Episode 127: If You Want to Be Good at Sales, You Need to Also Be a Good Person with EPI-USE Labs’ Pascal Kaldenbach

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)

What We Covered:

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