123: Curiosity, Persistence and 100% Ownership with Rachel Shi

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you by the 2020 Sales Success Summit, which you can learn about at top1summit.com, and not specifically by Vidyard, even though they are one of our sponsors. This interview came about completely organically thanks to Derek Quackenbush. Thanks, Derek. 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 Rachel Shi. Rachel is currently the senior manager of partnerships at Vidyard after leaving her previous company as their number one AE, and I can't wait to dig into the ins and outs of a business development channels and partnerships type of role with Rachel today. Welcome to the show, Rachel.

1:00 Rachel Shi: Thanks so much, Scott. So happy to be here.

1:01 Scott Ingram: I'm glad you're here. And before we dig into all of that, let's kick things off with some immediate value like we always do and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

1:14 Rachel Shi: For sure. So my top 3 things, Scott, would be 100% ownership. Number 2, understanding of human nature and why it is that people do what they do. And number 3 would be persistence and drive.

1:27 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. So let's, let's dig into each of those just a little bit more. When you say 100% ownership, what does that mean?

1:34 Rachel Shi: So for me, ownership, Scott, it's more of a, it's a life philosophy, right? Which then should extend into sales. It should extend into your, your career, but it's the idea that you alone are the owner of your behaviors and your actions. So what does that mean? It means that you don't, look to external factors to fault for anything that's wrong in your life, right? It's the idea that where you currently are is the direct result of all the decisions that you've made up until that point. And it's quite a scary thought for a lot of people, right? Who are used to kind of looking to other things, their family or their boss or, you know, their current circumstances as for why they're not happy or successful in their lives. But I mean, for others, and I think the correct way to think about it is that it should be very liberating, right? Because it means that you can directly impact the course of your life.

2:31 Scott Ingram: I like it. I like it. I'm interested in the human nature piece, particularly just around not only how do you apply it, but where does it come from? How are you learning that?

2:42 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So, Scott, I think in terms of that side of things, I mean, if we want to think about it, first of all, from a sales perspective, and then I'll go into the broader context. Sales is just a series of human interactions.

2:55 Scott Ingram: Right?

2:55 Rachel Shi: If you want to really distill it down to its very essence, that's what it is. Nothing more. So if we want to get good at sales, it should then follow that we should aim to have a really, really, really good understanding of human nature and why it is that our prospects and customers behave the way that they do. So, I mean, it starts, I think, ultimately with a really powerful skill of observation, right? So actively observing things that go around you in day-to-day life, in your sales process, your colleagues, your bosses, anything, you know, anything that involves, you know, a human interaction, just observing that and sort of thinking through that, right? Reflecting and having a sense of introspection as to why things happen the way that they do. And then extrapolating from that, you know, distilling from that insights, which I think, you know, then applying into your own sales process and the way that you approach your career. I think ultimately does give you a distinct advantage to those that don't do that.

3:57 Scott Ingram: And do you study this outside? I mean, what you described as kind of your own laboratory, right? So you're just being really curious and listening and kind of paying really close attention. Are you reading psychology books? Are you doing other things to kind of understand how this fits in as well?

4:11 Rachel Shi: Yeah, no, I think it, you know, for me it's innate. So I think I've always been deeply fascinated, you know, about psychology, about the human mind and why people do what they do. I think for me, it really kind of stems from childhood, right? And we can go into that a little bit later, but I was always sort of the kid who was kind of on the sidelines. I was a little bit of an introvert when I was younger and I would always sort of study what was going on around me and humans just fascinated me, right? As I grew older and encountered situations in my life where didn't really make sense. Things that you're taught maybe don't translate directly to how they are in reality. I started to sort of think about, you know, why it is the way that, you know, things happen the way that they do, right? Versus the way that we're necessarily taught in school. So yeah, I mean, ultimately, again, sort of just boils down to being an observer of life. And I mean, I'm a continual learner myself, right? I always listen to podcasts, to books, and again, just live my life with that lens. And I think that really makes me strong at that.

5:17 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Well, we'll come back to all the podcasts and the books and all the things that you're consuming, but let's wrap the top 3 up and talk about the persistence and drive piece. And I guess I'll start with what is it that drives you? And then how does that persistence and drive show up kind of day to day? Yeah.

5:35 Rachel Shi: So for me, I think really it boils down to personal excellence. I hold the bar for myself extremely high in everything it is that I do. So, my attitude is basically, do, if you're going to do something, do it extremely well and to your personal best or don't do it at all. Right? There's no halfway, you know, as far as I'm concerned. So, if I'm in sales, if I'm in a partnerships role like I currently am, it'll be my goal to, you know, be the best possible version of that for myself. And with that comes persistence. It comes drive. Right? There's no half-assing, you know, this sort of thing, right? In any situation that you're, you're in, you should be learning every single day. You should be, you know, approaching, you know, your job with that sort of beginner's mindset. And it means being persistent with your own learning and continually trying to meet that bar for yourself.

6:26 Scott Ingram: This is the perfect spot for me to talk about the Sales Success Summit because that's the entire purpose of this event. We'll spend 2 full days together here in Austin, Texas, on October 11th and 12th, learning directly from these amazing top performers like Rachel that you've heard here on this podcast. Click over to top1summit.com for the details and to join us in person. And later this month, we'll also be opening up registration for the livestream that's completely free thanks to our sponsors. Well, let's contextualize this now. Talk about what is your role exactly?

7:01 Rachel Shi: Yeah, so currently I'm a senior manager of partnerships. At Vidyard. So Vidyard is an online video technology platform that allows you to more easily connect with your buyers and customers. So in my role, it's a channel sales role. You know, I sell through a channel of sales trainers, coaches, and enablement experts. So really partnering up with folks who are in the professional services space, selling to salespeople and, you know, helping them champion the value of Vidyard.

7:33 Scott Ingram: Perfect. Perfect. And it's, it's worth noting Vidyard is a great sponsor of the show, but we actually came together completely outside of those circles. So, not a sponsored episode. And really exciting for me. I mean, I'm always looking to be as inclusive as I can in this show. And again, being able to dig into a role that I think a lot of people don't understand as much, right? It's kind of nebulous, this business development channel partnership. Type of thing. So how are you measured in that role?

8:04 Rachel Shi: Yeah, so it's interesting, right? And I'll frame this up, Scott, before I dive into that with what really makes a good partnerships professional, because I think you're right, there is a lot of misunderstanding around what it means. 3 core pillars, really. Number one, being good at enterprise sales. Number 2, go-to-market strategy and department management expertise. And number 3 is marketing and PR and internal communications. So sales, client management, and marketing are really sort of the 3 core things that you need to be, to be really excellent in this field. And for me, you know, at Vidyard, what I'm measured on will be very different to potentially what another channel manager would be measured on. Again, it's very different depending on the company and the industry that you're in. For me specifically, at this point in time, it's a mix. Right? Based on, you know, it's a little bit of strategic initiatives. So MBOs or kind of projects that you need to work on to make your partners really successful. There's also a little bit of pipeline and a little bit of revenue, right? Although, you know, being in an indirect sales role like I am in channel sales, you're not directly impacting revenue as such as you would be in direct sales, which is, you know, my background and where I'm from. That being said, the inputs that you impact and you work on every single day should, in theory, if you do it well, exponentially explode revenue. And those outputs. There you go.

9:27 Scott Ingram: Now, the 3 pillars that you described, it's pretty kind of 50/50 sales and marketing, right? Do you have much marketing background?

9:35 Rachel Shi: That's funny you say that. I was in a marketing agency sort of doing kind of like social media stuff, like content management, back, back in the day. But honestly, I think most of my marketing experience actually came from being in a sales role, ironically enough. And for me, marketing is kind of, you know, top of funnel, brand awareness, sort of thought leadership type of stuff, which is really something that I did a lot of in my previous role as number one rep at an accessibility startup where I started leveraging things like, like LinkedIn more to build up my brand and build up the credibility of my company. And that was actually where I got most of my marketing experience from, funnily enough, which then of course has now applied to the role that I'm in at Vidyard.

10:16 Scott Ingram: Interesting. Interesting. And it sounded like from our earlier conversation, you felt like the sales skills and kind of that enterprise managing complex, you know, multi-stakeholder type of environments is probably more key than coming at this from like a marketing angle.

10:32 Rachel Shi: Yeah, of course. So, you know, and it will depend, Scott, on of course the type of partnerships role that you, you land in, the types of customers you work with, the type of channel that you're, you're trying to build. For me, in my role, as I alluded to earlier, I partner with sales training companies, right? So Vidyard sells to salespeople. We provide video technology that makes their lives a lot easier and gets them more conversations. So of course, we want to partner with the best of the best of people in the services sector who also sell to those salespeople. So for me, there are a lot of legacy big sales training companies out there. I'm sure you can… a lot of your listeners will recognize the Sandler Trainings of the world, Corporate Visions, Aslan, Brooks Group. Those sorts of companies, which are, you know, some cases huge, right? Sandler, you know, is one of my biggest partners here and I acquired them as part of my role here. And that took enterprise sales experience. I don't believe I would have been able to do that if I hadn't done enterprise sales myself.

11:31 Scott Ingram: Gotcha. So let's go back to the beginning. I want to hear kind of your origin story. How did you get into sales in the first place? Yeah.

11:38 Rachel Shi: So my start in sales, I think, is a little bit unconventional and a little bit different to most folks I work with. So I actually I actually got my start in design. I was always a really creative child, you know, very imaginative, loved to draw, loved to design. And when I went to university at 17, you know, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I was just like, I just want to do something creative, right? Something that sort of scratched that itch, if you will. So I went into school for game design, which I did for a few years. And when I got out of it, I went into graphic design. For a little bit. I think my idea of what being a game designer was didn't really match up to reality. So I was like, you know what? I'm still going to create… continue with the creative path. So I went into graphic design and worked at a nonprofit for around about a couple of years straight after that. After doing it for a little bit, I realized I wasn't really fulfilled. You know, being a designer, I think in reality, in a commercial setting really was not fulfilling in any sense of the word. So for then, at that point, I decided to pivot, right? So I needed to figure out, you know, what it is that I was actually more suited for. So came with that a lot of soul searching, you know, went through a good couple of years just, I mean, pretty lost to be honest, right? I was younger, I didn't really have sort of too many role models or anybody who was sort of a mentor in any sense from a career perspective. So really had to do a lot of figuring out for myself as to, you know, what that next step was. And applied to just, you know, a bunch of different jobs at the particular point in time. Really was not thinking about it in any strategic sense whatsoever and landed at a small agency in an account manager role. That was sort of the… what stuck from all those efforts. And this was my first taste of sales. I had never done anything like it before and soon found that it was something that really catered to a lot of the strengths that I didn't even know that I had. I started doing really well from a, you know, just a, like a customer relationship management standpoint. You know, we were, it was a fast-paced sales. We had 250 clients that we had to manage at any given point and sort of farm those accounts and upsell. You know, we're doing sort of media and ad placements with those folks and learned that I, you know, was building rapport with these people, you know, quite quickly. I really made them feel like they were understood, which I think again sort of tied into my strengths in that role. And soon became number one account manager at that company. So that was my first sales role ever. It was probably the best experience I ever had from a learning perspective, because it just taught me so much about myself and what I was good at and where I could provide value in the world. And then from there, I progressed into tech sales. So came to Canada 4 years ago, and that was my first taste of sort of the B2B tech sales world. So my first job was at a company called Hootsuite, big social media management. Company. And that was my true first hunting sales role. So net new, like nothing was given to me, no existing accounts. You know, really, you just had to go out there and, you know, do true sales.

14:50 Scott Ingram: Right.

14:50 Rachel Shi: And again, a huge learning experience for me. And again, critical, I think, in terms of my growth as a salesperson and sort of figuring that out. At that time, Hootsuite was… the team that I was in at Hootsuite was kind of a startup within a startup. You know, it was a brand new team. Within the, the organization. And again, helped me become more entrepreneurial and, you know, learn things like ownership, as I mentioned earlier, in order to be really successful at that role. And then since then, you know, I've been at a couple of comp… couple of different companies. And fast forward to, to my role, you know, now at Vidyard, where I am in partnerships, but it is still… there's a large sales component. And quite frankly, I think this is where I'm meant to be. I wouldn't look back.

15:29 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Now, how much of that journey, were you just kind of learning as you went and having to figure things out for yourself versus being given kind of good training instruction and leadership?

15:42 Rachel Shi: So it's funny, Scott, because, you know, now that I'm working with sales training companies, it's actually the biggest eye-opener for me in terms of, oh, you know, there are companies that, you know, have a sales training company on record, right? You know, who, like companies who do invest in training and things, you know, for their team. I can say the common theme for myself in pretty much every role that I've had is I've had to take ownership of my own learning. I've never had any formal training program or anything set out for me. At Hootsuite, we did have a couple of internal sessions with internal trainers, but again, nothing too formal or systematic. And I mean, I look back on it a little bit and I remember thinking back in the day, I was like, oh man, like, you know, wouldn't life be easier if I was actually taught some of these principles and, you know, my leaders were more helpful in terms of, This is what you do in sales. But I look back on it and I think it was actually a bit of a blessing that I never worked at a Xerox or never worked at an Oracle where perhaps there was more of that systemic type of training, because it really taught me that I had to be resourceful in order to be great at what I do. It taught me a certain behavior that, again, I think some people where, some people who may have had things handed to them or even sort of a path painted out for them may not have had developed, so to speak.

17:05 Scott Ingram: Well, and particularly in this role, because you're the first person to have held this role at Vidyard, correct?

17:09 Rachel Shi: That's correct.

17:10 Scott Ingram: So it's very much kind of figure it out as, as you go. So with all of that context, knowing everything that you know now, if you could start your career all over again, would you have taken a different approach? How would you approach that today?

17:23 Rachel Shi: Yeah, so I think for me, Scott, I think the biggest pitfall that I made when I was younger was following the mantra of follow your passion, right? This is a, you know, it's something that's thrown around a lot. I think, you know, society tells us this when you're younger, you know, follow your passion and, you know, the rest will follow. I think that was probably the biggest mistake that I had made, you know, going into sort of this design realm, not really knowing that, you know, that was not for me, right? So I think if I had to do it all again, I mean, quite frankly, and this may be a little bit controversial to some, but I probably would have skipped university. I don't think university taught me anything that was of value in real life terms. Everything that I've learned up until this point, everything that has helped me up to this point has never ever been from a textbook or from a university teacher, lecturer, anything like that. So I probably would have skipped it. And other than that, I mean, I think just putting myself in the right environments would have been, you know, sort of the way to go. I wouldn't regret necessarily, you know, Even like going through some of those random odd jobs, you know, back in the day, even the design jobs, I wouldn't say they were like something I wouldn't have done because every single experience did teach me ultimately, you know, what I was more suited for, you know, in terms of a career or not. But again, I think if I had to do it all over again, just skipping out the parts that really just made no sense. And to me, that was quite frankly tertiary education.

18:52 Scott Ingram: You talked about, I don't remember exactly what word that you used, but you talked about kind of finding the right places. What are those ingredients? Like what are those right places in your mind? Yeah.

19:02 Rachel Shi: So I think for me, Scott, it's, you know, thinking from a sort of personal perspective, right? I think in my own experience, being in the right places when it comes to career growth, right, if we're sort of thinking about it from that lens, is where you're surrounded by the right people who'll give you the right opportunities, right? It's that simple. I think the places that I've been at where I haven't been happy or I've been stagnant or, you know, kind of feel like I'm hitting my head against the wall Some of those earlier design jobs, for instance, in those environments, I didn't have that. I was kind of just doing repetitive tasks. For me as a designer, I was just like on Photoshop all day taking client revisions, never really talking to a real life human being sometimes, just always sort of behind a computer and never getting to meet anybody new. That was where I was stagnating. And that was when I really had to listen to myself and be like, okay, maybe this is not the right field for me, right? Because I'm not getting what I need. So once I put myself, I think, in a position, and for me, that was my first agency sales job as an account manager, where I did have the opportunity to surround myself with the right people who were giving me the right opportunities. And for me, that was just being thrown, quite frankly, you know, into this brand new field and, you know, needing to deal with 250 accounts and, you know, really needing to learn things like cold calling and dealing with rejection and, you know, all these new things that were foreign to me. That was exponential in terms of my learning curve. And I truly think that if I didn't go through that experience, you know, back then, I would not be where I am today.

20:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Love that. Well, we do call the show Sales Success Stories, and I think I should probably ask, what's your favorite sales story?

20:47 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for me, I mean, there's so many, but I think in most recent times, The one that I think I'm most proud of would be my acquisition of the Sandler partnership. Sandler is one of my partners here at Vidyard. And for most of your audience, as most of your audience may know, one of the largest and most well-known sales training companies in the world. So I really like this story because, I mean, it taught me just a lot in terms of what you can do on your own as an autonomous individual. And to paint you some context here, When I came into my role at Vidyard, I didn't have much of a blueprint at all in terms of what I was going to do. So I was basically brought on to build out this entire new channel of sales trainers from scratch. Didn't exist before. There was nobody who was there who could help me in terms of what to do. I was basically just given this huge responsibility and it was like, okay, you know, we know you have sales experience. We know you've done a little bit of partnerships in your past role. And, you know, now it's up to you to go make it work. So, I mean, equal parts scary, you know, equal parts exhilarating for me. But I mean, it paid off when I closed the Sandler partnership within 6 months, right? And entirely by myself. And just to paint you a picture, Sandler is a big legacy company with a corporate layer. So we've got a corporate layer with trainers and facilitators at the very top. They train the biggest enterprise companies in the world. They've also got a franchise network. So 300 franchises globally from North America to EMEA to APAC and LATAM. So anyone who's tried to sell to a franchise, I think, can probably relate in terms of how difficult it can be to find an arrangement that works for this type of company. But I really made it work. And I think part of the reason why I made it work was I figured out a way to really make my relationship building efforts scale. And how I did that was through a couple of things. So I really, at the start, started to go through more of a research phase. I talked to some of the top trainers in the network, people who are in the top 10% of that 300 franchise network, and really learned about what they were finding value in with Vidyard, right? Because I found some of them in the system. They were using some of our self-serve versions. And that was how it really got started. From there, they, like, from our conversations and learning what it is that I was trying to do, which was form a partnership, a strategic partnership, you know, with this network, they then started getting the word out to other franchisees that they were connected with. So through that, I started getting invited to regional meetings. You know, people were coming through LinkedIn saying, hey, you know, I heard that Mark from Atlanta, you know, spoke to you and, you know, we love Vidyard. You know, what is it that you're looking to do, right? And people were sort of coming in. So that was some of the traction that we were starting to see build. From there, they then had a summit. There was a summit in November that was going to be broadcast to the entire, you know, 300-strong franchise network, as well as a bunch of their customers. At that point, I'd already laid the seeds, you know, with some of those top franchisees, and they gave us a shout out at that summit, which was when things really, really took off, right? So I started getting more inbound traction, people saying, hey, you know, what is it that you're doing with Sandler, right? Wanting to learn more. I also got the attention of Sandler Corporate at that point. I had their global head of content, Mike Montague, reach out to me and invited me to his podcast. And, you know, we started just started at that point working kind of a 2-pronged deal, one with the franchise network and then one with the corporate layer. So, you know, things really sort of started to blow up from there. We started developing an actual program, right? We were kind of building the plane in the sky as we went. But at that point we realized, okay, we validated a need in the market. People want what we're doing. Right? Now it's up to us to really sort of figure out what the package looks like and what the mutual value of exchange looks like. So at that point, I developed the program, developed the onboarding process, what resources we needed internally, developed the legal paperwork that was needed even to get that off the ground. And yeah, I mean, fast forward to now, it's the most successful partnership of Vidyard. We've got around 45 franchisees who are enrolled in our partner program. We've got a corporate agreement and are working with their enterprise trainers and facilitators on getting the word about Vidyard Vidyard out there with some of their Fortune 500 customers. And yeah, I mean, we're top of mind for this entire network, which is just crazy to think in terms of the efforts that were pretty much just myself, you know, going out there on the ground and doing a bit of a guerrilla campaign to sort of build that influence and get to where we needed to be.

25:34 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. What a great story. Now, you seem to really thrive on challenge. So what do you find to be the biggest challenge either in sales or maybe in this role? Yeah.

25:46 Rachel Shi: So I think for me in partnerships, so I kind of see partnerships as being sales amplified, right? So in sales, I mean, there's so many different challenges that you would go through, but I think in partnerships, really, it's kind of being the general manager of your own book of business. You have to know so many different parts of the business to really succeed. It's not just in sales where it's just you and the customer anymore. But in partnerships, it's really having a deep understanding of how businesses work on a larger level, having a knowledge of how, you know, different functions tie into the overall organization's goals. So marketing, customer success, from product to engineering, you know, to development. All of that as a partnerships professional, you really, really have to have an understanding of to make anything happen, right? Because for really successful partnerships to work, you have to be a true extension of the other company's team. And it's not just one team, but Ideally, it's multiple teams connecting our reps with partners' reps, connecting our CS with the partner's CS, marketing with marketing, and so on and so forth. So I think that has probably been the biggest challenge in terms of just figuring out, okay, you know, what are the gaps in my own knowledge that I have to now learn, right? I've been in sales, you know, I know that inside and out, but you know, how do marketing teams really work, right? How do customer success teams really work? What are they incentivized on? What are they motivated by? How does product work? Right? So all of that, I think, again, just in my 10 months at Vidyard, is something that I've really had to make an effort to learn and do so pretty much on my own.

27:24 Scott Ingram: Awesome. That's probably a really good transition point into kind of your information diet, right? We've, we've teased it a couple of times now. So I would love to just understand, what are you listening to, reading, watching, and when does that typically happen in your day?

27:39 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think what I consume from an information standpoint tends to fall into kind of 3 different buckets. So personal development, business, and something that's totally unrelated to either. So I typically always have 3 to 4 books on the go. I'm one of those, you know, I've got, you know, books with really raggedy spines because they're just like everywhere, you know, in my home. But I always need to have sort of multiple things on the go. Podcasts too. I think I consume information quicker that way. I think with books, as I get older, sometimes my eyes get really tired. So I'm like, oh, I can like, you know, listen to a podcast that's about this topic and digest that information even quicker than reading. So for me, I think my kind of cadence is mornings are my reading times when I'm just, when I wake up, when I eat breakfast, I'm always reading, you know, one of the 3 books. And then I've got, I'm not checking emails. I've tried to like, you know, leave work until, you know, a certain point where I start. That morning time is sacred for me to just, you know, be in that learning mode. And then after work, I typically put on a podcast as well when I'm cooking or, you know, when I'm going for a walk with my dog. That's when I'll sort of tune into one of those. I try to keep, you know, work time, you know, sort of separate from that, I guess, information digestion time.

29:03 Scott Ingram: Love it. So in your 3 book categories, do you want to maybe give us your top 2 or 3 books that have been kind of most impactful of late?

29:12 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I'll go with 2 that are top of mind. The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. And then the second one is The 5 Invitations by Frank Ostaseski. So I'll dive into a little bit of each. So The Millionaire Fastlane is basically a book about entrepreneurship and personal finances and wealth creation. I really like it because it goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom of financial freedom and financial independence that we're typically taught and is a huge, basically an advocacy book for entrepreneurship, right? It argues that entrepreneurship is really the only way that you're going to have Unlimited Leverage and Control Over Your Personal Wealth. And it goes into some of the sort of the mindset principles and the framework around that. So I think it's a must-read for anybody who really wants to end up in a position of, you know, financial freedom and independence, which is timely for the time of recording that we're currently on. And then the second book is totally unrelated. So The 5 Invitations by Frank Ostaseski. Is a book about death. And Frank Ostaseski is, for those of you who don't know, he was a hospice worker. So was a hospice worker his entire life, worked through the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco back in their day and helped thousands and thousands of the men who were dying during that point in time, you know, pass through to the, you know, to their deathbed basically. And I really like that book. I mean, it's probably one of the books that has changed my life, you know, to put it lightly. I literally just picked it up, I remember, off a bookstore's bookshelf one day. No one taught me to read it or anything like that, but it is one of those books that just completely changes your perspective of what arguably is, you know, probably people's biggest fear, which is of death, right? And it puts a lot of things into perspective in terms of just even what you do on a day-to-day basis. So I highly recommend anyone check out that book as well.

31:23 Scott Ingram: Awesome. I think you're 2 for 2 in terms of first-time book mentions on the show. So we'll, we'll take them. And as always, we'll have the show notes for you if you go to top1.fm/this episode number or top1.fm/rachel-shi, and Shi is S-H-I. So Rachel, let's now just really dig in deep. And I know you're a fan of the show. So you know my process here. And I just want to understand kind of your daily routine? What are your processes? So alarm clock goes off. What time did that happen? And I want the blow-by-blow till your head hits the pillow.

31:57 Rachel Shi: For sure. Typically, you know, now we're in kind of work from home time. So, you know, it's definitely changed from back in the day. I wake up around 7:30 every day. From that point, I, you know, go through my regular routine, uh, you know, Brush my teeth, I shower, I do my thing, make breakfast, make coffee. I'm a big coffee drinker. I'm like 3 a day. It's probably not the best for me, but that is a habit of mine. And then I spend a good 30 minutes to an hour just reading, reading, drinking my coffee and eating. That is my, again, do not disturb time. No client stuff, no work emails, nothing like that. That is my time and mine alone. From that point, you know, maybe go for a bit of a walk with my dog. So I think having a dog just is great for keeping a schedule, especially when you're all sort of remote working and working from home. Gets you out of the house. And I find that it's really good too to just sort of clear my head a little bit before I get started with my day. And then I start work at around 8:45, 8:50-ish. That's where I, you know, begin my work. I like to keep mornings for anything client meeting, partner meeting related. I find that I just have more energy in the morning and I'm at my best during that time. So I try to knock all of those out. But again, I think anyone in a client-facing role knows that, you know, sometimes you are on the partner's or the client's clock. That is my preference. Lunchtime, again, you know, I take a break. I make an effort to shut off the computer and, you know, listen to a bit of a podcast, read, and, you know, just Try to separate a little bit from that work because again, I think that is important to be your best when you get back at it. And then, you know, around 1 o'clock, I'm back at my desk. At that point, I try to allocate that time for more strategic work. So in partnerships, there's a lot of, not even sort of short-term stuff that you're working on, but the long-term, the bigger stuff. I'm working on a brand new channel. So there's a lot of strategic planning that goes on. Right? Service development, you know, figuring out sort of new partners to go after, sort of what the value props there are, go-to-market strategies, core marketing activities. There's a ton there. So I typically like to leave afternoons for that sort of stuff versus the meetings. From that point, you know, I've got a direct report as well. So, you know, make sure to check in with him and that he's all good. Finish work typically around 5 to 6. Again, that is in a dream world. It doesn't always happen that way. For that point, I'll go for a quick run, you know, with my dog. And again, just sort of getting out of the house, clearing my head a little bit. When I get back, you know, that's dinner, hanging out with my partner, and, you know, do something that's, you know, related to… not related to work at all, you know, just for us. And then I'm a bit of a night owl, Scott. So I'll tend to do a lot of deep work at night too. So whether it's again, just an extension of some of the planning that I'm doing for work and there's some stuff that I just didn't get to during the day. I'm also working on my own sales consulting coaching business right now. So just getting the website for that, the copy, so that the programs that I'm looking to release out as well. So that's really sort of my time around 8 to 10, 11-ish. I'll work on that. And then from that point, I mean, I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Again, doesn't really happen as much as I like to, but roundabout midnight, is when I'll go to bed.

35:25 Scott Ingram: Very good. Very good. What kind of dog do you have?

35:27 Rachel Shi: I have a Shiba Inu.

35:29 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Is that the Doge dog?

35:32 Rachel Shi: It is.

35:33 Scott Ingram: Yes.

35:33 Rachel Shi: All right. Exactly.

35:36 Scott Ingram: So you've got a Doge dog and you've got all this stuff going on. Are there any other kind of habits or routines that are, that are kind of core to your success in your process?

35:46 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So, I mean, honestly, I think Scott, for me, it's It's just about having your goals visible to you at all times, right? This is less of a habit or routine, but if you are someone who is driven and you have big goals to reach, I think just having them there is really, really important. So for me, I literally, during the pandemic, when I guess a lot of people had their routines shifted and sort of the way that they were approaching life completely shaken up, for me, I mean, I've spent the last 18 or so months really, really focusing on a lot of my personal and professional goals and skills that I wanted to develop. And part of that is the business that I'm looking to launch. I bought a massive whiteboard just off of Kijiji, which is the Canadian version of Craigslist, and just have all my goals written on there. So where I'm ranking, all the short-term actions that I need to take to reach those goals listed out on this massive whiteboard. And this is just something that every day, like as soon as I walk out of my bedroom, You know, is the first thing that I see. So I think that power of visualization is just really, really key for, again, anyone who wants, you know, wants to achieve great things.

36:59 Scott Ingram: Love it. When do you do kind of that core goal setting process? It sounds like just how visible it is. It's a, it's a daily review because you're, you're seeing it, it's in your face, but when are you setting those and reviewing those and going through that side of things?

37:12 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for me, it's the, I'm, you know, like most people kind of towards the end of the year. Right. So really sort of at the end of every year, looking back on your year, what went well, what didn't go well, looking at the goals that you set for that year and sort of where you fell on that. And then, of course, setting your new goals for the year. So that's really where I start to develop kind of like my main, maybe, you know, top 5 things that I'd like to achieve for that year. That being said, though, I think, you know, it's also really important. And this is something that I tell, you know, a lot of people, right, who are kind of similar-minded, very driven, really, you know, wanting to sort of, you know, do well, do something big, you know, with their lives is almost being able to hold some very much long-term goals thinking. And I'm talking like, you know, 10-year, 15-year vision for yourself while also not losing sight of the small actions that you need to do every day and realizing too that you're not gonna be perfect, right? And you're not gonna be perfect in terms of like hitting those goals every single day and planning everything so rigidly because we're human. Humans are not gonna be like that for the most part. But almost just holding those dual thoughts, right? Sort of having your vision and working towards those, having your big buckets of goals, you know, that I, again, I list out yearly and then sort of review on a kind of a monthly, quarterly basis, but not being like too, I guess, stringent on yourself either, right? It's kind of a, again, it's a paradox that you kind of have to hold in your mind because if you are, I think ultimately you kind of lose sight of the bigger picture, right? I know a lot of people who are, you know, entrepreneurial, they do a lot of, a million different things at once. You can burn out if you kind of start to take yourself a little bit too seriously in that regard. So I think just being able to relax a little bit while pursuing those goals is really important. And I know that can be a little bit difficult to digest for some people.

38:58 Scott Ingram: Can I ask what this long-term vision is that you have for yourself?

39:02 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So ties into that book that I mentioned earlier, The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco. And I think for me, it's just being finally in a position in my life where I have freedom. And freedom to me is honestly being able to contribute in a meaningful way that is on my terms. So, you know, for me, it's basically I want to get to a point where I can divorce my income from my time, you know, get the opportunity to pursue whatever I find interesting or, you know, what I'm curious about, what I'm passionate about on every given day and not feeling worried about, okay, I need to clock into work and, you know, sort of work 9 to 5 in order to obviously get a recurring paycheck and keep a roof over my head. Right. So I think that's my ultimate goal in terms of what I'm working towards. And for me, I know that entrepreneurship is really kind of what's going to get me there. So holding that in my head and realizing it is a long game, right? I don't, you know, I'm nowhere near, you know, that point now, but just laying the foundation in place for myself and learning the skills that I need to have in order to get there.

40:13 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Now, in addition to this giant whiteboard, what are the tools and apps that you just can't live without?

40:20 Rachel Shi: So honestly, Scott, I keep it very simple. I work in tech, but I'm not a super techie girl by any stretch of the imagination. You know, other than of course your LinkedIns, you know, your Slacks, your communication tools, I mean, I keep an Evernote, you know, for sort of ongoing recurring, you know, goals and to-do lists and, you know, what I need to keep in mind. But other than that, I truly don't use anything too fancy. The Notes app on my phone, I mean, is always filled with ideas and sort of content and, you know, things that I'm inspired by, books that I need to read, quotes that I like. But yeah, I mean, I'm actually open to suggestions for any better organizational tools because I keep it very, very simple.

40:59 Scott Ingram: There you go. Well, you know, sometimes that is the best organizational tool, right? I think, I think you can quickly get to a place where the tools overwhelm you. I always think of just tech in that way. It's a double-edged sword, right? It can either make you a superhero and it can make you great and it can empower you to do more, or it can conspire against you and distract you and pull you away and you're trying to make too many things work together. So I think Part of the answer to that is finding a really great core set of tools and then keeping other stuff at bay.

41:32 Rachel Shi: I like that. Yeah, I would agree.

41:34 Scott Ingram: So do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy? Yeah.

41:39 Rachel Shi: So again, I think, Scott, this goes back to my, again, one of the top 3 things that I think are important. And that is my philosophy to sales is that it starts with an excellent understanding of human nature, right? So of course, as a sales professional, you need to have understanding of sales process and methodologies. I'm, you know, I know of Sandler, you know, the Sandler Process, Challenger Selling. You know, those were books and courses that of course I took when I was younger in sales and was just starting to learn the ropes. But it's funny, like I think once you've been in sales for a little while and you can, you understand sort of these basic foundational principles, you almost have to let go of it a little bit and you have to start looking elsewhere for your learning, right? Because that stuff is important, right? Knowing how to qualify a prospect, knowing how to move a deal forward, knowing how to negotiate. Of course you have to learn these things. But again, I think the best learning is going to come from outside sales books, to be honest, which again goes back to my interest in human psychology and kind of digging that 5 levels deeper as to what makes humans tick. And I truly think that it has contributed to my personal success.

42:56 Scott Ingram: Nice. Now, how do you describe your style inside of that approach?

43:00 Rachel Shi: I think what I'm often described as is just direct. Direct and transparent is my style. So I don't see any value in playing games with prospects or customers. You know, there are all sorts of like different tactics and things that are being posted on LinkedIn daily, things that you read out there and some of it has value. But I think at the end of the day, if we go back to the idea of sales just being a series of human-to-human interactions, I think you've got to remember your prospect is a human being and human beings usually appreciate honesty and transparency. Right. So I think that's what I ultimately subscribe to.

43:40 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So from a motivation perspective, like what is it that I know I asked about this a little bit earlier, but what drives you and how do you think about motivation? Motivation in general?

43:50 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for me, motivation is, it's something that comes and goes, right? Everyone has good and bad days. It doesn't matter if you're the most ambitious individual in the world. Everyone's gonna have days where they're feeling lazy, they're feeling like procrastinating. It's just, it's human nature, right? So I think for me, it's kind of almost doing away with the word motivation. Altogether. I think it's ultimately about the standards that you hold for yourself. So as I mentioned earlier, I hold the bar for myself extremely high. I think personal excellence is something that everyone, regardless of where they're at in their life, regardless of what field they're in, you should strive for that. And naturally, if that is your, your bar, right, if your bar is extremely high, your brain is automatically going to work to close the gap between where you currently are and where you want to be. Right? It's almost just like knowing that this is where I've got to be. And like, you know, your actions and behaviors are going to close that gap. So that is kind of what, like my approach to motivation. I don't even think about the word motivation really, because you just have to have the discipline to be like, okay, this is it. Right? And the rest really sort of follows from there.

45:09 Scott Ingram: I like it. So it's, this is who I am. And so this is what I have to do. If I'm going to be that person.

45:13 Rachel Shi: Exactly. It starts from, I mean, there's this book that I read that was really good by James Clear, Atomic Habits. You know, I'm sure, you know, a lot of your listeners may have heard of it. But I think one of the biggest takeaways I had from that book was the idea of you having, you must change your identity to match who you want to be. I remember he had an example of someone who was a smoker who was trying to quit. And the idea of if you're always going to identify as a smoker who's always trying to quit and always needing to make that internal effort to say no to a cigarette or deny sort of the temptation, you'll never get there, right? And he argued that to get there, to be a nonsmoker, you have to identify first as a nonsmoker, right? Because at that point, your actions and your behaviors are just going to work to align more with your identity, which is who's someone who does not smoke. So I think that is really powerful to understand that's where it comes from. It's not just about using tactics here and there. It's really sort of knowing that this is who you are. If you are someone who is successful, who is great at sales, who does not smoke, and then everything else again will, your brain will try to close the gap between where you are and where you need to be.

46:33 Scott Ingram: There you go. Yeah. Such, such a good mindset piece. For, for me, that book was kind of anticlimactic. It's actually, it's a great book and would probably save anybody else reading it the 10 books that I read leading up to it. Right. So it was, it was such a good encapsulation of so many different ideas that I had read over time to where, again, if you haven't read the 10 other books about habits and motivation and process and all this other stuff, it's a great one. One for sure. Is there something you believe, Rachel, that the average sales professional would think is crazy?

47:07 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for me, it's the idea of, again, it's what you do outside of work that makes you great at sales. Right. It's not about just being, you know, like pounding the sales books or, you know, following all the top people in sales on LinkedIn or or whatnot. Again, it just starts from identity. It starts from what you do during your 5 to 9 that is going to make you a good sales professional. And I've known so many salespeople in my life who are, you know, for all intents and purposes, are, you know, good at what they do. But I feel like for them, they're not happy in their jobs. They don't find their jobs fulfilling. And to me, I mean, that might as well, like, your success in sales doesn't even matter if you're not fulfilled, right? If your, your job and what you do does not tie into your, your greater purpose. So for that reason, I think it's really important to focus on your own self-development and your own learning and growth in the hours that you're not a sales professional. And that will naturally feed into your success in your, your 9 to 5.

48:14 Scott Ingram: Anytime anyone talks about their 5 to 9, I always think about Alyce and their personalized gifting platform that's all about connecting you more deeply with these personal passions. I wanted to quickly remind you of the opportunity to get one of those personalized gifts for yourself. If you're enjoying this show, please do me a favor and write a quick review. If you're an Apple user, you can do that on Apple Podcasts. Otherwise, head over to Podchaser and look up the show, write your review, email me a copy at scott@top1.fm, and Alice will help me hook you up with a really nice gift. Just our way of saying thanks for listening. Is there something the average sales professional believes on the flip side that you now think is crazy?

49:00 Rachel Shi: 100%. So for me, honestly, it's the idea that everything you do needs to have a measurable ROI, right? So I'm sure a lot of the people listening to this podcast, a lot of sales leaders listening to this podcast subscribe to this. It's something that I've encountered. You know, in my entire sales career. You know, the questions you get of, you know, what's the ROI of posting on LinkedIn, right? What's the ROI of you writing this article? What's the ROI of this podcast even, right? And I think you'll just drive yourself crazy thinking about that. And I also think that there are things in life that do not correlate to a direct measurable ROI, but have immeasurable value nonetheless. And it's because it's the long game, right? We could go into this for a very long time, but it's the long game. I think a lot of salespeople are short-sighted. They think month to month or they think quarter to quarter. And I think a lot of sales leaders, when they shouldn't, you know, sales leaders should think further out, but they often enable, you know, this kind of myopic approach. And it's, I think it ultimately comes at a detriment to everybody. So yeah, my opinion is that, you know, not everything needs to have an ROI. For it to matter.

50:14 Scott Ingram: So, so well said. And I'm going to double-click on that and let you go a little bit longer on, on this idea, because I think you're right. We've gotten into such short-term thinking, right? We're just looking at the numbers month to month, quarter to quarter, and we're not thinking about that bigger picture. And I think there's so many examples to where it has an exponential impact if you will take a longer kind of multi-year type of view. Yeah.

50:43 Rachel Shi: And, you know, so it's something that's bugged me my entire sales career for sure, right? And even the idea of, oh, you know, you had a great quarter, but now it's next quarter, you're back to zero, you're back to nothing. Even that sort of stuff said in jest, I think, has like ongoing harmful effects, to be honest, because that's not how people work. People need to feel like that that their efforts have meant something. And efforts are, the outcomes of your efforts are cumulative over time. They're not something that is done month on month or quarter to quarter, right? Like a lot of the efforts that you put in, especially if you think of sort of enterprise sales or even partnerships, like a lot of the seeds that you plant and a lot of the conversations that you build and sort of influence exerted at all different levels of an organization, that is what ultimately culminates in your big deal at the very end or your big partnership that you've acquired, right? It's not, again, I think anyone who has their brain switched on can recognize this fact. And I think, you know, this kind of, yeah, this short-sighted type of mentality burns people out. It leads people to think that they're not good at their jobs because maybe they've not hit quota a month or two. Even if they had a really good quarter, you know, the quarter prior, because again, it's just not recognized, right? Revenue leaders almost… there's a celebration of the final product, right? There's a celebration of the final closed deal. Oh, you know, congratulations, you know, John closed a 6-figure deal. But, you know, what went into that is not considered, right? It's the inputs versus outputs thing. The output is celebrated when really it's the inputs, it's the the things that you've done up until that point, that should be because that's what's gonna get you that output, right? And we all know of the sales reps who close big deals, but didn't really do anything for it, right? You know, you get a big inbound lead, someone who's just ready to buy, ready to pull the trigger, they've got the budget, et cetera. Closing that deal, that type of deal shouldn't be celebrated in my opinion, right? Or it shouldn't be like, you shouldn't pretend that some type of immense sales skill went into closing a deal like that. So I think that's kind of the bone that I have to pick with the sales profession and sort of the way that sales leaders look at the development of their sales reps. Because again, it leads to good people churning out of companies. It leads to people burning out and not feeling like their efforts are rewarded because the wrong things are looked at ultimately.

53:18 Scott Ingram: You know, it's so interesting. I was just on another podcast. The episode's not out yet, so I can't point to it. But if you send me a note, and just mention this. I'll make a list and send everybody a note once it does go out. And the main thing we talked about was really this idea of we've lost sight of the value of relationships. And there's so much emphasis on all of this, like, really hard, difficult, cold everything approach to creating opportunities. And, you know, I've worked in the same space for, gosh, you better than the last 10 years. I don't make cold calls. I don't have to, right? I have all the opportunities I need because of all the relationships. And I'll tell you, right now is an incredible time because everybody is moving into new roles. They're moving into new leadership positions. And that's just more opportunity for me because I've helped them before in the past. And we're going to do stuff again. But that is one of those, you can't measure that. It has a very long-term ROI. I don't know if you're going to be in a different role in 2 years from now or not. You know, I mean, it's exactly right.

54:27 Rachel Shi: Yeah. No, it's crazy, Scott. I think it's almost like there is this type of mindset that relationships don't matter in sales. It's like, it's like contrarian take or something, you know, like I think maybe ever since like Challenger, the Challenger Sale came out, this idea that relationships has no impact on your ability to get the sales. Like, I just call bullshit on that immediately. Anyone who's been in sales for long enough knows that's not the case. And I think it's a really bad thing for younger reps to kind of internalize, right? They think they need to be kind of this, you know, challenger type of sales rep, someone who's, you know, sort of taking this approach. But it's, we know that, you know, where does that referral business come from? It's come from people that you've done business with before and people who trust you and like you and know that, that you have integrity and followed through with what you promised and have all these things about you and they would rather work with you than other reps. I can't count how many times I've had my champion with accounts that I've closed come to me afterwards saying that, you know, we evaluated 10 vendors. The reason we went with you was because of you and how you went about selling. Right. And it's no coincidence. Right? And I haven't even been in sales for that long. I mean, comparatively, like 6 years. But again, it matters. It matters more than you think. So again, I think you and I are on the same page regarding this.

55:53 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I think Challenger got misconstrued a little bit too, right? If you look back at when all of that research was done and the way that they misaligned… not misaligned, maligned the relationship seller. Well, sure. Like there were a breed of people who they just thought, well, if I take people to enough dinners and enough golf outings and I try and be their best friend, then I'll get a lot of sales. Yeah, that by itself has no value. Nobody has time for that garbage, right? You have to bring some actual value beyond that. Like, if we can do that as some, you know, icing on the cake, great. But a lot of times, like, I don't need you to take me to dinner, just need you to help me solve my business problems and let's get on with Right? So I think that's where it got sideways. But if you do that, we're going to have a great relationship. Like, if you have served me well and taken care of me, I will absolutely do business with you again. That's, I think, what we're missing in this. All right. Time to get off our soapbox. Rachel, what have been the most important decisions you've made or the lessons you've had to learn to get where you are today?

56:57 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for me, ultimately, And it goes back to what I said earlier, and it's that you alone are the owner of your life, right? All the decisions that you have made up until now is the reason why you are where you are today. And I had to go through like a lot of these difficult lessons when I was younger. As I mentioned earlier, I didn't have like the easiest childhood. I didn't have any particular like role models or, you know, any people that I looked up to that I was like, oh yeah, like, you know, I want to be like them. Like I could count on, like nobody like that was around me. So I had to learn pretty quickly to be resourceful and almost seek out those people myself, which I mean, in the beginning was through books. It was through like going to the library and like reading books about personal finances, reading books about career development and, you know, figuring out what it was that I wanted to do. That was a big, big, you know, formative period in my life, just kind of feeling lost, right? And not really sort of having too much to kind of lean on. You know, I think from there it led to probably the biggest, I guess the biggest change in my life, which was moving to Canada from Australia. So I came here 4 years ago with no job, no network, nothing lined up, nothing but a few months of rent in my pocket, nobody knowing nobody here, and really just the drive to reinvent myself and figure things out for myself. And hands down, this was the best decision that I could have ever made in my life. My life in Melbourne, Australia, where I'm from, up until that point was very kind of just like, kind of going through the motions. I felt like I was in a rut and, you know, I just wasn't really happy. So putting myself in a position where I just, it was a complete change of physical environment, knew nobody, clean slate in all senses of the word, and really just lighting that fire under myself to figure things out, you know, from ground up, hands down the best decision that I could have ever, ever made. And I highly recommend it to people who may be listening to this podcast and feeling a little bit stuck or stagnant in their life or they feel like they're not going in the right direction, they're not really loving, you know, what they're doing, do something drastic. You know, again, not saying that everyone needs to move all the way to the other side of the world to do that, but even just changing cities, even changing, just changing your physical sense of environment, changing up maybe the people that you typically surround yourself with, right? I think change is the only thing that's constant in life. And if you can fully embrace that principle, you can really make it work for you.

59:42 Scott Ingram: Love that. So, you've been in Canada for 4 years. Have you been in Toronto the whole time, or did you start in Vancouver?

59:47 Rachel Shi: Toronto, unlike a lot of Australians.

59:50 Scott Ingram: Okay. Okay. Well, you said Hootsuite, and I know Hootsuite's out of Vancouver, so that's why I asked.

59:54 Rachel Shi: Yeah. No, we had a tiny little satellite office in Toronto. It's now, it's since grown a lot.

59:59 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah. I've actually been to Vancouver headquarters. It's actually pretty fun. That's one of my favorite things about enterprise sales and just the, the travel and getting to visit different campuses. Such a fascinating thing, right? Seeing different executive briefing centers and all the different… you really get a sense of a company's culture through that. I don't know if you ever went to the Vancouver office, but they've… there's a lot of culture in there.

1:00:25 Rachel Shi: Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah, no, it's, it's amazing. We did like a 2-week onboarding there, like middle of summer, like July, August. I was like, why did I move to Toronto? Like Vancouver is where it's at. It was stunning.

1:00:39 Scott Ingram: Pacific Northwest. It's a beautiful, beautiful place. So you came up from this kind of non-traditional place into sales, which I think non-traditional is traditional, right? Very few people come to this really, really intentionally, like, oh, I went to college to learn sales, which contrary to popular belief is a thing. There's, there's actually quite a number of colleges that do have sales programs these days, but you know, for most people, I think we kind of accidentally come into this role. What advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today? Right. They've either decided I'm going to go and get into sales, or they're in that first role today. They're just a few months in. What do you tell them?

1:01:19 Rachel Shi: I would say, make your default position one of curiosity. So what I mean by that is like, try to understand a few levels deeper of why things are the way they are. You know, I think I've got, I'm now in a position in my career where I do often have younger sales reps reaching out to me looking for advice or mentorship. And I'm so, I feel really privileged to now be in that position to be able to help. And it's just that, right? Sort of exhibiting a sense of always having that student's mindset, always understanding that you will have a lifetime of learning ahead of you and reach out to people who are, you know, where you wanna be. Right? People who are doing something interesting, people who, you know, are doing jobs that you think you would like to do at some point in the future, and just make that a consistent part of your life. I think the worst thing that you could do as a younger sales rep is just almost like just purely focus on the job, you know, in front of you, right? Because I think a well-rounded sales rep, people who are excellent at sales are so multidimensional and so multifaceted in so many different ways. And it really, I think is important to, you know, develop these other parts of you and that you develop that through living life and through meeting new people and learning through their experiences, not just focusing on your, your quarter. So that would be my, my advice.

1:02:45 Scott Ingram: Great stuff. Now, what about somebody that's a little bit further into their career? And we can think of this one of two ways, either they're good, but maybe they haven't gotten to that place of great, right? They haven't realized the vision that they have for themselves, or maybe, maybe they're just in kind of a, they're a little bit stuck.

1:03:00 Rachel Shi: So I think there's 2 reasons for that. One is either you're in the wrong opportunity or 2, there's something missing in your own execution. Both of which you can control, by the way. You have complete ownership of that. But sort of taking these, sort of breaking this down, I think number one, first thing you need to do is just take a good objective look at yourself, the space that you're in, and your current situation, right? Because I mean, for a lot of sales reps, they're not performing, not because they're not good at what they're doing, but it is just the wrong opportunity, right? So if you think about it, if you're someone who's maybe more creatively minded like myself, and you're selling financial planning software to CFOs, but you have no interest in sort of that realm or that industry, industry outside of it. Naturally, I don't think you're gonna love it, right? But you could be really good in maybe a role where you're selling to designers or selling to CMOs, sort of selling something completely different, right? Or are you maybe in a position where you are a really collaborative team seller and you enjoy sort of working together with people towards a common goal, but you're in a company where people are not incentivized for that, right? Where it's more of a competitive, savage type of culture where they sort of pit people against each other and everyone's sort of a bit in silos, well, naturally, maybe you're not gonna enjoy that. You're not gonna perform at your best because again, it goes at odds with your own personal values and what you're about. So I think that is something really common that I see. And I think it's just, it's worth taking a step back and just assessing the opportunity that you're in and whether it makes sense to look at other opportunities that may be more of a fit for you. And then the second bucket is something missing in execution. So, I mean, Again, it could be something that you're just maybe not doing right. You have to really be honest with yourself too. Are you someone who's just not dedicating time to prospecting? If you're not consistently missing quota, maybe you're not doing the right top of funnel activities. And you have to really be honest with yourself. Is that something that you've become lazy with because you're just so used to inbound leads or used to the way that you were fed at a previous company or how things were in the another point in time. I think that true, like just cold sober look at yourself and what it is that you're doing and realizing that you have to, you know, that's a gap that you have to fill in order to see success is really important too. So yeah, kind of 2 different reasons, but you know, I think either way, just knowing how to objectively assess yourself and be really honest with yourself are the 2 key important things.

1:05:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great, great articulation. What would you want to know about the top business development or partner sellers in other organizations?

1:05:50 Rachel Shi: I think for me, it just boils down to what I'm interested in learning about anyone who's high performing, and that's what drives them, what gets them out of bed every day, which is why I love your podcast, Scott, and something that I get to get an insight into, you know, with every episode that I listen to.

1:06:07 Scott Ingram: Easy. Love it. That's why we build it. Yeah. One more call to action for you around the Sales Success Summit right here. I'm actually in the process of building the agenda for this year's event right now, and what Rachel just described fits in perfectly with the conversation I just had with one of our presenters yesterday. This event is unique because it's really focused on you as a complete sales human. We're going to explicitly talk about whether or not you're in the right place. Are you in the right role, working for the right company, and selling to the right people in a way that's going to allow you to maximize not just your success but your fulfillment? I can't think of another sales conference that goes this deep into the core fundamentals of sales success beyond the high-level strategies and tactics. This is an event built by sales professionals for sales professionals like you. It's 2 days to focus on your path, your future, and you'll be able to do it while surrounded by the most incredible set of mentors imaginable. There aren't a lot of tickets left. Our total capacity is less than 200, and the price of those tickets increases every month until we sell out. So invest in yourself. Register to join us today at top1summit.com. And then I'll see you here in Austin this October. With that, let's get back to my conversation with Rachel. I think we've mostly made it. Is there anything else that you had hoped to talk about that somehow I just didn't ask the right question to get at? No.

1:07:43 Rachel Shi: So I think, I mean, we covered a lot today. I think ultimately, you know, what I would sort of encourage everyone who's listening to this podcast to sort of really think about is, again, just how to bring more humanness to your sales process. I think the biggest misstep that I see is people sort of getting too much in their head, like overthinking like different tactics they need to use or different like opening lines in a cold call or different sort of email kind of like cadences and things like that, where I feel like there's just almost like an overcomplication of what sales needs to be. And I think you almost need to get to a point where you… it's better to strip things down to sort of their core principles. And again, just remembering that we're just humans engaging in a conversation. That's what it is with your prospects and customers. And once you've sort of reached that point of kind of basic, you know, sort of sales knowledge, then you can afford to let things go a little bit and almost just not take yourself, you know, too seriously, right? Because that is when the true self your true self will come into play. And I mean, paradoxically, it's where I think you'll start attracting more of the right client. So that would be kind of my, my final, my final thoughts here.

1:09:00 Scott Ingram: Great stuff. Great stuff. Well, Rachel, I'm going to do everything I can, assuming that the various border authorities cooperate with us to make sure that we get you down to the Sales Success Summit in October in a good way. I imagine that you're maybe not as tied to. I have a very bad habit. It just happens to be the perfect timing for the summit. It always starts on the Monday that is also Canadian Thanksgiving. But amazingly, we've had a number of Canadians every year come down. So says a lot to how powerful this group of people is. And I know it'll be even more powerful if we can find a way to include you in this event. And if you're listening to this and you love this stuff and you want to connect with the Rachels of the world, You gotta go to top1summit.com and join. The remaining tickets are not gonna last much more than another month, maybe 2 if we're lucky, but things are really starting to accelerate. I'm seeing a lot more ticket sales come through as, as we get closer. So top1summit.com, make sure to check that out. And then Rachel, the last thing we always do is, to your point, we covered a lot of ground. We talked about a lot of stuff. I'd like to try and make this as actionable as we can for our listeners. So what would you challenge them to do? Over the next week, maybe 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:10:14 Rachel Shi: Yeah. So I think for everyone out there, it kind of ties back into kind of my core philosophy in terms of just better understanding people. And I think to better understand people, it starts with better listening skills. You know, that's something that we talk about a lot, but I so rarely ever see it being put into practice very well in the sales reps that I work with. So I think with everyone who's listening to this, try this for the next couple of weeks. Start every call with a beginner's mindset. So take the time to really understand the person on the other end. Don't just accept what they say at face value and see that as a business case to move forward. Peel back the layers of what people are saying. Take the time to listen and try to get to the real pain or the real, you know, the real challenge of why they're reaching out to you. Once you have that, start taking notes, right? So take down everything that they're saying and not just the surface level stuff, but the real insights. And then once you've done that, when you send your recap to your prospect or customer, relay those things that they said back in that email. And you can do it in email form. You can do it in video form. Obviously, that's something that we advocate for. Here at Vidyard, it does make a big impact and it differentiates yourself from a lot of other reps. But I can't tell you how many times I've done that exact thing. And the person that I've been talking to says, oh my God, like no one has ever done that. You'll get people being pleasantly surprised because people are used to terrible sales reps. Terrible sales reps are the norm, right? People who are lazy, people who just try to push their own agenda onto their prospects and customers. So if you can really take the effort to sort of embed that, right, taking the time to listen to what they're saying, deriving the insight of what they're saying, and recapping that right back to them, repeating it, you know, in their own words back to them in your email, your video follow-up, it is going to go a long way in terms of just building that trust. So try it out for a couple of weeks and see how it works for you.

1:12:24 Scott Ingram: So well done. So well done. I'm going to pile on. I'm going to add my own challenge to that. And I'm going to suggest that right now, Hopefully you already have Vidyard. If you don't already, you can go to top1.fm/vidyard and get it for free. Send a recap video to Rachel and I and just call out what was the one thing from this episode that made the biggest impact for you. And I'm sure Rachel will do it. I'm happy to do it. I will reply with my own Vidyard if you will take the time to do that. So Rachel, thank you for an amazing time. Thank you for being amazing. And just sharing your time with us today.

1:12:58 Rachel Shi: Thank you so much for having me on. It was a blast.

1:13:02 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.