tesone became an Endeavor Entrepreneur, TISSINI was listed as the 10th fastest growing retail company is the US (294th overall) on its 2019 annual Inc. 500 list, and Mr. Tesone was recognized as one of the Founders to Watch by the Startup Weekly. In 2020, TISSINI was recognized as the #1, IC100 fastest growing company in 2020! The award recognizes the 100 fastest-growing firms in under-resourced communities across America. TISSINI was ranked #64 by the Financial Times ranking of the "The Americas’ Fastest Growing Companies". The ranking includes companies in North, Central and South America.