Episode 156: A Great Sales Culture Is Greater Than the Sum of the Sales Team with Triple Whale’s Brantley Atkinson

Brantley Atkinson is the top Account Executive at Triple Whale, an organization that compiles data into one easy-to-use dashboard. Brantley is a focused team leader with the ability to leverage research, resources, and emerging technologies to create relevant communications. Brantley has extensive experience building partnerships and retaining customers and today he joins the show to discuss how his non-Sales background at NC State helped him tremendously in his eventual Sales career.

Brantley talks about his role at Triple Whale, his motto as a sales professional and shares some of his favorite sales stories. He discusses the biggest challenges and obstacles that are facing him today as well as his proudest accomplishment. Brantley takes the audience through a typical day in the life, from his 6 am wake up alarm (ok, so he may hit ‘snooze’ two or three times but he gets a pass as he has a newborn), to preparing for a day full of demos, follow-ups and task setting. Brantley speaks to the three things he attributes most to his success, including patience, persistence, and small-talk, making each situation his own, and his non-sales background at NC State. Brantley expounds on his tech stack, his information diet, and other habits and routines that are critical to his success.

Brantley and Scott touch on the topic of motivation, specifically, what continues to motivate and drive Brantley to be the best person and professional possible. Brantley speaks to the importance of having a strong Sales culture and what makes Triple Whale’s culture so special. He provides advice to upstart sales professionals and shares his sales philosophy, which is centered on education and being nurturing. Finally, Brantley issues an actionable challenge to the audience. He challenges you to record yourself via video or audio (or both preferably) as you work on your pitch and use that as a form of continuous feedback on your own performance to improve. He is certain that you’ll either pick up on something that you’re doing that you shouldn’t or something you wish you had been doing differently.

What We Covered:

01:28 – Scott introduces today’s guest, Brantley Atkinson
01:45 – The top three things Brantley attributes to his success
02:09 – Number One: Patience, persistence, and small-talk
07:16 – Number Two: Making his own situation
10:46 – Number Three: His non-sales background at NC State
12:52 – Bravado’s Naughty & Nice List
18:17 – Brantley expounds on his role at Triple Whale
22:33 – What Brantley would do differently if given the chance
25:19 – Brantley’s favorite sales story
26:27 – Brantley’s proudest accomplishment
27:18 – The biggest challenges and obstacles facing Brantley
29:28 – Brantley takes the audience through a typical day in the life
32:20 – How many demos are typical in a single day
33:22 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Brantley’s success
35:54 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Brantley consumes
37:28 – Brantley’s tech stack
40:19 – Brantley’s sales philosophy and style
43:18 – What motivates and drives Brantley
46:41 – One of Brantley’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
52:15 – What makes Triple Whale’s Sales culture so special
57:20 – Advice Brantley would give to an upstart sales professional
58:52 – Final thoughts and words of wisdom from Brantley
1:00:32 – Brantley issues an actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“One of my mottos at the university was kind of the ‘under-promise, over-deliver.’ Of course, in a Sales role you never want to under-promise, but you do want to set reasonable expectations and then over-deliver.” (12:28)

“There’s money to be had in Sales. We’ve got a good company for rewarding you for super hard work. I’m just a diligent worker. Even if I were getting paid pennies, I’d be diligently hardworking. And, it just so happens Sales is a great place to actually make money that is comparable to the amount of effort you put in.” (26:59)

“Saying or doing something kind of outlandish, or off the wall, or sliding in a certain word or an interesting thing to say, and then going back and watching their reaction, you can tell if they genuinely like you or if you’ve actually built a relationship.” (39:27)

“I’m a pretty emotional guy when it comes to wanting to do right by others in hoping they would do right by me as well.” (43:26)

“A lot of people think salespeople are liars or fibbers, that they’ll say whatever you want them to say. So, you have to be able to back up your enthusiasm for these products.” (48:36)

Book Mentioned:

Never Split the Difference

What We Covered:

Tweetables:

Links Mentioned:

Book Mentioned: