“Treat every deal like you’ll work for that organization one day, because you just might.” – Scott Barker, Sales Hacker
Host Scott Ingram welcomes to the podcast Scott Barker, a top performer in sales, lead generation and business development. Scott is the Head of Partnerships at Sales Hacker, which was recently acquired by Outreach.io in August of 2018. Scott is truly an innovator and influencer in the field of B2B sales and technology. In addition to his role with Sales Hacker, Scott heads up the Vancouver chapter of Enterprise Sales Forum and sits on the board of the non-profit organization, Interfit.
In this episode Scott Ingram and Scott Barker talk all about Sales Hacker, the number one business-to-business community on the planet. At the company’s core, Sales Hacker creates content for B2B sales professionals, and Scott has been an integral part of that for over a year now. Scott talks about his successes as Head of Partnerships at Sales Hacker, including bringing in and closing one million dollars of revenue in nine months. Scott lists three attributes that have been vital to his success. These include being an expert in your field by giving as much value as you can, building a repeatable scalable process that works for you, and having empathy in the workplace.
Scott Ingram also talks to Scott about his former sales roles where Barker was a top performer. Scott maintains one of the most important aspects of his role is the power of storytelling. He reveals the secret to his immediate sales success at Payfirma, a company specializing in payment processing and financial technology. His big picture, strategic thinking along with his initiative and ingenuity have been cornerstones of his overall success. Scott recounts his favorite sales stories and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
We also hear about Scott’s proudest career accomplishment, attracting top-notch mentors who have challenged him to grow in his career. He stresses the importance of always leading with curiosity and questioning leaders in order to continue to grow. He talks about his greatest challenge, time management, and how he’s tried to combat this by utilizing different daily strategies. Scott also speaks to the hardest decision he ever had to make, and how it became a seminal moment in his career path. Scott provides insights and advice to those looking to become successful in the field of sales. These include thinking in the long-term, taking time for yourself personally, and creating your own sales playbook. Scott shares his consultative sales philosophy, which centers on an entrepreneurial approach where Scott takes full ownership of all sales projects he works on. Finally, Scott reveals his main motivation: happiness. That happiness comes from achievements in career, personal relationships, and much more.
What We Covered:
00:40 – Scott Ingram welcomes to the podcast, Scott Barker
01:07 – Scott states that there are three things he attributes to his success
02:55 – Number 1: The importance of adding value and being an expert in your field
04:15 – Number2: Finding a work process that works for you specifically
06:22 – Number 3: Having empathy in the workplace
07:33 – Scott talks about Sales Hacker and his role as Head of Partnerships
09:56 – The importance of going above and beyond what is expected in order to achieve success
12:01 – How Scott defines and quantifies social selling
14:28 – Scott’s background in sales
16:24 – What Scott would do differently if he could go back and start over
17:55 – Scott Ingram promotes the 2019 Sales Success Summit
19:45 – Scott discusses his results with Sales Hacker within the last year
22:29 – Former sales roles where Scott was a top contributor and the results he was able to achieve
24:54 – Scott shares the secret to his immediate success at Payfirma, a financial technology company
28:42 – Scott shares his favorite sales stories and the lessons he’s learned
30:59 – Scott’s proudest accomplishments of his career
32:28 – How curiosity attracted great mentors to Scott
34:02 – How Scott has tried to formalize his mentor relationships
36:29 – The biggest challenges Scott faces in his professional career
44:55 – Scott’s strategies for blocking off time for core activities
48:31 – Scott Barker’s morning “SAVERS” routine
52:30 – How Scott spends his time after work hours
53:49 – Other good habits Scott tries to incorporate into his daily life
55:41 – Scott’s personal sales playbook
58:05 – Scott shares a version of his playbook with the audience
59:25 – The process of iteration that Scott utilizes
1:00:39 – Consultative Selling as a sales philosophy
1:01:44 – Scott’s style when it comes to consultative sales
1:03:43 – What motivates and drives Scott
1:06:22 – An average salesperson’s belief that Scott believes is crazy
1:08:27 – Content-based Networking
1:11:00 – One of Scott’s beliefs that the average salesperson thinks is crazy
1:12:22 – What sales tools are working best for Scott today
1:14:22 – Advice Scott would give to upstart salespeople
1:16:10 – Advice Scott would give to struggling, middle-of-the-pack salespeople
1:17:34 – What Scott would want to know about other top sellers
1:20:10 – Scott’s challenges to the Sales Success Stories Podcast audience
Tweetables:
• “Build a repeatable, scalable process and then continue to iterate. Your job is not done once something is working.” (04:15)
• “I think it’s really funny that empathy is king in sales now. Could you imagine, ya know, telling the boiler room sales guys in the eighties that empathy would rule the day? They probably wouldn’t believe you.” (06:27)
• “Social is about, for me I looked at it as a way to open doors that previously may not have been open to me. Meaning, I could get in front of more influential people if they saw I was visible in the same realm that they’re in.” (12:23)
• “Treat every deal like you’ll work for that organization one day, because you just might.” (30:29)
• “One of my tips and advice for anyone new to sales is always, ‘Lead with curiosity. It’s going to take you so unbelievably far.’” (32:40)
• “People that are the top one percenters, you typically don’t see too many blips in their career. Ya know, maybe they’ve had a blip or two, but past that there’s not too many.” (43:38)
• “I think my gut check of when I’m like, ‘Ok, not feeling that motivated today, but let’s strip it down and look at my life and my accomplishments through, ya know, the eyes of my eight year old self.’” (1:04:32)
Links Mentioned:
Sales Hacker
Sales Success Summit
The Miracle Morning
The Miracle Morning for Sales Professionals
Sales Hacker Podcast
Want to see a sample of Scott’s Sales Playbook? Just email: scott [at] top1.fm and ask. He’ll send it to you as quickly as he can.