150: There's Always One Last Chance with IBISWorld's Sebastian Amaya

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0:21 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 Top one dot fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:37 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Sebastian Amaya. Seb is the top seller at IBISWorld out of New York City. Welcome to this side of the show, Seb.

0:46 Sebastian Amaya: So excited to be here. Thank you, Scott.

0:48 Scott Ingram: Absolutely, absolutely. It is so fun to bring on regular listeners to have them experience the sausage making as it were, and you've been a big part of this community, been part of the summits and all the rest. But you know we got to kick things off with some immediate value. Let's talk about. Those top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales?

1:08 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, we got right to it. So I'm one of, if not the hardest working rep on the team. You could ask my VP and she would confirm. I put in the hours, the activities, and I prep for productive meetings with our prospects in order to be the top salesperson. Second, I have a good grasp of our service, the ways it can help different roles and verticals, the knowledge of sales methodologies, right? I studied management and economics for my bachelor's at Boston College. So I'm pretty well versed in what a consultant, a banker, an accountant, or a strategy or sales manager does and the ways that our service could help them. And then secondly, with that is I know how to combine SPIN selling with Insight Challenger selling. So I use some different methodologies and the mutual action plans and things like that as needed to really amp up my game. And then lastly, sort of coming right back to why we're on this podcast, is always looking for ways to improve and develop. So listening to podcasts like Sales Success Podcast, reading relevant books on sales and other topics, and then attending events. Big event attender.

2:18 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. That's a really good breakdown. You know, when you speak to kind of the understanding of your service, but also the understanding of sales processes, Do you feel like one of those is more important than the other?

2:31 Sebastian Amaya: I think, yeah, definitely number one, the priority really is to understand your prospect, the industry they're in, the function that they're in, some of the trends they're facing. That's super important to be able to communicate with them and actually be able to provide some value when you're speaking with them. Because yeah, you can know your product, you can know the bells and whistles and everything, but if you can't really translate that into value, you're not going to have much success. In this role. So yeah, definitely the former there.

3:01 Scott Ingram: Well, I'm glad you said it that way, right? Because the answer I think a lot of people maybe early in their careers kind of think is, oh, it's about the product knowledge. Like, I need to understand my stuff the best. But, you know, what you just said is it's really about understanding the customer and their world and what they're facing, like being more important than even understanding your own product.

3:20 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, definitely. And so that's… we'll get into my routine later, but that's one thing I do when I'm reading, for instance, the Wall Street Journal. Whatever business news, I'm trying to think of how this will tie back into the meetings that I have coming up. If there's an article that impacts an industry or a business in a way, use that as a conversation point, right? Try to lend my insights when I'm dealing with customers in these different verticals.

3:45 Scott Ingram: Love it. Well, let's contextualize things a little bit here, and why don't you talk about your role in IBISWorld and what exactly it took to get to number 1?

3:53 Sebastian Amaya: Yep, good question. So my job is to prospect for and close new business for IBISWorld. IBISWorld is the top provider of industry and market intelligence in North America. I started in 2017, so pretty much at that point I dove headfirst to put in the work, figure out what my approach was going to be, how I was going to get up the leaderboard and to the top to have a shot at Salesperson of the Year. I was listening to podcasts like Sales Success back then, so that was kind of my goal. And when we first met, I told you, Scott, I'm going to be on your podcast one day. So here we are. And then, yeah, how I got to number 1. So the fiscal year, which ran from '21 to 2022 of June, went phenomenally well for me. I closed a huge deal with the IRS. I closed some big deals with a couple of banks, a CPA firm, and a few of those deals were years in the works and finally came to fruition last year. So I ended up finishing 221% of my annual quota. So did really well by November. I was pretty much meeting my annual targets. So was able to just use that momentum and go into the rest of the year.

5:07 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. I mean, there's nothing more, I don't know, like confidence building than being at your number at the halfway point and everything from there is just gravy. Did you find that once you got to that point, did you sell different?

5:22 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, at that point you just become so confident. I feel like I became a lot more effective in the way that I spent my time and the way that I would deliver my conversations and proposals and pricing to customers. Yeah, such a big part of this game, the sales career, is the psychology. So when you're on top of the world, it's so much easier. But that sort of turns the question, okay, how do you stay in that positive mindset when you don't have you know, a whole year's worth of quota already behind you and you're a few months in.

5:55 Scott Ingram: Well, you just asked my next question. That's exactly where I wanted to go. Have you figured that out? I mean, I know we're kind of early in your, in your new year here. Have you figured out how to keep that mojo, if you will?

6:06 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, of course it's difficult to have the same pipeline that I had at the start of last year, but the key thing I think is staying motivated and staying organized. So I have, you know, 5+ years of experience under my belt at this org. So I know what works. I know the types of accounts, how to sell to them. So being able to use that expertise and focus on, right, the Pareto principle, what are the 20% of activities that are going to yield my 80% of results is where it comes in. So just being more effective and efficient with my time is probably the way to do it.

6:44 Scott Ingram: I'm not going to walk past that one. So what have you found to be kind of that 20% for you?

6:50 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, for me, it's been focusing on the core verticals. The thing about IBISWorld, it's business and market intelligence. You can potentially sell to almost any business corporation or government organization, but I've found that sticking to those verticals that pay us the most, that we have the most clients in, that we have the most client success stories in, is really the way for me to maintain the success. So that is sticking to investment banks, commercial banks, CPA firms, large governmental organizations, consulting firms, that's pretty much where I've been focused. That's the 80/20 principle that I'm referring to.

7:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Nice. So basically just focus on what works. I mean, it's proven over and over again. Why reinvent the wheel? Right.

7:35 Sebastian Amaya: That's exactly what I'm going to say. Yeah. Why reinvent the wheel? But there's an asterisk to that because there are sales reps here that have been with the organization for 10+ years and what worked for them 10 years ago isn't really working for them today. So that goes back to one of the principles that I outlined at the beginning, is always focusing on improving. So, okay, we know what works, what's not working, what are people at, you know, at IBISWorld or outside of IBISWorld at other sales organizations, what are they doing that works, and how can you implement that to sort of reinvent yourself and keep advancing, keep progressing to stay on top. That's a tough balancing act for sure.

8:23 Scott Ingram: Love it. We're going to keep digging into that, but first I want to go back in the Wayback Machine and get to your origin story. How did all of this start? How did you get into sales in the first place?

8:33 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's a curious story. I started sales… it wasn't really sales in a strict definition, but I was doing telephone fundraising. So I, at Boston College, for the 4 years I was there, I was calling alumni, just calling up for donations pretty much. I don't know how many dials I would make every day. I worked for 3 hours, but it was just calling them. I'm sure you've gotten some of these calls too, and they're annoying, but they're effective at raising funds. That's what I would do. And I became really comfortable just calling up any random alumni or friend of the school and pitching them what we were doing and what the donations were being used for. From there, after I graduated my sales career, I went into underwriting for a wholesale lender, a mortgage lender essentially, and I worked there for several years. But I didn't really fall into sales by default the way that many other reps do. So what I was doing, for instance, going through a lot of these mortgage applications, I could see some of these sales titles, you know, a regional manager, a VP of business development. And I could see their salary, their bonus, their commission. I was pretty impressed. So I was like, huh, that could be a good career move if I made my way over there. So after that, that was in Connecticut. I moved to NYC and became a mortgage originator. So that's kind of like business-to-consumer sales, if anything. And that didn't really work for me. I realized that B2B selling would be a much better fit for me. So doing enough networking, luckily living in NYC, there's a lot of sales events. And I went to an Enterprise Sales Forum event here, ran into a guy who worked with a recruiter who had recently set him up with a job. And I got connected with him and then started at IBISWorld. And, you know, 5 and a half years later, here I am still selling for IBISWorld.

10:29 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Very cool. Well, very small world. So I'm sure we both know Mark Birch, who started the Enterprise Sales Forum right there in New York. Kind of scaled it from there. The most interesting part of that to me though was you basically discovered this path because you were essentially looking at the financials of sales. Is that really it?

10:47 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's something we talk about on this podcast a lot, but sales, nobody really knows about, especially in college, of how lucrative of a career can be. And in this case, there were like a lot of manufacturing sales reps, some B2B SaaS reps as well, but Yeah, those commission pack and compensation packages were pretty impressive. So that's what really turned my eye onto it, and I started getting into it more from there.

11:13 Scott Ingram: That's so fascinating. And what's great is I am starting to hear more people kind of talk about this in terms of if you look at the earnings potential against the education requirements, the level of debt you need to accumulate if you're going to go down the medical path or the legal path, or I mean, it's years of additional school versus, you know, just get in the field and you can learn this right out of college and progress into tech sales or enterprise sales or any of these things. And, you know, make at the end of the day, probably more money than most of those that went down the medical or legal path with all of their additional years of school and sleepless nights.

11:54 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, definitely. You kind of get socially peer pressured into pursuing, you know, especially going to a school like Boston College into like investment banking or consulting or accounting. Nobody really talks about or knows about sales. But yeah, with sales, of course, it's not for everyone. But if you have the determination, you put in the hours and the work to learn the trade, treat it like a craft, right? Then yeah, it can be super lucrative.

12:20 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. So looking back, right, if you could start that whole journey over again, knowing what you know now, how would you have approached your sales career?

12:30 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, I would have gone into sales earlier, as soon as possible. After graduating college, if anything, you know, it's possible my life would have been really different, but sales has changed my life and it's helped me reach my goals. So the first 5 years after graduating college, I lived with my parents in Connecticut. It was comfy. I was able to pay off my student loans and to save up, but the real dream was to live in NYC, work in the city. So finally I did come over here. Eventually made it to IBISWorld. I was able to reach sort of the financial goals, the income goals that I had set for myself. I got married. I, you know, was able to sustain a lifestyle where I could support and enjoy my daughter, right? Some careers you can pay for having children, but you might not have time to actually enjoy them. But, you know, with a sales career, you have the privilege of getting both. So yeah, I think that's essentially what I would have done a lot earlier. Just get into sales and go Dive in.

13:30 Scott Ingram: Love it. Well, while we're in storytelling mode, I would love to hear the story of your favorite sale. Maybe you won, maybe you lost. I'm sure there was a big lesson that came out of it. What was that?

13:41 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, there's a couple that I could point to. I think my favorite one, it's kind of a dramatic one. It's not the biggest sale or anything, but this came towards the end of the fiscal year, which was recently in June. So I had I was actually placed number 2 in the leaderboard at that point. We were a month out. I was pretty confident I could bring in this deal with the logistics firm that we already had, like in the contract process. You know, we had 30 days to go, be no problem. But what happened was about a week before the end of the fiscal year, the June 30th date, my champion tells me, I'm in Europe right now. I'm going to be out for a couple of weeks. So I'll get back to you once I come back. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this was my last chance at Salesperson of the Year. What do I do? At first I was kind of like, okay, do I give up? There's got to be a way here. A little bit of a tangent, but I'm really into soccer and I'm Colombian, so I watch soccer in Spanish and they always say this phrase, especially in the big tournament games. Siempre hay una última. There's always one last chance. So I'm thinking, siempre hay una última, siempre hay una última. Like, there's got to be a last chance for me to get to that number one spot. So I thought about it. A couple of days later, I was on the way home and I just thought, wait, he's not my only guy. I spoke to another girl a few months back. Let me explain the situation and see if she can help me. So I sent her an email, explained all this. God bless her. She took over from there. She followed up with their legal counsel. She got the signature to their chief commercial officer and had it signed on the evening of June 29th. So there was only one day left to spare. That was the buzzer beater, put me up over the top to number 1. And a day later I was confirmed as Salesperson of the Year. So that was a fun and dramatic story there.

15:42 Scott Ingram: Love it. Well done. Well done. And, you know, I mean, it always comes down to like, first it's the mindset. It's kind of taking that deep breath and going, okay. Like, there has to be a way. So what is the way? And you found your way through.

15:54 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, it's about a bit of determination. And sometimes you just gotta… you know what they say about the unconscious mind? Sometimes it's better at solving than the conscious mind. So if you step away from the problem, after thinking about it for a bit, you'll find the solution. Yep.

16:09 Scott Ingram: Yep. That works for me too. Unfortunately, my conscious mind likes to take over in those situations at about 3 AM, and it drives me crazy.

16:17 Sebastian Amaya: Oh yeah. Yeah. So you never sleep. Perfect.

16:19 Scott Ingram: Exactly. Exactly. It's okay. I only had like another hour and a half at that point to go anyway. Before I continue this conversation with Seb, let me just mention Outreach and this idea that there's always one last chance. Outreach can help you capitalize on that last chance by making sure you stay consistent and efficient in all of your prospecting efforts. Outreach is a game-changing tool in that way, and you can check them out at top1.fm/outreach. Outreach. So let's talk about, you know, from an accomplishment perspective, you've accomplished a lot over the course of your career. What are you most proud of?

16:52 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's another one that also came in 2021. So it was a deal with the IRS, of course, everyone's favorite tax service. It was a huge opportunity. We worked it for 3 years. The first meeting we had with them, I think was towards the end of 2018 or beginning of 2019. So we finally closed it this past year. Most of the reason why we weren't able to get it through before that was congressional budget approvals. So there was that political aspect of it, which is always fun. But this deal was for the division of the IRS that deals with reviewing corporations' income taxes and their valuations and transfer pricing agreements. As well as compliance. So there were a lot of users that were involved in this. Now they have like 600 or so users on it. So it took a lot of coordination. The interesting thing with, with them, and it's probably the same for other government agencies, is that when we met with who would be our champion toward the process, she told me, all right, take everything you know, take logic, and throw it out the window. That's not how it works here. So we had to navigate a good bit of bureaucracy. We finally got it done after basically the Congress gave us a bigger budget for the IRS and that trickled down to the division we were working with. We socialized it to these different departments, brought them in for proof of concept, and eventually it moved forward and was able to close at the end of, you know, this 3-year cycle.

18:22 Scott Ingram: Too funny. Too funny. Who knew that you would need to throw logic out the window when dealing with the US government?

18:28 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, you would never have guessed, right? I love it.

18:32 Scott Ingram: I love it. So let's turn things around and look at this from the other perspective. What have you struggled with the most?

18:39 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, it has been pretty tough since the beginning of the pandemic and especially in lockdown in 2020, especially during lockdown, a lot of businesses were pretty much shutting down in that spring of 2020. And before the stimulus measures, we weren't really sure if we were going to be able to keep our business running, if our clients were going to be able to keep their business running and paying for, you know, providing us with revenue. Were we still going to have salaries? Were we still going to even have jobs? There was so much uncertainty then that a lot of deals froze in place. And of course, that impacted our pipelines and we didn't really know how to react. So the only thing we could do was like, okay, well, I guess we're not really selling right now, so what can we do? Let's just see how we can help. How can we help our contacts, our accounts? So just reached out. Okay, we have some information. At the time, IBISWorld was pretty smart because we were providing risk updates and forecasting for industries factoring in all the impacts of COVID the lockdowns and the essential and non-essential industries, you'll remember. So that was actually really useful and informative for a lot of accounts that we got in touch with. There were some banks, for instance, that Found it super helpful for their lenders and for their credit teams to understand what the impacts could be. And of course, some sectors and industries would be impacted differently than others. So I was just offering free content, commitment-free trial periods. These big accounts responded well, and it pretty much became a part of their process through the pandemic because they didn't have a good source alternatively for the information. Later on, that would become the seed to some of my success in the past year because we were able to form those connections and see how valuable the service would be for them, not just during a pandemic, but after. So kind of a beautiful lesson that comes if you've read from the book, The Go-Giver, is just to help people out. And especially in a moment of need, they'll remember that and they'll get you back for it.

20:42 Scott Ingram: I love it. I love it. And it also goes back to, you know, again, your third point around just always looking for ways to improve and develop. Adapt at the end of the day.

20:52 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's definitely a big part of it even now, right? There's the fears of recession. There's the whole Ukraine conflict. We don't know what that's going to do. The inflation fears, how that's going to play into all the industries we cover and the clients that we support. So, yeah, you have to, of course, have your ears open, listen to what people are going through and just see how you can help.

21:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think the theme right now is just uncertainty. Like, there is no clarity around what's around the corner at all right now.

21:21 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, it's hard for anyone to deal with, but yeah, we just have to do it as best as we can.

21:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Control what you can control. So I know that you are a big routine guy, so let's unpack that. And I know, you know, the question, the question is what time does your alarm clock go off? And I want the blow-by-blow. Take us through it.

21:39 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, it's nothing too insane. I'm not waking up at 5 in the morning every day. It's actually pretty standard. So 7:00 AM, I wake up. I'll make my either oatmeal or eggs with spinach, depending on what's in the fridge. I'll prepare some coffee for me and my wife. While I'm eating, I'm reading the Wall Street Journal, like I'm saying, going through the headlines, thinking about how the news might impact my accounts. Maybe I have some accounts that have, you know, customers in some of the companies that are coming up in these headlines. You know, some conversation points for upcoming meetings. Can I mention something in a prospecting email? Nowadays also, my routine's a bit messed up. We have a 9-month-old daughter, so now we're trying to figure out her routine on top of our routine. So I'll make her a bottle and I'll feed her. If I have time after that, I'll read a book for a bit. I'll do some journaling, just what I'm thankful for, what do I want to accomplish today, sort of higher-level goals, keep track of what's important and what I want to focus on. And then from there, I'll get on my laptop. Check my emails, check my LinkedIn alerts, plan my day ahead. So usually that will consist of a couple of prospect meetings. I'll check the RSVPs, prepare my notes, see how I want to conduct these meetings, what I want the next steps to be. And then I'll also block some time in the day to work my big deal accounts. I might create or run some sequences, check on my opportunities a few times per week just to see how things are progressing to close and and what I need to do to exceed target and keep my momentum.

23:14 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then how does the day conclude? Although I'm sure that your routine is still in flux. 9-month-old will totally do that to you.

23:20 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, pretty much the main objective most evenings is putting her to sleep. Sometimes it's easier than other times, but yeah, once she's in bed, which is hopefully by 8 PM most nights, the next 3 hours I get to… I'll usually either read a book. I might go down to the fitness room or just catch up on whatever emails I might have left over from the day. So try to get in bed by 11, a solid 8 hours of sleep. I definitely treasure my sleep and I need at least 8 hours to be able to survive on a day-to-day basis.

23:55 Scott Ingram: And then what about, you said that, I know you're listening to podcasts, you're reading books. What is that kind of complete information diet? What are the standout resources that you go to over and over again?

24:06 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, let me start with the podcast. So obviously Sales Success is my number one sales podcast. I listen to the Tim Ferriss Show. He has some fascinating guests and I mean, no reason or no wonder that he's one of the most popular podcasts on the marketplace. But yeah, you get a lot of good inspiration and good ideas. Another one, Dan Carlin. If you're into history at all, I definitely recommend checking out Dan Carlin's Hardcore History. They come out not that often, but you can go through the archives and they're really interesting. Other information. Of course, Wall Street Journal I mentioned. Trying to think, there's… oh, and the books. So right now, yeah, I'll try to read one sales book and then one not sales book, sort of to keep it fresh and actually give myself a bit of a chance to start implementing what I learned in my process before I head over to the next sales topic. So right now I'm reading Jamal Reimer's book. I think it's called Mega Deal Secret. That has some really good stuff in there and he's accomplished some amazing feats that I also recommend checking out. It's written very well as well. It's easy to read.

25:14 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then what's your favorite non-sales book of late?

25:17 Sebastian Amaya: Non-sales book, I forgot exactly. I think it's called The Accidental President. It's Harry Truman's first 100 days in office. And that's super interesting. You basically learn about him taking over the presidency from FDR, just kind of out of nowhere, not being prepared, not being favorite for that at all, and just killing it in the, in his first year as president in a crazy time in our history, 1945.

25:44 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Very cool. I always kind of gravitate towards the biography kind of stuff. I think it's so fascinating to dig into those stories. I mean, who knew that I would be interested in the stories of people's lives?

25:55 Sebastian Amaya: Well, the thing is, yeah, it's sort of another character study, just like we do on the podcast. You understand a person's, and this case Truman's personality, their routines, how they go about things to get to the achievements that they have in their life. So it's sort of another way of understanding how people succeed that I think is what draws us to biography so much.

26:17 Scott Ingram: I may need to read that book because my wife and I went to Key West this last spring break. My girls were off doing independent stuff. Who knows where they were, but we got a chance to get away together. And headed down there. And one of the things we did was visited, I think they call it the Truman House. It's, it's kind of the place that he hung out in Key West while he was in office. It was kind of the Florida White House, I suppose, at the time. So really fascinating kind of walk through and get some of that history, but I would love to get some additional context. I'm always fascinated by those stories. There's something about biographies from that perspective.

26:51 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, he's a fascinating character and such a big contrast from FDR because he was just like kind of like a blue-collar everyday man, whereas FDR was like a coastal elite. So you can sort of read about how their styles contrasted and how he was able to make it work.

27:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah, my big takeaway from that visit, and maybe this is just the culture of Key West, but his doctor told him that he needed to take a shot of whiskey every morning. It was medicinal. And I just, I need that kind of doctor. I don't have that.

27:20 Sebastian Amaya: Oh yeah, just mix it into your morning coffee.

27:23 Scott Ingram: That's right. That's right. So Seb, what about, are there tools or apps that you find that you can't live without?

27:30 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, it's nothing too extensive. I'm sure most of us are aware of them, but I'll give them due credit. ZoomInfo, I feel like I need to survive. The cell phones and the email addresses are so clutch. It's hard to imagine not having them. Sales Navigator is superb for finding contacts to prospect and then seeing where they've been and what they're focused on. So you can have a little bit more context when you're talking to them. Another one that I picked up from Brandon Fluharty is Todoist. That's really useful for keeping track of a long list of things that I have to do, especially out of work by certain dates, determining what's important and urgent. So definitely recommend that if you're not using it. And then for audiobooks, well, podcasts, there's a million apps for that, but for audiobooks was really helpful. If you're not on Audible, you can go on Libby, L-I-B-B-Y. And they have books from the library that you can just take out and you get 3, 4 weeks to go through them. So it's really useful to listen to them on there. And then for meditation, I like Insight Timer. Insight Timer I should probably use more often, but when I do, it's really useful. They have a bunch of prerecorded guided meditations and it's free. So that's even better. Yeah, I think that's kind of what would, what I would sum up.

28:51 Scott Ingram: Awesome. That sounded very Dos Equis. So I heard something along the lines of, I don't always meditate, but when I do, I use Insight Timer.

29:00 Sebastian Amaya: Exactly. That's right on. Brilliant.

29:02 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. So you may have hinted at this at the top, or at least some of the influences. I'm curious if you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy, how you think about that.

29:12 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's a good question. So it's not one, you know, you sort of take the best from what you learn out there. SPIN is definitely… SPIN Selling is the foundation. It's what we learned at IBISWorld and it's been really helpful, but it's definitely not the end-all be-all. So of course, the Challenger Sale has a ton of good insight. And so I try to go in with a bit of insight and a bit of that Challenger mindset when I'm meeting with potential customers. Following that is just sort of what I've learned from all the events that I go to. Mutual action plans, I know, is something that I learned about at one of the sales events. So being able to work backward from, okay, we want to achieve this success, or we want to start onboarding at this point, what do we need to get to that point? That's super helpful, and not enough reps use that framework. So I definitely recommend that. David Weiss's MEDDPICC is pretty awesome, especially for the really complex, the big deals that involve a lot of stakeholders where you need a good way to map out sort of the risk factors of any given deal.

30:17 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. I'm going to work backwards on a couple of those points. So David Weiss is working on something pretty interesting on the MEDDPICC front. So stay tuned. And the sales event where you heard about the mutual action planning was, I don't know what year, but I will make sure that it gets connected in the show notes. That was certainly one of the summit topics that we dove into. So we'll put that video of that presentation And we'll link that up in the show notes because it is, to your point, it's a very underutilized, absolutely powerful tool to get your client lined up with, you know, here's the process that we're working on together to get this deal closed and to get you successful.

30:51 Sebastian Amaya: I'm pretty sure it was 2019. I don't remember who presented it though.

30:54 Scott Ingram: That sounds about right. That sounds about right. I think it was Trey Simonton who led that session.

30:59 Sebastian Amaya: There you go.

30:59 Scott Ingram: So we will put that in for sure. Certainly one of the greats building towards another pretty incredible year. It's been a lot of fun working on this year's agenda. I know we're going to miss you for the first time in a while, but you'll be back around. We just got to keep people from getting married. Is that it?

31:15 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, I think once my sister gets married, should be a lot clearer because last year I think we went to 6 weddings. So we're getting towards the end of that post-COVID wedding bubble.

31:24 Scott Ingram: Brutal, brutal. It's a lot of wedding gifts.

31:28 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, a lot of wedding gifts and a lot of travel too. Been all over the country.

31:32 Scott Ingram: That is a lot of travel. So, but coming back to kind of the philosophy, so I think you kind of share many people that have been on the show. It's kind of an amalgamation of different ideas, kind of the best of the stuff that fits your style. And so along those lines, how would you describe your style?

31:49 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's a good question. I try to be sort of the anti-quote-unquote salesperson. It's kind of interesting. I sort of toyed with the idea of being a professor when I was on my way to graduating. So it's something that I've thought about. And when I was starting out here at IBISWorld, there was a sales rep that sounded kind of like a professor when, when he was presenting and dealing with prospects. So I've sort of made that one of my traits, especially because prospects value it a lot when you can teach them something every time you speak to them. So try to share insights just from my general knowledge or from discussions with similar companies. Another thing that I've learned about, and I think I've tried to become better at, is being your true authentic self. And this is useful for forming deeper relationships, better relationships with your contacts, right? What vacation are you going on? Stuff like planning my wedding, the birth of my daughter, sharing these awesome things going on outside of my work life people can relate to. And it just It sort of just amplifies the conversations and the connection that you form with your clients, right? We say B2B sales, in the end it's H2H sales, right? Human to human. So if you can be a human, especially in this age of automation and AI just running everything, I think it gives you a big competitive advantage. Love that.

33:19 Scott Ingram: Love that. So you'd suggested that you've accomplished a lot of life goals along the way. What's driving you? What motivates? How do you think about motivation?

33:28 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, there's a lot. Obviously, there's a certain lifestyle that I want to have for me and my family that sales basically enables me to have. Another thing is just being really good at my craft. When I went to that event, it was a podcast recording you did with Trong Nguyen. He had a really good line that I've tried to just sort of make a central tenet, which is treat sales like you would a craft, the way a doctor or a lawyer treats his profession. That's the way you should treat this career of sales. So that's why I'm always, you know, reading these books, listening to these podcasts, and trying to hone my craft and improve myself. In addition, I am a big soccer fan. So my team is Real Madrid. If anybody follows, they won the Champions League really in crazy circumstances. They beat like all the heavy favorites last year. And so just following this team, seeing the amazing skills, the dedication, the perseverance, and most of all the mindset that these players have to overcome, you know, all the pundits' predictions and beat the bigger teams that have better players and are better equipped is just super inspirational. And it makes me try to think of ways that I can export that in a different way to what I do in sales.

34:50 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. And I appreciate you reminding me, I had forgotten all about that live interview we did with Trong at that Enterprise Sales Forum session in New York City. It's been years since I've done one of those. I guess the closest we came, I kind of did that with AJ Bruno from QuotaPath during the summit last year, but I haven't done another event and kind of a public interview. And they're super fun, right? It's… I think the way that that worked is, you know, once I was able to get things rolling, then all the rest of the questions came from the audience. So one of the easiest interviews I've ever done.

35:22 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that's the other thing. You get such great energy from the audience that it makes the episode that much more lively.

35:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So we'll link that up as well. So if you go to top1.fm/seb-amaya, S-E-B, or top1.fm/getthis… Seb, I didn't know if you knew that this was going to happen. This is episode 150. So top1.fm/150, you landed yourself in a milestone episode, my friend.

35:47 Sebastian Amaya: Ah, how fitting. I love it. It's a pleasure, an honor.

35:51 Scott Ingram: So really excited about that. So we talked about the motivation stuff. I'm curious about, as you think about the mindset and you just kind of observe others in the sales space, is there something you believe that the typical sales rep would think is crazy?

36:07 Sebastian Amaya: Yes, this is something I believed, and this was more applicable when I was starting out, but I believe working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, is not going to get you to where you want to be if that means outperforming others. So after you've been in the role for several years, you get an idea of where your time is best spent. You can leverage that 80/20 Pareto principle, but in the meantime, when you're starting off, You need to put in the hours. You have to get the reps in to start seeing the results come in and figure out what your style is and what works for you. So yeah, that would be it. You just… 40 hours a week or 9 to 5 is not going to be good enough.

36:49 Scott Ingram: It's interesting you say that because, you know, there's all this talk and articles and stuff in the news about this whole quiet quitting trend, which is different than what it sounds like, right? It's basically people doing the bare minimum and only what they're asked to do and, you know, kind of checking out the rest of the time. I'm like, yeah, that's not a thing in sales. Certainly not a thing in sales if you want to perform well and cash large commission checks. Like, that just doesn't make any sense.

37:14 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, you're not going to be in your job for very long if you're just trying to do the bare minimum.

37:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, what about the flip side?

37:22 Sebastian Amaya: Is there something that the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is Yeah, so this is a little bit further on in the career progression that once you ramp up in your role and you're decent at hitting quota, that you're done learning. What worked before is good enough. For me, learning never ends because the world is always changing. We've already talked about this a bit, but I know reps who have been at my company for years, right? What they're doing sometimes in the past, it might not work anymore. So you have to adapt. You have to perfect your craft. Do you think, going back to the same comparison, do you think the doctor stopped reading medical literature in med school? No, you have to… same thing. You have to do your research. You have to stay on top of what's going on in the industry, your customer, their industry. So, right, you have to treat this craft like a profession and it will reward you.

38:13 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So along this path, what have been some of the most important decisions you've made or lessons that you had to learn to break through and get to where you are today?

38:23 Sebastian Amaya: No, I think it has to do definitely in the first 12 months. It was what I was just referring to. It was not just doing the bare minimum in terms of activity and hours on the job. I was studying the sales materials that we have internal to IBISWorld and all these resources outside. I was learning about the product and I was learning about how the top sellers in the org close big deals. And it's gotten easier now with things like Gong where you can listen to calls and sort of even with Salesforce, you can look in the notes and see what the makings of a big deal are. So that was sort of my cheat code for ramping up quickly. Just like I'm saying, putting in the hours, but actually spending them on activities and yeah, on activities that will help you or that have helped me get to where I am faster.

39:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I mean, that's one of those things that it's so amazing the way that the technology and the tools have evolved because, you know, I mean, we used to, or those who don't have the benefit of a Gong in their org, right? You've got to beg people to get on their call and you got to schedule it and it's this whole thing versus now you just, you just go in and listen and you focus on the things that you need to learn. Or if there's a particular individual that's doing something interesting that you want to understand the nuance and how they're doing that, you don't even have to ask. You just get in there and give a listen and get your learn on.

39:50 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, I should say that, well, we didn't have Gong, but okay, you can read through the Salesforce emails. But another useful thing is, yeah, just going up to them and asking them, okay, you did this deal. Awesome. Tell me about it. How did you do it? And a lot of reps did not do that. A lot of reps did not want to digest on the makings of a big deal on Right, how the top sellers got to where they were. So if you're doing that, you're already ahead of the game.

40:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, it's back to that reinventing the wheel thing, right? I mean, we've talked about the Pareto principle and kind of leaning into what works, so it doesn't even have to be the thing that worked for you. I mean, if you really study and ask questions and try and understand, you know, how did this work, why did this work for somebody else, and will it work for me?

40:34 Sebastian Amaya: Yep, absolutely.

40:36 Scott Ingram: Gong really is a powerful tool, and they're also a powerful partner of this community. Do us both a favor and check them out at top1.fm/gong. So Seb, what advice would you give to somebody that is just starting out in their sales career today?

40:51 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, that would be to find your performance-enhancing drug or your cheat code, not in a literal sense, but how are you going to exceed your goals? So for me, that's motivation. I derive motivation from listening to podcasts like this, reading books. Watching and playing sports or whatever you're interested in. If you're focused on improving your skills faster than normal by listening to experts or networking with, you know, the top salespeople within or outside of your organization, you're going to be able to progress much faster than otherwise.

41:28 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. What about somebody that's further in, right? So maybe they've hit a rough spot and they're struggling a bit, or they're doing well, but they just, they haven't found that gear. That's going to get them to the number 1 spot? What would you tell them?

41:41 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, I would say to figure out again, what are the top sellers doing at their org or at others and what practices can they put into place? You know, for some people, maybe there's technologies, tactics like video selling that's worked for them to help connect with more people. Yeah. Nowadays there's so many different techniques that you can use. But yeah, I would say if you've hit a plateau, You have to figure out how to get past that by looking at people who have already gone through that path and have been able to succeed after stalling for a bit.

42:18 Scott Ingram: Nice. Well, you talked about, you know, learning from the best, connecting with the best, kind of building that type of a network. Again, I know you're not going to be able to make it this year, but you've been to a couple of summits. Talk about that experience a little bit and just kind of the impact that that's made.

42:32 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, the best thing is really the connections that you'll form with other top sellers. It was really awesome meeting Ian Koniak in person last year. His story's super impressive, and every time I hear it, I'm just like overwhelmed by just his personal story and how far he's come from there. So there's a million lessons that you can learn from, you know, the actual, the talks, the presentations, but there's also some really useful connections that you can make with sales reps, you know, at other orgs that That can be really useful for, you know, helping you map a deal or, or try a new technique if you get stuck with, you know, one of the 100 million roadblocks that we might find in a deal brainstorming. So yeah, I think it's just a really useful way to strengthen your network and get more people on your team.

43:22 Scott Ingram: Awesome, Seb. I really appreciate you sharing that. Now we've talked about a lot of stuff. We've covered a lot of ground. You've listened to so many of these episodes. Is there something that we haven't touched on yet that you hoped we would or that we left unsaid?

43:34 Sebastian Amaya: All right. So this is useful, I think, especially for people who might just be one or a few years into their sales role or their sales career. When you're towards the end of a quarter or, you know, a year and you're getting close to your quota, there's always one last one. Actually, this might even apply to just your day-to-day. There's always a last chance. There's always a last email that you can send. A last call that you can make that can generate an opportunity that you might not have found otherwise. And what's kind of weird is that I've noticed I'm able to connect a lot towards the end of the day and at the beginning of even sort of before the 9:00 AM day starts with a lot of the people that I contact. So if you're into a role where you need to connect with people to set meetings, There's always one last one. There's always a last meeting that you can set. There's always a last deal that you can close. So just remember that there's always one last one somewhere out there.

44:35 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. You actually had me flashing back on my first, like, traditional sales role. I was with ADP and we had this idea that was 8 before 8 and 5 after 5. If you made 8 calls before 8:00 AM and 5 after 5:00 PM, and you did that consistently, and then you pair that with the, you know, the one more idea. You know, just make one more call. You know, if you do that consistently, really good things happen.

45:00 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, as we say in Spanish, siempre hay una última. There's always one last chance.

45:05 Scott Ingram: Perfect, perfect. I think we have the title of the episode, Seb. Let's take this out on an actionable note. So what would you challenge our listener to do right now? What can they do to improve themselves and improve their results over the next, say, 1 to 2 weeks?

45:20 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, this is a challenge that I want to set for myself, but I think it's a really good one because there's so much good sales advice on podcasts and blogs and books you can read every day, but are you actually learning? So pick 1 or 2 things that you like that you think could make a big impact and then put that in your to-do list or your task list every day for the next 2 weeks. And once you're done with those 2 weeks, look back, see if it made You better. Did it have any tangible results? Is it worth keeping that habit? Okay. If it did great, keep it. If it didn't, all right, try the next one and repeat. I think that's one of the toughest things, actually implementing what you learn and making it part of your process so that it will actually make you a better seller. That's really what makes the big difference.

46:13 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. That is a perfect challenge to end on. We could probably put that at the end of everyone. Of these episodes.

46:19 Sebastian Amaya: Yeah, for real.

46:20 Scott Ingram: Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for sharing your story. It is so great to talk to you, and congrats on your success.

46:25 Sebastian Amaya: Thanks again, Scott. Great to be here. 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.