104: Top Enterprise Sales Performer at Salesforce - Ian Koniak: Focus on the Journey, not the Destination

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you by the 2020 Sales Success Summit, and you can join us on the livestream experience October 12th and 13th for free, thanks to the support of our sponsors Outreach, Sales Hacker, Vidyard, Terryberry, Alice, and Gong. To learn more about them and to register for the summit, just click over to top1summit.com. I should also mention here that there's a bit of language and some sensitive subjects in this episode that have not been edited out. You may not want to listen to this if you have sensitive ears within hearing distance.

0:42 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:56 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Ian Koniak. Ian is a top-performing strategic account director at Salesforce. Welcome to the show, Ian.

1:06 Ian Koniak: Thanks for having me, Scott. Great to be here.

1:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah, looking forward to this. But let's start like we always do with some immediate value. And I know I asked you for the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success, but you're an overachiever. You sent me more than that. So why don't we run through those at a high level and then we can dig a little bit deeper from there?

1:24 Ian Koniak: Yeah, so I think number one is focus. It's very easy as a sales rep to be consumed by information and distraction, be it, you know, your email inbox, be it opportunities which may not be qualified that you're trying to assess, prospecting. And there's just a million tasks on our plate. There's the internal tasks, there's the customer-facing, there's working deals, and there's everything else we're asked to do. And what I do that I think is pretty different is I eliminate or I delegate a lot of the tasks which I consider low-value activities. So things like responding to emails, I don't necessarily respond to a lot of emails. I will forward them and I will have other people respond on my behalf if needed, unless it's coming from an executive or a top client or it's a burning fire. I also don't check emails throughout the day. I'll check them at the beginning and the end of the day so that I can focus on what matters most. And what I call these are RGAs. Stands for revenue generating activities. And really that's one of 4 things. And this is how I spend the bulk of my day. I'm either setting meetings, I'm doing meetings, I'm preparing for meetings, or I'm following up on meetings. And those meetings are typically tied to or wrapped around an opportunity. The other thing I do is I focus on larger opportunities, whereas a lot of people will take any deal and scramble. If a deal's under $100K, I'm typically delegating that to my enterprise corporate sales unless it's a, beachhead deal with a new customer, or it's a very strategic deal where it's the first time we're getting in, or maybe it's for an executive, I'm typically letting go so I can focus on the big deals because it's not necessarily what we say yes to, it's what we say no to. And so I say no to a lot of things so I can focus on the things that are going to really move the needle in my business. The second thing I do is that I target executives. A lot of people will spend time working with managers and working with maybe director level, but I really try to spend time with VP level or C-suite. Typically where there is a larger problem, there is a larger budget. And what might be a huge deal for a director where you're doing a $30K, $40K, $50K deal, they have to take it up 3 levels. For a CFO or a CIO, that's peanuts, right? And so the larger the problem, the more they can allocate money for it. And executives have bigger problems. So I'll spend a lot of time researching executives in operations and finance and IT, typically for Salesforce. And I will spend time prospecting to them with highly personalized messages that resonate. And typically I'm really talking about their problems, their challenges, and providing a point of view on where I think I can help them. And that leads me to my third point, which is an outward focus. When I really, you know, spent the bulk… I've been selling for 18 years, Scott, and the bulk of my career was really what I call inward focus, which is focusing on my own goals, my own commission targets, my own income targets. And while that certainly is definitely motivating, is, you know, you want to be short-term and goal-driven, it's definitely not conducive to client success when you're trying to slam a deal, you know, because you're trying to hit your quota in the month or quarter, or it's the right thing for you and your company. What I've really started to do is think about what is right for the client And what can I deliver that will really help them move the needle and get the outcomes in their business that they want? And instead of first focusing on just how can I close this deal, it's how can I impact their business and truly help them in areas by delivering solutions that otherwise they couldn't do on their own, or they for years been struggling to solve and haven't found a solution, even if they're using a third party or they're trying to build it themselves. It's getting to the root of what matters most to them and what are their top challenges or priorities, and then backing into the products and services that I sell. So if, if a company or an executive doesn't have a problem that is big enough for me to solve, I simply won't pitch or position my products and services to them. I'm going to say, look, it doesn't sound like you really have a challenge right now that we can address. So I'm going to spend my time elsewhere. And I think a lot of people, that's hard to do. They'll go for these unqualified deals that really at the end they find out, you know, it's not a priority. Well, if you can qualify upfront and find that out in the beginning by asking the right questions and getting to the root of what they really care about, then you're going to save yourself a lot of pain and heartache losing deals or having deals pushed because it's not important to them. And you find out after the fact.

6:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well, we will talk a lot more about the focus thing. I mean, that's a favorite area of mine when we get into habits and routines and just the way that you're structuring your life. I have a feeling we can sort of tie these 2 ideas together between the way that you're targeting executives and the outward focus. When you're approaching the executives with these highly personalized messages, how are you getting that idea, or how are you finding out what that personal thing or that big problem is for them that you're, you're going to bring to them?

6:47 Ian Koniak: Yeah, yeah, it's a great question, and I think salespeople suck at this in general. What we like to do is just prospect and pitch and talk. But what I do is I spend a lot of time researching upfront the individual. And the way I do that typically, I'll give you a couple examples. There was a big company that I don't know if I'm going to name names in this podcast, but they're a big outsourcer and they have about 20,000 employees. And we were kind of butting heads with the IT folks that really didn't want to put Salesforce in, but we knew that this was just this year that they were going to shift all their employees to work from home and that we had a solution that really could help them with employee engagement. We knew that just because IT said that it wasn't a priority, their CEO was talking about the employee experience and their differentiator being, you know, a focus on providing the great workplace experience. Well, you can't have a great experience with the workplace if you don't have offices where people are going into. So what I did is I basically took an interview that this COO had had on CNN, and he talked all about… literally, he was giving a tour to CNN about like what differentiates them in the workplace. And I shoot him a note and I said, hey, I love what you're doing for your employees, but if COVID is forcing you now to work from home, how are you going to deliver that same workplace experience? Well, Salesforce has a platform for employee engagement that lets you connect and deliver the best personalized experience in a work-from-home environment. I'd love to talk to you about this. I've had some pushback from your IT department, but I really think based on your interview and what you shared that you need to hear this. And he said, you know, call me at 6 PM and we'll talk for 10 minutes. We ended up talking for an hour and a half. We got the deal within a couple months, so it… for 20,000 employees. So it's really about spending time listening to what they're saying. And a lot of times it's just as simple as doing a Google search on the executive and looking for either articles or videos or type of public statements that they've made that talks about what differentiates them or where they're going or what's focusing. If you're targeting the C-suite and you deal with enterprise customers like I do, this information will be out there in spades. In fact, I probably haven't found a person that I haven't been able to find research on, even LinkedIn, and, you know, what they're commenting on or articles they might be sharing or whatnot is helpful. So find a nugget that you can relate to and then tie back your value proposition to them. I also did this with a chief customer officer of one of my current accounts, and that woman appeared on a podcast within their own company where their company has its own podcast and they interview the executives on what it takes to succeed at the executive level. And I went through, even though the intended audience was the clients' employees, I went through and listened to that thing for 45 minutes. And, you know, again, it's like, what are you choosing to consume? What are you choosing to listen to? I'm choosing to learn about my companies and the individuals there so I can be relevant with my outreach. So I think that's really… for every 15 minutes I spend or 30 minutes drafting an email or a message, I'll spend an hour figuring out what they care about before ever, you know, reaching out. And the other thing I'll talk about is I'll use my champions or my, you know, my existing relationships to learn about them, to learn what they care about, to learn what their initiatives, and then I'll really reference who I'm already working with and reach out and say, look, we're providing some value, but I know we can do a lot more. I'd love to align with you and just understand what's top of mind for you so we can make sure that we're really providing the most value as a partner versus a vendor. So I think it just requires a lot of prep and a lot of personalization. And, you know, less is more. Less people is more valuable than batch and blast and trying to go out and reach everybody with a generic message.

10:33 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Now, I'm sure that the vast majority of our listeners are familiar with Salesforce. Talk to us and just put this in a little bit more perspective in terms of what exactly your role is.

10:43 Ian Koniak: My role is a client director. So for those who have followed Salesforce, you've known that we've acquired a lot of companies. We've acquired ExactTarget. We've acquired Tableau. We've acquired MuleSoft. Well, I carry the entire bag. So as a core client director, my role is to sell them everything that Salesforce has in our bag. And the only way that I can do that is not by knowing every product, because simply there's too many to learn. And there's a lot of sales reps that are on my team that sell those products. My role is really to align to their strategic objectives so that Salesforce can truly deliver at scale transformation, digital transformation for them. So I really have multiple roles. Number one is I need to build relationships with the C-suite to make sure Salesforce is partnering at the right level with the organization. Number two, I need to align with my team. So every week I have a team meeting for my largest accounts, and we talk about strategy. I know what people are doing. I know the deals that are in play. I help out to get deals over the finish line for, you know, my various sales reps on my team. But ultimately, it's just to make sure that Salesforce is positioned at the big table as a trusted advisor to the clients versus as a vendor. So I'm upleveling the quality of our partnerships with our largest Fortune 500 enterprise customers. I only have 2 accounts. They're both global in nature, and I'm really their single throat to choke, so they don't have 20 people calling them from the various divisions. It's all kind of running through me, and then I have my team that are, you know, working on various projects, but it all rolls up to me. And I'm running quarterly business reviews. I'm running the large deals, deals over $150,000. I'm usually taking point on, and I do carry a few products solely, but a lot of my products I have dedicated sales reps to manage those, like Tableau and MuleSoft, for example.

12:34 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then put your results into perspective for us just to understand, because obviously you were number one at one point. You've had a really good run there.

12:42 Ian Koniak: What, what does that take in terms of my performance? It takes constant reinvention. It takes constant commitment to understanding the latest value that we can provide clients. There's a lot of people that did really well selling to the VP of Sales 10 years ago, 20 years ago, when CRM was just a forecasting tool, but now that we have truly a way for our customers to connect with their customers across every division that touches the customer, be it ecommerce, be it marketing, be it sales or service or IT, we need to understand how to speak business and how to really connect and solve large challenges that the customer is facing. That requires honing our skills and constantly getting better. Dinosaurs that used to do well here. Unfortunately, a lot of them are not here anymore because they couldn't adapt and evolve. And we're just not a one-stop shop anymore for just sales. It's anything that touches the client and delivers an exceptional client experience across all touchpoints. Salesforce will be the go-to for us. So I need to know a little bit about marketing. I need to know a little bit about customer experience, service portals. I need to know enough to identify where there's an opportunity to speak business so that then I can bring in my team and align the best resources that we have to solve the biggest clients that customers have. And then I also need to know how to quarterback a deal and quarterback my own internal team to make sure that we are executing promptly and efficiently.

14:12 Scott Ingram: Well, that was a great answer to a very poorly asked question on my part. I was actually looking for you to quantify your results a bit for us.

14:19 Ian Koniak: Oh, you said, what does it take?

14:20 Scott Ingram: I know, I know.

14:21 Ian Koniak: I said it wrong. Oh, no worries. Well, we can keep that one too. You know, I honestly, From a results perspective, in the past 4 years, I've had really strong results. So I finished number 1 in our FY18. I finished 380% of quota, which equates to nearly $6 million in net ACV for the year against the quota of… it was like 1.6 or something like that. I don't remember exactly, but it was almost 400% of plan. Then I backed that up the following year by being 233% of So I doubled, and then I followed that up with being over 100% of plan. So I've had 3 very consistent years, which is nearly impossible in enterprise software because typically when you sell something that large, you're spending the next couple of years implementing and, you know, they're not consistently buying. They're trying to install what they buy. So I've had a really successful run by having to understand the new products and continue to provide value and provide my clients with new innovative solutions while they've been implementing, you know, what I sold them previously. So my results from an income standpoint point have netted me over $1 million W-2 for 2 of the past 3 years.

15:34 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. And then let's go to the beginning of this story. What is your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

15:41 Ian Koniak: Yeah, great question and one I love telling. I used to be a teacher before I got into sales. I actually… before I ever started in sales, I knew I loved traveling. I had studied abroad for a year in college in Australia And I got the travel bug. And after I graduated college, I went to UC Berkeley. I decided to go backpacking, got a Eurail pass, backpacked for a few months, and I did not want to go to work in the real world. And this was in 2001, and the dot-com bubble had dispersed, and it was just an interesting time. And I was like, you know what? I want to keep traveling. And so I ended up going to Venezuela for a year to go teach English. I did not speak the language. I did not know anyone there. I just was truly an adventurous person. I love travel and I knew that I wanted to experience all that life had to offer. So I packed a bag and I moved to Venezuela and I ended up when I was there wanting to become a photojournalist. I was doing a lot of writing. I was traveling to all their national parks. I was having these crazy adventures. I could spend a whole podcast talking about that year, but the short story is that I fell in love when I was there with a woman and my visa ended up expiring. And at that time, there was no way to get a work visa from Venezuela unless you were highly specialized and educated and she wasn't. So we were both pretty young. She was 18, I was 22. And the only way to continue that relationship was either for me to stay there and just kind of wing it some more or for her to come to the US. And the only way that she was going to be able to come to the US is if I supported her because Venezuela currency is worth dirt and it was back then too. I think I was making like $100 a month. I came back to the US and I made her a promise. I said, I'm going to get you here. Give me 1 year. I'll try and figure it out. I took my pictures to National Geographic, to Discovery. I sent them all my portfolio stuff and basically found out very quickly that that was not going to be a path to save enough money to put her through college because that was the only way I was getting the visas. Is through a student visa, and that every work that was for a photojournalist was mostly freelance unless you get on staff, which is rare. So I'm like, shit, what do I do now? And I really… I mean, the power of love is something real. And I said, you know what, I gotta find a job that pays me as much as possible based on the output that I deliver and based on my performance. And after researching And very quickly I came to learn that sales, you got paid with no income ceiling. And so I started interviewing and there was a job to go door to door and sell alarms, or I could have worked at the cemetery and sold tombstones. These are the people that wanted a teacher and these jobs had no salary. And then I found a job that they paid me $22,000 a year and they said they would guarantee me a first year income of $50,000, second year income of $75,000, and a third your income of 6 figures if I just did what they said. And I said, sign me up, because that sounded a lot better than selling tombstones and door-to-door alarms. And that was the job working in a company called Lanier selling copy machines. And that was my first sales job. And I literally was thrown into the worst territory with Koreatown. And most… a lot of people didn't speak English, and I was getting chased out of buildings by security guards. And it was the most difficult year of my life because even when I just started, I ended up breaking my arm and I had to go on medical leave because I had a bad snowboard accident. And, you know, that set me back further and I ended up somehow figuring it out. And within a year, I saved up enough money through pure will and grind and commitment to hard work to get my girlfriend from Venezuela here and pay for her college and support both of us at the tender age of 23. So I was literally forced into sales because I had no other option to keep the relationship that I desperately wanted at that time.

19:55 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Now, typically the question I like to ask here is, if you were starting over today, is there something that you would do differently from a career perspective? But I know you've had kind of a variety of transformation. There's more to your journey beyond getting that first job. So maybe a little more context is required first before we talk about what you might've done differently from a career perspective.

20:17 Ian Koniak: Yeah. Yeah. I think in general, my first job was the school of hard knocks. It taught me that activity yields pipeline yields results. And I very quickly learned that, you know, I was very much cut out for sales. I had a lot of success very early on, and I unfortunately experienced some of the perils of success at a young age that came from making a lot of money and making a lot of mistakes. And it was kind of like an all-in or all-out mindset for me. And to answer that question, I really have to advance a lot further in my career because there's a few ways I would. But let's just put it this way: the success that I found initially was, was short and, and fleeting. And I thought, you know, it was all about the money. And then I got cheated on by the woman who I had brought from Venezuela, and I quickly had heartbreak and turned to addiction and ended up crashing into a tree headfirst, piss drunk, at the age of 26 from just basically a crazy time that I was living. And that was… fortunately, that was 15 years ago, and I made a lot of changes, but that was kind of the first thing that I learned at that time is, is you can't have this all-in or all-out mindset. It's not just about work and it's not just about success. It's about, you know, making sure that you have balance in life. You can't just work hard and party hard. So I probably have 10 of these kind of little mini moments of transformation, but that's the first thing I would, I would have told myself at that time is You know, it's not only about the money. It's about, you know, really what you do when you're not working that makes you the man that you are. And for me at that time, I was just partying my head off and that led me to, you know, make some really bad decisions and get involved with drugs and alcohol and gambling and you name it, I was doing it. And, you know, on the surface, you would never know that because I was the top guy. I was giving all the talks in Enrico on what it takes to succeed. And meanwhile, I had my personal life was completely a wreck and it culminated in me unfortunately losing the relationship, nearly killing myself. And, you know, I decided to go into management at that point because I was like, I need a change. Maybe I'll lead salespeople, which is also a terrible decision because if I didn't have my shit together, how am I going to go inspire other people to do it? So again, this is a long time ago, but at that time, I certainly would think that I would tell my younger self that it's not about how much money you make and how quickly you can spend it. It's about working towards, you know, something that's meaningful and lasting. Because for me, it was like literally solely about the money because I had this ambitious goal of getting my girlfriend to the US. And once I did that, I'm like, well, what next? Now I have all this money, what do I do with it? So I just was irresponsible in what I chose to do with my personal life. And that led me to a series of difficult life challenges which I have spent, you know, the bulk of my 20s and 30s really facing. And now I'm finally at a place where I have my shit together in a way that I never have before, and it feels great. But I mean, that's what I tell my younger self is take it easy, man. Don't live this crazy high-flying lifestyle.

23:39 Scott Ingram: So many directions we could go. Why don't we start with kind of the goal side and the balance that you found? Because I know that that's a big part of where you are now, right? So it sounds like part of the issue that you had was You had a goal and you fulfilled the goal, but there was nothing on the other side of that.

23:58 Ian Koniak: That's right. That's right. I think it's the most important thing that any listener can hear is if your goals are short-term, right, then when you get there, you're gonna feel unfulfilled. You'll feel great for a short period of time, and then you'll say, what next? And then you can set another short-term goal and you go through the same cycle. But when the goals are long-term and they're deeply internal in terms of the type of person you want to be, the type of father or husband you want to be, the impact you want to leave on the world, then you're constantly on a daily basis pursuing the best version of yourself. And that's taken me a lifetime to realize, but now I'm very clear on what matters most in my life. And you know what? It's very important for me to do well at work, but it's also very important to me to be honest. It's very important for me to be healthy. I lost my father at a very young age, and I lost my cousin, and I lost my first boss at Salesforce because of health issues that were brought on by stress. And I certainly was on that path for a while. And for me, having a healthy lifestyle and having strong relationships and connections in your life and truly making sure that what you do when you're not working and what you do when you're working is aligned in terms of the general person that you are, then that is what I call congruence. And that is really the best thing you can do is like, hey, who I am outside of work and who I am in work is the same person. And I strive to make an impact in all areas of my life. And that's kind of the journey that I'm on now. But like I said, that was a very recent… the past really past few years that I've been on this journey. But before that, it was just short-sighted goals. Hit the goal. I'm either thrilled because I hit the goal, or I'm disappointed and beating myself up because I didn't hit the goal. And it's really kind of that roller coaster of sales that I was on for so long that I realized, you know what? This isn't what life is all about. And it took me nearly losing my my wife and my family to realize that where you put your time and where you focus is just important outside of work than inside of work. So I've really had to spend a lot of time nurturing my. Relationship with my wife, dealing with shadows that I never really dealt with in my own life, making sure that I am thinking about my broader mission and purpose and values as a person, and then making sure that I spend my time every day, every day on things that align to those values in and outside of work. So it's a really great point you bring up, and I've seen both sides of it, and I can tell you this side's a hell of a lot better than the other side.

26:44 Scott Ingram: Just a quick reminder here to get yourself signed up to take advantage of the 2020 Sales Success Summit livestream experience. If you haven't done it yet, pause this right now and jump over to top1summit.com. It'll only take you a minute to get signed up, and we're gonna be talking about a lot of this stuff. Sure, you'll find presentations on prospecting and enterprise sales and some very meaty sales topics like how to read a 10-K, but we're also gonna spend some time talking about mindset, mental health, and the things you can do as a healthy human to perform in all aspects of your life. Come join us, top1summit.com. And now back to my conversation with Ian Koniak. Well, let's talk about that congruence through a more pure-play sales lens, because I also understand the way you have sold has also evolved.

27:36 Ian Koniak: That's right. That's right. So from a value standpoint, who I am and my mission is to help people really untap their full potential, right? And I do that with my coaching business. I do that with helping people who struggle from addiction. Well, how does that actually translate to sales, right? I do that with my parenting, with my wife. I really want to be a model and an example for people to do things that they otherwise couldn't think were possible. Well, in a sales lens, what that means is really taking the biggest challenges that a client has and truly helping inspire them to take on those challenges, helping inspire and activating change agents within a company that are full of reasons why they can't do something and saying, you know what, that's all just rhetoric. That's all just limiting beliefs, right? If I know in my personal life that, you know, you can break through any ceiling possible, You better believe that I'm going to take that same energy and show my clients, you know what, I had other clients that thought the same thing and we helped them overcome these challenges. And so from a sales perspective, it's really about helping clients take their most ambitious goals and being an aid and a support and a resource for them to achieve those. And what that takes is really putting on your client hat and almost feeling like you're an employee of the client. Like, hey, if I worked for this customer, what would I do? And frankly, the only way you can do that is from experience. You cannot… I mean, you've been in the marketing automation space for a long time, Scott. I know you worked at Oracle and you worked for a partner who helped set that up. I guarantee you, when you first started selling, you know a lot more now sitting on the implementation side about what it really takes to be successful with software. And it's not buying the software. There's news for everyone. It's actually the resources that they're going to allocate to make the program successful. It's also having the right partners. That can implement it. It's also having the right leaders that are sponsoring this, that have support. It's putting the right team in place. So there's so many components that make clients successful. So in a sales perspective, you kind of have to say, look, I can sell you the software, but I don't want to until I get the right partner in there with you, until you have the right focus on this, until I understand why you really want this. Because the worst thing that can happen is that you have shelfware sitting or that you're you overspent and you're not using the features. So let's do the diligence upfront and really understand what challenges you have, what the current situation looks like so that we can focus on what is going to move the needle in your business and make this successful from day one. So it means prolonging sales cycles. It means spending a lot more time on discovery. And it really means putting your client hat on versus your sales hat of trying to slam something. So it's great. And a lot of times the client will tell me, you know more about my business than I do myself. And that's the best compliment I can get from a client is that I'm that deeply ingrained. I remember with one of my clients, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, they had an office for me set up in their headquarters and they gave me a key card that I can go in because I was there literally 3 or 4 days a week. And I was there because I wanted to make sure they were successful and it requires being in front of them. And so that's really how that translates to sales is if you're focused on being of service to other people in your life, be it personal, be it of service to your family or mentees that you take on, you're also going to be focusing on being of service to your clients. And so that was really the biggest shift that I made is I kind of told myself, hey, you know, what would you do if you work for this client? And when I did that, I came up with a lot different answers than, you know, hey, I need to go sell this so I can hit my quota. And so that's been the that real, you know, helping clients get what they want has enabled me to get what I want in spades. And that's been the biggest way that philosophy and that congruence has translated to client success and sales success for me, quite frankly, over the past few years. That's how I've done it.

31:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. Totally agree with that. How do you advise people who, they hear that and they think, yeah, that sounds good, but I've got a number that's rushing at me right now because the end of the month is coming, the end of the quarter is coming. How do you help people make that transition to that longer-term mindset and approach when the pressure of today is all over them?

32:12 Ian Koniak: Yeah. And this is something I tell my coaching clients. I can't help them. They need to shift their mindset. So the question is, how do you shift your mindset? And it's a hard one because we are wired and ingrained for most of our careers to look at the scoreboard. And the scoreboard can be great to our egos if we're doing well, or it can deflate our egos if we're doing bad. But again, that is so short-sighted. So what I would tell clients is to not look at the scoreboard and to look at what you're doing on a day-to-day basis and focus on what will move the needle in your business. If you have pipeline, look at each deal and What things do you need to do that is going to either advance the deal forward or win the deal? Those need to go in your calendar and you need to know, do those right here and right now. And those need to be your priorities above all other things. You focus on what you can control and everything else will follow. So if you're only looking at the scoreboard, that's just the very tail end. That's the treasure at the end of the road, but that's not what the walk is. That's not what the journey is. You need to actually be focusing on the journey versus the destination. And so it's all about looking at, again, what do I need to do to move the needle in my business? I start with opportunities, and if they are qualified, then who do we need to speak with that can advance this? What is missing? Do we need a business case? Do we need a partner? Literally go opportunity by opportunity, and that will map out where you need to spend your time. If the pipeline is not there, then I would say you need to focus on having more executive conversations and finding, you know, more opportunities, and nothing else matters, right? And so if you can say at the end of the day that I set 2 or 3 new appointments, or I advanced this many deals forward, then you should feel damn good about yourself versus saying I closed a deal. Because again, when you're in enterprise software, I might only close 4 or 5 deals a year. Now, if you're an SMB rep and you're working on small deals and it's a grind, you know what? I'd say that comes with the territory. But when you're a strategic or an enterprise account executive selling 6 and 7-figure deals, you are in the long game. You are not in the short game, so you need to act like it. They pay you typically a base salary of $100,000 to $150,000 per year because they know that the deal cycle is going to be a lot longer. So it's all about knowing what to focus on next and making sure that you feel good about your daily outcomes. What I do each morning is I set my outcomes on my calendar. I list out the top 3 or 4 things that I need to do, and if I do them, I feel really good. And if I don't do them, I feel really crappy. But the nice thing is I have full control over whether I do them or not. If I looked at the scoreboard and I said, if my score goes up, I feel good, and my score goes the same, I feel bad, man, I would have a lot of bad days. So that's the advice I would give, is stop looking at the scoreboard, look at the reality of your deals, your pipeline, and start controlling your activity and focus. And that's all you can do is focus on the right things and plan and make sure you actually execute your plan and the rest is up to God, the deal gods. And I find that when you work hard and when you're focused on the right things, you end up… the deals come and they might come in on like not the form that you thought they would come. It might come from a, you know, something else or a side conversation, but they still come when you're doing the right, the right activities. So focus on the activity and not the outcome.

35:57 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Well, let's keep going with that thread. I mean, I love to just dissect the way that folks are structuring their days and their morning routines and all of those things. So maybe Maybe give us a walkthrough, maybe starting with high level. Alarm goes off. What time does that happen? Give me the blow-by-blow till your head hits the pillow.

36:14 Ian Koniak: Okay. Well, my current daily routine is all jacked up because I have an 8-week-old and a 4-year-old. And so I'm on paternity leave for 12 weeks. And so my current routine is completely out of sorts, but I'll give you my regular working routine so that that's a little bit more because sleep is everything. When you don't get sleep, you'll sleep in where possible. Is when I'm working, I don't sleep in. So typically I do have a pretty structured morning routine. I typically wake up at 6:30 or 7. I'm not one of those 5:00 AM guys, but I do try to go to bed around 11, 11:30. So I'm getting, you know, I'm getting 7.5 hours a day sleep, which I think a good morning routine starts with actually getting good sleep the night before. So I'll wake up. I generally try to keep my cell phone in the other room. I sometimes forget, but I try not to wake up and look at my phone because that's where, again, distractions happen and, you know, you can stroll social media. So I'll keep my phone in the other room. I'll turn it off and I'll actually use a digital alarm clock to wake up. I'll take my shower. Now, when I'm getting ready in the morning, I always make time to say a prayer. And I would not call myself a religious person, but I think I definitely, after having a near-death experience, I definitely call myself a spiritual person. And so what I try to do is I try to to express gratitude for what I do have, for the healthy family that I have, for the great job that I have, for the blessings in my life. And I also ask for strength, and I ask for God's help with areas that I struggle with, you know, be it my temper, be it patience, things that, you know, I'm not naturally… you know, with a 4-year-old and a newborn, right, there's different areas that I'm, I'm focused on now in terms of, you know, being the best version of myself. So I'll ask for strength in the areas that I need help, and I'll give gratitude. Then what I'll do is I will go to the kitchen and I will make myself an energy shake. An energy shake is a multivitamin protein mix that I have combined with green supplements and I'll mix that up with coconut water. I do that because it gives me energy throughout the day and I'm not weighed down by a heavy breakfast. I've been doing that for years and it really does carry me over until about noon with high energy in the morning, which I love. I'll try to go either for a run or on my bike, my Peloton bike, for 20 minutes. For a run, if I have a little more time, I'll do 3 or 4 miles, but typically it's just about 20 minutes and that'll get me feeling really energized and good. Sometimes I'll do that before I shower first thing after I've had my shake and then I'll shower and I'll take a cold shower and that'll kind of jolt me up. So by the time I start my day, I'm already energized from working out. I'm feeling feeling grateful and I'm woken up from that cold shower, but not that cold. I'm not crazy. I'm not jumping in an ice pool or anything. Then I start my day around 8 o'clock or so, and I start it with a coaching call. As I mentioned, I run a small coaching business. I only have 5 clients. I do 1 coaching call a day from 8 to 9. And the reason I do this is because for that 1 hour, I'm truly focused on helping my clients succeed and take their sales to new levels. And so I will start that day And then by the time 9:00 AM starts again, I've been of service to people. I've done some self-care. I've expressed gratitude. So I'm feeling great by this point. I've gotten good sleep. Then what I'll do is I'll prioritize my day. So I'll write in, here are the 3 or 4 top things that I need to get done today, and I'll put them in my calendar. And so I'll block off those things first, you know, in the morning. Typically a lot of times I'll have appointments that are already set up. So if I have appointments, of course I have to schedule these top priorities around those appointments. But typically, again, my top priorities are going to be centered around deals and advancing deals forward or covering blind spots that I know I need to work on for, for deals. Then I'll start my day, I'll work hard, I will go till about noon, and then on most days I'll have lunch with my wife. And again, that's rejuvenating my soul to connect with my family. I'll have lunch with my wife and my son will connect for half hour to an hour. I block it off every single day. If I'm traveling for work, of course I can't do that. But with COVID I haven't been traveling, so I've been fortunate to be able to make that a priority. I'll go hard till 5 or 6 at night. In the night, a lot of times I will either cook for my family or I might have an addiction recovery meeting that I'll go to. And again, I'm constantly You know, I never was an addict in the sense where I was on a gutter or I had a, you know, very visible problem that required me to go into rehab or help, but I definitely had addictions. And I was a workaholic, and I certainly, as I described, had my issues with alcohol and whatnot. And I just have really come to a belief that the minute you get arrogant with your own strengths is the minute you could, you know, relapse or go back. So I make sure I go to a couple meetings a week. And so I'll do that usually during the night, and I have a sponsor I talk to. So a couple nights a week I'll do that, and then the other nights I'm, you know, either connecting with my family. I'm usually done working around 6 or so, and then I'm, you know, cooking, I'm eating with my family, I'm putting my son to bed. And then, you know, from 9 to 10, 9 to 11 or so, that's time with my wife. You know, we're talking, we're maybe doing a Bible reading. A lot of times we're just watching Netflix. If I have big deals going and I have large deals, I'm working. I'm working when the kids are in bed and I'm getting ready for the next day. So it really depends on kind of where we are in the year. Right now I'm on paternity leave, so things are different. But when I get back, it'll be our, our 4th quarter and I'm going to be probably spending more time on the weekends and nights, you know, working deals and trying to finish as a top rep. But I never sacrifice my exercise and my family time and my addiction recovery regardless of how much stuff I have going on. Those are equal priority as my working the deals because I've learned the hard way that you can't be single-threaded in career and financial success. You have to devote, you know, the time to your relationship and to your health and to your, you know, self-care and self-development as much as you do to your, your deals and your customers. So that's very much baked into my week as part of my routines in both the morning and the evening.

42:36 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So the, the most important question I'll ask is What's your Peloton username?

42:40 Ian Koniak: I think it's just Koniak, K-O-N-I-A-K.

42:44 Scott Ingram: Well, that's an easy one. Perfect. So we'll follow each other there. I'm also curious, I mean, you are for the most part, I mean, I certainly understand, you know, when we get into Q4 and we're working on the big deals, right? Things bleed into the evenings and a little bit onto the weekends, but you're working a pretty tight, very focused. I think probably goes back to the thing you opened up with around the focus. You're working 9 to 6.

43:04 Ian Koniak: Yeah. Yeah, 9 to 6, nothing crazy. I mean, people at Salesforce are going to kill me by hearing this, but I probably work a dedicated 30 to 35 hours a week. And in those 30 and 35 hours, I probably do what other people do in 70 because my… it's not about how many hours you're working, it's about what you're working on and how efficient you are when you are working. And so I don't burn the midnight oil at all. I did that for so many years and like I said, it got me in trouble. And so for me, it's really about balance. And, you know, I have a side business that I run. I produce videos, I go on podcasts, I do speaking. I have a lot of other stuff going on that sometimes will, you know, come up during the day. And I'm sure you can relate to this running a few podcasts. And those are also important for me. So for me, it's making sure that the time that I spend during the day is on impactful activities, service-oriented activities, deals that move the needle. Things that matter. And that means outsourcing the shit out of a lot of stuff that doesn't matter. And that's really something that I've learned recently that has been super effective for helping me maximize my time is like outsource the things that are low-value activities. And I actually got that advice from my therapist. And that was awesome because it's really helped me in not just my marriage, but my business as well, just outsourcing stuff.

44:29 Scott Ingram: Because I need to make sure that you've signed up for the summit. And Ian just reminded me that one of the presentations I'm really looking forward to is Matt Du Pont's talk about maximizing your commission per hour worked. Here's Matt talking about his own talk.

44:44 Ian Koniak: So this presentation is focused on how to help other reps like me make more commission for every hour they work.

44:53 Scott Ingram: We're gonna start off with some tactical tips for improving And then look at an overall framework for how to manage your own self-development. Remember, the livestream experience is free thanks to Gong, Alice, Terryberry, Vidyard, Sales Hacker, and Outreach. So sign up right now at top1summit.com. If you already have, thank you. Do yourself and a friend or your team a favor and tell them to sign up to join you. And now back to Ian and some of the specific things he's outsourcing.

45:23 Ian Koniak: I'll give you 2 examples. One is just grocery shopping, right? So I was always grocery shopping for my family because my wife was pregnant and we just had our son in July, but she didn't want to go to grocery store because of COVID And so I would do the grocery shopping and it would take me an hour and a half. And it seems really simple, an hour and a half once a week. But the reality is that I was, I'm just kind of like a creature of old habits, you know, sometimes I'm stubborn and my wife is like, just get them delivered. And so I I just recently, maybe a couple months ago, started getting my groceries delivered, and I'm like, why didn't I do this sooner? Right? It's like knowing the value of your time is essential because grocery shopping is not a high-value activity for me. Another example, and the one I was just referencing, is cleaning around the house. So my wife is a hyper OCD. She needs everything clean. She vacuums every day, she scrubs everything, and she just likes to maintain a clean house. And she expects me to clean as well. And I told You know, I'm not great at cleaning. I just tidy up and we got in a few fights about it because her standards were a lot higher than mine. And, you know, we've always had a housekeeper come every other week and I recently just said, you know what, screw it. Let's just have the housekeeper every week so they can do deep cleaning once a week. So you're not freaking out and we're, you know, we're fighting over something that's an extra $150 a week. You know, it's not that big of a deal. So being, you know, pennywise and pound foolish. So I save a few bucks on cleaning, but I spend a lot of time and I have some big fights fights because of cleaning. And then the last thing is just, you know, we put a really nice backyard and pool in and I was doing like the pool care because it was kind of meditative. And then I'm like, why am I scrubbing the pool and doing the chemicals and dealing with this? So I just outsourced. So I'm spending, you know, a grand a month on just like outsourcing various things, at least between housekeeping and childcare too. We just got a nanny now once a week, even though I'm on paternity and my wife is a full-time mom. We have someone coming once a week just to help out. We have cleaners coming once a week. So I'm really taking things around the house And I'm hiring help so that now I can spend more time producing videos or connecting with my wife and children, or just doing things that aren't like low-value activities in my business. It's about delegating, really. It's about making sure that my BDRs are truly empowered to go out and set appointments, and that I'm not prospecting to people except if it's the C-suite or high-level SVPs. It's about making sure my lower deals are fully handled by my enterprise core. Corporate sales rep, Davidson. He's awesome. But before, I'd want to be in control. And if I'm spending time on low-sized deals, that means I can't spend time on the big deals. So it's making sure my business cases are being done by my business value team. It's literally empowering my customer success manager to really take the reins on QBRs. So it's like outsourcing in your personal life and in your professional life really enables you to focus on the highest value activities, which for me is connecting with people like and connecting with my most strategic customers and making an impact on as many people as I can. It's taken me to kind of just give up control a little bit and also not be a cheapskate about things that before I was just simply cheap about. I make enough money where I should be able to hire a nanny and hire cleaners and pool people and all these support, but I think I was just holding on to this old way of thinking you know, from when I was broke and, and it hasn't really served me if it means that I'm not spending time with my family or it means if I'm fighting about stuff that I don't have to. I don't know if I answered your question with that, Scott, but those are like a bunch of examples in my business and my personal life which I outsource.

48:59 Scott Ingram: That's great. I think our wives are very, very similar and once I figured out the cleaning thing, man, that is the best investment I make in my marriage.

49:08 Ian Koniak: I 100% agree and my therapist is like, well, what are you good at, Ian? I'm like, I'm good at making money. She's like, so make money and hire someone to clean. I'm like, good point. I talked to my wife and she's like, duh, I don't know why you were doing it before. I'm like, well, you could have told me that, honey. Why don't you tell once a week? I wouldn't have… so it's like you have to come up with… I wish she would just tell me sometimes what she wants, but that's not the way women work.

49:28 Scott Ingram: So anyway, another podcast, we're a little bit slow, so that's just the way it goes. It's the way it goes.

49:34 Ian Koniak: We are oblivious is what we are as men. We're in our bubbles and we just don't see the signs half the time. But anyway, that's… yeah, marriage advice. Is something I can also talk a lot about because I did it the wrong way and finally things are good. So I could, I could tell you anything to save, fight. Happy wife, happy life. So how long have you been married?

49:53 Scott Ingram: Oh my gosh, 16 years, 17 years.

49:56 Ian Koniak: Okay. I just had my 7th anniversary, so I just made it over the 7-year hump. It's good for you.

50:01 Scott Ingram: It's great stuff. It's great stuff. My girls are now 12 and 14, so we are having a blast. Although I spent half of today at the emergency room out of an abundance of caution due to a concussion. Russian worry that I think we're totally clear of. But that kind of goofed up my day, but here we are.

50:19 Ian Koniak: Well, that's very scary, and I'm sorry you had to go through that anxiety, but better safe than sorry.

50:24 Scott Ingram: So we've dealt with far worse, so bring it on.

50:27 Ian Koniak: Yeah, yeah. I have an 8-week-old and a 4-year-old, and I am constantly dealing with worries, especially with the sleeping baby. Is he suffocating? Can he breathe? You know, it's like that first period Like, just those first few months are really hard. So anyway, I can relate, but yours are a bit older.

50:45 Scott Ingram: So yeah, it gets easier. It gets easier. I do not envy your position.

50:48 Ian Koniak: Well, so I have a son who's on the autism spectrum. I have a newborn, and both are at home right now. And it's like I'm doing the therapies, I'm doing a lot of the behavioral work with my son, I'm trying to take the baby. It's been… oh my gosh, it's been so humbling to see how hard my wife really has it, you know, having been on paternity leave for 2 months. I'm I'm dying to get back, but I promised her that I would not work and I really am doing my part right now and it's paying dividends in the personal family life for sure.

51:19 Scott Ingram: Good for you. Well, you'll have to thank her for sharing you with us for a couple of hours here. I'm curious, are there any other… and I want to go broad with this, right? Not just the workday since we've already expanded into this. Are there any other kind of habits or routines that are just core to the way you function and your success?

51:36 Ian Koniak: I think knowing your why and having a personal mission statement are really important just in general. One thing I've done every year is I recalibrate my why. I get my ex-girlfriend to the US and it's like, okay, what now? Why do I need to make this much money now? Why do I need to be successful now? If you don't have a real front and center reason as to why you need to do what you need to do, a lot of times the grind is… it feels like a grind and it's really hard. I'm constantly recalibrating my why, not just in the beginning of the year, but during the year as well. So for me now, you know, my why is bigger than just me. It's about, you know, continuing to show that this way of selling that's externally customer-focused actually is more effective than, you know, the traditional way of selling, which is, you know, me-centric versus customer-centric. And it's really, you know, to practice what I'm preaching. And, you know, in terms of building up my training and coaching business, really getting firsthand experience in managing and growing the largest accounts in the world for Salesforce, which is like the major leagues of selling. So I've needed to, you know, to constantly recalibrate because, you know, I want to run my business full-time. And it's, you know, like I said, if I'm just thinking, oh, I should be doing something else, then it really is going to be hard. So you really have to like be all in on what you're doing. Wherever you go, there you are. So one thing I'd say is like, you've got to embrace where you are and make the most of it.

53:07 Scott Ingram: Did you just refer a Moana song?

53:09 Ian Koniak: Is that a Moana song? Wherever you go, there you are.

53:11 Scott Ingram: Something like that. Is it? We were just watching some Disney Plus. I swear to God, that's a Moana song. Sorry, I didn't mean to derail you there.

53:18 Ian Koniak: It might have been, and I… and if I did say it, then it's understandable since I have a little boy that actually likes that movie.

53:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we'll look it up and put it in the show notes if is.

53:27 Ian Koniak: At least it's not frozen, so he's not singing, singing Let It Go or whatever that song is. So we digress, but what I'm trying to say is like you could always look for, you know, a greener pasture elsewhere, but where you are, you need to like really be grounded and establish your footing because that's the challenge at hand. If you're always looking for something else, you're never going to appreciate the current state and the present challenge at hand. And I just feel like that's been the story of my life. I'm always like, oh, I need to go to a different company, or I need to go to a higher position, or I need a different territory or different manager. And it's like, until I realized that like it was me that I was running away from and that I needed to ground myself in my core value, my mission, my identity, and really have that sense of like identity that's like, I am somebody who strives to make the most of every day, to constantly be better today than I was yesterday, to give, to serve. Knowing my values has been something that… like, writing out your why and your reasons and your values and what you want in life, if you can do that consistently, man, the work's gonna feel easy because you know why you're doing it. And so many people skip that step. You know, they have these goals and they're purely financial, but you know, that can only take you so far. You've got to like be working towards, you know, a better version of yourself and you've got to work towards, I think, making an impact and being a good person, being a better person than you were yesterday. And working on yourself is equally as important as working on your business. So that's been my like daily habit. I forgot to mention this earlier, but I listen to podcasts regularly. I'm always listening to Audible and I'm always trying to to better myself by reading and by just developing myself in areas that I lack perfection. And those are a lot of areas. I say that lack perfection. I should say I work on areas that I know I need improvement on. So if my marriage is struggling, then I'll read The 5 Love Languages. If I feel triggered or I feel like my addict might be coming out, I'll do addiction work. If I feel like my sales are struggling, I will go back and read some of my top sales books. It's really like that's that congruence I was talking about earlier is knowing who you are and always calibrating. There's this guy named Ed Mylett and Ed Mylett is a badass. He runs a podcast where he has literally the top most successful athletes and comedians and people on there. On his podcast, there was someone he was talking about maintaining our temperature and we constantly calibrate up or down to get to a temperature we're comfortable at. If we're having too much success and we're comfortable at a lower success level, a lot of times we'll self-sabotage and go back down to where we're comfortable. For me, it's constantly making sure that I'm comfortable being uncomfortable and challenging myself. That's where I'm most comfortable. If I feel like myself, like I'm just getting into mundane routine habits and just kind of falling back on autopilot, then I know I'm doing something wrong. That's kind of the daily thing I look at is like, am I advancing towards my biggest goals? It's taken me so long to realize this, Scott, but I've done everything wrong and finally I'm in a place where I just feel like I'm doing the right things and it really feels good. Me being on this podcast for 2 hours means I'm not with my family, but it means potentially I'm reaching thousands of people that can be inspired to maybe do a little bit better, and that's very important to me. It's just knowing what's important to you and making sure you do those things within your calendar on a consistent basis, not once, but they're part of your routine. You've got to have other shit besides work, besides family. You've got to have something you stand for that can be part of your day or week consistently. For me, I have a lot of those things now. I know it's a really long answer. To the question, but it's like a mindset thing that I take with me every day.

57:35 Scott Ingram: I love it. It sounds like the school of hard knocks has taught you quite well.

57:39 Ian Koniak: I've been doing this for 18 years, and like I said, if I hadn't like almost lost my family, man, I'd probably be doing the same stupid shit I was doing before. But now it's like, if I have a chance to travel and it's a meeting that's not that important, that's not with the executive, I'll say no right now. If I have a chance to play golf but it's not with someone who's a true true change agent, you know what, as much as I'd love to play golf, I won't do it. So my time is so damn valuable. I'm saying no probably 3 out of 4 times to things that come my way and/or people that want to connect. And it's just like the importance of saying no throughout the day is what enables you to say yes to what you really need to do. And I think that's where people just get stuck. There's just too much information and too much opportunity. People don't know where to focus. And so you're noticing a theme and what I'm talking about. It's focus and it's alignment, and that's kind of who I am right now.

58:30 Scott Ingram: I'm loving it. And the thing that I've also heard thematically is just kind of the way that you're in the moment. It's the way that you're in the moment in the deals and really focusing on the journey and less about the destination, right? Because if you listen well and you work through it, like, all the stuff comes, right? If you…

58:46 Ian Koniak: that's right.

58:47 Scott Ingram: And just like you're talking about before in terms of your career and everything else, and whatever the Moana quote was like being where you are. Yeah. Like, okay, this, this is where I'm at. How do I make the most of this and be the best me in this?

59:01 Ian Koniak: Yeah. I think that the presence and awareness are 2 key things. And let me just give people, cause I know this is a sales story podcast. Let me tell people what I really do when I'm with customers is, and I think I should have given you this as a differentiator, but The best salespeople connect with their customers, and that sounds fairly generic. But what does connection really mean? Connection means that you are connected, you are one, you are touching them. So not literally touching them, but you are through what you're saying or the questions you're asking. You are connecting, and people think that connection is about, hey, let's talk about our favorite sports teams or our hobbies, and that's not what connection. Is. Connection is really being present enough with them to ask really important questions that they care about, such as, what is most important to you this year? If you were to fast forward 6 months or a year from now and say, you know what, I hit my top goals, would you mind sharing with me what those are? And then when they start talking, then digging deep. Well, tell me why that's a goal. Have you had challenges within this past? What's the biggest obstacle you faced to hitting that goal? Are you on track to hit it? What do you need to do differently that's going to help get you there? So it's not about reading a list of discovery questions. It's about really being curious and trying to understand where they're coming from, and then thinking about when you get back to the office, how can I help them connect with their customers or their employees or their whatever it is that they shared with you. So connecting is really taking a genuine interest and being curious in what your clients have to say. And if you're always thinking about the next thing you're going to say, then you will not be present enough to listen and to dig deep. And that's where a lot of sales reps get stuck, is they're thinking about their agenda and what they're going to respond and how they think they're going to connect by impressing the client and saying something they've done. Versus really just spending the time listening and asking thought-provoking questions. And when the client answers, then taking in that answer and getting a little more curious on something that may not make sense or that they, you know, that you want to learn more about. So that's what I do that's very different is when I have meetings with executives, they're impactful meetings because I take a genuine interest in understanding what it is that they care about, what it is that they're going through, where they want to go, how are they measured personally. And that's the bulk of my meeting. And then at the end of the meeting, I typically will, you know, it's not even like that they think that I can solve their problems. It's just a lot of times sales reps are showing up and throwing up. And, you know, when I show up and ask, it's like, wow, this is a welcome experience. You're not here to talk about yourself and try and pitch me. You just want to know what I'm trying to do. And then you can come back and show the areas that you want to help. So at the end of the meeting, I usually say something along the lines lines of, wow, thank you so much for sharing with me and really excited to hear where you want to go. I think we can help you in some great areas. Let's talk about outlines of next steps. Do you have someone I can work with on your team that can walk me through these things that we need, or can we get together next week? I'm going to put something together for you. So when you really are present and you care about your customer and you really aren't there to just, again, get your agenda and sell your product, It's amazing how responsive clients are and how open they will be because you're not trying to talk about yourself. And the second thing I do is once I do a proposal or a pitch back, literally, I mean, sometimes these decks are 20, 30 pages. The first 10 or 15 slides will be about what the client told me, their goals, their challenges, where they want to go. And all I'm doing is replaying what they said. I'll share quotes, and it's amazing the nods you get in the room. It's amazing the energy that fills up simply by hearing them replay what they have been thinking for so long that haven't been able to get out. And then I show them, okay, you have all these challenges. Here's how we can help you. And then the demo is customized, the proposal is customized, and it's like by that time they're so engaged, they're so invested because they've opened up. They're like, yeah, help me, help me. You're drawing out all these That's really the sales stuff. I don't want this to be all just personal development, touchy-feely. I think this applies directly to sales, is when you can freaking stop focusing on your own damn ego and your own selfish bullshit and listen to your clients and try and help them, you're gonna be the best salesperson in the world. And that's what I've experienced.

1:03:42 Scott Ingram: Love that, love that. The way that I love to have that conversation, and this is like my discovery, right, is if we picture ourselves a year from now and we're celebrating together, right? We're raising a glass because we accomplished this thing together. What is that? Right? And then you've got an opportunity to just go into that conversation and ideally we're visualizing ourselves doing that, right? Like, what did we have to overcome to get there? Like, what was that unforeseen obstacle that almost threw us off course? Right? And just being able to get into that conversation in a more kind of emotional way where we're together visualizing what is this celebration, what is this end state for us, and not just what keeps you up at night and other stupid generic sales questions.

1:04:28 Ian Koniak: Yeah, yeah. And it's funny you mentioned that because when I joined that mastermind that I told you about earlier when we were chatting, that was an exercise they took us through, is they said, look at yourself a year from now and you're celebrating. Who are the people with you? What are you celebrating. And I had this number, it was like $4 million when I went through this visualization. And the most I'd ever sold was like $1.5 million up to that point. I ended up selling almost $6 million that year. But like literally I felt into that success. I saw my SVP celebrating me. I saw my family, I saw my boss, I saw my customers and like the power of visualization and like seeing success before it actually happens, man. There is something real to that. And I love that question. I'm going to use that. I'm going to steal that from meal for sure.

1:05:10 Scott Ingram: That's what it's for. That's what it's for. I'm glad you opened the mastermind door because again, I've listened to you. You've done a fair number of interviews. So folks want to dig even deeper than we'll go in our 2-hour conversation. There's more out there. But you talked about this mastermind group sort of being a turning point for yourself and you really investing in yourself and really truly breaking through in what you were doing in sales. Talk about all of that a little bit more. What got you to that point? Point, and why did this make such a big difference for you?

1:05:38 Ian Koniak: Yeah, you know, to answer that question, I have to go back a few years, and I'll go back to January of 2017. So this is about 3 and a half years ago. I was at a low of lows at that point. I had missed my quota 3 years in a row at Salesforce, and you have to keep in mind, before Salesforce, I was the number one not only sales rep but director of sales. I I had a team of 80 people in the whole country at Ricoh. I had left on a high note. I had been the top dog. I went to Salesforce and I had crushed it my first year. Frankly, I got lucky and I closed a very big deal that I really didn't know what I was selling or how I sold it. Somehow I found it through, you know, will and through prospecting. But my ego was through the roof and I had a dose of humble pie the few years after that. I ended up missing my quota by a long shot for 2 years. And I said, you know what? This is not my fault. This is my territory. I have a shitty territory. It's my manager. He's not supportive. It could be Salesforce. I think the glory days of Salesforce are over. And I really was pointing the finger externally because I knew that I was the best. And I laugh about that now, but at the time, that's what I thought. I'm like, this can't be my fault. And so I decided to change teams. I was going to go to Microsoft and leave Salesforce. And fortunately, a woman, her name is Jenn Legaly, and she She's amazing. She's now our SVP, or Executive Vice President of Salesforce. I approached her at the time. She was an AVP. I said, you know, Jenn, I think I'm great, and I really am thinking of leaving the company. Jenn headed the commercial division in the West, and these were smaller accounts. I'm like, I think I just need more at-bats. I come from copiers. I'm used to doing high volume. Maybe I can go to the commercial team. She's like, you know what? Shot. And so I transferred from enterprise to commercial. And that year I was doing well. I was actually closing 4 or 5 deals a month. I had a lot of at-bats. I was selling a lot and I was on track to hit my quota. And I was supposed to get a deal at the end of the fiscal year. It was January 31st. It was the last day of our fiscal. And I was literally showing up at a client. I was about $40K off my number. And this was a $200K deal. They'd given the verbal, it got board approved. I got the CEO and CFO's approval. It was meeting to pick up the paperwork. And so I headed out and the president of the company, they said, it's just a formality. She just wants to meet you before we get in this partnership. So I thought it was a done deal. And basically I found out it wasn't a formality. In fact, that the company that I was trying to sell to was Chinese owned and they are controlled by a company in China called LiEco. And I had never been involved with LiEco. I'd only been working with this subsidiary. And this president's like, I cannot sign this deal until my CIO approves it. Well, I had no relationship with the CIO because I had been working with the CIO of the subsidiary. And long story short, she called the CIO and the CIO was on vacation and he's like, I can't approve this. We'll do it next week when I'm back. And I basically sent her a DocuSign. I'm like, that's not good enough. We have to do it. It's the end of the year. Everyone approved it. You know, she's like, well, you gotta talk to the CIO. I'm not going to sign this until he says okay. So I ended up tracking the CIO down in China. China, and he… I remember this conversation. It was like 10:30, 11 at night, and I'm like, we got to sign. Everyone said yes. I just need your approval. He's like, why does this have to be now, Ian? What's the difference between now and when I'm off from vacation? I'm like, because we gave you a deal of a lifetime, and we're not going to be able to do this deal next week. And he's like, I'm sorry, that's not the way I work, and he hung up on me. And at that point, I literally felt like the most intense migraine I'd ever felt. My head was splitting and I had missed my quota for 3 years in a row. Even though I had changed teams and I had good accounts, I still missed it. And I remember feeling so worthless and so shitty. And I said, you know what, something's got to change. And I don't know what to do, but I know that I can't continue feeling this way because if my whole identity is grounded in my performance and then I've just missed my quota 3 years in a row, what does that make me? It makes me worthless garbage. And that was the way felt at the time. And it was really sad because in hindsight, you know, I had an amazing family and wife, and I think I just didn't appreciate all the blessings I had. And I was just so solely focused on performance. And so I said, you know, I got to do something different. And somebody reached out to me on LinkedIn and said, hey, we have this sales immersion. If you're looking for, you know, breaking through the limits of sales that are holding you back, you've got to come to this immersion. And he had been chasing me down for a while. And basically at that point, he got me at the right time. I'm like, you just nailed me. I'll do whatever it takes. And so I ended up going to this immersion for a weekend and we do this like deep visualization, the one that I was telling you about. And I just, they made me imagine like what it would be like to have my most successful year and think about that. We went through like an hour of visualization meditation and I imagined myself selling $4 million, being one of the top reps. I imagined how proud my family was and my life. And I left that meditation and I'm like, I don't know what I just tapped into, but I felt it. I felt the success. It was like the best feeling that I had had. And I'm like, I need that. I want that. And this was kind of like a sales gimmick they have looking back at it. It was super effective because once you tap into that like feeling of being super successful, you're like, well, I want that. I'm not ready to leave this immersion. So I signed up for a year-long mastermind. I paid $20,000. And they're like, we have a deep rewiring of your brain that we're going to take you through. We're going to take you how to take whatever you think you know and throw it out the window and basically start fresh. And that mastermind consisted of a weekly sales coaching every week. It consisted of a biweekly one-on-one training and mentorship call for 30 minutes, and it consisted of 4 trips where you actually go somewhere And you have, you know, a focus on different topics. So one of the topics was leadership, one is like health and energy, another one was sales, another one was presence and spirituality. So it wasn't like necessarily a sales mastermind, but what I got from that year was that I had always been playing small and I had believed I was like a $250K kind of guy. So if I made $250K, I took my foot off the gas. And that may sound like a lot of money, but in the Salesforce world, for the top reps, they were making, you know, north of, north of 7 figures. And I was like, well, why not me? Well, it's because I basically always recalibrated to a lower temperature. And when I think good things were going well, I self-sabotaged. And so I didn't even realize that until I went to this immersion and did some deep work and really understanding like what was holding me back. And what I realized was that I devalued myself. I thought of myself as a sales rep. And what they helped me to realize is that I am equal to the executives that I sell to. We're all humans, and it's not the performance that matters and makes you who you are. It's the type of person you are. And so what I strove to do in that year was really focus on being the best person that I could be. And being a good person, then I could be a good salesperson. So I shifted my approach. Instead of trying to slam software, I really tried to just understand exactly where my clients were. And the way I did discovery before was really focused on what software they were using, what CRM provider, what wasn't working, where they want to went. There was very kind of feature specific. And how I started asking questions after that was what I talked about earlier, which is like, what is most important to them in their business? Where do they want to go? Why does it matter? What's their biggest goal? What's their aspiration? And then and show how I can help them get there. That year I sold my biggest deal. It was to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices. It was an 8-figure deal. I was connected with their CEO. Their CEO… previously I never would have called a CEO, and I decided to go right for him. He basically opened up. He was a very open, very cool guy. What I found is the higher-level executive you get to, the more down-to-earth they are and the more direct they are because that's what's made them successful is transparency and directness. If I could be direct and transparent with them and we could be direct with each other, then we really could do great things together. I just really learned that I was equal to the executives I was selling to, that I had a lot of value to bring besides what's helped their business, and that I was really playing small. I shifted everything that year in terms of where I focused, who I sold to, and the way I got the Berkshire Hathaway deal. Deal was I asked the CEO… I remember it was a late-night conversation, and he was like, we got to get this in, we got to get this time. And he was really coaching, helping me to try and like prepare for a board meeting. And I remember asking him, I said, why is this so important to you to get this deal done? And he said, Ian, we are failing our real estate agents. They come to Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices because we have a promise to make them successful. And there are many people that are here because they have no other choice. There are so many single mothers who want to be moms, but they also want to have a career, and they don't have the flexibility in the 9 to 5 to be around their family. And so they go to real estate to get their license and do things on their terms. And if we don't deliver for them, if we don't help them succeed, then I am failing them personally. In every real estate company I've ever worked for, they've thrown us to the sharks, and it's basically sink or swim. Swim, and I am here to change that. I'm here to promise my people that we will help them be successful and we will support them in their own career because I never got that when I was there. And my mom was a single mom. And he basically starts opening up and how much he wants to help single moms. And at that moment forward, I knew that everything I did, I thought about not just him, but I thought about his value of what he was trying to deliver to the real estate agents. And I thought about literally the 50,000 people that we were going to help basically change their lives, support their families through the software we were selling. So I realized at that point, like, man, what I sell matters. What I do makes a huge impact. And I never had that mindset before. I thought it was just all about quota and income and, you know, driving the expensive cars and houses. And what I realized that year was that what you do matters and it matters to a shit ton of people. And you better start understanding the who and the why in order for you to really, you know, be successful in sales. And that's all I focused on since then, and that's where I've had my transformation and my breakthrough, is just focusing on the who and the why in my clients.

1:16:20 Scott Ingram: I mean, that's brilliant. I mean, it's hard enough to get to your own why, but if you can get to the human's why on the other side, right? Because you didn't say anything about the business why.

1:16:30 Ian Koniak: Why.

1:16:30 Scott Ingram: I mean, it was clear the CEO had a personal mission to fulfill.

1:16:33 Ian Koniak: If you can find their personal mission, like, they're going to open up in a way that they never had before. The business is easy. We can all talk about the business, but like, what matters to you personally? Why is this important to you? What would it mean to you personally to be able to accomplish this? That is the question, which is the money question in my opinion.

1:16:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love it, love it, love it. Let's get into a couple of tactical things. I want to go back to your information diet and just get specific around a couple of, you know, just favorite podcasts, favorite books on, on Audible. What consistently grabs your attention and impacts you?

1:17:07 Ian Koniak: Yeah, well, for podcasts, it's interesting because there are so many podcasts that I listen to, but I like the motivational podcasts, like not just the sales podcast but the life podcast. I like to hear, you know, in sales we can be really insular and what we hear, and it can get kind of stale and old. So I listen to success stories outside of the industry of sales. So one of my favorites I mentioned earlier was Ed Mylett, and that was, you know, really for me, Ed Mylett is a very successful entrepreneur. He was one of the founders of World Financial Group, and he has some amazing guests that are elite performers in all areas that I listen to to get myself fired up on, you know, the common success habits of top performers. Another guy I listened to to is called Lewis Howes, and his podcast is similar. It's focused on the school of greatness. So he'll get experts from a variety of topics, from happiness to spirituality to athletes. And, you know, he had Kobe Bryant on his show. He's got some really, really good guests. Both those guys are kind of some of the top business podcasts that I listen to, and it's really motivational to kind of see these top performers and what they're doing. You know, there's a whole of other folks that I like. Jay Shetty is one of them. He does mindfulness, and those are kind of the ones that are top of mind right now. As far as sales podcasts, I really don't listen to many of them, to be honest with you. I have listened to John Barrows' podcast and Brian Burns, a couple episodes, but mostly I'm doing kind of the outside of the industry. As far as Audible and kind of what books I'm reading, there's a ton of them. I'm pulling up my Audible list right now, but most recently what I really liked, and I tell this to my clients, is Gap Selling. Gap Selling is by Keenan, and it's really focused on how to do really quality discovery and getting to the customer's why and getting to their, you know, reasons for making a change. And that's really important. It's like, why change? Why now? Why you? And Gap Selling does a great job of breaking that down. I have Never Split the Difference on my Audible. It's something that I'm listening to next. I love the Napoleon Hill books, Think and Grow Rich, and my personal favorite is called Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill. That's all about conquering your own demons and actually breaking free of what society tells you you should be doing and finding your own personal mission and not being like a sheep in a flock where you're kind of mindlessly moving in what society tells you. I think that's super important. There's a whole bunch. I have a lot of productivity Audibles. The 12 Week Year is really good, how to compound a year's worth of work into 12 weeks. There's another book that is called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, which is all about changing your habits. I kind of have a mix of personal development, productivity, and sales books. Then I have spiritual books, which I listen to. I'm listening to The Reason for God right now. I'm wrapping that up. On spirituality and Christianity, which I'm learning about. I never was religious, but I'm starting to become more spiritual. That's a big one for me. Then Breathing Underwater is another one. It's about addiction recovery. I kind of have a mix of all the different things that I'm personally doing. Then there's the generic ones, How to Win Friends and Influence People, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and The Power of Purpose by Les Brown. Those are kind of my past 12 that I had over the past year. And, and I always, every, every month I do a new book on Audible and always have podcasts playing in the background.

1:20:40 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Well, as always, we will have links to all of the references that Ian just talked about. So if you go to top1.fm forward slash either this episode number or forward slash Ian-Koniak, we'll have those details there. What about the tools and apps that are just staples in your kind of personal tech stack?

1:20:58 Ian Koniak: Yeah, I think for me, the thing that I talk about the most is a tool, and it's very much biased, but it's called Salesforce Inbox. Doesn't have to be Salesforce Inbox, but that's the one I use because I work for Salesforce. But what it is, is it's a widget that plugs into Gmail, and it lets you schedule meetings directly from your calendar. And the difference is, when you're reaching out to a client, client instead of… and I think Calendly is one that does something like this, and Yesware, there's a few of them. But basically, I have a meeting, 9 out of 10 times I'll have people with me. I'll have my engineer or maybe a salesperson, and I don't know what all their calendars are. So rather than opening your calendar and looking at all the open spots and then sending times and going back and forth, just the scheduling process alone can be very painful. What this does is it lets you open up a widget within your inbox. You just basically put the people on the email that you want to include, and then you can see all their shared calendars. And you literally select the blocks that everyone's open and then send that email to a client and they just pick one of the slots. So you have like 8 choices for them. They pick a slot and then it auto-sends an invite to everyone involved and blocks off everyone's calendar. So that process probably saves me 5 hours a week, no kidding, with scheduling back and forth. When I put that on, it's like… and it makes the return on appointment probably 50% higher because it's so easy to schedule appointments. They just click versus having to go back and forth, and then by the time you're scheduled, it's already full. So that's the one I use, Salesforce Inbox, but there's Calendly. So scheduling automation tool that can help you insert availability of multiple people is, is my number one must-have widget. Other things that I use, I mean, obviously LinkedIn for my personal business is really important. I'm always posting videos and content. Salesforce, I'm living in Salesforce. We do all of our quoting and our customer Our relationships are all run out of that. For marketing automation, I don't really use a lot of marketing automation because I only have 2 customers, but when I do, I'm using LinkedIn Sales Navigator and I'm kind of digging in with some of their tools in terms of understanding what's going on and getting real-time notifications and alerts. I feel like I'm missing anything. Just the Gcal apps, we use them all the time. Meet, Hangouts, anything, you know, that I can schedule a video conference with directly from the calendar and just insert it versus having to cut and paste the calendar link. It's gonna save me a lot of time. There are… let me see. Yeah, that's, that's pretty much it. I mean, there's just the Messenger apps, and we're using the G Suite heavily in Salesforce. So Hangouts, Google Sheets, Google Slides, all of that, anything with collaboration. Where we can co-create proposals and edit together is going to be my friend with the type of selling that I do.

1:23:47 Scott Ingram: Let me wheel out the soapbox now because I've got a couple of questions that tend to trigger people, but in a good way. Is there something you believe that the average rep would think is crazy?

1:23:58 Ian Koniak: I guess money won't make you happy is probably my number one answer. A lot of people think that achieving financial and career success when they get to the top will, will get them what they've always wanted. And they spend years trying to be the best, and if they're not the best, they're doubting themselves, and they're on this roller coaster again of sales where their emotional state is directly aligned with how much they're selling. And I used to be on that roller coaster too until I decided to get off. And what I realized after becoming number 1 and making $2 million in a couple of years was that money, while it can buy things, it certainly can bring comfort, money will not make you happy. Unfortunately, it took me having to make a lot of money and deal with addictions that came along with that success. It took me making a lot of mistakes and nearly losing my marriage before I realized what makes you happy is really connection and specifically connection with your your family, with your spouse, and really having that personal life in order so that you can be focused and free when you are working. When you have your shit together, you can really serve at a higher level. I think that people so often go first to, hey, if I only had this, or if I only made this much, or if I only could do these things, things would be better. The reality is you can be better today if you become better and if you focus on filling the gaps that you have in your life, be it your health or your relationship. That's what I got wrong. I thought I always had another level because there's always more money you can make. There's always a higher level you can get to. There's always more success, but your relationships with the people that you love can't be sacrificed in the process. I think that to me was something that I had to learn the hard way and fortunately I was able through through God's grace and through my own dedication, I was able to mend my relationship and that's made all the difference. You know what? If I don't finish number 1 in Salesforce, I'm not tying my whole identity to that anymore, whereas I used to feel that way. I'd say that's probably the biggest thing is material and career success will not bring fulfillment. I think a lot of people would challenge that because they put so much to it. They don't want to believe otherwise, but that's not what makes you happy. It's, it's really about connection. It's about growth, and it's about contributing, making an impact, making a difference in people's lives. And that's why I'm happier than ever before.

1:26:30 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about the flip side? Is there something the average sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

1:26:35 Ian Koniak: Well, it's along those same lines. It's along the lines of like, I will feel fulfilled if I am successful in sales. I'm only as worthy as my performance. That is what I think is crazy, Scott, is a lot of salespeople think they're only as good as their performance. And if they're not hitting their numbers, they feel terrible about themselves and they are snappy and they are angry and they are resentful and they sometimes will turn to medicate themselves. And it's just a crock of shit because your worth as a human being has to do with the type of person you are and how you show up for people and what you give and the kindness and the love that you share. It's not your performance as a rep. I mean, your performance is a reflection of how hard you're working and how good you are, which anyone could work harder and work on their sales game. But if you're a bad person, if you're not kind to people, if you're selfish, if you're greedy, if you're, you know, self-centered, man, I mean, that's the thing that you can work on that are going to make you a good person. So I think it's crazy to think you're only as worthy as your income, as your W-2, because otherwise there wouldn't be teachers, there wouldn't be social workers, there wouldn't be politicians, there wouldn't be police officers. I just, for my whole life I thought it's only about money. And while you do need to be money motivated as a sales rep, I think that's super important, it's not everything. And once you realize that the type of person that you are and how you show up for others is equally… no, not equally, it's more important than just how much you sell, then you can really start to do great work in the world.

1:28:19 Scott Ingram: It's interesting. I think this has served as a very good substitute. One of the presentations that didn't quite work out in this year's agenda for the Sales Success Summit, we had a talk that was going to be really focused on essentially this idea that you are not your your number. Because to your point, if you tie your entire identity to that number, and then miss the number, and there's so many factors outside of your control, you know, I, in a very recent episode, I interviewed Dave Schwartz from Adobe. And he talked about kind of this bullseye concept, right? And like, you can only control that little bitty red dot in the middle. Everything else is, you can maybe influence it a little bit. But most of this stuff is outside of your control. So what happens when something happens and you don't make your number and you have your whole identity tied up in that. You're just setting yourself up to essentially screw yourself psychologically. It's not a good feeling.

1:29:18 Ian Koniak: It's the worst. And it's the story of my life, Scott. That's why I'm so passionate about this, is because I felt great for the, you know, the 14 years I hit my quota. And then 3 years I didn't. I felt horrible. And I, you know, I didn't know what to do with myself. So it's like, is that a way to live? How about feeling great because you're in a good mood because you make the most of each day and you're healthy and you have good, you know, relationships in your life and you're working hard? I mean, it feels great to work towards something. It feels great to, you know, be really giving your all towards whatever it is and hitting that. Believe me, believe me, it feels phenomenal, but it's short-lived because then what next? Sales is very much What have you done for me lately? And people forget very quickly, you know, if you were the star from, you know, a few years ago, but you're not performing anymore. So you gotta have more than that. And I think it's a great topic for your summit because so many people… and this is the problem that I want to solve, I really do, and my broader mission in life… and helping salespeople realize that, you know, there's more to life than just your performance. And it's so hard when you come from a culture where you're literally compared publicly and on reports and dashboards and you see yourself maybe not at the top when you have an identity that tells you you're the best, and we all do, and you don't see it, then there's a lot of confusion there. So again, it's important to succeed. We all have a job to do. But if you do everything you can and you're focused on the right things and you still don't succeed, to your point, it might just be that, you know what, shit happens and it's out of your control. The years that I didn't hit my quota There are a lot of reasons legitimately where I didn't, and I don't want to minimize that because it's easy to make excuses. But sometimes companies go bankrupt. Sometimes COVID happens, and if you have travel and hospitality as your vertical, you're going to be screwed. Sometimes you have a really bad boss who only sees you as a number and doesn't care about you as a person. Sometimes your company has shitty products and you're stuck doing customer service because you don't have a success manager. There can be a million reasons. Reasons. But to your point, sometimes it's timing. Like, you cannot judge yourself simply from your performance. You have to judge your performance on your output every day versus the scoreboard. If you can know you set out for a daily goal that you hit, then go to sleep knowing you gave it your all that day, and then rinse and repeat, and the results will come. And they always have, and they always have for me, as long as you're, you know, I mean, As long as you're smart enough, I guess, is probably… because people are born with intelligence. You just got to make the most of what you have been given, whatever God's given you. And, you know, some people aren't cut out for sales. That's another thing is there are people that are not meant to be in sales. Maybe their personality, or maybe they overthink, or maybe there could be a number of reasons. But if you're better off doing something else because you've gone for years and years and you've never hit your number, then maybe you should use your gifts in other areas because there is such thing as natural-born salespeople that just are dynamic and are able to connect and who have the gift of gab. And, you know, and they're a lot of times just, they have the golden touch and not everyone's like that. So if you've done everything you can and you're still not ever getting the results, then probably time to look at a different career.

1:32:33 Scott Ingram: There you go. Well, what advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today? I mean, condense these, these years and years of knowledge and hard-won one lessons, what would you tell them?

1:32:44 Ian Koniak: I would say 2 things. Number one, I'd say you have to get the experience. As much as you want to watch videos and absorb great podcasts and content, there is no substitute for experience, and reps matter. The reason people get to the NFL or the NBA is because they take a lot of preps. You might… they take a lot of practice sessions and endless drilling, endless drilling. Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, you don't see the time that they spend outside of the game. You only see them in the game, but you don't see everything they're doing outside. And practice and repetition is a salesperson's best friend. The more presentations you're in, the better you're going to present. The more demos you do, the better you're going to demo. The more discovery questions you have, the better you're going to do. The more you reach out to executives, you know, the more comfortable you're going to get talking to them once, once you have meetings. So there is no substitute for practice, which leads me to my second point, which is stay Stay the course. It's so easy in our attention-starved world right now where we're constantly looking at the next shiny object to want to jump ship because you don't see the immediate results. I got news for you. The first year in selling or the first couple of years sometimes, you're learning. You're learning the culture. You're learning the products. You're learning how to sell. You're learning how to connect with customers. You're not going to see the results right away unless you get fairly lucky or you just are a natural-born salesperson like I talked about. Times it's going to take that practice. And if you jump ship after a year or 2, we see this a lot in software. We see people leave 2, 3 years. I promise you, the best salespeople at Salesforce have been there 5 to 10+ years. Those are the ones that are crushing it because they stay the course. And I stayed at Ricoh for 10 years, and I stayed at Salesforce. Now this will be… this is my 8th year. And so I've only been at 2 companies for 18 years, and I've seen so many people leave every couple years, and those are not the people that are succeeding because they think the next thing will be better. But the reality is it takes time to really learn what you sell, learn how your sales process works, learn your company, learn how to get things done. So typically you'll see the biggest results after 2 years. My first year in sales, I made, I think it was $40,000, then $90,000, then $200,000, then $300,000, then $350,000. And that was selling copiers. If I hadn't stuck around after that second year, I wouldn't have cracked 6 figures. So you got to stay the course. You got to have faith. You got You gotta put in the work. That goes without saying, but putting in work doesn't mean working long hours. It means actually working on the right thing. So that's the final piece of advice I'd leave.

1:35:08 Scott Ingram: Love it. What about somebody that is further in, but they're stuck? Or maybe they're good, but they just haven't cracked through to great. What's your advice to them?

1:35:17 Ian Koniak: For me, it's you need to do something different. I would say number one, find out who is great. Great in your company and reach out to them. See if you can have lunch with them. See if you can have them take you on as a mentor. I know it seems like, oh, why would this person want to help me? But believe me, they do, especially if you're persistent. One of the first things I did when I got to Salesforce is I found the top rep who had, you know, been right around 7 figures for multiple years in a row, and I took her out to lunch and I picked her brain, and then I took her out again. And then I found one of the other top performers when changed teams, and I had a biweekly call set up with him where we would compare notes, and I really was just trying to learn from him what he's doing well. If you can find somebody at your company that's doing well and just really respect their time, come with questions, and understand what their playbook is and try and follow that playbook, without knowing what you need to do, it's very hard to be successful. Find people who are doing the job and then learn what they're doing. And that will help take your business to the next level. I would say get a coach if you can. There are a lot of courses that you can take on selling. There's a lot of training programs, but you need to invest in yourself. Like I said earlier, I spent $50,000 over 2 years joining a mastermind. The one that I joined was called Abundant, and I definitely recommend them. But I do sales coaching. There's a lot of people that do sales coaching and mentorship. And there's certainly a lot of courses out there. You need to invest in yourself. Typically, if you're just doing good and you can't break through, it's probably because you're doing the same things over and over again expecting different results. You're comfortable in the way you're selling, and in order to break through that kind of barrier of going from good to great, you need to do things differently. So learn what the best are doing and then make some serious investments in yourself and spend time contacting executives. That's the last thing I'll say is big deals happen at the C-suite. Big deals happen when there's transformation that a company is going through. Instead of spending time chasing the small deals, really allocate an equal amount of time towards finding the executives, finding the change agents, and finding the biggest challenges that your company can address. You should be able to get to your number if you're grinding, hitting singles and doubles, but you're never going to get to 200%, 300%, 400% Unless you have a couple big-ass deals. And the only time you have that is if you connect with these executives. So that's the best. I mean, if you can get to your number with singles and doubles and then add some gravy on it via some 6 and 7-figure deals, that's how you crush it in sales. So you just got to spend time going after the elephant hunting as well as the, you know, the small game. Yeah.

1:37:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great. I mean, such good advice all the way around. I mean, we've talked already about You know, it's it's not just the content, right? I think too often it's not like you don't know what to do. You probably know exactly what to do. It's it's just a matter of doing it, and it's a it's a matter of getting in the reps and practicing and and doing what you need to do. And I mean, it's so much about really what I'm trying to do with the Sales Success Community and and the summit that we're creating and everything else is yeah, there's great content here. You get to hear amazing stories from folks like Ian, and hopefully there's some inspiration there. Hopefully there's some ideas that you're like, hey, I'm gonna go. Try that. That's something that I can work on. But it's also, it's about the connection, right? It's about also connecting with your peers and others who are having success and learning from them. And not just the sales stuff. It's the life stuff too, which is, I think, I'm glad that we've had the range of conversation that we have, because it's not just the sales tactics, right? It's not just, well, if you ask the question this way, and if you say this, like, no, it's so much bigger than that.

1:39:02 Ian Koniak: You know what, the life experience and life challenges, candidly, and the authenticity is what enables you to connect with clients. I'm open about my struggles and that makes me human and that makes me approachable and that makes me likable. The minute you realize you're not perfect is when you can actually connect better. That's what lets people's guards down and lets them open up to you is when you open up first. That's why the life stuff is just as important, if not more important. We're all human. At the end of the day, we all put our pants on the same way, and the person across from you, whether they carry the C title or not, has the same challenges you do and the same concerns and the same worries. So the more you can connect on that human level, the more trust you're going to build and the more they're going to want to do business with you. Yeah, yeah.

1:39:46 Scott Ingram: So it sounds like you've spent some time, like, having conversations with the top performers in Salesforce. What would you want to know about the top performers in other organizations?

1:39:55 Ian Koniak: I think for me, what I'm most interested in is that you are not your number, right? How do they feel? Well, first of all, I'd want to know how they got to where, you know, where they are. How do they maintain motivation and how do they maintain excitement around the position once they've reached the top? Because if you're working towards a goal of being the best, like, you're not going to be as excited about being the best or staying the best a lot of time. So really what drives them on a regular basis… for me, I love hearing that, right? I love hearing what personally motivates people, what drives them to be the best, because I think that's even more important than like what are they doing out in the field, because anyone can do it. Like tactics, if you just do it, to your point, you can be successful. But it's that drive, that intangible pursuit of constantly wanting to be the best, that I think is what differentiates a lot of the good from the great is they won't settle for less because, you know, they know what they're made of, especially those who've been there at the top and want to stay there. I'd also want to know, kind of like you said, some of the questions you asked me, what their typical day looks like, what they're doing outside of work. How happy are they? Are they happy as people? Because a lot of the top performers, you know, are not happy and they have personal issues and they've sacrificed, you know, so much to get where they are. Do they have healthy family lives? They have hobbies, they have other things they do, like How's the quality of their life? And, you know, is it really like… what would they say as far as, you know, what makes them happy in and outside of sales? Because I think that's ultimately what we all want. We all want to find fulfillment and joy. And you're very fortunate, Scott, where you have found something that you can do in addition to being a sales rep. And most people don't have that as account directors. They don't have a side hustle or a side project. I happen to have one. You have one. You're putting together the summit and the podcast. I think it's great. I commend you for that. But I think everyone needs something like that. That's not just their career, but something they're passionate about that they love doing. And I'd want to know what these top performers are doing outside of just their performance at work that gives them joy and fulfillment.

1:42:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Great, great stuff. We have covered a ton of ground. Is there anything that we didn't get to talk about that you were really hoping to address?

1:42:09 Ian Koniak: Well, you know, just a plug, shameless plug for myself. If any of the listeners like the content, and want to hear more or want some of my training, I've been on a mission the past, especially the past year, but really it's been a couple years to really help salespeople perform at their highest level. I have a YouTube channel where I post all my videos. I release a new video every single week. It covers not only sales tactics, but also personal development. I did a post today about happiness and what truly creates happiness in life, so if you like the I'd certainly love if you would subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com/IanKoniak, or just hit me up on LinkedIn and we'll connect there. Tell me you liked it. It really does make my day to hear this and, you know, to know that people are getting value from the content that I'm putting out. I also have a newsletter that I send out every week with a new sales training video, and that's my gift back to the sales community to help people truly get the most out of themselves as possible and really untap their, you know, their full potential.

1:43:07 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So we'll have links to all of that again, top1.fm/this episode number or /ian-koniak. Ian, the way that I always like to end these episodes is with something really actionable. So if you were to boil all this down and issue a challenge to our listener right now, what would you have them do over the course of the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:43:32 Ian Koniak: I would say this. And it has nothing to do with your sales performance because you can get that anywhere. I would say write down what is something that brings me joy and fulfillment every day? What is something I can do every day that will bring me joy and fulfillment? Whatever that answer is, whether it's connecting with my kids for 30 minutes, playing with my kids, or going on a run, or journaling, journaling or meditating or praying or whatever, it's going to be unique to each person, cooking, whatever that is. We're talking about a 2-week challenge. Write that down and do it for 2 weeks and see how you feel at the end of 2 weeks. And I promise you, you will feel happier. You will feel more grounded. You will feel overall in a better mood. And that will translate to how you are connecting and engaging with your clients because you're going to have better energy. Energy. And so serve yourself, do something that gives you joy, and do it for 2 weeks straight and see, you know, how you're feeling and what impact that's having on your actual business success.

1:44:37 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then you can connect with Ian and I on LinkedIn and tell us what you did. I'm going to go follow him on Peloton and give him a run for his money.

1:44:43 Ian Koniak: Remember, I'm only doing 20 minutes. By the way, Scott, I used to be a spin instructor for 10 years until COVID and they shut all that down. So I got my Peloton. Doing 20 minutes now with the newborn, so you'll probably kick my ass. But my goal is always to be in the top 20% at least of whatever class I'm taking. But they're short classes, so if I see you in the hour ones, we're not going to be able to compete. So come find me in the 20-minute Alex Toussaint classes.

1:45:06 Scott Ingram: Dude, this, this is scary. I also taught spin for about 10 years.

1:45:10 Ian Koniak: Really?

1:45:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. And no shit. And the Peloton… I mean, is, is the Peloton not the thing that you always wish you had? Like, don't you always wish that you had the scoreboard in the class so you could see, like, are these people actually working or are they just good at making faces and pretending?

1:45:25 Ian Koniak: Yeah. Yeah. I wish I did. I was at LA Fitness. I don't know about you, but you know, I taught for 10 years until, until February of this year when all the crap went down. So that's awesome.

1:45:34 Scott Ingram: Wow.

1:45:34 Ian Koniak: Until recently.

1:45:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:45:36 Ian Koniak: I have not met anybody in sales that also is a spin instructor. And I'm sure you've got lots of comments and people gave you a hard time about teaching it. Cause I certainly got my share, but man, I loved every minute That was my outlet for sure.

1:45:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, me too. Well, we're going to take the rest of this conversation online, but thanks everybody for listening, and we will see you in a couple of weeks with another episode. Or better yet, if you're listening to this shortly after it comes out, we'll see you with the Sales Success Summit. Thanks so much.

1:46:01 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 Subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.