Ep#112 Why Tech Sales is the Best Career NoBody Wants!

Host: Jon

Please join me in welcoming Nick Smith, cloud ecosystem strategist to the show. Nick, thanks for joining me. And Nick froze just like that. Sorry, Nick, you froze. I didn't even hear you if you said anything.

Guest: Nick

Let me close out a few more tabs here. Yeah,

Host: Jon

Yeah, yeah. Wow. This is going to be like, I want this in the recording. Nick. Nick. Nick, where are you at?

Guest: Nick

<laugh>, can you see me? Can you hear me now?

Host: Jon

Yeah, I can hear you. I'm just messing with you.

Guest: Nick

All right. Yeah, that stinks, man. I don't know what is going on. And I have the house all to myself today, so my internet was theoretically supposed to be better

Host: Jon

<laugh> what everybody else thought that's working from home today. They thought theirs is better, so they're going to download everything. <laugh>,

Guest: Nick

I'm sorry man,

Host: Jon

Don't worry. Are you ready?

Guest: Nick

Yep. Yep.

Host: Jon

3, 2, 1. Please join me in welcoming Nick Smith, cloud ecosystem strategist to the show. Nick, thanks for joining me.

Guest: Nick

Great to be here, Jon. I'm very excited. This is fantastic.

Host: Jon

So Nick, today we have a very important topic. Not only are we going to get to know about who Nick is, but really why tech sales are the best career nobody wants, and you're going to have to convince me on this topic because sales tech career, yeah, I'm not sure it's my language.

Guest: Nick

Well, I get where you're coming from, Jon and I used to feel the same way and I was one of those guys who didn't want to go into sales. And so I hope we get into this because it should be fun.

Host: Jon

Well, I'll tell you what, I have to do sales every day in my line of work. I'm not a salesperson yet. Somebody says you're good at it. And I said, maybe that's because I don't like it. I don't like selling people things. I like solving problems and solutions. And if I ain't got it for you, don't worry about it. I know somebody who does.

Guest: Nick

Yeah, no, something you said there you like solving problems. That's what it's about, man. And I think there are a lot of misconceptions about sales. You know, look in the culture, you see Glen, Gary, Glen Ross, you see all the stuff that wolf of Wall Street, boiler room and you think, oh, salespeople, they're all sleazy and they're in it for themselves and they just want to commission. And I was one of those people I thought that way. And then the other thing, hey, being in the tech world, everybody talks about STEM and how great the pay is, and now you're telling me, wait a second, part of my compensation is based on not guaranteed money. That sounds scary. So I hear everything you're saying. I think that's all valid, but there's a different side to that story that I hope we have a chance to get into.

Host: Jon

All right. Well, speaking of that, let's get into things. Let's understand who Nick is. Nick, give everybody a little bit of backstory on yourself.

Guest: Nick

Yeah, absolutely. So grew up in a non-structured environment, joined the Navy right out of high school, and then pretty much since then I did some technical roles. I was good enough to be technical, didn't enjoy it very much. I was always more interested in people than ones and zeros. And over time I found my way into project management and I was like, wow, the more time I spend with my customers, the higher likelihood my project is going to be successful. And then I realized, okay, well wait for a second. I'm just asking my customer a bunch of questions. I'm helping them solve a problem. And I saw what my sales team was doing and I was like, there's a lot of overlap here. And so I took the leap of faith and I went into sales and I've never looked back. And I love it. It's the best job in the world. And I mean, there's so much money to be made in tech sales. I'm making more than I ever dreamed. I'm helping people every day. I get to hear their stories, I get to connect with new people. I get to give whether or not I get a sale out of that. And it just feels really good.

Host: Jon

Nick, you joined the military, you said the Navy, right?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, that's right.

Host: Jon

How long were you in the Navy?

Guest: Nick

I did four years. Yep, four

Host: Jon

Years now. Why did you join the Navy?

Guest: Nick

Yeah so the environment where I grew up, it was wasn't great. So I was always told that I wasn't going to amount anything I lived in. I even suffered periods of homelessness. I was told that college was not an option for me. I was pretty much just told, Hey, just go get a job as a mailman or something. That was the aspiration. And so I didn't know what I was going to do. I had no direction, no guidance. And I remember talking to a recruiter, and this is going to sound silly, but I saw the crease in his dress uniform, the crease in the pants, and I was like, wow, that guy's squared away. I've never seen anybody even look like that before. And he was telling me about his whole life and how he got to go see the world and that for him, military service, service was the keyword in there, and how he was accomplishing a mission. And so it was really attractive. And then also they had me take a practice test for the ASVAB and they were like, Hey, you're actually kind of smart. You could do some cool things. And that was the first time anybody had ever told me anything like that. And so now I have someone who's pouring into me when everybody else had always told me, Hey, you're not worth a whole lot. So I got sucked into it and the rest is history.

Host: Jon

How old were you when you joined the military?

Guest: Nick

I signed up when I was 18, but there was kind of a delayed entry, so I think I was 19 by the time I hit boot camp.

Host: Jon

So you didn't grow up in the most structured household and you decided at 18 that the military was the place for you. You liked what you saw, and what you heard and wanted to strive towards you. Before we jump into why tech sales, because of everything that you mentioned at the beginning of this, yeah, everybody believes that about sales and the structure of it. And I want you to demystify some of those things and I want you to encourage everybody that sales are not what you think it is. Maybe it's a career path for some, but how are you in high school? How were your grades in high school?

Guest: Nick

I mean, they were decent. They weren't amazing. But here's the thing, I never applied myself because when you're told you're not even allowed to go to college, that just wasn't the plan. And so I didn't apply myself at all. There was no reason to push me to strive for anything because all that was doing was risking failure. And failure was this big scary word and you don't want to fail. And so I was sandbagging life. I never took a chance on anything up to that point because anytime you ever failed, okay, now you're going to hear about it and you might get your butt whooped over failing. And so it was just easy to, I'm just going to show up and do the absolute bare minimum and sit in the back of the class and just be invisible. I don't want to do bad enough that I'm in trouble over doing bad, but I don't want to do good enough that I'm getting attention for that either. I'm just going to be as average as humanly possible. That was my strategy growing up.

Host: Jon

I'll tell you what, a lot of people look at that as a typical strategy. So they're told they can't do well, they can't do, they can't drive more. And I'm going to touch on something in a second and you kind of remind me of me in this aspect. I didn't have as hard a household life as you have kind of shared with us but growing up the structure and everything wasn't there to do well. So it kind of resonates with me. I almost went into the military so I know what you're thinking about, Hey, I don't know what I want to do in my life. Nobody's out there and I'm going in there. So you went in into the Navy. What was your role there?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, I was a nuclear machinist mate on a submarine.

Host: Jon

Okay, you got me intrigued. What do you do?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, I worked on reactor systems in an engine room. It's one of the most challenging academic programs in the enlisted military which was a surprise like, Hey, I tested way better than I thought. And so even when I joined, they give you that test and they're like, Hey, based on this we want you to be a nuke and we're not going to even tell you about other options because we want you to do this. It's a hard billet to fill. And so now you have two choices or the choice between two things. You can either go on a submarine because all of our submarines are nuclear powered since the fifties, or you can go on a carrier and which of those do you want to do? And again, I had no idea what I was doing, so I was like, ah, I don't know. How do you even make that decision? And that's when they start selling you on, oh, well, you're going to get submarine pay and there's one galley on a submarine, and so you're eating the same food as the captain, and they make it sound cool. And so I decided to go submarine service and man and serving in a tin can with 150 smelly dudes and <laugh> recirculate in air, you create your oxygen. So it was a fun time.

Host: Jon

Sure, we can dive into that as a separate story, <laugh> in itself. We might have to do another one on just being in the submarine with 150 smelly people. But we're going to move on a little bit into the tech sales portion. Hey,

Speaker 3:

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Guest: Nick

So after the Navy, I didn't have a home to go back to. So the cool thing though is the military, they have something called a tap transition assistance program. So when you get out, they have a bunch of people come out on base and they teach you how to write up a resume. They teach you how to do a job interview. And then at the end of that program, they have a bunch of recruiters come out and they have jobs, field service technicians merchant marines. So the cool thing was they set me up to have a place to go and I was like, I don't have an apartment. I don't have anywhere to go. And I had this opportunity to interview for a hundred percent travel job field service technician. And I was like, Hey, that sounds kind of cool. I'm used to living out of a suitcase, so why not?

Guest: Nick

And so I became a high-functioning homeless person. I didn't have an address, but I had whatever place I was working at, they put me in a hotel and gave me per diem and all that stuff. And so I did that for about a year and it was fun, but after a while, it got kind of depressing. You have no roots, you have no family, you have no friends. You're in Springfield, Illinois for three days, and now you hop on a plane and you're in Mankato somewhere or these little towns that no one's ever heard of. And so I was in my young twenties at that point and wanted to meet a girl and establish a family. So I eventually was on a job in Ohio and got a phone call from a recruiter. They said, Hey, we saw your resume. We'd like you to interview for this position. I was like, well, cool. I'm actually in Ohio right now. You don't even have to fly me out. I can drive out and interview for this. Got the job went out and found, and I was renting out a basement <laugh> with three other dudes to just save on costs. I was like, I don't know if this is going to work out, but I quit that field service job. I took this new job and then I met my wife here in Cincinnati. And so now that's why I have roots in Cincinnati nowadays.

Host: Jon

So from the field service technician job role that you were mentioning and talking about, what was it?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, it was sales support. So it was still in the manufacturing realm, but I was kind of like the guy who would analyze someone's production. So let's say they're making a bunch of boxes on a panel bender and a punch press and a laser machine, they, we'd sell a whole assembly line. I was the almost like the solutions engineer, the solutions architect who would take all of that inputs and then figure out this is how much money it's going to save you on our equipment versus what you're doing today. So I wasn't selling, but I was integral to that part of the team.

Host: Jon

You were supporting the salesperson on what they were selling and showing the value of purchasing the new one versus running it the existing way.

Guest: Nick

Correct? Correct.

Host: Jon

All right. So after your sales support role, I just to recap, everybody, we're talking about how awesome sales are. Well, Nick is talking about sales and he's trying to convince me how tech sales are the way to be. Awesome. I have been in a pre-sale role, a pre-sale engineering role where it's still highly technical and you are helping the sales. And in the beginning, Nick was saying the movie's portrayed all wrong. The salespeople are not sleazy people. There probably are some out there. No, but in actuality, most salespeople, the ones whom you value the most will present you with a solution and say, maybe you don't need the buy now or later, but you also gain their trust and they want to solve the problem. And I think what Nick's trying to say in this is that just give 'em a chance and understand that they're not trying to sell you crap. Some might, but anyway you want to. The value of that, correct me if I'm wrong, Nick.

Guest: Nick

I, well, I guess I'll put it to you this way. The thing that I think a lot of salespeople do wrong, is there are a lot of people when they're first learning, they don't know exactly what's going to work for them. And so a lot of them get taught the wrong thing, which is to go out and just pitch people right out of the gate, and they don't necessarily get taught how to be empathetic or how to serve others first. And so sales do, in many instances, still have a high turnover rate and it still has a lot of those things that we're talking about that the reason people don't like it, it's still out there. I'm not saying that sales are perfect, but I'm saying there's a different way of doing it. You don't have to buy into the traditional methodology. And in fact, what I think separated me when I started getting good at sales is I didn't like the feeling of having to pick up the phone and call somebody and pitch them right out of the gate. I didn't like having to try and sell them a product, even when I did enough discovery to know, I don't really know that this is a fit for them, but I've got a boss here that's telling me to cram it down their throat anyway, it didn't feel ethical. And so I just decided I made a choice. I'm not going to do that anymore. Here's what I'm going to do. And I, no, I wasn't allowed to fail. I left a high-paying project management job.

Host: Jon

Oh, wait, wait for a second. Before you jump into leaving that for a second. You were at the field service position, and then you were at the sales support was the project manager position right after the sales support?

Guest: Nick

Yeah. So after,

Host: Jon

Okay, now we're closing the loop here. Yeah, you went to project management. Why project management?

Guest: Nick

I was young and trying to move up the ladder and project management seemed like a good way to, Hey, project managers make a good amount of money and they have people that kind of report to 'em on a dotted line basis. And I was trying to go the management route and I enjoyed it, and then too, I was young enough at that point, I was working at a company where you weren't even really allowed to go into sales in the manufacturing industry until you had gray hair. All of our salespeople at that company were, geez, these guys were in their fifties and had been in the industry forever, and they were almost like rock stars, but I was too green and too junior, and that wasn't a path for me. It was more in manufacturing before I made it into tech. And so I didn't think that I could be an actual salesperson until I made it into tech. And now I'm like, oh, okay, now there's a bunch of young people in sales, and that's a new path that was opened up for me.

Host: Jon

All right. Let's talk about project management. Where did you go? What was your next step?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, project management was the last thing I did before I became a quota-carrying salesperson.

Host: Jon

Right, okay. A quota-carrying salesperson that It's a scary thought, right? Excuse me. I still have it to this day where you have a quota to meet and if you don't meet at no paycheck, right? Yeah. I mean you're not making that quota. You're not pulling it in. Well, you have, oh wait, what do you mean?

Guest: Nick

So here's the thing, there's a big difference between companies that pay you only commissions and companies that give you a base plus commission. And so I don't think I would've found my way into sales were it not for the fact that the very first sales job I had opened up to me, I had an established relationship there. It was a company that had done consulting work at the company I was working at, and I had gone to some networking lunches and stuff like that, and I was trying to get into a consulting role at this company, but they didn't have that open. Instead, they had a sales position open and I was like, oh, well, maybe I'll do sales and that'll kind of be my way into consulting.

Host: Jon

So you picked sales thinking that hopefully, you'd get into the

Guest: Nick

Consult. Yeah, I was thinking of it

Host: Jon

As a was a way into the company.

Guest: Nick

That's right. And so I took this job in sales, and I even remember interviewing my boss looked at me. He is like, you've never really sold anything before. You've never carried a quota before. Are you sure that you want to do this? Because I've never seen someone come from project management and want to go in this direction. And he was very skeptical of me, and I was like, yeah, I want to give it a shot. I believe in myself. And they had offered, part of the offer was there was a base and the base was less than I was making, but I was like, I think I can live off of that and I want to prove to myself that I can do this.

Guest: Nick

And I had the guy I was going to report to, I was kind of an underdog, but I was like, what can I do to convince you that I'm capable of doing this job? And so he told me about a sales book. He's like if you can read this sales book in two days, because there are two days between now and when you meet with my boss, then yeah, that'll prove to me that you're going to do it. I was like, dunk <laugh>, bought the audiobook, bought the book, read through it, and I was already emailing him back and forth. I'm like, Hey, man, I like this chapter and et cetera, et cetera. It seems like not that big of a deal, but I don't think he expected me to read the book. I think he was trying to give it to me as like, you're going to be too lazy to read this book and then I won't have to deal with you anymore. But I was serious, and so I did it. Yeah. He then advocated for me.

Host: Jon

So he challenged you to read a sales book and from that he said, listen, if you do this, I'll advocate for you now, approve it. I think it's a huge chance for him to take on somebody that's green, and that's never done sales before. So he must have seen some value in you, even in the meeting or around it to give you this challenge to be like, what? It could work out. But before I invest any time, let's see if he does this one challenge. First of all, the audiobook that you got, did you like it?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, it was really good. And actually, you could say it was broader than just sales. It was never Split The Difference by Chris Voss. I don't know if you're familiar with it, F B I, negotiator guy, but fantastic book. Love it. Read it multiple times now, and I still go back to it today.

Host: Jon

Nice. All right, so your manager took a chance on you. You're hired. All right. And this is technical sales, correct?

Guest: Nick

Yep, it is. All

Host: Jon

Right. Help me understand when somebody's listening to this and everybody we're talking about why technical sales are awesome. I'm just paraphrasing a little bit. Nick is saying it's awesome. He's still selling me on the idea that it's awesome. I'm warming up to him just a little bit. So, everybody, we're talking with Nick Smith, he's a cloud ecosystem strategist around technical sales, and our whole topic is why tech sales are the best career nobody wants. Now, before you hang up, stop listening, you got to listen just a little bit more because what are technical sales versus regular sales, Nick?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, that's a great question. So I would say technical sales is when the product you're selling and maybe even the audience you're selling to, is a bit technical. So whether it's software or whether it's machinery or hardware or anything like that, you might be selling into an IT manager or a chief technology officer, chief information officer, a cisco, chief information security officer. So it's technical in nature. Many times they want people to have technical backgrounds or technical education. So I benefited from the fact that I learned some technical things in the Navy. I ended up getting an associate's degree in engineering and did my bachelor's in business. And so I had just enough technical know-how to be dangerous, wasn't an engineer, but I could speak engineering when I needed to and I could translate it into business value. And so that's what technical sales are, as opposed to maybe more traditional sales, people might think of insurance or financial solutions or there are millions of other things that you could potentially be selling that might be less technical in nature.

Host: Jon

Nick, did you say you have a bachelor's too?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, I've got three degrees working on a fourth one right now.

Host: Jon

So wait for a second. Wait for a second. Nick. Nick, you started how your life started out going from the unstructured to the military and saying that your college is not for you, you're not going to end an amount too much three working on your fourth degree, come from the military. Now in technical sales, I have a question for you and I'm going to wait till the end because there's more about technical sales that I want to understand, but by the way, congratulations on all that accomplishment. Thanks. That is a lot of hard work. Nobody who's ever going for their degree at all. It's a lot of time and effort you have to put in and especially when you're working a full-time job. So Nick, technical sales, you're in this role. How are you doing?

Guest: Nick

I sucked.

Host: Jon

Well, that's one way to put it, right? Why did you suck?

Guest: Nick

I way underestimated how difficult it was going to be. And I don't know if I told you this, Jon. So this guy, he takes a chance on me, he hires me, and this is at a tiny company, and it's me, the sales manager who'd been there two months, and we have another sales guy who's been there a couple of years. He's not performing exceptionally well. And so I'm there in my very first week expecting I'm going to get all sorts of training and everything. Not so much.

Host: Jon

It was going to be one of my questions. How did you learn? Yeah,

Guest: Nick

So not so much. So literally at the end of week one, I see this other sales guy with his briefcase walking out the door and I'm like, Hey, I'll see you next week. And he just kind of grunts at me. My manager walks up as soon as he walks out the door, he's like, yeah, T today was his last day. Like, wait for a second. So it was just me and I'll

Host: Jon

See you next week. And he's like, you

Guest: Nick

<laugh>. Yeah. And so now I'm like, uh oh, what am I going to tell my wife? Because I've got a wife and a kid and a mortgage, and I left this very secure job to take less money on as a base plus the risk of getting a commission. And so I was like, oh, crap, now I have to make this work. There is no going back, so I have to make this work. And it was beating my head on the keyboard for the first three months. I had no idea what the hell I was doing. And I think the very first sale I made, was at a factory across the street from me. And I think they've bought from me purely out of pity because I kept knocking on their door and showing up and being like, Hey, hey, remember

Speaker 4:

Me, I'm your friendly neighborhood over here.

Guest: Nick

They're like, fine, we'll give you a tiny little project and then will you please leave us alone? But after that very first sale, you get a high this, it's like it's addictive, and you're like, wow, that was awesome. I think I can start to do this. Now, before being in sales, I had learned a lot about Lean and Six Sigma and continuous improvement. And so I was just iterating because I didn't know what the heck I was doing. They handed me a phone book and they figured it out. But once I got that first sale, I was like, okay, I have some lessons learned from this first sale and then now what can I do for my next sale? And so with every additional sale, I was trying to improve my sales process, and then we eventually hired more and more salespeople.

Guest: Nick

A lot of these guys had 10, 20 years of sales experience, and yet I went from being the worst guy, sold nothing in three months to now all of a sudden I was breaking all these sales records and I was out selling people who'd been selling for 10, 20 years. And I was even kind of scratching my head, is this real? Am I just really lucky? What's the difference here? And I didn't know, but my hypothesis was, well, I'm continuing to iterate on my process. I'm continuing to improve over time, and so I'm doing things differently. I'm not buying into the old school, Glen Gary, Glen Ross, a pitch-out-of-the-gate model that all these other guys are doing. I just learned I'm going to try and be empathetic and serve others first and try and make it worth their time to talk to me whether or not I sell anything to them. And if I can provide enough value to them, they're going to like me and they're going to want to buy from me. It took a long time to get to that point, but when I did, sales became easy.

Host: Jon

So Nick, hey, let me give you an example of something I've learned being in sales and not by choice. Well, I guess by choice if you want to look at it. So I sell to a technical audience and a lot of my customers that I deal with, and I've learned this in the last couple of months originally when you started on your own, it's like, I need to make this sale. And now when I work with any of my customer's client's potentials, they're like yeah, let's do this. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait for a second. Why? What is the value you're looking to get from it? And well, we want to get this. Yeah, well, that won't provide you with the value you're looking for. And, I think right now where you're at company-wise, we should wait another month or two before we push this.

Host: Jon

There are X, Y, and Z coming up. We should invest in those versus this. And they're like, wait for a second, I want to give you money. Yes, you want to give me money, but it's not good for you in the long run right now because of the value that's going to be. And it's like, wow, he does want to solve my problem. And the problem that I want to solve versus the sell that others want to do is that I'm there for my customers and my clients, and I understand their network. They're people that I talk to daily. I just don't want the once-and-done type of relationship. And, if I sell to 'em once in 10 years, who cares? I have a long-term relationship with them and word of mouth grows faster than that one sale.

Guest: Nick

There's a word that's used in the financial industry and it's not applied to other types of sales traditionally, but I like this word and this is how I run things fiduciary. And the word fiduciary means you're putting your client's best interests first. And so isn't that

Host: Jon

Like a lawyer term?

Guest: Nick

I hear it a lot when you're talking certified financial planners and those kinds of folks, but I like that word a lot and I think even like, Hey, shareholders have a fiduciary responsibility, or I guess board members have a fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders, and that's the way what you're talking about, that's what that is. It's putting the client's interest first. And it's so powerful when you say, Hey, based on what you have going on, I've looked at your factory, I've looked at your plant, I can understand what you're doing and I know that you want to do this, but here's why you shouldn't do that today because you haven't fixed this other problem over here. That's big. And guess what, if I give you this tool now I'm enabling this problem and making it worse. So my recommendation is to go fix this problem first and then let's come back and chat three months from now.

Guest: Nick

The amount of trust that you build doing that is tremendous because most other salespeople are going to say, Hey, great, you're a fit. Buy my stuff today. And even if you're not fit, some of 'em are going to try and cram it down your throat. And so I love where you're coming from, and it also goes back to the abundance versus scarcity mindset. If you're so worried that there's scarcity, there's not enough business out there, you're going to have commission breath and commission breath stinks and nobody wants to work with you. But if you have an abundance mindset and you're like, Hey, there's plenty of business out here. There's plenty of market enough to go around, you don't have to make that one sale and you can do what's in the best interest of your client because, hey, I've got plenty of other accounts that I can talk to. A full pipeline solves all of your problems, I promise.

Host: Jon

Oh, I think I've said, I heard so many managers say that you know what? You've got issues. You're not happy, you know what? You can't afford that. What solves this problem? A full pipeline. So Nick, let's dive into it a little bit. We've been talking most of this show obviously about you and growing up and going through a lot of transitions and now you're in tech sales somewhere you didn't think you would be. What's your advice for somebody, one that wants to, okay, let's just say I don't want to get into tech sales, but there's no other job out there. I'm not sure I would like it because I think sales managers are, I don't want to say use the word croaks, but, I'm just not trusting the sales manager. Should I even attempt it? Should I be that anomaly?

Guest: Nick

I think the smartest thing to do whenever you're making any career transition is to talk to people in the role that you think you want to explore. So if you're open to the idea of technical sales, don't make a bunch of assumptions. Don't look at what Hollywood is selling because they're just trying to sell you a movie ticket. Talk to somebody who does the job and talk to more than just that one person. Talk to multiple people who are doing it and ask them, what's your experience? Do you like it? Do you dislike it? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? How did you get into it? Have those kinds of conversations and you're going to hear different perspectives from different people and it's going to be very enlightening to you and no matter what job you're doing, I think having those conversations with people who are all already doing it today, that's like the most important thing you can do because one, you're going to get education from it, but then two if you do it well, and those people now like you because if you've shown an inquisitive nature, they could even potentially be your foot in the door.

Guest: Nick

Now, my path that's pretty much what happened to me. I was in project management, I was kind of curious about the sales thing. I started talking to people at this other company, and I'm like, Hey, what do you like about it? And that's exactly what happened. I had that foot in the door who pulled me in and said, Hey, this guy, he's worked with us over at this other company. He's been involved in our projects. He seems to get what it is that we do. He's very inquisitive. He seems ready to be coached. So yeah, I think we can take a chance on him versus if I had just applied to the black abyss, which is Indeed or LinkedIn jobs or whatever, they have an applicant tracking system, A T s. I also like to call it the applicant torture system. You're never going to hear back from that. You need someone who's in the company to pull your resume forward and advocate for you. That's how you're going to get an Inver interview.

Host: Jon

I know originally, probably a year ago when I was using LinkedIn for open to work type thing, I don't think I heard back. I might have been 50. I think I heard back from one in it and it was like a startup. So my applicant was pulled relatively, threw a small pile. But I agree with you. All right, so Nick, let me give you a high hypothetical question where I am, I'm new, and I think I want sales, right? I see all this flashy stuff all the sales guys are doing, they're out buying this, they got all that. Is that why I wanted, do you recommend that I go forward to it just because I think I could do good at it, or do you think I should work at a company and follow around maybe some of the sales guys and see how they're doing it before pursuing that interest?

Guest: Nick

Your question, were you asking how to break into sales? Or once you're broken into sales, how to be successful that I was a little? So

Host: Jon

Let's ask and answer both of those questions. Okay, how do I break in and how do I become successful?

Guest: Nick

So breaking in, there are several different ways to do it. For a lot of people, their entry-level role in sales is an S D R or A B D R and many different companies. You don't have to have a degree, you don't have to have a great background. You just need that person on the inside who believes in you, who thinks you can do the job. And if you can tailor your resume, tailor your brand to, Hey, I think I could be good at sales, that's how you could do it. There are great programs out there. Bravado has Tech Sales U there's a company called Aspire Ship that has a tech sales boot camp. There are all these things out there and they're very cheap. And I wouldn't do anything where you have an income share agreement where you have to say, Hey, help me find this job and I'm going to give you 15% of my income.

Guest: Nick

I think that's exploitative. But there are boot camps out there where they will teach you how to sell. You go through the program, you have to pass a final exam, and you do a role play. That's like what Aspire Ship does. And at the end of that, you're in their employer network. If they place you at a company, that company pays them a placement fee, which tends to be less than if they were going through a recruiter. So it's a win-win-win. It's a win for the candidate. They don't have to spend a ton of money to get this training right. It's a win for Aspire Ship because they get their placement fee for finding the candidate, and it's a win for the company because now they have a new employee. So that's a great way of breaking into sales. Once you get there, be hungry.

Guest: Nick

Make sure that you're educating yourself. Read those sales books. Talk to the people who are the top performers, and don't just talk to the top performers at your own company. Talk to the top performers at all the other companies, right? Work on your network. Because I guarantee if you can talk to the top performer at a competitor, you're going to learn a lot of stuff from them or even someone adjacent to you. If you're talking to top salespeople all the time, Jim Roone has a great quote. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Host: Jon

And I believe in that quote,

Guest: Nick

Absolutely believe that I do. Go hang out with those people, ask them the questions, try and model what it is that they're doing, and you're going to get good eventually, right? It's just a matter of time you have to execute, but learn from them and mirror what it is that they're doing.

Host: Jon

So Nick, before I wrap things up, I have an observation that I would like to share with you and then I have two questions for you. My observation is that you're not a typical tech salesperson. And the reason I say that is as maybe your potential customer, Ray, somebody that you're talking to about something, I can see that you're not out to sell me anything, that you're truly out to solve a problem. I can get that from your personality from just speaking with you over the last hour, that it's not about money to you, it's about the solution and the long-term networking and engagement that you're looking for and the trust that you're building. Do. Am I on Mark?

Guest: Nick

Hey, I'm very grateful that you said all of those things, and I think I would agree with you,

Host: Jon

<laugh>. All right? And I follow you on LinkedIn and social media and I follow some things and I read people's comments about the person, Anna, that is going to be joining my podcast. I want to know more about them, and I want to know what people think about them. Your personality speaks for itself. So it comes through and that's why people will want to buy from you, not from just to give you money, but they trust you automatically. And that's how it comes across. So that's my observation.

Guest: Nick

Thank you. I appreciate

Host: Jon

It. I was pausing there, making sure you didn't freeze at all or anything. So now my final two questions, and I'm going to save this. My main question for last is I'm going to leave the opening here before we close things up, is there anything you'd like to leave with the audience with regards to not only maybe tech sales, but going towards it, your experience, the experience that you went through and endured, but in general, for somebody who wants to get into tech sales?

Guest: Nick

Yeah, don't give up. Don't give. Absolutely. And be open-minded, right? People hear sales and they recoil. And I got to tell you, there are so many benefits that we didn't even get the chance to cover today. Flexible work, you can work from home. A lot of these tech companies that need salespeople, they've got great benefits, healthcare, the dental, all that stuff at some of these companies, they're giving you shares. They're giving you equity in a startup on day one. That's pretty cool. The growth potential, the fact that you can come in and if you're able to generate a lot of revenue, you better believe executives are going to know your name. So you can advance very quickly in tech sales and make a great career. So there's just a lot there. And be open-minded to it. It's not for everybody, but if you think it might be for you, maybe explore it a little bit and then don't give up. Yeah, I mean, I would say that and then always continue to iterate just because someone else does it one way or just because you've always done it one way, that doesn't mean it's the way it should be done. It. Have a hypothesis plan on how you could make things better, run an experiment, and then study the results and figure out how you can act. Next, plan, do, study, act, and continue to iterate on your process and you're going to get better.

Host: Jon

I think iteration is key because, and I'm going to touch on it with my last comment because you were in sales and you were the only person along with your boss, and you were there for three months and now you were a top seller and you started to grow and the company grew and added more sales. I don't think you would've been able to do that if you didn't change and continuously improve your methodology throughout it. Remember, this was new, so you were still learning as it goes. And I think if you stuck with your current plan, you would still be there and not where you are now or out of a job. So my last comment and my last question for you, do you think or do you feel that your past plays a role in your future and you are who you are today because of what you went through, and that has always made you continue to strive and do more?

Guest: Nick

Yes. So I think some of the best people I've ever run into have ad have gone through adversity. And I think adversity forges your character because if you've gone through a lot, something I've noticed about myself, is I crave achievement because growing up, I never had somebody saying, Hey man, I'm proud of you. You did a great job. And so I felt like I had this big chip on my shoulder that I had to go prove to the world that I was worth something. And so a lot of the things that I did, it was because people told me, you're, you can't, right? You can't go to college. Oh yeah. Three degrees later, right?

Host: Jon

I'm going to show you,

Guest: Nick

You can't be in sales, you don't have any experience. Oh yeah, let me prove it to you. You can't do this. So that was fuel for me. And some could maybe even argue that's a little unhealthy, but guess what? I like that.

Host: Jon

I don't think it's unhealthy. I know other people like, you have nothing to prove to anybody else. Nothing to prove you're not going and proving it to anybody else. But it's still in regardless of how long. Oh, you should let the pass go. No, the past defines me and allows me to achieve and do what I want. Nick, I'll give you an example. I didn't grow up where we had a stable household. We moved around a lot in an apartment. My parents didn't have stable jobs, and couldn't afford three kids. And being able to reverse that and do all this stuff for my family makes me feel that I am doing everything I should be and want to do and not have my family or kids grow up as I did. And that strives me to do more. There's nothing wrong with my past putting me into where my present is I don't want to be where my past was. And I think it helps us.

Guest: Nick

I agree. Yeah. I didn't even mention I had to, they didn't even tell me I was allowed in the Navy because I had to lose 90 pounds to get in. So <laugh>, every single one of those things that I have the things I'm most proud of accomplishing, it was always when somebody told me I can't. So I actually, look for those things. What are the things people will tell me I can't do? And that's the thing I want to try next.

Host: Jon

Well, Nick, I'm going to say that you can't be on this podcast again because we have to end things now and a lot more stuff has to go on. How do you like that

Guest: Nick

<laugh>? All right, well, let's try and prove you're wrong there, Jon. But thank you very much for having me. This has been a blast and I hope it was of some value to some of your listeners.

Host: Jon

What if we just touch on one listener? It's great because we give them value and know that you can go through any type of adversity, but also understand that we were talking about why is tech sales awesome and the greatest. Well, Nick has changed me a little bit, and I'll admit that tech sales are interesting as long as you come from a customer perspective and not a dollar amount. So I find a lot of value in it. Nick, thank you so much for your time. This has been great.

Guest: Nick

Thank you very much, Jon.

Host: Jon

All right, everybody. Nick Smith, cloud ecosystem strategist, and my name's Jon Myer. Thank you for watching the Jon Myer podcast. Don't forget to hit that light, subscribe in, and notify, because guess what? As always, we're out of here.