Episode 133: Passion, Dedication and Detail Focused with LivePerson’s Melissa Gaglione

Melissa Gaglione was the top SDR at LivePerson until very recently being promoted to an Account Executive role. LivePerson is a computer software company whose mission is to make life easier for people and brands everywhere through trusted conversational AI. Melissa is an incredibly thoughtful and curious sales professional by nature. Her endless curiosity has led her to explore careers in education, media, and SaaS Sales. A yogi and meditation enthusiast, Melissa has taken the practices she learns and applies them to her day-to-day work life. She is super into habit building and is very detail-oriented and driven to become the best version of herself that she can be.

In this episode, Scott and Melissa talk about her sales origin story and go deep into her personal and professional daily habits and routines that are critical to her success. Melissa expounds on her daily sidekick journal and how it has truly transformed her with regards to her planning, her workload, and balancing everything she has to get done on a daily basis. Melissa loves to help people and is always looking to connect, share resources, answer questions and learn from others. That is part of the reason why she’s found so much success at LivePerson. Melissa also shares the three things she attributes to her success which include surrounding herself with smart people who want to invest in her success, forming an incredible morning and evening routine, and lastly, being herself. Being true to herself, being kind, and not losing herself along the way is one of Melissa’s proudest accomplishments.

Melissa takes the audience through a highly-detailed typical day in the life. Melissa actually has two types of days: early days which start at 6:45 am and late days which start at 7:15 am. Melissa’s routine starts twelve hours before she even wakes up where she journals, maps out her upcoming day, and answers questions about what she can do in the coming day to be the best version of herself. She then goes to sleep and wakes up to start her day. Melissa subscribes to the Frog Task, which calls for doing the task you most dread first thing in the morning to get it out of the way. She then drinks some water, does a ten-minute kitchen clean, reads, and does her workout. From there, she makes the bed and gets ready for work. She uses timers to get through her emails and uses a habit tracker as well. Then she gets through her daily tasks, phone calls, meetings and wraps up her day.

Finally, Melissa issues an actionable challenge to the audience. She urges them to approach their regular day as normal as possible and, as you’re progressing through the day, check-in with yourself. Be aware of what you’re doing and saying and see how productive you’re being. At the end of the day, when you’re taking inventory and reflecting on everything you’ve done, make one change. Track how these small habits impact you and how has it made you a better seller and a better person. If they are changing you for the better, pick up another habit. Small incremental changes made one step at a time can make a huge difference in the long run.

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott takes a moment to thank today’s sponsors RevenueGrid, Outreach, and Vidyard
00:36 – Scott introduces today’s guest, Melissa Gaglione
00:53 – The top three things Melissa attributes to her success
01:10 – Number One: Surrounding herself with people who are investing in her
01:47 – Number Two: Forming an incredible morning and evening routine
02:21 – Number Three: Being herself
03:30 – How Melissa surrounded herself with people who wanted to invest in her success
07:27 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, Revenue Grid
08:02 – Melissa expounds on her role at LivePerson and quantifies her sales results
12:57 – Scott takes a moment to thank another one of today’s sponsors, Outreach
13:29 – How Melissa helped her colleagues and peers get more meetings by focusing on cryptocurrency
22:15 – Melissa’s sales origin story
27:42 – Melissa’s proudest accomplishment
29:46 – The most challenging part of Melissa’s role
31:43 – What motivates and drives Melissa
33:32 – Melissa takes the audience through a typical day in the life
48:13 – Why Melissa takes cleaning breaks
49:41 – Flexibility in Melissa’s morning routine and the five tasks she tries to accomplish every morning
52:31 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Melissa’s success
57:07 – How Melissa structures her workday
1:01:39 – How Melissa structures a video outreach message
1:06:34 – Scott takes a moment to thank the final sponsor of today’s episode, Vidyard
1:07:09 – Melissa’s tech stack
1:09:53 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Melissa consumes
1:13:24 – One of Melissa’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:16:03 – An average sales professional’s belief that Melissa thinks is crazy
1:19:33 – Advice Melissa would give to an upstart sales professional
1:22:58 – What Melissa would want to know about top sellers in other industries
1:24:23 – LinkedIn or Email?
1:26:01 – Scott issues a challenge to listeners of the podcast
1:27:34 – Melissa reiterates the importance of leaning on the people around you
1:30:32 – Scott invites listeners to join the community and sign up for the Sales Success Summit
1:31:41 – Melissa issues an actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“Number one, what I’m proudest of is just being who I am, developing myself as a seller, what type of seller am I gonna be while maintaining the person that I am. I try to be a good person and I didn’t lose that and a lot of people lose that.” (28:49)

“If I’m not trying to be great or if I’m not putting in one hundred and fifty percent all the time, then what am I doing?” (33:10)

“I didn’t take breaks because I felt that it wasn’t worth my time. And as an SDR, you only have so much time in a day. You have to be constantly working; it’s a lot.” (48:42)

“Listening is a really important skill that is really critical in sales and it’s important to practice it. And, with yoga and meditation, I get to practice silence but also listening to silence. And I bring that into my day-to-day.” (53:46)

“I really dive into the person – who they are, what they said, what they’ve done – and I get so into it. I look at it as, ‘Look at you. Look at what you’ve done. Would you like to do something even greater together?’” (1:05:27)

“I can do deep work. I can really learn these accounts and these people. I don’t need to move that quickly. What I do need to do is protect my time. There is a big difference between protecting your time and just go go go go go go go.” (1:17:04)

“Putting your time into other people and learning about what they do, they’re going to invest their time into you and you’re just gonna be so much stronger. We’re all stronger when we work together.” (1:28:54)

What We Covered:

Tweetables:

Links Mentioned:

Podcasts Mentioned:

Books Mentioned:

Sponsors Mentioned: