137: Chris McNeill - Solving the Sales Puzzle Through Strategic Focus

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, and Vidyard. To learn more about them and all of our sponsors who actively support 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 Chris McNeill. Chris is the top enterprise sales executive at Infinite Convergence Solutions and a longtime podcast listener and member of the Sales Success Community. Welcome to this side of the show, Chris.

0:53 Chris McNeill: Thanks, Scott. Been a long time coming. I'm real happy to be here.

0:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah, obviously you and I have. A lot of depth in our relationship. We're practically neighbors. I'm sure we will get to all of that, but I want to mention we keep adding new listeners to the show. So it's worth noting here upfront that I only interview active quota-carrying individual contributors on this show who are either the outright number one top sales performers in their companies, or they're at least in the top 1% inside of a large organization. So with that, Chris, 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?

1:32 Chris McNeill: Yeah, absolutely, Scott. First, how I view the customer relationship. Second, it's pretty simple, but just delivering on my commitments. And third, I'm always seeking a better version of myself. I think those are the top 3 things that have contributed to me being able to be on top and stay on top.

1:50 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. Well, let's peel the onion on each of those, starting with the customer relationship piece.

1:55 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I mean, so to me, the way I value the customer relationship, that actually comes from even before I got into selling. I know we'll talk more about it later, but I did tech support before I got into sales. And I felt the customer's pain, you know, when something wasn't working right in their application or in their day. And so that relationship always comes first to me as a seller, even if I have to make sacrifices, making sure the customer is taken care of is paramount to me. And You know, one of your earlier guests on this podcast said, customer, company, Chris, is kind of an item that he taught me. And that's something that I've just internalized. I live every day, and in an order of operations, I always put the customer first. I always make sure that, you know, expectations are clear, that we're delivering on what they're asking for and able to. And if not, I'm very transparent with the customer, and that has served me well for my past 3 roles.

2:50 Scott Ingram: Great stuff. And just for added reference, I know that that was Carson Heady of Microsoft, and I think he called it like the golden triangle. And it's really just kind of finding that balance point of how do we do what's right and beneficial for each of those 3 parties, right? The customer, your company, and yourself. And then your second point was delivering on your commitments.

3:09 Chris McNeill: Yeah. So again, it comes from my time before I was a seller, when I managed projects and when I supported clients. It's so important to follow through on commitments we make to clients, on promises that we make to our coworkers, and on just simple things like having a great meeting agenda. Make it very, very easy to make sure that we follow through on what we're doing. A lot of people call it execution in today's world, but I think it's pretty simple. You don't have to jump from shiny object to shiny object. You just work the fundamentals, right? There's so many great ideas flying around. It's easy to get distracted and think that, you know, I need to try everything under the sun to come up with some optimal sales process that's perfectly tailored, you know, to my buyer or my market. In reality, what I think has helped me succeed is just following through, right? Keeping it simple, following through, especially for my customers. That doesn't matter if my process isn't perfect, as long as I'm delivering on those commitments and consistently executing along the way. It seems to work out well in the end.

4:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I think it's interesting that you called out delivering on those commitments for your coworkers as well. And that's something that you and I've been talking a lot here recently. I know you have been very, very deep in some big opportunities and some very involved kind of internal sales. So we'll come back to that. We'll put a pin in that. But your third point is maybe the most interesting to me in that, you know, just the way that you are continually working to become a better Chris. You want to talk about that?

4:45 Chris McNeill: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're going to take a hard left, but outside of work, the things I spend my time on, I'm always either building something, creating something, or fixing something. So I'm always looking to create or improve in my spare time. And it's true in my professional life too. I think of myself as a work in progress. I think of myself as, you know, something that's always going to be developing and evolving and seeking, you know, the next iteration or the better version of myself. For a lot of reasons, I think that's important. I mean, number one, it fights complacency in our business as sales professionals. You know that right now there are dozens of other people that are probably in the community that would love to do business with my customers if they're given an opportunity. And if I'm not always seeking to improve what I do, what I deliver for my customers, they're going to have that opportunity, right? So for me, always looking to improve, number one, is about not getting complacent. But also number two, it just keeps this interesting for me, right? It keeps everything fresh and interesting. And that's what motivates me as a seller, is to kind of conquer that next hill or solve that next puzzle, which is really how I'm wired, and overcome the next challenge. And so always seeking to find that has served me exceptionally well.

6:05 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. I know we will come back to that for sure, but why don't we contextualize this just a little bit first and talk about what is your role, who are you selling to, what has it taken to get to the top in that organization?

6:18 Chris McNeill: Well, so Scott, I definitely want to have an opportunity to talk not just about my current role but about my journey, and I know we're going to get into that a little bit because I've got a great maybe a unique origin story, but at Infinite Convergence, technically I'm a director of sales. It's a title. I'm an IC. I direct myself and I direct some strategic deals working with clients mainly in North America. We sell a couple of different solutions. Most of them are technical products. And so I interface very well with technical buyers. How I got to number one is I work strategic deals. I honestly, I put big deals in the pipeline intentionally. Because a large multimillion-dollar deal is just as much work as a small multi-thousand-dollar deal. And you just need a lot fewer strategic deals to get the job done at the end of the year, right?

7:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And I think that it's funny because I've been having this conversation a lot today, in fact, is just this idea of focus, right? And as we're recording this conversation, that was the Daily Sales Tip. It was a clip from the last episode with Dustin Brown, and it was a very early statement of his from that episode. Talking about focus and really honing into, look, it's the top 10 or 20% of the accounts in your territory that are really ideal, right? That are suited well. And to your point, like, let's go find the places where there are large opportunities because at the end of the day, they often are the… it's the same amount of work and one end of that spectrum is a lot more beneficial to you and the company.

7:49 Chris McNeill: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I listened to Dustin's episode last night, actually, and it's a great episode. He's right. Of course, I'm not going to say that he's wrong, but it's also… it's the Pareto principle. It's the 80/20. You know, 80% of the results are going to come from 20% of my account list. And so I focus my efforts there, right? I focus where I can create the most impact for the customer, for the company that I work for. And of course, you know, comes along with that for Chris. So that kind of focus works very well for me.

8:15 Scott Ingram: Let me talk about revenue grid real quick, because this type of focus makes a ton of sense to create the right kind of opportunities Revenue Grid and their revenue intelligence platform is amazing at keeping you focused once you're in those opportunities by automatically capturing all of your interactions for you. Revenue Grid can help replace guessing with guidance and even help recommend best next steps. Check them out at top1.fm/revenuegrid. Let's go into the origin story because I think to your point, it is a little bit unique. It is kind of nuanced. And along with that, I mean, I've watched a good amount of it. You and I have been friends for some time, and it's been a lot of fun watching you really accelerate through your sales career as you kind of found your sea legs, if you will.

9:02 Chris McNeill: Yeah, yeah. I mean, and it's been fun to be on that ride too, you know, most days. So I got into selling, you know, as a professional just 5 and a half years ago, really second stage or second act in my career. I had worked in tech support for both hardware and software projects for years. I managed implementation projects, hired folks, went kind of halfway down that path. And ultimately, I didn't want to go any further down that path. It just honestly, it wasn't interesting. It wasn't exciting to me anymore. I always saw the same train wrecks as they were coming down, you know, always had the same questions, always had the same answers. And so for me, I got really burned out there and I made the decision to move into selling. Like, I think a lot of folks, probably more than we realize, I wound up backing into it. I worked for a company that was acquired by another company. Their channel sales team needed somebody technical to, you know, kind of help the VARs along. And I was that person. I was lucky enough to be that person. And then I wound up kind of holding the reins of that channel organization entirely, which was just me. It wasn't a huge channel organization, but I was responsible for, you know, a double-digit percentage of a company's revenue. And that's where I started to learn, you know, really what selling was. When I actually committed myself to be a seller, it was about 5 and a half years ago, a little more than 5 and a half years ago at this point. It was a very hard decision for me to go from a steady, relatively small by my OTE standards now paycheck into something where, you know, I have a base and then I'm purely accountable, right? Like what I take home to my wife and to my kids is purely based on my own activities and my own ability to execute. In an arena that I really knew nothing about. So when I made that decision, of course I talked to my family, had their support… critically important if anybody's thinking about doing this… and then I made an agreement with myself. I said, I'm going to be a salesperson, I'm going to do it for a minimum of 5 years, and I'm not going to let myself quit. I'm not going to let myself back out and give up and go back to, you know, what it is that I know I don't want to do. I'm happy to say that that anniversary was July of last year, and I'm thrilled to still be selling. I'm grateful that I made that decision and made that commitment. And I love this career and I'm going to keep going down that path.

11:18 Scott Ingram: And I love that piece, right? That decision that I'm going to make a commitment. This isn't for just a minute. Like, I'm really going down this path. How long was it before you felt like, whoo, okay, like, I'm getting this? I went down the right path because I'm sure there were probably nervous days at the beginning of that.

11:36 Chris McNeill: I mean, I still have those days where sometimes I question, you know, my decision. I think we all do, right? It's just part of the game. But I was probably a good 3 years into it before I felt like I really had a shot. And that moment was when I ended a year at 102% of plan for the first time. Like the first time I was in a President's Club and over quota. You know, if I looked back to the person that started selling like, you know, 2, 2 and a half years prior, whatever it was, I never thought I could attain that. Like, that was something truly aspirational for me that I just, I did not think was something that I could accomplish. A lot changed, you know, from day 1 to day 1,000 or so, whatever it was, and I learned a ton along the way. But like, that's when I started to get a sense that, okay, maybe I can do this.

12:29 Scott Ingram: And I'm sure there were a thousand things as you went through that journey, but what were like the most important kind of breakthrough items? Like, what are the things that you really had to get before you could break out and break through? Because I know since that 102%, you've done significantly better and your W-2 has reflected, I don't know, probably orders of magnitude of a difference.

12:52 Chris McNeill: Yeah, yeah. Before we go too far down, I know you like to quantify results for your listeners. I mean, I've been a listener for a long time, so, you know, the way I can quantify results at Convergence, we're still in our fiscal year. So I am a superstitious person. I'm not going to call the ball this publicly, but you and I can maybe do that later if you want, Scott. But I can tell you, when I got into selling, I was making, I think, $65K was my salary. From an OTE standpoint, the first couple of years were rough. Year 1 was kind of a little bit of a step back in terms of base pay. Year 2, I did a couple of sales. Year 3 worked great, right? And that's where I basically doubled my earning capacity. And then it's doubled again. And basically, like, where I'm at now, my earning capacity is 5 times what it was before I got into selling, you know. And I'm really pleased with that, of course, it's great, but it's nowhere near where it could be.

13:48 Scott Ingram: In most organizations, tracking your commissions and compensation is an absolute pain. If you're using a spreadsheet at any point in that process, you're basically doing it wrong, and you really need to take a look at QuotaPath. They make tracking your commissions and goals a dream. You can use it for free as an individual, but it's obviously 10 times more powerful when deployed across your organization. Take a look at top1.fm/quotapath and be sure to share the love with your sales ops leaders as well. And now back to my conversation with Chris. You know, I'm curious if you could go back, I mean, knowing all the things that you know now that you've learned in these last 5 and a half years, and you could go back to that decision point and I'm going to go in sales, what would you have done differently?

14:38 Chris McNeill: The one thing that I would do differently is I would have spent more time upfront trying to intentionally understand what I like to term my product market fit is. The first job I got selling, I was selling HR services for a PEO. Not the thing that I should sell. Absolutely not the thing that I'm well suited to sell as a sales professional. And honestly, not the type of buyer that I interface really well with, you know. And so for me, had I known just that simple fact, like, hey, there are things in sales, Chris, that you're going to be good at doing and things that you're not going to be good at doing. And I had been a little bit more intentional about that. I probably would have made, you know, kind of that first sales job decision differently. I had a fabulous company I worked for, was amazing, loved them. They were super supportive. And the manager that I worked for directly helped a ton. Greg taught me a lot, but ultimately, like, everybody figured out this was not the right thing for Chris, right? And then when I found my niche, so to speak, like, that's when it started really, you know, hitting on all 8 cylinders.

15:45 Scott Ingram: Talk about that. Like, talk about kind of finding that niche. Like, could you have seen that at the beginning, or did you just have to kind of go through it and realize, oh, who I sell to matters and what I'm selling matters, and I need to have some interesting kind of personal passion around it?

16:01 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I mean, you know, I'd read everything. You've got to be passionate about your product. You got to believe in it, yada, yada, yada. I'd read all that stuff before I got into it. I learned the hard way. I always have. So yes, I have to… for me, you're right, Scott. That's how I had to learn it, right, was just kind of do it, and learn, take your lumps and learn it that way. Is it possible to learn it a different way? Absolutely. I mean, the number one piece of advice that I give anybody in any profession is build a network. You know, spend time, invest some time, whatever age you are, wherever you are in the world, just spend some time and build a network of some colleagues and some professionals outside of your company because you can learn so much from them, right? Like the first network that I started to build You were part of that, right? Like, you and I met in North Austin randomly at a, like, coffee get-together at like 7:30 in the morning for salespeople. And I probably spent about 18 months building a really solid network that ultimately helped me see and understand kind of the breadth and depth of what selling is, or at least some slice of it, right? I'm sure there's a lot I don't know, but that also helped me understand there are other things I could go sell to different people that I'm going to be better suited to do. And some of that came from listening to the podcast, going to the summit, right? Like the Sales Success Summit. I've been to that 3 times now. I missed the first one. I'm one of the only people that actually went to the one 2 years ago because I knew your secret broadcast location, right? And I've already got my tickets for next year, right? I'm going to be in Austin again, of course, because it's great to spend time physically with other sellers, but it's also great for me to be able to just tap into you know, whatever it is, hundreds of years of collective experience of people that sell everywhere to everybody and lead sales teams or have led sales teams and make the decision to be an, you know, an IC and are just out there seeking the better version of themselves too, you know. So for me, like building that network, tapping into that collective like consciousness, so to speak, taking 30 pages from the first Sales Success Stories book, 30 pages worth of notes, like all of that really accelerated I think my learning. And that's kind of when I started to make a decision that I needed to go sell somewhere else and sell something different. And it helped me find, you know, I found my job where I hit plan. I found that through somebody in my network, you know, and if you have a network, interviewing is super easy.

18:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, talk about that some more because I'm just interested in kind of your philosophy, your approach, how you managed that building the network process, because you did it very well. I mean, I was a part of it. I watched you and it was You did a great job. You were really intentional about it.

18:40 Chris McNeill: I don't know if I was intentional as you give me credit for. It's a lesson I learned 12 years ago when I moved to Austin. So I'm an introvert, right? Like, you know, getting out and socially engaging generally is pretty draining to me. And starting conversations with strangers is, you know, one of those things that kind of goes against the grain for me normally. And I learned a lesson when I moved here. My now wife lived in Austin at the time. I moved in with her and I used to go pick her up from work. She worked at the hospital. She worked at Seton Hospital downtown Austin. And I would pick her up after work sometimes and I'd just go wait on the floor for her. And I'd talk to all her colleagues because they all wanted to know who I was. And one day Melissa came to me and she's like, hey, what the heck are you saying to my coworkers? They're saying you're like the most fascinating person they've ever met. And I go, that's really weird because all I do is ask them questions about themselves. Right. And so that seed planted, you know, 12 years ago. When I started getting out and networking, that's all I really did, Scott, was, you know, intentionally, yes, I'm a salesperson. I want to build a network of sales professional colleagues so I can learn from them, right? So I can kind of steal from their experience a little bit. And of course, I wanted to meet some business owners. I wanted to meet some people that, you know, made up a broad sector from a networking standpoint. But with respect to my sales activities, turns out salespeople love to talk. So just ask them a bunch of questions about themselves.

19:57 Scott Ingram: Or start a podcast where that's like your only goal is just ask them questions. This gets really easy.

20:03 Chris McNeill: Right.

20:03 Scott Ingram: So yeah.

20:04 Chris McNeill: And somehow you get a lot of credit for it too.

20:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, and you also, I mean, you have really leaned into this because you are one of the most active members of the Sales Success Community. You've kind of stepped into an ambassador role and which is brilliant because I know part of what you're doing is, hey Scott, I'm happy to reach out to all the previous podcast guests and have some conversations, which That's pretty wise, Chris.

20:28 Chris McNeill: You just let the cat out of the bag for all the one-on-ones I've been having over Zoom where I tell people I just want to learn about them, Scott. But you're right, you know, I moved from Austin, Texas to North Central Florida just a couple months ago. We're here to be closer to family and check a lot of boxes for ourselves in the future, but it's a pretty small town and there's not a lot of tech companies here. I'm fortunate, like, it was a weird and amazing experience for me when I called my boss last year, was like, hey, we might move. He's like, cool, just Make sure payroll has your address, whatever. No problem. And that was amazing. And I'd love that. I'm thrilled. And, you know, that's going to make me work super hard to make sure I can stay at this company. Right. Which is cool. And, you know, so yes, when moving became real for me, I said, okay, I need to find a way to continue to maintain and grow my network. But also the Sales Success Community is probably one of the biggest things that I credit with me being able to be a successful sales professional. So, of course, I want to connect with that. I want to foster more growth in that community because it's done a lot for me. I want to find ways to, you know, make sure it does a lot for its members. So, yeah, you know, you and I were on a walk one day, I think around the time of last year's summit. And, you know, I said, hey, what can we do to give back? What can we do to make, you know, the community able to connect and engage 11 other months out of the year? Because we all get together in August or in October. But there's a lot more opportunities to build great, you know, professional relationships.

21:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So I know you don't like this, but I'm going to give you a public shout out. So it's actually Chris who not only is reaching out and just, you know, having these conversations to help bring the community closer together, but Chris also helped kind of build our Slack workspace that is pretty exclusive. The only folks… we may open this up over time, but for the time being, The Sales Success Community Slack is only available to folks who hold a ticket either to the last summit or to this summit. And obviously there's a ton of overlap there. Most people have already purchased their ticket for next year. And the other piece that you've probably heard me talk about that was kind of a brainchild of many of these walks and talks that Chris and I have been on talking about these things, because I guess it's worth calling out before you moved to Florida, you lived, you know, the exact distance, don't you? Because you rode your bike here.

22:44 Chris McNeill: I think it was like 1.08 miles, something like that.

22:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, but so we were neighbors very, very close by. And the other thing that, again, if you've been listening to these last few episodes that we built is kind of this idea of what we're calling Summit Climbers. So folks who are really making the commitment to themselves and to the community that, you know, I'm going to do everything possible to get to that number 1, top 1% spot. And they're providing a plan to me in terms of how they intend to get there. And then we are just surrounding them with resources and coaching and just a lot of the folks that have been on this podcast to help them get there and frankly help ourselves in the process because, you know, like anytime that you do mentoring like that, I can never figure out who gets more value, whether it's the mentor or the mentee. So I love to be on both ends of it.

23:33 Chris McNeill: Yeah. I mean, you can't see me nodding my head, but I totally agree. And it's also, it's an iteration of how you and I wound up actually building a relationship and really, you know, me being introduced to the Sales Success Community. You know, we met over coffee real quickly. You know, you bailed and had to go do something else because you had a real job. And I went out and found, you know, Sales Success Stories. I listened to a bunch of episodes. Then I went and found you as a guest on one of Jeff Bajorek's podcasts. And on that episode, you issued like a call like, hey, everybody should reach out. Everybody should have a mentor. You know what, here's my email address. If you want, let's have a conversation. I might tell you to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to have that conversation with me, but send me an email and I won't say no. And you turn… kind of turned on the podcast, so to speak, to Jeff, and you're like, I bet nobody's going to actually do that. So, you know, that's a huge problem. Well, I did it, and it turned out that we lived really close to each other, so it's very convenient. And if you are thinking about moving to Austin, Southwest Austin is kind of a sales mecca with some really top Scots in the market.

24:38 Scott Ingram: So that's, that's so funny because tomorrow I actually… well, I was gonna have a walk and talk with Scott Leese, but there's a risk that one or both of us might break our wrists in that process with all the ice that's going on in town right this very moment. So unfortunately, that's turned into just a regular phone call. But yeah, it's always fun to talk with Scott, and Kevin Dorsey's in basically the neighborhood as well. So Yeah, I don't know what it is about this particular zip code, but it seems to be a hotspot for sales thought leaders, I suppose. I want to issue a similar call here that I haven't done in a while for our longest running sponsor, Vidyard. I love their platform and I want you to try it. Here's your challenge. Go to top1.fm/vidyard and download their free Chrome plugin. Record your first video and don't worry about perfection. Heck, don't even worry about the quality. Just do it. You can talk about why you listen to this show or about your favorite episode and send it to me at scott@top1.fm. That way you'll get to see what the notification looks like when somebody watches your video. And I promise I'll send you one back. top1.fm/vidyard, record your video, send it to scott@top1.fm, and then watch for my reply in the following couple of days. Chris, you know, we call the show Sales Success Stories, and I feel like we should probably tell a story. What's your favorite sales story? Maybe you won, maybe you lost. I'm sure you learned something from it, but what comes to mind?

26:07 Chris McNeill: Yeah, it feels super cliché for me to talk about it, but it's the first time I closed a deal that was, you know, over $1 million in contract value. It was actually for multiple millions of dollars. I did the math last night. It was more than 200 times the average deal size that I was doing 6 months earlier. Like, it was just ridiculous to me that I was working this deal. And I had a closing call with the signer, and, you know, hands were literally shaking. I don't know if I've ever told you about this, Scott, but I had about a half hour before that call, I took a shot of whiskey. And that's what seems like so cliché to me. It's like, I gotta calm my nerves, I gotta steady my nerves, you know. And people that know me, like, That's kind of weird for me, but it worked, I'll tell you that. And, you know, on that call we did a little, you know, live horse trading and live on that call, like I edited the contract. I went into that call prepped to edit the contract. Like if you're doing that, make sure you're ready to do it on the fly and resent it and got it signed on the call, you know, and the things that I were worried about, you know, in my head, everything, you know, that I was trying to plan for on that call, like it didn't matter to the signer. He just, you know, there was one thing he wanted to fix, we fixed it, and then he was done and we moved on. And to him, this is probably, you know, a 10th the size of some of the deals that he worked with. So it being 200 times my average order value was irrelevant. So I closed that deal. Like, when the call wrapped up, I just sat there for a minute and I was kind of stunned. I didn't believe it. I told my wife, and then I called my manager who like brought over a bottle of wine the next morning, and we literally like, we sat on the porch that you've sat with me on, Scott. We drank a bottle of wine at like 11 o'clock in the Saturday morning. But so that's my favorite, you know, sales story.

27:48 Scott Ingram: I love that. I guess I will always fondly think of your porch as the pandemic porch where we could socially distance and enjoy a late Friday afternoon beverage and talk sales. So I'm well familiar. In that deal, I'm curious about, was there anything that was markedly different, right? I mean, it was 200 times your previous deals. Like, obviously it heightens your emotion, right? Given what you needed to do to try to calm yourself. But as you think about like the other parts of that deal and getting to that closing conversation, what was different about that?

28:19 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I mean, the extra zeros and stuff was all just some form of head trash, right? As I look at it now, it was a new thing. It was different. It was a huge deal. Oh my gosh. You know, all that stuff was irrelevant to the, just the fundamentals of the deal, right? Like it was a totally different product. 6 months prior, I was selling to micro and SMB, you know, kind of a financial services or a fintech solution. And this is an API-based product in the telecom space, we'll say. And so, yeah, it's a totally different product. It's a technical buyer. So he was a product executive at the organization. And not to say that he doesn't read contracts and that he doesn't know how to negotiate deals, like his focus was product, right? He was a shrewd negotiator though. The fundamentals of the sale, they were the same as what I, you know, the same process I worked 6 months ago, right? Like 6 months prior, like what I learned selling SMB fintech solutions at a venture-backed high-growth startup, those fundamental sales skills absolutely were responsible for me closing that deal, you know, for multiple millions of dollars later. So was it that different? Not really. Not in the real world.

29:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Well, and I know that you are working on even larger deals here more recently, and there's been a lot of kind of the internal sales side. So I hinted at this at the beginning of the conversation. Let's talk about that because I think that's something that often surprises people, especially as you get into more complex deals, just how much work needs to happen inside your organization, right? This is Yeah, of course you do the prospecting, you create the opportunity, and you do the discovery, and you do all of this other work kind of managing the opportunity with your client or future client. But all the work that has to happen internally, what are you learning about that?

30:11 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I don't know if you could have heard, you know, me nodding in agreement, me, you know, slapping my face, me rolling my eyes through everything you just said, but it's true, right? Being a strategic seller is vastly different from when I started in channel sales. I was just taking orders. I was just an order taker when I was managing a VAR channel. And when I actually moved into selling the SMB fintech solution, like there was, you know, there was some selling, like we were doing some influence and we were helping change how people looked at, you know, their business and what was possible. But ultimately we were signing a SaaS subscription and we were You know, handing it over, delivering a product that was, you know, well-defined, well-constructed, and something that you could show on a demo call. With the solutions that I'm offering now and with this kind of the strategic opportunities I'm working, it's an API-based product, right? Like the customers can use it in their own solutions to build better things, but kind of by nature, it's not a thing that comes out of a vending machine. You know, first and foremost. And then secondly, I have definitely learned in the past, you know, kind of 2 roles selling this type of solution that sometimes deals are just as complex to work inside your company as they are outside your company. Some of the deals I'm working now, basically with our customer, we're all sitting around the same table. We're all on the same side of the table collaborating, trying to, you know, solve these problems and kind of finish what we're working on. And there's a little bit of, call it influence or vision that I have to kind of help craft inside my own organization to get sponsorship from product executives, from biz ops folks around kind of financial planning for these deals because they're different from, you know, kind of the standard deals that we do sometimes. So it's definitely an experience. On most days, it's a great experience. I get to know my coworkers. I definitely get to benefit from having, you know, sat in the project manager's seat, from having sat in the support technician's seat and having that perspective that we talked about at the beginning of the call where it's customer, company, Chris. Like, I want to set everybody up for success, you know, in these deals that I do because, well, I mean, we all win that way, right? And everybody gets to go home at the end of the day and be happy with the sales organization and be happy with, you know, the customer that we have and our ability to serve that customer. So I spend a lot of time working with, you know, product teams and our support teams to make sure that, you know, we're defining something properly, we're able to clearly deliver and setting timelines and, you know, evolving roadmaps. Like we've done roadmap changes for customers that I've worked with in the past too. So yeah.

33:01 Scott Ingram: And I want to kind of connect this to your earlier point, right, around delivering on your commitments to your coworkers. And again, I know a lot about what's happening behind the scenes with some of this stuff, but you do such a great job of really building trust. And I think your team knows, at least from my perspective and the way you describe it, your team knows that, you know, you're working to do the right thing. It's not like you're trying to take advantage of the organization or this is all about Chris. It goes back to that triangle. It's We've got to figure out a way to serve this customer well because they represent a really significant ongoing revenue stream for us going forward, which is obviously good for the business and good for Chris, but doing it in a thoughtful way that doesn't, you know, throw the company too far off and ruin everything else.

33:48 Chris McNeill: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's great to bring strategic victories. It's great to bring, you know, big customers to the table. Right. But I also have to concern myself with, you know, can we deliver? Can we fulfill? Right. And if I don't think we can, of course, I'm going to pull the plug. Right. I'm going to be very transparent with everybody about that because it doesn't serve anyone. But also, are we going to burn ourselves out? Am I going to burn relationships in the company? Am I going to make somebody lose sleep in order to fulfill this? Right. Well, I want to be really careful about that because I want to work with these people for years to come. Right. I want to be able to have great relationships because at some point I know there's going to be something that I need to rely on colleagues for, for my customers, right, to fix something or to create something that doesn't exist yet. And yeah, I've got to make those deposits now, right? I've got to build those relationships now.

34:41 Scott Ingram: Let's switch gears just a little bit. We've covered a lot of ground. You've been in a lot of places. You've had a lot of different successes and kind of more and more here recently. What are you most proud of?

34:50 Chris McNeill: I think I kind of alluded to it a little bit earlier, right? But the first time I broke 100% for a year, it was literally, I was $10,000 over plan. It was 102% of plan. But the year prior, I had a different job selling. I was selling a different product. I missed so hard, so hard. I don't know why they didn't fire me, but it was so bad. Like, I genuinely believe, oh God, there's no way I'll ever get 100%, you know? And so hitting that 100% that year, number one, I mean, it was me turning that corner, right? Proving to myself that, oh wait, I can do this. I have a shot at this and I don't have to worry about slogging it out for 3 more years to not break the commitment to myself. But it also represented just how much I had learned about selling in that 12-month period. Like, it was the most accelerated learning program I ever had because one of the great things about joining that particular company, that sales organization at the time, it was… what was it? It was a post-A round venture-backed company, and they were just closing their B round when I got onboarded. And so that's usually around the time where they've got a lot of fundamental processes in place. They've got a good, you know, kind of initial product market fit. And then they bring folks in to just absolutely stomp on the gas pedal with the sales organization. So it was an organization that was really well geared to onboard, you know, train and execute new salespeople, help new salespeople execute processes.

36:20 Scott Ingram: I was going to say, please don't execute new salespeople.

36:22 Chris McNeill: We didn't execute new salespeople, but You know, and so that really helped me get, you know, kind of boots on the ground, hands-on experience, full cycle, you know, all the way from cold calling to closing and a little bit of post-sales. And it taught me how to work with pre-sales consultants, how to work with BDRs, how to work with marketing. So, you know, joining that company and then hitting 100%, like, that is what I'm most proud of.

36:46 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what do you find to be the biggest challenge? What's the flip side? What do you struggle with?

36:51 Chris McNeill: I mean, the thing that I always struggle with is, you know, by nature I am a puzzle solver. I am a technical person, and I have always… I don't do it anymore, but my inclination is to always apply my own perspective as a buyer. When I buy things, I buy in a very slow, methodical way, and my perspective, I always try to apply that to my buyers. As a seller, that's a huge mistake because there are so many opportunities in the past that I slowed down without realizing it because I could not remove, you know, myself from the equation, so to speak, and actually, you know, understand what my prospects were telling me through the questions that they're asking, understand the signs that they're trying to communicate and give to us. So that's one thing I always still to this day struggle with, is making sure that, you know, I kind of match the velocity to my prospects or my customers, right? I want to do the work they want to do in the way they want to do it, not necessarily in the way I want to do it.

37:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's dig into the routine stuff. I know this has kind of changed and evolved because for a period of time, especially kind of pre-summit this summer, we were very much a part of each other's morning routine. But walk us through the day. I mean, I know you know how I set this up, right? So alarm goes off. What time did that happen? And I want the blow-by-blow till your head hits the pillow.

38:12 Chris McNeill: Yeah, so number one, no offense, I'm really glad we're not climbing that hill anymore. We did a challenge that I'm really proud that we did, right? Leading up to the summit this past fall, you issued a challenge to the community: get on Strava and climb a Mount Everest. Cover enough elevation change in 60 days to hit like 29,000-something feet to climb a Mount Everest, right? And because just so happened I'd moved to Southwest Austin years prior, I was able to go climb that mountain with you. So we did that. I'm glad we're not doing it anymore though. It's really cold in the morning right now, so I don't like to get out when it's cold. But generally my routine is I am an early riser, always have been. I'm always most productive in the mornings. And so number one, you ask what time the alarm goes off. It goes off at 6, but if it's what wakes me up, something's gone horribly wrong for me because I'm always out of bed by 5. The alarm's like my backups, you know, just in case. 'Cause if I do sleep extra one day, like, I'm going to allow myself to do that 'cause sleep is super important. But for me, I'm up at 5, and then usually what I do, you know, I'm a coffee drinker, so I'll usually spend about an hour with a cup of coffee. We've got 2 big Rottweilers that are a huge part of my life, and I love my dogs, and I like to spend time with them every morning and every evening. And so I hang out with them and play and whatnot a little bit in the morning, and I just You know, take about an hour to get kind of just get the gears turning. And it's somewhere, you know, I'm usually consuming a couple of different pieces of content, you know, a little bit of news, but somewhere in there a switch gets flipped and then, you know, everything starts rolling and I just start planning my day out. What time is that usually? About 6:15. It varies a little bit, but what I always do is I check my calendars, make sure I know what is coming up for me that day in terms of meetings and activities and things I need to accomplish. I'm big on time blocking and I'm big on making sure that I know exactly what I need to do in a day. Then I, you know, I'll go in, I'll check my meetings, make sure that they have agendas. If you're struggling, learn how to make a great agenda. It's not as hard as you think and it makes such a difference in the world in your meetings. And then I also like to make sure that people have confirmed or accepted those meetings, especially if they're customer-facing, because if we need to move things around, I want to do that. Sooner rather than later, right? To just be respectful for everybody. And then I sit down and just kind of make a plan of action for the day. Pen and paper or Notion. I usually do a lot of note-taking in Notion. Somewhere in there I'll have breakfast. You know, I usually love to have oatmeal to start the day, but sometimes I'll treat myself. And then, you know, shower and I'm off. You know, I'm off and running. I'm lucky I work from home, so I don't have a commute really. And I really get to capitalize on that time to make sure that I'm strategically planning It makes it a lot easier for myself. And then, you know, I always start my day by 7:30 or 8 o'clock, like, you know, sit at the desk or stand at the desk and, you know, start cranking on things. As the weather does warm back up, I'm looking forward to getting about a mile or a mile and a half in in the mornings with the dogs. Like, that's going to be added to my routine here probably in about a month. And then I will work until I don't need to work anymore. I'm not big on kind of the concept of punching clocks. But, you know, I usually try to finish off around 5. We've got a Roomba, we've got a robot vacuum, and I actually schedule it every day to come into my office at 5 PM and vacuum, which is a great way to make sure you kind of bookend your day a little bit. And then, you know, dinner. I love to cook, so I won't say I have energy to cook every day, but it's a big creative outlet for me. So I cook for my wife and I and whoever else we have around. And then we, you know, I like to kind of chill out in the evening. Somebody's always watching something on TV and I'm usually reading or You know, just kind of doing research in the background on whatever I'm trying to figure out, whether it's personal or professional. Then we usually wrap things up 9 to 9:30 and off to sleep.

42:06 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Well done. Before we dig a little deeper on kind of the information diet and a couple of things, there's one piece I wanted to lean on, and I know this might sound simple, but I'd be really interested in sharing this. And as you know, I'm trying to pull out just some deeper resources through some of these conversations that we can make available to listeners. So just like we did with Kaleigh's personal operating system, which she crushed, by the way, if you haven't gone in and checked that out from her episode, it's pretty awesome. But Chris, there's a couple of things I'm wondering if you can share, just like a simple… I want a Chris McNeill sample agenda. Like, what are the core components that are in that? And something else that I think we talked about before Is I know you took like ridiculous notes from the first Sales Success Stories book, but I feel like you maybe consolidated those down and maybe that's something else we can throw into the mix with your agenda. You open to sharing that?

42:57 Chris McNeill: Yeah. So 2 things I'm happy to share, Scott, the condensed version of those notes I took. Yes, of course. Why would I not want to give, you know, back to the community that is responsible for me, you know, feeding my family for the last couple of years? And number 2, an agenda. Yeah, absolutely. I hadn't thought about that. But yes, I'll document something and we can put it up on the show notes. But if you haven't ever heard of it, go learn about the Sandler upfront contract. It's probably the most fundamental meeting skill that every human being ever needs to have, period. But as far as how I like to keep my agendas, I keep them simple, right? Because nobody's ever going to spend a minute reading a meeting agenda. I don't care who they are, they're not going to invest that much time. And I make it focused on not me, but the attendees, right? What do we need to do for them so that it is valuable, right? We don't demo products in what I do, but if I'm setting a demo meeting agenda, you know, an overview of our solution isn't really helpful to anybody. So I would set an agenda to, you know, something of the effect of who's going to be there, why we're getting together, right? We need to review that, make sure that we're all on the same page, and then the 2 or 3 things that we want to accomplish by the end of that meeting. Like, what do we want to end that meeting having done? And then that sets up the upfront contract conversation when you're actually having that meeting. So that's a great sample agenda that I just… I rely on that all the time.

44:23 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. And we'll have that at top1.fm/137. Chris, aren't you proud I actually know what the number's going to be?

44:29 Chris McNeill: And cool, man.

44:30 Scott Ingram: You can also go top1.fm/chris-mcneil That's 2 L's in McNeill, as I often have to remind myself. So you'll find those details there. So Chris, let's go to the information diet. What are you listening to, reading, watching, and when does that happen kind of in that structure?

44:47 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I mean, post-pandemic Chris is struggling to redefine his information diet. One of the downsides of work from home is I don't have a commute, which please, I don't ever want again. Don't misunderstand that. But it was a fabulous time to consume podcasts and audio content. So I've kind of struggled to get those back into my routine or my day. But what I'm doing currently, I spend a lot of time… I think I shared, I like to fix things, I like to build things, I like to cook. So actually, most of the content I consume is focused on figuring out a specific thing that I'm trying to work on in those areas, whether it's a car I'm restoring or a dish I want to prepare. And that's typically like the first place I start is YouTube. YouTube's great. It's amazing. YouTube Premium is totally worth it. So you don't see ads. And the second place I start when I'm trying to understand, especially a new subject, and I do this anytime I enter a new industry or start selling to a new like industry or new vertical, I go to Reddit and Reddit is the Wild West and you got to take everything with a grain of salt. But if you find a subreddit that is applicable to whatever topic you're looking for, Sort it by the top 100 posts of all time. If you read probably the first 10 or 20 of those, you have a pretty solid understanding from several different perspectives of whatever that topic is. And so that's like a really great accelerated, you know, cheat for understanding something that I still implement all the time. Now, the rest of the information diet from an audio content standpoint, right now I've been listening to a ton of, you know, just kind of like music to do background work. As I've been working on kind of these more strategic deals. And I try to read every single day. It's not a business book because business books are super boring. I'm sorry, but the way a lot of business books are written, like, you could rip 30% of it out and it would not impact the message, right? So I don't read a lot of business books for that reason. I like to find summaries. I like to, you know, kind of read the Cliff Notes, so to speak. And then if it's something that's particularly interesting, I'll go grab that book. I've got a sales library that I haven't unpacked from my move yet, but there's some real classics in there. But I love to read like great sci-fi. I'm a huge fan of that because it really kind of takes me out of the ground-level stuff I spend a lot of time in every day, and it gets me thinking in a different way.

47:05 Scott Ingram: So I think the irony here is that what we're sharing is the CliffsNotes from the first Sales Success Stories book. Is that what we're doing?

47:13 Chris McNeill: I literally did not connect those dots before you just said it. But to some extent, right, they're my CliffsNotes. Like, The way that you structured that book, I'm going to murder the description, right? But you had like, I think, 3 sections, career and 2 other sections. And so, you know, the particular challenges that I was having as a seller at that time in my career, that's what those notes are focused on. So I'm not going to claim it's the Cliff Notes of the book, but it's mine from a few years ago.

47:41 Scott Ingram: So fair enough. And hopefully… I was actually surprised to hear you say that most business books you cut out 30%. I was like, are you sure it's not 60%.

47:49 Chris McNeill: You've written a few business books. I didn't want to be offensive.

47:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, but our books are funny. I mean, I joke I'm like the Tom Sawyer of authors because I just have all of my friends write my books for me. And the beauty there is, you know, that you get kind of very quick, different stories, a lot of different perspectives. So there's not, hopefully, 30% of that book doesn't need to be thrown away.

48:08 Chris McNeill: No, I would agree with you.

48:09 Scott Ingram: What about your kind of your tech stack? What are the tools and apps that you're leaning on most heavily? I know you mentioned Notion. What else is in that mix?

48:18 Chris McNeill: Notion is about the only piece of technology that's in that stack. You know, of course, as a seller, as an employee, my company uses Salesforce. There's other CRMs we've used in the past. We have, you know, martech, stuff like that. But that's just whatever I have to do in order to interface with the organization. I'll use those tools, of course. Right. Personally, the things that have always stuck with me, list making and note taking. So, oh, there is another piece of technology, the Google Tasks application. I'm an Android user, so it's got a real clean, lightweight interface on mobile that also, you know, pulls up in Chrome beautifully. So I have access to it, you know, kind of wherever I am. So I've always made lists. Apparently I'm never going to stop. And I always take notes. So typically I will make lists for everything, everything and anything I need to accomplish in a given timeframe. I usually have 5 or 6 lists running at any time. They're always digital. One of the things I like about Google Tasks is you can pretty simply go in and create subtasks and make it easy to kind of mini project manage yourself without having to do like a whole Gantt, you know, Asana nonsense. And from a note-taking standpoint, like I take notes on everything. It is how I process things. I have taken notes while we're doing this interview, which is kind of weird. And I will usually take those notes on pen and paper. I almost always use pen and paper because that works for me and I don't have to like channel a different part of my brain to typing because writing I can just do without thinking about it. Then I will process. For example, after a customer meeting, I always book like at least try to book 30 minutes for myself to update CRM and stop and think about what we covered and think about and define next steps, review my notes. So then I usually will translate those notes into Notion. I do everything in Notion, even You know, with my current work, I track all my opportunities in Notion and all that. And then I put that stuff in CRM as required, of course. So that's my tech stack is, you know, Google Tasks on my phone, Notion everywhere else that I can get it. And then a pen and paper. It's pretty simple.

50:22 Scott Ingram: List making and note taking. I love that. But I want to come back. The piece that I found actually most interesting in that is the fact that you're blocking time to kind of process and just debrief. Each conversation. Say more about that because that's kind of powerful.

50:38 Chris McNeill: Yeah, I mean, along the way over the past couple years evolving as a seller and moving more towards kind of the enterprise or the strategic or just like the more complex deals that have so many more facets and so much more that needs to happen in order to move forward in a sales process, like it's critically important that I stop and think about what I'm doing. You know, when I started selling, when I hit that high-growth startup where I hit 102% of plan, like, there wasn't as much thought that I had to do because we had a pretty clear sales process. We had a product that was defined and kind of stayed in its lane, so to speak, and could do these things. And if the prospect was looking for those things, then great, we're going to do a great job for you. And so really, I was, you know, just focused on qualifying in or out and helping people understand if we're the right solution for them. You know, at that point you get pre-sales to get involved, make sure that we kind of certify the customer's a great fit, and then you're just negotiating and closing. The stuff I do now, way more complex. We interface internally and externally with multiple different departments. And so I went from gladly booking back-to-back demos years ago to I try to make sure I always have at least 30 minutes after a customer call where I can simply think strategically about what that customer said, what we said, what I heard, and maybe what I didn't hear, and then what needs to happen next to get an advance. One of the business books I love, The Perfect Close, James Muir, shout out, is all about getting an advance. And so that's how I look at blocking this timeout, is like, okay, let me make sure that we're advancing and not getting a continuation or just continuing the conversation. Let's make sure we're making So that's what I've started doing, and it's huge.

52:25 Scott Ingram: Nice. And you set me up with a great transition. So you've mentioned Sandler, you've mentioned The Perfect Close. Do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

52:34 Chris McNeill: I subscribe to all of them and none of them. I think that sellers are here to help solve problems. Like, you know, my philosophy is that I'm here to help others. That is my philosophy as a seller. I help my customers find solutions. I help my company find customers. I help the people downstream of me find success, you know, in their jobs. From an actual, you know, sales process or sales philosophy standpoint, like I don't really, you know, subscribe to any one full-time because I look at them as, you know, tools on my tool belt, right? And I can pull out a MEDDIC or MEDDPICC, you know, as this community loves to utilize. Learning about it, right, from David Weiss in person and on the podcast has evolved how I work my process. And yes, there's absolutely like a paper process step, but I don't ever do MEDDPICC, you know. So I'm very flexible about how I apply those things. 2 things that really stuck with me from the past 2 years… this year at the summit, we all collectively decided that discovery is a lifestyle, and I think that's very true, and that would definitely be a philosophy that I think fits well with me as a seller. And then the other one is it's a qualification framework. Called NOTE, N-O-T-E. It was introduced to me a couple years back from a sales director I was working with, and it's kind of an alternative to BANT. BANT as a qualification framework was really more focused on meeting the buyer's needs and kind of the inquiries always wind up being like, do you have money? Are you gonna do this? You know, and NOTE, it's a much more customer-centric version, right? Like, let's make sure we understand what the customer is actually experiencing, what they want to be experiencing. Let's make sure we understand who's going to be impacted, you know, things like that. CIENCE has a great article that describes it way better than I can, and we can share that link too, Scott.

54:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we'll go find that, but I'm not familiar with it. So what is NOTE? You're gonna have to give me your version, Scott.

54:31 Chris McNeill: That's a great question. So NOTE, it stands for Need, Opportunity, team, and effect. And need is really, it's first focused on clearly understanding what the customer is trying to solve for. Like we're not talking about pain points, pain points, I don't have enough pipeline. Well, the need is I need to actually either maybe grow my sales team or I need to spend more marketing or I need to redefine how I'm, you know, qualifying into the pipeline. So we're focused more on the business objectives and less on kind of like the pain points. Not that pain is unimportant, but so that's the N, the need. O, the opportunity. Like, are we going to do business? You know, at the end of this, if we validate that we're a great solution to what you're trying to solve for, is there business to be done? Like, we do have that conversation. We want to define the scope of the opportunity a little bit in their terms. Team, who are we going to be working with, right? Who else is going to be impacted by the decision to make whatever change, you know, you're undertaking and exploring rolling out this solution. So who else do we need to know? Of course, in that, we want to understand kind of the hierarchy of decision-making. We want to make sure we understand who else we're going to need to interface with, but we also want to know who else we're just going to impact, right? Sometimes there's a dark horse on the org chart that has a ton of influence, but the title maybe doesn't reflect it. So we really want to just try to map that out and understand Who are we going to be impacting? And then E, the effect, like what's the outcome you're after here, right? How do you quantify it? How do you define that success? How do we at the end of the road go, okay, there's the finish line. We just crossed it together, you guys. Because sometimes that actually doesn't really get defined clearly, especially when you look at kind of the more project-based work.

56:15 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. That was a really good recap. And obviously we'll have the deeper dive link at top1.fm/137. Chris, how would you describe your style? Like, as you're executing your… I don't know, I guess I'll call it your tool belt sales process. What's your style?

56:32 Chris McNeill: This is going to be so inside out. This brings to mind a Bruce Lee quote from the first sales kickoff I ever attended, which I was not a seller when I attended that sales kickoff. But the Bruce Lee quote's about water, right? It's empty your mind, be formless, be shapeless like water and neck. That was Bruce Lee, was the big theme of that sales kickoff, and it was awesome. But I think it pretty accurately describes what you might call my style. I'm always out there looking to improve, therefore my style is always kind of changing and evolving. But fundamentally, I do like to keep it simple. I just try to ask a lot of questions. I try to run clean meetings with tight agendas and do my follow-up, right? Like, there's a lot of shiny objects in the world of sales And, you know, so many of your former podcast guests have said it, like the ability to focus, the ability to prioritize, the ability to execute as a result, that is critically important to success for any salesperson. So my style is I ask a bunch of questions and I keep it pretty simple.

57:32 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So what motivates you? How do you think about motivation?

57:36 Chris McNeill: Yeah, my buddy Ivan in Dallas probably loves this too, because I got it from him, but like, I think in a lot of ways, you're either going to do it or you're not, and motivation is not as relevant sometimes as people give it credence to be. So for me, what I love to do in my life is I love to solve puzzles. I got bored before I got into sales because I knew how all those puzzles were going to be solved, right? I could see all that happening before the puzzle pieces were dumped out of the box, and I knew exactly how they were going to be put back together. And so I just wasn't interested in going down that path anymore. What I love about selling, every conversation is a brand new puzzle. Every opportunity is a new puzzle. And so I'm not likely to get bored, which is great. So for me, what motivates me, what gets me going, gets me out of bed in the morning, I think every interaction is a puzzle. I'm just trying to solve puzzles.

58:26 Scott Ingram: Nice. So, Chris, is there something you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy?

58:33 Chris McNeill: I don't know. But, you know, what comes to mind is closing opportunities isn't hard if you create them for the right reasons. I think we've all been there or will be there at some point where we're creating an opportunity in the CRM system that we know kind of, you know, the hairs on the back of our neck are telling us it's not qualified. It's probably not going to close, but we're doing that because we need to. You don't need to. It doesn't serve any purpose. It's just a waste of your time and You're gonna get grilled about it later, and it's not hard to close opportunities if you create them for the right reason.

59:07 Scott Ingram: I like that. I like that. What about the flip side? Is there something the typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

59:13 Chris McNeill: You know, there's something that Chris used to believe that he now thinks is crazy. I can tell you that. If anybody out there thinks they aren't surrounded by people that will lend them a hand if they just reach out, they're so wrong. And it doesn't have to be people inside your own company. It can be people outside your company. That's why I encourage everybody to build a network professionally, personally, and find a community who can help you, you know, overcome whatever puzzle pieces you're struggling with at that time. It's what I did. It seems to be working pretty well for me. So you can reach out for help if you're having a hard time with something. Not going to bite you in the rear.

59:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I come back to it so often. Everybody thinks that you know, oh my gosh, this person, they've got such a high profile, they must be completely overwhelmed with inquiries and asks and everything else. Like, you know what, A, probably not. And B, I mean, the other thing I say is let them manage that. I actually had somebody say, tell me one of my favorite quotes back to me today, which I thought was great, which is this idea of like, don't negotiate with yourself. Like, don't decide for somebody else that they don't have time to help you. Like, it's their job to manage their time. It's ridiculous.

1:00:24 Chris McNeill: I have a version of that, Scott. This I developed kind of early when I was really, you know, grinding through prospecting and hating every aspect of it like every human being does. It's really important that I don't say no on behalf of my prospects or my customers, right? Like, yeah, I can let them say no to me. That's fine. That's part of my job. I'm supposed to hear a no, you know, 8 out of 10 times, and I'm crushing it. But I should never assume that they're going to say no. I should just let them say that word to me.

1:00:53 Scott Ingram: That's good. I like it. I like it. Well, let's go with Quotes and Advice for $1,000, Alex. What advice would you have to somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today? And maybe we make this even a little bit more specific for folks who, like, this is a career change kind of play, right? Like, you came from somewhere else in the organization and you're thinking about making your commitment to sales. What's your advice to them?

1:01:16 Chris McNeill: Yeah, so I mean, number one to everybody, just build a fricking network. Just build a network. Do it for the value of having a network. You're not going to stay at your current job forever. Like that world does not exist anymore. It hasn't existed in 30 or 40 years. And having a network to reach into, just, it makes your life easier. You'll sleep better. Job changes are so much simpler and you never know who might turn out to be your new neighbor in Southwest Austin. But for people that are considering like a career change, you know, I have seen conversations from people, questions in the past couple of months from people that are, you know, hey, I'm an engineer and I think I want to get into selling. Like, should I? It's like, yeah, absolutely you should, right? What you should do is you should look at your expertise, what you do really well in your current role, and find something that lets you do that as a seller. Because you know the world better than, you know, any rando college graduate who has just a business degree and never actually worked in the business world. Like, they don't know that world the way you do. You will connect so much more strongly with prospects. You'll automatically speak their language. You'll know exactly what they're talking about when they describe things, and that's huge. So, you know, if you're thinking about a career change, like Go into it eyes open. It's super hard. It's going to suck for a couple of years and focus on doing what you're good at just in a sales role.

1:02:38 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what about, I don't know, I guess I will think of this as like the good to great advice. Like, okay, you started to figure it out, right? You got to 102%. I mean, if you could go back and talk to yourself at that point and say, Chris, here's what I want you to think about and focus on from here. What do you say there?

1:02:54 Chris McNeill: Man, I took my own advice back then. And this might be a little weird for some people to hear, but I jumped ship. I went to a different company where I could, you know, continue to grow as a salesperson because I had accomplished everything I was going to be able to accomplish at that sales org. So I needed to go somewhere else to see how much further I could go as a person. So like, number one, just don't limit yourself. You know, a lot of people are concerned about, am I going to be a job hopper or whatever? Like, no, you're not, especially if you have data-driven points on your LinkedIn profile. You know, just make it really clear, like, hey, I'm a seller. I'm gonna explore. I want to find what my capacity as a sales professional is. I want to see how far I can go. And it's okay to intentionally make those decisions, right, for the right reasons. Also, take the time to connect and give back. You know, I started to invest time in, you know, connecting with people that were new in their sales career after I hit that first President's Club. And that's huge. You said it earlier, right? Like, I won't say I was a mentor, but like, if you're a mentor, when you're helping somebody, you probably learned at least as much, if not more. It's true. It's totally true. So find a way to give back, like connect with some people, answer some questions, go to a networking event and say, hey, what are you struggling with right now in your world? And just shut up and listen to that person and offer a little bit of advice if you have some. That's what I would suggest.

1:04:21 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. Good stuff. Chris, we've talked about a lot of things. I enjoy all of our talks, but this has been really, really fun, and it'll be fun to share one of our conversations. Is there anything I missed? Is there something that you were hoping that we might be able to talk about that you think would be valuable to the folks listening that I just haven't asked the right question to get to yet?

1:04:41 Chris McNeill: I mean, this is one meeting I didn't really set an agenda for, if that's what you're asking. So I think, you know, hey, we did cover a lot of ground. I certainly, I've taken a little bit of a different path to get to sales. You know, I studied computer science years ago in college, realized I could never do that for a living. When I got out of college, I went into tech support because I've always been good with, you know, technical solutions. Got into project management, got really bored, went after the shiny object that was sales, and then actually finally started to figure some stuff out. So not everybody has to take you know, the typical approach, and that's okay. And yeah, I mean, just go build a network, run great meetings, take great notes, make lists. You know, I think that's really what I wanted to cover.

1:05:24 Scott Ingram: I like it. I like the simplicity. So now let's make it actionable. So the last thing is always, you know, creating some type of a challenge for our listeners. So what would you have them do over the course of the next week or 2 to improve themselves, improve their results?

1:05:37 Chris McNeill: Yeah, so I mean, number one, go through your calendar and make sure every meeting has an agenda that clear what will be covered and what is in it for your prospects or your customers, whoever's on that meeting that's not you or your side of the table. Make sure it's from their perspective. It's respectful, it's clear, it's concise. They'll enjoy working with you because of it. Get confirmations the day before those meetings. It's a really fundamental skill a lot of people seem to skip, and it bugs the heck out of me. It's a simple way to just make sure that your meeting's held. Right? Or that you can clear that time and work on something else if you need to, because people are busy. Your customers, your prospects are busy. They have their own business to run, their own lives to lead. Sometimes things come up and they might forget to tell you that. It's okay, right? Just, you're doing them a favor by confirming that meeting. And then, you know, book time to think after every one of those meetings. Like, just revisit your meeting structure and make sure it's got a clear agenda. Make sure everything's Confirmed, and then stop and think afterwards. Like, that's, I think, pretty actionable. Do that for 14 days, and I think your close rate will go up.

1:06:43 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. And then, as I always like to give advice around, anytime you're getting mentored, share the result. Like, circle back and say, hey, I tried this thing that you did. So if you do that, I know how Chris is. He would love to hear from you. I would send him a note on LinkedIn. Tell him how that process went for you. Chris, this has been amazing. Thanks for taking the time yet again and looking forward to sharing you with a broader audience.

1:07:08 Chris McNeill: It's been great, Scott. I mean, yeah, you and I've had so many hours and hours of conversations. It's wonderful that some other people finally get to listen in on it. And I want to extend a little further. If you want to drop me a note on LinkedIn about, you know, redefining how you kind of structure your meetings, great. But if you want to drop me a note on LinkedIn about anything else, or you have a question, me I'm an idiot, please do. I totally welcome it. I'd love to have a conversation with anybody.

1:07:32 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Chris, thanks again.

1:07:33 Chris McNeill: Thank you.

1:07:36 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.