Clip from Episode 1: #1 LinkedIn Account Executive – Mike Dudgeon:

I think we’ve all heard the classic you know quote of always work for a great leader. Don’t work for a great company something to that effect. But you know there’s been times in my career where I’ve chosen a company over the leader. There was a big shiny brand that I went for versus a leader and I would say that that was a mistake that I’ll never do again. But the mentor standpoint you know for me at the time because I was a bit more introverted than most younger it helped me a time because he’s definitely over on the extrovert side and probably brought it out of me a lot more than I realized. But also was extremely kind and compassionate in the development main. I think he you know it was pure luck frankly getting such a good mentor I would like to say I was conscious at the time and liked him but he selected me and you know I think it was having compassion and understanding of my unique skills and I think he just did a great job of bringing them to me in such a short time. And I wish I wish I would’ve been more more selective or conscious of that decision especially even after that. I don’t think I realized at the time how great I had it but I would have. That’s one thing I guess I’d recommend that people be conscious of especially through the interview process and when you’re looking at leadership it matters so much. You know the results saying is is definitely there by making sure that you have a good leader who has a process but also has compassion to learn about you and understand your strengths and know how to put those strengths to use.

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Clip from Episode 1: #1 LinkedIn Account Executive – Mike Dudgeon:

My key theme is I don’t want to oversimplify this but you know I try to keep things simple so for me as you know every business has a process and so I always saw myself as almost this independent business within a greater company. It first starts with understanding that there’s going to be business drivers and there’s going to be business hurdles for clients that they’re dealing with. They want to take advantage of their drivers and they want to lower their barriers as much as possible so they can overcome them. So knowing that I can be active in the market place in terms of listening from clients but also the Internet is such a such a great trove of information that you can pretty much walk into a client and understand their problems to be able to least derive some insights both with what’s happening on the internet what’s happening with their business by talking to them. But also LinkedIn is a tremendous resource in terms of understanding insights about their business as well.

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Clip from Episode 1: #1 LinkedIn Account Executive – Mike Dudgeon:

What separates me I guess is I’m an over planner at times and that may be a little bit of the introverted side of things but I feel like with enterprise companies the ability to plan and make connections within these large companies can really separate you from others I feel you know most people try to go and kill the big whale so to speak at these big enterprise companies. But really you have to catch a ton of little fish and the only way that you’re going to do that is through planning.

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Clip from Episode 1: #1 LinkedIn Account Executive – Mike Dudgeon:

Being different is recognizing the strengths in yourself and kind of giving yourself the excuse to be yourself. I feel like in sales people still try to attain a certain persona which is almost like this extroverted type of person where they look and feel the same. I believe to differentiate yourself there’s only one type of you and that person can be highly different. So I think this is something that you learn over time. Some people learn when they’re 22 Some learn when they’re 42. And so I think it’s just continuing to ask yourself the questions in terms of what are your strengths what feels natural. And for me it’s always just been like what’s most fun to me and it’s always just been what’s been natural to me is just curiosity. And what I’ve learned over time which is actually was what we’ll get into later maybe is just kind of fear. Has it always been kind of my weakness. But at the same time it’s been the most fun for me when I’m taking when I’m taking risks.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

I think one of the biggest things is listen to yourself and take feedback. Even today, 7 years into my sales career I always ask for feedback. I ask for feedback from my customers, my prospects, especially the ones I feel like I have a good relationship with. I’ll always ask for feedback. What did you think? How did we do as a team? Also ask your colleagues. Ask your executives and people that are involved in these conversations that you have. So just ask for that feedback and I think you’ll find that people are very willing to give it and are there to actively help you improve. I’m a big advocate of listening to yourself so I record almost every meeting, demonstration that I do on WebEx. So I’ll fire it up, I’ll always ask for permission from the customer and kind of use it as a… I’ll send this over to you afterwards and you can share it with colleagues or what have you, but it’s really also a great opportunity for me to go back and listen to the conversations that I’m having. See how I sound. See what I can improve on. Help with objections as they come up. If I don’t like how i respond to something. Come up with a way to know how to respond to that better the next time.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

I think also, just kind of learning or deciding when customers or prospects are worth your time. I don’t think everybody’s created equal. Obviously you want to have as much opportunity as you possible can when speaking to customers or prospects. But it’s important to start figuring out when you should disqualify somebody and stop the conversation. I think is equally as important as continuing down a path that ultimately ends up in failure. So that was another big thing that was tough for me I think to pick up early on as you get excited with these conversations you have. New opportunities, and you want to take it to the end and there’s probably some white flags that you probably could have identified.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

I think one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned was that sales is really I think a learned skill. I think maybe I even came into sales thinking that people were just naturals. You had to be just a great smooth talker, and I think I learned pretty quickly that sales is something you can learn. Sales is something you have to learn. It’s something you practice. Something you have to have a lot of patience with, but at the end of the day it is a learned skill. So I think that was one of the biggest lessons that I’ve had to learn on my side to be successful.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

I think maybe one thing that the average sales rep would believe is that, and I think I’m guilty and maybe a lot of people are guilty of this especially earlier on. Is thinking that when I cold call somebody or I have a discussion or I call somebody out of the blue. That I might be bugging them or annoying them. I think it’s easy to think that especially early on in your career. I think you really have to have a mind shift, and I think I’ve had a big mind shift over the years where I truly believe that when I’m speaking with my customers. When I call somebody out of the blue. That I have value to provide and that they could benefit from having a conversation with me and benefit from leveraging our platform. I think that’s one thing an average rep could think is that I’m calling somebody out of the blue. I’m bugging them. When really it should be a mind shift of you should want to talk to me and you’ll get value from it and benefit from having a conversation.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

One thing that I try to do is really act like a consultant or mimic a consultant approach where one of the first things you need to do, especially as an introduction to a new customer, a new prospect. Is to really sell yourself. Separate yourself as a sales rep, and when I say sell yourself. Talk about your experience. So my experience in the industry. Talk about the successes that I’ve had with other customers. So I think a consultant has to sell them self first to really convince the customer that there’s value I can provide and value that you can receive from working with me. So I try to take that approach and then obviously the second part of that is really just listening. A consultant is going to have to listen to current pain points, challenges that that customer has and the final stage is to be able to propose a solution.

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Clip from Episode 20 featuring Cvent’s Top Enterprise Sales Rep – Barry Womack:

Definitely use the calendar to block off time. I think it’s easy, especially if you need to make phone calls during the day. It’s easy to get distracted with emails that are coming in. Customer are blowing you up about something. So it’s easy to kind of drop the phone calls that you need to make to respond and get back to people. I think to work effectively and efficiently you need to focus on the task at hand. I try to use my calendar to block off time slots where I can really focus on what I need to get done. A lot of what we do is long-term strategic type pricing, or working with marketing to customize a presentation for one customer that we’re going to in a couple weeks. So a lot of these are really time management and making the time to prepare for something that might still be a little ways off. So I think being able to block it off on your calendar is for me the most effective way to get that done.

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