Angie Donato is the top Senior Sales Executive in the HR Practice at Gartner, the world’s leading research and advisory company. Gartner is an organization that equips business leaders with indispensable insights, advice, and tools to achieve their mission-critical priorities. Angie is a Continue Reading …

This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Outreach, Skipio, and Proposify. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who are helping us have a little more fun in the Sales Success Community, just click over to top1.fm/sponsors

In this week’s bonus episode, I thought we might try to have just a little bit more fun. What I’ve got for you here is a series of 5 tips from the Daily Sales Tips podcast where we dialed up the humor a little bit, and the first one is actually a sneak preview because it’s not even scheduled to release until this Friday. So I guess you heard it here first. For whatever reason, there’s also a fair amount of singing involved here, but I really think you’re going to enjoy these. Enjoy:

965. Be Yourself, It’s Catchier – Matt McComb
958. Comical Objection Handling – Tyler Lessard
645. Just a Person in Sales (song) – Shannon Selis
582. Using Squirrels to Get People to Open Your Emails – Marc McDougall
384. Shy Sales Guy – Tyler Menke

Pascal Kaldenbach is the top individual contributor and the Head of Sales at EPI-USE Labs in Central & Eastern Europe. EPI-USA Labs is a global software solutions company that helps their clients maximize the performance so they can make faster, more accurate business decisions. Pascal is an extremely successful and knowledgeable sales professional who understands the amount of hard work and dedication required to become a success in this profession.

In this episode, Pascal talks about his unconventional sales origin story and expounds on his role and sales results at EPI-USE Labs. Pascal lists the three traits he attributes to his success. These include being and attentive listener, preserving his energy, and never multi-tasking while on a call or doing something else important. Pascal is a believer of many things that on the surface may seem odd, such as his belief that motivation doesn’t exist or that there is no such thing as work-life balance. However, he backs these beliefs up with insights and truth bombs that illuminate his perspective and way of thinking.

Pascal continues by taking the audience through a typical day in the life, both his pre-COVID routines and how they’ve been altered in this new reality. He starts his day every morning at 5:00 am and hits the gym. From there, he goes to work early where he finds he has no distractions and can get his most painstaking task of the day done and out of the way before taking on the rest of his day. After that, it’s meetings and client calls before he heads home to spend time with his son. Pascal provides advice to upstart sales professionals and those who might have experience but are struggling to achieve their desired results. Finally, Pascal provides an actionable challenge to the audience. Pascal’s challenge is for listeners to approach the conversations they have in the coming week with active listening. The challenge is to have a conversation with everyone as long as possible while listening and asking curious and thoughtful questions.

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott thanks the sponsors of today’s episode, QuotaPath, Skipio, and Vidyard
00:38 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Pascal Kaldenbach
00:55 – The top three things that Pascal attributes to his success
01:06 – Pascal takes a moment to thank his team for encouraging to come on the Sales Success Stories Podcast
01:19 – Number 1: Being and attentive listener
01:49 – Number 2: Preserve your energy
02:48 – Number 3: Never ever multi-task while on a call or doing something else important
05:28 – Pascal expounds on his role at EPI-USE Labs
08:07 – Pascal’s sales results
09:04 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, QuotaPath
09:56 – How Pascal’s team has performed head and shoulders above the rest of the business
11:22 – Pascal provides some more in-depth information about the player-coach role he’s currently serving in
13:05 – Pascal’s sales origin story
21:04 – Scott takes a quick moment to thank two of today’s sponsors, Skipio & Vidyard
22:43 – What Pascal would do differently in his career if given the chance
29:46 – Pascal speaks to his transition into a leadership role
33:19 – Pascal shares his favorite sales story
40:56 – Pascal’s proudest accomplishment
43:53 – How Pascal works on improving his character
47:51 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Pascal consumes
55:43 – Pascal talks about how he identifies books to read
59:31 – Pascal takes the audience through a typical day in the life
1:06:55 – Other habits and routines that are critical to Pascal’s success
1:11:12 – Pascal’s tech stack
1:14:23 – Pascal’s sales style and philosophy
1:20:26 – What motivates and drives Pascal
1:23:02 – One of Pascal’s beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:24:06 – Advice Pascal would give to an upstart sales professional
1:27:44 – Advice Pascal would give to a struggling, middle-of-the-pack sales professional
1:32:15 – Pascal speaks to what he would like to learn from top sellers in other organizations
1:35:00 – Pascal’s actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“Sales, from my perspective, is a marathon, not a sprint.” (02:43)

“I would stop wasting too much time with trainers or gurus trying to find the hidden secret to sales.” (24:04)

“I’m really proud that I’ve set this environment for my son and for myself obviously. I would never say that I am the best at what I’m doing, but what I can recognize is that I’m making the environment and my son’s life better.” (41:44)

“I’m not a fan of work-life balance, because I think there is no difference between work and life. That may sound a little bit strange but you need to understand that you have 24 hours in a day. A third of it is sleeping, a third is your private life and a third is work.” (44:01)

“I think it’s really important – getting back to that topic – to keep your stress levels low.” (1:09:56)

“I personally do not believe in motivation. I think motivation implies there is something you can have or not have. So the consequence of that is people who are motivated can do it and people who are not motivated cannot do it. You only have one life and you need to understand that life is at least thirty percent work.” (1:20:42)

“Sales is something you need to put in a lot of hard work day by day, hour by hour, week by week, month by month and year by year. And, suddenly, overnight you will be successful.” (1:27:15)

Links Mentioned:

[email protected]
2021 Sales Success Summit
Pascal Kaldenbach on LinkedIn
EPI-USE Labs’ Website
Brandon Fluharty’s Episode
QuotaPath’s Careers Site
Barry’s Bootcamp
The Matthew Principle
Pocket Casts

Sponsors Mentioned:

Quotapath
Skipio
Vidyard

Podcasts Mentioned:

The Tim Ferriss Show
Tony Robbins Podcast

Books Mentioned:

Outliers
The Challenger Sale
Deep Work
The 5 Second Rule
Green Lights
Becoming
A Place of Yes
Can’t Hurt Me
Antifragile
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Never Split the Difference
Atomic Habits

Tools Mentioned:

HubSpot
TEAMS
Microsoft To Do

This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of QuotaPath, Skipio, and Proposify. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who make this show and the Sales Success Summit possible, click over to Top1.fm/sponsors

In today’s bonus episode of I wanted to share a bit of a preview of this year’s Sales Success Summit. At this point, I’ve got about 70% of the agenda figured out, which is even more than it sounds like because I try to keep 15-20% of it undefined so we can be flexible in the moment and either go deeper into a particular topic that people are interested in, or explore something important that comes up that we don’t already have accounted for in the scheduled talks. So I’ll really only be adding 2-3 more scheduled speakers.

While I continue to work on that, let me tell you about what we do have set up so far and if you’ll click over to top1.fm/2021preview I’ll have all of these details in addition to links to each presenter’s episode as well so you can go even deeper in your preparation for the event itself on October 11th and 12th.

Now, this isn’t necessarily in order, but here’s who you’ll be hearing from so far:

Sarah Brazier is going to talk about “Life After SDR: Building for Tomorrow, her Career Narrative”

Katie Jane Bailey is going to dig into a core theme in this community and will talk about “Iron Sharpening Iron”

Ian Koniak and I have been talking for a while about him presenting on “You Are Not Your Number”

Irfan Jafar from VMware will cover “Closing Big Deals with a Winning Mentality,” and I know he’s coming off of a recent 8 figure deal that he brought in at the end of his last quarter.

We’ve got a really dynamic duo lined up with David Weiss & Jack Wilson who will talk about “Building a World-Class Sales Team” both from the perspective of the leader of that team and a top player on the team.

My friend DeJuan Brown will be back to share a process he has that absolutely fascinated me. His talk is titled: “Managing Up: Collaborating WITH Your Leadership”

Constantine Johns will help us explore “The Leader Within”

Jenn Zhou who you just heard on the show last week is going to bring us: “Winning in Sales or Life: Have Confidence. Have Fun. Have Self Respect”

and last but certainly not least, Brandon Fluharty is going to speak on “7 Steps to Earning 7 Figures”

Like I said, there’s more to come, but I couldn’t be more excited about how strong this content is going to be.

Now if you’re planning to join us here in Austin to be part of this experience and you don’t already have your ticket, please hurry. There aren’t many left, and rather than covering it here, if you’d like to know more about how we’re working to provide as safe an environment as we possibly can with the goal of essentially creating our own mini-bubble around the event, just send me a note and ask for the Summit Safety video that I included in last week’s newsletter. Thanks to Vidyard, sending that your way is just two quick clicks for me.

If you’re not able to join us in person, thanks to our incredible sponsors: QuotaPath, Skipio, Proposify, Outreach, Gong, and Vidyard you can sign up for the live stream for free. In either scenario, you can grab your ticket or register for the live stream at Top1Summit.com

I’m also working with those sponsors to collectively make a contribution to our non-profit partner – UNCrushed for each and every person who signs up to join us. So do me a favor and encourage your entire team and everybody you know to get registered. There’s going to be a great opportunity to do some good in support of mental health, and certainly do some good for yourself in improving your own mindset, and inspiring you to rise to greatness.

There’s a ton more that we’re building in for those who will be joining us here in Austin, from an outdoor BBQ experience at one of my favorite spots in town to a red carpet-themed afterparty where I think the dress code can best be described as faux fancy. We’re even printing custom jerseys for every attendee to go with our theme of world-class sales teams.

Come join us. If not in-person, then definitely on the live stream. Be sure to block some time on October 11th and 12th. The core content will run from 10 am to 4 pm Central Time, and you can get registered at Top1Summit.com That’s T-O-P the Number One, Summit (with two m’s) dot com.

Tell a friend and then watch your email for more updates as we get closer.

Thanks for listening and make sure you’re subscribed here to the Sales Success Stories podcast so you don’t miss another killer interview episode next week.

I’ll talk to you then!

Sarah Brazier – Life After SDR: Building for Tomorrow, a Career Narrative

Katie Jane Bailey – Iron Sharpens Iron

Ian Koniak – You are Not Your Number

Irfan Jafar – Close Big Deals with a Winning Mentality

David Weiss & Jack Wilson – Building a World-Class Sales Team

DeJuan Brown – Managing Up: Collaborating WITH Your Leadership

Constantine Johns – The Leader Within

Jenn Zhou – Win in Sales or Life: Have Confidence. Have Fun. Have Self Respect

Brandon Fluharty – 7 Steps to Earning 7 Figures

Jennifer Zhou is the top Senior Account Executive at Attentive, a personalized text messaging platform built for innovative e-commerce brands. Attentive is the most comprehensive text message marketing solution, driving 18.5% of total online revenue for businesses by creating thoughtful SMS experiences. Jenn is an Continue Reading …

Lori Richardson is the founder of Women Sales Pros and a B2B sales and revenue growth strategist at her own firm, Score More Sales. Lori is also the host of the Conversations with Women in Sales Podcast, Continue Reading …

This is the Sales Success Stories Podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. I really appreciate you listening to this show, but listening is such a passive activity so I want to challenge you to get a little more involved in the Sales Success Community and to do something to improve yourself. So today I’m going to issue that challenge.

I’m releasing this little bonus bonus episode on Wednesday, August 11th, because tomorrow, August 12th is 60 days before the start of this year’s Sales Success Summit. Real quick on that front, we’re on pace to sell out by the end of the month maybe even sooner, so if you were hoping to join us here in Austin you’d better get on that. You can grab your ticket at Top1Summit.com. That’s also where you can register for the free, sponsors-supported live stream. I think we’re even going to make the recordings available on-demand for a limited time this year to those who register, so I guess no matter what you’re gonna want to go Top1Summit.com and take an action, but back to this challenge idea.

I decided to call this event the Summit 4 years ago because of the dual meeting. It’s a meeting of high-level individuals, but it’s also the top, the apex, the highest point, and that’s where many of us are trying to get right?

Well, that’s certainly what we try to inspire with the event, but I wanted to do something in advance of the event this year to build community. To allow you to connect with each other, and with many of those that you’ve heard here on this show, and how doesn’t love a good challenge. One that maybe even has a leaderboard and another opportunity to compete. To be pushed and pulled by others in the community.

So tomorrow, with 60 days to go before the Summit, we’re kicking off the first-ever Sales Success Summit Everest Challenge. Should you choose to join us in this challenge you’ll have 60 days to get outside and gain 29,032 feet of elevation by walking, biking, hiking, or running. We’re going to track it and connect with each other through my favorite fitness app, Strava, and I think we’re going to have a ton of fun doing it.

I’ve actually been experimenting with this idea for a few days, and like anything, there’s always something to be learned. It took me a few days to find the right hill to focus on. The first couple of tries it was taking me about 75 minutes of walking hill in the neighborhood to gain about 500 feet of elevation, before I got really efficient and found a nice short steep hill where I can get the same result in about 45 minutes. The lesson being that we need to keep looking for better ways and opportunities to improve.

Now you might be thinking: Scott, why are you doing a fitness challenge in the Sales Success Community and not an actual sales challenge.

There are actually a number of reasons for that. First, there are a lot of different types of people in different roles that listen to this show, and finding a universally applicable sales challenge is really hard. It would also be tough to track something like that, but more importantly, one of the things I really want to help people get to through listening to this podcast and being a part of this community is the Fundamentals of Sales Success. And I firmly believe that your health, your mindset, and your mental health are core ingredients. Going out for a walk or a run every morning is going to help all of those things. Even better, you can probably listen to the podcast while you’re doing it!

So to get involved we’ve set up a whole system through our new sponsor Skipio. In the US and Canada, all you have to do is text Everest to 512-813-0676. Outside of the US and Canada, things are a bit more manual, but I wanted this to be a global challenge, so all you have to do is send a message to that same number: 512-813-0676 via WhatsApp and I’ll reply with the instructions.

Now there are a few ways to do this and I need to give a shoutout to DeJuan Brown and Andy Racic who are both helping with some of the challenge elements behind the scenes in Strava. Oh, and there will very likely be some awards too, but I wanted to give you some ideas on how to get this done.

Like I said you can do this through any combination of walking, hiking, biking, or running. I believe we will have some pure-play options if you plan to only do it on a bike or only do it on foot. If you live in a relatively hilly place then cycling is probably the easiest way to get this done. In fact, this whole challenge was inspired by the idea of Everesting where psycho cyclists knock this thing out in a day. In fact, the record is under 7 hours, and it’s worth googling, but for the rest of us who aren’t elite athletes, I think spreading this out over 60 days is way more manageable. Like I said I think cycling is probably the easiest way, but you can also do what I did and find a nice steep hill to work with. It doesn’t hurt that I live in a part of Austin called Oak Hill, but if you live someplace super-flat, then a stadium or other big set of steps will probably serve you well.

I’ve also done some math for you to help break this down, and I’ll have all of these details for you in writing at top1.fm/everest2021 you can click over there to find this stuff. But if you were to get out every day for all 60 days you’ll need to average 484 feet a day. 6 days a week will take an average of 564 feet and a 5 day a week effort will require an average daily gain of 677 feet. Now I’m not sure I’d recommend this, but if you want to knock this out weekend warrior style. You’ve got 9 weekends to work with and you’ll need to do 1,613 feet every one of those weekend days to complete the challenge.

Now the beauty is that through Strava we’ll all be able to see each other’s efforts, support each other, cheer for each other and push each other to achieve more. So I really hope you’ll join us in this challenge. Again, to get the instructions just text “Everest” to 512-813-0676, or if you’re outside the US and Canada send a message via WhatsApp to that same number: 512-813-0676 and we’ll get you going.

Thanks for listening. That’s for being a part of this Sales Success Community and I’ll see you at the top!

Chris Horton is the top Key Account Executive at Workstream, a text recruiting and hiring tool for local businesses, especially restaurants. Chris is also the first rep in Workstream’s history to close more than one million dollars, and he did it in just six months! His keys to success include turning ideas into action, bringing a vision of a bright future, and doing big things to change the world. Chris is a passionate sales professional who truly looks to provide meaningful and lasting value to his customers.

In this episode, Chris expounds on his extensive background in the restaurant industry and how his journey has led him to Workstream. He shares his favorite sales story, one that taught him a valuable lesson of what not to do as a sales professional. Chris lists the three main things he attributes his success to, which include getting rid of the ‘commission breath,’ avoiding the trap of becoming obsessed with the leaderboard, and understanding your product and your industry better than anyone else. Chris also shares his proudest accomplishment, how he structures his work week, and his philosophy on investing.

Chris takes the audience through a typical day in the life, from daily habits that have become critical to his success, to how he approaches his role. Finally, Chris provides some sage advice and poses an actionable challenge to the audience. He urges them to identify one or top performers within your organization, schedule thirty minutes to talk with them, pick their brains and learn as much as you possibly can!

What We Covered:

00:01 – Scott thanks the sponsors of today’s episode: Outreach, Vidyard, and Skipio
00:39 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Chris Horton
01:08 – The top three attributes that Chris attributes to his success
01:17 – Number 1: Getting rid of the ‘commission breath’
01:50 – Number 2: Avoiding the trap of becoming obsessed with the leaderboard
02:28 – Number 3: Understanding your product and your industry better than anyone else
03:08 – The importance of disconnecting with outcomes
05:06 – The Three C’s of Sales Failure and what metrics Chris tracks
07:51 – Scott takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsors, Outreach
08:29 – How Chris is working to develop his industry expertise
10:07 – Chris expounds on his role at Workstream
11:34 – Chris’ sales origin story
15:50 – Chris’s average deal size
18:04 – How Chris built an insane referral network
20:04 – Scott takes a moment to thank another one of today’s sponsors, Vidyard
22:40 – Scott reflects back on Episode 9 of the Sales Success Stories podcast
24:42 – Chris discusses what it’s like working with vendors
26:51 – Scott gives a quick shout out to his show notes writer, Kevin
27:48 – What Chris would do differently in his career if given the chance
30:15 – The experience Chris believes is necessary before an SDR becomes an AE
35:54 – Chris’ favorite sales story
39:28 – Chris’ proudest accomplishment
43:02 – How Chris measures satisfaction, happiness, and success
45:29 – Scott teases some of the guest speakers at the 2021 Sales Success Summit
55:46 – Scott takes a moment to thank the final sponsor of today’s sponsors, Skipio
57:56 – Chris takes the audience through a typical day in the life
1:01:35 – How Chris structures his workday
1:05:46 – The books, news, podcasts, and trade information that Patrick consumes
1:07:45 – Tools and apps that Chris utilizes throughout his daily routine
1:12:05 – Chris’ sales style and philosophy
1:15:07 – What motivates and drives Chris
1:17:00 – Chris’ high-level approach to investing and his thoughts on Tesla
1:23:01 – Chris’ approach to cryptocurrency
1:26:42 – One of Chris’ beliefs that the average sales professional would think is crazy
1:27:48 – An average sales professional’s belief that Chris thinks is crazy
1:29:24 – Advice Chris would give to an upstart sales professional
1:30:24 – Advice Chris would give to a middle-of-the-pack struggling sales professional
1:31:22 – Chris’ actionable challenge to the audience

Tweetables:

“SDR work is hard and not necessarily the most fun thing, but I tried to learn as much as I could from people around me. I tried to be aggressive in that learning piece of it and showing the hard work.” (13:03)

“I think, in the last two years of my sales experience, I would say focus has been this overall theme. Focus on a region, focus on an industry, focus on your company and how to better it, focus on your product, and how to become an expert in it. So, try not to lose that focus that you should have that will actually lead to sales.” (29:48)

“In my opinion, it [sales] is all about trust. It’s all about transparency. It’s all about loving your product and your customer.” (39:15)

“I always found it really interesting that people say, ‘Master your calendar.’ And I didn’t really understand, in the beginning, what that meant and how you could master a calendar. But I feel like, after a lot of trial and error, I have figured out how best to manage a calendar and really use it to my advantage.” (1:10:01)

Links Mentioned:

[email protected]
2021 Sales Success Summit
Chris Horton on LinkedIn
Workstream Website
Chris Voss’ Masterclass

Sponsors Mentioned:

Outreach
Vidyard
Skipio

Tools Mentioned:

Slack
Zoom
Scratch Pad App
Google Calendar
Salesforce
Outreach
Lusha
Zoom Info 
Gong
Text Scott’s Skipio/What’s App at (512) 813-0676

Books Mentioned:

The Power of Now
Fanatical Prospecting

In today’s bonus episode, Scott sits down with Chief Revenue Officer at Proposify, Conor Cox. Conor joins the show for a deep dive into the impact that proposal software can have on the closing side of the business. Scott and Conor discuss best practices to help you win a higher percentage of your deals and what Proposify is doing to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. Conor talks in detail about the importance of having visibility and control over your proposals and speaks to how he structures his team at Proposify to put them in a position to be successful. Finally, Scott and Conor talk about the impact Proposify is having on management and how that is impacting their customers.

What We Covered:

00:25 – Scott welcomes today’s guest, Conor Cox
00:50 – Conor’s top proposal tip
02:25 – Conor provides his background and expounds on his current role at Proposify
04:08 – How Conor structures his team and puts them in a position to be successful
11:55 – Insights Conor has observed from Proposify’s most successful customers
15:18 – Conor explains the Pod Model they utilize at Proposify
17:34 – How Proposify is differentiating themselves in the industry
19:35 – Conor expounds on the management impact the Proposify has
21:58 – Final thoughts from Conor

Tweetables:

“My best proposal tip is 100% to include video in your proposal and in the closing part of your sales process. For us, we’re seeing a 41% increase in close rates across the board when we started to use video inside of our proposals. It’s been a game-changer.” (00:55)

“The data that you also get out of a proposal that is an online format like ours gives you the info and the data you need to make really meaningful changes to your business, to your product offering, to your business model. So, whenever you can, more data is usually helpful.” (07:28)

“Moving into a cloud tool like ours and rolling out some controls and bringing all of your content into a central place that’s pushed out to reps transforms businesses.” (09:08)

“I would say the other things that we’ve seen is shorter documents seem to be winning more. So, if you’ve got a thirty or forty-page proposal that you’re sending out, really think about cutting that down and getting to the core sections that you need to show someone in order to move things forward.” (12:58)

“The first benefit is that pairing your Account Executive with the CSM is gonna instantly make hand-offs better and more seamless. And, for us, because we have both sets of those pairings, we’re learning so much more way quicker.” (16:11)

“The visibility and the control that using a tool like Proposify gives to management is honestly one of the biggest value props we have.” (21:17)

Links Mentioned:

[email protected]
Sales Success Stories Podcast
2021 Sales Success Summit
Conor Cox on LinkedIn
Proposify

Tools Mentioned:

Gong

Patrick Joyce is a true one-percenter and he’s also the first sales hire Scott has officially made in his journey towards building his very own world-class sales organization. Patrick has been a lifelong seller with a diverse background including graduate-level mathematics, secondary education, insurance, and SaaS. He’s consulted over 100 startups and has a reputation for his unique ability to craft relevant, multichannel messaging that delivers results. Patrick has Continue Reading …