Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

For me coaching is a paid relationship. So it’s you know you get what you pay for. So if you’re really looking for very serious advances executive coaching can be the way to go. But you know that’s not necessarily possible or accessible for everybody and a good mentor should give you an awful lot of of what a more formal relationship with a coach should do. So I don’t I don’t necessarily know that there’s a huge difference but for me you know when I when I have my time with my coach that I’m paying for. I use that time wisely. And then you know mentors the great part about mentors is you know typically it’s a it’s a give and get sort of relationship so you may be able to offer them something but it’s something that’s just a mentor’s advice and thoughts and time is freely given. And so I think it’s it’s not a huge difference. There’s just a few subtleties that I don’t know if that’s a helpful answer but that’s how I think of it.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

I learned this from my my executive coach Jim Riviello and Riv said to me you know when we first started working together almost three years ago. He asked me how I define success, and I thought well gosh you know I want to make a lot of money. I want a title I want this I want that I want a nice car I want to be able to drink nice wine and he sort of laughed at me. He goes Yeah yeah. OK let’s let’s break that down a little bit. So he got me thinking very differently and this is what I tell everybody today is you know success for me is being the person that I want to be. And I can be that person whether it’s in the face of adversity if I’ve been cut off on the freeway if I’ve just been I’ve just lost a big deal. I can still be successful because my success is tied to the person I am and when I show up as the person that I aspire to be that’s when I’m successful and for me that’s defined as the person that my husband would marry all over again the person that my boss Matt would hire again and the person that my kids are really proud to introduce to their friends. So when I do that that’s when I’m successful and so that’s why I’m most proud of those things and what what really drives me.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

This mentorship theme has showed up a lot in these conversations. What advice would you have for finding mentors cultivating those relationships like how how did you find Mr. Walsh for example? Well I think it’s just finding someone that you look up to is a really critical part of it because if you admire them chances are that other people admire them. And that’s going to lead you to something. I think that would could possibly lead to your success so I think it’s number one it should always be somebody successful. It should be somebody that captures that which you’re seeking. So for instance what my mentors have always given to me is they’ve been successful in their field. Typically you know they don’t have to be a person who is older than you are. It could be somebody that’s a peer it could be somebody younger depending on what you’re seeking. A lot of times though mentors do tend to be people who are further along in their careers. And I think the benefit of that is sometimes you can short circuit mistakes that you don’t have to make if you can learn from their mistakes which is really cool. But I think some of it goes back to what we started our conversation with is building rapport. So you have to have something in common you have to have something that is a spark between you and a potential mentor and then a lot of companies of your companies have formal mentoring programs that can be a good way to just get an experience for what it’s like. If a company doesn’t do a mentoring program or if they don’t have a formal one you can always have informal mentors. Currently today at Percolate. I am an informal mentor for a load of people in our mid-market group which has just been a real honor for me.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

I had fantastic mentors and if I would just say if you’re listening to this and you don’t have a mentor. You need to find one because or an executive coach a coach a mentor can make all the difference in your professional career. And personally too. I had a fantastic mentor at the time you know who would listen to me and talk to me about my goals and I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said you know you really should be in sales you should go into sales because if if I were an Eskimo I would buy an igloo from you and a refrigerator to keep it in.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

A lot of times I would sit there like I mentioned to you I’d sit in these presentations just thinking oh my god do you even know what Johnson and Johnson does? Do you know we make? Do you care why we want to do this? And that’s when I sort of a light came on and I said you know I would be really good at selling. But by gosh I am not going to sell this way. So you learn firsthand everything not to do? In a way you know I did meet some wonderful people along the way. And when you ask me this question I thought back about those business solutions I chose to buy and they were the people that came in and really cared what the implications were for us. They cared about what was important. They made it easy to buy from them and they made it simple for for me and the team to understand. And they provided just everything as part of the solution that was important to us. And that’s. And they really understood the deadlines they understood what was frustrating for us they understood the budget limitations we had they understood why we were doing this project in the first place and how new it was to a fantastic company that’s not necessarily always the first to embrace technology. So that’s who we chose to do business with that those were the people that really made it simple and that’s it that really affected me as I became a seller.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

I think it really depends on the situation. But there are a few good ones so you can ask. I used to work for this gentleman who asked the best questions that I called skin crawling questions their the questions that make the prospective person you know prospective customers say oh gosh I didn’t think of that. So a lot of times it could be. So what happens if you don’t solve this problem so once you’ve uncovered the problem so. So what are the consequences so what happens if we don’t address this that your open ended questions are the most important. Of course I should’ve started with that. You know don’t ask something that’s yes or no if you can help yourself. A lot of times you’ll need to know those things but asking an open ended question can be really valuable in terms of your success in terms of what people will reveal and then going a level deeper. So a lot of times you know if they raise an objection you can sort of soften that and come back with you know a question that’s a little bit challenging or that might uncover more information and just don’t be happy with the first question and the first answer I think is the way I do it.

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Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:

And then the last thing for me comes from the genesis of my career where I wasn’t always selling. Before this I used to be the person sitting across from you Mr. Seller to buy something. And for me it came down to something I call so what. So I would sit there and I would listen to these vendors coming in to talk to me endlessly and it was really to the point where I was sitting there you know as they blathered on and on and on about how fantastic their product or their service was and I was thinking. So what? Do you even know what I do? Do you even know what’s important to me? And so for me I find that that’s a really a deadly mistake that sales professionals can make is going on and on. And so I try to always think about what is the so what are the what’s in it for me factor for the prospective customer as well.

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