148: Not A Solo Sport: Finding the Fun & Joy in Sales with Terryberry's Mike Anderson

0:00 Scott Ingram: This episode is brought to you by the 2022 Sales Success Summit. To get your ticket, go to top1summit.com.

0:16 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:32 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Mike Anderson. Mike is the top strategic account executive at Terryberry out of Chicago. Welcome to this side of the show, Mike.

0:41 Mike Anderson: Hey, Scott. Yeah, it's weird to be on this side.

0:44 Scott Ingram: Well, we are going to have a lot of fun. I am so excited about digging into this conversation, and there's a lot of interesting connection points that we'll be able to dig into, but we're going to start like we always do with that immediate value and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales there at Terryberry.

1:03 Mike Anderson: Oh yeah, for sure. So the 3 factors, kind of success factors that I've kind of circled as kind of, I guess, my top 3 would be kind of number one, and I can't highlight this enough, is just having this growth mindset. And okay, well, what does that really mean? You know, for me, it's all about embracing change and moving from your comfort zone into, you know, what I would call your learning zone where, you know, Trying new things, trying to develop new skills, you know, stretching your abilities as a sales professional and mastering these new skills has definitely attributed to, you know, my success over my tenure, but specifically this past year where I was able to achieve number 1. You know, the second factor is, you know, to be honest, I came into this community, the Sales Success Community, what was it, 3 years ago? I honestly think I'm a product. Of the community, just based on, you know, sharpening my skills, hearing other sales professionals talk about some tactics and some strategies they've learned over the years and kind of taking those and molding those into my own and adopting kind of what I hear, you know, and joining the Sales Success Summits and having real-life conversations with some of the top professionals out there, I think has helped me, has helped me kind of sharpen my skills as well. I've kind of laugh about being more off the cuff when it comes to sales. And I think that's kind of what was my style for the longest time and being able to, you know, learn things and hear what others are doing and how they're successful and how they're managing their day-to-day has really helped me. So a little shout out to you, Scott, for creating this community, because I think that's helped me. That's definitely helped me catapult myself to number 1. And then lastly, this can sound kind of corny, but I think I just come at every situation in my life and specifically in sales is just I come from a place of like joy and fun and professionalism. If you're talking to me, if you ever have a chance to, you and I to have a beer together, or you sit down and talk, you'll kind of learn very quickly that I don't take things too seriously. I just don't. That definitely bleeds over to kind of my work, discovery calls, proposal calls. You know, when I'm talking to a potential new prospect or a client, you know, I want to get to know them. I want you to get to know me. I actually want to make a genuine connection. You know, if I don't walk away from that meeting with you saying, man, I would really like to grab a beer with that guy. I just feel like I didn't do my job right. So yeah, I think I just like to have fun when it comes to this job. I mean, it's… sales shouldn't be serious and it definitely isn't in my world.

3:41 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. I love that order. And maybe before, I've got sort of a thought here, kind of an observation that I see with folks like yourself, right? Who have embraced this community and really gone on to take their career and their results to the next level. You reminded me yesterday we had an attendee networking call. We do those. We try to do those about once a month for folks that have signed up for the summit just to build some of those relationships going in and help people establish those connections. But you were reminding me of one of our first conversations around kind of the growth mindset thing. You want to talk about that? Yeah.

4:13 Mike Anderson: So, I mean, you know, shout out to Terryberry's chief sales officer, Scott VanderLeek, who really helps try to embrace change. But he was the one that introduced me to the podcast. And, you know, when we were talking about goals and kind of hitting targets and being number one, he's like, hey, I think you should listen to this podcast, the Sales Success Podcast. And I did. And then it was shortly after that turned into, I mean, they do a summit, dude. Why wouldn't you want to sign up for that? Like, do it. And so I did. And that immediately stemmed a conversation with you and I. And, you know, I think the first time you and I spoke, you asked me are you joining the summit? Or why do you want to attend the summit? Why do you want to be part of this community? And I just thought, you know, I think I told you that, hey, I'm good at what I do, but there's another level I can take this thing. And I think that was the first thing I said to you. I just feel like I can unlock some potential here that, and really catapult my career. And that's ultimately why I made the jump.

5:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, so you beat me to it. I definitely wanted to give a shout out to Scott. So Scott VanderLeeuw, your Chief Sales Officer there at Terryberry, has been Just a huge fan and champion of this show since the very early days. I know has indoctrinated so much of your team into the show. You guys have been involved in the summit. Terryberry was actually a sponsor of the show for a period of time when that made a little bit more sense. And the other thing that I love about Scott is he's one of the few… I'm amazed that more people don't do this because it's such a ripe opportunity. He has looked at this community, especially the people that have been on the podcast, and as some of the most fertile recruiting ground there is out there. And I know he's brought a couple of people onto the team from within this community. But the thing about your top 3, especially the order that you put them in, right, is I look especially at the folks that have really embraced this community and gotten to that number 1 spot. It starts with that mindset and it starts with a decision. It starts with, you know what, I am more, I can be more, I'm going to commit to this, I'm going to do this. And we've talked a lot here recently because I've had this, this opportunity I mean, this is my favorite part, you know, the folks that have come into the community and have gotten to that point, and many of them have kind of called that shot. They have come in, we've had an early conversation, and they said, you know what, I'm going to do this. So that's step 1, is kind of making that commitment to yourself. And then step 2 is just embracing it, right? If you're going to do that, you're going to need to sharpen your tools, right? You're going to need to really get involved and engage with the community. And there's a huge difference between You know, the folks… it's one thing to make the commitment to joining us at the summit, right? Like making that investment of the dollars and the time to spend these few days in Austin. It's a different thing to really embrace it and understand the value of the relationships and the connections and the conversations. It's not just sitting there. Like, this doesn't happen by osmosis. You know, maybe… I mean, maybe if you listen to 140 podcast episodes, maybe it happens. But Yeah, I mean, you really have to put in that work and you have absolutely been one of those people who you're on every one of those attendee networking calls, right? I know that you're having lots and lots of conversations with your peers in this community as you work to continue to better yourself. And then I love the last piece is like, this totally has to be fun, right? The better you get at sales, the more that you treat this as a craft, the more fun it gets. And winning is pretty fun too.

7:35 Mike Anderson: Oh, winning's by far the funnest. But I mean, yeah, Scott, I mean, I think, you know, going back to that growth mindset and getting out of your comfort zone, I mean, that's exactly what that was when I signed up for, you know, you're right. It's one thing to, you know, sign up for a conference and go to the conference, but you can choose the level of engagement you have at that or how much you want to engage. You know, there, for those that have been to the summit, it's great. You're listening to a lot of great sessions of people talking about, you know, sales strategy and mindset and whatnot. But there's a lot of opportunity to actually participate. And I remember that first summit, I think the session was on making that conscious decision of, do you want to be an individual contributor or do you want to move into sales management and whatnot? And at that time in my career, I was kind of straddling both. And there's a little bit of a fear factor of being like, hey, do I want to get up in front of this mic right now and ask questions and do that? And I kind of just made the conscious effort of being a decision of saying, Yeah, let's do that. Let's embrace. And I think based off of me doing that, it just snowballed into, I want to get way more involved in this community. I want to chat with more folks. Once you join the community, there's all these side communities you can join, and whether it's book clubs or monthly happy hours or just making great connections and then being able to reach out to those folks for advice on LinkedIn or text messaging, Yeah, just making that, you know, that conscious effort to really just get more involved was a good decision. Yeah.

9:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Let's contextualize. Talk about what is your role? Who is Terryberry? What did it really take to get to that number 1 spot from where you were?

9:15 Mike Anderson: Yeah. So my current role, it's changed over the 13 going on 14 years I've been with this organization. I'm currently a strategic account executive. Okay. What does that mean? I've been tapped on the shoulder as well as a few other colleagues to really dive in or to try to break through kind of the enterprise-type sales within the organization. We've historically been really great at selling to small to mid-sized markets, and we're currently going through a crazy transformation, you know, to our platform that we sell in the marketplace. And this change allows us to, you know, have conversations with bigger companies and generate larger opportunities. So that's currently my role as an AE. So I'm essentially an enterprise sales rep at Terryberry. You know, what's gotten me here? It's again, it's going back to those essentially those 3 success factors I talked about. Because I've recently moved into this new role or been asked to, you know, hey, embrace change. Can you get out of your comfort zone? You know, we need you to move from selling to these smaller organizations that you do a great job at to we got to figure out how to break through on these larger organizations. And, you know, I just rose my hand and said, yeah, I'll do that. And, you know, that's been a big factor in this overall success where I've, you know, essentially been the guinea pig and said, okay, let me try to figure out how I can sell these larger organizations and embracing that and being able to, you know, I mean, I absolutely crushed my year last year because of, you know, being the one that wanted to lead the new product, the new pricing model. And that's, you know, I think one of your questions was, or on your massive sheet of things you might ask is what's one of your favorite wins is, you know, last year was able to kind of asked to be the first one to sell this new platform and new pricing model and did, and ended up being one of the largest deals we closed that year. So yeah, I feel like I've kind of been talking in circles, but I kind of think that's kind of how my success from last year kind of generated from. Yeah.

11:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I want to come back to some of those things and that transition. But before I do that, I think there's, you know, maybe the unasked question is, hey, Scott or Mike, how did you get on the show? And that was Scott. Scott sent me an email. I mean, again, this is the type of leader, and we talk about this a lot on the show as well, you know, having a leader that's really going to help and support you in your growth and your development. Scott sent me an email a couple of months ago. It's taken us a while to get here. All this entire email said was, Mike Anderson was number 1 over here in 2021, just saying. I love that, right? You have to love A leader who is not afraid of, hey, this is my number one. I'm going to put him out there. Like he deserves to be on this stage and tell this story. But I would love to hear, I mean, you really had to embrace, I mean, at a crazy time just in the world, obviously, right? Like you're adapting to all kinds of change that's just happening for all of us, but then making this giant leap into a completely different client set, a completely different kind of product and offering and pricing. What was different? Like, what did you have to do to make that work and really find your groove and the success in this new space?

12:26 Mike Anderson: Oh, I mean, you know, it was a lot of really working pretty closely with, you know, my executive leadership team that was stemming this change, you know, to be essentially the voice of sales or really the voice of our customer, knowing that, hey, if we're going to… I've been doing this for a while and I've lost a lot of these deals of this magnitude because of, you know, X, Y, and Z. So to be able to do kind of that team cross-selling of saying, here's what I need in order to be successful if I'm going to communicate this new pricing model. So for those out there, so I sell, you know, reward and recognition. We sell reward and recognition programs, and we actually sell this platform that allows organizations to show appreciation and recognition and engage employees through incentivizing them and rewards. So I had to go sell this platform. We essentially moved to a higher kind of cost model in terms of what it would cost for people to maintain and kind of an annual subscription fee. To be a little bit more transparent and say, you might have talked to us in the past and you're probably thinking, this is different, this is way more expensive. So being more transparent on this is how Terryberry essentially generates revenue, and being that transparent and saying, so we've kind of shifted the model from A to B, and being able to effectively communicate that. And that was a team effort, whether it's my accounting team setting up ICB calls to say, okay, here's kind of the unique pricing structure we can do for them. I mean, You know, being able to have, you know, I think too what it is, is being able to kind of, you know, cross-sell within an organization as well. Being able to kind of show that, you know, we're, you know, being able to kind of multi-thread within an organization was kind of key, especially on these larger deals. You know, just being able to, you know, go beyond kind of my normal contact, making sure I know it's not too different. I mean, like selling enterprise is not too different than how I would sell smaller deals, it's just the magnitude is bigger. It's going to… shout out to David Weiss… it's MEDDPICCing the heck out of it. It's learning what their buying process looks like and who are all those stakeholders and being sure that I'm way more organized than I normally am on the sales cycle in order to say, okay, if we want to get this larger deal accomplished, here's what we need to do in order to get there. And here's who, from my understanding of what we just discussed, Here's who we need to be at these meetings to make these decisions. And, you know, just, you know, being more organized on that front has kind of, you know, helped me break through a little bit. You know, I'm still definitely still learning this enterprise sales role. So long-winded, but that's kind of what I've done thus far.

15:17 Scott Ingram: Nice. And you got me with an acronym. What's an ICB call?

15:21 Mike Anderson: Oh, individual case base or ICB. I'm sorry. Did I say ICP? ICB, individual case basis. It's just a, internal call that Terryberry does on these larger deals that maybe we have to think a little bit outside of the box on how we're going to win this thing. So that's been hugely effective in, in this new strategic role I'm in where we have to close these larger deals, you know, being able to schedule these, you know, ICBs in order to make sure we're as attractive as possible as we're kind of pitching our product to, you know, companies.

15:54 Scott Ingram: And so that's an internal call. You're basically getting aligned internally to kind of structure the solution and the deal and make sure it's going to be attractive to the customer. Is that right?

16:02 Mike Anderson: Exactly. And, you know, the internal call, you know, is usually the, you know, strategic account executive, you know, Vander Leek, our chief sales officer, will be on that call. You know, we have a VP of sales, Alex. You know, usually it's going to be our chief financial officer, sometimes even our CEO will all be on this, you know. So making sure we're, you know, we're all pulling on the same side of the rope here and we're not, you know, leaving no stone unturned. It's Hugely impactful. So, you know, if, you know, suggestion I would have for any other account rep out there that's, you know, selling to larger deals, you know, getting your team in place, you know, usually involves a lot of the executive leadership to ensure that, you know, you're positioned as best as possible and you have all the resources you need in order to go win this thing.

16:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's a great call out. I love the specifics of that example because what you'll hear in these conversations, and we'll put this onto the enterprise sales conversation list. So if folks go to top1.fm/enterprise, you'll find all of the episodes that I've done with real enterprise sellers. And what you see thematically in those conversations is so much of the enterprise sale is internal selling, and it's this work, right? It's, it's getting that alignment across all of the different divisions inside your organization so that you can present that unified front. You can do kind of the executive alignment and say, okay, cool, like our CEO is going to talk to their CEO and here's how we're going to connect those dots and do that type of work. So I love… I hadn't heard ICB before. I think that's a great concept and way to kind of tackle that. So Mike, let's go all the way back and get into kind of the origin story. How did you get into sales in the first place?

17:42 Mike Anderson: All right, stop me if you've heard this one before. I wasn't planning on being in sales, probably a lot of folks. I graduated college with a couple generic degrees. Sales wasn't on my vision board. Well, scratch that. I didn't even have a vision board. Graduated college. My wife, well, girlfriend at the time, decided we wanted to move to Chicago. I moved there without a job. She was an elementary school teacher. And I was like, okay, let me figure out what does any other 21, 22-year-old do for a career when you don't know what you want to do? I applied to Enterprise Rent-A-Car and worked there for about a year and a half. And then through a family connection, I knew about this company, Terryberry, which by… this is kind of funny, by the way. I did a marketing internship for them for a summer when I was in college. I did a full summer of interning and essentially reaching out to human resource groups, asking them if they would like our CEO to come talk at their stately conferences. And I didn't even know what Terryberry did at the time. I'm like the worst hire ever. And so I got tapped on the shoulder by their… at the time, their VP of sales saying, hey, we have an open sales position in Chicago, interested in if you'd want to apply. And the application process was literally me just having a potbelly sandwich with the guy, his name's Bill, and just saying, yeah, we'd love for you to come aboard. And so I did. That was back in 2008, right before the world burned. And, you know, it's been one of the best decisions I ever made. And it was an organization at the time that was, you know, breaking into like SaaS sales. And I got to kind of learn, you know, on the job, which is kind of rare. You know, nowadays you have to be like a BDR or an SDR and then kind of, you know, take your lumps and bruises there and then you can become an AE. I luckily, I was able to kind of jump into a sales role and just, you know, at 20, 4 years old and learn on the job. And that was, you know, almost 14 years ago. Yeah.

19:45 Scott Ingram: So, I mean, you've had a good long stretch really with the same organization. I know you've listened to a lot of these conversations, had a lot of conversations with others in the community who've certainly moved around a little bit more. I mean, if you were starting over today, would you think about that or tackle that differently?

20:01 Mike Anderson: I mean, you know, if I could start over today, I think I would just tell my younger self, just, you know, throw out the ego, man. Like, you know, go learn from… you know, I always thought, you know, sales was kind of a solo sport. You know, it's I have my targets, I'm going to try to sell. I'm competing against, you know, other sales reps that are selling the same thing I am. But not even that. Maybe I'm competing internally with my other sales reps to, you know, we're all jockeying to see who can be considered the best of the best. And so there was a little ego there that I, you know, quickly learned that toss that aside, you know, if I could start over again, I think it would… I don't know if I would do anything differently other than, you know, embrace sales as a pretty darn great career and just start the continuous improvement, you know, process. Like, you know, whatever it's reading books or joining, listening to podcasts or joining communities, I would have done that earlier in my career. I, you know, I didn't start that until probably about 5 years ago.

21:05 Scott Ingram: What changed? Like, what happened then? Was there something where you just had kind of that realization of like, wait a minute, you know what, I'm in the right spot, this is the right thing, this is what I want to do, and I really need to kind of double down and lean into this?

21:17 Mike Anderson: Yeah, you know, so there's, I think, a couple things. I started having early… some success early on in my career, you know. I think it was just kind of a mix between dumb luck and just some natural ability to be in front of groups and, you know, be likable and being able to talk semi-coherent about what we offer and the problems we solve. And then I think it was, if I'm maybe 5 years into this career, 4 or 5 years into the career, I always had some sort of… I was always in the green in terms of growth. And I even had some success of being a part of what we call our Leadership Council, which is a president's club. And then one year I just tanked. I was in the red and didn't get any growth. And that was one of the moments of realization of, hey, look internally at the mirror here. What are you doing that's just… you keep doing the same thing over and over and you're not generating the results. So something has to change. So that was the first initial push of like, okay, you don't know everything. Why don't you go try to learn some things in terms of sales? Why don't you go try to figure out how to become better at sales? So that was the first step. I think that was when I first picked up even just a sales book in general. I'm trying to think. It was either Radical Prospecting or… I couldn't even remember what the first book was, to be honest. But that was step 1. And then step 2 in this journey was I'm having more success. And then Terryberry, this is when I joined the Sales Success Community. I was tapped on the shoulder to be like, hey, would you also… you're one of our top sellers. Would you also want to be a sales coach internally for a group of people? And when you're joining sales, that's kind of the natural progression, or at least I thought that was the natural progression of, hey, you're an individual contributor and then you become sales management. And I'm like, sure. And I think I quickly discovered I did not enjoy the coaching side and I wanted to go back to being an individual contributor and really just crushing my numbers and then doing it that way. So I think that moment is when I realized I think this is a long-term career for me, and this is something I want to do and I enjoy doing, and I want to get as best at it as I can.

23:29 Scott Ingram: If this is you, if you've committed to sales as a profession, as your career, and you're ready to take your results to the next level, then make the commitment to yourself and come join us at the Sales Success Summit this year, where you can meet Mike and so many others like him, where we all work together on improving our craft and sharpening our tools. This year's event is October 10th and 11th here in Austin, and you'll find all the details at top1summit.com. Invest in yourself and make the commitment today. top1summit.com. So you've had a long stretch, a lot of success, 14 years at Terryberry. What are you most proud of?

24:10 Mike Anderson: You know, I think the consistency of my success is something I kind of you know, put a gold star, I guess, on my resume. You know, I think it's 5 or 6 years in Leadership Council, which is again our President's Club. I've been, you know, we call it our King Kamehameha, which is essentially if you're the top sales rep, you get to go to Hawaii on, you know, the company's dime. I've done that 3 times. I'm actually going to go again next year. Just that my consistency of being a top performer is something I'm pretty proud of. As well as being, like this past year, we talked about Terryberry going through these crazy transformations and then being a part of the group that they wanted to tap on the shoulder and say, hey, we need your help breaking into these larger deals, and being able to quickly raise my hand and say, I'll do it. And then having pretty early on success, being the first one in the organization to sell to these large organizations in our new business. Pricing and business model, you know, being the first one to do that, you know, is another feather in my cap I'm pretty proud of. Yeah.

25:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And I mean, so aligns with a lot of my philosophy. I think it's kind of interesting that I don't know how much credit I get to take, but kind of coining this whole idea of the intentional individual contributor, right? Like sales leadership isn't for everybody. That's a very different skillset. And if you enjoy this, and for me, it really just comes down to I like the freedom and control. Like, I know what my manager's calendars look like. I don't want my calendar to look like that, you know? So, I'm able to exert a lot more control over the way that I kind of tackle things. And then also, especially as you made this transition in the last year and the contribution that you've made to the organization, I think of that, it's leading from the field. Like, you can make a massive impact on an organization. You don't have to have a VP or a chief for a whatever title to be able to do that.

26:02 Mike Anderson: Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, what kind of motivates me as well, I mean, obviously I work for a rewards and recognition company, so we do, you know, internally we do a darn good job at that. I like the fact that I'm acknowledged for closing, you know, for this, for monstrous growth. And, you know, the idea of sales kind of being the bloodline to any organization, I thrive on that. You know, we're kind of the vanguard in terms of It really depends on what we do, if the doors stay open or not. If we're not closing business, I mean, that's not good for the organization, you know. But if we're crushing it, like, you know, when, you know, as an individual contributor, when you're crushing it and knowing that you're putting the company in a better position, you know, for the following years, I mean, it's fun. I enjoy that. I enjoy the challenge, and I also enjoy the accolades that come with that. Yeah.

26:50 Scott Ingram: What about the flip side? What do you find to be the hardest part at this stage?

26:53 Mike Anderson: This stage and, you know, it being just an individual contributor in general or like what specifically the stage that Terryberry's in?

27:00 Scott Ingram: More kind of your stage, right? I mean, at this stage in your career and just where you're at in your own sales journey, what's the toughest part?

27:07 Mike Anderson: Oh my God. It can be a grind. It's exhausting. It's one of those gigs where it's, you know, I had a great 2021, but that was, you know, that was 7 months ago. It's, you know, 7 months ago they said, okay, great. That's great that we did last year. We acknowledged you. You get to go on this trip. Good for you, but do it again. And it can be exhausting. I mean, it can be mentally exhausting to be having to, you know, you're constantly being measured up against a number. So that's difficult. I think that can really weigh on folks when you're, you know, you perform, now go perform again. It's almost, you know, I wouldn't call it the hamster wheel, but a little bit. It's, you know, you got to constantly make sure you're showing your value by, you know, hitting targets and closing business. So it's it can definitely weigh on you. I mean, it has weighed on me in the past. There'd be times where you wake up in the morning and you're trying to make out some cold outreach and you just don't have it today and you feel mentally exhausted. In some cases, I'll turn it off, but it's that rat race that sometimes you can feel like you're in that is not my favorite part of the gig.

28:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah. It's really funny. I've had this visual that's been running through my head the last couple of days. I was talking with the CMO of one of my clients, And we just finished this massive project and it was a great success. It was a great win. And on the horizon is kind of this big phase 2 thing, but he's smart and he's thinking about kind of where his team is at. And I thought, you know, this is kind of like we ran this all-out sprint of a race. We broke the tape. And I was kind of asking him, I'm like, where do you think your team psychology is? Like, are we Like, okay, cool, we're gonna like walk it off, we're gonna celebrate, we're gonna drape ourselves in the flag, and then we're gonna line up for the next race? Or are we gonna like flop down on the track and we need to lay there because we're so wiped out, right? And so anyway, when you get to those places, right, like how do you get yourself prepared to do it again, right? And kind of find that motivation and drive to keep it going and not just like, you know what, I'm gonna lay on this track and I'm never gonna get up again.

29:14 Mike Anderson: I would even say even worse about it is statistically you're more likely to almost get to the finish line and fall over because we hear no so much. I mean, that's what can be demoralizing sometimes where you do all this effort, all this training almost, you're running this marathon, you can see the finish line, and then someone else breaks the tape. But either way, I think those wins. So if you're a decent sales rep, you're probably winning I don't know, 30% of the time, and that's pretty good. But just that feeling, I mean, again, I think we, we, you kind of mentioned it earlier, just, you know, the competitiveness and the feeling you get of you're in this role because you enjoy winning and it, you know, gives you that rush of endorphins and you like the fact that you're, you know, you won this business for the company and you beat out the, you know, XYZ competitors to do so and you were the best. And I think that's what motivates me is I want to go do that again. I want to do it like again and again and again. So it's one of those things where you cross that finish line and you maybe you take a quick second to take a deep breath, but I don't know, for me it's just that constant drive to keep winning, you know, that's never complacent. I always kind of want, you know, part of my personality is I, you know, I'm always looking for the next thing, the next best thing. If you talk to my wife, she hates that about me. She hates that about me. Oh my gosh, like, oh my, you know, we just, you know, you're doing renovations in your house, we just did too, we just did a renovation. I kind of went, oh man, I kind I wish we would've done this. She goes, you always do that. Nothing's ever good. You know, but I don't know, that stems over to me professionally as well. And I think that's actually a good thing for me is that, you know, I'm always looking for the next best thing, constantly wanting to win again. So, and I'm lucky enough, at least in my role with this, you know, I can, I'm the hunter, so I'll bring the carcass to the front door and then I'll give it all to someone else and I'll go and do it again. So I don't know, but I really enjoy that part of it.

31:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's so interesting. I've been talking with Jack Wilson on a fairly recent Daily Sales Tip, referenced a book. That is in my queue on Audible, and it's The Molecule of More. It's just kind of the dopamine and just the brain chemistry around this exact idea, right? And, you know, how do we more proactively manage that, right? Instead of being controlled by our… I don't know what our lizard brain or gorilla brain, whatever it is, versus whatever animal brain more. Yeah, being more proactive about that and just kind of being more thoughtful about those highs and those lows. And I mean, it's certainly something I think, especially those that have been… those of us that have been in this game for a long time… is I think at some level you're trying to figure out like, how do I smooth out this roller coaster just a little bit? Because I mean, when you first get into it, it's so emotional and the highs are so high and the lows are so low.

32:00 Mike Anderson: Yeah.

32:01 Scott Ingram: And you kind of get to point you're like, I don't quite need that. How do I regulate this just a bit?

32:07 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I can remember early on just being like, you know, when a company would tell me, you know, sorry, no, we're not going with you, we're going with this, you know, other company or whatever, you know, taking it so personally. And that like weighs on you. And you're… I don't know when I kind of made that transition of… it's probably a maturity thing, you know, in my early 20s, just being like saying no to me is an attack on me. No, it's being able to, like you said, smooth out that roller coaster. So you're like, it's all, you know, a process of, you know, okay, on to the next one. Or I'm currently working other ones and I'll learn, you know, I'm not going to take this personal. I'm going to take it as a learning experience, you know, figure out where maybe I fell short or my offerings didn't really meet the needs, or maybe I… the gap in my selling, you know, process, and moving on to the next one. So Yeah. It's interesting. It's like, I'm not going to… All right. This is where Mike Anderson compares selling to childbirth? No, but my wife and I were talking about that of you go through childbirth and she'll tell you that it was… I guess any woman would tell you that it's excruciating, right? It's the most painful thing your body can go through and it's long nights and uncomfortableness and whatever. But you do it and then you want to do it again. There's something that happens that afterwards, it's kind of like you see this life you created, suddenly you forget about all the blood, sweat, and tears, and suddenly you're like, yeah, I want to do this again. It's like your brain must shift. Same with sales. I think it's you cross that finish line and it could have been the most long, drawn-out sales process, but suddenly you forget about that and you're like, okay, this was fun. I want to do it again. Yeah, love it. Love it.

33:51 Scott Ingram: Let's get into the routine stuff. And for a lot of people, I know this is their favorite section and I know, you know, the question, right? Alarm clock goes off. What time did that happen? I want the blow-by-blow. Yeah.

34:02 Mike Anderson: So I naturally wake up at 5:00 AM and I hike 6 miles to the nearest mountain and I watch the sunrise and I say my daily mantra. That's not me at all. Yeah. So here's my routine. It kind of fluctuates a little bit, but generally my alarm goes off at 6:30. Some days I get right up. Some days I might hit the snooze for 10 minutes, but usually I'll wake up around 6:30. Kids are still asleep. My wife's an early riser. She's actually probably up before I am. She's already downstairs with a pot of coffee. I'll go down. Her and I will usually share a cup of coffee and conversation together. It's usually short-lived because I have a 6 and a 9-year-old. The 6-year-old's usually up fairly quick as well. So that's usually interrupted. And then on some days too, for me, I like to get out, you know, outside. I like to run. So, you know, half the days, and I don't do this every day, but maybe every other day I'll get up and I'll do a run, especially on days that I know that maybe I have a lot of meetings or some sort of big demo meeting or proposal. I'll get up and I'll try to be hitting the pavement, you know, by 6:45, you know, doing a 30 to 40 minute run. That's just for me, that probably based on a lot of these things I'm saying on here, you can kind of tell maybe I'm a little ADD. But that really helps ground me. It helps kind of focus my thoughts on maybe what I'm working on that day. It just, you know, again, kicks off those endorphins that gets me motivated to want to go, you know, go tackle it, go get after it that day. And then I'll wrap that all up by, you know, coffee and breakfast by 7:30, jump in the shower, and then, you know, I open up my computer by 8:00. And that's where I usually…

35:35 Scott Ingram: my…

35:36 Mike Anderson: on my calendar, I'll have a block of an hour, kind of what I call daily prep. Where, you know, I'll, you know, you'll like this one, Scott, because I think this is something you coined the term of, I'll zero out my inbox. I'm just, I can't stand staring at an inbox that has multiple emails. I have to be able just to zero that thing out, whether it's delete things, respond, delete, or put into folders, you name it. So I'll do that. I'll take a look at kind of what I have going on for the day. You know, if I have, you know, some upcoming discovery calls or more of like a proposal type meeting, I'll kind of just get my head around what I have going on that day so I can make sure I prep accordingly. I then take a look at my kind of current open opportunities and just see if there's any way I can kind of push those further down the sales cycle to close. And yeah, and then I'll kind of get after it. Then I'll usually have some… I have it blocked off daily, but I'll be the first to tell you that I do not get to this daily… is just a block of prospecting time. Usually it's 60 to 90 minutes and I usually fluctuate. Some days it's in the morning, some days I have it blocked off in the afternoon. Well, I'll try to do some outreach in order to kind of generate some conversations and some additional opportunities. So I am in the philosophy, which a lot of folks in the Sales Success Community is, where it's, I'm not working myself to the bone. So I take breaks throughout the day, whether it's to go for a walk, Just go have lunch outside with my family. And then by 4:30, 5 o'clock, I mean, my computer's pretty much shut. I turn it off. I got to be able to walk away from it for my mental health. That's a good rough draft of how my day looks.

37:18 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then what does the back end of the day look like after the computer's shut?

37:22 Mike Anderson: Yeah. So my 6-year-old is in that stage of dad's his best friend. So once I come downstairs, he's like, hey, let's go play. Let's go play. So it's usually me jumping on a trampoline, playing wiffle ball, or, you know, my family loves to be outside. We actually just redid kind of our backyard patio, so that's like one of our favorite spots to be in. So generally, for the most part, the group of us will be out there in some capacity, whether it's, you know, like I said, you know, playing an epic game of wiffle ball or just sitting there having, you know, maybe a beer and, you know, chatting about kind of how everyone's day was. And it's just, you know, it's just the perfect wind-down to my day. And that's generally how those days end.

38:02 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. And then what's the information diet? What are you listening to, reading, watching, and when does that happen? Yeah.

38:08 Mike Anderson: So I mean, I'm not the crazy book nut, but a couple of recent books I've read is… I kind of mentioned that I'm all about trying to best embrace this growth mindset. And Terryberry's going through some crazy changes, which I mean, changes to what we sell and who I'm selling to and my comp structure and how I get paid. I just read, I don't know, have you read Who Moved My Cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson?

38:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah, years ago. It's been a while, but yes.

38:36 Mike Anderson: Yeah, right. It's one of the… yeah. So I actually, I've never read it, so I just picked it up about a month ago. And it's, for those that haven't read it, it's a cute, I call it a cute book. It's just based on 4 characters. There's these 2 mouses that, or 2 mice that I can't remember their names, like Spit and Spat or something like that, that they're in these 2 small little people, essentially, Hem and Haw, that they live in a maze. And every day they go to this same corridor and find this big pile of cheese, but then suddenly the cheese pile starts getting smaller and then it disappears. And then the mice quickly realize that was happening. So what do they do? They go and start searching other parts of the maze while the 2 little people, Hem and Haw, just keep going to the same corridor expecting that this cheese will eventually show up. So it's really all about embracing change, being comfortable with change, and if your cheese moves, then being comfortable enough to say, okay, we got to go find new cheese. So it's a simple read. It's just a good reminder for those, especially in sales, of sales changes constantly, right? I mean, the buyers change, the process changes, comp structures change, and being okay with that and not embracing it was just something that I thought it was an easy, good read. And then another one I'd read a few months prior to that was The Transparency Sale, which was really great for me to read. Have you read that one, Scott?

40:03 Scott Ingram: I haven't yet. Todd Caponi is a great friend of the show, and I've actually been talking to him about, we got to get some of that stuff on.

40:08 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I think he's got a new leadership book out that just came out.

40:12 Scott Ingram: And we actually come from… this is kind of an interesting story with Todd. We worked Competing companies years ago in this ratings and review space, and where the core of Todd's concept around this transparency sale comes from kind of those reviews and what people share and expectations and all of those kinds of things. And ultimately, I'll let you get to the punchline. I'm very, very familiar with like conceptually what that's all about, and I wholeheartedly agree.

40:41 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I mean, it was just again, it's a great book to read. I mean, it's a great book to read in general. It was perfect for. Timing-wise for me, again, as again going through these changes and having to try to sell, you know, Terryberry doing essentially a new pricing model and sales model and being able to sell that. The transparency sale was great because, you know, essentially it's like you're really getting out in front of your flaws and your product shortcomings. I think the example in the book is like IKEA is the best at that. You know, you're not… IKEA doesn't hide its flaws. You're going to get this kind of mid-level furniture and it's going to come in a box and it's going to be something that you have to assemble yourself, you know, and there's going to be cursing and there's going to be… yes, yes. You're going to be like, why is it just pictures and not words? And they embrace that. And that's what people love about them. But a couple of takeaways I had from that book too was just that, you know, being more transparent on, you know, explaining essentially the levers that make your company money, which I thought was like, what? Why would I indulge that? Information. It actually really helps, especially as you're negotiating programs and agreements and contracts, being able to kind of say, hey, I see what you're asking. If you're asking for a discount to maybe a subscription fee, but helping explain why our subscription fees are priced at the way they're priced, but maybe we can look at discounting maybe setup costs and being able to really explain that is definitely I thought was a great nugget and takeaway. And then, you know, it also bleeds over to, you know, one of the sales philosophies that I kind of adhere to is kind of the idea of a mutual action plan, which again is just being more transparent in the sales process and doing that early in the sales cycle with your contact, letting them know of, hey, we've done this before, here's exactly how this thing usually, you know, gets laid out and being able to, you know, doing that and being transparent about here's typically the kind of the sales process or here's what usually happens and kind of helps kind of gauge too on is your contact, you know, okay with this? Is there areas in this mutual action plan that they maybe feel that they can't adhere to, which I think then would be a red flag and kind of, you know, understanding if this thing is truly going to close. So that's the 2 recent books I read. You know, other kind of, you know, other than like the Sales Success Podcast, you know, one of the things too that I generally Again, being a part of this community, I've gotten to personally know a lot of sales training leaders throughout the years. And I follow those folks on LinkedIn. So I'll kind of do these micro nuggets of information that just based on me going to LinkedIn, for example, I follow both Jason Bay and Jeff Bajorek. They're constantly putting out great nuggets, posts on LinkedIn that I just, for me, just are easily digestible. You know, like whether it's… I think Jason Bay put out some posts about, you know, really hacking your messaging, I think was the series he did, and kind of just really small digestible videos and nuggets on doing that and being able to kind of take away tools and tips from there. Like, you know, I think he did one a few months ago about, you know, hacking your messaging and using like tools like Seeking Alpha. And it was just being able to log into a website and see kind of a place where quarterly, you know, meetings are held and being able to read that information at a certain company and what you should do with that information and how you should use it in your messaging. I mean, things like that or getting great reminders from Jeff on… I think he had one the other day that was just talking about the best salespeople talk about problems they solve and not product. And it's just like, oh yes, thanks for the reminder, Jeff. I feel like my outreach lately has been more product-focused and not problem-solving-focused. So that's generally the information I kind of digest on, on a weekly basis. So for those, that'd be a recommendation of something I would have out there is, you know, imagine you have… everyone has, whether, you know, sales leaders, they really like their content. If you follow them on LinkedIn, they're usually posting really micro-digestible nuggets of information that are great on a weekly basis.

44:45 Scott Ingram: Yep, yep. And we'll link to all the stuff, so all the books, all the LinkedIn profiles of the folks that you talked about. So top1.fm forward slash this episode number or top1.fm/mike-anderson. You'll have your own page, Mike.

45:00 Mike Anderson: Always wanted my own page.

45:01 Scott Ingram: That's right. So what about the tools and apps? Like, what's kind of your personal tech stack that you leverage to make all this happen?

45:09 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I mean, of course I live in… we are… CRM is Salesforce, and I mean, I live in that thing. I mean, that's just how I organize my day. That's how I keep on top of my opportunities and kind of what I need to do next. And, you know, information, that note-taking's all done through that. You know, Teams, we use the Teams app, Microsoft Teams, as, you know, a communication application. And that's actually huge for me, kind of going back to as I'm in this new enterprise sales role, I constantly lean on, you know, team selling or, you know, like I said, those ICBs and being able to have access to that and seeing you know, my teammates, you know, their calendar, so I can get some time on their calendar to maybe chat about certain opportunities and things like that. That's one I'm in daily as well because I just need to be able to have that visibility into my colleagues and their schedules. Another one that, you know, we use the tech… I mean, one of the great things about Terryberry is we definitely have sales enablement tech stack out the wazoo, which is awesome. But I'm in… we use, you know, Chorus, which is You know, it recording, you know, the application that records, you know, all your calls and whatnot. I'm constantly in there reviewing other, you know, discovery calls, demo calls, just to kind of, just to continue, you know, in my process improvement and how I structure these calls and what I say and what I, you know, trying to learn from. So that's another valuable tool of mine as well. LinkedIn is, you know, obviously everyone uses it, or I assume everyone uses it, but I'm in that daily, not just to get in, you know, not for the sales information and the information I digest there, but it's the selling tool for me, hands down. I mean, My buyers are human resource leaders and they're the biggest, I mean, I think as far as I know, I think they're the largest group on LinkedIn. So why wouldn't I be on there? That's a lot of how I do my outreach is via LinkedIn. I've been in this role for a while. So, you know, my network has grown in LinkedIn from a buyer perspective. So I'm constantly seeing and trying to engage in my buyers', you know, LinkedIn posts, whether it's You know, trying to, you know, whether it's sharing kind of maybe an open position that they're trying to hire for and trying to add value there, or, you know, doing cold outreach directly within LinkedIn because I see that maybe a contact of mine has moved roles and they're now at a new organization. I'll use that as an opportunity to reach out. So I'm constantly farming LinkedIn for potential new opportunities and new conversations. So that's a big one I'm in daily.

47:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

47:36 Mike Anderson: And then other kind of other applications I'm in, I kind of mentioned I was recently introduced to Seeking Alpha by Jason Bay, which again is a great tool, you know, for those publicly traded companies that maybe those, and usually those larger publicly traded companies, you know, just to find some internal information. Again, I go, I use that if I have a list of these large organizations that maybe I'm trying to prospect into, I'll use Seeking Alpha to go in and find, you know, their recent quarterly call and see kind of what their priorities are for the year or the quarter and trying to align those priorities with what, you know, with what I'm selling or what I'm… the problems I solve for. So yeah, that's kind of the tech stack I use fairly frequently.

48:20 Scott Ingram: And then you hinted to a piece of this with the way that you're using mutual action plans. What is your… how would you describe kind of your overarching sales philosophy?

48:29 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I definitely adhere to Professor Weiss's MEDDPICC type philosophy. I have that acronym posted on my computer just to kind of help drive the conversation and uncover, really uncover everything I need to know about this particular opportunity in order to position Terryberry as best as possible to win that. And along with that is mutual action plans because I'm constantly trying to move I mean, my goal as an AE is to continually… my goal is to move this conversation to close, whether that's close won or potentially maybe close lost, and using these MEDDIC and mutual action plans to really help communicate, you know, the problems we solve for, but then also clearly communicate kind of what the next steps are in the conversation. So, you know, for me, if it's a discovery call or proposal call or whatever it may be, a demo call, if I'm not clearly stating kind of what the next steps are and getting confirmation or agreement from my buyer that that is the next step, then I probably failed that call or that conversation. Yeah, those are kind of the 2 kind of major philosophies I think I kind of adhere to on a, you know, consistent basis.

49:45 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. And we'll link up a couple of resources there just in case folks aren't familiar with either of those things. Right. So whether it be MEDDPICC or mutual action plans, what I'll probably link to is a couple of the previous summit presentations, because we've certainly dug pretty deep into both of those topics.

50:01 Mike Anderson: Yeah. I mean, BANT, MEDDIC, I mean, MEDDPICC, they're all fairly similar. The reason why I kind of like MEDDPICC a little bit, when I was talking to David Weiss, who's not the inventor, but he definitely is the ambassador of MEDDPICC, is that one of the things for me is that paper process. When you're selling SaaS software, one of the things I think is overlooked is what's that legal paper process involved in getting someone to sign an agreement? And I think in the past I've sold programs or platforms and just miscalculated kind of that timing of everything because of, I didn't take into account that maybe legal has to review and redline things and adds 3 weeks to the process. And then we're missing launch, you know, go-live goals because of that. And so, you know, that whole philosophy of MEDDPICC also bleeds over to my mutual action plan because that really helps, you know, between those two really helps me ensure that, you know, if they truly do have some sort of go-live date, we can make sure we're hitting those goals of theirs.

51:06 Scott Ingram: So yeah, well, and just to tie maybe a couple of things together, right, this idea of the transparency sale and the way that you're both negotiating and just identifying these types of things, I When you take that type of an approach, it's so much easier to just say, hey, look, like these are the things that are the most important to our organization. Here are the things that are kind of non-negotiables. Like there's nothing I can do about these elements. And if you understand that about your buyer too, right, there might be certain parts of their process, right? Like we're not getting around the security review. Okay, cool. Let's start that really soon because you're telling me that takes 2 months or whatever the case is, right? And really getting clear on, you know, this is what we care about the most, whether when it comes specifically to the contract or when it comes specifically to the outcomes and what you're ultimately driving towards, right? I think the more that you can kind of get on that page and get everything out on the table, right? And to your point, I mean, MEDDIC is so amazing for that because it kind of makes sure that you don't forget stuff and you don't leave any stone unturned that's going to end up tripping you up right at that finish line.

52:09 Mike Anderson: Or yeah, something that comes out of the blue and shocks you in their process of like, wait, why didn't we talk about that before? Or, you know, it's… it also, you know, this whole process too just really helps, you know, you and your process because you're essentially laying out here's typically what needs to happen. Like how, you know, you've told me, oh yeah, I'm the one making the decision on this project, but when you really dig into the process, there's 5 other people that really is a part of this whole decision-making process. And, you know, being able to uncover that And, you know, yeah, I think it's helped shorten sales cycles for me. It helps me kind of vet, you know, really truly qualify, you know, opportunities. And so it's, yeah, it's been great, especially in the enterprise.

52:47 Scott Ingram: I mean, the complexity is just so much higher and understanding like, okay, well, once we have this finalized, then it gets circulated internally. These 4 people have to sign off on it, you know, before this other person signs the the actual agreement, and then it goes over here for the purchase order. You know, again, it's really getting into that nitty-gritty because it can be complicated and a lot of people don't even know, right? So it's kind of helping them do their own internal discovery. Like, have you bought something like this before? Oh, you haven't? Okay, let's go figure this out together because this is not going to be easy.

53:19 Mike Anderson: 100%. Yeah, I mean, that happens all the time of, you know, you're trying to kind of go through your MEDDIC philosophy or questionnaire and they don't even have answers for most of it, which is, you know, for them helps, you know, either is… should be a red flag and maybe you're disqualifying this opportunity, or better yet, it really helps them, you know, get organized on their end and they, you know, just look at you as a more valued partner, being like, oh my gosh, he's done this before. Those are great questions. I probably should, you know, go find those out internally and, you know, and making sure that I, you know, because when you… part of the reason why we, you know, I like to do, you know, what I like selling is You know, I love when I close a deal, it's almost like I'm congratulating my contact. Hey, congratulations, you did it. You got it across the finish line. And, you know, that's one of the things too I love about it.

54:07 Scott Ingram: So good. Mike, is there something you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy?

54:14 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I kind of talked about this earlier. You know, I would say, you know, don't feel bad if you just don't have it some days. You know, don't feel like you have to power through from a mental standpoint. If you wake up some days and you're just like, I can't make another cold call, or I'm just like, it's draining me, turn it off. Turn it off. Maybe take the afternoon off. Don't feel like you have to power through this thing. You got to be in the right mindset. So that's probably what I would say is kind of what I would believe. So maybe it's pretty common, but You know, don't feel like you have to… if you don't have it some days, then don't try to power through it.

54:52 Scott Ingram: Mike, how do you make sure that doesn't become a slippery slope, right? Because it's like, oh, okay, well, I don't feel it, I'm going to take the afternoon off, I'm going to give myself that break. If that starts to happen every day, that's going to be a real problem.

55:03 Mike Anderson: Yeah, then I think maybe sales isn't really for you in general. But yeah, I mean, you're right, that is… I think it's just… I mean, okay, so there's different elements to kind of what a sales rep does. So if it's You know, maybe it's prospecting, just I'm not feeling it today, but what else can I do? Can I work my opportunities and kind of figure out how to strengthen those or move those down the sales cycle a little further? Is it, you know, hey, maybe I'm going to take the next hour and listen to a podcast and maybe kind of just, you know, add more arrows to my quiver there. So there's different things you can do without necessarily just turning it all off and walking away, but it's a balancing act for sure. Like I said, if you're finding yourself doing it multiple days, then maybe you need to take a little look in the mirror to see if sales is really for you. Yeah, yeah.

55:46 Scott Ingram: I mean, maybe it's time to phone a friend. What about the flip side? Is there something that the average or typical sales rep believes that you think is crazy?

55:54 Mike Anderson: So this is something, you know, I was thinking about, and maybe this is more of me in my early career, but, you know, sales isn't a solo sport. You know, it's not you against the world. I think sales… the more I've kind of gone through my career, the more the wins I've had usually involve some sort of collaboration with colleagues and leadership. Sales isn't just you against the world. There's so many networking you can be a part of, whether it's a community like Sales Success or internally. The more you can collaborate and learn from others, I think the better off an individual is going to be because it's, again, whether it's your own organization, everyone wants to, I found, pretty quickly that, you know, people like to celebrate other folks' wins. So being able to collaborate with colleagues and leadership on kind of how to advance kind of your career and your opportunities has been pretty key. You know, for, you know, I think if you're not part of a sales group or a sales culture that celebrates wins together, I think that's something that maybe you got to take a look at or maybe try to even foster internally yourself. Like, for instance, like at Terryberry, we have like a group of, I think there's like 6 of us. That do a standing Monday morning call. You know, it's kind of a strategy huddle. We essentially, that's what we deem it as our strategy huddle. And that's kind of where we come to the table and saying, hey, what can we help with as a group? You know, sounding boards, ideas and whatnot. So that's probably what I would say is that, you know, a lot of times I think people maybe look at sales as kind of that individual solo sport. I just don't think that's true. Yeah.

57:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So key. So key. Good stuff. What advice do you have for somebody that is kind of early in their career, right? They're just getting their start. How can they maybe get to those wins earlier, right? And find that early success? What would you tell them?

57:41 Mike Anderson: I would definitely, you know, tell them to be a sponge, to maybe to reach out to someone, whether it's in your organization that's successful and kind of at the spot you want to be in. And I mean, people are so generous with their time, especially in sales. I just think, I think people love to collaborate. Love to share their knowledge and their success with others. So I would recommend that they go and find some individuals within their organization that maybe are successful currently, and that's where they want to be. They'll latch on and even go find like like-minded sales professionals out there outside of your organization. I mean, there's so many you can lean on, you know, shout out to the Sales Success. That's something I would probably say from day one early in your career is go find a community like that because I think You'll learn so much from others, you know, and that have done it for years or are trying to learn kind of like maybe you are and the same stage in their career and kind of learning it together. So, you know, go be a sponge, go find a community that you can learn from and helps you take your, you know, again, take your career to the next level. Yeah.

58:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I think there's a really interesting theme that is starting to develop as we build towards this year's summit. And, you know, I mean, the economy is changing now, right? I mean, the last few years we've had to deal with all of the changes that is a global pandemic and all that that has brought. And now we've got all sorts of crazy things kind of coming down the pike as the economy changes and supply chain and everything else. And I think this network is going to be more and more important because, you know, maybe you're just in an industry that is going to get hit really hard and through no fault of your own, the opportunity that you need to take your career to the next level just isn't there. And you know, when you have, I mean, Mike, we did this yesterday, right? We had this whole conversation about the last time you made a change in your career. How did you successfully do that? And I don't know. I mean, it was close to 100%, 80%, 90% of that was it's all relationships. It's all who you know and who you're connected to. And I think that we're going to lean into that. I'll probably be a little bit intentional about it in the way that I build some of the programming, just so that it's top of mind and we're thinking about, you know, how do we support each other through these next couple of years that might get a little bit dicey, right? And making sure that everybody has a group of people that they can lean on to make sure that they're going to come out of it not just clean and not keep their head above water, but continue to grow and thrive and get the types of results and outcomes that they're looking for in their career. So, you know, we're not going to keep it a secret thing, right? I mean, it's always been there. There's been a lot of opportunities that have been created through this community and where people have found some of those opportunities. And we're going to take it head on. So I appreciate you bringing that up. And I will say again, you know, sure, if your company will allow you to expense the summit, and you have development funds in that way, awesome, take advantage. But I really think you need to look at this as an investment in yourself, right? And an investment in your career. And, you know, if your company is not willing to contribute, well, first of all, I think that says something. You, you may not be in the right place in the first place. But if you need to take this on yourself, it's just going to pay such massive dividends Because of the level and quality of not just the connections and where everybody is at in their careers and their willingness, to your point, Mike, to just kind of pay this forward and help people get to that next level. But it's also, we're so committed to each other in this community, right? This is not a selfish place. Like, we love seeing each other win. I mean, we opened with this. I mean, the most gratifying, exciting thing for me is these interviews. Right? Is the people who have come into the community, embraced it, and gotten to the top. What, like, what's better than that?

1:01:43 Mike Anderson: Yeah, I mean, I remember when I first signed up and I was gonna go and, you know, listening to interviews with, you know, Jack Wilson, David Weiss. You kind of know these guys because you've listened to their interviews and they're, you know, almost like quasi-celebrities in this community, you know. And you kind of show up and you're like, oh man, I'm just gonna kind of sit back and And then you quickly realize how normal and generous folks are, especially with their knowledge and time. And just, I mean, frankly, they're just real people. Everyone's just kind of real people. And an example is I posted a question about kind of negotiations on deals and comp structures and things like that. And I had an overwhelming amount of people reach out to me and wanting to, hey, I'll… yeah, I went through this recently. Let me… I'll talk to you about my experience and kind of my thoughts on that. Actually humbling to see how many people just are generous enough to say, hey, I'll give you my time in order to help you. And that's just that. I think that just sums up this community in general.

1:02:43 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you just reminded me of kind of that process, right? Because you went through a pretty dramatic shift in terms of the way that you guys were organized as a sales department and the way that compensation needed to work. And it was fascinating because Scott was reaching out, right? Scott was getting involved in the community and trying to figure out, hey, how do we do this the right way? What's typical? What's the market? How do we make sure that we take care of our people well? While you were doing that same research, right? While you were thinking for yourself, like, hey, is this the right thing? How do I make sure that this is the right opportunity for me? And really extracting a ton of value from the community in that way as well. And I think everybody came to a really great place, right? The fact that more people from this community have moved over to Terryberry since those changes says that you probably got it right.

1:03:31 Mike Anderson: Yeah, and that was something that, you know, talking to Scott, who's, you know, essentially my boss and helps make these decisions, you know, and if I had questions on it, you know, I'm like, is that how we should do this? You know, he would be the first one to point you to, well, yeah, go ask around, go leverage the Sales Success Community, kind of see, because if we're not doing it right, we want to know. And yeah, so it's been the plethora of knowledge that this community has and experience on all sorts of things, whether it's, you know, sales process, sales culture, comp plans, whatever it may be, is so vast that it's just, it's nice to be able to feel comfortable when you're, you know, looking for information.

1:04:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, for sure. So I wonder if, does that advice change at all? Maybe it's the same answer, right? If there's somebody who is actually, here's where I want to go in your career, Mike. You talked about that year that you missed. You'd had some pretty good consistent success, but then you had that year in the red and you're like, oh wait, hang on. Maybe something is wrong. What advice would you have given to yourself in that place, in that moment?

1:04:35 Mike Anderson: I mean, it's kind of the theme of my whole thing here is just get out of your comfort zone. I mean, that's the advice. I mean, that's ultimately the advice I had to take is you're in this comfort zone and it doesn't seem to be working right now. So what needs to change? And embrace that and go try something new because what you're currently doing is not working.

1:04:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, great stuff, great stuff. So I mean, you have been fully embraced. I mean, you've been in and around this community, you listen to these episodes. Is there something else that we don't typically talk about that you would want to know about or from the top sellers and other organizations?

1:05:18 Mike Anderson: That's a great one. Yeah, I mean, for me it's just I think kind of what their process looks like from discovery to close is always valuable. What are they doing that I'm not? I always kind of want to know is like, what is something that you are 100% disciplined to? Because in my world, that's maybe something that I could always be better at is what do I need to be more disciplined on? Whether it's prospecting or if it's a certain discovery process. I want to know kind of what elements of your process are you like, there's no negotiating that, that's kind of what I'm disciplined on and I won't move off of.

1:05:56 Scott Ingram: What is that for you? I mean, are there any other pieces? I mean, again, I think coming across the ICB model is something really interesting and really valuable and something that a lot of people can think about a little bit more strategically in terms of formalizing how do we actually internally align behind this deal? Is, are there other pieces in your own process that are like that?

1:06:16 Mike Anderson: For me, it goes back to I'm extremely disciplined on making sure I've clearly stated what I believe is the next step in this process of whoever I'm talking to and getting agreement from them that yes, that's what it is. So I'm hyper-focused and disciplined on that because if I feel… if I don't get that next step circled and they don't agree to it, then that's not a good place for my opportunity to be in. So that's something that I'm extremely disciplined on. So I mean, that's something from… I mean, it doesn't have to be another meeting scheduled. If it's just getting an agreement from them on the date at which I can follow up with an email that they will respond to, that's ultimately kind of what I'm trying to accomplish is I want you to agree that this next step. So when I send you that email on that date, you will respond, you know? So that's kind of what, you know, I kind of circle as kind of the discipline behind, you know, or one thing I am disciplined on. I would like to say prospecting, even though I need to get better at that. I've been disciplined enough to have it on my calendar every day. Now it's being more disciplined on actually doing that every, every day.

1:07:26 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Mike, this has been such a fun conversation. I knew that we would cover a lot of ground. I love that you had the opportunity to kind of share your story and your journey and all the things that you have learned along the way. But I always try and make this as actionable as possible here as we get to the end. So what would you challenge our listener to do over the course of the next week or 2 to improve their results and improve their outcomes as a sales professional?

1:07:56 Mike Anderson: Oh, that's easy. For those that maybe have listened to this podcast or the Tips podcast before, and have heard about the actual Sales Success Summit, I would urge you to jump out of that comfort zone and go to the summit. Invest, you know, do that investment in yourself. If your company, you know, full disclosure, I invested myself on this. I'm going on 3 years onto the summit and it's not something I expense. It's a personal expense. And I would urge the group to say, you know, you're worth it. Invest in yourself. Go to the summit. You won't regret it. I promise you won't regret it. I think, you know, like as you can see, like I mentioned earlier, I'm the product. One of the key bullets I have for kind of my success factors is this community and the summit. I think I'm the product of the summit. So I would urge, you know, I would challenge anybody listening that maybe doesn't know about it or has never attended to make that investment yourself. Go attend. I think you won't regret it.

1:08:54 Scott Ingram: Well, I really appreciate you saying that, Mike, and encouraging folks to do that. I don't think I've even called it out in our conversation. Conversation for here. So to learn about the summit, to get those details, you can go to top1summit.com. And one of the things I'm doing, I'm backing off of… I usually hold the line pretty hardcore in the pricing. I don't believe in negotiating in that way, but things have been a little crazy in my world these last couple of months. And so what I've decided to do accordingly is we're kind of slow playing. Usually the cost of the summit increases every month, I'm kind of slow playing those increases a little bit. So if you're listening to this shortly after the release of this episode, go quickly because there's probably a little bit of an advantage. You might be able to get the… I think I might have the June pricing still in place or even the May pricing and, or a couple of months beyond that. And so I'm going to be just a little bit lazy about bringing that pricing up to speed just so that you can take advantage. So top1summit.com. I know Mike will be there. He's already signed up. He's always one of the first that signs up every year and come meet all of these folks that you listen to and we build one hell of an experience around that event. So again, Mike, I appreciate you challenging people in that particular way. I think that's a great one. It's the ultimate in terms of bringing this community together. And it's not just an event, right? So many events are a point in time. It's that thing that happened those 2 days. This is an ongoing year-round thing for us. You know, the summit is obviously our opportunity to come together in person, but we're pretty intentional about extending that interaction and the connection and community throughout.

1:10:35 Mike Anderson: Oh, 100%. It bleeds over 12 months out of the year, really. It's not just those 2 days. And for anyone that is kind of on the fence, and I mean, reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to have a conversation if you want to learn more about kind of what the attendee experience is like. I mean, that's me. That's what I did. I'm an attendee. I'm not on stage speaking. Again, like I mentioned, I invested in myself and I continue to invest in myself on this summit. So I'm happy to chat with anybody that maybe wants to learn a little bit more about what that experience is like.

1:11:04 Scott Ingram: Love it. Appreciate that offer, Mike. This has been amazing. Thanks for taking the time to share your story and pay it forward.

1:11:10 Mike Anderson: Hey, Scott, I appreciate the ask of having me come on. This is, again, Out of my comfort zone. I'm happy I did it. I just hope that maybe if there's just a nugget in what I said, it helps anybody out there. I'm happy I did it. 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.