Episode 97: SurePoint’s Top Enterprise AE Nick Cegelski - The Sprint to Competency/STOP Wasting Time in Sales and START Optimizing

Nick Cegelski is the top Enterprise Account Executive at SurePoint, a recognized Tier 1 provider of financial and practice management software to law firms and the fastest growing legal tech firm in the U.S. Nick is also the host of the 30 Minutes to President’s Club Podcast, a no-nonsense sales podcast that showcases actionable selling advice to its audience. Nick is an intensely focused sales professional who values optimizing his time above all else. He is a diligent and disciplined student of sales who is always looking to provide value to his clients. A former high school wrestler, Nick has carried over many of the lessons learned from his coach and teammates into his successful sales career.

In this episode, Nick discusses his sales origin story and what led to him to taking a role with SurePoint. Nick expounds on the three things he attributes to his success, including his extreme focus on optimization, daily journaling, and discipline. Nick details a typical day in the life from completing early morning household chores that allow him to start his day with a sense of accomplishment to addressing his emails, cold calling and structuring his workday. Nick is a believer in structuring his work into the ‘Four Ds,’ which include Delete, Defer, Delegate and Do. Nick follows a very rigid schedule which affords him the ability to maximize his time and efforts.

Nick and Scott share their thoughts on the positive and negative impacts of technology on today’s sellers. They glean insights into habits and routines that have contributed to Nick’s success. Nick even discusses the inspiration to start his own podcast, 30 Minutes to President’s Club. Finally, Nick issues an actionable challenge to the audience. He encourages them to find an area where they can save one minute in the day. He urges them to continue this practice for the remainder of the week. All told, if listeners follow this advice for a full year they will successfully save forty-eight hours of time over the course of a year.

What We Covered:

00:24 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Nick Cegelski
00:38 – The top three things Nick attributes to his sales success
00:48 – Number 1: His extreme focus on optimization
02:38 – Number 2: Daily journaling
05:50 – Number 3: Discipline
08:01 – Nick’s speaks to his role at SurePoint and quantifies his sales results
09:26 – Nick’s sales origin story
12:57 – What Nick would do differently if given the opportunity
15:05 – Nick’s favorite sales story
24:27 – Nick’s proudest accomplishment
28:19 – How Nick’s focus has changed and evolved
30:02 – Nick describes a typical day in the life
33:03 – Nick speaks to his ‘Four Ds’
36:27 – How Nick structures his prospecting strategy
38:25 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Nick’s success
46:29 – Nick speaks to how he capitalizes on different states of mind
49:47 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Sharleen consumes
51:25 – Nick talks the inspiration to start his own podcast, 30 Minutes to President’s Club
57:28 – Tools and apps that Nick uses on a daily basis
1:01:11 – Nick and Scott share their views and approaches to technology
1:09:05 – Why Nick does not subscribe to a specific sales philosophy
1:10:11 – What motivates and drives Nick
1:12:13 – Lessons that Nick learned as a former wrestler that helped him to succeed in sales
1:23:29 – One of Nick’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:24:15 – An average sales professional’s belief that Nick thinks is crazy
1:25:03 – The most important lessons Nick has learned throughout his career
1:25:36 – Advice Nick would give to an upstart salesperson
1:27:55 – Advice Nick would give to a struggling salesperson, especially in this time of crisis
1:29:24 – What Nick would like to know about top sellers in other organizations
1:30:37 – How is Nick structures his own time
1:35:04 – The four stages of competence
1:35:48 – Nick’s actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“I define discipline as doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it.” (05:56)

“My goal is to be effective, not necessarily efficient if that makes sense.” (23:51)

“The only antidote to worry is action.” (44:47)

“I actually think the most successful tech sales professionals are gonna be the ones who can artfully balance the enablement side of technology with the dependence side of technology.” (1:08:16)

“You can’t find ways to optimize unless you go through a day not optimally because you’ve got to find things to improve on. And so, you’ve gotta do the work.” (1:23:05)

Links Mentioned:

[email protected]
Sales Success Stories Podcast
2019 Sales Success Summit Videos
2020 Sales Success Summit
Nick Cegelski on LinkedIn
30 Minutes to President’s Club Podcast

What We Covered:

Tweetables:

Links Mentioned:

Tools Mentioned:

Books Mentioned:

PodcastMentioned: