13: Top Director of Strategic Accounts Bill Pai of Cornerstone OnDemand - Listening, Learning and Laughing his way to #1

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:25 Scott Ingram: Today my guest is Bill Pai. Bill is the top director of strategic accounts at Cornerstone OnDemand. Thanks for joining me today, Bill.

0:32 Bill Pai: Pleasure to be here, Scott.

0:34 Scott Ingram: Now, I haven't done a very good job of representing the account management role lately, since you have to go all the way back to episode 1 to hear my conversation with Mike Dudgeon at LinkedIn. What makes Bill really interesting is that he's been in all the roles. He spent most of his career in new client acquisition. He's been an RVP, but he's very intentionally decided to stay in this role, and I'm looking forward to talking about that. But before we do that, we're going to start like we always do so that you can get as much value as possible out of the first 5 to 10 minutes of the show, and I'll ask Bill, what he believes are the top 3 things that have allowed him to get to and stay at the top in his current role. Bill, what do you say?

1:11 Bill Pai: Sure, I'll be happy to speak to that, Scott. And first, let me say that, of course, there are many, many more than 3 keys to long-term sales success, you know, things such as, you know, studying and staying up on the industry and preparation and so on. But your question was specifically about the top 3 things that I would say. And so after having given it some thought, I narrowed it down to these 3. The first being having passion for what I sell. The second being listening carefully. And third, keeping perspective and a sense of humor. Would you like me to go into those a little bit?

1:46 Scott Ingram: Please do.

1:48 Bill Pai: Sure. Well, the first one I hope would be obvious for most successful salespeople, and that is the having passion. Quite frank, putting it quite simply, if you don't believe yourself in what you're selling, how are you going to convince anyone else it's a good deal for them? I really feel very passionately for what I am selling at this time with my current organization. I believe that our clients, meaning the organizations, typically corporate and public sector organizations, plus the employees, the people that make up those organizations, will benefit through implementing our talent management solutions. It'll make them more effective as organizations. It'll empower them as individuals and both their companies and the society in general will benefit from all of that happening. So I do believe it, and I really try to live it and express that when I'm talking with my clients and prospects. Secondly, listening carefully. Once again, that's probably no revelation to any successful salesperson. People, clients, prospects, they don't want to be talked at so much as they want to be listened to. And listening, you know, is more than just the act of hearing. It's also listening in the sense of caring, of responding, of addressing. And so it's very important to listen carefully to who you're speaking with, and even listening carefully on conversations where you may not be one of the main players. You know, you may be one in a group, in a meeting, and yet you still can learn a great deal by listening that can be useful later. And then lastly, and I kind of toyed with the idea of perhaps making this the first one, but keeping perspective and a sense of humor. Now, I wouldn't say this if I was, say, a heart surgeon, but what I do, while I think it is valuable, is not like a doctor. If I don't close a sale on the last day of the quarter, nobody's gonna die. It's unfortunate, but let's keep in mind that it is simply business. And part of keeping perspective is also having a sense of humor. And a sense of humor is very valuable, I believe, not only in life but in business, because a sense of humor can help you from not taking yourself or losses too seriously. A sense of humor can help you deal with challenging clients by seeing some of the humor in what's going on in your interactions. And then lastly, A sense of humor, like, is a great way to establish rapport, to build relationships, which is such an important part of selling as well. I would tell you that all of the good… all of my good friends, one thing I would say that I have in common with all my good friends is that we have a shared sense of humor in many ways. And when you find a client or prospect that you're dealing with where you have a similar sense of humor, it creates a bond. Because having a, you know, seeing a sense of humor in someone else that you appreciate and like suggests other crucial qualities, maybe a similar view on the world. And so it can help you really build rapport. And there's been a number of times in my career where having a shared sense of humor with one of my clients, you know, really enhanced our relationships and our partnerships and, you know, just basically made it more fun to work together.

5:07 Scott Ingram: Well, and Bill, it's the sense of humor piece that really intrigued me the most when you sent the list. Can you give an example? And, you know, hopefully that's in the form of a funny story.

5:16 Bill Pai: Well, I don't know if it's funny, but I can give you a story. Back when, back when I started out my career, I'm originally from Chicago, and I started out my career with IBM. And I was in the very beginning stages of my career, and I worked for a division of IBM, and I covered central and western Illinois and Iowa. And I remember there was one customer I dealt with in Rock Island, Illinois. It's on the west coast, one of the Quad Cities, 2 of which are in Illinois and 2 of which are in Iowa. There was a company out there called Bituminous Casualty Corporation, and it basically provided insurance for miners of bitumen in the bituminous mines in the area. I believe it's still around, although it may have been renamed. So there was the VP of IT there, a guy named Dick Smith, who I was working with. Now here I am, I'm just starting out my career, and here he is. He was at the tail end of his career. He was a Korean War veteran, you know, an old grizzled, battle-scarred veteran of IT. And I mean that in the affectionate sense. And so you'd think in a sense that we had very little in common. You know, he lived all his life in the rural areas of Illinois. I had grown up in Chicago, but for some reason we hit it off famously, even though we had so little in common. Uh, and part of it was because we had a shared sense of humor. We would, you know, we found each other's jokes funny and, uh, you know, we would have good laughs when we went out to have lunch and so on. To give you a specific example, like it became a running gag with us over the, over the, uh, 4 to 5 years that I worked with him. He was the VP of IT at this company. And his wife also worked at the company. She was a few levels lower than him in the IT organization where she was a tape librarian. If you remember mounting the tapes, you know, for IBM tape storage drives. And Dick, it became a common thing for Dick to express some frustration to me that his wife, who was having some health issues but really loved her job, would not retire. And so you just say, I really wanted to retire. She doesn't need to work, but she just loves it. And, uh, you know, it's really hard on her knees. And so, you know, over the years to come, every time I'd see him, at some point I'd ask, you know, Dick, so is your wife, uh, your wife retired yet? You go, no, still not retired. Then one day after a few years, I come into his office and he is smiling like the cat who ate the canary. And I asked him what was up. And he said, Bill, You know, once again, just picture a big smile where he said, Bill, this morning I signed off on the purchase of an automated tape management system. I've eliminated my wife's job and she is retired as of today. And so I said, congratulations, Dick, on your wife's forced retirement. Let's go, let's go have lunch. And for the first and only time, we had a beer together at lunch.

8:18 Scott Ingram: That's hilarious. I guess he was in a position to make that happen.

8:22 Bill Pai: Yes, I don't know how his wife responded, but, uh, he was, he was happy as a clam.

8:27 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So Bill, I had a couple of questions on, on your other points, particularly on the, on the passion point. Did you seek out Cornerstone because you were passionate about what they were doing, or is the passion, uh, in what you sell something you really work to develop?

8:44 Bill Pai: Well, I had been in, prior to my current company, I was with a competitor of that. So I'd already been in the industry or in selling these types of solutions, and I already did have some passion for it. But at the same time, once I joined Cornerstone, my passion for the Cornerstone solution increased as I learned more about it. I mean, one of the reasons I joined… and I was recruited to Cornerstone through somebody that I hadn't worked with previously… but while I found the space interesting, I had not yet fully grasped the degree to which Cornerstone offered a superior solution to many of the other options out there. The more I learned, the more passionate I got. And so it's a, you know, sort of an iterative process going at it from both sides. Does that answer your question?

9:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it does. That's great. And on the listening front, I mean, this is something that has come up in the top 3 of several of the guests that I've had on the show. Can you talk about that in more specifics? Are there techniques that you use? Are there, are there ways that you think you listen better than others that impact your results?

9:52 Bill Pai: Frankly, no. I think listening carefully is something that's irrespective of whether it's business or personal or educational. I mean, it's simply a matter of being… it's, it's more related to being considerate of others and taking time to pay attention to what they're saying and also being able to observe, figuratively speaking, how they say it and what's important to them. And then as part of that, of course, making sure that you highlight what they've said is important, making sure you follow up accordingly, making sure you don't go off on the tangents. But, you know, I think that most successful salespeople and most people who have strong relationships with others are capable of listening carefully. There may be stylistic differences, but no, I don't think I do it better than anyone else. I I, I may appreciate it more than others, but I don't have any secrets about it.

10:47 Scott Ingram: Well, I heard what you said, but I'm going to go off on a tangent. And before I start to dig deeper into my conversation with Bill, I wanted to quickly suggest that you set yourself up with a free account on Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform that uses AI to find actionable insights on your prospects and customers for you. Sign up for Nudge to start building real relationships with your buyers. Just type top1.fm/nudge. That's N-U-D-G-E, top1.fm/nudge, and you can get started today. So Bill, talk about your role and how you got to be number one.

11:20 Bill Pai: Well, I'm currently a strategic account director at Cornerstone OnDemand, and my role is to work with several of the largest and most strategic clients in our organization. These are typically… they're, they're all organizations with Employee headcounts and extended partner networks in the hundreds of thousands, typically are global, although not every single one of them is, but often do… but also deal with multiple languages, are based on multiple continents, and so on. It's my responsibility to maintain the client relationship and expand it as Cornerstone's offerings and the client's needs evolve.

12:03 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And can you quantify your results for us in whatever way you're comfortable?

12:06 Bill Pai: I've had a… I've been fortunate enough to have a good deal of success during my time here. Last year, I was at 195%, number 1 in revenue generation in my organization. Previous year, I was at 150%. So it's been a run of a number of good years. And I could say 5 out of the last 6 years, I've been number 1 in revenue in my team.

12:31 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. And I mentioned at the beginning that you've worn all the different sales hats. Why have you decided to stay in account management? Because I know that wasn't your original intent.

12:42 Bill Pai: That is correct. You know, at my previous company, and frankly, for the last 18 years before I joined Cornerstone, I had been in sales management, and my prior position was a regional VP of sales. Once again, When I joined Cornerstone, I was recruited and I was interested. You know, when I was approached by the person I had worked with previously, I was seeking a sales management position. I was comfortable doing that. I had been successful doing it and I wanted to continue doing so. But I was informed they did not have a position at that time in sales management, but also that they had approached me with a different position in mind, and that was the first of its kind, which was basically an account manager, although that's not the title we give them now, an account manager for the client's strategic accounts. Several years ago, our company was much smaller. There were far fewer clients and far fewer very large strategic clients. So they wanted to bring somebody in who was a senior salesperson who could interact with executives at these enterprise clients. And as one of the people I interviewed, with said way back when, he said, we want, quote, a salesperson who cares, unquote. And so, so they brought me into that spot. I had… I took it with the understanding that at a certain point, had I proved myself successful, that I would move into sales management once again in the new client acquisition side or within the account management group once it grew to the point where they had managers. And all that happened, and I was given the opportunity, but I decided not to take it and stay in the position I'm in, in which I still am. The reasons were first that I found it to be far more interesting than I had anticipated. It's fascinating working with these global enterprises to help effect organizational transformation. And also I have a couple of clients that are particularly interesting to work with. And had I moved into management, I would have been forced to give them up. And I didn't want to do that. And then lastly, it was, it was, I was doing very well financially and was starting to enjoy that without the additional stress and travel of sales management.

15:02 Scott Ingram: That's great. And where did this start for you? How did you get into sales in the beginning?

15:08 Bill Pai: Sure. Well, when I was in college, I became an IBM intern. My parents were IBMers. My father was a Quarter Century Club IBMer. He spent over 30 years there, and I had an IBM scholarship in school. So I started at the University of Chicago. So then I started as an intern in their AR department in one of the local Chicago branch offices. Once again, I was in accounts receivable and was basically, you know, handling invoicing and so on, working 20 hours a week during the school year and full-time during the summer. And I've always been interested in watching the dynamics of of groups of people. And so while I was working in this branch office, I had a chance to observe people in action and all the different functions in this branch office. It was one of the larger ones. It worked with Sears, among others, which was much, much huger, larger at the time, not the Sears that is a shadow of itself today. So looking at what was going on in the branch office, I pretty quickly realized that the big dogs in the branch The ones with the most glamour, the most respect, the most applause and awards at the branch office meetings were the top salespeople. And I had not envisioned being in sales at the time, but I didn't really have a specific thing I wanted to go for. And just being somewhat competitive, I said, those are the top dogs, so I want to be one of them. And that's how I got into sales.

16:37 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, and in those days, I mean, IBM was legendary for their sales training. So I imagine that, that gave you a really strong foundation.

16:45 Bill Pai: Absolutely. I would, uh, uh, I, it was a 13-month training program, uh, 3 weeks at a time in classes down in the Dallas area. And, uh, it was just a, just an extremely valuable sales and technology education and training program.

17:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I'm, maybe some folks will reach out to me with, with this answer. I've, I've scratched my head. I often think that one of the best places to start, and this will actually be the next question I ask you, Um, but I think if you're starting in a sales career, it makes a lot of sense to go to work for a company that has one of those really amazing training programs. And back in the day, you know, IBM and Xerox were kind of the gold standard. I don't really know what that is anymore. I don't, I don't know who has the gold standard of, of sales training from an organization where you can get a great start and then be massively recruited. Bill, maybe you have an idea, but I'm really interested in you know, if you were starting over today, if there's anything you would have done differently, or if you would have taken maybe a different path in your career, if you had a chance to do it over again.

17:51 Bill Pai: Sure. You raise a good point, Scott. You're absolutely right that companies like Xerox and IBM were legendary for their sales training programs. And I'm not, I'm not aware either of a comp… of another company at this time that would have occupied an equivalent position. I know at one point before it was, uh, acquired Siebel Systems was legendary for their training, but once again, they're no longer around. When it came to starting over today, first off, let me say that I consider IBM to be one of the world's great companies, and it was great for me, and it taught me a great deal, and I don't regret any of it. However, if I were starting over today, and if I were, say, advising my son, if he wanted to go into a business career, he's too young to know that yet, But I think that based on what I have seen in my career, and during my career I've worked with… I've worked closely with a number of the Big 4 consulting companies, okay? And if I had it… we're starting over today, I think I might recommend starting with one of them because I've been extremely impressed by the people that have come out of those consulting companies, whether it was, you know, Andersen Consulting way back when, or Accenture, Deloitte, PwC. I think that their skill set, their analytical skill set, I think may be a little bit broader than, say, an IBM, which is, you know, more focused specifically on IT. And back in the days where I was at IBM, more, even more so on hardware. So I think that for a, you know, a bright, ambitious person looking to go far in the business world, I think starting with one of the Big 4, if you can get in, would be my recommendation.

19:41 Scott Ingram: You know, I think that makes a lot of sense because before the sales skills really matter… well, in the B2B space, right? And most, most of our emphasis has really been B2B here of late. I think having a really strong business acumen makes a huge amount of difference because if you can't communicate from a business perspective, it's really hard to do the sales piece.

20:07 Bill Pai: Absolutely, absolutely correct.

20:09 Scott Ingram: So Bill, you've had a pretty long and varied career. What are you most proud of through that adventure?

20:14 Bill Pai: Well, there's a number of things. I mean, setting aside the fact that I'm proud that I've been successful, shall we say, that I've hit my numbers and that I have justified the investment that my employers have made in me. So I upheld my part of the deal, so to speak. But looking at it another way, in terms of things that I've had the opportunity to accomplish during my career, there are a number of ones, but mostly I'm proud of the ways I worked, what I worked together with some of the major clients over the past couple decades to achieve. In the case of with Cornerstone here, to enable to effect organizational transformation at the global level, to enable organizations to become more effective. I'm very proud of how they've been able to do that. I worked with one of the Big 4 to totally transform their approach to learning and development globally. It's been a multi-year project, and I find that very satisfying. I've worked with these people now for years, and we've accomplished many, many good things. And I can't overstate how satisfying I find it. I mean, when it comes to my career, business, my… not my personal life. I've found in business there's nothing I've found to be more satisfying than working together with people I like and respect to successfully achieve a common objective. That's very satisfying. And so when I look back at what I'm most proud of, it are some of the larger and more far-reaching projects where we together, we accomplished some big things. Does that answer your question?

21:54 Scott Ingram: That is awesome. Yeah, absolutely. What about the flip side? What's been the biggest challenge or maybe the most challenging time?

22:01 Bill Pai: Well, you know, life is challenge, and sales is certainly no, uh, one of… not one of the lesser challenging, less challenging parts of life. I mean, uh, part of the nature of information technology, I find I'm hard-pressed to think of another industry that changes more rapidly than this one does. And so to keep abreast of the macro trends, to keep abreast of the latest hot buttons from buyers, to keep afloat on all of the product enhancements, all of the competitive offerings, that's almost a full-time job in itself. And in fact, we do have, for instance, competitive analysts, we do have, you know, product specialists and so on. No one person can do it all, and certainly not a salesperson with all the other demands on their time. So to find that balance where you can keep on constantly refreshing your toolset to keep up to date on all the things you need to keep up to date on while maintaining a steady level of activity to drive results. You know, that's, that's a challenge, and it's an ongoing dynamic that we all navigate more successfully at some times than others. You know, this can be like a pendulum swinging back and forth, but that's, that's what I consider to be the greatest challenge that I face And how do you manage it?

23:22 Scott Ingram: How do you find that you're most successful in keeping up?

23:25 Bill Pai: Well, as I said, sometimes I'm… some years, sometimes I'm more successful than others. But what I found in general is that you have to set aside time specifically for, say, product, you know, product refreshers, you know, prospecting and so on. You know, don't try to squeeze it in when, you know, when you don't have some fire burning, you have to set aside time. For instance, I will typically set aside time on Fridays to do more of my prospecting than I would, you know, on Mondays. I think Fridays work better. And, you know, so I have to fence off some time for that and stick to the schedule. Don't just squeeze it in when you can.

24:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Are there any particular resources that you find more helpful than not as you do that work?

24:11 Bill Pai: Well, I mean, we live in… I mean, you know, when I consider how it is now compared to things a couple of decades ago, I mean, we're in such a better position in terms of our ability to do our own research. I mean, with the internet, I mean, I remember, you know, I'm dating myself here, but I remember in the early days of my career, we would go by competitors' headquarters to get their annual report out of the lobby. You know, nowadays, you know, with a few mouse clicks or a few keyboard strokes, you can find out so much. That is out there. I mean, everything from, you know, annual reports to business trends to, um, you know, uh, uh, stock market, uh, indices and metrics and so on, you know. So, you know, I mean, I guess it's taking the easy route to say the internet, but just by going online you can find… I mean, especially with public corporations, they have to be, uh, you know, they have to be upfront to a certain degree. So You know, you just… if you simply, you know, make the time, there's a great deal you can find out. And in my opinion, any prospect that you go into should… has the right to expect that you should have done some research before you went in there and took up some of their time, because the information's out there and they should not have to educate you about their own business, their own company, what's important to them, at least not from the ground up. You should have done your homework, and in doing so, you demonstrate credibility to them and it puts you in a better position to have a meaningful discussion.

25:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. What does the rest of your information diet look like? What are you typically listening to and reading, whether it's while you're commuting or otherwise?

25:56 Bill Pai: Well, I subscribe to several business magazines. You know, it's… I think it's very important to stay abreast of that. You know, the obvious things like Bloomberg, and so on. But then I also subscribe to some, some industry-specific things, and then also the Bersin by Deloitte. I worked with Josh in a previous life, and I think that the reports, the analyses, the insights that Bersin by Deloitte produces are tremendously relevant and insightful to the industry that I'm in.

26:33 Scott Ingram: And spell that for me, Bill. We'll make sure we put that in the show notes.

26:36 Bill Pai: Uh, Bersin by Deloitte. Uh, that's, uh, B as in Bravo, E as in Echo, R as in Romeo, S as in Sierra, I as in India, N as in November. Bersin by Deloitte. It used to be Bersin & Associates until it was acquired by Deloitte a couple of years ago.

26:53 Scott Ingram: Okay, awesome. And then, are you… would you describe yourself as a morning person or a night owl?

26:58 Bill Pai: I'm more of a night owl, but let me say that I get up very early each day because I'm on the US West Coast and I support clients on the East Coast and in Europe. So, I mean, I love to stay up late at night, but I'm up early every day working. So, you know, I stretch both ways. I also support clients in Asia, so sometimes I have to be on evening calls. But, you know, I'm in at the crack of dawn because there's a lot to be done.

27:24 Scott Ingram: Sure, sure. How do you structure your day? What do your kind of core routines look like, whether that's morning or evening?

27:32 Bill Pai: Yeah, nothing too earth-shattering here. Basically, at the end of each day, and let me say that, you know, I usually work a couple of hours in the evening to clean up loose ends and set my schedule in order for the next day. So whenever that is, at the end of the day, I assemble a list of actions for the following day. You know, and I prioritize the list. And so when I roll in first thing in the morning the following day, I start attacking that list and checking them off. And, you know, if something… if there is something that I cannot complete or is dependent on someone else to get back to me before I can, I move it to the next day. And I just make that list my number one priority. Obviously, there are critical interruptions that come up now and then, but you know, a critical, an urgent and important interruption is not the only type that's going to come up. Sometimes there are urgent things that are not that important, or there are just unimportant things that can distract you. And I have to be very focused on making sure that those do not take me away from focusing on that list.

28:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Do you have particular processes to make sure that that doesn't happen, that you don't get derailed by those less important things?

28:44 Bill Pai: Not really. I, you know, I used to, you know, set aside blocks of time by which I wouldn't answer the phone or email and so on. It's getting a little bit harder with, you know, instant messenger and so on, you know, although you can turn that off as well. But, you know, I usually try to, at some point, at a couple of points during the day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, to shut off all interruptions and focus on something nonstop for at least an hour.

29:11 Scott Ingram: Perfect, perfect. And then what about kind of the, the higher level, how you might be structuring your week? It sounded like you're, you're kind of carving out some time on Mondays to do some personal development and just learning and keeping up to date. Are there other kind of anchor things that, that are important in the way that you set up the, the week or the month?

29:32 Bill Pai: Yeah, well, I mean, realizing of course that there are always exceptions and a lot is subject to the schedule of schedule constraints of others, but I typically try to spend Monday and Fridays in the office. Monday to, you know, uh, you know, kind of get things going and handle some of the personal development, as you mentioned. Tuesdays through Thursdays are tip… you know, I would… are when I would be visiting clients, uh, traveling and visiting clients. And then Friday would be, uh, you know, both prospecting and catching up on loose ends and also For some of the large clients I have, I have standing recurring weekly calls, and I usually try to put those on Friday.

30:11 Scott Ingram: Ah, yeah, that makes sense. What about when you're traveling? Are there, uh, are there ways that you structure that time knowing that it's oftentimes very, very unstructured, um, or, or other just, uh, tips of the, uh, tools of the trade that you've, that you found that help you kind of manage that when you're on the road?

30:29 Bill Pai: Well, The only thing, the only rule that I would make is that I do try to set, I do try to set aside an hour each, even when I'm traveling somewhere in the middle of the day, whether it be over lunch or, you know, sometimes you can't get back-to-back meetings or you may be in transit. I do want to spend, at least have one free hour in the middle of the day to respond to emails and voicemails. Okay, I don't, you know, I don't start the day and then go to the end of the day before I respond to emails and messages. I'm not saying that I respond to every one of them, but I at least scan through them identify what's critical or time-sensitive or what's simple to respond to because, uh, you know, the speed of business is such that, uh, you know, uh, things can't languish, uh, for days like they used to.

31:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And anything else besides just making sure that you've got that chunk to, to stay, stay on top of everything?

31:22 Bill Pai: Um, this would not deal with, uh, my own personal organization, but more how I would interact with others. I'm… I do believe someday if I, uh, take the time, I'd like to write a little article on email communications because I think it's very important when you're dealing with very busy people who are often on the go. Many times when you send them an email, they're going to see it on their smartphone, so it's a very small screen. And so you need to get to the point fast. And so I have some general policies where, you know, like I always put the subject of my note in the subject line. Okay, I really, for instance, I don't subscribe to the idea people just hit reply to a long chain of emails, even if the email chain goes off into a different subject and they don't change the subject line. People need to know just by looking at the subject line what you want or what it's about. And then secondly, I try to make the first sentence make… express clearly what I want. Out of that note. Now, that's not to say, like, I don't say, you know, hello, Jack, great to see you again yesterday, and then I jump into the main point. But, you know, either the first or the second sentence, make it clear what that note is about. People should not have to read a couple of paragraphs or scroll down a few pages to find out what you want. Make it clear what you want right at the outset. And I have found that you're far more likely to get a response, particularly from executives, when you get right to the point, you're very clear, and you don't waste their time.

32:54 Scott Ingram: Boy, if you ever decide to write that article, you let me know. We'll, uh, we'll be happy to share that with the, with the community. And speaking of the community, we've got a new little tool, uh, to make it easier for people to join our Sales Success Community. If you text TOP1, that's the number 1, TOP1 to 444-999, you can get your own invitation to the Sales Success Community, which is all free. And we try and pack that with as much value, uh, as we can. Uh, just note that that will only work in the US. So if you're outside of the US, you just have to go to top1.fm. And sign up that-a-way. Bill, any particular tools or apps that you find you just can't live without?

33:32 Bill Pai: Well, first and foremost is Salesforce. I've… the last several companies I've been at have used Salesforce, and I use it religiously. I think this is part of… I mean, I first started doing this when I was a sales manager because I'm very… I was very adamant with my folks that they should capture things in Salesforce, their contacts, contacts' information. They should be regularly updating their forecasts, and they should not allow them to become obsolete and so on, and that they should attach all executed paperwork and relevant, you know, other documents or files to the opportunity or to the account. So I live in Salesforce every day. Then I have, you know, our company intranet, our company wiki, which is always the best source for the latest up-to-date information, and then I have various news feeds and that come in, including LinkedIn, from the clients, the organizations that I work with. So it's a regular diet of information. And quite often when I'm in my office during lunch, I eat… I tend to… I eat lunch, as I call, al desco. I eat at my desk. And that's when I review… that's when I review the news of the day and look at all the feeds and so on.

34:48 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Now, Bill, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy, or in this case, maybe it's even an account management strategy?

34:56 Bill Pai: Well, my company subscribes to the Challenger Model. Are you familiar with that?

35:01 Scott Ingram: I am.

35:02 Bill Pai: Yeah, and I think that's, you know, I mean, we've seen, I mean, over my career, I've gone through so many different selling methodologies and workshops, and I know fads come and go, and this is one of the more recent ones, although it's not the latest, but I thought that one was particularly insightful. I thought It really made some very strong points. I thought it did a very good job of identifying the different types of sales performers, which I have seen in my career. So I have, you know, I can attest from personal experience, I think they're onto something there. So, you know, if somebody were to ask me, you know, I'm getting… I want to get into sales, what is the sales philosophy you might recommend? I'd probably lead with The Challenger.

35:43 Scott Ingram: Is there a second one? Is there one that kind of was a go-to behind that or was a little bit maybe found more foundational for you?

35:51 Bill Pai: Maybe Solution Selling, if you remember that one. And way back early in my career, I took… I went through a Miller Heiman one. And then, well, I really have gone through a bunch. There was the old Siebel Systems TAS, Target Account Selling, which is also very effective as well.

36:08 Scott Ingram: Interesting. Yeah, my caution would be on the Challenger Sale. It's a little bit dense and you need to read the whole thing. I think a lot of people have read the first bit of Challenger and gone running off And have taken it a little bit out of context. And I think it can be a very dangerous methodology if you don't take it all the way through.

36:30 Bill Pai: Yeah, I would agree with that. And also, I would say that there are, I believe it's 5 sales types that they identify in that book. Nobody fits into a simple set of labels. There are, each successful salesperson has a little bit of all 5. Of those characters, of those character types within them. And they come out at different points in time. You know, you could not just be one type exclusively and not have any of the other traits, I think, and be successful. To a certain degree, you adapt to the situation.

37:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. How would you describe your style, your overall style?

37:10 Bill Pai: Well, if you look at the Challenger Model, I think I might describe myself as the lone wolf. As it fits on in there. I tend to, I tend to work somewhat independently. I feel that, you know, I should not go to my management and ask, what do I do? I should go to my management and say, here's the situation I'm facing, here's how I, here's how I intend to approach it, here's what I need from you, do you approve? You know, I think they're looking for me, looking to me to come up with solutions rather than just ask questions. So along those lines, I You know, consultative is an overused word, but, you know, I try to listen carefully to the client and to respond accordingly with what they say are their priorities and needs at the time.

37:56 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And what… and how do you motivate yourself?

38:00 Bill Pai: You know, that's an interesting question. I'm not sure how I'd answer that because I… first, let me say, and I've, as both a sales manager and as a parent, I believe That motivation comes from within. It's not something you can, you know, foist onto somebody. You know, if your sales… if your sales rep is not motivated to sell and to overachieve, or if your child is not motivated to do well in school, you're not going to be able to give them that motivation, that motivation, no matter how much you put them on plan or threaten to take away their… take away their games. Uh, so, you know, so, and I don't have a problem motivating myself, so I hadn't really thought about that. But, you know, I would say that, I mean, you know, I, I do believe that, you know, having a goal, having goals and a sense of purpose are prerequisites for having a meaningful life. Otherwise, you cannot judge whether or not you've been successful, whether you've made progress, and you are also not able to acquire and enjoy the things that you find add to the quality of life. So, you know, I understand that what I do, while it's, you know, it doesn't cure cancer, you know, it's not going to win the Nobel Peace Prize, I do believe that it contributes in a meaningful way to society. I want to be a part of that. I also am competitive. I see other people in the same field who I respect, and I want to be considered in their class. So, you know, both, um, just my goal to do something meaningful with my life and my competitive streak are what motivate me. Does that make sense?

39:40 Scott Ingram: It does. And, and with that competitive piece, I mean, being number one as consistently as you have been, um, you, you don't have a target in front of you, you have more of a target on your back. How, how do you, uh, how do you deal with that?

39:54 Bill Pai: Well, I mean, it's, uh, you know, ultimately, ultimately it's flattering, right? Everybody wants to knock off the top dog, including me when I'm not. So, I mean, I don't know that I'd consider to even have a target on my back. You know, when it's the coworkers, you know, that I have in my company, we're all part of the same team. You know, it's not a zero-sum game. And so I spend, you know, I spend some time helping others, you know, when they request assistance or, you know, want to bounce ideas off me. I don't, you know, I don't, look at myself as, you know, being, uh, above them or better than them. You know, I'm one of them. I just happen to be enjoying a good run of success, and I'm happy to share anything that I can that would help them as well. So I don't really view it as having a target on my back. We're all just, uh, striving to do the best we can. Yeah.

40:47 Scott Ingram: Bill, is there something you believe that the average AE would think is crazy?

40:51 Bill Pai: Out of all the questions I thought you might ask, this one kind of stumped me a little bit. Because I don't really have a good answer to that one. I'm sorry. I just, I don't think so. I think I'm pretty standard. I don't have any crazy off-the-wall ideas that I'm aware of that would give me an answer to the question. I really don't have anything.

41:15 Scott Ingram: That's okay. Anything on the flip side? Is there something that you think the average AE that's not at the top believes that you think is a little bit nuts?

41:23 Bill Pai: I don't know if I'd say nuts, but I think a little perhaps misguided. And that is that the idea that I think sometimes sales management, or at least sometimes overall company management, believes that people or that employees sometimes can be binary in their approach to the things they deal with every day, or that in effect you can You know, you can flip a switch and be one way or the other. Let me explain. For instance, you know, with many companies I've been with, when they're talking to salespeople, you know, about going after sales, they'll say, you know, okay, you know, go do what it takes. You know, don't take no for an answer. If you encounter an obstacle, work your way around it, find another approach, keep pushing, you know, keep experimenting, keep trying new things, anything to get to the objective. Okay, that's with the client and the prospect. Now internally, make sure you follow the process, make sure you fill out the forms and make sure you don't rock the boat. Uh, I mean, people don't flip off back and forth like a light switch. And so, you know, just as I would work to, you know, try to accelerate processes on the client side, um, sometimes you have to do that internally too. Yeah.

42:38 Scott Ingram: That's an interesting thought. What have been the most important decisions you've made or lessons you've had to learn to get where you are today?

42:50 Bill Pai: Well, one of the… I mean, there's obviously… that's rich ground for discussion. But one of the most important lessons I've learned is, perhaps some of these seem like blinding glimpses of the obvious, but no one's an island in this day in selling, especially selling complex enterprise solutions. You're part of a team. And as a sales rep or, you know, account manager, you may be the tip of the spear, so to speak, but, uh, or the tip of the iceberg, but there's a large organization and support, uh, structure in place to support you. And, uh, you should never forget that. And, uh, that not forgetting that means a number of things. First, you know, don't try to be a hero, uh, all the time. You know, leverage the other resources out there. Secondly, be aware that those other resources can provide you with some useful ideas on how to do your own job better. And then lastly, always make sure to show your appreciation for those who made your success possible. You know, I mean, if the product people didn't develop the product, if the consultants did not implement it, if the accounting people did not make sure the payments flowed, You know, it would all fall apart if, you know, some part, if any part did not do their fulfill their respective responsibility in the organization. So I think that's a very important lesson to know that we're not islands and you have to learn to work effectively and smoothly and consistently with all of the other arms of the organization you need to make yourself successful.

44:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that that's an interesting thought. It reminds me of one of my very favorite articles of all time. I'll have to I'll have to dig up the link for it because. It's a little bit dated, but in the Harvard Business Review, there was a piece on networking for salespeople and what that really meant. And I think typically when you think of what a sales professional's network is, it's potential opportunities and referral partners and things of that nature, but they really said, yeah, that's one of about 4 different elements, and the other piece is the relationships that you have within your organization, and you need that in order to make things happen for those clients. And it was just a really, really interesting piece, something I would highly recommend. We'll again put that into the show notes. You'll find that at top1.fm as well.

45:15 Bill Pai: Agreed. Another part, if I may, Scott, about fostering productive relationships within your organization, and it harkens back to my earlier point. Or subpoint on email communications. One of the ways you develop productive relationships with people is by not wasting their time. And so, you know, in your emails, in your voicemails, you know, get to the point, make it clear what you need, make it clear how they can help. Don't make it hard for them to figure that out. And when they… when people find out that you don't waste their time, they're more likely to give you some of their time.

45:52 Scott Ingram: I like that. So I'm playing with a new idea. I think we're calling this the soapbox section. And I think for you, if you have been thinking about writing an article on the email piece, what else have you been thinking about writing an article on? I know you've got a wealth of wisdom in there. I want to shake some more of it loose.

46:11 Bill Pai: Well, I mean, perhaps this comes from my having been a manager, a sales manager, for a good part of my career, actually for the majority of my career, and then also being an individual contributor and being in that role now. I, you know, I'm a big believer in the line from Peter Drucker who said, so much of what we call management consists of making it harder for people to work, unquote. I mean, there are so many processes that need to be followed that, you know, sometimes people forget that the process was put in place to help accomplish an end, and they forget that. And for them, following the process becomes the end. And, you know, we need to keep sight of the larger picture, and I find that harder and harder to do as organizations get larger. My last few companies have been relatively small, typically pre-IPO, and I really enjoyed the lack of excessive processes in a small company. But as they got bigger and hopefully more successful, you started to see more processes come in, and that is inevitable, of course, and necessary. But you need to find a good balance. Or if you say… and this happened for me a couple of times… if matters reached a point where you think, okay, that's it, the company's just reached a point where due to growth, size, or whatever, it's just too bureaucratic for me, it's time to move on and find another company. Um, you know, as Milton Friedman once said, hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. And when they start making your life miserable, something's wrong there. And so, you know, I also encourage when I'm asked by, you know, friends or colleagues or other people who may be considering, uh, you know, career changes or job changes, you know, or maybe, maybe they need to due to, uh, you know, their company getting acquired or something. One thing I recommend to them is don't just look at the company, look at… or the opportunity and the company, look at where that company is in terms of what stage in its life cycle. Okay, so, you know, for instance, like I started out my career with IBM, but I would have no interest in joining IBM right now. I'm not interested in joining a company Well, A, that's so huge and bureaucratic, but also I don't really find particularly interesting a company that's looking for, say, single-digit growth a year. You know, I want, uh, you know, companies such as pre-IPO companies that are looking for hypergrowth or exponential growth, you know, or that are at the beginning of the hockey stick curve. And so, you know, I think that's something to consider as well.

48:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no, great, great, great point. I think it's important to have sort of an understanding of yourself Uh, and, and how much bureaucracy you're willing to put up with. I won't name names in this episode, but it's not hard to look at my LinkedIn profile and kind of figure, fill in the dots here. But, you know, most recently, fairly recently, I went to work for one of those pre-IPO companies, you know, we were about 300 people and we did indeed go public and then we were acquired and I looked up and I noticed, wow, I have 130,000 colleagues. And, uh, there's a fair amount of bureaucracy that comes with that. And, you know, for me, that's just, that's not the right fit. I needed to go find another place that was a little bit smaller, a little bit more dynamic. But I just, I know that about myself. I know where I am going to thrive and where I'm not. So that's a really interesting point.

49:44 Bill Pai: Yeah, I think, you know, that also applies to as well, especially applies to successful entrepreneurs. You know, as we all know, the skill set to found and, you know, get a company, to start a company are not necessarily the same skill sets that may, that may be required when you're taking that company across the chasm, so to speak, and to becoming a mainstream market company. Uh, you know, or what was it I think Churchill said? Those who won the war could never have made the peace, and those who could have made the peace would never have won the war.

50:17 Scott Ingram: Oh, that's, that's interesting. Well, and Bill, let's bring that back to kind of your experience across these different roles. So we've talked about fit, you know, finding the right fit in time in terms of the size of organization or its maturity level. What about, what advice would you give for folks who are kind of considering, because there's a lot of earlier stage sales professionals that I know are listening to this show and, you know, they're in SDR and BDR type of roles and they're kind of looking into the future. You know, having spent a lot of time in new client development and been on the management side and been on the account management side, how, how would you suggest people look at those options and evaluate them?

51:05 Bill Pai: You mean, say, a new job opportunity?

51:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

51:07 Bill Pai: Yeah. Well, well, first and foremost, the point I made earlier, you know, what, at what stage is that company in its lifecycle? And Is that something that you're comfortable with? Some people may want a mature organization, you know, with, uh, that, uh, is very stable. You know, some people may like that more so than an entrepreneurial organization that may change its mission every other year until they find something that really sticks. So I would just say, look at what you find to be compatible with what you're comfortable with. Although I would say, hearkening back again to one of our earlier points, that I think it's useful for new salespeople to start out at organizations such as the Big 4. Give yourself that solid, you know, that solid base of sales skills and training, and also get an understanding of what working with a large organization is for. Once you've gotten that under your belt, then consider what level of risk and, you know, activity and compensation opportunity you find most successful. And then start doing things like taking advantage of offerings such as what you're doing, Scott, which is listening to people, other people that have been successful in the same niche that you think might be ones for you, and start to see what you can learn from them. Try it out and see how it goes.

52:36 Scott Ingram: Bill, what would you want to know about top AEs in other organizations?

52:41 Bill Pai: Oh, well, one of the first questions I would ask them, or I would like to get insight into, is how do they tune out the noise? You know, as I mentioned, you know, how do they, how do they deal with, you know, the volume of communications? And it's an irony that we, the more time-saving devices we have today, the less time we seem to have. So how do you tune, tune out the noise? How do you separate the, the important from the less important, the urgent from the less urgent? And how do you find that balance? Because, you know, I think that would be useful. I, I can't remember who it was, but a few years ago somebody showed me some simple little Outlook trips… tricks, you know, how to manage your emails in Outlook, filing them, color coding them, you know, based on the sender, things like that. And these are all minor things, but, you know, when you're getting, you know, possibly a few hundred emails a day, just having a way to have the ones that, you know, meet certain criteria that you, that you feel make them more important and have those jump out at you either through different color coding or going into a different folder or whatever, you know, it can save you several minutes, you know, every hour. And over the course of a day, that can add up. So I'd be very interested, you know, in all top performers. How do you manage your time? How do you filter out, you know, how do you tell the signal from the noise?

54:08 Scott Ingram: Great question. I love it. And I don't need to re-ask it of you because we already, we already touched on it. So that's great. And Bill, who's the most successful salesperson you know personally?

54:18 Bill Pai: May sound a little self-serving, but I would say one of them is the CEO of my current company who is not technically a salesperson, but obviously in that role, You know, he's selling the company and what it offers. And I don't think his personality type is, you know, what we might consider a natural salesperson. So just by sheer effort, through constant learning, through constant practice, and, you know, fanatical attention to detail, he's been, you know, one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs/salespeople. So when you say ones I personally know, uh, that would fall into it.

54:57 Scott Ingram: All right. And to wrap up, this is probably the hardest question of all, but I try and make it as actionable as we can. We've spent a little over an hour, um, sharing a lot of great insights. If you were to create a challenge for the listener, something they could do, start today or start tomorrow, um, that would take them, you know, a week or 10 days to really impact their own performance and their own trajectory, what would you suggest that they do?

55:23 Bill Pai: And that's an excellent question, Scott. Let me first say that I remember reading… let me try to change the parameters a little bit by saying that I remember reading somewhere way back when, I think it was from some behavioral psychologist, that it takes about approximately 28 days to form a new habit. And so from that standpoint, 7 days or 2 weeks, you know, ain't gonna do it. Something you do for 7 days is not yet really an ingrained habit. But of course, you know, over the course of 1 or 2 weeks, if even if it's not a habit, you may… that may be sufficient time for you to start to see if it works or not, you know, and then decide if you want to make it habit. So along those lines, you know, I would, you know, I would recommend… I can't overstate again how much it matters in a world where we're constantly interrupted. That you put some structure into your day. So I would suggest that somebody sit down and think, you know, okay, I spend, you know, out of the 100% of the time that I have each week to work, to focus on my job, you know, what percentages of time do I think, you know, these handful of primary activities take? And then once you've got that idea, then start to take a week and structure your week to allocate the Uh, this, this, the appropriate amounts of time to each of those areas and try it for a week or 2 and see how it feels. Uh, in a lot of cases you will find, gee, this one, you know, area X that I thought took 10% of my time, it's actually taken 30% of my time. So you start to notice when, you know, your own expectations are out of whack, and then you can either adjust to reflect that or you can try to adjust by reducing You know, by getting it back more in line with your expectations. So, you know, try to set up a schedule based on how you think it would be most successful or most appropriate for what's important for you to do, and then test that assumption over a couple weeks. See if it works. And most cases, you'll find there's something that isn't what you expected. And so now, how do you respond?

57:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah, what a great challenge! And talk about being right that you're not going to be able to figure out in in a week or two. I mean, I have. Spent years refining and defining sort of my own structure and the way that I build my day and my week and my schedule and all of those things. But I think that's… it's critically important because if I don't go through that process, you are not in control.

57:58 Bill Pai: Absolutely. And there's certain things that none of us can control. But we can exercise some degree. And it's, you know, that fine line between, you know, knowing which things you can and which you cannot is, you know, I would separate, you know, the top performers are probably not that far apart in an objective sense from the non-top performers, but it's probably in those areas, that little bit of difference that can make the big difference in performance results.

58:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great thought. Bill, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for your time and your insights and everything you've shared with our audience today.

58:37 Bill Pai: Oh, it's my pleasure, Scott, and I hope that somebody out there listening to it may find one or two things they find to be useful or can provide some value for them. Thank you. 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.