101: Top 1% Cisco Channel Sales Performer - Ivana Zivkovic Meesters

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Alice, Vidyard, and Terryberry. 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 Provide 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 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters. Ivana is a partner account manager at Cisco, and for those of you who have been asking for an interview with a top-performing channel sales rep, this episode is for you. Welcome to the show, Ivana.

0:57 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Thank you so much, Scott. I'm so happy to be here. I'm honored.

1:00 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Now, if you're new to the show, it's important know that I only interview quota-carrying individuals like Ivana who are the number one top performers, or at least in the top 1% of performers in their organization. And we always try to start with some immediate value. So, Ivana, what are the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success?

1:24 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Thank you, Scott. I think there are many things that have contributed to my success, but to narrow it down, I think it comes down to 3: perception, Perseverance, and persistence. Those 3 kind of tie it up nicely. Perception, really, I'm here to help. My partner needs to understand that I only succeed if they succeed, which means I'm part of the team. I need to be at that table where decisions are being made in order to help them achieve their goals and mine. You need to have the perseverance to really go the long haul, have the uncomfortable conversations, Tackle the topics that are not easy to discuss, figure out what's going wrong, and find a way through. And then really the persistence to see it through. You have to be committed to finding a way to make the goals a reality. And that's not going to be overnight. You're going to have numerous success plans, account plans, campaigns. The real key is to have a clear and consistent way to measure. You know, are you being successful and be able to adjust your plan along the way to make sure that you're on the correct path to hit your goals?

2:35 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Now, let's put this just in a bit of perspective. What exactly is your role at Cisco?

2:41 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So, currently, I am a partner account manager for the largest partner in Canada. I take care of Ontario public sector and the federal team. Carrying a quota somewhere in the ballpark of $53 million USD, which converts to about $73 million Canadian. And this past year, I was lucky enough to achieve over 149% of that goal.

3:10 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. Congratulations.

3:11 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Thank you.

3:12 Scott Ingram: Well, let's kind of contextualize this just a little bit from a channel sales perspective. What is that? How does that work? How's that different from a more traditional direct sales type of role?

3:24 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Certainly. From my perspective, it's not just about getting that deal. It's a journey to get there. You have to look at the partner that you're working with, where they are in their cycle as a partner. Are they just onboarding? Are they well-established? Are they somewhere in the middle? So it comes down to really looking at it as if it were your own business. You need to be concerned with what are their sales strategies? What are they focused on? What are the verticals they're touching? Do they have adequate training? Do we need to do technical training, sales training? What kind of infrastructure do they have? Do they have professional services that they're selling alongside? Everything from marketing to the actual sales process is encompassed in the channel sales role. So it's really varied. And my tasks, you know, in a week can be anything from setting up a sales campaign to being on the phone with the product team and saying, you know, we need to introduce this product to your sales organization. What is it going to take to get a new product introduction?

4:37 Scott Ingram: And have you always been in channel sales or have you been in direct sales as well?

4:40 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I've never been in direct sales. I actually, I came in to Cisco about 9, 10 years ago And I was in sales in a different way. I worked in retail at the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. So, very different.

4:59 Scott Ingram: I can imagine. What took you into that role? How did you get into sales in the first place?

5:02 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Oh, well, interesting. I was, you know, our family was changing. We had our daughter and I was working at the LCBO. She was about a year and a half. And I was doing a lot of late-night shifts. Working weekends. We weren't getting as much family time as I would like. And I decided it's time for a change. I started to look at my skills and I said, you know what, this is what I'm good at. I like customer service. I like being in front of people. I made a list of things that I think would resonate. And then I looked at companies and I compared my skill set to, you know, the top 100 companies that really had great traits that I was looking for: flexible work, opportunity for advancement, the ability to get new skills, grow within the company. And I was able to secure a job with a contractor, actually, for Cisco as a partner support rep for the global multinational group, which really, it's a foot in the door, but I was really happy. To have that opportunity. And the rest is history. It opened up a whole new world.

6:13 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Now, did you, did you find a lot of success right away, or did it take you a little bit to kind of settle in?

6:18 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So interesting. I was in the role for about 9 months in terms of partner support before I got promoted to virtual partner account manager. And part of that was, I think, the success I had in partner support really gave me the foundation. I was really focused in on the programs that partners need to leverage while working with Cisco. And I learned the backbone, right? What does it take to be successful for a very large partner? I was supporting the number 1 or 2, depending on the quarter, partner in Canada. And I got a lot of background. I had to find ways for things to make sense to me. While I was in that role. So coming in, not knowing a lot about technology, I started to ask a lot of questions and I had to develop a lot of different ways of doing things to make sure it resonated with me and I understood how to properly support them. And by doing so, I found I was breaking things down to the lowest common denominator. And that's how I presented things when I spoke to my partner, when I spoke to my colleagues, and it really helped kind of make things easier, right? So it was the easy button that people were looking for. And that helped me move into my VPAM role where, you know, I was kind of thrown into sales. And I had to figure out a way to actually sell.

7:46 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting, because I wonder if… do you think it can be a liability for somebody to know almost too much, right, to have like a lot of technical knowledge and not be able to really translate the easy button, as you say, to the customer?

8:02 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I think it can. I think part of the secret to my success, because I don't have a technology background, I look at the solutions that Cisco offers and I actually look at the solutions. What can we do? What is the thing that we're selling actually? You know, what is it there for overall? So when I talk to my sales teams at the partner, I talk about the big picture. I talk about the outcomes and then work backwards because that's how I understand it, right? I don't get into the bits and bytes. And, you know, I'm very lucky I work with a team, you know, national team. So supporting different segments of my partner across Canada, but I also have a sales engineer that works very closely with me in my patch. So, you know, I'm happy to Let him handle any of the technical conversations and I will drive the solutions. I will drive the conversations around what can we do? What is the art of the possible? And what does it take to get there? Help the sales team understand because I find sales reps tend to have a very short attention span, right? You have to be in and out. Give them what they're looking for, right? So, big picture, these are the Solutions. This is what they do. And here's the questions you need to ask in order to get to these results, right? You need to prequalify. Here's what you need, you know, and here's your next steps. This is who you call to help you with the discovery in terms of, you know, the technical aspects. And there you go.

9:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love it. Now, if you were starting over today, knowing everything that you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently from a career perspective?

9:48 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I think truly it would be to get into sales a whole lot sooner and IT sales in particular. I think going through university, going through high school, if you had asked me what I was going to do when I grew up, I would never have said sales, right? I had that stereotypical salesperson figure in my mind and I said, that's not really me. And what I've discovered in my journey is that sales is really what you make it. I am able to use my creativity. I'm able to do all sorts of things without, you know, kind of conforming to that narrow, you know, you're out there, you're just making calls, you're dialing for dollars. Really, I can adapt it to me. And that's resonated with my partners, with the internal sales teams. I'm able to put a different spin Right? And it's helped me overall.

10:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I see that so, so consistently. I mean, the best sellers are really those who are able to make it their own, right? And leverage their own personality. It's… this is not, this is not a formula. You can't be somebody else and act in a perfectly scripted way. It just has to kind of fit who you are.

11:05 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Definitely. I mean, I encourage people to You know, use a style that's comfortable for them. I tend to be casual. I am big on relationships. I want to make sure that my partner is comfortable with me and everyone on the account team, you know, from the VP down to, you know, the order ops person that I work with. It's a spectrum, right? And you want to encourage personal relationships. And that's really why I've been successful is leveraging the skills that I have.

11:36 Scott Ingram: One way that you can develop deeper relationships with your clients, prospects, and partners is through personalized gifts, 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/A-L-Y-C-E. Yeah, I'm really curious about how you manage the relationships and leverage the relationships with the sellers that you work with, because you're essentially selling through them, right? You're, you're essentially enabling another organization's sales team to go out and be successful. Do you Do you kind of seek out the stars or those who have shown an aptitude to position your products well? How do you just think about and prioritize? I'm sure there's lots and lots of salespeople in these organizations.

12:46 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Definitely. Well, with the groups that I'm working with right now, I have probably about 50 or so sellers that I work with. On a regular basis. And it's really a staged approach. I look at an overall plan and what is it going to take to get there? And, you know, it's a programmatic approach where, you know, I meet with the leadership teams, I look at the priorities, we create a plan for the year, for the month, for the quarter, and we work on executing. When it comes down to the actual level, I mean, there are the stars on the team that you always want to encourage and be there for. You want to make sure that they're supported, they have everything they need. But I actually focus on those people just below those top performers. Because the top performers, of course, you're going to support the people just below or that are struggling and you see they really want to, but maybe they're missing something, right? I like to spend time with my sellers. I want to understand what makes them tick, what works for them, what doesn't, and help them overcome barriers. And sometimes, you know, there have been cases where we need to go back to basics and do basic selling skills. Maybe, you know, they need to do 3-legged calls with a Cisco account team member that also works on the same account, kind of help them through that conversation. There are a number of things that we utilize to kind of help them get to where they need to be. So my concern also is, you know, not just that I achieve my goals, but that they achieve their goals, because if people are seeing success, they will sell more. If they're having fun, they will sell more. And it's just smiles all around.

14:35 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. Well, the show is called Sales Success Stories, so I feel like we should probably tell a story about a sale. Do you have a favorite story through your years and adventures as a partner seller?

14:47 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Of course. So this is years back when I was first starting in a VPAM role, so Virtual Partner Account Manager role, and I was working with a partner trying to convert prospects into leads. And we were doing webinars. We were doing briefings, customer briefings at their offices, at Cisco office. And we weren't seeing a conversion rate. The next meeting, in-person meeting wasn't happening. And it was really, how do we get to the next level? How do we get to the sale? And we came up with a great idea. It was fall time period. We ended up getting a bunch of remote control toy cars and we sent them out to people who attended our briefings, our webinars, top prospects that we had. And, you know, we included a note saying, you know, thank you for coming out. Here's a quick summary. And by the way, If you're looking for the remote control, we'd be happy to set up an appointment and talk about what we discussed and give it over to you. So, it was fantastic. We had great results. It was amazing. People came in with a bit of a smile. We had a great icebreaker. We were able to convert 80% of the toys that we sent out into leads, right? They came in, we had a meeting, and of those, We were able to get 60% of those to close, which was absolutely amazing. Because when you look at lead generation, when you're starting from nothing, if you call 100 different companies, you may get 30 responses. Out of those 30, you might be able to bring maybe, maybe 50% of those and then closing is even harder. So we had fantastic success. And part of that was really appealing to the human side, right? Coming off, giving them something, getting them into our office, having an icebreaker. And yeah, it was, it was great. It was a wonderful campaign.

17:03 Scott Ingram: Those are some serious conversion rates.

17:07 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I think, I mean, the timing of year was fantastic. I mean, we were going in, we started, I think it was September, early October timeframe. By the beginning of December, I mean, we had seen so many customers come through. And it was fantastic. And these were all net new customers. Net new customers had never bought from this partner before, hadn't bought Cisco. So it was in the SMB mid-market space, but still phenomenal.

17:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I wonder if we're in a different time now, right? That was when we got to go to their offices and bring them things and that kind of thing. What are you finding is working for you now in this 100% virtual type of situation. And you guys are even quite a bit more strict there in Canada.

17:53 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: We are, we are. So, you know, right now we're not going out, we're not seeing, you know, I'm not seeing my partner live, and they're not going to see customers. So it becomes a challenge. What we've done and what we're working on is really, you know, making virtual meetings fun. So we've all sat on video conference calls and you know, you're paying attention, sort of. The challenge becomes, how do you get people to actually pay attention when they have their email and they have all these other fun things on their screen that they could be paying attention to? So, you know, I'm all about having fun and making sales fun. And I'll give you an example. So May the 4th, I had a sales meeting with my partner and my internal team. And we used the theme, May the 4th Be With You: Sales Wars. And I'll tell you, it was fantastic. We were able to keep people's attention because, A, we kept things down to very short segments. So no one spoke for more than 20 minutes at a time. We were to the point, crisp, clean. We had phenomenal slides that were decked out in Star Wars gear. We superimposed the faces of our sales leaders, of ourselves, onto characters from Star Wars. We made sure that every slide was interesting. And yeah, we also incented on people who asked questions, right? It was great.

19:29 Scott Ingram: That's so good. Sales Wars. I'm going to figure out how to create a hologram of myself and we'll do that next year.

19:36 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I mean, fantastic. We've also done something around Cinco de Mayo. Right? So capitalizing on the larger themes, I know, you know, it can seem cheesy and so on, but I think if it's done well and you're really 100% in, people will buy in. People will buy in.

19:55 Scott Ingram: It's ultimately about that creativity, right? And you've said it several times now, just this idea of you've got to make sales fun. Like, we… I think too often we take ourselves way too seriously.

20:08 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I agree. I agree. I think a lot can be said around, you know, let's have fun, right? We're all here. And, you know, if you're in sales, you're putting in lots of hours, right? That whole 9-to-5 workweek really doesn't comply with sales, at least in my world. You work anywhere, anytime, anyplace. And, you know, if things need to be done, you're on it, right? Because you want to make your numbers. I will You know, my partners know if they call me, 2 hours they're going to hear back from me. If they've left me a message, if they send me an email, chances are 90% of the time I'm answering within minutes, whether it's, you know, 9 in the morning or 10 at night. And because we do this and we're so intent and we're all, you know, goal-driven and we want to succeed, I think we need to bring you know, our personalities, our personal lives, our, you know, the things that we like into what we do, right? So that's what really helps sustain us through those long hours. You know, there are, there are days, quarter ends, year ends, where you're working nonstop, and I find that fantastic. I love the drive, I love the energy, and it motivates me and keeps me going. But I think also being able to you know, have some time to joke around with my partner, you know, understanding, you know, their circumstances. Maybe, you know, we're going to talk about our kids and what we're doing and have some fun on the weekend. All these things help put together a really great atmosphere on, you know, around the things that you do. And you look forward to it, right? You look forward to selling. You look forward to getting together with your account teams, with the people that you work with, because at the end of the day, you sell to people, right? Not companies.

22:03 Scott Ingram: At the end of the day, you do sell to people and you should be having some fun. One of the best ways that you can do both of those things is by inserting a bit more of yourself and a bit more of your personality into your emails. And you can do that with Vidyard. After you download Vidyard's free Chrome plugin, you can be creating personalized videos for those emails in minutes. They make it super easy. And one of my favorite parts is the animated image that you can drop into those emails to make sure your recipient clicks to watch, and you'll only get a notification when they do. To learn more, just click over to top1.fm/v for Vidyard. Yeah, absolutely. So you have had a lot of like really consistent success. You've accomplished a lot. What are you most proud of?

22:52 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Honestly, I'm most proud of really being the top 1% at Cisco. Making Chairman's Club was absolutely amazing for me. It's something that I was striving for. I remember coming in as sales support, you know, partner support many, many years ago and looking at chairmen and going, wow, I really want to do that someday. I want to be one of the top, you know, I want to be the 1%. And getting there is a journey, right? And especially in channels, I didn't know beforehand, but it's not just being the 1%. When you get in channels, it's also done by committee afterwards. So you have to be the 1%. And of the 1%, you need to make sure that you embody Cisco traits, right? That you show leadership, that you have customer satisfaction, that you know, you embody what it is to be part of the Cisco team, and then it goes to a committee and they vote on it. So, it's really like you hit the numbers and you've gone above and beyond your role. You've shown leadership. I mean, it really makes it… I don't even have the words. I don't. It's an amazing place to be.

24:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah. When you think, obviously, that was a big, big driver for you and you let that motivate you. What else drives you?

24:24 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: What drives me is the small successes, right? I, through my career, I've covered over 100 different partners. Right now I only have one, but really, you know, if I look at through my sales career, it's those small victories, right? Those milestones that give you that bit of success that keep you moving forward because It's that little by little that gets you over the top. The big wins are fantastic, and I'll take them every day and twice on Sunday, but those are not as many as we would like, right? The chances of success are much better if you're focused in on the small things. And when you work in the channel, it's, it's the long haul, right? We get to our numbers really by helping our partners be profitable. Enabling them and driving results through their sales teams, making sure that they have the tools they need to be successful, right? And that means 365 days a year, you need to be working with them, supporting them, and really focused on those small successes. So maybe it's that sales rep that maybe is struggling to, you know, get that first lead from Cisco that you know, maybe they've just started. Maybe it's that seasoned sales professional that really wants to take the next step but is finding it hard to, you know, get the partnership going, sitting down and, you know, coming up with a plan and working with them and with your internal account team and getting to that, you know, small bit of success where you can see the tide turning. There are all these little nuanced things that happen in the channel that really make it interesting, varied, and, you know, give you so much, I guess, reward for, for the effort you put in, right? As long as you're… you look at them as, you know, success or victories and you acknowledge them, right? If you're just looking for the big numbers on your day-to-day, you're going to have a tough slog. You have to be committed to putting in the time and, you know, feeling good about the work you're doing through the small victories, really.

26:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, the thing that strikes me is how much emphasis you're really putting on being that true partner. I mean, the things I'm hearing you talk about are just understanding their business and their profitability and what drives them, and then taking that a step deeper and understanding that really at the rep level for that individual. What are the things that are driving them? What are they trying to achieve?

27:10 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Exactly, exactly. Because when you look at partnership, it is a… it needs to be a partnership. It cannot be one way. So if, you know, imagine this, if we look at, you know, going into a partner and just demanding that they sell Cisco, and just looking at that particular fact, it's not going to get you very far. I mean, The reality is most partners have a myriad of vendors that they can sell, right? And that's why the relationship is so important. I care about, you know, them achieving their goals. I always say I have 2 year ends. I have the Cisco year end and I have my partner's year end, right? I work just as hard on their year end as I do on ours to make sure that they have what they need to get RevRec and get their compensation, right? Because I know that at the end of the day, they will be there for me. I sell, you know, as much for them as I do for myself.

28:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, and clearly it's… I mean, I think this is true across the board. It has to be about them, right? As soon as you make it about you, I mean, even just in your example of talking through Oh, how's that going? You know, not, not the how's that going, but are you positioning this? Are you doing that? Are you doing all the things I want you to do? And you just switch somebody off with that approach.

28:33 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Completely. Completely. I mean, really, I'm there to help. I am the easy button, right? You have a problem. I am going to help you solve it. Right. And sometimes it's Cisco related and sometimes it's not. Sometimes they, they are looking for answers and they're looking for advice. And, you know, sometimes they just want to grab a coffee and chat it over with somebody. And I want to be that person, right? Because I think that's what, that's what helps drive sales overall. And, you know, there are people that would disagree. I mean, that, you know, we should focus on, you know, teaching and so on, you know, not to diminish the relationship, but honestly, I think it's an overall package. I think you Cannot have one without the other because you know we're all people.

29:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I agree with that a thousand percent. I think the whole relationship piece got maligned partially. I think from a lack of holistic understanding of the challenger sale. I think a lot of people read that and because the relationship seller was oh this is this is the worst performer. But if you really look at the whole of what a true challenger is, there's a huge relational component. I think it was misunderstood in terms of. Yeah, if all you're doing is taking people out to dinner and taking them to play golf and that, and you're hoping that your sales results are going to come from that, no, that's not going to work. There's more to it. But a true challenger still has relationships at the core of their process, right? I don't know that I've talked to anybody on this show who's like, yeah, relationships are irrelevant. I just sell, sell, sell. That's… that's… you don't… you don't get to be on that show, on this show, if that's your approach.

30:15 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: No, of course not. And I think so, it's funny you mentioned, because I, the Challenger Sale, because I think I actually embody a few of those methodologies, right? When I tailor my approach, I make sure that everything is customized to my partner group. So right now I have public sector and the federal team, that those 2, even though they're both public sector teams, work totally differently. And different things resonate. You know, I've covered everything from retail, SMB, up to the big bank teams. And I've had to customize my approach for every single one of them because otherwise it does not resonate. Right. And you have to take control. Right. You have to take control. You have to assign ownership. And I think, you know, when we talk different sales methodologies, I think we all take pieces from here, pieces from there. To get to the right sort of balance that works for you, right? Overall, that helps. And, you know, talking about relationships and so on, I mean, there's a couple of funny things that really have helped me. So one, coming into a partner, right? And especially larger partners. One of my favorite things to do to get us off on the right foot is actually I come in with a giant container of cookies, freshly baked, if I can, still hot out of the oven. And I talk to everyone I encounter, introduce myself, and we share, you know, chat and a cookie. Positive from the beginning. And they associate me with good times, cookies. And by the way, I'm from Cisco and I'm here to help. So guess what? They're going to pick up the phone and chances are they're going to call me again after that, right? Building relationships. I think also if we look at, you know, you were bringing up going golfing and going for drinks. While I really find those things useful, I found socializing between partner and sales teams, so internal sales teams, really crucial. And one of the biggest successes I've had was actually getting them to volunteer together. So, setting up this past winter, we actually did. So, I think it was November timeframe. We did a Habitat for Humanity build. We raised money. We went up to the job site together and we worked throughout the day. We built relationships. We had a great time. We helped a great cause. And I don't think anyone's going to forget it. And I think we built a lot of great bridges that day.

33:06 Scott Ingram: I love, I love that you said that. That's such a great example. Because I think when you go to dinner all the time, it's, it's just another dinner, right? Can you really separate that conversation, that meal, that experience from the one that you had the week before with, with a different partner? And there's so much value in the idea of shared experience. And Habitat for Humanity, I mean, that's not some… that's not normal, right? Going and playing golf, for me, that's not normal. But, you know, for a lot of people, that, that might be. Or going to dinner or whatever these things are. And not that those aren't valuable and they're not shared experiences, but it's those really unique, differentiated… or we're doing something together that's meaningful, that matters, and I'm gonna remember you for that, for that particular experience, for what you did. I mean, it's so much of the work that I'm actively doing right now around the Sales Success Summit, right? And, and the experiences that we're working to build around that, because I want people to remember. I want them to have… this is more than just, oh, there's a lot of really amazing content here. Yes. And I want them to have feelings, right? And make associations and, and have some connection to where they were when they built that relationship with that, that person that they've always wanted to, to meet, or that conversation they had. It just, it's different, right? You have to be, again, coming back to the creative idea, you have to be creative. You have to think about those things and get outside of the traditional box that is, oh yeah, we went to a bar and had drinks. Like, well, do you remember which where you were.

34:48 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: It's true. It's really true. I mean, I think that's part of the secret to my success is really because I don't, I didn't know what was really expected of me, right? You know, you know, the general, everyone gets the outline, but I, I really looked at, you know, what would I want to do? What makes things interesting? How can we get people out? And, you know, especially now. So let's look at, you know, COVID. As an example, we're all stuck indoors for the most part, right? We're all living 24/7 on our computers. How do we take this to the next level, right? How do you actually get customers to join, right? How do you get creative? And, you know, you have to bring that personal aspect, right? Whether it's finding ways to raise money that really resonate, causes that resonate with people. Overall, I mean, what a great thing getting together. You feel good and you have a good time doing it. And on top of that, you're building your social network, you're helping your sales career, you're helping yourself, you know, get to those opportunities you need to in an interesting way. So, I mean, online I'm working on everything from, you know, mix, you know, mixing drinks, how to mix, you know, I did a little session on how to mix my favorite summer cocktails. You know, social, online, and let's have a conversation while we're doing it. I hosted a cooking class for, you know, how do you make my pancetta risotto? Let's get together. And I think part of sales is really, I keep saying this, the human touch. A lot of people are feeling isolated. There are a lot of people that, you know, maybe live alone and especially during the height of COVID you know, we're very isolated. So having sessions, you know, where you're inviting people and maybe, you know, not the people that you work with every day, but people, you know, that you haven't talked to in the last 4 or 5 months, invite them into this mix. Right. And you will find that, you know, even though you have 30, 40+ people on a call watching, you know, conversations happen, people start pinging, they start talking, interesting topics come up and they will remember. That you did this, and you know overall everyone feels good. And in the end, right? So it comes back to happy people sell. Happy people will achieve their goals because you know they're they will work hard for it.

37:25 Scott Ingram: Oh, great stuff! And I love that you gave some some really specific examples there. I want to go back to we we started talking about the challenger and and kind of your approach there. Do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy like Challenger?

37:40 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Well, I mean, I think not really, but I take more out of the Challenger methodology because, you know, teach, tailor, very, you know, take control approach, but I make it my own. Like with everything else, I take pieces and I make them my own because I'm there. That's what really kind of resonated with me because I'm there to help you, to teach you. All of my partners go through training, and I do monthly trainings with them, and I try to make them impactful, right? Because I can see… I can almost see people listening to this rolling their eyes. Oh my God, monthly training, not again, right? I try to make it fun. I try to make sure that they're engaged, and I do that by making sure it's tailored to what we're working on, what their segment is, what that vertical is. Let's have specific use cases. Let's show them the solutions and work our way down. If I'm talking to sales executives, I'm going to have a different presentation than the sales specialist, than the architects that I'm presenting to. If I'm working with a product team, again, it's going to be a different kind of presentation. I want to make sure that it really resonates. And when they walk out of the room, I want to make sure that they have action items, right? And that they're accountable. So, you know, one of my favorite things to say is, you know, we did this presentation. Fantastic. Thank you guys. By the end of the week, can you please let me know who you've reached out to? We've got a goal of X amount. I want to know that you've had these conversations. What's your feedback? Yay, nay. Do you need more of this or that? How can I help drive this forward? And we measure, right? And we take control. And because we've assigned people a very direct sort of action, they know what to do. So we've given you the tools, we've presented, we've kind of given you the questions and almost like a script, but not, right? We've given you, these are the key things that you want to ask. These are the responses you're looking for. If you get this and this, this is the result. This is your next step, right? And we're really measuring that through. So I think to answer your question, yes, Challenger, but like I said, I've kind of tweaked it a little bit.

40:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we'll come back to that. But there's, there's one thing you started talking about that I think is super important. And that is really kind of the accountability, the place that I see folks that are in this type of role, right, whether it be channels, partners, business development, anything where you're sort of selling Through. I find that people struggle with… I had this great conversation. I showed them what was possible, but there's no accountability. There's no follow-through, and nothing happens on the other side. No business ever comes out the the bottom of those relationships. How do you how do you do that?

40:37 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Well, so here's the thing: it comes down to like we were talking about earlier. It's the sales plan, right? So you've got to have a very clear. Set of expectations going in. Right. So I try to put everything into almost like a campaign. Right. So if we're focusing on collaboration this quarter, right, and we're going to say, okay, we're going to do a training out of this training, we're expecting people to go out and call these customers. And I'm going to scrub that list. I'm going to sit down with the sales leader. And we're going to make sure that A, these are customers that we want to target. B, we're going to align to internal sales. So we're going to get the Cisco sales leader on the phone with us and we're going to meet, right? I'm very big on cadence. I feel like communication is the backbone that's so often neglected of, you know, getting things done. Really, everyone wants to default to email and let's ping over Teams. Let's ping, you know, send messages. I like a good conversation. Let's get things out in the open and let's figure it out. So once we have alignment and, you know, internal sales teams know what we're doing, we are aligned on customers. Let's go do it and let's follow up. And because we have this cadence set up and the expectation is coming from the top down, we get results. And if we're not getting results, then we can pinpoint why we're not getting results, make that change, and keep going. I refuse to accept failure, right? Failure is not an option. We will succeed. It's just a question of how far we will succeed, right? So we can… I always reach for the stars and, you know, see how far I can get.

42:25 Scott Ingram: There's a couple of nuanced things in what you just described that kind of struck… that kind of stuck out for me. And one is the fact that I think the trap that, again, a lot of people get into is they're just too nebulous, right? It's like, oh, this is a great fit for everything and everybody, and there's a lack of focus. And what you just said is you're basically doing that work for them upfront. You're working with the sales leader and deciding before you even start that training, these are the accounts, these are the opportunities, here's how we're going to focus, so that you're taking a finite number of actions. And you don't have sort of this nebulous ask when you're done, which is, oh, well, you know, reach out to some people with this idea, which that's going to… there's going to be no result.

43:14 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Exactly. So I think the way I look at it, and in every, you know, even in, you know, my 2 segments that I look after right now, I mean, you've got the top-end customers that are established. And then you've got this sort of big chunk that's in the middle. And you've kind of, you know, the big accounts, they're going to have their very specific account plans. We've been in there, strong relationships. We've got a very clear sales plan. It's that tier right underneath that this is really targeted to, right? So the top accounts, I spend time with each of them. I make sure that the sales teams are aligned, that we have a regular cadence, that we have A, communication that, you know, Cisco sales team knows what my partner is doing, that the partner sales team knows what Cisco's doing. You know, what are we partnering on? You know, and we're not going to partner on everything, right? But we need to be able to have that conversation, say we're partnering here, here, and here. But you know what? We're partnered somewhere else here. And that's okay. And that conversation needs to happen. Right? Clear, concise communication. And then once we've decided, you know, these are the steps we want to take, what do we need to do to get from point A to point B? Right? And what's the easiest way to do it? And then making sure it's follow-up, right? So in channels, it's a lot of, hey, by the way, did you do this? Did you have that conversation? What's happening? Right? And everyone's doing their thing and everyone's super busy. It's trying to make sure that, you know, you're kind of redirecting focus when needed. So, you know, sales is sales. So you're going to follow the money and it's sort of like squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. Right. And you need to be that person to say, hey, focus, because this will be that, you know, that shining light at the end of the tunnel if we focus through and work on it together. Yeah.

45:12 Scott Ingram: So, so good. I mean, that, that's sort of the equivalent of If you're in a direct sales role, it's super important to qualify your pipeline just so you're not spending a lot of energy on an opportunity that's not real or doesn't really have a chance and invest that in a place that does make sense. In your world, it's keeping your team focused on, wait, I get it. That looks interesting, but that's not where this is going to be. It's really helping, essentially helping them to qualify and make sure you're aligned correctly on the right opportunities. Well, exactly.

45:43 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: And so much of channel sales is really finding that alignment, right? So, you know, you may have partners that want to work in particular accounts and they're saying, hey, I want to partner with Cisco. And maybe Cisco's not able to, maybe they've committed to another partner. So how do we get in, right? How do we break through? And, you know, there are different ways to do it, but I'm there to help, right? Help them get a foothold. Manage expectations, look at different ways to strategize around getting into particular accounts, right? And that's where like the perseverance really comes in, right? You have to be in it through the long haul. Maybe this is a fantastic account and maybe you have, you're selling in all sorts of other stuff, but maybe, you know, we were partnered somewhere else with another partner, right? And we want to make sure that yes, Okay, my job is to make sure that you're able to sell in there. So let's find a place, whether, you know, maybe it's not a product, maybe we're looking at a service renewal. We're going to look at, you know, what's the low-hanging fruit that we can leverage to put our foothold on there and then grow, right? It doesn't have to be, and that's really when I talk about small successes, it's trying to get that little foothold that grows and grows. You know, I've taken accounts where we've come in and we've won a small contract worth, you know, few hundred K in services. You know, maybe we had to look at, you know, going in very narrow there to get in, but guess what? Now we're in and now we can build and grow larger. You know, put in our voice, resonates more with the customer. We get more time with them. Guess what? Now we can start pitching different things. We can, you know, really understand some of their challenges. And then work through and have a very, you know, solid understanding when we're pitching for the next project, right? Because in public sector, a lot of business is RFP-based. So understanding the partner, understanding the solutions are key, and being able to present a solution that resonates and helps them along the way, and even proposing, right? The ideal is getting in there and helping Them write that RFP that goes to the street, and that's really the holy grail.

48:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's such a great story. I watched that happen myself this week. You know, there was an opportunity we were working on with another partner early in the year, and it was this huge conversation, and the vision kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and the scope was just completely out of control, and it never happened, right? It was it was too big. It was too nebulous. And we just restarted that conversation and found one tiny little project. It's like, look, let's start here. And now, now we have a contractual relationship. We have the foot in the door. Now we can build trust. We can build the relationship. We can grow that footprint without trying to boil the ocean. It's so much easier to boil a pot of water.

48:46 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Exactly. Exactly. From little things, big things come, right?

48:51 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Love it. Let's go back to, again, just the, the sales philosophy thing, right? Because what, what I see again consistently is there's very rarely… it's this one idea, right? I read this one book and that's exactly what I do. It's, it's always more this long-term assimilation of, ooh, that's a good idea, I'm going to try that, that seems to fit my approach and my market and things like that. Beyond Challenger, what have been the most significant influences in your own process?

49:21 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I mean, everybody knows Lean In, right? To me, I think overall through the years, they all seem to blend, right? And Challenger sticks out just because, you know, it stays very steadily in my mind. I really, I can't go into too much detail. I think it's little things that I hear. And I think if I were to kind of look at what's influenced me the most, what helps me succeed, It's not necessarily the different sales methodologies and so on. It's talking to the network I have, my colleagues, my coworkers, my partners, my friends, and understanding why they do what they do. What are they working on? What success are they having? How can I make this apply to me? Right. It's really, again, rather than looking at the bits and bytes, I look at the solution. Wow, you were able to achieve that. How did you do that? Why did you do that? What was your thought process? How did that work? Right? And having these conversations are amazing, right? And I've come up with ridiculously amazing ideas and, you know, sales, I guess, techniques, methodologies that I use on a daily to keep me centered, to keep me organized, to keep me, you know, keep me on top of what I need to do. You know, for the week, month, quarter, year, if that makes sense.

50:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it totally does. And it's really pretty much how I would describe my process, right? It's actually less and less informed by books and folks who are out there. It's more informed by these conversations, right? And, oh, that's interesting. I hadn't ever thought about that, right? That's something I'm going to try, or I'll get the seed of an idea. And talk it through, right? Well, I'll find some other people who are who are in my network and say, "Hey, I heard this. Here's the deal I'm working on. How would how would you apply this? Do these go together?" And that's that's just a lot of how I personally do a lot of my own processing and development.

51:27 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Completely. I honestly find that I work the best with a sounding board, and I'm so lucky to be on a fantastic team. With wonderful people. And, you know, my sales engineers are phenomenal. When I need to go through and come up with ideas, we set up a call or, you know, a call in the COVID world rather than getting together for coffee or meeting in the office. And we literally bounce it back and forth and everyone brings a little bit of themselves into it, right? And puts their own spin. And we come up with something amazing, right? There's so much to be said for shared ideas and joint planning, you know, very few cases where it doesn't work out to be beneficial.

52:14 Scott Ingram: It's so interesting that you're talking about that because we are actively in the process. In fact, we've got a couple of these groups running. We'll publicly roll these out probably at the end of the summit. It's exactly something that we're working on creating because I've just found that methodology to be so, so powerful. You just, you need that environment, that venue, those people that you trust who have some understanding of you and are going to help you sort of process through, see the blind spots that you can't see, just give, give you a space to, to work through those things. I think what we don't need right now, as a guy who produces a ton of content, it's not more content. What we need is the space to be able to process that and make meaning of it and figure out how do I actually Incorporate this? How do I pick and choose between all these great ideas that are out there, but really bring something into my own process that's going to be effective for for me? And it takes work to get there.

53:17 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Oh, completely, completely. You know, to add to that, like I love I hold something called spaghetti sessions, right? We've got a challenge. We've got this problem, and I have certain ideas on how to solve it. And literally, I get people in a room and I say, "Listen, this is what we've got." Right? And let's throw ideas at the wall and see what sticks, right? Little by little, right? Ideas start flowing, things get written down, and then you go back to it a week later and you look at it and you're like, fantastic. You can make a lot of different points, things that you would not have conceived of yourself. Just, you know, throwing ideas out there, right? It's about creating that open space where you can express, right, without fear of, you know, being rejected or, you know, being able to voice your, your true opinions on, on matters.

54:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And now, are you able to do that predominantly inside your own organization? Because sometimes I find that sometimes there's just… there's other agendas that are going on in those kinds of situations. And sometimes I feel like I have to create a little bit of a safer space with folks that aren't necessarily tied to some of those outcomes or my forecast or things like that?

54:34 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Well, I mean, we're all ruled by our forecasts. But you know what, internally, honestly, I'm very fortunate, like I said, to work with some very talented and great people. And we have internal sessions like this, we have external sessions, I host it with my partner groups, right? I even go down to verticals, right? We had, I'll give you an example for healthcare, care. We got together and we said, hey, we want to do stuff. And how do we get there? Like, we've got this and this, but what's the next step? We sat there with my internal team and my partner team and myself, and let's throw things around. And, you know, sometimes, you know, things go one way or the other. You've got to have an understanding that really we're just there to… let's create the plan. Let's get the seeds going. Let's throw out every possibility and then we'll work through and clean it up. Right? It's sort of that writer's adage: get it on the paper and then clean it up.

55:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let me say this: I'm going to just kind of toss this out there. If this is interesting to you, I'm actually going to put a little form on top1.fm/101 because this will be our 101st episode, where if you want to talk about this peer group concept, maybe we'll give you a little bit of a sneak preview. So that'll be your opportunity to just let us know this is something you might be interested in, but otherwise, to be continued. Let's go back to… we talked about some of your accomplishments and some of the high points. What do you find to be the most challenging? What do you struggle with? Well, I mean, a couple things.

56:09 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So coming into Cisco, not having a technology background, the technology, right, was the biggest thing. And then after I figured out, you know, the solutions and I figured out how to make it work for me. The second thing was really understanding that I had to share, you know, bring up my ideas and put up my hand and highlight how I was doing things. And I didn't really know that that was needed, right? I was very focused, like, I'm doing my job, I'm driving the sales. You know, and that's that. And it actually came about, I was talking to my manager years and years ago. I ran into him getting coffee and he asked me, hey, so what are you working on? And I started talking to him about these sales presentations I was working on for partners I was onboarding. And I put together this presentation that talked about partner profitability, went through programs, what it looks like for them. When they use a program versus when they don't use a program. And I, you know, used actual, you know, use solid numbers, you know, $100,000 deal. If you don't use a program, if you use a program, what does it look like? Right. If you're this level of partner, if you're that level of partner, if you're doing this and that. And he said, oh my God, really? That's amazing. Why haven't you said anything before? And I said, well, I didn't know you wanted me to. Right? And I don't really feel comfortable. Like, it feels to me almost like I'm bragging because he was encouraging me to speak up and, you know, kind of tell my team about it and tell them. And it felt really awkward, right? It wasn't in what I would consider, you know, something I was comfortable with. It made me feel like I was bragging, and I, I wasn't. And maybe bragging is not the right word, but, you know, showing off. But I started to learn how to do that and to do it in a way where I felt comfortable with it. And it started off really with just, you know, knocking on the door of my manager's office and saying, hey, you know, I'm letting you know I'm doing this and this. What do you think? And they said, amazing. Like, you need to highlight this. And then, you know, we started… I started presenting in team meetings. And that I actually ended up creating, you know, a whole training pack for the virtual partner account manager team. I eventually became team lead with them and creating these meetings that were very structured around how to get results, right? How to talk to your partners, putting together these presentations that talked about profitability, how to get them successful, you know, getting them interested in working with Cisco because in that space, I mean, those partners are either onboarded or they've been on for a while and they've had varying degrees of success. And, you know, I'm talking about 10 years ago. So this was revolutionary at that time, you know, in this part of the organization.

59:09 Scott Ingram: It really helped. So much of this comes down to culture. It's those organizations that are actively working to create a culture of performance and recognizing the meaningful contributions that Ivana is talking about here. Terryberry does that. 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 that culture of performance and recognition today. You can learn more at top1.fm/terryberry. Terryberry. That's T-E-R-R-Y-B-E-R-R-Y. So, I mean, I'm a huge believer in this idea. I mean, it's what this whole podcast is about, is shining a bright light on the things that, that are working and the people that are doing the best inside of an organization like that. How much of that do you feel is incumbent on the leadership and the culture to provide the space to share those types of insights versus how much of it is just on you to step up and say, you know what, I'm gonna be a team player. I've found some things that are really working and really resonating. And I shouldn't keep these a secret, like the rest of the organization should know how I'm doing this. And at least let me just kind of share my recipes. Well, and here's the thing.

1:00:33 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I mean, I was very new, right? And I wasn't… I was feeling my way through. And the one thing I found in my organization is everyone is really willing to hear what you have to say. And that was surprising. Right? They want to know, they want your feedback. And it took me a while to wrap my head around that, to say, oh my God, they actually mean it. And guess what? They're actually going to take action. Like, wow. Right? And it doesn't, doesn't matter that you're… that at that time I was like, you know, very low on the totem pole. Not that I'm high on the totem pole now, but, you know, I was one of many virtual partner account managers at that time. And the organization took notice. Right? And what I gathered from that is that you have to put your hand up and you have to share ideas and, you know, put yourself in the uncomfortable spot. And I think, live really in the uncomfortable place because that's where you grow, right? And I've gotten accustomed to that. If I'm feeling really good and comfortable and I'm not, and I don't have butterflies, that means that I'm really not stretching. Right? I'm not taking the chance. I'm not putting myself out there. And you have to, right? And so many great ideas happen and so many great things happen when people share, right? Share what they're doing, share what their sales plans are. And some people, you know, come back and say, well, you know, we're all competing against each other. I'm like, yes, we are competing against each other, but we are a team and we're working on a goal together. Right. And it comes down from the leadership. All the way down. Like, if you have something that's working, you need to share it, right? And that's come up… come down from the very top, right? And it's… you see it resonate throughout the company, which is fantastic. It's really what, you know, my experience has been absolutely amazing.

1:02:23 Scott Ingram: That's, that's really big. And what's, what's most interesting to me is that you sort of discovered that and understood that so early. And I think especially when we're new in a role or we're new to a company, we, we shy away from those ideas, right? Because it's like, well, who am I? I'm new. I don't, I don't understand this. But it's almost like what you shared in the very beginning about the way that you were simplifying things. It's that, it's that different perspective when, because you haven't been around for 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, it's that new perspective that actually has the value and there's the reason to share that knowledge. And it's something that it's hard to really draw that out. I think we all need to be thinking of, you know what, what is that thing? Jack Wilson and I talk about this all the time. It's the curse of knowledge. It's when you know it, when you've learned it and you understand it, it feels like, well, everybody knows that. But you didn't know that a month ago before you figured this out and nobody else does either. And, and so it's the reason why you have to step out and share those things. And it's something that I, I try and help people understand. That's… it's the purpose of my Daily Sales Tips podcast, right? Is that's why I created that platform for people to share those little ideas, right? And it doesn't have to be… you don't have to do a 30-minute presentation, right? I… it's, it's 5 minutes or less. It's, it's share it quick and don't discount the idea. And, and what Jack and I talk about a lot is it doesn't even have to be valuable to everybody. It doesn't even have to be valuable to a majority. If it can help change and impact one person, isn't it worth it?

1:04:17 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Completely agree. Completely agree. And you know what, I'll give you a great example. I was working… I was actually on a training in San Jose… no, it wasn't San Jose, it was Raleigh. And I was there with a colleague who had just transitioned roles. And he was saying, well, oh my God, I'm going back and forth and I'm having this and that. And how do you do this? And I'm like, you know what? It's super simple, right? He was trying to get alignment, figuring out like how to get everybody on board with the opportunities for a particular week. And I said, Keep it very simple. Every week, do this, right? For me, it's every Sunday night, I pull my numbers, I pull my numbers, I pull my forecast, and I email, you know, a summary for the week to my, my manager. I email my directors at the partner and I email my internal sales leaders and I tell them, hey, this is what I've got on my on my docket for the week. Is there anything else I should be looking out for, or is there something there that, you know, is no longer valid? And guess what? All of a sudden, come Monday morning, I have a very clear picture of what to expect this week. It was a very simple thing, and not much of what I do is like revolutionary. It's not rocket science. It's very basic. It's… and I think it comes down to doing the basic things well, right? Communication, driving, knowledge, right? And that way, because you know what to expect, you can act accordingly.

1:05:59 Scott Ingram: We could have an hour-long conversation about just sort of this communication and working with your leadership and everything else, because I think that idea, the essence of I'm communicating, these are my priorities, this is what I'm working on. Your leadership must love you, right? There's, there's no questions. Like, I, I know exactly what you're pointed at, you know, what's important to you, how you're aligning. And then you're also opening the, the door and inviting them to contribute to that. Like, what have I missed? Is there something else that needs to be on my radar that I need to, I need to prioritize that maybe I just didn't even have on the list for, for this week given what's going on?

1:06:39 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Well, I mean, it helps, right? Because so much of what happens. I mean, you know, last-minute deals, bluebirds. No deals are really bluebirds, right? We all know they're happening in the back and it may happen, may not. And, you know, in the channel, we're not just concerned about getting that PO. We need to make sure that PO gets processed and properly booked, right? So it's like this whole other level once you get the PO. And Fridays I try to keep as open as possible because you know what? Things don't always go smoothly. We are fantastic. We have fantastic team that helps us put things through, but it's not it's not always you know clean. So it takes time, the back and forth. And my Fridays are significantly easier if I send it send that Sunday email. Right? I know what, what's coming, what's highly unlikely, what's a possibility that's probably not in the forecast but could come in because I've built that relationship with internal and external, right? So internally at Cisco and also with my partner, and they're going to say, listen, it's kind of a long shot, but we've got to deal with X and X. We may get a PO Friday at 3, you know, because we're meeting with them at X time. I'm like, fantastic. I can now let everyone know that, you know, we need to prep internally because there's all sorts of things that happen when a PO gets issued to get it from PO to actually booked. So let's make sure that we're prepped in the backend to process that puppy if it happens. And if it doesn't, so it's no big deal. It's going to come in next week. So we're already ready. We're ahead.

1:08:25 Scott Ingram: Amazing, right? Yeah. Let's go deeper into just all of the habits and routines and the way that you're structuring your days and your weeks. And why don't we start at kind of the week level and start with that Sunday, right? What… when does that prep happen? What all are you doing to get ready for your week? And then how are you thinking about sort of organizing the rest of your week beyond kind of Sunday and Friday that we've already talked about?

1:08:52 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Sure. So I mean, Sunday night, 10 o'clock, about 10:30, I pull my numbers every week. And the reason I do it that way, our forecast is due 10:00 PM Sunday for our account teams. So I am pulling the information the moment they put it in. And I'm sharing that with my partner sales teams, right? So I go to the director and manager levels and I email it to them and I email it internally as well. So I'm just verifying that this is actually what's going to happen, right? So we are setting expectations. I also send out notes to my partner and say, hey, so we've got these meetings this week. Just making sure, is there anything else that we need to do? Do we need any prep time? Do we need this? Do we need that? So that's also included. I also set goals for the week. And this is part of company structure as well. Like we've adapted to a tool where we actually outline, you know, what did we do last week? Was it good? Was it bad? Did we love it? Was it, you know, not so happy times? What are your goals this week? Right. And then what do you need from your manager to be successful that week? So I was doing that before we had the, we had the tool. Now we have this tool and it's fantastic because you can track your progress, which is so good. So I do that Sunday night. Monday morning, literally I'm looking at what do I need to, and I block, I try to block the first hour and a half of my day. On Mondays to go through and what is it we need to accomplish, right? So I've got these goals. Okay. What is it going to take to get there? Right. So whether it's having, making sure that we have meetings set up with, you know, these account teams, because, and the because is really the most important, right? Because meetings for the sake of meetings are never good. You need to make sure that you've got very clear goals for each meeting that you're going to. And what signifies success, right? If I get this, it's good. So I'm kind of mapping that out. And, you know, I've got standard cadences in my calendar. I've got, you know, other items that I'm looking after at a national level as well that, you know, help my overall team. And then I've got the priorities to help me achieve my goal outside of the basics, right? And the basics I call, you know, the forecast. Do we have the prep? Do we have, you know, through the partner internally, Do they have everything they need to be able to process? Is the order ops team ready? Have we gotten approvals? Like, those are the basics of every day working. And then on top of that, you've got, okay, so what are the strategic conversations that we need to have and what are we trying to get out of them and where do we need to go? Right. And this may play into the weekly, monthly, quarterly objectives, right, that I put out. As I said before, I look at a yearly goal and I break it down by quarter and then down by month. Right? You've got X amount of revenue that you know is already in the funnel and you've got a gap to goal. How are you going to tackle that, right? If you don't have a clear plan. So, you know, if I've got X amount of goal, I've got to know that I've got to find X amount of dollars. Some of it will come through, you know, small purchases here and there, but the majority you've got to have a plan around. So let's look at the different sales teams. And so my weeks are really the broken-down pieces of that sales plan to get to goals. So are we setting up a sales campaign? And, you know, I'd like to call them like, they're, they're small, right? They're very, they're just for my segment and sometimes even a segment within my group, right? So maybe it's the education vertical, J, you know, J through K, JK, or maybe it's higher ed, maybe it's healthcare, maybe it's it's, you know, IoT, whatever you want to focus on, maybe it's municipalities, and you're focusing on what am I driving here? What do I need to accomplish? And how am I doing it? Right. And then marking that through the meetings that I'm having, the actions that I'm trying to drive that will eventually turn into customer POs. I love the front-end focus of that, right?

1:13:07 Scott Ingram: The fact that you are investing the energy upfront and looking at, okay, what are my goals? What are the what are the things I need to actually do and prepare for to make sure that I'm able to achieve those? I'm curious about if your annual quota is fifty million, what are you planning based on? Because I have to imagine it's probably a different number than fifty million.

1:13:29 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Well, so my last goal was I think about what fifty two, fifty seven, something like that. This year I haven't gotten my new one, so our year end just ended. I'm waiting for my goal. And because I hit, you know, very quite well this year, let's put it that way, to make a sales champ, I'm going to have a significant goal. So what I'm looking at is literally, you know, beginning of the year, the funnel's light, but you know, you have large opportunities that we've been working on for years. And many of these, I mean, they're very long sales cycles, right? So coming into my particular space, You know that, you know, we've been working through for, you know, this customer, these opportunities, and we're driving. This is when we're looking to close. So those kind of, you know, they're, they're in the funnel and we know the timeframe now in between. And I keep talking about this like middle space, right? Because we've got the top customers that we always work on. It's that those ones that are just on the brink, right? That have the potential that we haven't quite gotten there. And that's where I spend the majority of my time, right? Like, not majority, I spend a lot of time on my big guys. But the next, I guess, time allocated is on how do we move this second group of customers up, right? How do we expand our top customers, our top customer number? Does that make sense?

1:14:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it does. So let's, let's also talk about… I like to get really granular and walk through an entire day. So your alarm goes off. What time does that happen? What happens after that? And then literally blow by blow until your head hits the pillow.

1:15:11 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So I'm not a morning person. I am a night owl. So I get up 7:30. 7:30 in the morning, I am up and at 'em. And I'm getting my family out the door in non-COVID sense. You know, I have my coffee in a travel mug and driving my daughter school. By, you know, 8:25 is when we're out the door. So it's a quick turnaround. I drive to the office or I work from home depending, and it's very close by. And, you know, I spend at least half an hour each morning is making sure I've got what I need to do for the day. I'm taking care of, you know, my first look is, you know, do it… does something need my urgent attention? What do I need to action right now? And then it's throughout the day and, you know, blow by blow, it could be anything from, you know, team meetings, internal meetings. Like I said, I'm, I put an emphasis on cadences with my sales teams, with my managers that look after the sales teams and really making sure I'm prepared, right? Like I don't want to ever go into a meeting and not have my objectives, not know you know, not have the information I need to give them. So I want to be prepped. And so in between meetings, I'm prepping and making sure I'm actioning. And during, you know, during the meetings, I really want to make sure I'm able to focus. So I try not to answer emails, try not to answer anything on Teams. I want to make sure I'm focused and able to contribute. And like I said, everything from, okay, this is what we're… and sorry, the meetings actually consist of everything from like a forecast. So what are we looking at for this week? And that's really 5 minutes because they've already got it, got the forecast, they've seen it. We're just highlighting changes from there. We're looking at, okay, so what are our priorities? What do we need to accomplish? Is there anything top of mind this week that you need help with? Right. And I start my calls off with, okay, so these are the 3 things I need to discuss today. What do you need to discuss? Okay. And you need these 3 things. Fantastic. So we're just going to get into quick forecast. We're all good there. No questions. Next step is, okay, your top of mind, my top of mind, and then down to what are we driving? Are we making a difference and what needs to change? So this is where the conversations around the sales campaigns we're running or the different initiatives that we're trying to drive, we're going to have those conversations. We're going to say, Okay. So, and I take a granular view. I look at, I have a spreadsheet with the sales reps on it and, you know, how many deal registrations have they put in? Have any of those opportunities closed? Were the deal registrations accepted? What are the next steps? Do we have an issue? Do we need to escalate? What's going on? Right. We take a quick look through and, you know, if it's green, we pass by, we focus on the yellow and red. And we move it forward, right? And that way we're always driving forward. And then I'd like to reserve 5 minutes on what's next, right? What's the next thing that we need to work on, right? Because it's not… I want to make sure that we go from one program into the next program, the next focus, right? And I've got my plan on things that I'd like to focus on. And we've already, you know, we're right now, we're actually, we're having those planning sessions where we're trying to, you know, build out the yearly plan that breaks down into the quarters, into the months, down to the weeks and what needs to happen. And that's what we're reviewing. So, you know, those meetings make up the majority of my day. I get on the phone with my sales teams internally and externally, and the calls range from, you know, we've got an issue, we need this quote out. Tool's not working. Okay, let's figure out what needs to happen. Let's solve that. It could be that, you know, we need… we have a presentation to this customer, we need these kind of use cases. Can you find something for me? No problem. You know, down to calls on, you know, price list inquiries, solutions. What, you know, we've got a customer that has X, Y, and Z, they're looking for this. What do you think? And then, you know, I'm pulling in people that can help guide my partner. So maybe I have the answer. If I don't have the answer, I have a phenomenal team that will help, and I'll pull them in as needed to say, hey, you know, what do you guys think? This is what we're faced with. And they'll come back with answers. And, you know, that's the one thing that I, I can truly say… I'm there and I will help with anything and everything. To get the deal, get the deals done right because it's a long process. Yeah, and I'm basically in meetings like those throughout the day. I'm working on presentations that I'm going to give to my partners. I'm working on trainings that with my sales engineer that we want to deliver. I'm look, you know, I spend time organizing myself to make sure that I have everything I need to. Kind of be relevant when I'm on the phone with them. And yeah, and that kind of goes through till about 5 o'clock, and then I'm picking up my daughter from school, and, you know, we're running either home to have dinner or we're heading to, you know, one of the myriad of activities that she's got after school, which, you know, majority are now on hold. And then, you know, it's dinner and way back when we could still go out. I would hit the gym after that. Hopefully, anywhere between 8 and 9 PM, I'm back home and kind of starting to wind down. I mean, I'd like to make sure I get my daughter off to bed and we spend some time together doing something we like. So we do everything from baking, cooking together, arts and crafts, you know, you name it. You know, down to movie watching. Love movies, love reading books together, love playing games, right? We've reinstituted family game night around our house, and we try to play a couple games at least a couple times a week, right? And then about 10 o'clock, I open up the laptop and I'm back at it. I find I get my best work done at night. The house is quiet. The emails are not coming in, my phone's not ringing, and I can actually get stuff done, right? Cover off any outstanding emails that I haven't answered and then start working on, you know, those creative things. Start coming up with ideas, things that we want to do next. How do we drive this further? I can think about the problems and challenges and, you know, good things and how do we capture capitalize on those good things and drive them further for having success during that time. So I tend to work between, you know, 10 and 12, depending. And then, yeah, I'm to bed. I usually get to bed about 1 o'clock. And there it is. That's a day at a glance.

1:22:23 Scott Ingram: Excellent, excellent, excellent. We are exactly the opposite person, because I am typically up at 4:30 or 5 in the morning. But the thing that is the same They're just on opposite ends of the day. That quiet time, nobody emails you at 5:00 AM. Nobody emails you at 11:00 PM, right? It's those quiet times where you don't have stuff coming at you that to me is just absolutely critically important. And to your point, it's that opportunity to do some of that creative work and do that thinking and just figure out how am I going to break through?

1:22:58 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Exactly. It's really about like making sure you have that time and you're allotting that time. And, you know, I try to break, like work it into my day and it never seems to work, right? It never seems to work because there's a lot of things going on, right? It's very dynamic, the atmosphere that I work in because I've got, you know, at least 100 people that I'm touching. Right? So at any given moment, somebody wants my attention for a myriad of reasons, whether it be internally, you know, or through my partner, because like, as I said, I've got national responsibilities as well for the overall team. And that's where I spend some time as well. So it's always, things are always moving. Right. And for me to really be able to look at something holistically and think it through. I need that quiet, right? I need that. Okay, I've got 30. I don't have to think about, okay, I've got 30 minutes, let's do this now. It's kind of organic, right? You sit there and you look at the screen and you're putting together a presentation and you're like, okay, so this can… this will be interesting. Or, you know what, let's make sure we put this in. Or, you know what, I'm looking at this with fresh eyes because I was able to close my laptop for a few hours. And I can say, oh, well, I'm missing this and this would be good. And okay, let me pull this. Another thing is tools work a lot faster when nobody else is on them, which is late at night. Yeah.

1:24:32 Scott Ingram: Well, let's talk about the tools. What, what are the tools and apps that you just can't live without?

1:24:38 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Would it be terrible if I said I can't live without Webex? Oh, of course not.

1:24:43 Scott Ingram: That's fair game.

1:24:44 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Honestly, Webex as a video platform, as a messaging platform, as a solution is phenomenal. When I came on to Cisco, I discovered it and I was like, wow, I can, you know, use it, video calls. I can write on the screen. I can take control of somebody's screen and help them through it. Now, from a partner perspective, anyone who has to walk someone through doing something, so in my case, maybe registering a deal or filling out a form. Oh my God, how awesome is it to be able to do that and seamlessly? Like, it's all very intuitive. So I love it. TripCase, for example, is awesome. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. It's a travel app. It takes care of your flights. So I do a lot of traveling, or I did do a lot of traveling to Ottawa, our nation's capital, while we were you know, not in the COVID state, and I was there once a month. So getting updates on gates, flight times was critical, and it saved me more than once from missing my flight, going to the wrong gate. So it's fantastic. And, you know, another internal tool that I really like is Sales Mobile. So it's this little platform. It's got, you know, a place where I can approve deals, look at orders if they're being processed, I can, you know, look at everything from an order perspective down to, you know, how I'm doing on my commissions. Like, it's amazing. Excellent.

1:26:14 Scott Ingram: What about your information diet? What are you listening to, reading, watching, and when does that happen?

1:26:20 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So in terms of, I mean, information diet, I'm not in terms of reading, you know, the top-selling books around technology. I tend not to. Read too much there. I tend to reserve my reading for, you know, authors that I love. I love that escape for myself. So, you know, I'll read everything from Anne Perry, Patricia Cornwell, Dan Brown, down to the classics. I have an English lit background from university days, and my love for reading still stays there, and I use it really to help me escape. So I'm never without a book. I always have at least one on the go, and it's my solace on that side. In terms of watching and getting information, I mean, I love TED Talks. I think just a variety of things that you can learn, you know, and I love the way they're set up. I love the content. I find, you know, you can choose what you're interested in. And in terms of consuming any place, any time, time, right? As a, as a mom, you know, as a professional, always on the go, being able to, you know, seek… see videos, listen to, you know, podcasts. And I'm actually just getting into podcasts. So I'm a little bit behind the times. But, you know, working my way through, but the ability to access them anywhere is just amazing.

1:27:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I meant to ask earlier, how old is your daughter? Well, she's now 11.

1:27:52 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: She's now… she's 11 and extremely active. So we have… we're big on activities, everything from horseback riding, skating, you name it, Girl Guides, piano, we are all over the place. Yep, par for the course.

1:28:08 Scott Ingram: I'm really interested in your perspective on these next couple of questions, just given the number of sales professionals that you interact with. And so the first thing I'll ask is, is there something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy?

1:28:24 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: So I think it was, I made this point earlier, was like the introduction with the cookies, right? Introducing yourself, going in and just saying, rather than having a big sales meeting to introduce yourself, I like to go in incognito, right? I go in, I like to approach people one-on-one and get to know them and bring in my freshly baked cookies. And that starts the relationship off the… off on the right foot. I mean, I have nothing against the big, hello, please meet Ivana introductions. Those work very well, but I prefer to start off the relationship on, you know, on even and good footing. I don't know if… I think people may think that's crazy.

1:29:09 Scott Ingram: But yeah, you've got me craving hot, warm, gooey cookies right now. But other than that, what about the flip side? Is there something that the average sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

1:29:23 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: You know, I think that you need to have a history in sales, that you need to really conform, conform to the different I guess traditional sales mentality, right? And for me, you know, I remember like, and this was years ago when I was first starting and I would have conversations introducing myself to different people and, you know, hi, I'm just starting off. And they're like, well, what's your background? And I would say, well, you know, I'm coming from retail. And they're like, oh, dismissed. Right. I think that looking to people with varied backgrounds is important. I think they bring a lot. I think, you know, I'm a great example and I can tell you about countless others who have come from different fields and been really successful because of it.

1:30:15 Scott Ingram: What advice would you give to that person? So they're coming to sales from a completely different industry, completely different space. What would you tell them as they're getting started in their sales career?

1:30:28 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: I think getting started is really, don't be afraid to ask for help, right? Everyone wants you to succeed. And I would start with that premise, right? Until proven otherwise, but start with people are there to help, right? Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to make it your own because at the end of the day, If you're not comfortable with, you know, the the process that you need to follow, if you're not comfortable with the way you're presenting, if you're not comfortable with the information, you're not going to deliver it well. You're not going to inspire other people to do what you want them to do, right? So make it your own. Don't be afraid to ask questions, and when in doubt, ask for help because I. I firmly believe people will, you know, give you that olive branch. They will help, and you will all be successful for it.

1:31:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Does, does that advice change for somebody that's a little bit further into their career? So maybe they're, maybe they're good, right? They're, they've found some success, they're making their numbers, they're doing okay, but they're not great, right? They, they want to be like you. They want to make that top 1% level.

1:31:41 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: What's your advice for them? I think, I mean, if you're, if you're successful, Keep doing what you're doing, but start looking at outside the box. Like, what is it that we're missing, right? And maybe it's sitting down with a colleague or friend and kind of highlighting, like, I'm doing this, I'm doing all the, the right things. What am I missing, right? And sometimes it's something so obvious, sometimes it's not, but really talking someone through. And I find someone who is not in your industry Right? Take it outside because we'll just go, okay, yeah, so you're doing that, you're doing this, you're doing this, you're doing this, so you're good, right? People outside of sales will come up with different answers, completely different answers, because they may look at it from the customer perspective, right? Or they'll look… they're looking at it from a very personal place and Sometimes that's the solution you need, right? You need to stray from your ordinary to take a little, maybe a little bit of a risk to push you over the top.

1:32:47 Scott Ingram: Great, great ideas. Well, I think we've come to the end and we've covered so much ground, so many great ideas, but I always try and make these as actionable as we can. So what would you challenge our listener to do to improve themselves and improve their results over the course of the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks?

1:33:08 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: You know what I would say? And keeping COVID top of mind, reach out to people in your network that you haven't talked to in the last 4 or 5 months. See how they're doing. Have a conversation. Invite them to a video conference, right? Share a drink online. Have a chat over dinner. And catch up and see what's happening outside of your immediate circle, because you'd be surprised at what you find there. A, you may make somebody's day, right? And B, you may find, you know, find you learn some things that you haven't… you wouldn't have if you hadn't reached out.

1:33:48 Scott Ingram: Love it. And, you know, it's interesting you say that because I just came back to… now that we're at the end, I came back to one of the notes that I took earlier in our conversation. And I just, I love the question, what are you working on? What a great conversation starter.

1:34:01 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Yeah. I mean, you never know what you're going to get. You never know.

1:34:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And they're always going to open with what's most important and top of mind for them. It may have nothing to do with work.

1:34:12 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Exactly. Exactly. And that sets the tone. And it really, like, helps further the relationship so much more. And I think You know, we get back to that human connection we all need, and it makes everything worthwhile. It really does. Yeah.

1:34:28 Scott Ingram: You know what I'm working on? I'm working on the Sales Success Summit. So if you haven't registered for that yet, you got to go to top1summit.com. Thanks to our great sponsors, that livestream experience is free. So go top1summit.com, and we'll see you there in October. Ivana, this has been. Incredible. Thank you for all of your time and wisdom.

1:34:48 Ivana Zivkovic Meesters: Thank you so much for having me. I hope I've given you a good view into what I do and into channel sales, and I hope the… your listeners enjoy our conversation.

1:35:01 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.