Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

Are you going to prepare yourself just one be able to differentiate yourself from the millions of other sellers that exist today. But two how can you really go in into your customers or whatever you’re doing you know in a way that still unique to you so you don’t lose yourself like lose who you are. Because there is a corporate process or a corporate X Y or Z that you have to follow like you can’t that thing makes to me that made me you know successful was I never lost who I was right by trying to do any other processes or talking a certain way to a customer or whatever it is that you have you know recommend. My tip is figure out how you can one stay true to yourself while still executing corporate priorities because that will help give you these relationships or that the contexts are comfort to go have conversation with customers that are genuine or authentic because you’re presenting your authentic self at all times regardless of any of these other you know I’ll call external pressures of you being you.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

The first thing I really ask people to ask themselves is “Do you really want to do this?” And the reason why I start that way because it’s usually don’t as close in it questions like that. But at the end of the day it’s, you need to know if you really want to do it. And reason why is because it you know we just talked to this right. There’s a lot that comes of being an account manager or going into sales in general. That is not the same as some other roles or professions. And you know there’s just there’s things that are taxing on especially if you’re looking at being in that 1 percent you know that there’s just more that you have to do whether seen or unseen that gets you to that point. And so you have to really want that right. It’s just like if you want to be a professional athlete like that 2 percent of a population do you really want that? And do you want what comes with it. It’s not even do you want it, of course you want it. It’s like you want what comes with it. So that’s it. That’s like my first question that lead them to advises.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

So Phil you you talked about being a team player. I mean you basically made a transition to be the ultimate team player. Talk about what you’re doing right now. Yes, you know I left being an account manager and transitioning to another role in Microsoft which is so I’m still with an inside sales but I’m actually in a role that is focused on seller enablement which is interesting right from my point of view as I’m sort of this is nice buffer between the real world and the corporate glass box right which is really now being able to take content in all these different you know resources around Microsoft and give sellers the best of the best that they can go execute with their customers. And I do it at scale now being able to support close of about 1600 plus sellers around the world and our inside model to go do that with customers.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

Then when you get to a point of OK you are exceeding quota. There is this other reality that kicks in. OK well there’s everyone on your team is not hitting 100. So you have to, you know this is part of this being a peer an individual contributor but also wanting to be a leader is you know you see in a team review you see the team get, you know. OK like I’m doing great individually but there’s some of these elements that make sales as team sport right. You know I genuinely really want other people to do well or the team to do well. And so there’s this extra pressure that comes from yeah you are number one right. You know you’re striving to be there and the numbers are reflected but now you also have to help bring others along the way and that is a challenge because you know you get locked into being focused on your numbers but you also have to learn how to be a teammate. Right. And to to lead while trying to strive for your own individual goals.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

With that know being having the quarterback mentality knew that. You know when you don’t perform it’s all on you. Right. And when you do perform you know you can give other people the credit which is great. And you know you still feel good that you all won. Right. And so I wanted to make sure I always had the feeling of winning. Even throughout the year that you know you never you know you lose deals or you know deals get delayed or you know something happens. But you know my my north star is always what you put in is what you to get out. I want to put in 150 percent so that we at least I had quota anything extra it was just like cool like a benefit of just really really working hard. You know in investing myself in the business which you know I think goes back to you know the entrepreneurial part is you know entrepreneurs are grinders like they just there’s nobody that is out there that’s going to do it for them. And the mentality of like this is my business, these are Microsoft’s customers, rather than at the end of the day like Microsoft’s customers like I don’t own Microsoft but I removed that and said, “Now these are Phil’s customers.” This is my business and how I operate how I talk to them how I send an e-mail like every detail every bit of energy or sweat equity that goes into you know a customer conversation or a deal or whatever it is or you know building relationships with the partners or even internally right making sure I build the right you know internal relationships. It’s all a part of the building of the brands business which in this case is my 168 accounts.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

I said it to people like out loud it’s like I want to be number one. Right. You know and then the other part is like I told myself that. Right so I committed to myself. If I wasn’t going to be number one. Like I was damn sure gonna do everything possible just like in sports right. Like I was going to leave it on the call right. No there’s no field. But I was going to leave it on that call every time. And I was gonna go after it every day. You know and I felt like people were dependent on me and I really felt that extra layer of dependency or you know I even say pressure because like I appreciated it and welcomed you know that sort of responsibility. You know being sort of the last throat that a customer is going to choke.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

I had one day every week where I didn’t talk to existing customers and what I mean by that are customers that I actively had deals or renewals with. So these are customers sitting at my white space one day a week. I would just go after all new customers like didn’t have a partner or associate they were just just white space just nothing happening or I didn’t have visibility into what was happening. Neither did the partner. And so I would just go after those folks. Once a once a day once a week you know using one day to do that. And that’s probably the most impactful things I’ve probably could have done as an account manager is to go after customers that you know weren’t sitting in my E-enterprise agreement list.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

What I would do. I would recommend it to anyone who is after you get off a call when the information is the freshest in your mind to go document it. Because what a lot of us do is we think we’re super human. And I remember five conversations especially when they are like 30 minutes to 45 minutes to an hour plus conversations and you kind of took notes because you know you’re having a dialogue. It’s harder to go back or recall conversations that at the end of the day when you’re ready to go home or you’re you know you had to go pick up your kids or you have to go do something else. And recall these you know notes and nuggets of information that the customer probably gave you they probably gave you some gems that could help you go present or build the you know solution for them. But you missed it because you’d rather go at the end of the day and write down all these things. And so just doing it right then and getting it over with you know then you have then you can subconsciously reflect on the call you’ve had that you know throughout the day and then you can go back. Right. You know we’re getting some of that the meat of that conversation done at the end of every call is important.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

Organize my day that away and then I also blacked out like just my. You know of course time for like lunch. But what I would do is I use my, a lot of time I use my lunch and it’s just personal preference. I use my lunch to one decompress would decompress and to looking at or thinking about ways that I can help do other things in the business that were you know created were listening to something like their earnings calls like I would I was been I would have a lot of like working lunches as well just to maximize my day versus going to sit lunch and hanging out with. It sounds bad but it’s just like I was so focused on one I only had eight hours. Technically seven and two were I can really get after customers and I don’t really need to spend it just hanging out shooting the breeze especially my goal was to be number one. I have stuff to do, I”ll hang out with you later. I’ll hang out with you all at the company conference, when I know my pay out is going to be good. And I’ve done a great amount of work with my customers to feel like I had a productive year. So that’s kind of how I blocked out my day.

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Clip from Episode 39: Microsoft’s #1 Inside Sales Corporate Account Manager – Phil Terrill:

The reason why I say that is. So I spent time in the morning just making sure that my my responses and my inbox was clean and I was very very very like. I don’t like to have it and it sounds crazy but I don’t like to have an inbox full of emails. And the reason is like you get lost like they get with 100 even 100 accounts like there just so many moving parts so many people so many e-mails so many partners so many random things that come from Microsoft right where you need to to really make sure that you’re on top of all that. So I spent time in the morning depending on where how clean it was it might be 15 minutes but I had about an hour block of just in that early time where the time zone you know not applicable. I spent about 45 minutes doing all that admin work early in the morning.

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