145: Selling with Trust, Integrity & Authenticity with the #1 Sales Rep in the UK, SalesLoft's Misha Jessel-Kenyon

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode of the Sales Success Stories podcast is sponsored by the Sales Success Summit. To learn more about this year's summit coming here to Austin this October and to get access to all the videos from last year's summit for free, just click over to top1summit.com. 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 Misha Jessel-Kenyon. Misha was just named the number 1 sales rep in the UK by Wiser. He's also been SalesLoft's number 1 enterprise account executive in EMEA for the last 2 years running. Welcome to the show, Misha.

0:57 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Thanks for having me on, Scott. Great to be here.

0:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah, really looking forward to this conversation. I know we've been trying to make it happen here for a while, but good things come to those who wait. But we're not going to make our listeners wait because we always kick things off with immediate value. And let's talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your consistent success in sales.

1:17 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, great question. Well, I really put it down to firstly, just continuous learning and making sure that I've got the belief that I can always be better and I've never reached the top no matter what my results say, what my numbers say, because there's always more to learn and acknowledging that sales is a craft that can be mastered. And then after kind of committing to continuous learning, it's actually just committing to the craft as a whole, committing to the profession and really making a decision quite a while ago that I was going to be a salesperson and I was gonna embrace that. And it's a worthwhile endeavor to master. And then finally, I'd say, Just being really quite careful about what company I joined and spending a lot of time evaluating that process and treating it like an investment I'm making. I'm making an investment of myself into that company. And so I evaluated many opportunities and found a company that was an incredibly good fit for me and really gave me the opportunity to succeed. And that environment, I would say, is a big part of my success as well. It's not all about my ability. That's for sure.

2:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So let's start there because, you know, we just came off of, I think the last bonus episode I did was talking about kind of the process for doing due diligence around a sales role and finding that right fit because it is such a massive contributor to how successful you're going to be, right? Finding that right fit, finding the right company. What was your process? What did you do to make sure that SalesLoft was the right spot for you?

2:49 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Sure. So I looked at kind of 3 things, I'd say, from 3 main categories. First, it was leadership that I believed that could really grow me as a person and take me to the next level in my career. Secondly, it was making sure that whatever company I had was in a strong market and had the opportunity to win in that market and that that market was going to continually grow. And then the final thing is a company that I could sell to a buying center that I would actually enjoy. And I made that mistake before of selling to a buying center that I didn't. And that definitely really impacted my ability to get enthusiastic about it. But just to kind of unpack those. So going into leadership to begin with, I think this is something that, you know, everyone knows you should follow a great leader, but I think a lot of people really underestimate the leader you commit to now is gonna shape the salesperson that you are in the future. And who you are in the future is gonna be way more important because as you grow through your career, you're gonna, your earning potential will be higher. And I was basically looking for people that had done it before and had good tenure, but could prove that they were a top performer, but also had built teams before successfully and could build a good culture. And then in terms of the market, I was looking really for a company that had proven themselves in the US already and expanded to EMEA because I always knew that that's gonna have a far greater chance of success than maybe a company that was already proven in our region, but maybe had maxed out the territories and that there wouldn't be enough for me. I knew that at SalesLoft, there's a massive market in the US. And if I'm one of only a few reps joining, there's going to be more than enough to go around as I join and enough market to be successful. And then in terms of the buying centers, so I used to sell to HR and I just hated it. It didn't fit with my personality. And I was just thinking how fun it would be to sell to salespeople. And so I was looking specifically at sales tech companies because I knew that I would enjoy it. I knew that I would get motivated around it. And that turned out to be true.

4:49 Scott Ingram: Oh, too funny. That's specifically one of the callouts that I had in kind of that due diligence episode, which is you need to be conscious of who you're selling to and if they are your people, right? And it's… I've actually had the exact same experience. I've sold to HR, I've sold to finance, not my people. Sales and marketing, absolutely my people, right? And for me, I think it's just, you know, they tend to be more optimistic, more forward-looking, they're willing to invest in the growth of the company. And it's not, you know, pinching pennies and trying to save money.

5:19 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, salespeople, they've got a lot of influence in the organization. And I think the most fun buying centers are those that can get stuff done, but also have access to budget. And also just depends on the topic you enjoy speaking about. I think that's an important piece of it. If you can get fired up about the topic that, you know, the space that you're in, then your commitment to that and your commitment to the space, your commitment to the company is just going to be that much greater. Without commitment, you're not going to get very far.

5:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, nice. Well, let's do some context here because you kind of alluded to the fact that you started at SalesLoft pretty early in their kind of European expansion timeline. Talk us through kind of that and what exactly your role is in your territory and things like that.

6:00 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. So how I actually joined, I was working at a company that used SalesLoft, a company called Peakon, which is an HR tech company. And as I was going about evaluating my opportunities Looking at lots of different companies. I was thinking about SalesLoft and reached out to Ollie Sharp, who was starting the region, just coming over from LinkedIn and prospected him. Went through the process and joined as one of their first account executives. And that was about 3 years ago now. Started in the commercial sales team. So working small businesses and moving all the way up to enterprise. And now I work on strategic accounts. So our largest, most important account's Lemire. Both doing new business and existing. And a little over a year ago, that's when it's really started to kind of scale up and have a big success within the large enterprise segment. And it's really gone from strength since then.

6:49 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then you said that, you know, being in a good company had big results no matter what the numbers say, but the numbers do say something. Why don't you kind of quantify what you've done here the last couple of years?

7:00 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. So first year was 200% over quota, then it was 316%. And most recently finished the year 413% annual quota. And that's consistently been number 1 in EMEA since I started and number 2 globally. A couple years been beaten by the top rep in the US, but finishing this year, it's kind of basically got scaled better and better and better each year and the region scaled with it.

7:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, and your competition has scaled too because you have grown massively there in the London office. We were catching up on that just before we got started.

7:34 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. So I mean, we've grown from 10 people in the London office to nearly 100 now. And I mean, how many reps we've got now? I'd say we've probably got around 30 reps in Europe. And I'd say actually potentially even more, maybe 40, 45. And globally, we've got hundreds of reps. So I think we've got around 200 reps globally across the whole of SalesLoft. Amazing.

7:56 Scott Ingram: Amazing. So obviously, you know, the rule for the show is number one or top 1%. You are both of those things, obviously. So excited about this. How did this all start for you though? I mean, you talked about being kind of intentionally going into sales and embracing that. How did you get into sales in the first place?

8:13 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, so it definitely wasn't always the plan. Although my earliest memory of sales was painting pebbles on the beach and then trying to sell them to passersby. But I never really knew what sales was when I was growing up or really went for any sort of education around it. And as I was graduating university, everyone in the US in college, university, same thing. And When I was coming out, the advice was to go into management consulting, that that was going to be the best business education. I was gonna get the most breadth of experience and went into that and realized that everything I liked about, well, I thought I would like about it was really more about sales, the client part of it, the engagement part of it. I was spending so much time in spreadsheets and then the other half of my time in PowerPoint presentations and learned how to enjoy spending crazy amounts of hours building PowerPoint presentations, which I think has served me well in sales now. But really I was seeing the salespeople at the consultancy and seeing how much more fun they were having, how much more money they were making, and was thinking I should get into sales. I also had a bit of a passion for film and media at the time. And I had a bit of a side passion, which is to one day be a film producer. And I ended up getting sold by this media company to join them as a media salesperson. And it was pretty much like being a film producer is how they sold it to me, which is that you come up with an idea of a campaign that gets published in the newspaper. And then you go out and try and get it funded, try and get it sponsored by advertisers. And what I quickly realized is the bit I was good at, the bit I loved was the sales part. And I saw quick success with that. And at that stage, I decided that I really wanted to commit to sales because I knew that I could be great at it. I knew that it would be rewarding. I knew that I enjoyed it. And then when I made that decision that I'm going to stay in sales, I said, I have to get into the best segment of sales possible, which in my mind is still true today is SaaS software. And that's when I made the move into SaaS. I moved over to that company, Peakon, that I mentioned earlier. And that was really the best thing I ever did in my career, I would say. Making that final commitment, making that final decision to myself that, hey, I'm not afraid to be a salesperson. I want to be a salesperson. And I'm going to commit to that wholeheartedly.

10:23 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So I mean, pretty intentional journey there. I mean, if you were starting over now, knowing what you know now, would you have approached that any differently?

10:32 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, well, I'd say like when I made that move out of consultancy, I wasn't sure about sales. I was interested in it. So I went for this kind of halfway house role that was like, you know, media, like quite a lot of sales, but then a little bit of project management in it. I think if I was to do it again, I would just go straight into SaaS software. I would become an SDR and I would join the company that I knew could teach me the most, the fastest. And, you know, I feel like I've gone quite far in a relatively short space of time, but potentially I could have gone even faster, even further if I had just jumped into the best industry for sales straight away.

11:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I'm curious what you would have looked for, right? If the… okay, I want to be intentional. I want to go straight into SaaS sales. I want to go to a place where I'm going to learn the most. What would you have looked for? What would you have asked to sort of identify that opportunity? Because I think that's overlooked in a lot of ways, right? If you're just getting started in your career, really being mindful of which organization is going to give me the most resources and the best training.

11:30 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, definitely. Good question. And then even, you know, you can very easily be fooled by like, you can look at a company and think that, look at that growth trajectory, look how fast they've grown over the last couple of years. And then you may be the last one in the door when the territories have just got way too stretched and no one's got time to train you. And maybe they don't have a methodology or any way to think about actually doing sales. They've just got lucky or ridden on a good market trend. And I think, you know, the market trend, the market product, you know, that's all foundational. But beyond identifying a company that has a good market and riding a good wave of a market trend, I would say for me personally, like throughout my sales career, I've recognized the importance of MEDDPICC as a sales methodology. And I pretty much wouldn't join a sales organization unless they use MEDDPICC or MEDDIC or some sort of methodology that was a derivative of that. And so I would qualify whether they run MEDDPICC because I believe it's the gold standard of SaaS software sales methodology. And then beyond that, I just figure out how intentional they were about their sales process. Ask about their sales process, ask about their training process. Even think about the hiring process of how hard is it to get into the organization. If it's pretty easy to get in, then they're probably hiring not as high-quality talent as you'd ideally want to be surrounded by to learn and grow. So ideally go for the hard ones to get a job at. And I would say also just make sure that the manager that you're about to join comes from a good history of companies that are well known to be successful sales teams. And there's many of these companies that gain a They do amazing, they IPO or they get acquired. And the salespeople from those companies get this kind of legendary status, then they move over to other companies. Like, I'm often looking for leaders that kind of come from those types of companies. And I think if I was starting all over again, you know, hopefully I would learn that, hey, I need to go look for these MEDDIC companies that have these leaders that have come from this pedigree of knowing how to run a sales process properly. I'm gonna learn from them, I'm gonna work for them. And make sure I can progress as fast as possible.

13:29 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. And having worked for a couple of those types of organizations myself, you know, what's amazing that I think gets overlooked is the network that then develops among that team, right? When you have just this incredible sales organization, people do move on, they do move around, and you start to see kind of these clustering effects. It's a really interesting dynamic that sort of gets created, and you get a pretty good feel for Okay, that organization's legit, because here's, you know, 5, 6 people from this, you know, once legendary sales team have gone and collected there. And, you know, and some will move up into management roles, and they're the ones that are doing the hiring. It's such an interesting thing to watch, and that those networks are just absolutely powerful.

14:10 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. Yes, it's such a powerful network, right? And, you know, there's a reason for their success is because they treat sales like a science as well as an art. And even if a company doesn't use use MEDDIC or that kind of methodology, if you qualify, you're starting to qualify how a company sells. And if it becomes clear that they didn't have a well-thought-out sales process, then that's a pretty big red flag. And, you know, that's not the case for any of these MEDDIC companies because they're all about process as well as the art. But MEDDIC and this legacy from the companies like PTC and AppDynamics and MongoDB, those kind of companies, you know that those kind of leaders know what they're doing. So the good ones to follow, and they support each other as part of the network.

14:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in fact, there's a lot of roots, you know, just like in the startup ecosystem, there's kind of the PayPal Mafia, right? There were so many people that came out of PayPal that started all kinds of other really successful companies, Elon being one of those, and Reid Hoffman and some of these other people. PTC has kind of the same type of history and legend in the sales space. It's a really interesting thing to see how many people, especially leaders, kind of tie back to that.

15:11 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly.

15:12 Scott Ingram: So, Misha, you have had a lot of consistent success, like massively overperforming your numbers. Numbers, what are you most proud of?

15:20 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: What am I most proud of? I would say it's probably the first multimillion-dollar deal that I closed, I would say. And I guess I'm most proud of that because I feel like on that specific deal that I ran, like I truly gave it everything I had. And I felt like I truly ran a great sales process in that situation. And I'm kind of proud on how I applied myself to the situation in that. And it's kind of, almost less about the deal value, but it's more about the sales process that we ran on that deal. And then the outcome of it obviously comes afterwards. But doing something there that I felt was then replicatable moving forward, and that was very, very exciting to kind of do a deal like that and then know, hey, I actually can use that same process, apply it again, and do it again, hopefully.

16:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, let's talk about the specifics of that in a little bit more detail. I mean, the show is called Sales Success Stories after all. That sounds like a pretty successful sale.

16:10 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. So it was an account where we already had a small land and a lot kind of quickly went wrong at the beginning. We lost our champion, we lost our economic buyer. They left the organization, moved to another organization, and we had to quickly rebuild relationships and rebuild champions. And I guess at the core of the success of it was very quickly getting to the executive sales leader and positioning to him a point of view about how we could help the organization that was based upon a transformation that they were currently trying to embark on. We were able to attach the potential value that we could deliver to that transformation and then get the sponsorship of that executive to then go run a deep discovery process and build a business case off the back of it. And essentially we said to this executive, hey, we don't know for sure if we can deliver this value, but we hypothesize based upon what we already know that the impact could be this much. But don't take our word for it. Let us go do the deep discovery. Let us go through the process of actually doing the due diligence with your team. And we'll come back to you and we'll share with you what the potential impact could be and how we could potentially deliver upon it. Now, that was the beginning of about a 6-month-long process after that of deep discovery across the ride organization, building many different champions, having small wins as well as small failures, but eventually culminating in closing this deal that was branded as a critical part of the transformation that they were going through. I think the day before the end of our financial year, yeah, it was the day before the end of our financial year. I remember I went to the pub as the contract was out for signature and thinking, he's not gonna sign it. Until tomorrow. But luckily got it just as everyone arrived in the pub. It was very, very timely moment. But I was proud of that because we didn't just sell SalesLoft, we sold a transformation. And I think only by doing that, we warranted kind of the size of the deployment, the scale of the deployment, as well as the size of the deal.

17:56 Scott Ingram: The really interesting part about that for me is you got an executive sponsor to essentially sponsor the discovery, right? So if I'm understanding that right, it was really he's then, or she's turning around to their team and saying, hey, spend the time with these folks. Like, we're going to dig in deep, we're going to figure this out together, which is oftentimes hard to do if you don't have that kind of buy-in and a leader saying, hey, please spend the time.

18:18 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, exactly. Well, the good thing we did have already is we had good results from the small deployment. And so we were able to share that back to give us credibility. And then we also had a strong point of view based upon what we knew from our previous champions that left the organization, based upon what we knew from their annual report and all the public-facing information about how we could potentially help. And that provocation what was critical, because without that provocation based on research or based on information you got from the lower level, they're not going to sponsor you. But we had enough to provoke the executive to think, ah, maybe these guys do have something worth exploring. And then it was a case of, I guess it was like a no-risk proposition. The only thing they were losing was time. It was, you know, why wouldn't you want to see the potential impact of what we could deliver? If the impact is something that they want and they think, hey, there is possibility they could deliver on it, then you've got a pretty good chance that they'll sponsor the process of them proving it out.

19:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. So that's the fun stuff, right? The big wins, the big results. What's the hard part? Like, what do you find yourself struggling with the most?

19:24 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think generally as a person, I think the way that I work is like I work in very like intense bursts and I get quite obsessive. Then it drops when like you have a big win or, you know, you've been working intensely on something and then there's a bit of a lull. So I think for me it's about making sure I've got consistent energy, like I've got consistent focus. And also when I'm getting really intense within a deal or within a quarter that I'm not letting my personal life drop. Um, trying to keep balance I think is a good summary of what I struggle with.

19:56 Scott Ingram: Nice. Let's get into the details around that because I love to really dissect the way that you structure your day and the routines and everything else. And my favorite way to do this is tell us what time your alarm clock goes off. And I want the blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow.

20:11 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, so I wake up at 4:00 AM, do handstands in a cold shower, and drink 6 cups of coffee, and then work out for 2 hours before I start my day. I don't do any of that. I'm generally quite unstructured in terms of my early morning routine. I actually despise routine. And this is part of my problem is what gets me going is variety, excitement, new experiences. However, I do try and stick to some principles, right? And so some principles is I'll always try and wake up up before 7 AM, but that will vary depending on what I've done the night before. And I'll also, as I wake up, obviously the classic hygiene routine… shower, teeth, etc. The one weird thing I do is I get all my weird meals freshly cooked and delivered to me daily. So as soon as I've done my hygiene and got ready, etc., go out and get my fresh delivery of my food. And really it just saves me time in the day that I can focus on work and my personal life without having to think about cooking. So I get that, bring it inside, put it in the fridge, take my vitamins, moisturize, then always a coffee to start the day. And then either start, depending on what time I wake up, I'll either have a personal training session before I start work or I'll just start work immediately. So once or twice a week I'll try and do a personal training session and try and go a bit early, a bit early to bed before. And that exercise and that kind of fitness part of it is a big part of keeping me focused, keeping me sane, and helping me de-stress.

21:33 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what time does like the workday start and how do you structure that or how do you unstructure that, I suppose?

21:40 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, my workday starts about 8 AM on average, but it really depends on what's going on like that week or that day. And I guess the unstructured part of it is like the way I structure it is based upon what needs to be done always. And so if I know I've got a lot coming up over the next few days, I'll wake up earlier, I'll start work earlier. If I know that I've got a bit more time to think and a bit more time to be creative and there's not critical meetings coming up in the next couple days, then I'll normally ease off a little bit, wake up a little bit later, I start work a little bit later. So it's always in flux in that way. And for me, that helps me kind of manage the highs and lows of the intensity, but it also helps me keep a bit of variety, right? Not get bored of the routine.

22:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah. When do you kind of look at and make the decisions around kind know what those priorities are?

22:23 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Always the week before. And what I do to be able to do that is I color code my calendar, and I won't go through the full details of it, but I color code my critical meetings in a certain way so I can see ahead of kind of how intense my week is. And then also, if I see in my calendar that I've got too many non-critical meetings, then I'll just go through and start deleting those and opting out of it so I can refocus myself. It's a Friday thing where I'll go in and look at the week after And then I'll do that hygiene of the week and then start planning out my week the Friday before.

22:51 Scott Ingram: All right, I need to know the details. So tell me about these colors and what they mean.

22:55 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think I might offend some people by sharing these, but so some people internally potentially. So yellow is internal and low importance. So the kind of stuff that gets deleted if I've got too many of them. Purple is internal and high importance. Blue's client-facing and mid-importance. So worst case scenario could be rescheduled, but ideally not. And then red is client-facing and high importance. So ideally, I want to go into the week seeing a lot of red. And if I don't see a lot of red, then something's going wrong. Because without this, I feel like it's very easy to get pulled in lots of different directions from people demanding your time. And I think a critical part of it is making sure that you're maniacally focused on the highest priority things and really taking control of your time. And by doing this, it provides a really easy way of me taking control of my time and canceling meetings or rescheduling them if I need to. So that I can be investing in the areas that are actually going to help me achieve my goals.

23:48 Scott Ingram: Nice. I like it. I like it. What about the end of the day? I mean, how are you wrapping things up and what's the personal life side of things look like?

23:55 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. I mean, I normally finish calls about 6 PM and then there'll normally be another hour or so of follow-ups and checking emails, et cetera. So most frequently finish about 7 PM and I'll try and do a lot of exercise. So either I'll be doing exercise or seeing friends. If there's something really intense going on or there's a really big meeting the next day, oftentimes I will be up until like 11 PM prepping for it, working through decks, etc. I try and only do that occasionally so that I can make sure I don't burn out, only when it's really required. But I'm otherwise… so sports-wise, I'm either doing squash or tennis, going to the gym. I also do fencing. I don't know if that's very big in the US or not. I think the best way to describe it if you don't know is like sword fighting, essentially. And aside from doing those sports, I'm meeting friends, going out for dinner, eating out a lot, rightly or wrongly. Don't spend too much time at home cooking dinner, et cetera.

24:45 Scott Ingram: Awesome. It's very clear to me there's no cooking in your world.

24:48 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Only at the weekends. The funny thing is I actually really do enjoy cooking, but I just don't have time for it. And so it always falls to the lowest point on the list. I only cook when I cook for other people because I very much enjoy hosting.

24:58 Scott Ingram: Nice. Okay. Very cool. Very cool. Well, you opened with your number one differentiator was the continuous learning. So what is your information diet? What are you listening to, reading, watching? When does that Yeah, sure.

25:10 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: So a lot of the information I consume is actually on Audible. So I just found that reading physical books was less efficient because listening to them, I could do it on the go, in the gym, as I'm going around. So I can just fit it into my week more easily. I also listen to a lot of podcasts, podcasts like yours, sales podcasts, as well as just general self-improvement stuff. And I don't read any fiction at all. Everything's nonfiction. And it's either sales books, finance books, business books. Like philosophy, economics, politics, and philosophy books. I studied economics, politics, and philosophy at university and still have a big love for it. And I think all of it is hugely applicable to sales still. Economics being about how business works at a macro level, politics is all about influence, philosophy is about logic, that kind of helping you construct business cases even. And so I try and read a lot of stuff that… not just sales books, but things that are broadly transferable to business. And broadly transferable to sales because it… things that make you a more rounded person and self-improvement things that can help me figure out how to better myself.

26:12 Scott Ingram: Nice. Let's do some best of, and maybe we do one per category. So you talked about economics, politics, philosophy, self-improvement. You want to pick a favorite book in each of those categories?

26:24 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah. So economics, I would say it's a new one by Ray Dalio, The Changing World Order. And so Ray Dalio is one of the most successful hedge fund managers ever. And he's talking… it's all about the changing economics of the whole world. And it's an important book because it influences all kinds of business of where the locus of power is in the economy. And it's all about how the power is shifting away from certain places in the world to other places and kind of painting a bit of a map of what the future might look like. Hugely valuable for where we're going next. Life philosophy, it's actually by the same guy. It's a book called Principles by Ray Dalio. And it's all about how to kind of define what's important to you in life and how to live by your principles and figure out your principles. I would say, I mean, sales books, my favorite sales book is The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon. And that's the new one that's come out recently, but phenomenal and crosses so many boundaries. So finance, I've got 2 ones that one is much softer, and I think applicable for everyone, which is Rich Dad Poor Dad. I think that's a great book for everyone. Just teaching you about kind of the fundamentals of personal wealth and how to build personal wealth. And then another one that's a little bit more detailed for those that are into investing is The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor by Howard Marks. Just a super useful book if you're into investing at all. And I think even just understanding investing helps you understand business and how to have a business-level conversation with executives. So really transferable. And then for philosophy, I mean, This one is pretty dense. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone, but I'd say Plato's Republic is still the most interesting one to me, even though it's one of the oldest books ever. But there's a lot in there around how to construct an argument, even an argument that may seem farcical, that can be transferable to sales.

28:11 Scott Ingram: Great list. Great list. So we'll have that up. If you go to top1.fm/this episode number or top1.fm/Misha, I'm just going to go first name only. It'll make it a lot easier. For everybody. And then I guess I won't be allowed to have any more top-performing Mishas on the show from here on out. Yeah, some really good stuff on that list. What about the podcast side of things? What are your maybe top 3?

28:33 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: So podcasts, it's mostly sales podcasts. So, and it maybe sounds a bit contrived, but Sales Success Stories is one of my top ones. Love the depth that it goes into whenever anyone's on the show. Also love Force Management's podcast, Revenue Builders. And then there was an incredible series by Hunters and Unicorns on the 33 CXOs. Of all of these companies that come from this MEDDPICC culture, this MEDDPICC legacy. And it's just really interesting kind of learning how these leaders speak because they're some of the most successful revenue leaders in the industry now. They've got a lot of interesting things to share in those episodes.

29:06 Scott Ingram: Fascinating. And I haven't dug into that one, but I think the origins of that are exactly kind of that PTC origins mafia that I was alluding to earlier.

29:14 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. Yeah, they all come from that same legacy, you know, PTC, BladeLogic, BMC, and they've all come off and become CXOs elsewhere. Like, it's a really good example of of people who've really learned their craft, mastered their craft, and then they've all gone on to be incredibly successful. And there's a very clear, strong correlation behind that.

29:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah, fascinating stuff. And then I appreciate you… it's certainly not a prerequisite for the show, but I appreciate you calling out this show. Are there specific areas, like, as I go into this depth, what are the areas that you enjoy my digging into the most?

29:45 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think it's great to kind of understand who these people are, like, you know, just behind the numbers, where they focus, like, what their aspirations are, where they want to go with their lives. The psychology of a high-performing salesperson is often quite interesting as to what drives them, what their motivations are. I think the process thing of how they approach deals is interesting. I think in terms of actually what they're doing day to day, the thing I find most interesting is sales process routine as well, but sales process specifically, because often that's the stuff that is the most replicatable.

30:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, let's talk about those 2 things. So kind of starting with the motivation and the drive. I mean, what is that for you?

30:19 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: What keeps you For me, like originally, right at the beginning, money was definitely a big part of it. I think money still is a big part of it for me, not just for the sake of it, but really as a means to an end of increasing my freedom. Being free, feeling like I'm free is one of my most important values, I would say. But beyond that, for me, as I got into sales, I just loved the process of it. I love the fact that I could get paid to speak to people all day or listen to people more so and construct a business case, construct an argument as to why a customer would buy. And the excitement and the highs and lows of it. I think I'm almost addicted now to the rush of the chase, the actual process of pursuing a deal. I think I've come to love. And so although a lot of it started with money, I think it's developed a little bit further than that into just the love of the process of running a sales process. And then beyond that, longer term, for me, my motivation is progressing in an industry that I know has boundless opportunity. And I'm excited to kind of improve myself now and become ideally, you know, an asset that would be even more valuable in the future in an industry that's just only going to grow exponentially. And for me, a lot of my motivation is also around being able to become the person that I need to be for the future and doing that by working in this industry in the right way and following a process of self-improvement. And knowing that if I do that, then I'm going to be in a very, very good place in 5, 10 years' time.

31:47 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Let's talk about kind of the process side of things a little bit more. I mean, starting with, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

31:56 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah. So I think, you know, we've already talked about MEDDPICC and I definitely believe in that as kind of the core qualification matrix, but that isn't a sales process. So I would say MEDDPICC is key for kind of the navigation of how you navigate your deal, how you tell if you're on track or off track and where you need to focus next. But beyond that, I would say that following a value-first sales process that's very much focused around the business case. And my philosophy is very much quality over quantity. Find deals where you can definitely win and where you can create a business case that can really quantify value, that's going to solve a very important problem for a customer, and then focus your time there. And don't spend your time on the other ones. Because as a salesperson, it's a bit like being an investor, but you're an investor of your own time in these deals. Then I would say kind of the other things, I'd say that I definitely don't believe in closing. I don't think hard selling works. I think deals will close themselves as long as you open them correctly, you manage the process correctly, and then you will take them to a point where there's no other logical solution than to buy. And I kind of really dislike the whole kind of endless talk in sales about closing, how to close. I think it only is applicable in very transactional sales. And then I would also say that at the heart of sales, trust and integrity and authenticity is at the heart of everything. If you can't truly be your authentic self when you're selling, then you're not going to be able to build trust with the buyer. And if you don't operate with integrity, then the deal's gonna be rotten at its core. Like they're gonna sense it. So, so you have to operate with that at heart.

33:36 Scott Ingram: Love that. There's my personal quote of the episode so far. So I love that. When it comes to that authenticity, I mean, how do you show up? Who are you in a deal as you're working your process through one of these opportunities?

33:50 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think for me, I just don't hide anything about myself personally, or even, I kind of openly share everything that's going on with my life. And I build relationships that are very kind of I'm sharing stuff that you would share to a friend once you get to that level with the customer. And I think that builds trust. And then also it's about being authentic with the things that aren't good about your products and not trying to present everything as everything's absolutely perfect, 5 stars out of 5 for everything because it's not believable. And so be real about what's good and what's bad and approaching deals in the way to say, hey, we are not best for everyone. We are best for customers that have certain types of problems and need certain types of things. And as we go through that process, if we understand that their decision criteria of what they need matches up, then amazing, I've got a deal. If it doesn't match up, then I'll tell them and say, hey, you know, we're not the right fit for them. And so I think it's also just being honest about the flaws of what you're offering within their context, and then not pursuing deals that aren't going to be in both of your favor.

34:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, great stuff. Great stuff. So before I forget, this is going to feel like a little bit of a tangent, but I feel like you've cracked open the door a few times, and I haven't walked through it. You're doing some pretty interesting stuff on the investing side of things. And you've talked about it both financially, but also in terms of your time. What's happening there? How are you thinking about that?

35:08 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, sure. I mean, investing is a bit of a hobby for me. It's kind of like a side hustle for me almost. I do a lot of property investing as well as equity investing. And most recently, I've, with a couple of other friends who work in SaaS, some salespeople still, some starting their own companies now, we're building an investing network. And essentially, the idea is to try and and open up access to private equity investment into early-stage software companies to those who work in the industry. Because to normally invest in these companies, you need a large sum of money and the right network to get access to these deals. But by building a community and pooling that money together, we can get access to deals but also give access at a much lower minimum investment. And so we've started this community and we've got about 100 signups so far. And we're aiming to be the first angel investing network in the UK to start providing access to these companies. And so this is always going to stay a side hustle for me. It's just, it's kind of a bit of fun on the side, rather than my core career. But it's great to kind of start to expand that side of my repertoire as well.

36:13 Scott Ingram: I love that. I love that. And it's so interesting how those 2 ideas go together. You know, I just recently had another conversation with David Weiss, and we were talking about this combo of investing and side hustling. So how do you manage that balance? How do you think about kind of side hustling in general?

36:28 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think a key part of side hustling is just making sure that you're not the only one, like having a good division of labor. When it comes to property investing, I've got other people around me shouldering a lot of the burden, whether they're people that work for me on managing things or whether they're people that just kind of pay to manage a short piece of what needs doing. And then even with the investing network side hustle, it's starting with other people. So there's 3 of us together. And so it's very easy to divide that labor up. 3 of us who all have full-time other things. But because there's 3 of us, then a little bit of time of each adds up to enough to manage it.

37:03 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Very cool. Now what about the tech in your own life? Like what are the tools and apps that you can't live without?

37:09 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, great question. So I mean, there's one thing that's been talked about a lot, I think, on LinkedIn by some of the sales influencers. One thing I got very recently, which has actually changed my life, it was a Whoop, which is a fitness tracker. And I kind of really believe in well-being and health being a key foundation to success. And it's kind of gamified my exercise life. And I'm a very competitive person and find it much easier to compete with myself than other people normally. And having it enables me to do that. And it also helps me understand my sleep. It essentially tells me when to go to bed. So it says to me, you're tired, go to bed. And that's totally changed my sleeping pattern and got me way in a way better shape in terms of my energy levels. So I think that's one half of it on the health side. Another thing that obviously I've got to plug is going to be SalesLoft. The reason why I work here is because it totally changed the game for me at my last SaaS company, helping generate enough pipeline to properly ramp, learn what was working from my colleagues. And without that, I'm not sure I ever would have ramped at that previous company. And so I owe a lot to it, but also I owe a lot to it in what I do day to day, how I use SalesLoft. And then just a simple Gmail. I mean, I know some people love Outlook, some people love Gmail. I just love Gmail. It's so easy to use and I run pretty much my whole life out of Gmail. So I don't really know what I would do without it. Or if I worked at a company that had Outlook, it probably would totally destroy my whole working rhythm.

38:28 Scott Ingram: I am 100% with you on that. Are there any kind of Gmail hacks that you have developed that other people might not be aware of?

38:36 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: So for me, it's the task manager that's built into the application that I can just drag my emails into them. And it's very easy to attach tasks to emails that are coming through. And it just makes it so much easier to manage my inbox. I know some people like tags and stuff like this, but for me it's everything goes in the taskbar and that's pretty much everything of how I run my day.

38:58 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well done. All right. So is there something you believe that the typical sales rep would think is crazy?

39:05 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I would say your overall sales process, i.e., the steps you take customers through. Is far more important than the individual conversations that you have. And I think too many reps focus on conversational tactics or language around influence, or, you know, it's all about the conversation type focus. You know, I'm going to convince them in this conversation that they should buy whatever I'm selling. And I think if you focus too much there, that you can very quickly become inauthentic if you're not practiced or mastered properly in those areas. And that inauthenticity is poison to your deals. It makes it difficult to build trust, which makes it hard to build champions. And if you don't have a champion, you don't have a deal, and ultimately can be a huge detriment to your success. So I'd say use conversational tactics with caution. Like, individual conversational tactics are not really that useful when you compare it to how impactful being strategic about the process you're taking them through can be.

40:04 Scott Ingram: And how does that manifest? I mean, are you educating your prospect around the process? Is it about kind of constantly driving towards next step? Like, what does that actually mean?

40:14 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: It's about educating them about our sales process, saying, you know, this is typically how our sales process works. And this is why we take you through this process. And showing them that it's in their benefit to follow our process. Of course, we still need to take into account the nuance of the organization, and then adapt it based on your learning, what you're learning, and then propose a slightly different sales process if there's information that's shared, that means that kind of the standard process isn't going to work. But it's very much about convincing them to go your way and then also saying no when they want to go in a direction that you know isn't going to be fruitful for either party. And a good example of that is a core part of our sales process is building a business case. And we call it a business value assessment. And a big part of how we educate the customer on it is it's in your benefit to go through this because not only will it help us quantify the impact and show you if this is worth doing or not, and we're not going to ask you to sign off on this until we know if it's worth doing or not. But it's also going to provide us a map on how we deliver value and enable you to hold us accountable to what we've agreed to deliver. And so it's not just how you choose, it's how you get a good outcome of implementing the software. And that's just one example. But there's plenty of things like that, where if you let the customer be in the driving seat, you can very quickly kind of go down routes that kill deals and unintentionally from customers. Customers don't… haven't bought what you've sold. You've sold it a lot more times than they've bought it. And so you should very much be in the driving seat.

41:41 Scott Ingram: Yeah, this totally reminds me, I don't know if you've seen it, because it was quite some time ago. At the very first Sales Success Summit, Justin Bridgemohan talked about sort of this and he sort of had this epiphany. He really dug in and was like, okay, when I win, why do I win? And when I lose, why do I lose? And he realized it all came down to this. It all came down to, I win when I run my process and I bring the client into sort of this idea. And it's really teaching them and educating them and selling them on the process, right? It's helping them understand that, you know, this works. I've done this way more times than you have, right? I know how to make clients successful and we are successful when we do it this way. So you just kind of need to trust the process. I'm gonna quickly interrupt myself here to share this video link with you. I just went back and set the video I just mentioned to be free just for you. You'll find links at top1.fm/145 or top1.fm/misha. And while you're there, do yourself a favor and click on the link for the Sales Success Summit. If you think these interviews are valuable, imagine how much value you'd get from being in a room with a few dozen of the top performers you've heard on this podcast. Plus, we have a lot of fun here in Austin. So top1.fm/145 to get access to Justin's video and top1summit.com to sign up to join us this October.

43:09 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, exactly. You're selling them on the process. I think that's something people misunderstand is you're not necessarily selling them on the product. You're selling them on the sales process to evaluate your product. And a lot of the other supporting people that you'll bring in on the deal will often, you know, help you sell it. And you will be selling it later on in the process. But at the very beginning, it's all about selling the process, selling them to commit to your process.

43:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, and I think the flip side of that is the best way to lose is to follow their process. And that usually looks like an RFP that I don't think serves anybody well, but it's just no good.

43:41 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. And I'll be the first to say, oftentimes, you know, sales is messy. And oftentimes you'll get in situations where you get forced into other people's processes and you're trying to, you know, you get backed into these corners, and it gets very difficult sometimes. But even within that, it's then trying to design a new process from where you are. Like, say you suddenly get placed in a desert, which often can happen metaphorically in sales. You've got to then figure out how to get back home, right, from there. And sometimes it's like that in sales. You suddenly get put in a situation in sales where it's like being in a desert, and you've got to then figure that out.

44:15 Scott Ingram: You've got to get creative on how you can get back to the I'm flashing back to like the old school days when we had standalone GPS devices and you would take a wrong turn and it would say recalculating. It's kind of that, right? Like, oh crud, we're in the wrong spot in the deal cycle. We need to get back on track. So now we need to recalculate and plan a new route.

44:34 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. And that is what MEDDPICC is for. It's your GPS, right? It tells you where you are and it helps you recalculate and then design a new short process of where to take it from there. If needed. And that GPS, right? If you don't have the GPS, then you don't know where you are. You don't know what to do next. You don't know where to turn next.

44:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

44:50 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: And that's often where people get stuck.

44:52 Scott Ingram: That's a really good analogy with MEDDPICC as GPS. I think that's absolutely genius, right? It really does show you this is where you are, this is what's missing. You know, you're either on track or you're off track, and it's pretty clear about where you need to make up ground.

45:05 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly that.

45:07 Scott Ingram: So what about the flip side?

45:08 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Is there something that the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is So I think the average sales professional just idealizes enterprise or strategic sales, like it's just the pinnacle of sales, there's nothing else. And that you should always sell to bigger accounts in terms of number of employees, that's always gonna be better. But the reality is it isn't always better. Like it just depends on what you're selling and what market. Certain products have certain different segment fits in terms of SMB, commercial, enterprise, strategic. And I'd say think of more about like playing on the types of accounts that you can win. Don't always think big is better. And I'd also say that as a sales rep, you should reflect on what truly brings you joy within the sales process. Some reps are way more suited to being transactional reps, will enjoy it more and probably make more money doing that. Some reps are much bigger at the long-term strategic value selling process. And they enjoy that and they have the patience to wait for the yes. And I think you both have to be honest with yourself around what accounts can we actually sell to? It's not just bigger is better, but also what accounts am I suited to sell to? It's not always bigger is better.

46:22 Scott Ingram: That's a really good insight. Well, let's keep going kind of with that theme, cuz I always like to ask what advice you would give to somebody that is just starting out in their sales career today.

46:30 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I'd say just starting out in your career today, I'd say like don't think about the short-term money. Like you all know that in sales there's a lot of earning potential, but I think when people first get in sales, me included, you very quickly focus on the money. But your earning potential is going to be so much greater in the future if you build yourself as an asset, as an A-player, as someone that everyone wants to recruit today. And so over-index on learning consuming all these books, these podcasts, everything there is to know about sales and related topics to sales that are transferable, like business, economics, politics, as we discussed before, investing, finance, and really become someone that would be indispensable to a sales organization. And then the big earnings will come later as a result of that. And this also comes back to what we discussed earlier with selecting the right leader, selecting the right company, that can teach you a lot and not just the one that's going to pay you the most on day one. Because what you'll make in 5 years' time is gonna just eclipse that initial starting salary.

47:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, it's one of those just having a little bit longer time horizon than looking at tomorrow or next month's commission check, right?

47:44 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, exactly right. It's very easy to have that at the beginning. I definitely had that. I think that was one of my mistakes at the beginning is I, I kind of over-index on just the excitement of the potential in But but it took me some time to really start to be strategic and think about where I was going to take it long term.

47:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, what about somebody that's a little further in? I don't know that you necessarily have any direct experience with this, but what would you tell somebody that is again a few years into their sales career? They've kind of found their stride, but maybe they're just they haven't been able to find that next gear and get from good to great.

48:15 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yep, for me, I would say it's been that next gear has mostly come from. Mentors or peers at other organizations that are high performers. And in London, I've been very lucky. I've grown to become friends with some of the best salespeople in London at other software companies or Medbit companies. And we regularly meet up, we hang out, we talk about sales and we talk about other stuff. But building that network, it's just become such a pool of knowledge and we can always bounce things off each other. And on the mentor side, yeah, just people that know so much more than me, have walked so much further than me in my same shoes and I can kind of bounce off the the same questions. I'd say on the mental side, you can go 2 ways. You can build relationships with people who've gone down that path, and they'll normally want to help because they'll empathize and been there before. And I even do that with SDRs that are trying to move up because I also want to give back too. And leaders or very successful AEs that have gone through that process, I think, would be the same thing. And then also, you kind of… you could pay for mentorship. You could pay for learning from those who've been there and done that before. I haven't actually done that yet, but that's something that I'm thinking about doing going forward. Starting to kind of pay for some of these courses from those that have really been there and done it, because those who've really been there and done it are always going to have the most valuable information.

49:28 Scott Ingram: That's exactly what I've always tried to build with the Sales Success Summit, right? Because it is a lot of work. And I'll ask you this as a follow-up, Misha, in terms of how you're kind of cultivating that network and finding those mentors. But a lot of what I'm trying to do is just do the work, right? I've done the heavy lifting of finding all the top performers like Misha and so many others and bringing them together here in Austin each October so that we can learn from each other and learn from the best of the best and have that type of a network. So hopefully Misha has an open invite. We did just talk about it in a quick little sidebar. So hopefully he'll be able to make the travel work. I know it's geographically a little bit inconvenient coming from London, but would certainly love to have you. And there's just something so incredible about being with other people who treat sales as a craft. I really think that's the difference. I mean, it's sadly a minority of the profession that take it this seriously. And it's a, you know, it's a minority that are listening to podcasts for over an hour to, you know, get to the really good stuff and dive in deep. So definitely eager to have you be a part of that. But talk about, I mean, how have you fostered that? How have you found kind of these other folks that are interested in that same level there in London?

50:41 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: It always starts with one, one person, like one high performer in your network, and then they know others, and then you meet them, and then they know others. Starts to grow from there. I was very lucky that I actually went to college with the guy that came second when we did the ranking of the top 100 salespeople in the UK. And so me and him, we were first and second, and we were already friends for years before And both ended up in the same industry, came from the same place. So it's just a really funny coincidence. And he's a top producer at his company. He knows others, and then I met them, and then we kind of started to build this network of people who knew people. It will just grow if you seek it out and you aim to cultivate those relationships, not just professionally but also personally, because our relationships aren't just talking about sales. They're also just going out, having a drink, having a good time, talking about life in general as well. We've integrated kind of both sides of it.

51:37 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, you know, this year's summit will be the 5th time we've done it. And maybe after that, I need to think about doing a version there in Europe. We certainly have tons of European listeners, so it'd be fun to extend our horizons just a little bit too.

51:50 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Definitely. Yeah, there would be a big market for it here. There's lots of very talented salespeople in London.

51:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Amazing. Well, talk about that award just a little bit in terms of, you know, what the criteria was and what that process is, because I'm a big fan. I mean, you called it out, right? It's learning from the people who have actually done it, right? I mean, that's why I started this show. You know, I was reading lots of books and lots of content. And, you know, not to discredit or devalue it, there's still a lot of value in that stuff. But it was coming from folks who hadn't sold in decades. And, you know, selling is a different thing today.

52:22 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, definitely. 100%. This is what's very clever. It's run by one of the top recruitment agencies for software salespeople in London. And they run it twice a year, and they get all of the sales leaders to submit against quota performance of their reps, of their top reps. And so it's really done on who exceeded their quota the most out of every rep within London. And so everyone gets submitted, they look at the list, and then they publish the list of the top reps who are over 100% of their quota. They call it 100 Reps Over 100. And then within that 100, of course, there's a ranking and the top 10 get an award and the winner gets recognized obviously more than any. I was number 1 last year. I was actually number 2 this year, but so I was in 2 consecutive years, got beaten by someone else this year, but it's great to be featured in the top 10 in 2 consecutive years.

53:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's amazing. I'm gonna have to look at that list. You'll have to share that with me. Maybe I'll do some more cherry picking for some great folks to interview.

53:19 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Definitely. No, it's a great list for those to interview.

53:20 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Amazing. Well, I mean, as you're spending time, I mean, you're talking about investing in some of this learning, you're spending a lot of time with this network of friends and mentors in the space, what are you looking to learn from them?

53:33 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: So a lot of it originally was around sales process. And that's been a big focus of mine over the last couple of years. Now I'm much more interested in career strategy, and where they choose to go. And I think, of course, it just depends on where you're at and what you need to learn, what gaps you need to fill. And you can kind of self-reflect and figure out what's missing. For me now, it's much more kind of when you're in a position where you're high performer, what's the strategy next? Where do you choose to go? What moves do you make? And those are the kinds of questions I'm asking now.

54:01 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's so funny just how much this kind of parallels the way that we have structured the presentations and the content at the summit, because I'm curious about those same things, right? It's, of course, we want to talk about the tactics and the strategies and how we're managing deals and how we're qualifying and how we're doing discovery and, you know, the overall process and all of those things. But it's also kind of that bigger picture view of, am I in the right place? What is that next step? So what is that? I mean, as much as you're comfortable with sharing in a public environment, where do you see yourself going over the next 5 or 10 years?

54:35 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, good question. I'm not really at liberty to share kind of in the near term. But I would say, long term, my overall ambition is to become an executive sales leader, ideally become a CRO at a SaaS company. Company and ideally build a strong legacy of very successful journey. And then I would love to start my own business, and I'd love to kind of reach the level of executive sales leader first because I love the journey and enjoying it so much so far. Don't really want to throw in the towel for it. But when I've got to that stage and ideally also have enough financial security to not need a salary, not need a job, then start my own business and go on a new journey through that process.

55:16 Scott Ingram: Any ideas to kind of what sort of a space that eventual business might be in?

55:20 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Definitely SaaS software, either a SaaS business or a services business associated with the SaaS industry. Definitely fallen in love with this industry. And I think I'm almost certain that I'll stay in this industry in some form or another for the rest of my life.

55:33 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Amazing. Misha, we've covered a lot of ground. I've asked you almost all the stuff that I ask all of my guests. But I wonder if there was something that you were hoping to share that somehow I didn't get to, or I didn't ask the right question?

55:46 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I think we've covered a lot of the key stuff. I guess one thing that we kind of touched upon that's maybe like worth sharing in summary is that I think a real big turning point for me was facing up to certain failures that happened and then taking an approach of radical accountability and kind of taking an approach to say, whatever happens, it's always your fault. Fault. If it goes wrong, it's your fault. It doesn't matter what caused it, take responsibility for it. And by kind of doing that, I started to identify areas of improvement that I never saw before. And of course, you know, not everything is actually your fault. But by viewing it in that way, even if it's stuff that you couldn't control, you start to see things that didn't go well for reasons that you could actually control. Because otherwise, I see this all the time, reps get caught up in this kind of process of like, it's always else's fault, like someone else messed up, the product doesn't work, the situation is bad outside of myself. So you don't change anything and you don't improve. But blaming yourself, you see everything. And then you can get to work by improving yourself.

56:51 Scott Ingram: I love that. I wonder what's a specific example of that? Where, you know, you had that type of a failure, you looked at it and something that you changed because of it?

57:00 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Sure. Well, so I mean, this goes way back when I was in publishing. Publishing. And I published a special report on the future of transport. And this was a topic, unbeknownst to me, was not a good topic. It wasn't a good market. The readership of the publication really didn't align well to transport. And I completely failed on that report. I missed target significantly. It was my second publication. So second sales campaign that I'd run. So it was big knock to my confidence. And at that stage, like I could have just blamed it and said, oh, it was a bad topic. It was bad that this, or, you know, the market wasn't there for it. But instead, like I really said, I want to master sales. I want to get good at this. And I just took responsibility for, even though it wasn't going to be a 200%, 300% publication, why didn't I at least enable it to hit target? And I started to then dissect all the things that went wrong within it and try and look past the big big thing, which is, well, it wasn't a good publication for the market, and forget that and put it out of the mind and actually start to take the individual things that I did from that point onwards and then improve upon them. Because if I just looked at it of, oh, the market was bad, so therefore I failed, then you don't really learn anything from it. I wouldn't have moved past it at all.

58:16 Scott Ingram: Oh, so good. So good. Have you read the book Extreme Ownership?

58:19 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: I haven't, but it sounds like one that I would like.

58:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, it's very much, I mean, that really is the whole of the point. And so it was written by a couple of US Navy SEALs. It's an interesting structure because they go back and forth between sort of this, you know, war story lesson learned in battle, but then how does that apply in business? And the bottom line is exactly this, right? Like, you have to take ownership of everything, even though there are things that are outside of your control. You can at least learn from and improve on those different areas. So one of my favorite books of all time, I mean, almost in Any interview I do, people ask me for my favorite book. That's the one that I've been mentioning for years because I just think it's so… having that type of a mindset allows you to improve so much more rather than, you know, blaming situations, to your point.

59:06 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Yeah, definitely. It sounds like a phenomenal book and I'm definitely going to take a read. And I'd say that type of thing is just so much more applicable in sales than many other places because it's very easy to blame things outside of yourself in sales when things don't wrong when things go wrong, because there are so many factors that go into winning or losing a sale. And so if you don't have that mindset, you can always pin on everything else other than yourself. There's always going to be an external reason. And the reps that I see that really do well are the ones that try extra hard not to have that mindset and never kind of blaming it entirely on the external reason, but recognizing that there's multiple reasons behind every failure. Failure. And then they improve upon it. And it's really quite stark to see. I think you probably could draw a very clear correlation between mindsets on success and failure around this.

59:54 Scott Ingram: Well, and I think, I mean, in so many ways, I mean, that really is the definition of treating this as a craft, right? Is kind of looking at every opportunity to improve for what it is and looking at the whole of the situation and not just writing something off to, well, yeah, that wasn't in my control. That's not my fault. Like, well, there was some piece of that that was is your fault. There's something you could have done differently.

1:00:14 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Exactly. Exactly that.

1:00:16 Scott Ingram: So, Misha, we've covered a ton of ground. I've really, really enjoyed this conversation. I'm glad we were able to bring it together. And as you know, I always try and end these on something really actionable that our listener can do. So what would you challenge them to do over the course of the next, you know, 7 days or 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:00:37 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Well, I would say it's exactly what we were just talking about. I would say I challenge you to take accountability and true ownership of absolutely everything that goes wrong in your sales world over the next couple weeks, and then action upon what you could have done better. Just see how that mindset changes things.

1:00:54 Scott Ingram: Perfect. What a great way to end, and hopefully I will be seeing you here in Austin this October.

1:00:59 Misha Jessel-Kenyon: Great. Sounds good. Looking forward to it. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast.

1:01:06 Scott Ingram: 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.