EP280: Donna Owen, Founder of The Engine, Why the right SALES mindset includes FAILURE

Donna Owen, founder of The Engine, to explore her entrepreneurial journey and expertise in sales and recruitment. Donna shares how she launched her business to support startups and tech companies, emphasising the importance of identifying real world problems and building clear, solution oriented messaging.

The conversation dives into the challenges founders face when scaling their sales operations, particularly the transition from founder led sales to a repeatable, team driven process. Donna offers her approach as a fractional sales leader, helping companies build robust sales playbooks and shift from automation heavy strategies back to human-centered selling.

Lysha and Donna also tackle the evolving nature of business development in the recruitment industry. They agree that cold calling is becoming obsolete, advocating instead for research driven, personalised outreach sometimes even using platforms like WhatsApp.

The episode rounds out with candid discussions on learning from failure, fostering psychological safety in teams and strategies for growing a business through social media. Sharing her goals for expanding her presence on LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok, with helpful tips from Lysha along the way.

Connect with Donna here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/donnalowen/

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The Recruiter's Recruitment Podcast is proudly sponsored by Paiger and partners to Needi, Keybridge IT and Diversity and Inclusion .

Our Sponsor:

Paiger - Making Recruiters Smarter and Faster. Paiger helps recruiters build personal brands, identify new business opportunities, attract candidates, and have better conversations.

Find out more details on Paiger here - https://paiger.co/?utm_source=podcast...

Our Partners:

Needi is a concierge gift-matching service using psychology and AI, to pinpoint the perfect gifts and experiences for your recipient, from the best, local independent businesses. Their team of expert gift finders, save companies time and money, with their complimentary corporate gifting service . Find out more here -https://needi.co.uk/

Diversity in Recruitment helps recruitment businesses understand diversity, equity, and inclusion in a way that makes sense. Our training and advisory work is designed anidence to attract diverse talent, recruit inclusively, improve your candidate journey and confidently partner with their clients. DE&I doesn’t have to be complicated and scary - it’s simply about fair, ethical and high-quality recruitment.

Keybridge IT Solutions is a London-based Fully Managed IT Support and solutions Provider - Providing 24×7 Support to all Customers. Specialities include Microsoft Cloud, including Office 365, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Azure, Security, Internet Connectivity, VoIP, and much more didence to attract diverse talent, recruit inclusively, improve your candidate journey and confidently partner with their clients. DE&I doesn’t have to be complicated and scary - it’s simply about fair, ethical and high-quality recruitment.