Jamal Reimer is an incredibly high-performing Strategic Account Manager at Oracle in Sweden. As a top performer at Oracle, Jamal is responsible for engaging his customers’ strategic process and working to ensure their success by leveraging Oracle’s portfolio of offerings.
In this episode, Jamal shares with Scott his humble sales backstory. When Jamal was in college, he started selling books door-to-door as a way to support himself while getting his degree. Now, he is one of the top performers in one of the largest technology software companies in the world. Jamal identifies the three things he attributes to his success, which include his relentless attention to customer care, peer mindset, and spine of steel.
Jamal speaks to one of the biggest challenges he faces on a daily basis: maximizing his time efficiently. Luckily, Oracle makes this achievable by allowing Jamal to work from home and make his own hours. Jamal shows the audience what that looks like by walking them through a typical day, from meditation and exercise in the morning to meetings and family time in the evening. The balance he receives from working remotely helps to increase Jamal’s overall effectiveness. Jamal also talks about what motivates him, especially during times when sales are scarce. His experience has taught him to maintain his faith in moments like these and to always keep the conversation moving forward.
Jamal does not subscribe to a specific sales philosophy. Instead, he stays laser-focused on the customer, speaking passionately and questioning the status quo. This customer-centric approach is what led Jamal to start his own digital video series on LinkedIn. In this series, Jamal gives advice to customers while providing them with high-quality insider information from a senior salesperson’s perspective. Jamal yearns to know what customers want so that he can work to deliver a result that is aligned with their overall strategy.
Scott and Jamal discuss the book that Jamal is planning on writing. The main topic centers on Jamal’s experience in brokering mega deals. It is Jamal’s intention to provide readers with best practices and common components of mega deals to provide a road map on how to execute them. Finally, Jamal provides listeners with an actionable challenge. He urges them to identify an executive and figure out a way to deliver value and be of service to that executive.
What We Covered:
00:24 – Scott Ingram welcomes to the podcast, Jamal Reimer
00:36 – Scott announces the new Daily Sales Tips Podcast
00:57 – The three things Jamal attributes to his success
01:07 – Number 1: Relentlessly living in the shoes of his customers
01:48 – Number 2: Having a peer mindset
02:25 – Number 3: Growing a spine of steel within the negotiation
04:02 – The data that Jamal uses to help maintain his position within negotiations
05:58 – The importance of confidence
07:30 – How Jamal got his start in sales
10:10 – Jamal’s rode to Oracle
11:23 – Jamal discusses the roles he held at Oracle and how he became a top performer
14:43 – What Jamal would do differently in his career path if given the chance
16:21 – How Scott developed the idea for his new show, The Daily Sales Tips Podcast
17:54 – The results Jamal has accomplished in his sales role
19:21 – Jamal’s proudest accomplishment
20:20 – The secret to Jamal’s sales success/ Jamal quantifies his sales results and shares what it takes to be successful at Oracle
24:44 – How Jamal maintains ongoing conversations with executives in order to get their approval and buy-in
27:55 – How Jamal introduces himself in conversations with executives
29:01 – The business value that Jamal provides
31:14 – Navigating Oracle
34:59 – The biggest challenge Jamal faces and his strategy to overcome it
37:08 – Setting expectations
38:11 – Jamal describes a typical day in the life
41:45 – What led Jamal to move to Sweden
43:46 – Jamal’s move from the mid-Atlantic to Sweden
45:09 – The industry trades, news, podcasts and books that Jamal consumes
49:03 – Tools and apps that Jamal uses on a daily basis
51:18 – The video series that Jamal is currently working on
53:48 – Why Jamal does not subscribe to a specific sales philosophy
55:16 – Why Jamal remains dissatisfied with the level of his own progress
57:15 – The story behind the biggest deal ever done at Salesforce.com
58:47 – Scott’s inspiration for putting together the Sales Success Summit
1:00:19 – Jamal’s sales style and approach
1:01:36 – Other ways Jamal is practicing and implementing marketing strategies
1:03:45 – Jamal discusses the book he’s planning on writing
1:06:25 – What motivates Jamal
1:08:01 – Balancing the peaks and valleys of the sales experience
1:10:30 – How Jamal handles the expectations from his management team
1:12:03 – One of Jamal’s beliefs that the average sales rep would think is crazy
1:14:18 – An average sales rep’s belief that Jamal believes is crazy
1:18:27 – The most important lessons Jamal has learned that have gotten him to where he is today
1:21:20 – Advice Jamal would give to an upstart sales professional
1:24:52 – Advice Jamal would give to struggling, middle-of-the-pack salespeople
1:27:15 – What Jamal would like to know about top sellers in other organizations
1:28:46 – Scott invites Jamal to host an interview on the Sales Success Podcast
1:29:24 – Jamal’s actionable challenge to the Sales Success Stories Podcast audience
1:32:51 – Scott encourages the audience to join the conversation by submitting their own questions about this episode
Tweetables:
“You can comfortably argue whatever you can prove or at least have an extremely sound argument for. And it’s those kinds of arrows you wanna have in your quiver when you go in a negotiation.” (05:26)
“If you can make it at Oracle, you can almost make it anywhere.” (11:18)
“I’m the kinda guy that needs to see it. Once I see it, then I can I believe it. Once I believe it, I can go do it.” (16:12)
“The meditation and the exercise are the keys and the only real consistent parts of my schedule that I do on a regular basis. Everything else is relatively moveable.” (41:30)
“I did not want there to be a thing out there in the world that I was so terrified from it that I would run.” (1:20:44)
Links Mentioned:
Sales Success Summit
Daily Sales Tips Podcast
Daily Sales Tip Podcast on iTunes
Sales Success Stories Book Vol. 1
Jamal’s Linkedin
Oracle’s Website
What Salespeople Should Be Doing For You (But Most Don’t)
Mega Deal Secrets
Podcasts Mentioned on the Podcast:
Finding Mastery Podcast
Advanced Selling Podcast
Books Mentioned on the Podcast:
The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation
Selling to the C-Suite: What Every Executive Wants You to Know About Successfully Selling to the Top
The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World