105: Janae Dandridge – Succeeding in Government Sales at Tableau

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Vidyard, Alyce, and Terryberry. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who are supporting this show and this community, click over to top1.fm/sponsors and help me support them in return. 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. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Janae Dandridge. Janae is the top federal account executive at Tableau out of Detroit, Michigan. Welcome to the show, Janae.

0:50 Janae Dandridge: Thank you, Scott. Glad to be here.

0:52 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. And a quick shout out to Chantel George for getting us connected. But Janae, let's get started like we always do with some immediate value and talk about the 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your consistent success there at Tableau?

1:07 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I think that is really important to my success and to any sales rep's success is understanding and speaking the customer's language. And what I mean by that is understand, you know, the phrases they use, the acronyms they use in their day-to-day business, and understanding their organizational problems. And this is especially important to me in my role in government because they operate in a completely different way than a commercial business would. For example, they don't care about profit and the bottom line. So it's important to really understand what drives their organization and speak, speak to that language.

1:38 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And the second thing?

1:40 Janae Dandridge: So the second area would be planning and prioritizing my time. We all have a number, and it's really important that I plan and prioritize my time accordingly to hit that number. So one of the things I really like to do is look at historic performance, which areas and which accounts were successful for me in previous years. I also match that up against organizational budgets, the current pipeline, who has initiatives around data analytics, which is of course my area of focus at Tableau, and use that to prioritize, you know, my A, B, and C areas of focus to get me to that target for the year.

2:10 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And the last thing?

2:12 Janae Dandridge: I ask for help. I am the first person to admit that I do not know everything. So I kind of unapologetically ask my team for help. And it's okay to tell a customer when you don't know everything and bring the right people in to make them shine and help the customer get to their end result.

2:28 Scott Ingram: Great, great stuff. So I've been looking forward to this conversation because I don't think I've ever talked to anybody that has been selling to government. You've been selling to government pretty successfully and consistently so over the last number of years. Why don't we just kind of put this in perspective first before we start to really dig in and just talk about what is your role, who exactly are you selling to, and what are you up to there at Tableau?

2:51 Janae Dandridge: So I am a federal civilian account executive at Tableau, and I focus on federal civilian government agencies. And the agencies I focus on are the ones that offer any citizen services. So think of the Treasury, IRS, who everyone interacts with on an annual basis. That's considered a federal civilian agency, anyone who operates in a non-defense or intel agency capacity. So my focus is mostly on new license and add-on sales. I have a defined number of account… of accounts. Some of them are existing customers, others have areas that have not invested in Tableau, and some responsible for driving sales within all areas of those, those named accounts. I have an extended team who owns services, our training offerings, and also someone who supports the renewals. But at the end of the day, I am the face and the person who is internally advocating for the client at Tableau.

3:40 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then just kind of put your results in perspective for us. I know you've had a pretty good run there the last couple of years and this year included. How are things going?

3:51 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, things have been going pretty well. So I started owning my own number in late 2017. And since then every year, so the past, you know, 3 full calendar years or fiscal years, I've hit anywhere from between 150% to almost 300% on my number on a given year. So far this year, the climate is a little bit different. However, I've managed to far exceed my, my goal, which is at least 150% for the year as of early in the first half of the year.

4:16 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. I know you had a particularly good Q2, so congrats on, on the great work that you've been doing. And you have always been in government sales. How did you get into this?

4:27 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so I first got into sales coming out of grad school. The organization I initially worked for was doing a lot of hiring in the Washington, D.C. area. And if you work in Washington, D.C., you're either a government employee or a government contractor. And so most sales positions in the D.C. area were focused on government sales. So I joined my first company, I was focused solely on state and local government agencies, sold to 13 states up and down the East Coast, which was a lot. And you covered a lot of ground, such as departments of transportation, health and human services. And I found it really interesting because, you know, we're all customers of the government. And, you know, I really enjoy helping the government improve outcomes that, you know, make our lives better. So from my first job working in state and local government sales, I got tapped to come over to Tableau to support actually one of my previous colleagues at my first company in her efforts in federal civilian accounts. So I joined the team and was able to apply some of the things I learned from working with state and local government agencies on a federal scale. And ever since then, I've been hooked on helping the government with, with data analytics and technology. It's been really fulfilling and an exciting career.

5:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So for those of us, which is probably most of us who don't work in that, in that space, although maybe you'll bring some new listeners to the show who do and are particularly interested in this, how is kind of government sales different than the more traditional commercial sales that most of us know?

5:53 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, I have a lot of friends who operate in commercial organizations or private enterprise, and our conversations are completely different. They talk about taking their customers out to eat. To the ballpark for a game, and we just don't do that. There are very specific rules that you have to follow as a government contractor, and companies, organizations have to put certain policies and practices in place to protect themselves from, you know, violating those rules potentially, right? So an example of this would be, you know, there are certain dollar limits on what a government employee can accept from a vendor. So you have to think twice or get some kind of clearance before you give someone as simple as it may seem a pen, but you also have to think twice and plan carefully around things like meals at events for government employees. I think you see some of this in industry as well. There's lots of RFPs, so they have to do a ton of due diligence and market research before making a buying decision. And sometimes you're doing RFPs and responding to proposals 2 to 3 years out before the government actually implementing a solution. So the stuff that I was working on at Tableau in 2015 when I came over to support this field rep, some of that stuff isn't really manifesting until 2 or 3 years later. And so when I got into the field, I felt like I was picking up stuff that it really started 2015, 2016. So it's a bit of the long game, which is a bit different from what a lot of my peers see in private industry. And you have to plan accordingly. You have to think 2, 3 years ahead because that's how the government plans. And if you're not thinking along those lines, then you'll be missing out on opportunities.

7:20 Scott Ingram: And I mean, what are you doing to make the most of that and stay in front of it? Right. How, how are you staying in front of, of these cycles and making sure that you're in the right position so that when the time comes around, you're, you're there and able to capitalize?

7:34 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, I think there's 2 things. So one is really being aligned to the channel and systems integrators. So a lot of the, the big consultant firms, they have very strong long-term relationships with government agencies, and we form strategic partnerships with them as a company. So it's very important that you stay in lockstep with them, and they're the feet on the ground essentially with the customer all the time. They have relationships that may go back as far as 10, 15 years before I was even out of grad school, right? So really staying in lockstep with them helps you stay informed of what's going on at the customer site, potential opportunities, and how to get engaged. The other piece is there's just lots of great information out there about the public sector and their different IT requirements and needs. There are lots of resources, there are lots of networking organizations such as AFCEA, ACT-IAC. There's also dashboards out there called the IT Spending Dashboard that will tell you, you know, what a government organization's priorities are, what's getting the most funding, and kind of where they're going in the next couple of years. So those are the 2 ways I stay informed of, you know, what to expect when, when planning out my opportunities working in the government space.

8:43 Scott Ingram: Well, and you had suggested right up top that, you know, it was your ability to speak the customer's language. So I imagine it starts with some of that research. How else are you kind of tuning into the way that they're talking and they're thinking and just getting into their heads?

8:58 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, I just mentioned AFCEA and ACT-IAC, and those are 2 private industry and government partnership organizations where they have lots of events where people from industry can come in and ask questions, but also just have open and candid conversations. And I think that's really important, you know, for us to learn what the government is thinking, but also for the government to hear, you know, new innovations and ideas. And so these forums just create these kind of collaborative discussions and also really helps you, you know, understand the language language, understand what they're talking about so that you can go have more educated conversations with them. Excellent.

9:34 Scott Ingram: And as always, we will have links to all of the different organizations and books and everything else that Janae references. If you go to top1.fm/105, I just looked up the episode number, so I actually know for once.

9:46 Janae Dandridge: Yay.

9:47 Scott Ingram: Well, we'll also have that if you go to top1.fm/janae-dandridge, you can always find it that way as well. So all the stuff that we talk about, we'll have an easy reference. For you there. So, Janae, we talked about the way that you got into government, and it sounds like that was mostly by virtue of you just happened to be in DC and that was kind of everything. How'd you get into sales?

10:08 Janae Dandridge: Well, like many of the folks I listened to on your show, it wasn't necessarily planned per se. So my first job ever was in sales, and I don't think a lot of people in our industry would consider this true sales. I actually was a sales associate at Aeropostale. That was my first job while in high school. So I sold clothes, and then I went and worked at TJ Maxx when I was in college, and we had this metric around getting people to sign up for credit cards, which I thought was one of the hardest sells because I kind of hated the idea of encouraging people to ding their credit so I could hit a number. So at that time, I probably would have never thought I would end up in sales. But when I got into grad school and I was studying business management, we talked a lot about one, entrepreneurship. And I had this, you know, idea in my head like, you know, I want to build a company one day. I want to be a CEO. And we also talked about the importance of technology and business. At the time, there was a technology sales program recruiting pretty heavily at colleges and universities across the country, and we sat down and talked, and, you know, I just really got hooked on the idea of sales being a place where you can be the CEO of your own segment of a larger corporation. So that was really, really appealing to me. I was also attracted to the idea of working in high-tech, knowing that Things are always changing. I would never get bored. Again, the job would put me in Washington, D.C., which is just a desirable area for me given where, you know, I grew up. And to be honest, the income potential sounded great at the time, right? So the job checked all of the boxes for me as a first job in corporate America. Again, looking back, you know, 10, 15 years ago, I probably wouldn't have thought I ended… would end up here. But, you know, I went for it and here I am 6 years later.

11:50 Scott Ingram: Nice. Now, if you could go back and talk to Janae coming out of grad school, thinking about going into sales, sales, what would you tell her?

11:57 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, overall, like, I'm really happy with how things have panned out over the past 6 years. I will say I, I was kind of one of those people saying, you know, I have to go work for a big company. Like, that's really what I strove for. And I think I would have been more open-minded about the types of companies I would have been open to. I say that because there are a lot of great sellers and great professionals that I know who worked at these startup or these mid-sized companies, and because they were building something, they have great stories of grit and tenacity and them building stuff from the ground up and building a business, right? So that would be the one thing I would change. That said, I wish I could have came to Tableau earlier because I'm really happy here, but I would have been more open-minded about the companies and the experiences that I could get by working for those companies earlier on.

12:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, well, speaking of stories, I mean, the show is called Sales Success Stories. What's your favorite sales story?

12:49 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so I mean, I've had a lot of good wins over the course of the past few years of me owning my territory. But some of my favorite stories are about the little wins or how I've transformed the analyst working at one of my organizations. So in 20… I want to say 2015, when I started at Tableau, this is the time I was doing my own demos. I didn't have a solutions engineer doing demos for me. So I learned how to use the product. I was demoing to an analyst at a scientific organization in the federal government. And I did a demo of the product, and it was about like a 10-minute demo. And I got towards the end, and I hear sniffling over the other end of the phone. And I'm kind of struggling to figure out if she's laughing or if she's crying. Come to find out she was crying, and she said, you just showed me how to make my job easier. Like, you literally are going to change the way I work. And that was really validating for me because it emphasized like why I do what I do. I think a lot of people don't think of sales as, you know, something where you're helping people. But being able to hear someone say like, I am changing the way they do their job, is really validating for me and allows me to keep going.

14:04 Scott Ingram: All right. I don't know that I've ever talked to anybody that brought somebody to tears on a demo, like in a good way.

14:10 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, it was a first for me. I haven't had anybody cry since then, but I've had some just like really good stories of you've caused me to go from spending hours on this to like 30 minutes, right? Like those are really meaningful and, you know, it is fulfilling to me as a sales rep.

14:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah, for sure. One of the ways you might think about delivering these really meaningful demos is by using Vidyard. Instead of trying to get everyone onto the same long demo session, what if you were to create short, impactful, and relevant demo videos that you emailed to your buyers so they could watch them on their own time and even share them? Plus, using Vidyard, you'll know when those videos get watched. Give it a try. You can download Vidyard for free at top1.fm/v. And if you're able to produce tears of joy in the process, I definitely want to hear about that. So speaking of just really fulfilling types of things, what are you most proud of?

15:07 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, it's kind of in the spirit of, you know, the previous answer, right? Like, you know, I've had some good wins. I've gone to club. I've won awards. I've gotten into the field pretty quickly for someone with my level of experience. And made some good money. But really, you know, I'm proud of how I've evolved as a professional, particularly getting to the point where I am now in my career with my background and coming where I'm from. So I grew up in rural Virginia. Not a lot of people really make it to corporate America looking at 6-figure jobs. And I think it's important for you to stay humble and stay grounded. And I think I've done that pretty well and paid it forward wherever possible. So I'm proud of, you know, getting to this point in my life, working hard, and enabling others to see the same success and inspiring other people. One of the most fulfilling moments, you know, helping people in my career to date was seeing one of my mentees get a promotion. And, you know, I'm really proud of that. So sometimes it's not, you know, the deal. I'm so proud of the deals I've closed. I've had some great wins, but, you know, I'm proud of how I handle… I've handled it all, how I've people, be it my customers or my peers internally along the way. That's been important to me and sometimes even bigger than the quota.

16:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, let's talk about the promotion because you mentioned you got to the field pretty quickly. How did you manage that? What do you attribute that to?

16:35 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so there was a few different components to that. I mentioned when I came over to Tableau, I joined the team supporting my previous field rep I supported at Oracle. And she, at one point in 2017, said, hey, you know, I'm going to go cover cover another set of accounts. So I raised my hand and said, I want the job. And actually, when I joined Tableau and I was thinking about going to the field at some point in my career, I said, I want Ashley's accounts one day. Ashley is her name. And I said, if I'm going to go in the field, I want Ashley's accounts. Like, I love their use cases. I love what they're about. You know, I need to have her patch. And so the stars aligned in 2017. She said, I'm going to go cover a different book of business. She said, I want my next challenge. At the time, there weren't a lot of people going from inside sales at Tableau to the field with less than 5 years of experience. So I was a little, you know, hesitant as to, you know, if I would get the job. But I raised my hand. I put together a very thorough territory plan. I asked questions of the hiring manager, you know, what areas of concern do you have about hiring me in this position? They were candid and frank, and I went through and demonstrated that I have the capability and can, can do the job. So I took the position and along the way, yes, I needed help, but I really relied on using my team, kind of to my point earlier, to drive sales and grow the business. So I got in the role, we saw significant year-over-year growth over the past 3 years of me being in the position, but it was all through, you know, a few stars aligning, me working hard, asking for the job, and relying on my team to help me bring it all together and get the big one.

18:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, such a great story. All right, so we've talked about all sorts of amazing, great things. What are the hard things? What do you find to be sort of the biggest challenge? Or maybe you want to take us to a place or a time when, when you felt like you were kind of struggling.

18:26 Janae Dandridge: Yeah. So I'll definitely say the first job, the sales development representative job was the hardest. And I think if you ask those sales reps who have been there, you know, they will agree. But I was one of these people who I would, one, I would get the script and I would like try to read the script verbatim. And I got to a point where I wasn't sounding like myself. I sounded so robotic. I wasn't showing my personality, and I got frustrated because I thought I was doing something that didn't allow me to use my strategic thinking skills and my creativity, right? And so that was frustrating because I was just stuck on this script, and that's what I felt I had to do just to be successful. The other thing was when I started out cold calling, I… you got rejected. And for a while, I took it personally, and I eventually realized that one, you're reading a script, you're asking these questions, you know it's not you. It's a number of other factors that are causing you to be rejected. And then 2, because I was reading the script, I sometimes sounded not authentic and not myself, and people can read through that. And so eventually I was just like, you know what, forget the script, just be yourself, have a conversation, talk to people, ask questions, but also seek out opportunities where you can be more involved in strategizing on what the message is or be creative in your approach in reaching out to prospects. And that's when I really started to find my groove. So that was definitely a really challenging time, but I managed to overcome it through, you know, ditching the script, but, you know, also being creative and just being myself.

20:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. That's, I mean, that's, that's the game, right? It's how do you be you and figure out how to break through all that? So what a, what a great, great story. You talked about your second kind of superpower being your ability to plan and prioritize. And one of my favorite things to ask is just Just walk us through your day. What's a day in the life all the way from the point that your alarm clock goes off, whenever that happens, until your head hits the pillow? What's, what's a regular day in the life of Janae look like?

20:29 Janae Dandridge: So I should specify when I say plan and prioritize, I like to plan and prioritize, you know, my year and the deals I'm working and my morning or day-to-day routine is pretty, it varies. Right. So I do have a general framework of, you know, I wake up in the morning, it could vary sometimes. It's 7:00, 7:30, could be 8:00. I'm not that much of a morning person, Scott, to be honest, but I do have, you know, things set on my agenda or on my calendar on a daily basis. The first thing is, you know, making sure I wake up and, you know, read different news articles. A lot of news articles about the government tend to come out at like late at night when the Senate or Congress has passed a vote on something. So I tend to catch up on some of that news early in the morning and also read through some of the emails that I may have gotten. If there was like a fire that came up late at night, I try to work through those. Otherwise, like, you know, once we get into the 10 to 12 o'clock block, I typically have a conference call or 2 scheduled. I find that I am most productive and can do those things where I'm like blasting out emails or doing some heavy prospecting. That time frame for me is actually 1 to 2, like right after I have lunch. I don't eat breakfast, so I need to have that lunch fuel to like really go get me going and be extra productive. And so I tend to do a lot of my like tasks or things that require just a lot of like just very precise processing, sending out emails, mail merges, phone calls, doing that 1 to 2 block has been really helpful for me. Otherwise, you know, I carry on with the rest of my day hosting meetings or knocking out various trainings. I tend to wrap up my day no later than 6 o'clock. I try to schedule meetings that end no later than 5:30. That way I can have 5:30 to 6 to wrap up, follow up on any leads that have been passed over to me from a reseller or a sales development team and follow up those, and then also plan for the next day, making sure that myself and my team has everything they need for meetings the following day.

22:19 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What's… what happens in the 5 to 9?

22:22 Janae Dandridge: 5 to 9, that is when me and my fiancé have dinner. I tend to cook dinner every night. It's kind of my second way of just, you know, unwinding in addition to watching some pretty bad reality TV shows. So it's either… it's a combination of reality TV, cooking dinner with my fiancé, enjoying a glass of wine, and talking about you know, our days with each other and, you know, having those kind of conversations. Even though we're in the same house, we can find ourselves being pretty buried in work. So it's important for us to take that time to shut the computers off, watch TV, talk to each other, enjoy a meal, and of course some wine.

22:57 Scott Ingram: I borrowed this idea of the 5 to 9 from Alyce. Alyce is an AI-powered personalized gifting platform. They'll actually help you to uncover your prospects' 5 to 9 interests and then suggest relatable gifts from their extensive marketplace. Talk about attention grabbing. You can use Alyce to open new doors, solidify existing relationships, or say thanks for a killer referral or reference call. See what Alyce and one-to-one gifting is all about at top1.fm/alyce. That's A-L-Y-C-E. So let's go back then to the plan and prioritize piece, right? Since it's not a daily thing, it's, it's more of an annual thing. When does that happen? What's your approach and process around that?

23:40 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so it kind of depends, like when that happens depends, right? So I had a pretty strong fiscal year or year-to-date. We're just about to be through Q3, and so I'm already looking at FY22, which is what will be next year. So depending on where I am year-to-date, it kind of determines when I start that planning process. You're always prospecting, of course, but you know, after you've had a really successful first few quarters, you'll find that you're spending a lot of time planning for the next quarter because the deals that you close early on, they could have been pulled forward from Q3, Q4. And so a bit of your time has freed up to do some heavy prospecting and planning. And so what that tends to be is to look at different resources such as GovWin, which is a pretty common platform for us to look at upcoming RFPs and some of the budget information that I mentioned earlier, and aligning that to my accounts to see where my areas of focus should be. And then from there I'll say, okay, this is what I think my number might be. We don't have quotas yet at this point for next year, but I can reasonably expect a certain percentage increase from year to year. And so say, okay, this is where I think my number might be. These are the RFPs or proposals that I already have responded to. These are the things in pipeline that I've already identified and been working on the past couple years. And these are the organizations that we've had demonstrated success with in years, you know, 2018 through 2020. And so I say, okay, this is what I think my number would be. I know I need to have, you know, 5 or 6, 6-figure deals, right, in pipe at least to cover that number. And then this is how much run rate business I think I can get based on year-over-year growth and what my inter-quarter and interannual business is. And then from there, I plot out my plans A, B, and C, and I give a deal more weight if I know that this customer is serious about data analytics, or I know that they have been very engaged with myself, attended events, and, you know, all sold on Tableau. So I take that information, I say, okay, this is A, B, and C, and I say, okay, I'm going to spend X number of hours per week focused on A accounts, or X number of hours per month, whatever. I just know generally speaking I need to spend majority of my time focused on these A deals or A accounts. And then from there, you know, one falls out, then I start moving to B and C. Gotcha.

25:56 Scott Ingram: And you said that you're always prospecting. What does that look like in your world?

25:59 Janae Dandridge: Yeah. So again, staying aligned with your partners and resellers. So, you know, they are the boots on the ground and they, you know, sometimes have very good intelligence or information, you know, about what concerns might be going on within an agency. And so just making sure you're understanding those, educating them on possible solutions in that way that when something does officially come out or it is time for them to move forward, you know, they're aware of your solution and they can help you get in the door. And showcase that to the client. The other piece is looking at LinkedIn. So I'm not the most active LinkedIn poster, but I see a lot of activity going on within the government space about people sharing different articles or asking questions. And I try to be as responsive to those as possible. So if I can like reach out to them on LinkedIn, send them an email, or if I already have their information, I say, hey, I saw you posted this and share with them a relevant nugget or ask a new question that could drive a sales conversation. So I would say that, you know, I try try to stay abreast of different information, news articles like I shared earlier with GovWin, AppCIA, Act-IAC, and use that to drive a conversation. And that information is coming out every day, so you always have an opportunity to prospect somewhere.

27:13 Scott Ingram: There you go. Now, are there other habits or routines that are central to your success?

27:18 Janae Dandridge: So I would say there are a couple things I, you know, do, but one of the things that I do value and It might say it's counterproductive. I mentioned I tend to wrap my day up by 5:30 or 6:00, and, you know, that's it, right? I think it's important to, especially now when you're working and living in the same space, you can't separate, you know, work from your time off, but it's really important to me to value my time, value my personal space, and when I can unwind, I take the time to do that. And that kind of rest and recovery is really important to make me be my best self, you know, the next day and going into a client meeting. Otherwise, you know, folks can get drained easily. Sales isn't something that's for the faint of heart, and if you don't take the time to rest and unwind, you're just gonna get drained pretty quickly, and that just won't let you be your best self. So I find that really important to separate work from your personal life and… well, not work from your personal life, but work from your time to unwind and really take that time to shut the computer off and shut the phone off and relax so you can be your best self.

28:23 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love that. So I know we've covered a good number of pieces of this, but is there, is there anything else that fits into your information diet that we haven't already talked about between some of the resources and, you know, of course the reality TV?

28:36 Janae Dandridge: So the reality TV one is really important. There was actually a Real Housewives filmed in Potomac, which is right outside of Washington, DC. So I can kind of connect it to my work. But outside of that, I tend to read a lot from FCN, ActIF, as I mentioned before. I love listening to podcasts. So the ones I listen to aren't necessarily sales podcasts. I really like Guy Raz's How I Built This because it's just really good stories of entrepreneurs and people building businesses and showing their tenacity and grit. I just love hearing those stories and they're really motivating and inspiring to me, you know, as I operate as a CEO of my own territory. Another organization that I've been getting lots of value out of and resources from is Sistas in Sales. So that's how we got connected through Chantel George. That's an organization for Black women sales professionals. And it's just a really great forum for you to interact with other professionals, hear their stories. They share best practices and tricks and tips on how they're seeing success in their organizations. And I find that's really important to connect to like-minded individuals, particularly Black women in sales, because there's not a lot of us out there. And there's not a ton of us who are seeing us make our way to the top of the organization. And they're just all motivated to excel in their careers and motivated to help each other and other Black women get there.

29:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so fantastic. I hope that I'm able to have some more of you on the show. I've heard such great things about about Chantel. Well, I obviously had a couple of good conversations with Chantel about what her organization is doing, and the way that you all are, are encouraging each other and helping each other progress in your careers is, is fantastic.

30:07 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, it's wonderful. I love it. I'm really glad I found them earlier this year.

30:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully we help others find them and that continues to grow. What about, are there other kind of tools and apps and, and things that from a technology perspective that you find you can't live So of course I use Salesforce.

30:25 Janae Dandridge: Tableau was acquired by Salesforce last year. I use Tableau on a day-to-day basis. I actually enjoy using it sometimes just on the weekends for fun, just to learn more about the product. The other tools I like using are more government-specific. So there's one called Leadership Connect or Leadership Directories, and it's actually almost like a big yellow phone book for government agencies. And it has org charts, contact information, and it's a good way for me when I'm doing like account planning or research for me to connect the dots between someone I'm already speaking to and someone I might want to speak to in the future, decision maker. So I would say that's one of my favorite resources. It's called Leadership Directories or Leadership Connect for those of you who may be government sales reps. That's been so helpful for me in my planning and targeting for prospects.

31:13 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Little treasure trove of resources there to put in this one together. What about, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

31:22 Janae Dandridge: Like, like Sandler and Challenger Sales?

31:25 Scott Ingram: I'll let you take it however you want to take it.

31:28 Janae Dandridge: Okay. So when I went through the sales training, you know, of course we talked a lot about Sandler and I mentioned earlier how I felt like I was sticking to a script. Well, that was like a Sandler script that I got in sales training. And that's when I just felt like I wasn't being myself. Now I think I have principles of Sandler embedded in my conversations and other sales methodologies that I've learned about through various trainings over the past 6 years. But at the end of the day, Like, my philosophy is just do the right thing. My aunt said it when I was younger, if you know it's wrong, don't do it. And I apply that to all aspects of my life. So if I know that technology or my technology is wrong for the client, don't sell it to them. Even though it's the wrong thing to do for the company, don't do it. And I think that if you do right for your clients, for the most part, if you do the right thing for the company you work for, Everything will fall into place and you will be successful. Things might not come together exactly when you want it, but if you know in your heart that you're doing the right thing for your client, doing the right thing for your company, you know, I think you'll be successful. So that's my philosophy.

32:34 Scott Ingram: Love that. So within the, the Janae do the right thing philosophy, how would you describe your style?

32:41 Janae Dandridge: My style. So I think a lot of people are surprised if they're on the phone with me. I'm not gonna say I don't do a lot of talking. I prefer to shut up and listen. You know, I never want to come across as the sales rep who just likes to hear themselves talk or do the dog and pony show all the time. I rather just listen to the client, ask intelligent questions or smart questions. I also, to my point earlier, you know, I never feel like I have to answer a question immediately. I am oftentimes transparent about what I can and can't do or what our company can and can't do. I'm honest and I let them know when I, when I have to bring someone in to answer the question for them. And most times people are okay with that. Like, the people you're selling to, they're human. They know that they can't answer all the questions, so they respect when you're honest and transparent with them, you know, and let them know that you need to bring another resource in. And 9 times out of 10, that's okay. You know, I also really like understanding what motivates our clients to be successful and, you know, kind of what will make them a hero in their organization. I like to cheer them along the way. Again, we're all human. Like, we want to excel in our careers. We want promotions. We want that award. And so understanding what motivates a client and working with them to get there is, you know, something I really enjoy doing. And seeing them get that outcome at the end of the day through something we worked on together is is rewarding, and that's something I really make sure I try to spend a lot of time doing.

34:14 Scott Ingram: And what motivates you?

34:15 Janae Dandridge: Ooh, so I like looking at the dashboards and the stack rankings. So, um, and I bet those look really good in Tableau, right? They look beautiful. They look beautiful. But if your, if your name is gray, then it doesn't look so great, right? So you want to… I like looking at the dashboards and, you know, seeing where I am. It's important for me to be at the top of the list. Nobody likes being on the bottom. But beyond that, you know, when I first started out in sales, was really motivated by, you know, the income potential at first. I had a student loan at the time and I said I have to pay this off. And I did that a couple years ago after my most successful year. But beyond that, there are a couple things that happened, you know, in my career so far that I've really identified as motivation. So the first thing is, you know, I realized the potential of how sales can, you know, set my life up for success. I don't have kids yet, but sales and what I'm doing now can set their life up to be amazing and I can build a great life for them. I can pay it forward to family members and people who have helped me out along the way. It's also important to me that I continue to be successful to inspire other women to get into field sales. Because again, across the board, I don't see a lot of women in field sales and in positions of power in sales organizations. So it's really important for me to be successful so that I can be that example and inspire others to get to the same same level, and if not, get even beyond that. And bigger than that, and I said this before, I really believe in what I'm doing, and I like when our clients get awards and shiny medals or get promotions, right? That's really important, and I believe that our technology is helping people do that, and it's really hard not to be motivated when you really believe in the technology and the product and what your company's values are and what they're doing. So that in itself, you know, It's, it's just something you can't ignore. And if you really believe what you're doing or believe in what you're doing and what the company is doing, then it's really hard to not be motivated and go after it.

36:13 Scott Ingram: Speaking of being motivated and getting after it, Terryberry is all about rewarding this type of performance. Recognition drives performance, and Terryberry understands that what gets recognized gets done. Organizations all over the world have turned to Terryberry and their award-winning 360 recognition platform to recognize people for their contributions towards success. If you understand that a powerful recognition solution can help you drive the success you're looking for, let Terryberry help you build a culture of performance and recognition today. You can learn more at top1.fm/Terryberry. That's T-E-R-R-Y-B-E-R-R-Y. Let's talk about the mentors and the mentoring. Maybe start on the mentor side, right? Who have been your mentors? How have you found them? How have you worked with them? And then we'll talk about the other side and some of the mentoring that you're doing?

37:05 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so I mean, my mentors, I never really went and said, hey, will you be my mentor? I've been fortunate to have really good sales leadership so far throughout my career. And so each of my sales leaders have, you know, helped me or coached me in some way. I also mentioned my field rep Ashley, who I supported when I first started out in my sales career, and she would just give me just gems and nuggets along the way. One of my favorites was she said, Janae, just stop trying to do everything yourself. Delegate, delegate, delegate. And when I'm talking to someone who's starting out in sales, sales, most of the times I give them that same advice. I just say delegate, delegate, delegate. So there are just really great people in my life who I've worked for and with who have been willing to pour into me. And I know that they have that open door policy where I can always go and ask them questions, even if they're busy with closing their own deals.

37:53 Scott Ingram: And what about the mentoring that you're doing? How has that come about? What are you doing there?

37:58 Janae Dandridge: Yep. So I am actually, I've been involved with a lot of different work groups. So we have a Black Employee Resource Group, Women in Technology Group, and I've been involved in various panels or different lunch and learns just talking about my experience because, again, you know, they don't see a ton of people go from inside sales to the field within the course of 4 or 5 years, right? So, you know, people, you know, ask me questions like, okay, how do you do it? Or I am working on a promotion from a sales development rep to an inside sales rep supporting a field rep. These are the areas that I'm tasked with focusing on. Can I shadow you? Or can you walk through how you would typically approach this type of client meeting? So I would get these ad hoc questions and, you know, I would answer them here and there. But over time, some of them I've developed kind of a long-term relationship with and, you know, we still rely, or they still rely on me to bounce ideas off of. But another kind of fun thing is, and I might touch on this a bit again, is, you know, listening to them talk on the phone. So as an inside seller, like I really enjoyed hearing other sellers talk on the phone and kind of their strategies for, you know, getting the next meeting or closing a deal. And out in the field, you don't get that, particularly now because you're, you know, everybody's remote and just in their own homes. So actually kind of like learning from the current inside sellers and the SDRs because you can kind of hear the new ways of doing things or new ways of saying things that you may not have thought of, or they're actually kind of into what maybe new technologies, even though I'm not as great with those or pick up on that quite as quickly, but, you know, they just have so many great great ideas and they're eager to learn and they're willing to take risk. So I actually enjoy learning from mentees quite a bit, even though I'm the mentor in some scenarios.

39:38 Scott Ingram: You talked about the advice that you got from Ashley around delegating and the, the way that you work with your team. And I, I know your 3rd key point was just asking for help. Talk about all of that. How are you doing all of those things, right? Leveraging your team, delegating, asking for help. All that?

39:54 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, so one of the main things I do, you know, every week is I make sure that I have a Monday block of like team calls. So I have 3 larger accounts of focus, and then I have, I have a designated call for each of those account teams. So during those meetings, we talk about last week's meetings, any areas that we need to tie off on, and, you know, I just say like, hey, I need help with this, or is there anything that you all need from me? And that kind of creates a dialogue of where we can help each other. I also try to make sure, you know, I pull in our senior leadership for help, or even pulling in someone from the product management team. So we believe as a company that, you know, customer feedback is really important, and we want our customers to drive our roadmap. And so I'll say, hey, one of my agencies, they have some feedback or interest in this area. Sometimes my technical resource who's dedicated to my account team, he can't answer those questions or speak to that. So it's important that we bring in someone from the product team to help us drive that conversation. It drives customer feedback and can influence the product roadmap, but it also really helps build the relationships. I think even getting creative in like who you pull in is really important. You can think more broadly outside of your day-to-day account team. Think of the people who share a role in common with the person you're talking to on the customer side. So like if you have an organization that has a marketing and communications director, you might want to pull in your CMO to drive that discussion with the customer about some of their strategic initiatives and priorities. So that's really really good opportunity to build a relationship. And it's not a typical sales conversation because I think a lot of people get caught up in talking to sales reps. Like, they would love to talk to a peer in a different industry or organization. So I try to think of different ways I can pull those people in as opposed to just, you know, my day-to-day account team and helping me drive conversations and close deals with customers.

41:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, I think that holistic thinking is so valuable to the organization too, right? I mean, if I were working on product, I'd love to have conversations with my customers who are really engaged and have thoughts and advice and feedback that we could then incorporate into the roadmap, or maybe it's a future feature, all that kind of stuff.

42:02 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, absolutely. And our clients love sharing that information. I mean, they share the good, the bad, and the ugly, and we want to hear it. And, you know, we can use that and we build a better product, right? So I think it works for everyone involved.

42:14 Scott Ingram: Oh, for sure. For sure. And it's going to bond that customer too, right? I mean, if you just putting them in a situation where they feel heard, word, right, is meaningful.

42:23 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

42:25 Scott Ingram: So, this is my, like, favorite little soapbox section of the conversation because I wonder if there's something you believe that the average sales rep would think is crazy.

42:36 Janae Dandridge: Yeah. So, I think, and I mentioned this kind of with the SDR and BDR role, I think it's important to spend some time with sales development reps and BDRs. I think once some people get to a certain level in the field, they get a little bit territorial with their accounts, and they don't want someone who is perceived as a junior rep calling in some of their… on some of their agencies. They also sometimes think that SDRs or BDRs are only in the role for like 3 to 6 months and they move on to something else. So spending an hour, is it worth it going over, you know, some of your account priorities? But I think if like you give them the opportunity and educate them a little bit, it doesn't have to be a ton. You don't spend hours doing it, but educate them on, you know, where your areas of focus are. What types of meetings you want is really important because it could yield some really good pipeline. They're also just very gritty, like they want to be successful in their career and they will call people for you. So I'd rather spend the time going over areas of focus, priorities, rather than just having them, you know, call anyone and everyone without focus. They're going to put in the calls, you better Just go ahead and coach them so that you're getting what you want out of it instead of telling them not to call at all. Right. So that's, that's something I think people do that it just really holds them back and you can be missing out on if you're not using your SDR or extended team to do the calls for you.

44:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, I mean, such, such a great observation, right? Cause you've got, I mean, it's essentially a full-time resource, you know, and if you can help direct them and help them focus and be a little bit better, doesn't that serve you?

44:13 Janae Dandridge: Yes, absolutely. And that's what I was talking about my day. I feel like I, you know, I don't really do it. A ton of cold calling myself these days, but while I'm doing 2 or 3 meetings a day, or 3 to 5, whatever the number is, there's somebody somewhere else calling and doing the cold calls. So you've got 2 people covering an account at one time, right? I actually don't have an SDR or BDR within Tableau. I work with resellers who kind of act as my SDR and BDR, and they're just more than willing to call and do some of that work on your behalf. So I definitely invest time in educating them and making sure it's time well spent.

44:49 Scott Ingram: Brilliant, brilliant. What about the flip side? Is there something the average sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

44:55 Janae Dandridge: So I think, and actually used to be this person, I was thinking at one point that some of my accounts were oversold. And I don't think that that's a good mindset to have. I've kind of evolved from that. Some people think that accounts can be oversold. So like, you know, why, why, why spend any more time there? But the reality is, if you kind of leave that relationship hanging and don't spend time there and work with your customer success manager or other people to nurture the relationship and make sure that people are using the product you, you sold them in the first place. When something new comes out, or if there's something else that is going to be valuable to the client, if you don't have the relationship or you didn't spend time nurturing that relationship, you're going to kind of have to start from scratch, right, when trying to introduce something new to them. So I think the idea of saying an account is oversold is just nonsense, to be honest, because there's always opportunity for you to stay engaged, introduce something new to them. It doesn't be a high revenue thing. It could be training, something. If you're not spending time nurturing the relationship, then, you know, you're starting from scratch, ground zero, if you say bye-bye, we're oversold.

46:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, they're not oversold, they're just heavily invested, right?

46:05 Janae Dandridge: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And those are great people to work with. Like, I love working with people who, you know, are… I'm all in on Tableau. They are serious about data analytics, they're serious about data visualization. I love capturing the use cases and stories, I get, it's kind of like that validating thing. I'm hearing the success they're having and it keeps me going and working with them and working with other organizations who aren't necessarily heavily invested yet, but it's, yeah, those are really important relationships to maintain for sure.

46:36 Scott Ingram: And I wonder if you see this in the government, probably not quite as much as we do on the commercial side, but do you see people moving between agencies?

46:45 Janae Dandridge: Yeah. Oh, heck yeah. Yeah. That happens often. Some of the cool ones are, I see someone going from manager in one agency to CIO in another, or like deputy CIO in another agency. So that happens a lot. So it's important that you, yeah, maintain the relationship once they buy, because you never know where the person can end up. There's lots of synergies between government agencies as well. So, you know, some agencies talk to each other all the time. They have different requirements where they work together. So it's important that you maintain positive relationships with, you know, certain agencies, because they could easily go over and, you know, talk not so great about you if you're not maintaining a relationship or not delivering on what you said Yeah, absolutely.

47:24 Scott Ingram: Now, what advice would you have for somebody that's just getting started in their sales career today?

47:29 Janae Dandridge: So, I would say, one, don't take yourself or the script too seriously. I said this before, like, when I threw out the script, I kind of found my groove and I was just being my best self. You know, over time, the script and the talk track should fade to the background and you should be able to, you know, just bring in your own personality and be creative and have fun in these conversations. I'd also say just spend time, you know, trying to understand the business language, like I mentioned, you know, all the different acronyms in the industry you're selling into, you know, how they talk about their organizations, what they care about. Those are really important things as you're having these conversations and then moving into more strategic sales roles. This is just understanding the language and how people interact and what their priorities are, just really important to know as a sales professional in establishing credibility.

48:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about somebody that is struggling? Maybe they've had a rough 2020. What would you tell them?

48:23 Janae Dandridge: So this is a good question because I feel like I'm one of the younger sellers in the field and pretty early on in my sales career. And I think because of that, you know, I still have some of the basics like back, you know, in my head and I haven't necessarily forgotten them. I'm not saying people who are super far in their career have forgotten the basics, but sometimes with, you know, all the information, new information coming in, product releases, different types of training, you know, sometimes the fundamentals slip. And so I would say, you know, take a break, reflect and make sure you're doing the basics like active listening, time management. I said earlier, I like to shadow or even listen to some of the younger reps on the phone and see what they're saying. You know, all those things can be really valuable. So I would just say, you know, reflect and make sure you're doing the basics. I would also say to take some time and reflect on what's motivating you, kind of where you want to go next in your career, because it could be that you lost some of your motivation, and that's okay. Some of those things change, but I think it's important to reflect And, you know, really look in the mirror and see what you want to do next in your career. What is driving you in your career? Because if you don't have something driving you, then all the stuff I just said about, you know, doing the basics doesn't really matter. Because if you don't have motivation, you're not, you're just not going to do it.

49:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What's next for you?

49:39 Janae Dandridge: So currently in my role, I'm focused on, you know, named accounts. I have a number of accounts, like I said, 3 big ones, but also some accounts that, you know, are smaller. So I have a lot of accounts. Accounts. What I'm looking to do next internally within my company is looking at more strategic sales roles, so less accounts and larger deals. I think that will help me mature in my sales process, deal management. I have in my head at some point that I would like to get to the very top of sales leadership, so leading a global sales team, and I really want to make sure I'm excelling at all levels of the sales organization. So I did SDR, I did inside sales rep, named accounts The next level is strategic sales executive. So that's what I'm looking to do next on my journey and path to eventual sales leadership 10, 15 years from now.

50:25 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Excellent. What would you want to know about or from the top sellers in other organizations?

50:32 Janae Dandridge: I would like to know a few things. Well, one, I always like to know what people's why is. I talked about this with customers and knowing what motivates them. We talked about my why. People's why. The other piece is creative ways that they're running their introductory meetings. So I don't really like PowerPoint. I know people do like whiteboards and other types of workshops. I just, you know, always am interested in creative ways to run customer meetings just so they're not, you know, run-of-the-mill. People don't want to sit there and watch PowerPoints all the time. So I'm always curious about, you know, what innovative ways that people are approaching approaching their client engagements.

51:10 Scott Ingram: And how are you doing that? Because I share your allergy to PowerPoint. I think I've had enough PowerPoint for 1 to 2 lifetimes.

51:17 Janae Dandridge: So I like workshops and working sessions. I'm fortunate to work for Tableau where we can get people on trials and come up with different use cases and possible solutions. And bringing in someone from my team to lead some of these sessions and kind of help them develop these use cases. I also like when I was traveling to DC, I tended to, especially like introduction or introductory or first meetings, I tended to want to get people out of the office. So I would find like a coffee shop that wasn't too far from a client site and, you know, say, hey, I'm in town, you know, like want to pop by for like a cup of coffee. And it's like 15 minutes and it's super informal. And I think one, you learn a lot about what, what kind of person they are by the coffee they drink. So like, I like my coffee kind of strong. Other people are sugar and cream, right? So you get to talk about coffee and just learn a little bit about the person. It's really informal. And then 2, like people people, you know, just like getting out of the office and it just makes things super casual and focused on the relationship building, which I think is really fundamental to being successful in sales.

52:21 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Janae, this has been a blast. Thanks for taking the time with me. The thing I like to do as we wrap these up is we've talked about a lot of stuff. We've covered a lot of ground, but if you were to boil this down and challenge our listener to do something to improve themselves and improve their results over the course of, of the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks, what would you challenge them to do?

52:42 Janae Dandridge: So, can I do 2 things? Of course. So, my first one, I would say put the script away. Just put it away. Just give it a try. You know, don't feel like you have to read verbatim the script you got in sales training. The second thing would be, you know, reflect and find your why if you don't have it already. Outline your motivation. Maybe even write down your motivation, and then that should translate into your sales philosophy and kind of like why you do what you do in your sales approach. So those are the two things I would say: put the script away, write down your why, and come up with you know your sales philosophy.

53:16 Scott Ingram: Great stuff! I love it. We're gonna have links to that and everything else at top1.fm/105. Janae, thanks again.

53:23 Janae Dandridge: Thank you, Scott.

53:25 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success. Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.