149: Steve Reed is Helping the Minnesota Vikings Win the Super Bowl

0:00 Scott Ingram: After recording this interview, it was kind of obvious that Vidyard needed to be the solo sponsor of this episode. I'll explain why in a bit, but in the meantime, click over to top1.fm/vidyard to get started with their fantastic tool for free. 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 Steve Reed. Steve is the top seller for the Minnesota Vikings, as well as a friend and superfan of the show, having listened to every single episode. Welcome to the show, Steve.

0:53 Steve Reed: Scott, thank you so much. I truly appreciate being here. Thank you.

0:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so I should probably call out upfront here that Steve is insanely humble. I've suspected for years that he was the Vikings' top seller, but he was always coy about it when I asked. And it took me confronting him face to face at a Caribou Coffee in downtown Minneapolis to get him to admit it and agree to come onto the show. So Steve, I know you know better than anybody else how this works. Let's kick things off with some immediate value and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

1:27 Steve Reed: Well, Scott, I appreciate that. Number one, and I will tell you though, this was not hard. It wasn't easy coming down with just 3, but number one is believe. That's the heart of everything. I mean, I truly believe in the value in our games and that when our fans come out, my clients come out, they're going to have a fantastic time. The bond, I've seen it over 22 years now with the team, it creates with a family, employees, and clients. It's just 4 hours of face time that's electric, and I truly believe in that. Plus, no one believes in their product more than I do. I mean, I grew up a Viking fan, and now I'm the luckiest guy in the world to work for my favorite team. And I think that transference of emotion and feeling comes through when I talk to the people I work with.

2:09 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. I love it. I love it. I know your passion. So what's number 2?

2:12 Steve Reed: Number 2, it's a Super Bowl mindset. And it's… I've got a great life. The only thing missing is a Vikings Super Bowl win. I've been blessed to see my other 2 favorite teams, the Reds and Lakers, win titles. Now I just want that one Vikings Super Bowl, and then I got the trifecta. And there is actually, in my position, one thing I can do about that. I can put loud, loyal fans in the stands. So I'm not out there making tackles or scoring touchdowns, but what I can do is put loud, loyal fans in the stands and help give our team a home field advantage. And then of course there's the sales aspect of generating revenue too. They, you know, my colleagues seem to enjoy that as well. But let's get loud, loyal fans in there. Have that Super Bowl mindset. Everything I do goes towards helping the team win that Super Bowl.

2:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And you know, what's… what really struck me is when we had that opportunity to get together and have coffee, you kind of talked about that really being your why and kind of the why behind USell and what drives all of this.

3:08 Steve Reed: Gosh, it sure is. And we've been so close so many times. And I remember I got the game Connect Four for Christmas in 1976. And I remember watching the '77 Super Bowl with the Raiders beating us. And then I just remember playing by myself and dropping those little red and black checkers down. And the Raiders kept… every time I dropped a checker, it seemed like the Raiders were scoring. But then when you're a kid, you think to yourself, oh, we'll get back next year. And then next year still hasn't come yet. But I truly believe that our time is coming. And that's what keeps me going.

3:37 Scott Ingram: So great. So great. What's the third thing?

3:39 Steve Reed: Third thing is pretty simple. It's set big goals, write them down, and then chart the path. That's what really gets me going is setting big goals. Like if they say, hey, Steve, we've got this area or we've got this suite. You know, my goal is just to find the right fit for it. Also, it surprises me how many people in this world don't write their goals down. So that's important. And then of course you have to chart the path. How are you going to achieve that goal? So write that down. How many people are you going to talk to? The right conversations and then textbook sales. And I'm sure we'll get into that, but just doing the right things, finding a path to achieve your goal and then marking off the list, but aim high too, because Sometimes you hit it.

4:16 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love it. I love it. And you know what was fun is we did a little bit of back and forth. So a little inside baseball here. I know you're a huge baseball fan too, but I digress. You know, part of what I ask my guests for, really the only thing that I ask for upfront is I want to know kind of what those top 3 things are so that we have a little bit of a direction. And I know you struggled to narrow it down. You came up with 14. And what I think I'll do here, we'll include the rest of your list in the show notes. So folks go to top1.fm/steve-reid. You'll find them there or top1.fm/this episode number. I'm sure we'll touch on a number of those other things, but why don't we kind of contextualize this? Your role and what you do is so interesting. The backstory is interesting. Why don't we talk about that? Like, why don't, why don't we talk about what exactly do you do? How does this work and what does it take to be number one for the Vikings?

5:06 Steve Reed: Well, I truly appreciate that. Going back, I started in the ticket office and I'm still in the ticket office, but now I've transitioned to our premium team. But with the ticket office, my focus was on selling out every game through our tickets, our club seats, our private suites, everything ticket-oriented. And now with the premium team, it's still a lot of the same thing, but the focus is more on, you know, it's still the suites, the club seats, and also working with corporate partnerships too. And that's just… it's a lot of what I do. I also assist with incoming phone calls and taking care of our season ticket owners, any questions they might have. We were among the first teams in the country with digital ticketing, so sometimes folks need help accessing their tickets. I monitor our customer service email inbox. You get a lot of interesting things there too. But one of those 14 things I mentioned too was opportunities are everywhere if you're looking and know where to look. And that's where some of them too, I mean, you find the… like if somebody can write in with customer service, they might have a question about this, but then you can sense another opportunity. And that all goes back to another thing too, where don't be afraid to ask one more question because that can bring about more opportunities for you as well as for them too. They might not even be aware of something that you have unless you keep talking and find out a little bit more about them.

6:20 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. And then, I mean, what does it take? I mean, what are you selling? What kind of results are you pulling in?

6:25 Steve Reed: Well, I appreciate that. Over the last 22 years, my sales have been over $31 million in tickets, suites, And, but the number one goal is simply sell out every single game. And, and you're, I know you're gonna ask about challenges. Our streak did come to an end back in 2010, I believe, when the Metrodome roof fell in. But then we've resumed selling out every game. That's the crux of it. Sell out every game, give our team that home field advantage.

6:50 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Amazing. And you characterized it for me when we sat down that your role is, I mean, you're gonna help the team win a Super Bowl because of the types of fans that you're putting in those seats and the way that you're contributing to just the overall environment and that experience.

7:07 Steve Reed: It truly is. I think one of the important things is to make sure fans get what I promised them. I promise everything but a win. If you're going to sit in our club seats, our private suites, you're going to get everything that we, we tell you you're going to get. You're going to get the food, the drinks. You're super close to exclusive restrooms. I mean, everything that you need to have a comfortable time so you're comfortable cheering on the Vikings and having the time of your life. And that's what's going to help us win the Super Bowl. Because, you know, I just, I absolutely love game day. I've got great people I work with as far as my clients. I love seeing them. I have to record our home games because I'm going around visiting my clients and I wish there were 10 of me on game day so I could go see more people. But it's so exciting. I just, it's such a rush. And Scott, we have to get you to a game because it's so cool to be here.

7:52 Scott Ingram: It's a two-way street. I know the schedule is working against us this year because you guys are playing the Bears the day before we kick off the summit. So I know we won't see you down at the summit, but The day that you are able to make it down to the Summit, I'll trade you and I'll come up and check out a game. That would be a blast. Although my preference would be, well, maybe I shouldn't come to a Cowboys game because then I might show up in the wrong kind of colors.

8:13 Steve Reed: This is actually 2 years in a row we're hosting Dallas. That doesn't happen too often. But yeah, my tickets are your tickets if you want to come see Dallas.

8:19 Scott Ingram: Amazing. Amazing. I so appreciate the offer and we will take each other up on that at some point here over the years. I mean, you have been, I mean, I called it out at the the beginning of the show. I mean, you have been a long, long-time listener and fan to this show and just super engaged. And in fact, one of the things that you do, and I know this is actually part of your process, and maybe we can talk about it a little bit more here, is the way that you kind of incorporate video into your process. You have sent me some super cool stuff over the years because you've obviously got a lot of great product and kind of visuals to work with. You want to talk about that?

8:51 Steve Reed: Yeah, absolutely. It's really cool. I appreciate you saying that too, because I was, I want to say I was in on video before video became big, you know, because the last couple years people are saying, hey, use video in your sales. But I found that with the opening of U.S. Bank Stadium that I could bring the stadium to people who couldn't come to see it by shooting inventory, you know, taking my… just taking my phone out to the stadium, say, hey, here's what our suites look like, or here I've got this club seat area for you to come check out. I send them a video and they get to see it, they share it with their colleagues, and it's cool because, you know, I use Vidyard quite a bit. And then you can see how many times it's getting watched and the numbers. It's like a pinball machine seeing the number of views go up. It's pretty cool.

9:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, I'm sure. I mean, again, it's so… it's the ultimate in personalization, right? It's you recording the video for them, showing them this is the suite or the seats. This is what it looks like from there. And I'm sure they're then sharing it with their colleagues or the rest of their family or everything else and getting all kinds of excited.

9:49 Steve Reed: Yeah, it truly is. It's funny because it really works. I mean, sometimes you hear about things Like, try this, try that, does it really work? And it actually does. You know, I've seen the results firsthand. You know, you send it out to a few people who are interested, you know, this suite just opened up, and then you say, I know you can't get here to the stadium, I'm bringing the stadium to you. And Vidyard works, Scott. It's a testimony.

10:11 Scott Ingram: This is why I decided to set up Vidyard as the solo sponsor of this episode, because this is one of those round-trip stories that I love so much. Steve discovered Vidyard through their sponsorship of this show and this community over the years, and he's seen massive results from their free tool. Do yourself a favor and get Vidyard set up in your system today at top1.fm/vidyard. And now back to my conversation with Steve Reed. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Let's get into your origin story, which is fascinating because I've heard it. So how did you get into sales in the first place? Like, what's the whole backstory here?

10:50 Steve Reed: Okay, there are actually 3 moments in my professional life that might have changed my life, and they're all sales related. First one, after I graduated from Iowa, I found myself in Toledo living very, very poorly. I couldn't find a job that clicked, and then I saw an ad in Bowling Green for Kinko's Copy Center. They had a sales position opened up. They were looking for a full-timer and a part-timer. And so I interviewed. They interviewed 20 people. They hired me as the part-timer. After a month, I had outperformed the full-timer. They let him go, and I was working full-time there, and that went quite well. And then so over the next course of the next 7 years or so, I was in sales and management in Kinko's, ranging from Toledo to Bowling Green to the Twin Cities to Davenport, and then in Cincinnati. And then in Cincinnati in '96, I found myself at Kinko's there. But looking to get back to the Quad Cities where I'm from, Davenport, Iowa, and I wanted to work in sports. And so I interviewed with the Quad City Thunder of the CBA, and this is still a little before cell phones or emails. And I thought the interview went well, but I had to persistently follow up, which I did. I want to thank Casey Kaler for hiring me with the Thunder. That went quite well. So I was a sales guy there, and then I also became the director of public relations with the Thunder shortly after that. And then I noticed our players getting called up to the NBA, and I was so happy for them. And I thought to myself, geez, if they're getting called up, I could get called up too. And when you're a player, you're at the whim of whatever NBA team selects you. But if you're in the front office, you can go interview for wherever you like. So I thought to myself, I'd like to work for the Vikings. How cool would that be? So a couple of years into my role with the Thunder, I interviewed with the Vikings and It was great. I felt like I belonged. It went so awesome. And Scott, you know what they said?

12:41 Scott Ingram: I think they said no.

12:42 Steve Reed: They said, they said no. That's right. And I was horrified. I was not only horrified, I was depressed. And, but I didn't take no as a final answer. I had some folks who I'd worked with at the Thunder send up recommendations, and then I followed up every year or every month for a year. And the person who hired me says, look, Steve, I don't have anything, but Phil in the ticket office does. I came up to Minnesota where I interviewed with Phil, Phil Huebner, and he hired me. I was so grateful for that. And the rest is history.

13:14 Scott Ingram: And a long, successful history. I mean, talk through that, like the Vikings adventure a little bit more too, because you've seen some twists and turns and your career has kind of evolved over time in that way too.

13:24 Steve Reed: It truly has. I'd mentioned digital ticketing, but that's only in the last 6 years. But everything, we've seen so many challenges. But through it all, you know, my staff, the people I work with, we're so proud of the fact that we sell out every single game. And it's really one conversation at a time. That's, I mean, that's the sales right there. I mean, you've got loyal fans, but there's also, you know, some that need a little bit more information or accessing their tickets, how to transfer tickets. And it's just being accessible to them, showing gratitude however you possibly can, because I'm thankful for every single one of my clients. I mean, I love them. I love everybody who supports us and to see that evolve over the years too. I mean, I've had clients who've been with me for the full ride so far to this point, and it's just so much fun to see them on game day cuz you spend 350 days outta the year getting ready for 10 to 12 game days. That makes game days that much more magical.

14:15 Scott Ingram: I love that. And I think another part of your secret sauce is the way that you communicate with those fans, with your customers, with, I mean, heck, even if they're not your customers, why don't you talk about that particular piece?

14:27 Steve Reed: Yeah, that's something I'm particularly proud of. After about my first or second year, when emails started to get more and more popular, I got the idea for a distribution list of not only all my clients that I work with, but also prospects too. You know, if we have a good conversation and you say it looks like we'll be doing business down the road, or they should be doing business right now, I'll throw them on my distribution list because they're Viking fans, they want to know what's going on. I have this distribution list now that's now over 20 years old, and I keep in touch with my clients. Like, they got… everybody on the distribution list got media notes leading up to today's game. We're recording this here the day of our first preseason game with the Raiders. Tomorrow they'll get an email from me wrapping up the game. So I try to stay in touch as often as I can when there's Viking news, when I have inventory updates. So you'd mentioned staying in touch with them. Like if something does open up, like if we have a suite that opens up, I'll send out news on that. And that's a great time to share the video too that we talked about where, hey, if you can't make it to the stadium, here's the video. I've got some more details in about the suite in there too. But also in the offseason, if there's player transactions, because, you know, the NFL is a 12-month business now, there's no real offseason because the offseason is my busy time. And that's a chance to stay in touch with everybody. Give them Vikings top of mind when they're thinking about what's going on with the team. They know they can count on me for updates too. I know you can also get updates, you know, in seconds when we sign a guy, but I like to stay in touch and whenever I got news, I like to share it.

15:56 Scott Ingram: Well, and when we got together and I found out that you were doing that, I asked you to put me on that list. And I think what's so cool about it is it's not just news. It's Steve. You are so human and sharing of yourself in that. And it's a really interesting way that you're able to I think kind of not just build but maintain relationships the way you do, kind of at scale through that communication.

16:19 Steve Reed: Yeah, Scott, thank you for saying that too. You know, every time I do send out something, I'll try to throw in a little, maybe a paragraph or a sentence about myself. They don't need the whole life story in, in one email, but maybe if there's a time we're playing the Bears, maybe I'll talk about my first game that I ever went to, which happened to be at Soldier Field when my folks brought me up there. We made the 3-hour bus ride from Davenport and the Vikings beat the Bears. And I remember Scott Studwell tackling Walter Payton. It didn't quite save the game, but it was inside the 20. I mean, all these things I remember so clearly because it's… I mean, I just love the game so much and appreciate the opportunity to share myself with the people who are willing to invest their time, money, and emotions into the team too.

17:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So cool. So cool. So is there anything… I mean, knowing all that you know and all that you've experienced to date, If you could start this adventure over again, is there anything that you would do differently?

17:10 Steve Reed: Oh my gosh, just one quick thing. I get asked often, how do you get into sports? And the easy answer for the last 10, 20 years has been get an internship. If I had known how cool this is, I would have gone and pursued going directly to the Vikings from straight out of college. I would have worked harder for that. I mean, I just didn't realize there was that opportunity. Maybe I didn't look into it, but, you know, life takes you different directions and you got to go over some hurdles to get to where you want to be. And I certainly did that. But I'm so grateful now because my reality has exceeded my dreams.

17:44 Scott Ingram: How would you approach that? So if there's somebody listening to this right now, maybe they're still in college and they are super passionate about a particular team. They hear you, they're like, you know what, I want to go do that. How would you advise them to make that happen?

17:57 Steve Reed: Well, I'd say connect with somebody in the organization, get to know what they do. Make sure you study. If your classes, your background have a slant towards that, because my major at Iowa was journalism, which is fine for writing. I do enjoy writing, but perhaps business would have helped a little bit more. But find a mentor, work with them, find the ins and outs. I mean, where are sports teams posting openings? Learn all about that. And also work, get that internship if you can too.

18:25 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Now, This is probably super difficult to pick just one, but of all the sales and the deals that you've done over the years, what's your favorite sales story?

18:36 Steve Reed: Well, you're right, I have had several. I'm pretty proud of that, but I'm going to go back to my very, very first year, my rookie year. I was talking with a gentleman named Jim who I ended up selling him 4 of our VIP, what would be our club season tickets. It was a nice… it was about a $10,000 sale, so that was I felt great about that. But then I started to talk to Jim a little bit more, ask a few more questions. And it turns out he does some charity work. He works out with some kids' groups. And I said, Jim, I'm not sure if 4 seats is enough. You might need your own suite. And then he started talking a little bit more. I says, Jim, I'm not sure if one suite's enough. And at the end of it, he ended up buying 4 of our season-long suites instead of 4 season tickets. He got 4 suites. And that turned out to be Quite a nice sale.

19:20 Scott Ingram: Good Lord, that's amazing. That's amazing. So similarly, I mean, tons of accomplishments over the years. What are you most proud of?

19:28 Steve Reed: I'm actually proud that I'm… I'm just proud to be a Viking. I mean, I'm still so grateful every time I walk in the office or I'm in a meeting. I'm just so grateful to be there. I'm just thankful. And that's one of the reasons I just tried killing it from day one, is just to show Phil and everybody I work with That they took that chance to hire me, and I just don't want to let anybody down. I think that's you know that's part of the why too. You know the why is the Super Bowl, but also I don't want to let people down. I don't want to let my bosses down, my colleagues, my clients, my family. I just want to keep grinding so I show them the love that they show me.

20:03 Scott Ingram: Steve, I'm just sitting here thinking you have to be really careful not to cut yourself because otherwise you probably just get purple all over the place.

20:10 Steve Reed: Thank you, Scott.

20:13 Scott Ingram: So, I mean, you kind of hinted at this earlier, but let's dive into it specifically. You know that I like to kind of take the flip side of that. So, you know, what is the most challenging part of being in sales in this day and age?

20:25 Steve Reed: Hmm. That's a great question. I guess the challenging thing is sometimes it's when you get ghosted because, you know, I can't believe this. Well, I'm surprised. I'm always surprised when we're… I'm having a conversation with somebody and then you think things are going really well. And you don't hear from them a while. I mean, there's always a reason. I mean, sometimes, I mean, life changes everybody, but sometimes there's the being ghosted part. And I'm always surprised too when some… you're having, again, a great conversation. It seems like we're headed down somebody, you're matching them up with a piece of inventory, and then suddenly they just drop off. And I always wonder why. I mean, because if… I think that falls on me. Like, if they knew how cool it was, they would have taken it. But There's always a reason, and you just got to find that reason too. It's just, again, it goes back to asking more questions and of course qualifying folks. But I think that's the challenge is, I guess it's getting ghosted, but we've had our share of challenges too. I mean, being a Viking fan, you're filled with heartbreaking losses. But on the other hand, like I had some new folks come on board this year because they simply liked the change in direction with our new coach, our new general manager. And that's one thing I love about the Wilfs too. I know that they're the best owners in sports. They've shown it time and time again, and they want a Super Bowl almost as much as I do. And I really appreciate that about the Wilf family.

21:42 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. What's your solution to… I mean, I think we all struggle with being haunted by the ghosts. What are you doing to exorcise those particular demons?

21:52 Steve Reed: Well, actually, I've heard this a few months ago, and There's the email that you send that you just write back, you say, have you given up on this? And it actually… I've gotten some folks who've responded to that. And like I said, have you given up on this suite, for example? And that's all you say in your email, you know, sometimes. And people do respond to that. And then sometimes they just don't. But I'm blessed to have so many people who, they enjoy what we have going on, or at least there's more folks out there who are interested in getting on board. Where I try not to lose too much sleep if that happens, where somebody decides it's just not in the budget for this year. That's okay, I'm not going to yell at you, but I do want to know. I mean, I would appreciate it if… I'm a big boy, I can handle it. If you want to say no, just tell me no instead of saying, well, saying nothing. That's how I handle it. I mean, I keep them on my distribution list even if they disappear on me like Casper the Ghost, but because sometimes I found I've had people who have been on my distribution list for years and years And I haven't heard from him. And then next thing you know, I've got some club seats available and they're snapping them up. And I'm grateful for that. And it's just timing. Timing is right for them now when it wasn't then. And that's okay. I really appreciate that.

23:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I'm actually surprised. I just went and looked back at your list. I'm surprised not to see persistence on here because I think that is certainly a theme for you starting with, you know, I followed up every month for a year before You know, they're like, okay, you know, here's your opportunity to come into the organization. I mean, do you want to speak about that a little bit more just in the way that you think about persisting?

23:23 Steve Reed: Yeah, I appreciate that, Scott, because I would say I'm fairly persistent. I was… I think when I want to find… I think part of persistency is taking good notes and then staying in touch with the people you have the good conversation. And then when you finally have something open up that you know is the right fit, I stay with those people until we get, you know, we find them, we get them locked in, or maybe they've given me a no, and then it's time to move on to the next person. Because, but being persistent is about finding the right fit but not giving up on people too. Don't let them give up because sometimes people do get busy and then maybe the Vikings aren't top of mind for them. But if I stay persistent, you know, you don't want to be a pest too. There's always that fine line between being persistent and being a pest too. And that's one of the challenges I struggle with too, because I don't want to be like, I'm not calling everybody, you know, every single day, but I want to let them know that I'm still in touch. I have their information. I want to take care of them and their guests. And it's another one of the challenges we talked about.

24:23 Scott Ingram: I think the way that you framed that was so good. You said you won't let them give up. It's, it's so interesting that it wasn't even about you giving up because that's sort of a given, but you're not going to let them give up.

24:33 Steve Reed: Yeah, absolutely. Because once I get them here, I've had so many people say, I mean, they're having a great time and they wish they'd been on board years ago. That happens all the time. And so the most important step is the first step. Just when they're in the house and having a great time and you've got some of… you bring some of your family members. That's also been a trend lately too. I've seen a lot of companies buy our private suites, but I've also seen families just buy them for more family time. That's exciting. You stop in on game day and you see a whole family there. It's so cool to see everybody gathered around having a good time. It's like family reunion 10 times out of the year.

25:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, such a great experience. So let's dissect your day. So walk us through, kind of give us the blow-by-blow from the time your alarm clock goes off, whenever that is, until your head hits the pillow. What's a typical day look like?

25:21 Steve Reed: Okay, I appreciate that. I get up at 4:40 each morning because it's very important that I work out every single day. And a lot of times, well, a few days a week, I get to play basketball with with some of the same guys. We got pickup basketball, and that's been going on for over 15 years. And I've been blessed with neither height or ability, but I still love to play. And that's a good time too. And so whenever I need a good dose of humility, I play some basketball. And from there I head into the office. I've got a 45-minute drive, which is great for catching up on podcasts. But on a couple days a week, I do work from home, which I truly appreciate that too. So we got the drive in the office. I try to get to the office by 6:30, and that's a great chance to catch up on CRM, making some notes there, writing out some handwritten note cards, which I'm fairly big on, getting some emails lined up, and then also just diving into customer service emails and being ready for any incoming calls or, you know, emails that might come in from there on. And then it's also a chance to hit LinkedIn. I'm trying to get into that a little bit more. I've been on there for quite a while. But I don't do a whole lot or as much as I could or should with that. And that's one area I want to improve on. That takes us through, you know, that's pretty much the day. You've got phone calls, emails, prospecting. And then that takes me to about mid to late afternoon. And it's at that point I make the drive back from Eagan up to Coon Rapids. And then it's kid time. I'm taking the kids to swimming, baseball, football. Let's see, there's play practice. It's, you know, just It's dad time at that point. But also, to the detriment of them, I never really turn off from work. I'm accessible on my phone. I do check that for emails because I try to make myself accessible. I consider myself the most accessible person in sports because if you need me, I'm around. And, you know, I take calls at all hours, just taking care of the fans because that's… it's important to me and I know it's important to them. And then during the summer, it's basically following my fantasy baseball team. During the fall, it's following the Vikings and football and of course the Iowa Hawkeyes. And from there, usually get to bed between 11 and midnight. And that's kind of a day in the life right there.

27:26 Scott Ingram: And how much does that vary, you know, offseason versus on, right? When you're hosting a game and you're gonna be in the stadium, like what do those weekends look like and things like that?

27:34 Steve Reed: Those are actually more customer service focused during the season. 'Cause at this point, virtually everybody's already got their seats and suites lined up. And then you're just helping folks even more so where you're helping them. You know, they have got questions on how to access their digital tickets, how to use the Viking app, how to transfer tickets, how to accept a transfer of tickets. You're talking with some new folks, say they had some tickets transferred to them. And even again, that's an opportunity to, you know, you ask that one more question and they could become a customer going forward. You help them out once and then it could be a customer for life after that. So even more so customer-driven during the season, whereas the offseason is more taking care of folks as far as getting them lined up with their seats and suites.

28:18 Scott Ingram: Love it. Are there other habits or routines that are kind of core to the way that you operate in your success?

28:24 Steve Reed: I would say that habits… hmm, that's a great question because there's maybe some mottos I live by. Like, you know, I guess Wayne Gretzky was credited with saying, You miss every shot you don't take. I firmly believe that's 100% true. There's a few college courses that I assist with where they have some of their students do role plays with me and they have me grade them. And one thing I'm always looking for is I'll try and get them off the phone without seeing if they're going to close the sale or not. I always make sure you have to ask for the sale because you don't get what you don't ask for. I'm a firm believer in that. And also I make sure use your whole team. I mean, I work with some brilliant people and they're amazing and they're so smart they have extra ideas for me that help me see things in a different light or maybe take things in a different direction or make me aware of things that we have available that even I wasn't aware. Now that I'm part of the, you know, the premium team as opposed to fully immersed in the ticket office, I've got some other things that are available to me that I wasn't even aware of that we can do. As far as just one extra way of taking care of a client. And that's just one more way of just showing the love to our fans and for our clients. And that's… and I mentioned too, opportunities, they're all around you too. Like even the drive-in, if you see a truck that passes you and it's got the company name on it, you just get into the office and you look them up to see if they're in our system because our prospects are literally everywhere. We have season ticket owners from all 50 states. And so just keep your eyes open. That's another message is just be aware of your surroundings because prospects are everywhere in this world.

30:03 Scott Ingram: I want to come back to the, you're kind of leveraging your team piece, right? So we've talked about how you're kind of maintaining the relationships with your customers and with your prospects and the way that you're communicating with them. How are you managing the relationships within the organization?

30:16 Steve Reed: Just, just more communication because we have, I'm in more meetings now than I was. And that's not a bad thing. That's a great thing because Communication is huge. You know, that's always been, you know, from day one of life is always communicate. How do you stay in touch with people? And so I just want to make sure that you're keeping communication lines open with everybody, all of my, you know, my bosses, my colleagues. Find out what's going on as far as what's available. Is inventory changing? What's sold? What's available? What do we have to offer? I don't know if that answers it, but it's just important to stay in touch with everybody. So you can't let anybody by the wayside. Just stay in touch. I mean, communication is huge. So it's… I don't know if that fully answers it, but I'm just trying to make myself available. And they know that they can reach me if they don't see me in cubicle 44, that they can find me by phone, by text. I mean, send a smoke signal. I'm pretty accessible.

31:18 Scott Ingram: Well, and I kind of witnessed this, like the point that we got together. I think part of this, you know, being connected to your team and finding these opportunities that are available, I think you had a suite open up and just the way that you worked that, you were just chomping at the bit. Like this is an opportunity, almost more like the way I saw it from my perspective was it was less like the opportunity to sell, which obviously is a driver and is a lot of fun. But it was really, this is going to be an opportunity for me to help somebody and for me to take care of somebody and show them just a great time. You want to talk about kind of that, or maybe there's a specific story that we can relate there?

31:53 Steve Reed: Yeah, this was exciting. I want to say it was… was it March or April? I feel like it was around that time frame because I happened to be at a sales conference. And when you're in the conference, you're just really locked in and trying to Your ears are open, you're learning new information. But then a meeting, I'm checking my phone for messages and I see we signed Za'Darius Smith. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is fantastic news. I was excited because that's going to help Danielle Hunter and we're going to be getting to the quarterback quite a bit. And as you know from last year, our defense needed a little bit of work and now we've got it. But then moments later, I got this other email that this particular suite had opened up and I thought, oh my gosh, this is so exciting too. And because I have a few people who are interested, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is fantastic. But then I just couldn't wait to get back. And so I got back and I went in, immediately went from the plane to the stadium. I shot a video of the suite that's open, and then I sent it out to some folks on my distribution list. And then I had some folks come in and take a look at it, and they secured it, and they're happy. I'm happy. My colleagues are happy. And I mean, that's just how it should work. I mean, that's beautiful. Hope that helped. Did that answer your question? I don't know. I think I went a little different direction there, but I don't know, maybe I didn't, but that's how it worked. It really worked.

33:09 Scott Ingram: No, that was… and I mean, the thing that… and maybe it's not appropriate here in the public space, but these are not small investments. I mean, this is a meaningful chunk of change and investment of money and time, right? I mean, you got to kind of commit to going and being a part of this and, you know, helping contribute to that environment. And it was just Again, having kind of witnessed your excitement and your passion and the way this ends up kind of coming together was just really fun to watch.

33:37 Steve Reed: Oh, it's true. You're right. It's no small investment. It was over half a million dollars of an investment on their part. And I'm going to make sure I stop here in 6 short days and say hi to them when we got our first home preseason game and they're going to have a great time and I'm going to make sure of it. And I truly hope the team on the field does their part too. And I got a feeling our time's coming, but As far as making sure that they have the most comfortable, convenient time, I'm going to ensure that.

34:00 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So great. So great. Well, let's get into the information diet. So I know you're taking advantage of a lot of that windshield time and your commute time. Besides this show, what are you listening to? What's kind of going in your ears? Is there other stuff that you're reading and watching in addition to that?

34:15 Steve Reed: All right. Well, obviously my very favorite podcast is Daily Sales Tips. And then when we've got Spartan Up, I'm a big fan of that one. I have done a Spartan Race and that was not easy, but It was enjoyable. Well, to a degree. But then of course, on the sales side, we've got 30 Minutes to the President's Club, Sell or Die, Sales Gravy with Jeb Blount, and Inside Selling with Josh Braun. Then I got a handful of fantasy baseball podcasts I listen to, but I cannot share the names of those in case anybody in my league is listening.

34:45 Scott Ingram: Fair enough. Fair enough. I mean, you also, I don't know if you want to talk about this, but just a week ago, or actually a few days ago as we're recording this, Jack Wilson kind of shared a fantasy football related sales tip, and you kind of shared with me how important a thing is that is in kind of your life.

35:00 Steve Reed: Oh, it truly is. I don't know if I should be ashamed or embarrassed, but by gosh, Scott, my fantasy baseball team is one of my 5 favorite things in my life. But it's not just any old regular league. I have to make sure I say this because it's true. I've been in the same league with most of the same guys since 1998, so that even predates my time with the Vikings. And it's a keeper league. So when you've got a keeper league, it's like you're raising your own family. And but as I was telling you, raising a fantasy baseball team is also like sales because you have to trust the process. Because I spend a lot of the offseason studying, and then draft day is my favorite. I love draft day because our league also doesn't have a waiver wire. So who you have is who you got. Even if there's an injury, you just can't go pick up another guy. So you have to trust the process, do your homework. And just be thorough about it. And then if something happens where you don't win the league, you don't finish in the money, or you don't make the sale, at least you can sleep at night saying you did your best. You researched, you went through steps A, B, and C to make the best decision. And that's all you can do in life, whether it's sales, fantasy baseball, or just life or raising an actual family. You just take the steps and just do the best you can.

36:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. I want to come back to your family, but I'll kind of relate the conversation. I think I shared a little bit of this with you. You know, Jack and I had a conversation after after he shared his kind of fantasy football thing. And that is just one of those things where I watch my Cowboys, I watch my Longhorns, that's it. I know that I can't begin to go down the fantasy path because I will obsess. I mean, it will, it will consume me, and I don't begin to have that kind of bandwidth. So it's kind of like an alcoholic with a drink. It's probably better that I just don't ever start. So that's my fantasy approach. But I know family is, is a huge piece for you. Do you want to kind of speak to that too? You got a lot going on there.

36:50 Steve Reed: Absolutely. Yeah, I've got a beautiful wife, Missy. She's a 4th grade teacher and she's been teaching for over 20 years. I'm very proud of her. I've got a son, Kobe. He's 13, and yes, named after Kobe Bryant. I had originally wanted my name to name my son Hanley after Hanley Ramirez, the star of one of my fantasy baseball team, but that got shot down. So then I submitted a list of 30 approved names. And she chose Kobe, so I can live with that. My daughter, Karis, I let my wife have naming rights for our daughter as long as it was unique, and Karis is unique. So Kobe's in baseball and football, and Karis, she loves the stage. She likes to act and sing, and I'm really proud of her.

37:27 Scott Ingram: Karis, that's a beautiful name. Where does that come from?

37:29 Steve Reed: Missy just heard it somewhere. So it's Paris with a K, and there aren't a whole lot of Karises running around this planet, so I like the uniqueness, and that's what she is. She's very unique and She's Charis.

37:40 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Yeah, we went down the unique name path ourselves, you know, given that Emily and I have quite common names. In fact, Emily gets quite frustrated with how often she gets yelled at in the grocery store. Nothing to do with her. Pretty unique name when she was a kid, but it's become very, very common these days. So now we have a Colette and an Adelaide, which now Addie, you know, when it gets abbreviated, there's plenty of Addisons and other things like that, but still pretty unique. So That's the path we went, and they're mostly happy with their names.

38:09 Steve Reed: Love it. Go big job. Big ups to you for coming up with Unique. I love it.

38:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Fun stuff. Fun stuff. Well, speaking of Unique, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

38:22 Steve Reed: Hmm. I've given this a lot of thought, and I've come up with keep notes, give clients what you promise them, and as I said earlier, I promise everything but a win. I promise you. Yeah, the food, the drinks, you're gonna have a great time. I just can't promise a win. And then also, you don't get what you don't ask for.

38:39 Scott Ingram: It sounds like what I heard earlier too was kind of this almost one more thing approach that you have, right? It's one more question, one more phone call. Talk about that piece as well, because it feels like that kind of fits into your approach.

38:51 Steve Reed: Yeah, absolutely. It's something I heard just years and years ago. I mean, it's the value of one more, because if you're just making one more call a day It's over 100 calls over the course of a year. Send one more call, one more email. I work just about every day because it's so convenient. Even at your home, you got your laptop. And so it's so easy to just kick out one more here, one more there, and it all adds up. And then you just… yeah, I guess I don't know much more to say than that. It does add up. And then it's that one more sale that could put you over the top. I don't know. It truly does add up.

39:23 Scott Ingram: It's such little things that make all the difference, right?

39:25 Steve Reed: Absolutely. Again, it goes back to you miss every shot you don't take. What if you don't send that? And what if this person, the time you sent the email, you made the phone call, was the one time that your prospect happened to be in the office and you didn't call them? Then that's just an opportunity missed. And I said, I work, you know, I'm early, I'm there late, I'm always accessible with my cell phone. So, you know, I'll call people early or late if I have to. And, you know, that's just, just being accessible, being available to them. And it shows them too. I mean, it shows my clients and my prospects that I truly care, and it shows that I'm going to be there for them if they need me. Say somebody does say, all right, I'm going to go with the Vikings, and then it's day 1 and they're having trouble transferring tickets, and, you know, they need to know that they can call me and I'll be there for them. Or maybe they got somebody at the stadium who can't find where their location's at, and they're on game day, and I'm happy to escort people to seats. I'll do whatever it takes. Um, there was a game years back where a lady complained that they didn't have olives for her at the particular club that she was in. So the very next game, I brought her her own olives. I brought her a jar of olives. And then this past year, I had this lady, just, you know, season ticket owner. I didn't really know her. She just wrote in saying, hey, I used to bring in my own peanuts, but they got confiscated at the gate. So the very next game, I just had a huge bag of peanuts waiting for her in her seat, and she was just ecstatic with that. So it's just the little things, just trying to make sure people have a great time.

40:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I think we're probably hearing it, but let's get more explicit about it. How would you describe your style?

40:50 Steve Reed: Boy, I would say I'm aggressively casual where I'm very warm-blooded. So I wear shorts all the time or whenever I can. So I'm not very formal and I like to, you know, I talk and I write like I talk, you know, just a regular old guy. So I'm not, I wouldn't say there's anything fancy about me, but I said aggressively casual because When we have inventory and I know that I've talked to somebody and I know they're the right fit for it, it's like there was a year ago where I had somebody on my waiting list. I couldn't take care of them with seats because we'd sold out. And I just wanted to make sure that this person was at the very top of my list to take care of this year. And he was at the very top. And this year I did have seats open up and I made sure that he was the very first person I took care of. You know, it's just gratifying to me and to them to know that they're finally taken care of. They're in the house. And so I just want to make sure… and that goes back to keeping good notes. That way nobody slips through the cracks when you've got some inventory available. And we've got this really nice CRM system that I'm horrible about updating, but I do have Excel spreadsheets where I keep my notes. And I like to think I do a decent job of making sure that if we have a nice conversation, I'm not going to forget you the next season when something's open.

41:59 Scott Ingram: Nice, nice. I'm going to ask one more question and try and quantify something. So you're warm-blooded, you're wearing shorts. Like, what's… and you're in Minneapolis, so where's your cutoff? Like, what's the temperature that you move into pants?

42:12 Steve Reed: I gotta tell you, Scott, I wear shorts all the time. There's no real cutoff as far as… like, Charis likes to joke when she tells everybody, he shovels snow in shorts, because actually I do. I mean, I can't explain it, but my legs don't get cold, so I wear shorts all the time. And, you know, I just like to be comfortable because when you're comfortable, you can be at your best. Why worry about uncomfortable clothing when you can be comfortable and be your best?

42:35 Scott Ingram: There has to be a place. I mean, okay, shoveling snow is one thing, right? Because you're exerting yourself, like that's making you even hotter. But there has to be a place with the wind chill or something that you switch over, or does it just not happen? You're like, you're just perma shorts.

42:47 Steve Reed: I gotta tell you, it really doesn't happen. I mean, because in reality, you're not really… even if it's zero out, you're not going for a walk, you're just going to the store or something. So I can just throw shorts on and just drive to the store. And but even if, again, again, if I'm outside shoveling, I will still wear shorts. I mean, just throw on a sweatshirt and shorts and just get to town shoveling. That's also a great time to listen to podcasts too, at 4 in the morning when it's snowing out, because it's just you and you feel like everybody else is asleep because I guess at 4 AM they are. But just, I truly don't get that cold, but I do like to wear shorts. Like, I remember the Seattle playoff game back in 2016. It was -6 with a wind chill factor of -25. Actually, it was a game day, so I did wear pants on game day. I even threw on a tie. But the day before, we worked in the office on Saturdays before a game, and that was before we were working at home. So I do… on the day before, I did show up in shorts because again, all you have to do is get to the office because when you're in the office, you're warm. But man, I remember that Seattle game. Do you got time for a story?

43:45 Scott Ingram: Of course I do. That's why we call the show Sales Success Stories.

43:49 Steve Reed: Okay, all right, because I knew we were going to talk about challenges too, and I talked about some of our heartbreaking defeats. But I remember that Seattle playoff game so well, like it was yesterday. It was very disappointing. But coming out of that game, we just missed the field goal to lose the game. Leaving the stadium, a couple of ladies came up to me, said, are you him? Are you him? And I said, don't know who he is. Are you Scott Hamilton? Because it turns out there's something of a resemblance to Scott Hamilton.

44:16 Scott Ingram: Having met you, I… that's funny.

44:18 Steve Reed: And they said, and even before I said anything, can we get a picture? I said, sure, you can get a picture. So I took the photo, being Scott Hamilton for a moment in time, brightened my day on a dark day right there. So that was funny for me, but let them have their photo with Scott Hamilton, and I just drove off after that. But there you go.

44:37 Scott Ingram: That's too funny. That is really good. You know, it's funny, you know, working… I spent a decent amount of time up in Minneapolis. I work with a Minneapolis head headquartered company, and, and I've got quite a number of clients up that way, so not uncommon for me to be there. And now, while I do try and actively avoid December and especially January, I was, I was up on a recent trip and the Lyft picked me up and I get in the car and I'm wearing, I'm wearing jeans and a sports coat, like nothing special, but it's cold. I don't know if it was sub-zero, but it was, you know, well below freezing for sure. And the driver asked me, he says, hey, where are you from? And I say Austin. And he does the biggest double take on the planet and looks at me like, wait a minute, you're wearing less than the locals are, like, and you're from Austin, you're from Texas, like, what is happening here? And I just said, I said, look, you know, you enable this. Like, I'm gonna spend a grand total of 30 seconds in the cold. You know, I'm gonna walk from the hotel lobby to your car, and then you're gonna drop me right at the door of my client's office and I'm going to walk another 30 feet. I'm like, I don't need to pack all this crazy jacket stuff. My exposure is so limited. It's no big deal. Fortunately, we have those things. I don't have to stand around waiting for a cab or anything like that. I get to get funny looks from the Lyft drivers who think, how is this Texan not dressed correctly for our weather?

46:00 Steve Reed: There you go. I knew I liked you for a reason.

46:02 Scott Ingram: But I didn't wear shorts. I actually got one other one. I'm going to put this one in the show notes because this is a really fun screenshot. I think I put it into Strava. I went out for a run. Now granted, I didn't make it far, but I went out for a run. I think that with the wind chill, it was something like 11 below or something like that. Now I made it less than a mile, and it was that trip that I learned the difference between gloves and mittens. And I was wearing gloves, and I learned why you're supposed to wear mittens.

46:29 Steve Reed: Mm-hmm, I hear you. There's nothing like frozen digits. I will tell you, my legs don't get cold, but my fingers sure do.

46:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's a thing. Now I wasn't wearing shorts. Well, I was wearing shorts, but they were about 2 or 3 layers deep under some, some pants and some other things. I was bundled up pretty good. And at first it was my face, but after I couldn't feel my face anymore, that wasn't a problem. But it was definitely my fingers that did me in.

46:51 Steve Reed: Man, they gotta get you every time.

46:53 Scott Ingram: I tell you. All right, we're, we're off of a tangent, but fortunately we're still enjoying the summer here. Let's get into… again, we've probably touched on this, but I'd like to get into a little bit more just around the motivation. And particularly, you've been at this a long time. Like, how do you stay motivated and just think about motivation in general?

47:15 Steve Reed: I just keep doing it. I set big goals. And I know that also the biggest goal though is something I can't fully control. The biggest goal, of course, is the Super Bowl, but I just wanna make sure that I'm doing the very best I can. It goes back to gratitude. Geez, I'm not… I think I know Phil's retired, but I don't wanna let Phil down. And I don't want to let my bosses down or my family, so I just want to keep working hard for them. But also, I'm at a point where I want to do it for my clients too, because I want to show them that you're putting your trust in the right team, because we're gonna make sure that you have a great time. Your clients… it's big for client entertainment. I want to make sure that your clients are in good hands with us, and that way you can tell somebody else. It happens now. I'm at a point now where I have I get referrals, and I'm truly grateful for that, where, hey, I've worked with Steve, you should give him a call too, he'll take care of you. And that means a lot. That means I'm on the right path and that people are… they value what we do. And that's, again, that keeps me motivated too. And I just want to do the very best I can. So I think Jeffrey Gitomer had said, my goal is just to be the best, and then when I'm the best, then money comes after that. And my goal has always just been to be the best too. So I don't want to let people down. And I want to be the best.

48:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I think, does it feel like it's gotten easier because of that, because of that approach and because of the relationships that you've built? Because I mean, you're easy to talk about, you know, you're very relatable and, you know, you know that, you know, if I have a friend that wants to go see the Vikings, I know you're going to take care of them.

48:46 Steve Reed: Well, I appreciate that. I think it's gotten easier simply because I think people know that not only I'm an employee, but I'm more of a fan as well as an employee. I'm a historian. I can talk knowledgeably about the team as I've watched virtually every game since the mid-'80s. So I know I'm a fan as well as employee, so I know I take care of you on multiple levels if you want to talk football. Because at the end of the day, we're a football team. And I assist with, you know, the client entertainment aspect of it. I can tell you what your clients are going to expect. And it's also gotten easier because of my distribution list. I think the fact that But with every passing season, I know more people and I've added them to my list. I'm grateful to have so many clients that I love and they love what we're doing. And so it's gotten easier that way simply over the course of time.

49:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah. How many folks are on that list?

49:37 Steve Reed: Several thousand. I'd say 3,000 to 5,000.

49:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Are you open to adding more listeners if folks want to have the experience I'm having and just check out what you're doing? Are you cool with them reaching out?

49:46 Steve Reed: Anybody wants to be on my distribution list can begin on there. Do we have time for another story?

49:50 Scott Ingram: Let's do it. And let's give them a way to get on your list.

49:52 Steve Reed: Okay, I consider myself the Statue of Liberty of social media, as I will accept anybody on LinkedIn and Facebook. I don't do a whole lot with the Facebook, but I mean, I'll look at it once every couple weeks or so just to see what's going on. But I will accept anybody, and sometimes people, they get a kick out of saying, hey, I want to connect with somebody on the Vikings or in pro sports. So every now and then I'll get a LinkedIn connection from somebody I've just… I have no idea who they are or what they do, and they have It doesn't look like they're going to be a client at any point, but I'll still accept him. All right, so that happens over the course of time. And now let's go back in time 2 weeks to where my family's up at Woman Lake, which is 3 hours north of the cities. We go up there the last week of July. And so as it turns out, the cabin we get each last week of July has an opening next to us, and in comes this family from Iowa. So naturally we have the Iowa connection, we're talking and stuff. And as it turns out, the husband of this family had connected with me 6 years ago on LinkedIn, just out of randomness. I'd accepted his connection and here we are 6 years later sharing, uh, we're at cabins right next to each other. I just thought, what are the odds of this happening? But it's all true. Yeah.

51:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, it's those stories, right? Like you think the odds are low, but it's amazing how often that stuff happens. The world is a very small place.

51:11 Steve Reed: It's crazy. And you mentioned getting on my list. If you want to put my email in the show notes or connect with me on LinkedIn, I'd be happy to add anybody.

51:18 Scott Ingram: Beautiful, beautiful.

51:19 Steve Reed: Especially Viking fans.

51:20 Scott Ingram: I'd encourage you to do it. Yeah, especially Viking fans, right? I'd encourage you to do it. Again, it's… Steve has a really special touch with the way that he communicates and kind of shares this knowledge and just that little, you know, human personal touch. The ability to get to know you through this is just… it's a cool experience. And I think there's There's a lot that we as sellers can kind of take away and think about, you know, the way that we're communicating, the way that we're building relationships, and whether this is something that you do on LinkedIn or you do through, you know, your own email sends or, you know, whatever medium works for you. I think it's such a powerful thing when we can humanize ourselves in that way.

51:58 Steve Reed: Yeah, I just found so much success with that too, because every company sends out emails. You know, we all get dozens to hundreds course of a day or a week, but coming from one specific person, I think, has been the key to success with my own distribution list. Because heck, even the Vikings, they send out our emails too to our fan base, and that's great too. But the ones I send out, I think, are a little more personal and resonate with my clients and prospects.

52:21 Scott Ingram: Well, and I've said for years, you can't actually have a relationship with a company. I could be a fan of the Vikings, but I can be a friend of Steve's, right? I mean, you can't have a relationship with an entity.

52:32 Steve Reed: You're absolutely right. And if you could see me, I'm nodding my head right now. It's so true because, you know, they always say the first rule of sales is they buy you, then they buy your product. And I'd like to think that people have bought into me because I'm just… I'm not fake. I'm just a real dude. I'm just a fan as well as employee. And, you know, if people want to get on board, I truly appreciate that. I'm always grateful for everybody who does.

52:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Steve, is there something you believe that the typical sales rep would think is crazy?

52:57 Steve Reed: I don't know about crazy, but I still believe in the value of a handwritten note. You know, I mentioned we'd gone up to Woman Lake, and even then I stopped by a local post office and sent out some postcards too, just to a few folks from there. I got yelled at for bringing my laptop on vacation, but I believe in the value of the handwritten note. I've got crappy handwriting. Can I say crappy? But I've got really, really bad handwriting. And, but people still like to get a handwritten note because nobody else does it these days. I don't know if that's crazy, but I still do it.

53:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I've said this for years and I've actually gotten out of the habit. I actually, I need to think about getting back in because the way that I always thought about this and talked about this was, you know, think about how many emails you've gotten today or in the last 24 hours, and then think about how many handwritten notes you've gotten in the last 24 hours, or that's probably not a thing. That number I would guess is zero. So, so let's go back, you know, think back to, you know, the last time you got a handwritten note. Now think about the name of the last person who sent you an email. Bet you can't come up with it. And then think about the name of the last person who wrote you a handwritten note, and I bet you know exactly who that is. And it's just one of those things that it takes just a little bit of effort. It stands out so far above and beyond just about anything else, and so few people are doing it. What is your cadence? I mean, is there a certain number that you're trying to send every day? I mean, how do you kind of quantify your notes?

54:25 Steve Reed: It's not a large number, to be clear. It's maybe 5 to 10 a day. I try not to hit, you know, the same people with a lot of it because, you know, they just need one. But just drop my card in, you know, just saying, and just a quick note to say appreciate the chance to work with you, or thank you for working with us, and throw my business card in there. And it's just It doesn't have to be a lot, and that's the same way with videos too. I send out, you know, a handful of those every day too. I'll just go to somewhere within our headquarters down in Eagan, or maybe if I'm at the stadium, or even from home too. I do a lot of videos from home, and I'm… again, as we've covered, I'm not a fancy guy. I've got in my background here, I've got my workout equipment in the basement. So, you know, some people have their fancy backgrounds, but I generally don't. I just… as Popeye would say, I am what I am. But I just shoot a quick video, just say, hey, thanks for working with us, or I appreciate the opportunity to take care of you and your guests. And it's just a quick 1 minute and you've got yourself a unique video and bam, it's out there.

55:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because I used to push on this a lot, lot harder, the handwritten note idea. And probably the biggest excuse I get is the, I have, cover the kids' ears, crappy handwriting. You know, and if anything, I think it's one of those things that it maybe even humanizes it a little bit more. More, right? It's like, you know, this guy still took the time even though his writing is garbage.

55:41 Steve Reed: Yeah, you're right about… so true. So true.

55:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I mean, it's again, it's just, it's one more level of human, right? Like, hey, look, you still… you took the time to do this. It's very, very clear that this didn't come out of a computer. And, you know, I mean, what does that take you? I mean, to send 5 or 10 handwritten notes and, you know, rattle off a handful of videos, what is that, 20, 30 minutes a day for you?

56:02 Steve Reed: I keep it to 4 hours. Thank you. But yes, it's just a short amount of time to make a big difference.

56:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well said. Well said. What about the flip side? Is there something that the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy?

56:16 Steve Reed: Well, lately I've heard people say that cold calling is dead, and I sure don't agree with that because I still do it because it's important. I mean, obviously I've been around a while, but people still haven't ever been approached by the Vikings, and it's surprising, but there's still companies out there That not everybody's going to call you and say, hey, what do you got? And there's still, as I said, there's companies out there. Like on the drive up to Woman Lake, I wrote down the names of some companies and then I came back and look them up to see if they're already in our system. And if they're not, I'll give them a shout. And, you know, that's opened up some pretty interesting conversations that's going to, you know, bring some new folks to the stadium. And so I would say cold calling is not dead.

56:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I've got, it got bumped by another idea that I'll probably share this next week, but I'll probably do a Daily Sales Tip on this idea. I reached out and called somebody who… I don't want to get into too much specifics here, but, you know, I mean, something meaningful in their life happened. And, you know, there was a lot of kind of noise and conversation in LinkedIn around it. And, you know, I just… I called and he just called out the fact that he's like, you know what, Scott, all this is going on. There's all this conversation around this. You're the first person who I've had a conversation with about it because you just picked up the phone. So it's one of those things where even the cold call… I mean, this is somebody we knew each other, maybe they've been on the show before, but it was just that act. And honestly, it wasn't really intentional on my part. It was just, I don't know, it was the channel that sort of made the most sense. I knew there was more nuance than would fit into a LinkedIn message or in an email, so the phone was just the most logical thing But I think we lose sight of, just like the handwritten notes, how much that stands out, especially because all the other channels are so freaking easy. And oftentimes we're defaulting to them and we just forget how differentiated an experience it is.

58:09 Steve Reed: Boy, Scott, you're so right about that. Because, you know, ever since, you know, starting my Viking career, I've seen how email and the internet has sped up the sales cycle. But you still can't beat talking to somebody and just finding out more about them. I took Kobe for a walk this morning and I told him you and I were going to be talking. And I said, Kobe, do you have any advice for folks in sales? And he says… he thought about it. He said, yeah, just talk to people before you offer them anything. It's an interesting, enlightening statement, but it's also true.

58:39 Scott Ingram: Man, wise words. He must be hanging around some really smart folks.

58:42 Steve Reed: His mom is a smart one.

58:45 Scott Ingram: Well done. Well done. So again, just kind of looking back over this journey and all of these experiences, have there been like a really important decision or inflection point or lesson you had to learn that at some point maybe changed the game for you?

59:02 Steve Reed: Geez, if I could go back to Jim and that the first big sale, it's listen and ask questions. So I don't know if that's… and then, you know, I've said take notes, but just listen because You've heard the phrase success leaves clues, but so do people. I mean, they'll tell you what's really important to them. You know, as Jim was talking about how he works with other organizations, and you thought… and that tipped me off that, well, they're not going to be able to use your 4 seats if you're using them, so you need a suite for them. And it worked out pretty well. And so I'd say just listen, take notes. And so I don't have any one decision that really boils it down to, but the decision not to give up on my dreams because Where would my life be now if I'd just taken that no that I got the year before I was hired by Phil? So my message there is don't let anybody tell you you can't have your dream. Follow your dream as hard as you can once you find out what your dream is.

59:55 Scott Ingram: Love that. Steve, do you have a favorite question?

59:58 Steve Reed: Hmm. As far as for prospects, I ask them, what kind of experience would your guests like to have? Or would you like… if it's for them, I mean, It's very simple. Where would you like to sit? I mean, that's very… and people will say, oh, obviously I want the best. And then… but you never know. You don't know. And then you ask them, what kind of experience do you want your guests to have? They'll tell you because not all guests are created equally. I mean, you know, some people are going to sit over here. Some people want the very best. Some people just want to get in the door. As far as asking my prospects, that's a good question to ask them.

1:00:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:00:27 Steve Reed: But let me ask you, Scott, what are some of the challenges that you faced and how have you overcome those?

1:00:30 Scott Ingram: Oh, we're going to turn this around. I did a whole episode way back when. I don't remember what the number is, but I had Jeff Bajorek turn the tables on me and we did a whole thing. So, and it's been a while. It's been a couple of years since we did that. So I'd encourage folks to go back and listen to that to get a little bit more of my story. Right now though, my biggest challenge has just been the lack of ability to focus. I've had, you know, so much going on really since kind of March and April, selling a house, buying a house, renovating, you know, my environment has been really, really challenging. And you've heard me talk about this on Daily Sales Tips just a little bit, you know, being mindful of that, you know, thinking about what is your environment and can you change it? And I'm very lucky. I mean, the Austin real estate market, being here since, geez, 2004, so we've been here almost 20 years, it's been very, very good to me. You know, this town is blowing up. And so, you know, that move from one house to what hopefully is, is our forever house and we're really investing in it in that way. I'm very lucky in what I was able to build from an office perspective. And I think I actually talked about this in the bonus episode, but if you haven't seen it, if you go to top1.fm/newoffice, you can kind of see that whole build-out experience. Shoot, I've been in here. I mean, this is my first full week. I moved in last weekend and it's completely game-changing, you know, just having a Dedicated space, hell, having a door between me and my family, which serves both of us really, really well. I'm very, very loud. I am a loud talker, so I disrupt those around me, they disrupt me. And, you know, in a lot of ways, just being out of sight has been really, really helpful in terms of not being interrupted as much. So that's been the biggest thing that's just kind of more recent. But again, you know, digging in to that full episode. I think if you want to get a greater sense of my humanity and kind of what I've been up to is a good way to get this because it's a lot of fun being in the position that I get to be in to ask that one more question and keep going with this stuff.

1:02:31 Steve Reed: Excellent. Well, I'm so happy for you and your success too. I'm very excited to hear that. Yeah.

1:02:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So let's talk about just the advice that you would give. I want to look at this from 2 different angles. First, for somebody that is just getting their start, right? What's your advice? That you have for somebody that is just, you know, getting their start in sales today?

1:02:50 Steve Reed: Okay, well, I'm going to go with 2 different answers here. The first one is, it's going to go back to basketball. And when I was a teenager playing a pickup game down at the Y in Davenport, in between games at a drinking fountain, an old-timer said to me, 90% of this game is confidence and concentration. And that's just something I've never forgotten because he was right. It is true, but that's also life. I mean, everything in life is confidence and concentration. I can do my job right now because I have the confidence that I've done it year after year. And then the people I'm talking to, my clients and prospects, they know that… I would like to think that they know what I'm talking about. And then if I concentrate on saying, you know, it should be present where you're at right now too. Confidence and concentration is big. And then also to somebody just starting out, find a mentor. And then if you can find that internship, that would be huge. But find a mentor in the industry who's doing what you want to do. I think that's also very important.

1:03:51 Scott Ingram: I love the way that you're able to concentrate over… that must be a lawnmower in the background.

1:03:55 Steve Reed: As it turns out, our back deck is getting redone and they've picked right now to come and do this. So I apologize for that. But yeah, they're in the finishing stages and I think they're power washing, which I apologize for.

1:04:07 Scott Ingram: All good. I know all about the background noise as we've been under a state of damn near permanent construction the last number of months here. All right. So we had a temporary interruption there. We relocated Steve away from the power washer, but I want to come back to, you know, the mentoring point I actually had. This was so great. And we're at that point in the episode. I'm going to offer this up. I'm going to make this a public thing. I had a listener to the podcast, brand new to sales, brand new in his role, just came out of college, reached out to me proactively and said, hey Scott, do you do coaching? My answer is no. But what I offered him, and he was again just all the right things, you know, here he is brand new in this role, understands the value of having a mentor, had said, you know, he's gotten obsessed with the podcast, reached out to not just me but, you know, some other folks that he has listened to. What I offered him, I'm going to make this publicly available. I said, look, buy a ticket to the summit. It's the best thing you can do for yourself. I mean, I'm going to put you in a room with a sea of mentors and you can really build that community and those relationships. So you'll have lots of people that you can call. But if you buy that ticket, I'll spend an hour with you and help you as much as I can, just whether that's connections or advice or what have you. So I'm going to make that generally available. Let's call it for through the end of September. So actually through mid-September. So if you listen to this here in the next couple of weeks and you buy a ticket to the Sales Success Summit, top1summit.com, before September 15th, I'll send you my calendar link. We'll book an hour and get a little bit deeper because it is one of the most important things. So Steve, I appreciate you calling that out. I appreciate you finding a quieter place. And so the other side of this is What's the advice that you have for somebody that's been in the game much longer, right? So they've been selling for quite some time and they've either… it's time to find another gear or they've hit a rough spot. What do you tell them?

1:06:02 Steve Reed: Well, my suggestion there would be to actually, if you're not using video, to experiment with it because I'm not the best looking dude, but I'm willing to do it and it's… I'm having success with it. So I would say I would challenge folks to shoot a video and send it to some of your clients who are already happy with you, that are already doing business with you, and say, hey, just… hey, it's Steve here, just appreciate your support, thank you for being a customer, if I can help out, you know, or maybe we've got this promotion going on, or we got this coming up, or just say thank you and just throw that out there and just see the kind of responses that you get. People will share that around too, and you can never tell if that'll result in extra sales or certainly some goodwill. And that'll… I think that might give people the confidence to shoot a video for a prospect too. And I would fully encourage people to do that. And if you don't have a distribution list of… I think this, my distribution list can transcend other industries. Obviously it's worked great for me because I like to communicate with everybody. But also, you know, I'm sure there's other companies that can benefit from that too. If you're just… if you're a sales guy out there, just stay in touch with your people. I mean, Tell them what promotions you have coming up, or I don't know what, just humanize yourself and personalize it. That's my message.

1:07:18 Scott Ingram: I love that. I love that. That is absolutely fantastic. Steve, you are a guy that likes to ask questions and you've heard me ask a lot of questions on this show. Is there a question that you wish I would ask some people that maybe you haven't heard me ask?

1:07:32 Steve Reed: Hmm. You know what? You're pretty thorough, Scott. I really admire that about you. I like to hear about people's favorite sales. I just like to hear how that all came about too. And so we covered mine. And so I do enjoy hearing people's success stories too. Obviously, if only you could name it Sales Success Stories.

1:07:49 Scott Ingram: I think I might be onto something here after these last, you know, almost 6 years.

1:07:55 Steve Reed: I think you are. No, it's just great because you can't beat a good sales success story because I mean, that's why we all do what we do. It's just, you know, take care of the people who want to work with us. And there's always a great story behind it too. And yeah, I think as you said, you're onto something. It's… I love listening to each episode and I'm just so grateful to be on here.

1:08:13 Scott Ingram: Well, since you've listened to all of them, I'm gonna totally put you on the spot here, but is there a story that you've heard from somebody else on this show that has really just stood out and made an impact on you?

1:08:23 Steve Reed: Hmm. Okay. That's a great one. And it was from… I have given this some thought and I don't recall the specific story, but it was the gentleman who said, use your whole team. And because, you know, I've thought about that and that's, I mean, that truly resonates with me because as I said, we've got some brilliant people that I work with. And so to pick their brains too, and it helped him and it was part of a Daily Sales Tip. I apologize, I don't remember his name, but the way he phrased it, you know, just use your whole team. It's just laying it out there. I mean, it's no more cut and dry than that. But to tap into every resource in your organization, because there's some people on our staff who I don't really get to work with all the time. But they know people and maybe they know somebody who could be mildly interested in, you know, their company could be joining us or they don't even know. And they don't even know what's available. But then the more people you talk to say, hey, maybe you got somebody, a completely different department. And they know somebody that maybe their neighbor wants to get on board. And it's just conversations. Just keep asking questions, even ask. So you ask questions of your clients, your prospects, but also your colleagues on staff too. That would be my answer there.

1:09:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, it's such a great topic, and I am deep in summit programming mode right now. We're working on booking the speakers, and, you know, for those who aren't familiar, the Sales Success Summit, the only people I put on stage at that event is the folks that have been on this podcast. So by definition, number one, top 1% individual contributors. And one of the things that I'm really excited to tackle this year is especially if you've listened to the folks that are selling big enterprise complex deals, but this applies across the board. They will say that at least half, sometimes more than half of their effort is the internal sale. It's getting everybody aligned behind serving this client and working all of that stuff out. And I realized that's such an important factor, this team selling idea, this internal sales effort. And yet nobody talks about it. Nobody talks about, well, what does that mean? What do you actually do? That's one of the things that we're definitely going to dig into in this year's summit. I appreciate you bringing it up because there's so much value in all of those who surround us and are part of our organization, even beyond what you would think. I mean, sometimes there's coordination and collaboration that needs to happen with your finance team and with your legal team and I mean, a lot of folks that are kind of the unsung heroes behind the scenes that if you can bring them forward can be powerful.

1:10:54 Steve Reed: Oh man, Scott, you've nailed it because just check this out. So if, you know, a new Suite client comes on board, they're touched by so many different departments in our organization. This is even before they get to game day. I mean, you nailed it with finance and legal, and then we've got a dedicated Suite customer service team. I mean, there's so many people. That get involved with making sure that a client is taken care of. It's not just me. I mean, I'm just like the little guy, a little cog in the wheel, but there's so many people who ensure a great time and that everything's in place for them to do so. You're right, it's so wide-ranging.

1:11:29 Scott Ingram: Great stuff, great stuff. So you maybe have already done this with the video challenge, so I don't know if we're going to double down on that, if there's another place that we want to go, but you know that I always try and make these conversations actionable at the end. So what would you challenge our listener to do to improve themselves and improve their results over the next week or 2 here?

1:11:49 Steve Reed: Okay, I am going to challenge this. If you're not doing video, just do one a day and see where it goes. And if you are doing it, double what you're already doing. So maybe there's somebody out there who's doing 10, 20 a day. Now they've just got a big old challenge on their hands. But Just do a little bit more, just a smidge more, just 1% better. I mean, I just want, if you can just get 1% better, just imagine where you can be in a year. And then just do a handwritten note. Just send one thank you note to a client or a handwritten note to a prospect. You say, hey, look forward to working with you. So do one note a day, one video a day, and then just keep building on top of that.

1:12:26 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Fantastic challenge. I've actually not been as aggressive with my videos as I have been in the past. And now I have no excuse. Now I've got this great studio going on. I've got a really nice background. So I'm going to take your challenge to heart. I'm going to step up my video game here. If you're on the listener list, maybe you'll start seeing those a little bit more. So head over to top1.fm, go to top1.fm/steve-reid, check out all the show notes, check out the quotes, check out the links to the other podcasts and everything else that we've talked about here. And then we'll have Steve's email address there as well as his LinkedIn. So you can jump onto his mailing list and hear about the Vikings and their road to the Super Bowl this year.

1:13:08 Steve Reed: Gosh, Scott, thank you so much. Thank you very much.

1:13:11 Scott Ingram: My pleasure. I appreciate you taking the time to do it, Steve. This has been awesome.

1:13:14 Steve Reed: Oh, truly. Thank you so much. And, you know, have a great day and thank you to everybody out there and good luck and happy sales.

1:13:20 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode, and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community, powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.