100: You Can't Look Up and Down at the Same Time – How Lisa Palmer Embraced Research, Championed for Diversity, and Found Her True North

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Terryberry, Vidyard, and Alyce. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who are supporting this show and this community, click over to top1.fm/sponsors and show them some love. You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Lisa Palmer. Lisa works with Teradata as a global business outcomes partner, and she's in a really unique role that I can't wait to dig into. And we're going to be focused on some big enterprise sales discussions in our conversation today as well. If you're new to the show, it's important to know that I only interview quota-carrying individual contributors like Lisa who are the number one top performers, or at least in the top 1% of performers in their organizations. And Lisa has been busy doing some big deals. We're also celebrating episode 100 today. Thanks for joining me today, Lisa.

1:19 Lisa Palmer: It's absolutely my pleasure, Scott. I'm privileged to be here.

1:22 Scott Ingram: So even before we get into the context around your role and what you're doing, Let's start with some immediate value like we always do and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success. What are those?

1:38 Lisa Palmer: So, from a high-level perspective, Scott, and maybe we'll dig into them each a little bit later, but my top 3 are first and foremost, focus on the client. The client has to be the center of everything, and you have to genuinely care about what is going to make them successful. The second one is around building the strongest selling team you can possibly build. Be really smart and savvy about pulling together your best sellers and getting them on your team. And then the third would be around tight team communication and continually adjusting. So this is about making sure that that big, smart team that you've assembled stays in sync so that you have a common story that you're telling inside of your client's organization.

2:23 Scott Ingram: This is going to be fun. So I want to dig into each of these. But what I heard was that focus on the client and it's team, team, right? You talked about team really in both of your second and third points, but a big part of that is the way that you're communicating and coordinating with your team. And anytime we get into these big enterprise deals, so much of the work that you're doing is internal, right? It's, it's not just the conversations that you're having with your customer or your prospect, right?

2:53 Lisa Palmer: Absolutely. When I first got into selling, I had spent a great deal of my career on the buyer side. So, I've been in technology my entire career, and I was on the tech side and sat in that buyer's chair many, many times. And what I knew from sitting in, in that chair is that the buying process was very purchasing-oriented. It was make all the right follow the right rules to get things through the process. What surprised me when I got onto the sales side of the table was how much time I had to spend internally convincing and getting buy-in from those inside of my organization. That was actually quite a surprise to me. I thought that it was going to be this very staid process like what I had experienced when I was on the buyer side of the table, and that is not the case. These complex selling environments require tremendous amount of internal management of expectations, of resources, and frankly, politically making sure that you are staying in alignment with what your internal organization is trying to achieve, at the same time that you're having just as complex of conversations with all of the moving parts on the buyer side.

4:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, I have to imagine that the time that you spent in the buyer seat has informed a lot of your ability to focus on the client, focus on the prospect. What does that look like? Like, how are you thinking about them as you're structuring your pursuit?

4:28 Lisa Palmer: First, I'm incredibly empathetic, having sat in their chair. One of the things I think that we overlook from a selling perspective is the risk that these individuals face in their daily, in their daily pursuits. There are so many individuals who are not looking for those buyers to be successful. And if they fail, the odds of them losing their employment, and certainly in today's times facing a pandemic, if they fail, the results of that are painful, right? They will literally lose their jobs over it. Where we might fail in a pursuit, and certainly that's going to be disappointing and there will be repercussions for it, the buyers are actually at really significant risk. And so I am super empathetic to what they face and the challenges that they face. They're also very operationally focused, whether they want to be or not. Operations consumes a tremendous amount of their time. And we have to help them; we have to arm them with information that makes them look at the things that are visionary and strategic and give them talk tracks so that they are able to perform not only operationally, but we're helping them to be successful, to get their heads up, to look forward, and to really be visionaries in their organization. And if you're a strong selling partner, you're helping them to do that.

5:53 Scott Ingram: That's, that's great. And I know you've got some really innovative things that you're doing around that that I'm super eager to get to, but that's skipping ahead. Let's talk about this team stuff. Let's talk about both sides of building this really strong internal sales team and the way that you're communicating and helping align that team around the customer?

6:15 Lisa Palmer: When you're in an enterprise selling environment, you typically have many internal resources that you can pull on. You've got to find them, find the ones that are really great, find the ones that have the best technical skills to bring to the table, but they also have the best ability to connect with clients. They are committed; they are actively engaged in moving opportunities forward, and they're not waiting for you to tell them what to do. You're looking for these characteristics in people that you want to onboard to your team. And you want to make sure that they understand the vision for how you're going to go after helping this client to be successful. And that is at the basis of absolutely everything I work on. How do we, how do we help this client to win in the marketplace, to win in their industry? And how do we help that individual prospect to win inside of their own environment? And I like to look for people that not only have the skills that are needed to move us towards that success for the client, but I also need them to have the mindset and the heart for doing what is best for my clients.

7:29 Scott Ingram: How are you finding that? So, so first, how are you identifying sort of those team members? And then how are you getting them aligned with the customers? Is that a one-to-one alignment that you're trying to achieve? What does that look like?

7:43 Lisa Palmer: As far as finding them, Scott, it's really important that I network. I network like crazy inside of my organization as well as outside. I look for the names that keep coming up, those people that are the the rockstar performers, the ones that are getting called out across all different kinds of accounts in challenging situations, etc. I look for the commonality, and I, I meet those people. And I, I basically interview them. It doesn't come out quite that formally, but that's really what's happening, right? We're having a conversation. I'm getting to know them, getting to know what makes them tick as individuals, and really vetting them to see if this is somebody I want to add to my resource team. And understand that I may not have permission, per se, inside of my organization to add them to my team. But I will. Once I identify those people that I feel like are absolutely critical to our success, then I can articulate what each one of them brings to the table and why I need them on my team. And so as far as that finding them part, it's all about that networking that we do, just like when we're trying to do prospecting, when you are building out your network for external activities, etc. It's the same thing, but I apply those, those principles inside of my organization to find people that I want on my team.

9:02 Scott Ingram: So good. I mean, that, that reminds me of my favorite networking article of all time, and I've read so much stuff and, and really studied networks in general. There is a Harvard Business Review article called Better Sales Networks, and I, I reference this so often I have a shortcode for it. So if you go to top1.fm/hbr for Harvard Business Review. It'll actually take you directly to that article. Of course, we'll also have it linked up in the, in the show notes. And this is a fun one that'll be at top1.fm/100. So Lisa, the last part of that question, and I have a really bad habit of asking 2 questions at once and I only get one answer. So the second part is, so once you've got that person, whether you have permission to use them or not, that, that's irrelevant. We'll, we'll include them because we're, we're going to grab the best people. How are you aligning them with a customer? How are you thinking about that and those dynamics?

9:52 Lisa Palmer: So I'll reflect back on the first item, which was, make it all about your client; focus on your client. I'm a huge believer in research. And so I spend a great deal of time researching the company itself, researching their industry, researching the individuals that are potentially prospects or that are heavily invested in in our enterprise relationship. And I bring all of that to the table in conversations with my internal team. It's very important that the team has a vision for how that customer is going to win in the marketplace. And so we spend a lot of time talking about what that customer's corporate objectives are and what are those, what are those key initiatives that they are going to have to be successful at to move the needle on the corporate objectives. So I really take my team and just immerse them in what makes that client successful. The interesting thing about that process is that most individuals inside of your client organizations don't have the time or don't take the time to do that. So what I'm doing, as I take them through, my internal team through that process, is I'm building an understanding that they are going to be able to bring to the client that's going to immediately create value for them. So not only are we educating the internal team, but I'm creating an understanding that will generate lines of conversation that each one of those team members can have when they're in one-on-one conversations with, with the client and individuals in that organization. So But it's all got to be about the success of the business and the success of the individuals that we are researching and targeting.

11:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you called out this idea of them just not being very good at doing these things internally. I think any of us that work in very large enterprise-scale deals, a lot of the value that we're able to bring is helping them understand what the left hand is doing, right? They're the right hand; they don't know what the left hand is doing. It's just sort of a classic big company sort of move, and that opportunity to bridge some of those gaps and even help them network internally, right? A lot of times they'll have peers that are trying to do the exact same thing, and they don't even know about each other.

12:16 Lisa Palmer: They may have peers that have already done it successfully, but they could be that they could just leapfrog their own effort forward if they simply knew about it. So you are spot on with that, Scott, and that is something as enterprise sellers. That is incumbent upon us to help them to communicate across their organization, because we see things from a lens that they don't have the opportunity to see it from. And so that's, it's our responsibility to bring those conversations to them, to help to educate them and to elevate the success of their organization through those communication channels. I feel really strongly about that.

12:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we're coming back to that. But first, we still have to talk about how you are really driving the internal communications and the adjustments that you're having to make as you're working through a very complex set of conversations internally and with your, with your client.

13:13 Lisa Palmer: Absolutely. So, it's an ongoing iterative process, Scott. So, I start out with that immersion in what will make the client successful. We have scheduled meetings that are a minimum of 1 day a week. Where we are communicating, building a plan, who's going to be doing what, what happened with activities that happened the prior week. There's at least one weekly touchpoint meeting. And when we get deep into a particular pursuit or something, as we're getting closer to closing, then those conversations become more frequent. You know, the gap between them becomes every other day as we're trying to get a deal across the line. So That ongoing communication and making edits to the prior plan based on what we've learned. You may have learned something, you may have a team member that learned something on Friday that readjusts everything that we actually had planned for the following week. And we've got to get in front of that and make adjustments. So it's important to have ongoing touchpoints. And of course, there are so many tools that you have available to you. You just have to commit to whatever is going to work for your team. So, we use, we use video calls, we use phone calls, we use email, we use Slack, we use… goodness, I mean, just, we use text messaging, group text messaging. So, there are lots of different mechanisms that we use. But for that particular team that you're leading, you have to know what's going to work for them and what mechanism to use in which situation. So, We've got the standing meetings on Mondays. And if I've got something that everybody needs to know right now, we have rules of engagement, meaning if there is something that we believe is critical for the overall team to know, that happens in a text message. And that's the expectation is that as soon as they know it, the team knows it.

15:08 Scott Ingram: That's excellent. I wonder how much you also think about… so, a lot of the work that I do, I don't have any formal training. As a project manager, but I feel like a lot of the work that I do is that project management, right? Is being clear about these are the next steps and, and who's responsible for what and what is the order of operations. And there's a lot of accountability in that. And, and obviously the communication is, is really key. Does that resonate? Does that feel like a big part of, of what you're doing?

15:41 Lisa Palmer: It absolutely resonates with me. I actually did project management for a portion of my career when I was on the, you know, when I was an IT practitioner and have even taught some project management through the years. So I am absolutely in agreement with you that a lot of it is about making sure that you have a plan, you're working your plan, and you're dealing with the resources, which if you look at it from a project management perspective, you, you're looking at quality, you're looking at timelines, and you're looking at cost. It's called the Golden Triangle. And inside of that Golden Triangle, the old adage is you can only have 2. So you can go fast, but it's going to be… you can go fast, but it'll be lower quality and higher price. You can pay less, but it is probably going to take longer and potentially have lower quality. So, you know, that ideology behind project management definitely resonates with me. And those are the conversations that we not only have to have some difficult conversations inside of our organization, because sometimes you have to have those discussions upward and with peers about what is the trade-off that you're going to get if you, you know, if you move things along, around on that Golden Triangle? What's the trade-off that you're going to have internally? And you also need to have those conversations with your clients, that if they're asking you to do something really inexpensively, OK, we can get there. But The quality of what you're going to get is going to be reduced from that. So, you know, having those conversations, to me, if you understand the trade-off around that golden triangle, it's really powerful.

17:25 Scott Ingram: So good. All right. We really need to provide some context here. So why don't you put this in perspective and what exactly is your role at Teradata?

17:37 Lisa Palmer: So my role is a little bit unique. I am officially part of the consulting organization inside of Teradata. And I work in, as we've talked about here, a heavy team selling environment. So, I have an enterprise account director that handles the, quote, account management elements of our team selling environment. And there are a myriad of other individuals on my team as well. My role within it, within the team scope, is to help to take the incredibly technical things that we do from a data science and analytics perspective and translate those into the business outcomes that can be created for a client from that work. And so it's an unusual situation to be in, but it's very important when you're working with data and analytics, you're working with machine learning, you're working with artificial intelligence. Those are not things that are obvious in how they work or what can be created with it. From an impact or outcome perspective if you're a business person. So, having somebody like myself who bridges that communication gap and helps to build a vision for what is possible from a technology perspective, all with the intent of creating and driving outcome for the business that we're serving.

18:59 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Yeah. So, it's certainly an interesting role. I mean, you and I have been talking for a number of months, and I kind of dangled the, yeah, I would love to talk to you because this is fascinating. But we need to have a little bit more in the way of results. And you came back to me pretty quickly, having done a couple of deals. Can you just kind of put the results side in perspective? Like, how are you measured and what have you been able to do here recently? Before I let Lisa talk about her super impressive results, let me first tell you about Terryberry, who's all about recognizing and rewarding this type of performance. Recognition drives performance, and Terryberry understands that what gets recognized gets done. Organizations all over the world have turned to Terryberry and their award-winning 360 recognition platform to recognize people for their contributions towards success. If you understand that a powerful recognition solution can help you drive the success you're looking for, let Terryberry help you build a culture of performance and recognition today. You can learn more at top1.fm/terriberry. That's T-E-R-R-Y-B-E-R-R-Y. Now back to Lisa and her results.

20:10 Lisa Palmer: Sure, Scott. So, in Q2, for example, which was challenged for many organizations, obviously with a pandemic, it was a difficult time. We were very successful in Q2 and my team closed roughly $44 million in business in Q2.

20:27 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. And we're going to come back to kind of working through some of that challenge stuff, because I know that you've got some, some great perspective and even maybe some tools there. But I also want to provide the context in terms of how you got here. So, walk us through kind of the origin story and professional journey a little bit to help us understand. I mean, there's, there's project management that you've done. What are the ingredients that have sort of led to where you are now?

20:54 Lisa Palmer: And I have been accused of having an unusual background, and I think that's probably fair and accurate. So, I started out, my undergraduate degree is in engineering, I started out In… actually, I spent 3 whole months working in an engineering function. I learned all of the data structures and created some output that landed me in an IT role, and I have been there ever since. So, I worked from a technology perspective across all elements of the tech space. So, for example, I worked in infrastructure, I worked in project management, I worked in customer support. Managed a global team of individuals that were responsible for approximately 45,000 desktops when I was in an energy role and worked my way up to a Chief Innovation Officer role, which was a combination role of both CIO and CMO. So, I had the opportunity through all of that interaction on the tech side of the business to work a lot with the Microsoft team. And as a result of that, I had many relationships there over the years, and they had an opening in their enterprise selling organization and approached me about joining their sales team. And when they first approached me with that, I scratched my head a bit. I'm like, all right, I've been in IT operations for the bulk of my career. Do I really want to do this? And I thought, this is a fantastic opportunity for me to add revenue-generating experience to, you know, to my key experiences and to continue to grow as a professional. And growth is a very important thing to me. And what better place to do it than to go to Microsoft? So, I had the opportunity to work at Microsoft and run an enterprise geo for about 6 years with them. Biggest learning there, I mentioned a little bit before, was all of the internal work you have to do to get a sales deal done for enterprise clients. So that was, it was a fantastic opportunity in my life. And then I have real personal passion around education. I think that education, it's an equalizer. And I have volunteered in the K-12 and higher ed space for many years. And I had the then-president of community college, which has approximately 35,000 students, come to me and ask me to do a turnaround activity on the only business unit they had that is required to be profitable. So I spent 12 months, as I refer to it, as my community service period, because that's about how much they pay you, doing a full P&L turnaround on a business unit in public sector, which gave me tremendous empathy for the challenges that those in public sector face in the, in the pursuit of their missions. And That was an incredibly valuable key experience to add to my portfolio. Then, right before coming to Teradata, I spent 5 years running half of the United States for Gartner's Executive Program offering, which is… it is a research-based offering that has a one-on-one coaching relationship with an ex-CIO. Approximately 45 ex-CIOs who were service delivery and renewal salespeople that serviced around 740 executive clients across, across the U.S. and some of those global clients as well. So gave me tremendous understanding and respect for the challenges that face all executives. And as I mentioned before, the risk profile that they face every day when they go to work.

24:44 Scott Ingram: And that is fascinating. I mean, you're… that is, that is a super broad background. I'm curious about Which pieces of that, and maybe just pick 2 or 3, do you find that you use the most in your just kind of day-to-day sales efforts?

25:02 Lisa Palmer: Empathy. I think that empathy is incredibly important, both with your clients as well as internally with your team. So, having that broad background and perspective and having literally lived in the shoes of many of those with whom I work and with those I serve. The empathy is just incredibly important. Communication and having the opportunity to learn how to communicate across cultures, across, in many cases, with people from multiple languages, having the opportunity to deal with all different types of industries and the communication differences that come with those situations. All of that makes you hyper-aware of how easy it is to have a miscommunication or a complete gap in communication. And that is just absolutely critical to being successful in these complex selling environments, is that hardcore, continual focus on communication. And then the project management part that we talked about, Scott, is super important. You've got to keep everybody in their lane and understanding what they are supposed to do to move us towards success. And then holding people accountable from a timeline and resources expended perspective.

26:21 Scott Ingram: So given that background and all that you've done and knowing what you know now, if you were starting over today, right, and you were sort of assembling a career path, where would you start and how would you structure that?

26:35 Lisa Palmer: There's a popular adage that there's a career ladder. And I subscribe much more to this idea that there is a career jungle gym. There's a fantastic Harvard Business Review article on how to pursue a career as a jungle gym. And that really resonates with me because it's about making sure that you are networking, that you are looking, you're actively looking for connections, and that you are looking for key experiences to add to your portfolio of understanding. And that, that may be a lateral; it may be only a little bit up and to the right, or it may be completely straight ahead, like a typical career ladder idea might strike you. So, but the idea of being focused on networking and building your key experiences so that you become a valuable asset to those that you speak with and those that you serve, you have to do that through investing in yourself and committing to do the work. There is no shortcut. You have to do the work. I wake up every morning for the last 20-plus years and I read for 2 hours a day, every day. It's been that way for a very long time. And doing that, making that commitment to your own edification, making that commitment to reaching out to people that are near to you and helping to expand that network of individuals that you know and letting their knowledge inform what you know, there's so much that you absorb from these incredibly smart people that you will come across if you make the effort to know others.

28:25 Scott Ingram: Wow. Wow. And now I think of this in a figurative sense. I do not mean this literally. This is not a comment on your actual physique, but it seems that you have very long arms.

28:36 Lisa Palmer: I really think it's important to embrace the diversity that is available to us today. So if I were to reflect back, Scott, on when my career first started, we didn't have LinkedIn, for example. And LinkedIn is such a powerful tool. I cannot, I cannot overstate it because it is the opportunity for you to literally reach out to any professional individual around the globe based on their expertise. Imagine the power in that if we actually commit to using it and and learning from all of these people and helping them to meet their goals and sharing your knowledge so that they can better themselves as well. So, I mean, that is, the ability to elevate ourselves and our ability to serve others is higher today than at any time in history.

29:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, gosh, so right on in so many ways. I mean, just, just a great definition or way that I think about kind of this broader sales success community, right? You've got people all over the world in all kinds of different roles and different experiences and doing different kinds of sales and different industries. And there's so much opportunity for us to learn from each other. And to your point, like be a little bit, take that jungle gym approach and not think quite so laterally in terms of the way that this all comes together. I want to talk about something that you gave me a little bit of a preview of as, as we were getting ready to hit the record button. And just this idea that especially right now, and this is what I love about this show and the fact that, you know, it's always been focused on top performers. And at this point, I'm less focused on people who had a great deal of success and were number one in the organization in 2019. I'm much more interested in finding people who are finding success real time right now because the sales and the environment environment has changed. So, what, what are you seeing? What's working for you? What's resonating in, in those areas and the way that you're going to market right now?

30:51 Lisa Palmer: Things changed almost overnight. That's our reality. And inside of my organization, we have a lot of individuals who are used to having brand credibility and permission to literally walk the halls in our clients' locations. And overnight, that ability to interact with our clients, to prospect in hallway conversations, to look for those inflection moments, because inflection moments are incredibly important… we used to do all of that real-time and live on-site with our clients. And then overnight, we couldn't do that anymore. So one of the things that was immediately clear to me is that we had to shift the way that we prospect and the way that we are creating value for our clients, literally overnight. And so one of the ways that I went about this is to create a visual prospecting tool, and literally map out so that everybody on my team can understand, where are those areas of the business where we think we can help them? When we're facing something like a pandemic, we want to be able to… we're data and analytics We're machine learning; we're artificial intelligence. All of these things ought to be able to help our clients in these moments of angst and serious challenge that were facing them. So we used a visual prospecting tool to identify those areas of the business where we felt like we could have an impact leveraging data and analytics on their behalf. And then from that visual prospecting tool. Now let's jump over into Sales Navigator and let's look for some commonalities, whether it be titles, keywords, areas of focus, particular departments inside of the business. We had a, I had a very specific set of things that I had identified that I felt like would drive, drive some prospecting opportunities for us. So we leveraged Sales Navigator to identify individuals to have those conversations with. And then in many cases, literally reach out to people directly through LinkedIn. And they're able to immediately look at your profile, see that you're a credible individual, see that, that you're connected with other people that they know inside of their organization, which also gives more credence to your credibility. So literally reach out to them through LinkedIn and start to open dialogue around how we could help them. And some of those conversations start out very simply, like, what education can I bring to the table for you about how you can use what you already have in place to create a different outcome for your business? Because we know everything changed for you overnight. So it's about approaching them with a service-minded mentality about how to help them to be successful. And then follow that through to where it leads you. So those elements and kind of tying those things together. And then the next piece of it is once you have built credibility with these individuals, individuals, leaning into what is popular today. And what's become incredibly popular over the last 6 months is this idea that we're going to elevate individuals' knowledge and share people's knowledge through things like podcasting and livestreaming. And so asking these individuals who are experts inside their own organization to jump onto Vidyard with us and do a quick recording of a story about what they're doing with data and how that is impacting their ability to serve their end customers. And then use those conversations with those individuals, obviously with their permission, as a warm introduction to another area of the business where we didn't currently have a foothold and we wanted to be able to get in there and help that part of the business as well. So leveraging a lot of those, the tools that are available to us today and piece them together in a really creative way so that we can prospect and serve our clients all using a completely different approach than we would have done 6 or 12 months ago.

35:11 Scott Ingram: So Lisa is going to be generous enough just to provide some context around this. We're going to have an example of kind of this visual prospecting tool that she's created, and we're also going to try… we're not going to commit to this yet. We're going to try and see if there's a shareable example of one of these kind of internal Vidyard ideas that she has created. And so, we'll have that available for you again if you go to top1.fm/100. Or the other way that you can get to all these episodes is a nice little shortcut is you can go to top1.fm/lisa-palmer, and we'll have all these resources and all these links and all of this greatness. So, really excited to be able to share those examples with you, assuming that we can find some, some shareable things. Lisa, from there, why don't we talk about, you know, I feel like it's important given the title of the show is Sales Success Stories, we should probably tell a story of a sales success. What's, what's your favorite? Maybe it's your favorite win. It's just, you know, something that, that you are really proud of that, that you've been able to do from a sales perspective.

36:16 Lisa Palmer: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that a good example is I worked with an individual in a, say, Fortune 50, without being too specific here, Fortune 50 situation where we had a net new executive role. And that individual was being brought in to create a new data organization. And you have to understand, again, if we put ourselves in the shoes of these individuals, of these executives, and you're being brought in to create a function that hasn't previously existed, there are very few people that are actually rooting for your success. So, specifically, if you come in to create a data organization, you are most likely going to be taking turf from individuals around your organization, around your enterprise, because it's not like you didn't have… they didn't have data before this individual arrived, right? And so it's a very tenuous position when you have an executive who finds themselves in a net-new position or in any new role. Whenever they come into an organization, they are at risk. And the tenure of executives has continued to shrink over time. Gartner actually has some fantastic statistics around the longevity of individual executives. And If you were to look at somebody like a Chief Information Officer, for example, their average tenure is 4.2 years and falling. And the first hump of that happens at around 18 months. So imagine that an executive in an existing role has about 18 months to prove that they're a good fit inside the organization and that they're going to create desired business outcomes, or they're out the door. So now add the complexity of, this is a net-new role, where this individual has to manage through all of the politics of taking turf from other parts of the organization and create a situation within which they can be successful. And to make matters even more challenging, this individual is given an 8-month turnaround time for a critical initiative. And so this is a particularly happy story for me because we were able to get access to this individual, actually through social selling tools, within the first 3 weeks of him being on the ground in the new role. We were able to secure that conversation and start to have really deep dialogue around a created point of view So if you reflect back to what I said about crafting a team and immersing them in how that organization is going to be successful, we create a point of view that says, here's how we believe we can help you to meet your corporate, your company's corporate objectives. And bring that point of view in, have it on, basically onboard the client or prospect to that idea. And then get them bought into that vision and deploy against the vision. And having the ability to do that, make the sale, and then more importantly, bring it to life so that not only that individual, but the entire enterprise won as a result of getting that initiative out the door and creating the desired business outcome that they had set out to create, it's just incredibly fulfilling that you've helped not only someone to secure their individual job, but all of the people who touch that and are around that. You're literally helping to secure jobs in the face of, you know, tremendous layoffs. You're allowing them to be able to serve their end customers and to deliver product that is needed by the masses. It's a very fulfilling thing to have created that point of view, been able to bring it to life, and to actually be helping people at the end of it with all of those desired outcomes.

40:41 Scott Ingram: That is such a great, great story. And as you were telling it, I realized that, I mean, there's so many similarities when we get into the big, big enterprise conversations that I've done this on the SDR side, but I haven't done it on the enterprise side. So, if you're an SDR and you want to listen to those episodes, if you go to top1.fm/SDR, I've assembled all of those interviews there. But if you're enjoying this, if you're loving this, because I am, then I'm going to have a link available for you. It's not there yet, but by the time you listen to this, it will be. If you go to top1.fm/enterprise, I'm going to put together all of the whale hunter friends that I've had on this show. So folks like Trong Nguyen and Jamal Reimer and Evan Kelsay and Brandon Fluharty and folks that are, that are working on these, I think most of them are focused on kind of the 8-figure type of deals. We'll put together that, that resource for you. So the thing I want to come back to in that, I want to talk politics, but not who you're gonna vote for. That's a third rail. I won't touch it. How are you managing that? Because that is, it's such a hairy thing. I think it's something that it's always in play. Whether you're aware of it or can see it or not. How do you think about it? How do you manage it?

42:03 Lisa Palmer: In these situations, you have so many players at the table. So, you're not just talking about managing the customer's environment and managing your internal issues. You're also managing all of the other partners or vendors that are involved in this situation. You're managing the, in many cases, fears… and politics, of course, are often based in fear… you're managing that across dozens, literally dozens of individuals who are in very unique-to-them situations. So as far as how I manage that, it's really important that I step back and I think about every player that is involved, their organization, And how do we help one another to win? And when I say win, I mean that we need to be moving in a direction that always serves the client. And I firmly believe that if you get everybody in your ecosystem clear about how the client is successful, and you get everybody pointed at what I call true north, this is this is what good looks like. This is what success looks like. And you got everybody bought into that. The reality of it is that each player in that situation starts out with a disparate view of what good looks like. And it's really critical that you onboard everybody to some common picture of what success looks like. And that you keep bringing people back to center when they get off, when they start to get off track. And you reorient people to what good looks like. And as the sale progresses, you have to adjust. And as each of you learns and you get new barriers introduced into the environment, and you become more aware of details that you weren't aware of before, etc., you got to make sure that you're continually orienting people towards what good looks like. And what that means is that you have to have some really frank conversations about situations where you are going to have to give a little bit, and another partner is going to get a little bit more, because that's really what's best for the client. And those are conversations that you have to be brave enough to host, and transparent enough to really get to, get to the heart of how you motivate people to do what's right for the client. And sometimes that means that my team my team's going to get a little bit less and somebody else's team is going to get a little bit more, and I have to be okay with that because that's what's best for the client.

44:49 Scott Ingram: I think you started to outline some pieces of this, but I'm really interested in this idea of true north. How are you working to establish that, define that, get agreement around that? What's your process there?

45:04 Lisa Palmer: So to me, true north is about making sure that every effort that we work on with a client is directly impacting one of their corporate objectives. So what I found to be shockingly disturbing when I was in my role with Gartner is how many executives never listened to their own earnings calls. And so one of the first things that we would always counsel our executive clients to do is make sure you're listening to your earnings calls, because your CEO and your COO and your CFO are going out to the market and telling them what is going to be happening, where they're focused, what's absolutely critical to your success, etc. What happens for many of these individuals, particularly at, you know, it happens in the C-suite, but definitely the level and 2 levels below that, they are spending so much time focused on operationally keeping the organization moving forward that they don't pay attention to those things that are truly strategic. And so when I think about true north, I make sure that the entire team is… and when I say entire team, I'm talking about making sure that you get your critical partners embedded in this process with you, that you understand what corporate objective it is that you are committing to help that client to impact, and that you are constantly iterating on your process to make sure that if anybody starts to go a little wayward, that you get them pointed back at true north. And if you do that based on what the, what those corporate objectives are, whether it's, it could be market share, it could be people management, it could be, it could be cost controls or profitability, if you want to look at it that way. But there are some corporate objectives that every organization has to be focused on for the long-term health and wellbeing of their company. And so that That to me is true north. Get everybody oriented in that direction. Get really clear about how you're going to impact their stated objectives. And then make sure that you are iterating in your communications to keep everyone moving towards that goal. And particularly since we're technologists, there can be a real tendency to go down bunny trails, because this is really cool, and we could do this, and this is really shiny. And the reality is, is that a lot of those things you could do aren't going to have an immediate and direct impact on those corporate objectives. And so you've got to keep people… it's a little bit like herding cats, but you've got to, you've got to get them pointed and focused on that true north.

47:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, it's speaking of my enterprise sales friends, one of the presentations that we've got lined up at this year's Sales Success Summit, Evan Kelsay is going to be talking about how do you read a 10-K? From a sales perspective, right? How do you go through somebody's, whether it's an earnings call or their statements and those documents, and pull out the things that are going to help you inform? And I'm sure that's a lot of what you're doing, Lisa, is going through that exercise so that you can define this is the business objective, this is the thing that we're going to work to align behind because your CEO just communicated it to the street.

48:18 Lisa Palmer: Exactly. And you have to put structure and rigor around doing that and holding yourselves accountable as a team to staying focused on it. Because as you get into the details of the project, it's very easy to lose sight of that impact, that business outcome that you're trying to create. And so that using tools, that checklist… I have a checklist that I like to use around earnings calls. I have tools that I love, like Simply Wall St is both a website and an app that I love, that I follow from financials and current articles, etc., around clients. Love that tool. There's several different ways that I keep focused on what is really important to that client. And I'm always looking for content that I can share with the individuals that we serve inside of our clients that will help them to continually shore up, from a political perspective, why they're doing what they're doing. So I look for articles from third parties, from research firms, from partners that we're working with, etc., so that I can keep a steady flow of content handed over to those individuals that are working with us, that are sponsoring that initiative from the inside, so that they have the opportunity to continue to manage the politics internally as well.

49:45 Scott Ingram: Greatness! Let's, let's keep going on the tools conversation and into some of the specifics there. What are the most core tools that you find yourself using day in, day out?

49:55 Lisa Palmer: So I, I mentioned LinkedIn, Sales Navigator. Vidyard is a tool that I have actually really enjoyed starting to do some creative things from a proposal perspective. So it's so difficult when you have these massive deals to get all of the players in the room to actually get a deal to come to closure. And being able to use asynchronous video, where I can just sit right at my desk and put together a 2-minute-long video that explains the changes that have been made in this version, versus me trying to type out something that's much harder for people to understand, and then getting buy-in from a large group of people who may very well be in completely opposite time zones around the globe, Being able to do that asynchronously and have them really hear you and the spirit with which you're coming at the conversation through video, super powerful and shortens the timeline of your deals to bring deals to closure. So, that's something that is new in my process over the last few months, and I'm a huge fan.

51:05 Scott Ingram: Vidyard just happens to be one of the sponsors of this episode. If you want to see Vidyard in action, go sign up for the free Sales Success Summit livestream experience at top1summit.com. The welcome email you'll receive includes a Vidyard video from me, and that's what Vidyard does. It's a free Chrome plugin that allows you to create personalized videos for your prospecting efforts or your communication efforts inside of a deal cycle, as Lisa just described. And one of my favorite features is the animated GIFs it creates that you can drop right into your emails. You'll actually see that in the welcome email I just told you about. Go get Vidyard for yourself and give it a try. top1.fm/v for video will take you right there. Now back to Lisa and some of her other favorite tools. We got the 2 tools. Keep going.

51:55 Lisa Palmer: Yeah, sorry. And so I like both of those. I am a huge OneNote user. I am an avid note-taker. I think that it's very important to keep communications clear and accountability clear for different people's different people both inside of my team as well as inside of the client and other partners to keep crisp notes with clear action items and accountability for when, who is going to be doing what. So I'm a big fan of using OneNote. I like to use, you know, obviously calendaring is very important. I actually love the Calendly app and I have to go to great extents to use it because Teradata doesn't necessarily like us to use external tools plugging into our internal sites. That's something I really like to use to help to very quickly come to agreement about times when we're going to meet, etc. So that's a very important one. The Simply Wall St app is something that I use at least 2 or 3 times a week. I like that tool very much. It's hard to remember all the things that you do when you do it on an ongoing basis, isn't it? As far as from a content perspective and reading, I read Business Insider. It's a good tool. The Wall Street Journal. I like to read a lot of content. I actually am in pursuit of my, of my doctoral degree. And I have found a tremendous amount of overlap in the reading academic articles that are coming out, things that are really going to impact the landscape of what's happening from a technology perspective. So being able to leverage the academic research tools that I use is really, is really powerful for me because because of the, you know, the nerd level of work that I do.

53:44 Scott Ingram: That is so great. Well, let's talk about… that's a pretty good transition. I know you mentioned earlier that you're spending probably 2 hours a day reading. What is that information diet? What, what are you reading? When are you doing that? How do you fit that in?

53:59 Lisa Palmer: So that's first thing in the morning for me, and I have read all kinds of advice that says that you should never start your day by you know, rolling over and starting to read on your phone or read on your iPad or whatever the device is. And clearly, I am not heeding their advice because I do that every day and a half for many years. So I read everything from books. I read sales books. I read technology books. I read psychology. I read things… I like neuroscience and understanding what motivates people to do some of the things that they do. So that information is really interesting. There is a book that I recently read that I have just absolutely really loved and applied, What Great Salespeople Do, and it's actually an application of neuroscience to storytelling. I think it's super powerful. So that's something I've recently read and enjoyed. I love to take recommendations from others across all spectrum of reading materials. I do not read fiction. I read just things that I feel like are going to feed my mind and help me to create cross-connections. So that's the thing that I have taken from my varied past is that exposure to completely different topics and ideas and really feeding your mind with different types of content allows you to make connections and to be creative and innovative in a much more significant way than if I were to just consistently read the same type of content.

55:41 Scott Ingram: So you mentioned a sales book. I'm curious about in the last, you know, whatever time period, in this year, in the last year, however you want to think about it, what other books have really just gotten your attention? And I'm not worried about whether or not they have anything to do with sales.

55:56 Lisa Palmer: So one of the ones that I just recently read that has been really powerful in forming my thoughts is a book called The Future of Leadership in the Age of AI. That one has really resonated with me. And then, of course, I have strong interest in diversity and inclusion. As someone who has been the lone female in many, many rooms throughout, throughout my career, I do the best that I can to try to create opportunities to, for myself to learn about ways to help others to really be included and to build confidence, particularly, particularly confidence for women. I was heavily influenced by a book called The Confidence Creator earlier this year. It's all about empowering women to believe in themselves more. So that was something that was really interesting to me. And then I read a book called Multipliers. Multipliers is a book about leaders. And it's a study of leaders who have been identified to actually multiply the results coming out of their staff and what the common traits are of those individuals who are multiplying leaders. So really powerful concepts in there as well. So I've probably read, I try to target 2 books a week. In addition to the other content that I read. So there's been a lot of books on the list so far this year, Scott.

57:27 Scott Ingram: Wow, wow, that is really, really impressive. And I'm coming back to you for my, my next book recommendation. This is… you've already given me a couple of, of ideas I'm looking forward to digging into. Well, let's, let's keep going then on the just the morning routine, your, your routine throughout the day. So what I already know happens is you up and you start reading? When, when does that happen? And, you know, give us the blow-by-blow from there through kind of the rest of the day.

57:53 Lisa Palmer: So I'm at a point in my life where I don't have to run kids to school and activities anymore. So I'm able to use my 5:00 AM to 7:00 AM time to do that reading that I think is really important to get the day started. And, and frankly, I think that for me personally, I believe in energy management. So literally thinking about what times of the day is my energy the strongest, and when does my energy wane? And I try to, so that those early morning hours for me is when I feel like my brain is really sharp, and I have the opportunity to take in new content and make those critical connections. So that's why that early part of the day is really important to me. I have parts of the day that I feel like, like right after lunch, for example, is a good time to do admin work for me, because I feel like my energy is really low. So, to me, it's about managing that flow. So, I want to, I have that intellectual time. It's really important to have physical activity, physical exercise. So, I try to do something, and it's different things because I get bored very easily. So, all different kinds of physical activities, but I try to do that between 7 and 8 and then really get settled into my routine in my office, which, of course, we all know is is, is a very short commute nowadays down to my, my home office, so, so that I can get started around 8 or 8:30.

59:19 Scott Ingram: And then how are you structuring your workday? And, and is, is that very different from what it used to be when, when maybe you were going into an office, or what does that look like?

59:28 Lisa Palmer: It's an interesting question. So from my perspective, I like to, I like to time block. So Mondays are almost entirely for internal meetings. And I try to time block at least 2 4-hour blocks throughout the week to do what I think of as, as deep thinking or planning work. So at least 2 4-hour blocks to do that. And I read something recently about a gentleman who committed to do 1 full day of the week completely offline. And how much he was able to apply new concepts and ideas. And I'm really aspiring to, to try that in the next month or so. So I think that you can get that deep creative work. It requires time blocks and not allowing yourself to be interrupted. And a lot of what we do from a selling perspective is about creating a point of view and bringing up a hypothesis to our clients about how we can create impact for them. And I need some mental space to do that. Now, I will tell you that what often happens is, as I dig into those and I start to get an idea of a direction I want to go, then I will start, I will start calling or texting people on my team like, hey, I've got an idea. Do you have time to dig into this with me? So I need the space to do that. And then I really want to collaborate because that team environment is how you make a good idea into a fantastic idea.

1:01:04 Scott Ingram: Geez, we're the same person, I think. This is super freaky. I think we've read a lot of the same stuff. And you weren't… when you were talking about managing energy, another of my favorite HBR articles is, is one called Manage Energy, Not Time.

1:01:18 Lisa Palmer: Yes.

1:01:18 Scott Ingram: Yep.

1:01:19 Lisa Palmer: Yes.

1:01:20 Scott Ingram: I feel like we think the same way too, right? I am a very creative. I have lots of ideas, but the way that I then process those ideas is through conversations, right? So who's going to understand this? Who is going to have a unique perspective around this particular topic? And then I just need to talk it out. Sometimes I don't even need them to talk back. I just need to talk at them. But, you know, it's the questions that they'll ask or the ideas or the stories that they'll bring into that and what that reminds them of. And again, the situation is kind of 1 1 Exactly.

1:01:51 Lisa Palmer: And what I like to do is I like to ask them, what does this make you think of? And then I lay out what I'm thinking. What does this make you think of? Just to get out of them, when I say X, what does that make you think? And so many times, they go, oh, that's so much better than what I was thinking. That's awesome.

1:02:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:02:10 Lisa Palmer: Right? But having that sounding board, and I absolutely need to do it out loud. I also know that I need reflection time which I, I think I have only become self-aware enough to realize that in probably the last couple of years. But I'd spend a lot of time ingesting ideas, ingesting content, lots of different cross-functional content. And what I realized is that I actually was undermining my ability to reflect. And so here's what I mean by that. When I take in all of this information, I was using my shower time, frankly, I would get in the shower and I would go, oh, and I would have these moments where I, something really obvious came to me. And I think it was the result of all of that content that I had taken in in the morning, right? And what I started to do was I had gotten behind on the amount of content that I wanted to read. And so I had started listening to Audible books while I was in the shower. And I realized that my creativity and my point, my creation of these point of views and that starting information that I needed slowed. And so I had to go back and reflect on what have I changed? What's different in my process? And I realized that minus that quiet, reflective time, I wasn't making the connections.

1:03:34 Scott Ingram: That is fascinating. Oh my gosh. I mean, it makes total sense, right? You're spending a couple of hours. You've got a lot of input. And then that shower time, which I think for many of us is a super productive thinking time anyway, ended up being that time that you were able to sort of process and assimilate and ideas came out, right?

1:03:53 Lisa Palmer: Yeah, exactly. And that's the kind of thing where I think that I was holding myself accountable for the goals that I was trying to meet and I wasn't getting enough of that consumption time in. And I realized that in the effort to meet goal A, I was undermining my true outcome, my ability to create the outcome or the ideas, the point of views that I needed. So that level of self-awareness and making sure that you are keeping track of what works for you and what's allowing you to really be creative and innovative, that you honor your process. You may need to adjust it over time. But if you are really paying attention and are self-aware, you'll start to see when, if you're having some kind of a productivity dip or an outcomes dip, you can really start to reflect on what have I changed.

1:04:48 Scott Ingram: Man, honor your process. That, that is, that's really, really good. You know, it reminds me of a conversation that I had in New York back in those days when we used to travel and, you know, sit down and talk to people and have drinks and all that fun stuff. I remember visiting with Eddie Baez, who's been on the show and just a great, great pillar of the, of the community that we have here. And we were talking about how much of sales is that creativity. You know, it's, it's just, you know, this isn't… it's not a formula. It's not, you know, a lot of people like to talk about the science of sales and, and it, you know, the raw numbers of it. I'm like, yeah, partially, but there's still so much of the art and so much of the creativity. I mean, first I'll let you just respond to that.

1:05:33 Lisa Palmer: I am a firm believer that it is art and science. I'm an engineer. I believe in science. It's grounded my thinking and the way that I approach the world for many years. But I also believe that if you stick, if you adhere strictly to science, you are really missing the nuances that make you a great seller. And there's so much art in what we do that it's on a personal level, it's on a solutions or ideas level. There's just, there's layers and layers of art to what we do. Because there are so many right answers. There are so many right answers, if we're, that, that you can, paths you can follow, that your solution may not, your path may not look exactly like mine does. But that doesn't mean that you're not going to be equally successful. And that's why I think when people try to kind of force sales into a prescriptive box, that they really struggle or often fail. Because that is disregarding the value and the art part of what we do.

1:06:40 Scott Ingram: You are becoming a quote machine all of a sudden. This whole idea of there are so many right answers, I think, is such a, such a great idea. Along those lines, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

1:06:55 Lisa Palmer: Sort of. I like the Challenger Framework. I like the Challenger Selling Framework, because I am a believer that we need to lean into value creation for our clients at every touchpoint. And I like the idea that you need to bring a hypothesis to your clients. That's not that you need to… and the reason I say sort of is because I like the framework, and I believe in this idea of creating a hypothesis. Hypothesis for your client. I've also seen people take it to the extreme, and when the client isn't bought into your particular hypothesis, they create a situation where they don't create an out for themselves or Plan B or a different path. So it's all about creating a plan and then being willing to take those cues from your clients, meet your clients where they're at, you may need to have a highly technical conversation with one individual and turn around with the same hypothesis and elevate that to a business conversation with a different person. So it's really about using the framework of it, and then being willing and able to adjust the way that you craft a message to meet that client where they are.

1:08:17 Scott Ingram: You know, the thing I keep coming back to that you talked about earlier that I think connects to this this is the idea of focus and the North Star, true north, and, and those kinds of things. I, I work so hard on just myself in terms of maintaining focus, but I think bringing that to your clients and helping them stay focused around, look, here's the real objective. We have… yes, we have lots of ideas. I mean, especially in, in your world. I mean, you can freaking do anything with Teradata. So, so I'm sure that you, you really have to kind of keep the constant reins and keep them focused and like, OK, look, like, not that bunny trail, not that one. Like, this, this is the path that we need to be on. Along those lines, what is, in that, in that framework, in sort of that kind of challenger, broader approach, how would you then describe your style?

1:09:11 Lisa Palmer: So I like to use questions with a client so that they come to their own it's more of a coaching-based style. So they often have their own answers. They know the best thing to do inside of their environment. They know where the barriers are going to be. But they really haven't had the time or the focus, to your point, on that particular topic to reflect enough to bring that out. So if you are having trouble getting people to focus, I like to ask them questions about what they're trying to achieve. What does good look like? If we are wildly successful with what we do, what does that mean? What does it do for your business? What does that do for your department? What does it do for you? And start to, because once you ask questions, they'll come back to their own conclusions about the best path towards what success looks like. And so I like to lay out a framework, be prepared to have that conversation around the hypothesis of what we think might make them successful, and then be prepared with a series of questions about how they are going to perceive success, how they're going to be measured. And to even take that further, if they're hung up on one versus another path, then digging in further about what would make that, you know, what would the outcome of Plan A be versus what would the outcome of Plan B? And really just continue to help them to think through, to focus long enough, and really use their own knowledge of their situation to think through what is probably the best path for them to, again, get to true north, which we keep pointing them back to.

1:11:07 Scott Ingram: So this, I'm gonna connect some dots here, and I think this is gonna sound really wrong, but I just, I can't get it out of my head. We're really trying to bring them into the shower, right? And like give them that space, give them that space to process. My VP of Services, she has such this great saying, and I use it in conversations with my customers all the time. She says, you can't look up and look down at the same time. Time. And what she means by that is when you're in the weeds, when you're in just execution mode, you can't also be strategic, and you need that space. And, and I think a lot of times that is our job, that's our opportunity, is to bring them into the shower and, and help them, and help them process, and just give them the space to think through those things. And then to your point, gosh, one of the best ways to do that is going to be to ask them insightful questions and then hear what they have to say about I absolutely believe that, and I love, I love her saying, and I'm just going to blatantly steal that.

1:12:09 Lisa Palmer: That is brilliant.

1:12:10 Scott Ingram: Yes, her name is Emily Eubanks, so you can give her some, some credit. But yeah, it is, you're welcome to steal it. I think she would love that.

1:12:16 Lisa Palmer: So I think that, Emily, I'm going to be reaching out to connect with you. So I think it's really critical to give them that reflection time because they are, and I know because I was sitting in that chair, I have been there, and I was spending 95% of my time, and that's probably generous, focused on operational issues. And I only was dealing with strategy when I, I really would get to a point where I thought, there is no way for us to get to our desired outcome doing what we're doing today. And that was usually far later than I should have started to have those reflective moments with myself to solve those problems. But it's because you're so entrenched in the operations. And if you have ever led a team that is both operations and strategy, then you know from a practical perspective that operations always wins, and it will consume all your time. So that vein of conversation, giving them the space, bringing them into the shower so they can have that reflective time as well, is just so incredibly important. And that is, from my perspective, part of our job and our responsibility as enterprise sales partners to help them to do that.

1:13:37 Scott Ingram: We're going to take a quick break here so that I can thank our new sponsor, Alyce, but I'm going to take a risk. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but either way, I'm pretty confident it'll be memorable. If you're going to invite your client or prospect into this metaphorical shower, then you should probably send them a personalized gift either before or after that experience. And that's exactly what Alyce does. Alyce helps you build those deeper relationships by creating a personal experience that's relatable, relevant, and respectful through one-to-one gifting. You can learn more about how Alyce is helping enterprise sales, marketing, and customer success teams create personal bonds with everyone they do business with at top1.fm/alyce. That's top1.fm/alyce. Now back to my conversation with Lisa Palmer. You know, you remind me of one of my very proud moments. I was on site with CA Technologies working with them on a project, and they had a very new leader. So I was working with his team, and he was… it may have been his first week. So he's very, very new to this, and this is really just what I was doing. It was very whiteboard-driven, and I was just helping them process and work through how they were going to solve for some of the stuff that we were trying to help them get through. Obviously, we had a solution for it, but they had to solve for a lot of things. He pulled me away afterwards and was like, oh my gosh. He's like, you are one of the best salespeople I've ever seen. Which was just such a great compliment. And he ended up becoming a very good friend because how can you not love somebody that says something like that about you? But it was because that's what I was doing, right? All I was doing was facilitating. And he knew that wasn't selling anything, right, in the traditional sense. I think we always go back to when we're selling, that means we have to be pitching, we have to be imposing our opinion and our ideas on other people. It's like, no, it's not that at all. I had just created a really big shower with with a lot of whiteboards, and we were able to get through all of this stuff, and we made a ton of progress. Right? We we figured out, and they were all able to get to those areas of clarity and and see what true north actually was.

1:15:59 Lisa Palmer: And that is to me one of the most fun things I ever get to do from a selling perspective is to. Facilitate whiteboard discussions. It's so fun. And it's really about just getting all of these super smart people's ideas out on the table and seeing what kind of greatness we can create with it. There's just nothing more fun than that.

1:16:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. How are you doing that right now? Because we're not all in a room together and in a whiteboard. In fact, I was, I was just visiting with one of our newest clients, and it was the last time that I was on the road. So the last time I visited with them was in one of those sessions. Now, my CEO was running most of the show. I wasn't actually facilitating much of this one, but that was the last time I was in a big group of people with a whiteboard. And I don't know that I have found the right answer to doing that when we're all remote and in different places. Have you figured that out?

1:16:53 Lisa Palmer: Well, I will tell you something that's a pretty fun get-close-to-it experience. So, schedule the time, obviously with a virtual whiteboarding tool, virtual video tool of your choice. And I quite literally have supplies delivered to people's homes, wherever it is they're working from. And whatever you were going to use as materials, literally send it to them so they have some kind of physical materials for you to give direction for people to use throughout the day. You can also… Uber Eats, for example, has a business situation where you can, you can literally have food delivered at the same time. So if you want to do a multi-hour-long session and you want to have everybody have the same lunch, so you're all having the same experience no matter where you're at, you can have lunch delivered to everybody. So you're all kind of sitting around eating and it's literally just delivered to their door. So you can do lots of things to create a pseudo environment and get as close to it as you can. And, you know, being able to use video, being able to use whiteboarding capability inside of… I use a lot of WebEx, that's a Teradata standard, and it gets pretty close to the outcome that you would be able to generate if you were sitting together. And I think the magic formula for it is to have a moderator, a chat moderator. So that whoever is running the conversation is also monitoring and controlling a backchannel conversation that keeps everyone engaged, whether that particular section of it is directly applicable to them or not, and doesn't take time away from, or focus, more importantly, away from the person that is leading the facilitation. Super powerful!

1:18:53 Scott Ingram: This is insane. Okay, like we need to like double-check or disconnect the mind meld or whatever is happening here. I mean, a lot of this stuff is… these are all things we're thinking about and working on now that we've had to pivot the Sales Success Summit this year to a virtual experience. And it's so many of those things. It's okay, well, since we can't be together in person, how can I send you a care package and tools that will allow us to better connect and better engage and, you know, kind of have that same shared experience even though we're in different places and we're not together the way that we had hoped to be. And similarly, you know, as we roll out the livestream experience, the chat moderator… so, you know, Nikki Ivey has agreed to be that for us in the event and to be kind of the lead host and moderator just to drive and facilitate that conversation. Such good stuff. We're going to have to have a whole big offline conversation about some of these things because something tells me you've got, you know, we're going to have one of those conversations where we will bounce our ideas off of each other and I will ask you what that makes you think of. And we will, we will have a brain explosion. It may be a little bit scary. What motivates you? What drives all of this?

1:20:13 Lisa Palmer: Probably the toughest question you've asked me so far. I think that inherently, I always want to learn more. There's so much opportunity to create positive impact in the world. I'm such a believer around technology and the positive impacts that it has the ability to create for people that you will never personally know or touch. And yet you're able to improve their world in some way. By being really good at what I do, I can create a lot of rippled impact, positive outcomes for people that I, I don't even know. And there's just something so beautiful and inspiring about that, that even up close, the people that I help on a daily basis, my clients, those people on my team, our partners, etc., you know, that's super fun because you see those people, you know them. It's motivating and encouraging to see their success. But when you really step back and think about the broader impact that you're able to create, like that you're able to, in the middle of a pandemic, help an organization to deliver, you know, life-saving supplies to people that you don't know, maybe even in another country. There are things about what we do that are just such a privilege to be able to do it on a daily basis. And it's, it's, it's very motivating and inspiring for me when I think about that impact that I get to have a small part in creating in the world. And I can do that by doing things that are super fun to do on a daily basis. So how much better can it possibly get?

1:22:05 Scott Ingram: That is great. And in a different way, in a different way than you probably are normally able to achieve that. I have a pretty high level of confidence that you are doing that right now. And I have a prediction because I've seen this happen many times, and, and I can tell right now that this is one of those conversations you are going to hear from people for years who, who are going to reach out to you and let you know that how you've inspired them and how you have changed something about the way that they are going about the way that they sell or managing their career or something. And if you're listening to this and you are one of those people, I'd encourage you, you know, connect with Lisa, send her that note on LinkedIn, because we love that. I think at the heart of so many of us, that's what drives this kind of need to give back and share these stories. And I know that's why you're willing to spend probably too many hours with me talking about all of this stuff, because neither one of us is talking with our customers or our colleagues right now. But this is still super critical, super important work.

1:23:23 Lisa Palmer: It's about making an investment in others, Scott. And I have had so many people through my career be gracious and generous and invest in me. It is the very least I can do.

1:23:35 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it, love it, love it. Okay, so this part I think you're gonna be able to bring a very unique perspective to, especially given the, the amount of time that you spent as a buyer and also just working with other executives. Is there something that you believe that the average sales rep would think is crazy?

1:23:56 Lisa Palmer: I do not believe that money is the main motivator. And now, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely a proponent for salespeople being compensated for the impact that they create for their organizations and their clients. I'm absolutely on board with that. But I think a lot of people go after pursuits because it's going to create the biggest revenue opportunity for them. And from my perspective, I believe that if you, if you start with what is best for the client, and you adhere to that, you create credibility with the client, and you're even willing to walk away from revenue in one situation because it's going to benefit your client, that in the long run, the money always follows.

1:24:47 Scott Ingram: If you could see my face, you would see that I'm grinning like a maniac. Because I think I think that that is one of the most consistent themes now that I've interviewed 100 folks like yourself. The irony is, if the money is the driver, you don't make it to this conversation. You don't get to be on the show because you're not number one. And what's funny is when the main driver is… to me, the way I think of it is it's servant leadership. Right? If I do a great job of taking care of my customer and doing what's right for them, and obviously taking into account what's best for my company and my team and making sure that those things align, the dollars come. Lots of dollars come. But as soon as that becomes the driver for why you're doing it, I think you make the wrong decisions and it it short-circuits the whole thing.

1:25:48 Lisa Palmer: I agree, Scott. The reality is that when you genuinely are trying to do what is best for other people, they know that. And when you are genuinely trying to do what is best for you, they also know that. So people have, you know, a sense for, do you care about them? Do you care about their wellbeing? Do you follow through with the things that you say that you're going to do that are going to be helpful or useful for them? Or do you only do those things that are actually going to create value for you? If you do that, people are smart, they're savvy, and especially the buyers that we deal with. These are very sophisticated individuals, intelligent, educated individuals, and they have a BS You know, they, they know where you're coming from. And if you are just coming from a place of genuine care and desire to be helpful to people, that creates income more than you can expect.

1:26:53 Scott Ingram: So good. Okay, so the flip side of that question, is there something that the average sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

1:27:02 Lisa Palmer: So, from my perspective, I have a love-hate relationship with salespeople. With sales metrics. So, as somebody who does believe in project management concepts, in accountability, in timelines, etc., and as someone who has been a leader of significant P&Ls, I certainly understand the need and desire to drive activity, right, to drive activity. I understand why there is a desire for this. The challenge for me comes in when people believe that if I dial for dollars and I talk to 100 people today, I'm automatically going to close 15% or 20% or whatever their target number is. That is a flawed assumption. Because if you are not bringing something of value to that individual, and it's just a matter of, you know, checking things off the list, you're not going to connect with them as individuals. They will not trust you, and they will not buy from you. So I understand the need to manage activities and to have targets around activities. But I think that, back to our prior conversation around the balance of science and art, that if you are leaning too heavily into the science and you're sticking to some specific objective. Frankly, Scott, it reminds me of the example that I was giving when I wasn't, when I took away my reflection time, my results declined. And so you have to be really careful when you create targets, both as leaders and as sales individual contributors. You have to be really careful that the targets serve you and you're not serving them.

1:28:56 Scott Ingram: If you were leading that team and you wanted to understand what was going on and you wanted to make sure that the right things were happening, what would you measure then?

1:29:08 Lisa Palmer: So, I think, of course, I live in the data and analytics world, right? So, I think that it's really important for you to, to measure what's happening. And to look for those people that demonstrate anomalies. So meaning, if you have a target for, you know, 50 activities, and you've got somebody on your team that is consistently doing 10, and yet they are generating the highest, the highest revenue on the team, you need to be looking at that understanding what that individual is doing and looking to replicate that, not try to force that person to get up to the same metrics that everybody else is at. Amen! So to me, you're looking for, you have to start with targets. And I believe that. I understand that. You've got to have targets. And, but you've also got to be really smart about using what you learn from the data and digging into the whys behind the data so that you can start to teach others and replicate those results on a broader scale.

1:30:19 Scott Ingram: Nice. And I think part of it is also just being aware of the outcomes, right? I mean, yes, the input is the easier thing to measure, but we need to make sure that those inputs are actually leading to the right outcomes and it's not just more input.

1:30:33 Lisa Palmer: Exactly. It can't just be about activity; it's got to be about results.

1:30:38 Scott Ingram: Yep. Yep. So, what are the most important lessons you've had to learn or the decisions that you've made that have made the biggest difference in getting you to where you are today?

1:30:49 Lisa Palmer: Wow, Scott, that's not an easy question. I think one of the most critical learning lessons that I had in my career was that everyone else does not see the world through your lens. It's a basic Communication 101 concept. But really understanding that that is not the case, and seeking to understand the lens through which the person you're talking with views the world, is an absolute game-changer. So we all come to the table with assumptions based off of our own experiences, our biology, our education, etc. I like to think about this in the context of, I was raised, I was raised in a farming community. I have 2 brothers. We have the same genetics, obviously. We were raised in the same environment, have the same, had the same largely experiences up through high school. And the 3 of us could not be more different. And every time I would reflect on the difference in the 3 of us, it would, it would make me laugh. Like, how did we turn out so incredibly different? But when I apply that on a scale basis, think about the difference of every individual we come across, and all of the differences in experience and background that they bring to the table. If I'm not even the same as those individuals, as my brothers who grew up so much like I did, and we don't even have things in common. That lens that the person that you're talking with is coming to the table with, you can be assured, is not the same as yours. So really embracing that concept and seeking to understand the way that they see the world and the influences that they have upon their opinions and their thought processes really helps you to communicate with them in a way that will lead to a quicker building of trust, a deeper establishment of that trust, and a willingness to work together because you really understand one another. And that was a significant breakthrough for me when I embraced the reality of the differences in the pure basics of the way that we communicate. And when we sit at a table together, how much value you have to place on that individual person's perspective. Managing global teams really brought that to life for me.

1:33:35 Scott Ingram: Wow! So this is such a big topic. We could talk for another hour just, just about this. But I wonder if there's just kind of a short tidbit about How do you, how do you work to understand their lens so that you can better communicate with them?

1:33:52 Lisa Palmer: I want to reflect back to one of my top 3 that we talked about early on: research. Research the individual. In today's times, you've got the opportunity to really, to take a look at what are the environments where this person has worked? What's the school where they went to? Who are they connected with? What are the topics that they like to talk about online? Have they gotten awards for anything where they were volunteering in their community? You can really get an understanding of people by doing, by doing an online search and by looking at their LinkedIn profile and really starting to educate yourself about what that individual person's overall experiences have been. Now, of course, everybody's unique and you're going to have to meet the person and get to know them one-on-one. But you knock down a lot of those basics of the assumptions that you can make to help you communicate if you put in the time to do the research on the individual.

1:34:49 Scott Ingram: That's greatness. That's greatness. Let's talk about career stuff here for a little bit from a couple of different angles. And the first is, what advice would you give to somebody that is just starting out in sales today, whether this is… I mean, whether they took a unique unique path to get here. Maybe they've done some other work and this isn't their first job, or, or maybe they're just graduating from college and they've decided, you know what, this is something that I, I want to give a shot. What, what would you, what would you tell them? How would you advise them?

1:35:18 Lisa Palmer: Sales is a practice, just like law and medicine are practices. Sales requires practice, and you've got to commit to continually upping your You need to be focused on creating a network of people that will help you to expand your understanding of others, that will help you with everything from, you know, if in my world, technical topics all the way across to that communication piece that we talked about. The more that you can expand and diversify the people that are part of your core network, the more quickly you will be successful.

1:35:58 Scott Ingram: So, Lisa and I are back from a pretty extensive, a very extensive sidebar conversation. And I actually want to share a piece of that with you. She and I are going to have to work through that because we got quite personal and we won't be able to share all of it, but we're going to include that with kind of these bonus elements that we're, we're putting together. So there, there will be kind of a short conversation and, and we just, we had this incredible discussion in, in a number of, of different ways. So again, back to top1.fm/100. I am going to put this behind a gate. So you're, you're going to have to join the listener list. You're going to have to be a more intentional part of the community. And that's what prompted all of this. What I wanted to do was invite Lisa to be a part of this year's Sales Success Summit, and not just as a participant, but likely as a part of a very, very important panel that we're working towards. Now, I'm not going to say any more about that exactly because we still have to sort through the specifics of, of those details. The point of all this is what I believe we left off with was Lisa talking about really the community, the mentors, the people that you surround yourself with to continue to develop and continue to grow. And that is my passion. That is why we do this. That's why the Sales Success Community exists. That's why people who are as amazing as Lisa give up their time and get so deeply involved in the community and become such a big part of it is, first, we want to continue to grow and develop. Let's not pretend that this isn't also selfish, but it's also such a great opportunity for us to give back and help the people who are coming up behind us to accelerate in their careers and accelerate their results because we've all had a lot of help along the way and a lot of great mentors and a lot of learnings that have helped us get here. And I think we want to be able to pay it forward and give back in that way. So more to come, that bonus track that we'll work on developing. I'm not sure that we'll necessarily have it ready in time for when this episode releases. But if you'll fill out that form at top1.fm, as soon as we do have it ready, we will share it with you. There's some really just incredibly powerful stuff in there, especially if you're a woman in sales and if you are an ally to women in sales, which is, which is also a very important role. So, Lisa, with that, the other question is that I like to ask as a follow-up to the advice that you'd give to somebody that's just getting started on their career in sales is what advice do you have? And this feels even more important right now. The advice that you would give to somebody that is good but not great or is struggling. And I think a lot of people are struggling now just because the game has changed, the environment has changed, the things that we did in 2019 don't work necessarily in 2020. What is your advice for them to find a way through and break through to that next level, particularly in this environment?

1:39:10 Lisa Palmer: I think that we have to embrace the fact that selling looks different now. And you have to be willing to really dig into your process, identify what's working, identify what is likely not working, and be willing to look outside into the community, into those smart people around you, and look for new and updated ways to do your job. And if you are somebody that's early in, in your career, one of the things I want to encourage you to do is to share your perspective. One of the most valuable things that I have gotten from being engaged in, in this community is the reverse mentoring, hearing different perspectives and really understanding what it's like from a buyer's mentality perspective for those that are in a different generation than I'm in. So, make sure that you're sharing your perspective in a respectful way, and work together to try to come to a new process that will work in today's times. And I like to do that by looking for inspiration from the things that are being embraced by society. So as I was talking through earlier what the new prospecting approach is that I'm taking, I've always been a big believer in visuals. So there are online visual tool creators now that are super easy to use. So I have a tool called Piktochart that I use to create infographics to create interest in pursuits that we have in place. I like to look at I use a tool called bubbl.us that is another visual tool that I use to create pictures to help onboard people to my ideas. I'm looking to things like podcasts because podcasts are super popular right now in society. So how can we leverage those through our selling process to elevate success for our clients and for ourselves? So I really like to look into those things that are being embraced across society, consumerization of tech. How can I use ideas that are being applied through apps or online or through gaming or whatever the case may be to improve what's happening with our sales process and to modernize our sales process? So look for inspiration from those things that are being embraced by society and apply those in your selling process.

1:41:53 Scott Ingram: I want to go back to one thing you talked about earlier, because I have thoughts, but I'm sure they're very… you'll be able to say my thoughts because I feel like that's the wavelength we're on. Talk about reverse mentoring. What do you mean by that?

1:42:05 Lisa Palmer: So one of the fantastic things that I have gotten from getting involved in LinkedIn communities and things like, things like your sales community and the RevGenius sales community, I'm looking for an opportunity to get perspective from a different generation of sellers, and particularly women, because I want to be in a situation where I can both learn from them and help them where I can. And And what I get from those conversations is a grounding in a different way to see the world, that lens that I talked about earlier and how different it is for other individuals. It's so easy to get entrenched in the way that I see the world. And I've got to make sure that I am constantly getting inputs from a truly diverse group of people. And And that reverse mentoring is about that… looking out into the community and saying, who is out there that I can learn from? And they may not be as tenured as I am, or they may come from a completely different background, different genders, different races, whatever the case may be. I am looking to learn from a reverse mentoring perspective from those with a different thought process and different experiences than what I have. So I have a couple of women that I am in formal kind of mentor-mentee relationships with that I meet with and work with on an ongoing basis, and I always feel like I come away from those conversations with them having personally benefited from them as well as hopefully helping them. So those relationships are absolutely important to keeping yourself fresh, connected, and continually working on the practice of selling.

1:43:55 Scott Ingram: So that's interesting. That's, that's actually a little bit of a different angle than I, than I thought you might take, so I'm really, really glad I asked the question. Question because the way that I was thinking about it was from the perspective of in a mentor-mentee relationship, having been on both sides in many different ways over the course of my career, I actually think in a lot of ways the mentor often gets more value. And so that's what I thought you meant by reverse mentoring, is when you have those opportunities to mentor people, oftentimes it's kind of like reinforced learning that you get by teaching something. Yes, right. It reinforces for you, and it's really hard to give somebody advice when you're not doing that. And so it often reminds you of some of those core fundamental basic things that make you great, and you're like, man, I would be such a hypocrite if I wasn't actually doing this myself as, as I'm giving this advice. So it often leads to those types of actions that are frequently the foundation of success. And so I would say this, I want to just suggest this to folks from both sides, right? If you are younger and you're looking for mentors, and you don't have to be young to look for mentors, I look for mentors all the time.

1:45:11 Lisa Palmer: Me too.

1:45:11 Scott Ingram: When you're looking to mentors, A, like, don't be intimidated. Get over yourself and recognize that you bring value to that relationship in the form of your perspective and in the form of that opportunity for them, for us, for the mentor to share that perspective and reinforce their own things. And I will say this to folks who are in a position or who are often asked if they will be a mentor: do it, because the benefits are just so tremendous. You get so much out of those relationships and just the dynamic of, of that relationship. I think it's a, it's a missed opportunity. And seek it out. You offer it if, if you need to, right? If you see somebody that shows something, offer to bring them, them along.

1:45:58 Lisa Palmer: I couldn't agree with you more, Scott. And when you think about the mentor-mentee relationship or reverse mentoring, I would tell you that I at least have one young woman that I work with that I'm pretty sure that she's the mentor and I'm the mentee. And that's, that's the reality of reverse mentoring is that it's supposed to be bidirectional. It should be by design I like to create some structure around our mentoring relationships so that we're both really clear about what we need to bring to the table to help the other one to improve. And I have been incredibly impressed with what the mentors in my situation have been able to bring to our conversations. And I think you're spot-on that you get so much back. From taking the time to help others. And they, hopefully, they feel that way by the time they're done helping me.

1:46:58 Scott Ingram: Lisa, what's the next thing that you're hoping to learn? Or maybe I'll ask it this way: what would you hope to get out of your experience with us at the Sales Success Summit and all those folks that you'll be surrounded by?

1:47:11 Lisa Palmer: Well, I think that the obvious thing is to just expand your network and really learn from all of these different perspectives and the experiences that they bring to the table. I love to hear people tell stories. This is what happened. And this was the, you know, this is what we did. This is a result of what happened. And really be able to, there's so many creative ideas that come out of a group experience like that. So that's, to me, is the biggest thing, is just learning from the others that will be in attendance. And then I also think it's really important for us in this particular moment in time to help to… and this kind of goes back to our offline conversation, Scott… but I think it's really important for us to address some of the things that are happening in society and figure out how to really tactically support one another in improving the situation for people of color and for women, particularly in the workplace. And helping to give some very practical behaviors, to arm people with some suggestions of things that they can do, you know, to move the needle in a positive direction. So for me, if I'm thinking about creating true north, I want to make sure that we're all kind of onboarded to that idea that raising the boat raises all of us, right? And, and making sure that that's the effort that we're all willing to put forward is to elevate everybody together.

1:48:39 Scott Ingram: Well, one thing I want to come back to that absolutely should not be a secret, and I don't want to hide from anybody because it was just… it was too valuable. You and I were talking a little bit about allyship and things that… those tangible actions and things we can do to be anti-racist and anti-discriminatory. What was the suggestion that you gave that I think many men have an opportunity to do? And it was so simple. We probably have an opportunity to do this tomorrow.

1:49:08 Lisa Palmer: One of the most important things that we can do, and for those of you that ask all the time, what can I do? What is an action I can take? You can redirect a conversation. So what I mean is, if you're in a meeting and a woman begins to speak and gets talked over top of, which happens more frequently than you think, and if you start to pay attention, and look for those situations where that happens. You will probably realize how often it's happening. But if someone is trying to speak and gets spoken over top of, simply point the conversation back to them. When there is a break in the conversation, point the conversation back and say, hey, I believe, Vicki, you were trying to add something to the discussion. Would you please take the floor? And it's as simple as that. Just point the conversation back to them and give them the space to speak up. And that action of both being aware that it's happening and then being willing to speak up and point the conversation back to them is a game changer and is a fantastic way to behave as an ally.

1:50:14 Scott Ingram: Simple, easy to do. You can literally do it tomorrow. So I love, love, love, love that idea. And we probably need to start wrapping things up. You and I could probably talk for hours. However, my children soon will begin to starve, and they're going to need me to make them some dinner. They don't really need me to make dinner, but that's what they're going to want. So I need to, I need to, I need to get to the family here pretty soon. So let me ask just a couple of parting questions. And the, and the first one is just, I mean, we covered a lot of ground, a lot of really incredible, valuable ground. Is there anything else that you were hoping that we would talk about, or a story that you were hoping to share that we just haven't gotten to, or I didn't ask the right question?

1:50:59 Lisa Palmer: One of the things I'm not sure we dug into, Scott, was that when we are in the midst of a complex selling situation, it's really important that you are simultaneously running multiple threads, and that you're keeping those multiple threads coordinated. Meaning, if you, as the person who is behaving as the team quarterback, feels like you have to be involved directly in every conversation that's happening, etc., you create a bottleneck. And you have to really empower the people on your team to do prospecting, to hold conversations, to expect them to get a next-step action in place, and to bring that conversation back into those alignment conversations that you're having every week to keep the whole team moving together as a unified team. And that's how you multiply your pipeline. It's how you have more revenue come through in a shorter period of time, and it's how you really get your team members to have a great deal of fun serving the clients that you work with.

1:52:09 Scott Ingram: Wow. I mean, you just opened up another like 30 minutes of conversation that I feel like now we can't have. But what it makes me think of, and one of the things that I am working on… here we are about, I guess, a little less than 2 months before this year's Summit, and I shouldn't talk about it so much because it's going to make this episode a little bit less evergreen, but that's okay because there will be recordings that people can purchase or a couple of other opportunities that we have for folks to get engaged with some of this content. Given that we needed to move this year's event to a virtual experience, I've actually reduced the amount of content that we're going to have because nobody wants to sit in front of their computer and watch people present for 6 or 8 hours in a row, right? It was really more important that we create more community space and more white space for those conversations and for those relationships to develop, and all things that, that we're working to make possible through the experience this year. And part of what I'm doing to… I don't know if combat it is the right word, but to address that, and something that in the past I have tried to do in the way that we build our agendas, is I've always tried to have a presentation slot or 2 at the end of the last day that I don't even have assigned, so that we could be very nimble and react to the fact that there's gonna be some big question or some big theme or something that emerges that we're gonna need to go deeper into. And I wonder if maybe this is one of those types of ideas. So what we're gonna do this year… the Sales Success Summit is October 12th and 13th. This is 2020, so if you missed that, then make sure that you're on the listener list or reach out and figure out how you can get access to some of this content. What we're going to do about, I guess it'll be 2 and a half weeks later, on November 6th, I believe is the target date, that Friday afternoon, we're going to come back together for another 2 and a half or 3 hours. And this is going to be exclusive to those who have a ticket to the 2020 Summit. Now, that's sold out this year, but But it'll also be the first opportunity for people who buy a ticket to the 2021 summit to start to come together. What I do, because we sell so many tickets so early in advance of the event, that we do these regular attendee networking conversations to allow people to get to know each other and to learn from each other. And so what I think we're going to do is we're going to combine the 2 groups. We're going to take all the folks from the 2020 experience and give an opportunity for those who've invested in themselves for 2021. One, to come back together for a few hours to, in a very dynamic way, right? We're not gonna, you know, have people give formal presentations so much, but just this opportunity to go deeper on those big topics that came up that we just didn't fully resolve. So this may be one of those types of things. Well, I'm… I can't wait to see what comes of, of this year's experience. It is going to be absolutely incredible. And if you haven't yet signed up For the free sponsor-supported livestream experience, if you go to top1summit.com, you can sign up and we're going to have so many opportunities for you to engage in this content and with each other and really build community. Lisa, the last thing I always try and do in these episodes is to make it as actionable as we can. Again, we've covered a ton of ground, told a lot of stories, and you've shared so many different insights and so much inspiration. But what would you encourage the person who's listening to this right now to do? What can they do over the course of the next week or two weeks to improve themselves and improve their results? What's your challenge for them?

1:55:45 Lisa Palmer: So I'll just wrap the three things that I think are most critical, Scott. As we've been through our conversation, first focus specifically on your client, and that means go out and do the research. There's actually on my LinkedIn page there are two infographics that give you. Good tools to dig through how to do really solid research. So start there, focus on your client. Secondly, build the strongest selling team around you that you can possibly build. Use the same networking and prospecting skills that you use every day outside of your organization, turn them inward, and find the very best sellers you can bring to the table. And then finally, from the third piece, is tight team communication. Make sure that you have a structure around when and how you're communicating and set forward expectations for that fantastic team that you assemble around how they're going to communicate so that you can all be best serving the clients that you work with.

1:56:50 Scott Ingram: Lisa, incredible, incredible stuff. You know, everybody… well, not everybody… podcast We always want to do something really, really special with our 100th episode, right? It's a big milestone, and we always want to do just something a little bit extra. And I just got extraordinarily lucky in finding you. And thank you for your time. Thank you for this, because you have made episode 100 quite special.

1:57:16 Lisa Palmer: It was truly my pleasure, Scott. I'm honored to have been your 100th guest.

1:57:20 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community, powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.