132: Solutions-Based Selling with Microsoft's Briana Stimmler

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of QuotaPath, Skipio, and Revenue Grid. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who are supporting you and your learning through this show and this community, just click over to top1.fm/sponsors. 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 Briana Stimmler. Briana is the Top Solutions Advisor in the Top Unmanaged Accounts team within the SMB segment at Microsoft out of Fargo, North Dakota, and we'll talk about what all of that means. Welcome to the show, Briana.

0:58 Briana Stimmler: Thank you for having me.

0:59 Scott Ingram: So, let's kick things off like we always do with some immediate value and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

1:10 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, thanks for the questions too, Priya. This one was really interesting for me to put 3 specific topics down on paper, and the 3 that came to mind right away, the first one was consistency. I wrote a note to myself saying never take the foot off the gas, your foot off the gas, because I think that that is what lends people to continuing their career within sales is that they're consistent, they have a process, they're able to come to work every single day and know what they need to get done that day. I think that's huge. The second was utilize your network. Working for Microsoft, there is so much that changes day to day and not one single person can know everything. And so asking for help, raising your hand and asking questions and trainings, in meetings, in anything that you're, you know, in front of others, I think is huge. And that's, I think, a huge part of my success as well as asking questions and admitting defeat, I wrote in my note. And then last is just follow-through. You know, if you have a conversation with a customer, if you have influence over a sale, ensure that you get paid on it. You know, if I am still in a role and I talked to a customer, say, 2 years ago, but that project is still active for them and it's just taking a little bit longer for them to complete the full project, I'm going to make sure that I get paid on that because I've had that influence. So, I think that's huge as well.

2:36 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Excellent. Well, really good stuff. We are going to dig into really all of that from a consistency perspective, talking about your workflows and your cadences and how you're managing the pipeline and the ways that you're continuing to build the network. And then obviously that follow-through is really, really key. But let's get into the context a little bit here right off the bat, especially around the, what does top unmanaged accounts mean? And just put kind of your role and your team into some perspective for us.

3:04 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, it was quite the mouthful, right, with the introduction. Yes, my team was spun off from the digital sales team, which initially started in Fargo, North Dakota, and has now spread throughout the US and globally. So, we are a set of sellers that work within the small and medium-sized businesses. So, typically, a customer of mine is anywhere from 50 employees at a company all the way up to 2 to 3,000, I would say, is the range of account size. So we are responsible to sell net new products to these customers across a wide variety of the platforms that Microsoft has. So we work within the Azure platform, we work within the Microsoft 365 and Office platform, Dynamics and the Power Platform, and then Surface devices are all some of the overarching categories that we work with customers for. And then of course they have you know, dozens if not hundreds of different products within those. So it's just constantly changing and evolving with what we can help our customers with. And, you know, the way that I like to explain myself to a new customer is that I'm the sales rep that's really there to help them make a decision about a new purchase. And then if there's a question that comes to me that maybe doesn't fall underneath the responsibilities that I have or how I'm compensated, I'll admit defeat. And then I'll find the resource that they might need, whether it's support or whether it's services or what have you.

4:37 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Very, very clear. Very concise. And obviously, you're doing a good job of kind of setting boundaries. And I'll talk to you about these things and all this other stuff. I will find you somebody who can help.

4:47 Briana Stimmler: Yes. Yes.

4:48 Scott Ingram: Well, put your results into perspective for us, because on this show, I only talk to number 1 and top 1% sales professionals. And when I reached out to your leadership, they said, Briana is it. You must talk to Briana. So, what have you done?

5:02 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, so last fiscal year, we had 3 different targets within our role, and across those targets, I was able to hit an average of 225%. So, I have a feeling that that's why the call was sent to me or directed to me. And then, this fiscal year, with about 7 months left in the fiscal year for us, I'm projected today to land at about 175% across now 4 targets that we have. So, 7 months left to prospect to try and get to that 225, but sitting really well with the pipeline that I have today.

5:36 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. And what are those different areas that you guys are measuring in broad strokes?

5:41 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, so depending on the product, we're going to have different sales targets, right? So, it typically comes down to bookings, so the amount of revenue net new that we're influencing, and then the number of customers or the number of wins that we have. So, it's kind of boils down to those 2 pieces and then ebbs and flows each change of fiscal year. Gotcha.

6:02 Scott Ingram: It's always easy to interject at this point to talk about QuotaPath because their whole reason for being is to help track this type of quota attainment and the associated compensation. If you're still managing that process via spreadsheets, you need to check out QuotaPath right now. They've got a free tool for individuals and of course, a more comprehensive tool for teams that allow you to forecast commissions in real time. Just point your browser at top1.fm/quotapath and you can thank me later. Now back to my next question for Briana. And then in a given year, how many different accounts are you touching?

6:38 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, that's a great question. In the past, we had a specific list of accounts and now the model has changed a little bit. On average, I have active, so I'm actively working with a project of about 130 to 150 accounts. And then typically I'm holding about 200 125 to 250 different opportunities. So, one customer might be working multiple products across different projects that they have. Gotcha.

7:09 Scott Ingram: Gotcha. Let's talk just a minute here about kind of the prospecting work that you're doing and how are you going about building that consistent pipeline?

7:18 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, I think that this is probably the most consistent piece that came when I was answering questions prior to our conversation. It really boiled down to how quickly I was able to build pipeline. So I joined this team back in July of 2019. So I came in without any pipeline being built, not having any customers that I was working with because I came into this role brand new. And I was able to really hit the phones hard and built my pipeline to 100 active opportunities within 3 months of being in role. And that actually led me to be able to close a deal, my very first month enroll for over $85,000. And so, I think that ramping that pipeline really as quickly as you can is what has brought the success for the last 2 years.

8:14 Scott Ingram: So, what was that process? I mean, 100 opportunities in just a few months is pretty incredible. So, what was your approach?

8:22 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, thankfully, you know, Microsoft has a really great relationship between sales and marketing. And so, we get a lot of really great interactions to able to work with, with our customers, whether it's hand raisers where customers are asking for specific help, or it's something that we are trying to go out and help those customers with, you know, like a digital transformation journey. So I really came into role and how I ended up starting things off, because we didn't have specific accounts when I came over, was I took a list of accounts where they had agreements with Microsoft already, but they were coming to an end. So it was a push point or it was something that was outside of myself or the individual customer that was needing to make a change, but it was Microsoft contract coming up. That's how I tried to trigger those responses from customers. So I reached out and basically said along the lines of, my name is Briana, I'm here to help you with any changes that you have to your licenses. This date is coming up, so wanting to have a discussion with you about what changes that might be upcoming and that was really able to make me turn projects around faster.

9:37 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then what were… what channels did you typically use for that type of outreach?

9:42 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, so I… it's ebbed and flowed over the years. When I first started, it was to call the customer as often as I could, pretty much until they picked up the phone, and then moved and transitioned into email if we had an email for the specific customer.

9:59 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And what does that actually look like? So you're trying to get ahold of me. How often, how frequently are you, are you calling?

10:06 Briana Stimmler: Yeah. So my goal is typically to have between 8 and 10 touchpoints within 2 weeks. So now, as it sits today, I have kind of a cadence that I've created of a phone call and then an email and then a follow-up email, maybe a LinkedIn InMail message, then a secondary phone call, a third email, a secondary LinkedIn message, and then a final email to the customer. And it's changed depending on how much pipeline I have. So when I first started, it was much easier to get through more phone calls in a day and more follow-up emails because I didn't have as many current accounts. But as I just mentioned prior, I'm at about 250 active opportunities today with about 140 customers. So there's a lot of follow-up with those active customers then as well. So now my prospecting isn't quite as heavy, but due to the pipeline that I have, I'm still able to meet target with the decreased outreach, I guess you could say.

11:16 Scott Ingram: One of the channels I don't think we're talking about enough is text. Our calls often go unanswered, our emails can get lost in crowded inboxes, but texts often break through, especially once you've opened the door and are working to keep the conversation going. Skipio can help you streamline this entire process, and they've got a slew of resources and best practices. Check them out right now at top1.fm/skipio. And we'll come back and talk a little bit more about kind of how you're structuring your day and, and how you're still prioritizing the prospecting efforts and when that happens and, and all those things. But first, I want to go back, way, way back to the beginning. What is your origin story?

11:59 Briana Stimmler: How did you get started in sales in the first Yeah, you know, a joke that I make often is that I have always been in sales with items that are completely intangible. And what I mean by that is prior to working at Microsoft, I actually was an admission counselor within higher education. So, I would recruit students. If you're familiar with the higher education process is when, you know, students come to campus, to a college campus and tour, or they go to a college fair, maybe more local, I would be one of those representatives. Representatives that would physically go to your high school or physically go to different colleges to answer questions about a university. And obviously in education, there's nothing really tangible there, right? You have a, I joke, a really expensive piece of paper. And so that was my first, that was actually my first job out of college. And then I had networked into my role at Microsoft. So when I came over, I was actually hired on as a sales development specialist or an SDS, where we would handle the first 20% of the sales cycle. So, calling anywhere from, I'd say, 80 to 150 different customers a day, trying to get them to say that they had a project and then to pass them along to a sales representative that would then complete the rest of the sales cycle. And just 6 months after I was hired at Microsoft, they actually changed everybody from a sales development specialist into a sales representative.

13:31 Scott Ingram: Ah, I was going to ask about that because I saw, I'm like, wow, you moved up really fast, but they that was just a good timing thing.

13:39 Briana Stimmler: It was something, you know, to be really vulnerable here in this conversation, one of the little notes that I had said to my… had written to myself was about, about that change. You know, I would say that it probably was the biggest challenge that I've faced at Microsoft since being with Microsoft is that I was told that I was going to move to this sales representative position after only 6 months in role, to your point. And at the time, I mean, I came from higher education, so I didn't even know half of the terms that I was… of what I was selling, right? I would have Bing up and I would seriously Bing a product with a question mark after it when I was on calls with customers to see if there was a product that I could even work with that was within that SKU. So it was a really difficult transition at first, but man, looking back, it is what has brought me to where I am today.

14:39 Scott Ingram: What is it that brought you there? I mean, was it kind of the trial by fire, just that, OK, I've got to figure out everything now all at once?

14:47 Briana Stimmler: Yes, absolutely. Drinking from the fire hose. A colleague of mine, Josh Lilly, just recently in a meeting asked individuals for their favorite failure. And that was just a great line in my mind because, yeah, I was told that I would go from having these conversations with customers that was just an initial conversation of, Do you have interest? Is there a product that you would want to continue a conversation with? And then passing it on to another individual. And I was told, starting in a week, you're going to be the person making those phone calls. You're going to be the person answering those questions. You're going to be the person bringing in the technical resources if needed. You're going to be the person making the contract, negotiating the contract, and having it signed. And so that was a really big change, but it But getting on the phones quickly and just admitting defeat. Again, I guess that's just a common theme for me is telling a customer, I'm not sure about that and I want to make sure that I have the right information for you. So I'm going to take that as an action item and I'm going to get back to you. Something that I've taken away from that period of time is having customers repeat what they asked me or even asking them to send an email as a follow-up to me so that I have the question in their own words, because then there's no mistaking what they asked. It's also putting the customer… asking the customer to do something for you. So, if you can get that yes, it's more likely that they're going to keep working with you.

16:26 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. You know, it's something that I do really only when I truly don't understand, but I'm actually thinking it might be helpful when I mostly understand. I will ask people to explain it like, look, I want to make sure that I got that. Could you explain that to me again, just a different way? And sometimes that putting it back on them really provides some clarity. And obviously, having it in writing, having it in an email kind of forces them to really be thoughtful about how they're articulating what they're needing, right?

16:55 Briana Stimmler: Yep. Make it succinct. Absolutely.

16:57 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And the favorite failure is a takeaway for me that, that may work its way into my laundry list of questions in the future. I like that. What is your favorite failure?

17:08 Briana Stimmler: Oh, that's a tough… oh my goodness, that's a tough one. You know, a recent favorite failure is I lost a deal. I lost a deal to a customer that I had been working with for about 7 months, and in all honesty, it was heartbreaking. We had lost it to a really strong competitor, and I was still working with the customer for a different product purchase. So part of the reason that it's a favorite failure is because although I lost one part of the business, I was still actively working the other. So my engagement with the customer didn't stop. And through that process, actually about 3 months after we lost the business on one product, that customer came back to me and said the deal fell through with the competitor and that they were actually interested in continuing conversations with myself and my team again. And we are closing that deal now in December, which is amazing and just goes to show that you're never out of the race. You know, there's… you want to make sure that the customer is happy and you want to make sure that everything that you tell them is as honest and transparent as you can be about the process. And you just never know what karma is going to come back to you. You know, those connections and those relationships really matter.

18:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Such good stuff. Briana just talked about working through a really strong process and keeping a conversation going. Our newest sponsor, Revenue Grid, is helping their clients do this at scale. They do it by automatically capturing the data and all of these touchpoints. This helps provide visibility into what's really going on in your pipeline, and then they replace guessing with guidance around your best next actions. You can start a free trial and experience it for yourself if you'll go to top1.fm/revenuegrid. And now, without further interruption, back to my conversation with Briana. Well, obviously, this is a recurring theme, kind of the networking piece. And I wanted to ask, you said you networked your way into the job at Microsoft out of the enrollment advisor role. How did you do that? What did that look like specifically?

19:19 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, a close friend and colleague at the time when I was working as an admission counselor at a local university was a friend that had transitioned to Microsoft. And I would see her posting on LinkedIn about the different contests that they had, the different things that sellers could win, like paddleboards, and they would cater in food for individuals. And there were just a bunch of… it was just a fun environment. It looked like a really fun place to work. And that's when the sales center in Fargo, North Dakota was really just ramping up. And so I just reached out to this individual that I used to work with and said, hey, it looks like you're having a lot of fun at your job. And I'm just looking for a change in industry. Can I take you out to coffee? And just offered to have a conversation with her and pay for her Starbucks or Caribou Coffee. And she responded not only saying absolutely she'd love to meet with me, but sent me 2 job postings saying, I just got a promotion and my job is open, which was the sales development specialist role. You should apply. So I actually applied that day and was at Microsoft within 2 months.

20:32 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. That's a great, great story. And love Caribou Coffee. I will be at a Caribou later this week. There you go. I wonder if there's anything different that you would do from a career perspective, right? Knowing what you know now, kind of looking back, is there anything you would have changed?

20:50 Briana Stimmler: You know, I don't think so, if I'm being completely honest. I had never been to Fargo, North Dakota when I took the role at the university. I had networked my way through relationships relationships that I had made in college to be able to get hired to that first role and then was able to network into my current position at Microsoft. I think the piece that I reflect on and would do differently or would hope to learn faster within my career is really find a place to work that respects you and that values what you do and where your strengths are. I think that just this conversation, Scott, is a great example of that, that I'm… I've been given this opportunity to have a conversation with you from my leadership because they've seen the success that I've had. And that makes you feel so special, right? That isn't, that isn't more money. That isn't something that is maybe tangible, but anybody that listens to this is now going to have of, you know, a connection to me, which is so, so cool.

22:00 Scott Ingram: Well, okay, so you brought up something that's interesting, and I wonder if it's that… this just kind of working at a place that cares about you… that is the core of this. Because I've had a few friends who have gone to work at Microsoft in sales, and they love it. And I haven't had a chance to interrogate them enough to figure out, wait, why? What is going on? Help me understand this. And so what is it? I mean, talk about the things that, I mean, you've had an opportunity to be in a couple of different sales roles. What is Microsoft doing so well?

22:32 Briana Stimmler: Oh, man. I am by no means a spokesperson when it comes to this. But I think for myself, you know, the management that we have at Microsoft just is so, I almost want to say nurturing. When you, as a salesperson, are willing to have conversations or want to have conversations say about your career development. Management is so open to that and they want to help you meet others and interact with individuals that do completely different jobs at Microsoft. Say it's in program management or engineering or finance. They make those connections for you and I think that not only that, but different stretch projects that sellers have available to them where we're able to to give input about, say, our CRM system. Say there's something that I find is taking me 2 minutes to input this information. Well, for every single person inputting this information across 140 seller… or 140 customers and however many sellers in any given position, that adds up, right? We as sellers are told, give that feedback, work with engineering, screen share so that you can show them the changes that need to be made to make your job easier, to make your life easier. And that just makes you as an individual contributor so much more engaged throughout that process. So I think that those would be just off the cuff, 2 things that I would say is the career development that's available, and then also the input that's taken from from things that you do day in and day out.

24:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, it's really interesting. I hear similar things from LinkedIn, people that work at or have worked at LinkedIn in terms of the career development and kind of that caring from that perspective. And it's always interesting to me when you find that in really large organizations, 'cause a lot of times they can be inhuman. Is that the right word? Right, like dehumanizing.

24:47 Briana Stimmler: Like a number, right? You kind of, yeah, you can feel like just a number sometimes.

24:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, so I just think it's interesting. And I suppose I should call out, Microsoft isn't paying for this episode or, you know, There's no sponsorship here. I was just personally curious about that. And I really have had a number of friends that are extraordinarily happy at Microsoft. So, it's interesting to hear a little bit more about why. So, we talked about your favorite failure. What is your favorite sales story? Hopefully, it's a successful one.

25:15 Briana Stimmler: Yeah. You know, I think that this story ties to also just an accomplishment that I have recently gotten that I think is really telling about just, again, the relationships that matter and the connections that you make. I was working with a customer for about 2 years. I had it passed to me from a different seller that had left her role, and I had taken over the relationship and was working through a really tough negotiation because it was a larger negotiation and it was a customer that would be moving their entire infrastructure over to Microsoft's Azure platform. Which is very important, right? It can be the backbone of your company. And so that was something that we had worked through for a long-term relationship. And I went on medical leave back in July. So again, coming back to Microsoft and just the amazing support that you have, I have a chronic illness and was able to take time off to try and heal. And I got an email from this customer that told me that he was going to miss me when I was gone. And that he was excited for me to come back in the 4 weeks that I was gone on leave. And even just talking about that now just puts the biggest smile on my face because it had nothing to do with the purchase that the customer was making. It didn't have anything to do with me meeting a number or a target or anything like that, but it just meant the world that somebody that I've never met him in person, but we've been working together, you know, through Teams and putting our cameras on and interacting virtually. And that relationship meant a lot. So, that was really cool.

27:03 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. I love it. I love it. Such a good human, like, you know, we work with people at the end of the day, right?

27:08 Briana Stimmler: Right.

27:08 Scott Ingram: It should be fun and real relationships should form.

27:12 Briana Stimmler: Yes.

27:13 Scott Ingram: What about the biggest challenge or what do you find yourself kind of struggling with most in just your day-to-day sales role?

27:21 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, there are a lot of different priorities that we have within our positions at Microsoft. So, to my point of we handle everything from initial conversation all the way to contracting, there are a lot of different places that we have to go, a lot of different tools that we have to use. And so it takes time for, for you as a person to just understand where you have to go for each different ask that a customer might have. And so I think sometimes the learning curve can be a little bit longer because of all of those different tools. And that's also why I think that some sellers stay in the same role longer is that it just takes a little bit longer for, for you to know where to go and to fully have a grasp on what your day-to-day should look like.

28:15 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you must be extraordinarily organized. The thought for me of managing hundreds of active opportunities makes my head nearly explode, right? I'm managing maybe a few dozen opportunities at a time, and that's plenty for me. How are you doing that?

28:31 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, it's funny that you say that because I think my… some of my coworkers even say that I would be too organized sometimes, I think they would say. And it's actually part of my job that I like. So that certainly helps things. You know, I could not live without my CRM and Outlook and specifically the connection that is between the two of them because there's backend tracking capabilities that go between the two. So really how I structure my day is through Microsoft's Tasks. So if you're ever in Outlook, there are emails, there is your calendar, there are your contacts, and then there's also kind of this little notepad-looking picture. That is Tasks. That… those are tasks that you're able to use. So if I'm in an opportunity within my CRM, I never leave that opportunity without having a task scheduled as a follow-up. That could be just verifying that the customer made the purchase that we talked about. That could be a phone call that we have scheduled every single month, every second Tuesday of the month, let's say, as an example. It could be a reminder for myself that the customer has a credit that I had applied for that they got, and so I want to make sure that they're using that. I mean, sky's the limit in what you could do as follow-up, but I do not leave an opportunity without having a follow-up because I know that I'll forget if I don't. I say often that I'm really only as good as my notes. And so, I look back at the notes that I take then as well when I'm talking to customers.

30:13 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. That's great. Let's talk about kind of the overall structure of your day. And I know you've listened to the show a little bit. So, I always love to ask, your alarm goes off. Tell me what time that happened. And I want the blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow.

30:29 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, it was funny, Scott. I was listening to some of these podcasts and interviews that you've done with other sellers saying 5:00 AM or 6:00 AM, and I am not a morning person. So I am typically up at about 7:30, and I try and be logged in between 8:00 and 8:30 every morning. I try really hard not to check email right away in the morning and instead get right into those daily tasks that I have. Definitely not… some days are definitely better than others when it comes to not getting sucked into email. But typically I like to start with those daily reminders that I have for myself. I also use a lot of calendar blocks, and I do that especially now with the pipeline that I have to ensure that I have the time scheduled to complete all of my current follow-ups, but then also have time to prospect. So let's just, let's give an example step by step. So alarm goes off at 7:30, I'm logged in. By 8:30. From 8:30 to 10:30, I'm working on the daily tasks that I have. Then I have 3 customer calls back to back. I like to actually put them back to back so that I'm able to follow up on items separately. So I'll have a call at 10 to 10:30, 10:30 to 11, 11 to 11:30, 11:30 to 12, go and eat something, come back, have time scheduled for prospecting, and then additional calls in the afternoon. Afternoon. I also am very competitive with myself, and so I like to actually list in that Outlook calendar hold exactly what I need to do. So I'll… that as an example, this morning I told myself I needed to grab 5 new accounts that I wanted to follow up with, and I list that right in the opportunity or right in the Outlook reminder.

32:24 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. So is the competition with yourself, is just completing that thing and having like, I accomplished this block? Because it's one thing to have the time blocked. It's another thing to know, no, I actually did what I intended to do in that block. Is it just that?

32:38 Briana Stimmler: Yeah. You know, I hear from a lot of my coworkers that they also use the time blocking, but then they don't have a specific task that they need to get done in that time. So one day it could take you 30 minutes and the next day it could take you an hour and a half for the exact same thing. So I found if I give myself myself, okay, Briana, you have an hour to do this and that is all that you get from it, I work so much faster. And then I don't look at email, I don't get distracted, I turn the podcast off that's in the background, and I actually concentrate on just that item. And I take it one step further, and if I don't complete that task, I actually make myself open up that calendar reminder and change it to whatever I did. Which I think some people would probably think is a little bit crazy to your point of anything that sellers would think is crazy. But for me, it keeps me on task.

33:35 Scott Ingram: I love it. So when are you establishing those time blocks? Are they pretty consistent day to day or you start the week off and you kind of block time for the week? When, when does that process happen?

33:45 Briana Stimmler: Yeah. So it typically is towards the, you know, Thursday, Friday of the week prior. I'll look into the next week and I'll start putting those holds out. I like to keep my Mondays and Fridays pretty open and then stack my Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday full of calls. So, I'd say an average day has anywhere from 4 to 11 calls with either customers or partners that are helping my customers complete those projects.

34:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. And when I talk to the morning people, I'm always really interested in their morning routines. I'm guessing we probably don't want to get into the details of what happens between 7:30 and 8:00, but what happens at the end of the day? What, what do you do with I imagine you're more of a night owl. How does that work out?

34:34 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, there are definitely days where my manager is messaging me on Teams and telling me I need to log off because it's 6:30 and I'm still answering emails. But I really, Scott, it comes down to those tasks. So, if I'm getting towards the end of the day and I still have, say, 10 left to do, I'm going to put my head down and I'm going to try and get as many of those done as I can, because if I don't get them done today, day, then I'm gonna put them for the next day, and the next day already has 20. So if I add 5 more, that's just giving myself more work for the next day.

35:08 Scott Ingram: Gotcha, gotcha. So the, the goal is basically task zero?

35:11 Briana Stimmler: Yes, 100%.

35:13 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it. It's a thing that is possible in my own personal productivity system that almost never happens. And when it does happen… so I use a tool called Todoist, and when you get all the tasks checked off, there is some type of… see, I can't even remember what it says because I never get there. The message? There's always a couple that are going to roll over.

35:32 Briana Stimmler: Yes. Yep. It takes a lot of discipline. So, I think that that's one piece that training colleagues of mine, that is one thing that I try and prompt. Although it works for me, it might not work for everybody, but then just take a couple of pieces. You don't have to do everything that I do, but maybe take one piece and try and implement it and see what happens.

35:55 Scott Ingram: That's just good advice for listening to this podcast in general. You know, one of the things I've personally been working on is my eyes tend to be bigger than my stomach when it comes to how much I can actually get done in a given day. And don't get me wrong, I get quite a bit done in a typical day, but I'm actually trying to really be more realistic in those tasks that I'm setting for that day so that I can get to that, that task zero place and then go back into the pool and go, oh, well, hey, I can fish out a few more that I can work through today. And that's, I found that to be even more gratifying. I'm still not good at it yet though.

36:29 Briana Stimmler: It takes time.

36:32 Scott Ingram: Are there any other habits or routines that are really central to the way that you operate?

36:37 Briana Stimmler: You know, I think I've shared the really big ones when it comes to tasks. I also write a lot of things down. So, coming back to my comment prior about how I'm only as good as my notes, I write everything down that a customer shares with me, and then again, go through that repetition of asking them to repeat what they've shared. And just regurgitate what they said. So, Mr. Customer, thank you for sharing that information with me. I'm gonna repeat that to make sure that I was correct and understood what you were sharing with me. Because you never know what detail is going to help that next section of the sales cycle. It also helps with that relationship building piece that you, if you can remember that a customer of yours went on their honeymoon 5 months ago, and the next time that you touch base, you just ask how the trip was, that's gonna become more… again, that relationship is going to become more human to human versus just a salesperson trying to reach out. So I think that that's really key, and that it ties to introductory calls. You know, at the very start of this call, Scott, you said the title that I have, and it is a mouthful, right? So making sure that customers understand where you can help is going to to help you be successful. A way that I tell coworkers of mine sometimes is that I hold information hostage. So if a customer of mine fills out a bookings form and they say that they want to talk about Dynamics, for example, I will introduce myself to the customer and I will talk about every other product that I can get credit for or I can get compensated on, and I I will get information about everything and make sure that the customer knows we're going to get to the Dynamics conversation that you wanted to talk about today, but let's talk about these other pieces first. And then at the end of the call, we'll get to what they asked for. And that just helps you increase your pipeline.

38:42 Scott Ingram: All right. That is pretty brilliant. I think I know what we're going to take a snippet of and feature on our Daily Sales Tips podcast. So, speaking of technology, what are kind of the tools and apps that you can't live without? I mean, you already called out all the core stuff around CRM and your calendar and your tasks. What else enables you to be the superhuman that you appear to be, whether or not you are a robot?

39:06 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I mean, Scott, I think I have a bad answer because I really think that's what it comes down to is the CRM, Outlook, my OneNote to take the… well, actually OneNote for like tips and tricks, my email templates and different things that I'll have. But then notes are going to go in Outlook due to different GDPR regulations. But that's really what it comes Awesome, awesome.

39:30 Scott Ingram: Simplicity, right?

39:31 Briana Stimmler: Yes. Yeah.

39:32 Scott Ingram: What about your information diet? What are you listening to, reading, and watching, and when does that happen?

39:37 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, work from home, all that COVID has brought us, Microsoft has, depending on the location where you're at, has been work from home completely since March of 2020, as I'm sure a lot of listeners can understand. And so, we in the office, had an open work environment. So if I was sitting at my desk, I could nearly hit elbows with the coworker that sat next to me because of how close we were in our open office setting. And now I have a bedroom that we converted into an office. So now that I have that space, one, I have not used a headset in about a year and a half. So maybe that's why some of the background is coming through thinking I'm a robot, is it's just like, what is going on? Why am I being used? And also, So podcasts or audiobooks are pretty much going constantly if I'm not in a call. And I tend to lean more towards podcasts that I can learn something from. So I would say my, probably my 2 favorites that I am caught up on that I listen to anytime a new episode is released is How I Built This by Guy Raz and then Freakonomics. Are the two.

40:53 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it. Yeah, those are pretty good ones. From an audiobook standpoint, what have been your kind of standout favorites in the last year or two?

41:01 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I just finished Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which is kind of a throwback, a little bit of a throwback. And that one wasn't as much about sales, it was more about, you know, how to make your dollar work more for you on a personal side. And then I do mainly books that are fiction, sometimes nonfiction, and I'm all over the board. I'm in a book club, and so every single month a different one of us chooses the book that we want to read. So, it can be all over the board depending on who chooses that book.

41:36 Scott Ingram: And is this just a group of friends that are the book club? Is this coworkers?

41:40 Briana Stimmler: It is. Yeah, it's just a group of 6 women that I've met through a variety of different means in Fargo. We used to get together every month and have dinner and talk about the book, but But then, since COVID we've gone more virtual with it.

41:52 Scott Ingram: There you go. There you go. Briana, I'm curious about your style. If I'm one of your customers, how do I experience you?

42:02 Briana Stimmler: You know, I would like to think that it comes off as that Midwest nice. And I would say that I'm honest and transparent, sometimes to a fault, because I can get myself caught in situations where it's not a solution that I get paid on or compensated on, or say a customer needs help with support, that's really not something that my team works with. We can escalate some tickets, but it's not anything that I have, I have a line of sight into. But if it's a customer that I have a relationship with, I'm gonna help and escalate that ticket, or I'm going to help and see where I can direct you. And so then that sometimes can take time away from the core needs that I have in my day-to-day.

42:53 Scott Ingram: Well, but it sounds like you do a good job of balancing it, right? In terms of first kind of setting the expectations and the boundaries of here's where I can help, here's where I can't. But when you can't help, it's, hey, let me quickly help you find somebody who can, and you can move through it, still maintain the relationship, all that good stuff.

43:11 Briana Stimmler: Yep, 100%. Absolutely. And I like to make jokes on calls. I tend to kind of poke fun at myself a lot. One of the lines that I make, depending on the customer, because I work with customers all over the United States. As I joke a lot about my accent, I say that if they can't tell that I'm from Minnesota, the vowels will give it away. It's one of my lines that tends to land.

43:34 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Love it.

43:35 Briana Stimmler: Yeah.

43:36 Scott Ingram: Let's talk motivation for just a minute. What is it that motivates all of this? How do you think about motivation?

43:43 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, you know, this one was tough because it's money, Scott. It really comes down to money right now. Being able to make that extra sale and make that extra dollar is something that I really watch for a variety of reasons, but I think that that's really what it boils down to for me. I also like to say for Microsoft, every fiscal year, it's a new year, it's a new game. So I learn how to make the buckets that we talked about, the targets that I have, I make my pipeline as efficient towards those targets every July. And so, that's, I would say, the 2 pieces of what motivates me is really that money that comes from sales and then finding a new way to play a new game.

44:32 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. That's always, I mean, especially when you have more complex comp plans, right? There's always that process at the beginning of the year, like, okay, let me dissect this thing. Let me figure out how to take full advantage of this. But I'm curious about, I know you're very recently married. Congratulations. Congratulations.

44:49 Briana Stimmler: Thank you.

44:50 Scott Ingram: What's the purpose for the money? Where's, where's it gonna go?

44:53 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, yes, thank you. This Stimmler as my last name is still something I'm getting used to. It's been 9 weeks and we, my husband and I, are actually building a home. So we are in the process of starting from scratch. We bought property on a lake and it's beautiful, but it is just property. So I seriously, on my desk right now, Scott, have the first bill for the well that we put in.

45:20 Scott Ingram: There you go. So, so you're… all your money is going into a hole right now?

45:24 Briana Stimmler: All my money is going into vacant land right now. Absolutely.

45:28 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic.

45:30 Briana Stimmler: Yes.

45:30 Scott Ingram: You alluded to this a little bit earlier. I know you've been thinking about some of my questions ahead, but is there something you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy?

45:41 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, what I wrote for this one was that I strive I strive… it is not always perfect, but I strive to have some sort of touchpoint with every single one of my active customers every 2 to 3 weeks, every rolling 2 to 3 weeks. So that's 146 customers that I'm touching base with. If a customer tells me, I do not have a project until X date, or follow up with me in 2 months or 3 months, it's a little different. I listen to what they tell me, but if they don't have something explicitly stated to me, every 2 to 3 weeks.

46:18 Scott Ingram: And how do you manage that? So, we already talked about kind of the every opportunity has a next action, it has an associated task. Are those touchpoints typically scheduled where they're on their calendar too, or you're just like, okay, Scott, we talked today, my next action here that you're just noting for yourself is you're going to call back in that 2 to 3 week period?

46:39 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I just ask the customer. So, Scott, if you and I were in a call, at the end of the call, I would say, okay, Scott, thanks so much for your time. Can you tell me when would be the best time for me to follow up with you and how do you prefer that?

46:53 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. So simple. So good.

46:56 Briana Stimmler: So simple, right?

46:58 Scott Ingram: So the one thing that I will add to that is I always try and have the next, especially if it's going to be another meeting, try and schedule that meeting in the call before you leave. Because otherwise, I mean, gosh, trying to coordinate meetings while you're not live voice-to-voice is such a nightmare these days.

47:18 Briana Stimmler: Yep, cadence calls are a beautiful thing if a customer has a current project.

47:23 Scott Ingram: Yep, yep, absolutely fantastic. Good stuff. What about the flip side? Is there something the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

47:33 Briana Stimmler: I do. The piece that I think I come back to is some salespeople tend to think that only large businesses are going to spend money. And I think that some of my smallest companies or smaller companies that are making a full digital transformation are some of my best customers. They might not have 5,000 employees, or they might not be the biggest IPO for the year that just came onto the stock market, but they want to buy every product that I can work with, and they want to transform their business. And so those can be huge sales for myself to work with those customers.

48:20 Scott Ingram: Do you have some trick to sort of finding and prioritizing those? Because it's easy to prioritize your account based on size or revenue, right? But it's harder to kind of get to that prioritization based on what the real opportunity is. How are you getting to that?

48:37 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I think one, looking at how many individuals at a company are interacting with materials from whatever company that you work at, right? A company that's looking at marketing materials and only 3 people are looking at it is a lot different than a company that 25 people are looking at marketing materials. And so taking that as an action item, I think, is number one. And 2, some of this kind of falls on us as salespeople, is uncovering the opportunity. If you get a customer on a phone call and they're sharing about something that you but you have other buckets, you should, as a good salesperson, be asking about those other aspects to be able to either sell into them or be able to solve a problem that your customer has. That's really what it comes down to, right? What is the roadblock? What is the problem that your customer has, and how can your product solve that problem for them?

49:39 Scott Ingram: How are you typically getting to that, right? Is that in the prep? Is that you're asking some broader business questions as part of your call? Call flow? Maybe that's my question. Yeah, how are you structuring sort of a typical… maybe it's, it's one of the first times that you're talking with a customer to kind of understand them and understand the potential scale of opportunity?

50:00 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I literally have an outline, Scott. So last fiscal year for Microsoft, I sounded like a crazy person one afternoon, and I sat in my office and said out loud how I run my introduction calls to customers and typed it out because I had so many of my coworkers asking me how I would cross-sell into multiple different products that we are compensated on. And so, yeah, I literally just typed it out. And what it comes down to is asking so many questions and having your customer be the one that talks for 90 to 95% of the time that you have. With them.

50:43 Scott Ingram: I wouldn't know anything about that.

50:47 Briana Stimmler: As a podcast host, I would beg to differ.

50:49 Scott Ingram: So, how many of those questions are, like, really Microsoft-specific or product-line-specific versus just, they're all kind of general questions?

51:00 Briana Stimmler: I would say almost none are product-specific, except for when I'm trying to transition. So, almost every single question I have is about their business. What are some examples? Mr. Customer, what is your process today for data management? Mrs. Customer, when it comes to the ERP system that you use today, where does that run? Mr. Customer, you said that you wear multiple hats at your company. How many people do you oversee? What does your IT staff look like today. What is the process for you to request budget? Do you have to go to a board of directors? It just can go on and on.

51:45 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. All right. I want to lean into your crazy. What other things have you done like this to define your process or that are kind of important pieces to the way that you structure your approach?

51:58 Briana Stimmler: So, what other processes do I have created? Is that what you're looking for?

52:02 Scott Ingram: I just want to know about other crazy things like that that you've done, because I think I think that's pretty smart.

52:07 Briana Stimmler: Oh goodness, what other crazy things have I done? For me, a lot of things come to documentation. So I talked about how you asked earlier about how I'm organized, that you would imagine I'm very organized, and I absolutely am. So I have helped other sellers write down different voicemail templates because depending on what you're needing from the customer, your voicemail template might change. And all of us think that we can leave a great voicemail, My favorite failure with the new last name is one of my very first calls after I got married to a customer was saying my maiden name, and then my email to them immediately after had my new last name. Definitely did not have that prospect call me back as they probably thought it was Microsoft spam. So having things written down to help you, I think, is huge.

52:58 Scott Ingram: Well, that also probably speaks to how many times you had left that type of Yes, absolutely. So, I'm not sure that a script is necessarily the answer.

53:08 Briana Stimmler: Yep. Yes.

53:10 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. So, Briana, as you think about your time there at Microsoft, what have been some of the most important decisions you've made or the lessons you had to learn to really get to this level that you're at today?

53:24 Briana Stimmler: In a sentence or in a line that I cannot take credit for, my first manager at Microsoft, Shelby Bleak, would say this often, is control is overrated. Control what you can control day to day. Try not to get too ruffled by all the different changes that affect your day to day. You know, there are so many different priorities that are given to individual contributors at Microsoft, but really the North Star are your customers and the sales goals that you have. So just control what you can.

53:58 Scott Ingram: There you go. I like it. I like it a lot. What advice would you give to somebody that is just starting out in their sales career? Career today? I mean, you got off to such a great start. So, what would you tell others so that they can get off to a similar beginning?

54:13 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, ask lots of questions and hit the phones. Build that pipeline as quickly as possible because the faster that you build it, the faster you're going to meet sales targets and the faster you're going to be able to get paid.

54:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's really good. And I mean, as you kind of alluded to earlier, earlier, the more that you do that work, the further into this you get, the more other stuff there is to work on and the less time you're able to really focus on building that pipe.

54:41 Briana Stimmler: Yep, absolutely.

54:42 Scott Ingram: So, what about somebody that is further into their career? Maybe if they're doing well, but they're not at the level of great, or maybe they're even struggling a little bit. What advice do you have for them?

54:52 Briana Stimmler: I would say to shadow. Shadow other sellers who have seen success and then take different practices from them that work for you and your system. I do this all the time. If I have a coworker that, a colleague that is selling more in a specific area than myself, I ask them if I can come and join a call and just listen to how they run that call and what questions they use. Because again, not all of us know everything, and there are so many different things that you can learn from different people, even just your… this podcast, listening to the different sellers. I've learned so much, Scott, from listening to these because although there are some common themes, everybody has a little bit different of a style, and that is so fun to learn from.

55:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, and I think that's kind of the ultimate thing is, is to get really, really great at sales, you have to be just really, really great at your own thing, right? I have to imagine there are other people on your team who aren't as organized or aren't quite as, as relationship-centric, but they've got some other kind of secret magic power that they can apply.

56:10 Briana Stimmler: Yes, I am probably one of the least technical individuals on my team. There are colleagues of mine that I am amazed at the type of conversation that they can have with a customer, like how deep they can go technically, whereas if I did that, it would just crash and burn.

56:30 Scott Ingram: You got to play to your strengths.

56:31 Briana Stimmler: Yes.

56:33 Scott Ingram: Love it. Speaking of kind of that shadowing approach, let's do 2 things. So, first of all, I want to get super tactical. And this is really simple, but sometimes people just don't know how to do it. How do you ask to shadow those calls?

56:47 Briana Stimmler: Oh, that's a great question. I, working at Microsoft, use Teams. So, we have different You know, we can ping… Slack is another one, right, that people can just message. I typically just will ping that individual and say, hey, I see that you're crushing your number, and I would love to come and join and be a background participant of an introduction call with a customer that you have. Would you be willing to send one to me? I don't think I've ever been told no because people like to help. Typically.

57:20 Scott Ingram: Exactly, exactly. And the key is just to ask, right? But the other, the other thing I'll kind of point to is that specific ask, right? The what type of call, right? Not just a call. The more specific you can be. I mean, this is true of almost anything, but A, ask. B, ask specifically. And most of the time people don't say no. I mean, that's… you'd be a total jerk if you said no.

57:41 Briana Stimmler: Right, right. Well, and also people like to help others and people like to talk about themselves, right? I mean, how long were we… we've been chatting for almost an hour. Hour just talking about myself. Us salespeople, we can do that for a long time.

57:54 Scott Ingram: That's it.

57:55 Briana Stimmler: That's it.

57:56 Scott Ingram: What's kind of the favorite thing that you've learned recently because that you've been shadowing calls like that? Yeah.

58:02 Briana Stimmler: Oh, that's a really good one. There is one target that I'm worried I'm not gonna do as well. I should still hit goal, but I'm not gonna do as well. And so, I had asked the individual that I actually just made a comment to about how technical he is. I asked if I could join some calls of his that were intro calls, very first calls with customers, because I wanted to see if he went technical that fast or if I had just joined calls where he was further into the relationship with customers. And I learned that he doesn't. I learned that it really does come down to that business conversation at the beginning.

58:43 Scott Ingram: Oh, that's interesting. So, it's really about he's pivoting later. So, the setup is similar, but he's just taking it in a different direction than, than maybe you would because of his own personal skill set.

58:54 Briana Stimmler: Right. Yeah. This individual would not have to ask for a technical demo. They could typically do that technical demo, whereas I would have to take the extra step to bring a colleague in.

59:07 Scott Ingram: Got it. So, what was your takeaway? Like, what are you doing differently, having gone that exercise?

59:12 Briana Stimmler: I took specific questions that he asked about the Azure platform that we sell because he had really good questions to prompt the customer to share more. So, I took specific questions that I added to my master list that I have in OneNote.

59:31 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. And that's such a great thing to listen for is the questions that, that people ask.

59:37 Briana Stimmler: Absolutely.

59:38 Scott Ingram: Briana, this has been fun. I know you did… you're a prepper, so you did some good work on the front end of this interview. Is there anything that we didn't get to that I somehow didn't ask the right question that you were hoping that we would talk about?

59:53 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, there actually is. So, one thing that looking through all these questions and taking some time to reflect, one of the questions that you had said was, what would I want to know about top sellers and other organizations? And some of the listening that I've done prior prior to this helped with this. But I would love to hear how other sellers stay motivated when they have a full pipeline specific to prospecting. So how do you keep that pedal to the metal when you know that you have your target for the year met?

1:00:28 Scott Ingram: And what's your answer to that right now?

1:00:30 Briana Stimmler: Well, see, Scott, that's where I'm at right now, is I'm struggling with that, is I know that I have the pipeline. So I'm going back to my roots of calling customers and putting specific number of follow-ups that I need to do in that Outlook calendar.

1:00:48 Scott Ingram: Got it, got it. So you're leaning into the system.

1:00:51 Briana Stimmler: I am leaning in.

1:00:52 Scott Ingram: That's it. And I imagine you don't want to go back and open up those calendar items and have to decrease your number.

1:00:57 Briana Stimmler: No, nope. See, it's all a game. It's all a game.

1:01:00 Scott Ingram: I love it. Turn it into a game. It's fantastic. Anything else? I did skip over an entire question. Anything else that you were hoping, gosh, I hope that Scott and I get to chat about this?

1:01:12 Briana Stimmler: No, I don't think so. This was great. Unfortunate that I sound like a robot, but hopefully everybody can stick through it and just have a good laugh like the two of us did.

1:01:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's a light touch. Either we fixed it in the first 12 minutes, or there's, there's a little bit, and I think it's pretty funny, but I I do think, you know, you should certainly get a piece of, of the action for having had a, a large hand in developing the Briana bot at Microsoft.

1:01:37 Briana Stimmler: You know, there's another tagline that I could go through.

1:01:41 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So Briana, the way we always wrap this up is… and we've covered a ton of ground, but I like to make this as actionable as we can for our listener… what would you challenge them to do over the course of the next week or 2 to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:01:56 Briana Stimmler: Yeah, I would challenge listeners, sellers, to go through your current pipeline that you have today and have that touchpoint with every opportunity or every account in the next 2 weeks to either catch up with them, the seller and the customer, to get an update on the project that you are working with them, or even disqualify it. Because as much as a lot of us are scared of disqualifying, that can help you then have time to go get another sale.

1:02:27 Scott Ingram: That is a great challenge. This is the perfect time of year for that challenge. And guess what? No matter what time of year you're listening to this, it's still a perfect time of year.

1:02:36 Briana Stimmler: Yes, absolutely.

1:02:38 Scott Ingram: Briana, this has been a blast. Thank you so much for your time and your insights and sharing your story with us.

1:02:44 Briana Stimmler: Yes, thank you, Scott. This was so fun.

1:02:46 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.