Meet Brian Bar, an Adjunct Professor for the ESTEEM Graduate Program currently in his second year of teaching Sales and Growth Hacking. This course is one of the core classes all ESTEEM students take during their fall semester.
Brian Bar has spent the past decade building, leading, and innovating in the world of sales. He began his career in a series of sales and leadership roles, achieving several milestones along the way. For the past nine years, Brian has been the founder and CEO of Victory Lap, one of the nation’s premier sales bootcamps and sales education companies, dedicated to developing the next generation of sales professionals and helping organizations build better, more human-centered sales teams. Beyond Victory Lap, Brian is an All-Star Mentor with Techstars, where he helps early-stage entrepreneurs navigate the challenges of growth and is an active Angel Investor.
Brian shares some insight into his professtional journey and offers advise to ESTEEM students.
ESTEEM: What was the most surprising or unconventional lesson you’ve learned in your professional journey?
Brian: I’d say there are two lessons that have really surprised me over the years.
The first is that passion for work tends to follow competence. There’s a natural pull to want to find a job we’re passionate about, especially given how much time we spend working, but I’ve noticed that people often treat passion as something external, like it’s waiting to be discovered in the perfect role or industry. I used to believe that too, that there was a “right fit” out there somewhere. What I’ve learned instead is that passion often grows from getting really good at something. When you develop skill and confidence in your craft, whether that’s teaching, sales, marketing, or anything else, you start to enjoy it more deeply. Essentially, I believe now mastery breeds meaning. It becomes less about chasing passion and more about developing it through effort, growth, and progress.
The second lesson is one a mentor shared with me early on: don’t chase the money — let the money chase you. If you focus on doing great work, doing it the right way, and constantly improving, the financial rewards will eventually catch up. The opposite is also true. Job hopping from job to job for a higher paycheck often leads to stress, burnout, and even poor long-term outcomes. I’ve found that when you center your career around growth, learning, and impact, success, including financial success, tends to follow naturally.
ESTEEM: Can you share a pivotal moment in your career when you took a risk or embraced uncertainty, and what you learned from it?
Brian: When I was at Groupon, I joined pre-IPO and moved from an individual contributor to a manager in about six months—a fast transition. After three years in that leadership role, I started to feel like I was plateauing. I was even exploring opportunities outside the company. At the same time, I noticed a major challenge we were facing in how we onboarded and ramped new sales hires. As a manager, I was constantly responsible for developing new reps, and the process just wasn’t setting them or us up for success. So instead of leaving, I decided to take a risk and reinvent my role.
I pitched the idea of redesigning the entire sales onboarding process and got the green light to build it from the ground up. Within six months it was clear, the impact we were having on the sales organization was immense. Pretty soon I was running a department of seven leaders and 100-150 new sellers.
It ended up being a huge success — not only for me, but for hundreds of others who started their sales careers at Groupon afterward. It fundamentally improved how the company grew and developed talent, and it taught me something big: risk doesn’t always mean leaving where you are; sometimes it means building something new where you already are. That experience turned me from an intrapreneur into an entrepreneur and set the foundation for everything I’ve done since.
ESTEEM: If you were a student starting the ESTEEM program this year, what would you make sure to focus on learning or doing during the year?
Brian: One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard is that the best time to build a network is before you need it. So, I would really focus on expanding my network. Starting with the students in ESTEEM, it offers an incredible opportunity to learn from, collaborate with, and build relationships within your own peer group. The students come from a wide range of backgrounds, skill sets, and academic concentrations, creating an amazing melting pot of perspectives and knowledge.
Beyond that, ESTEEM connects students to a broader community of professionals who have been in the field, built successful careers, and are generous with their lessons and experiences. Over time, our social capital becomes one of our most important lifelong assets, and ESTEEM gives students a unique opportunity to strengthen it early. So my advice is to be very intentional with investing in those relationships now, so you can create an unfair advantage that will continue to pay off for years to come.
ESTEEM: What emerging trends or challenges in your field do you think ESTEEM students should be paying attention to?
Brian: Without question, the headline for today and the foreseeable future is artificial intelligence.
Given my focus on sales, I think AI will shape the field in two key ways. The first is at the top of the funnel. The administrative and task-based work involved in identifying and targeting the right leads with effective messaging is already being transformed by AI. This area will continue to attract major investment and innovation from entrepreneurs and sales organizations alike, because it directly impacts efficiency and pipeline generation. And as I always say, a healthy sales pipeline cures all revenue ailments!
The second area I’m following closely is how buyers will adapt to AI in the sales process. My belief is that even as technology evolves, people will still want to buy from honest, likable, and confident individuals— people who can communicate effectively, build trust, and demonstrate real emotional intelligence. Those human qualities will only become more important as AI handles more of the mechanical work. In many ways, the bar (pun intended) for communication and relationship-building skills is going up, not down, and that will continue to shape the future of sales.
ESTEEM: What do you personally learn from working with ESTEEM students year after year?
Brian: What I continue to learn from ESTEEM students each year is just how much curiosity, creativity, and courage exist in the next generation of innovators. These are incredibly capable individuals who have already achieved a lot academically or professionally and then they choose to enter a program that pushes them out of their comfort zone. Watching how they navigate that challenge, and grow in such a short period of time is genuinely inspiring.
More than anything, ESTEEM students teach me optimism. They’re working on ideas that have real potential to shape the future in industries that impact society at large. Their energy and drive remind me why I love teaching and mentoring in the first place.
ESTEEM: If you had one piece of advice for students striving to make an impact, what would it be?
Brian: My advice would be to have a really strong why. Those who want to make a meaningful impact are naturally taking on a steeper climb. Many people start that journey, but very few make it to the top. Without a clear and deeply personal reason driving you, it’s almost impossible to sustain the effort and resilience it takes to get there.
Your why should be a healthy mix of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, something that connects your internal drive and sense of purpose with the external goals you want to achieve. And it should evolve over time, as your life and professional experiences shape what matters most to you.
We’re entering an era where turning ideas into products has never been easier, which means more people than ever will be signing up for the entrepreneurial race. But real impact comes from those who don’t start the race, but have the conviction and clarity to finish it. Building a company over nine years now, I’ve found that a strong, evolving sense of purpose is what carries you through the inevitable challenges along the way.