16: Namely's Top Account Executive Colin Specter - Positive Results Follow a Positive Attitude

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:25 Scott Ingram: Today I'm joined by Colin Specter, who is the top seller at Namely and has been for the last 3 years running. Across multiple different roles and territories. Thanks for joining me today, Colin.

0:36 Colin Specter: Thanks for having me, Scott. Pleasure to be here. Big happy Tuesday to you and everyone listening out there.

0:42 Scott Ingram: So we always start with my asking what the top 3 things are that have allowed you to consistently get to and stay at the top. The reason I do that is to front-load some of the value so that our listeners can quickly tune in and for the first 5 or 10 minutes immediately get some takeaways from any of these interviews and then decide from there whether they want to dig deeper, or it's a nice way to go back and relisten. And get some of those key takeaways from some of these episodes. So, Colin, in your case, why don't we take these one point at a time? What's your first point?

1:12 Colin Specter: I'd say point number one, and this is not only in sales, but I'd say everything in life, is your attitude. So, firm believer that the attitude and maintaining a positive attitude every day is what has enabled me to really exceed and be a leader within my role within Namely. Have a successful sales career so far.

1:34 Scott Ingram: And how do you proactively keep your attitude in check on a daily basis?

1:40 Colin Specter: So it, it's absolutely a, a work every day kind of thing. It's all about how you start your day. Uh, I would say making sure you're starting your day with either exercise, a good meal, uh, whatever it takes to just check in with your head on a daily basis and make sure that you're approaching each call with the client or prospect with a positive mindset, positive attitude. Uh, it's important that whenever you're speaking with a, a client or prospective client that you are delivering a positive experience for them because not only are you presenting the, the features and, and the value of what you're selling, but you're also, uh, I mean, sales at the end of the day is an emotional buying process, right? It takes emotion to sell and logic to close. So you really have to bring the positive attitude and positive emotions with whatever product you're selling, especially with HR payroll and benefits. The HR role in which I sell into tends to be very emotionally driven, even though at the end you do have some financial payroll questions and more logical approaches. It's absolutely maintaining a positive attitude and bringing that positivity as representation of your product that has enabled my success here.

2:53 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And I love that idea of, of leading with the emotion. So what's your second point?

2:57 Colin Specter: Second point, absolutely energy and, and work ethic. So, uh, the high levels of energy and work I put into each sale are felt by my prospective clients. I mean, I, I, I'm the one that's setting the pace for my team. I set the bar as high as possible. I, I wanna make sure that my clients know I'm, I'm investing my time and their time wisely. And they know I'm working extra hard and being a good representation of the work that my company, Namely, is gonna do for them once they come on board. So being able to have that high focus energy work ethic is gonna enable you to, to be successful. And it's, that's what's enabled me to be successful for my role here.

3:37 Scott Ingram: And similarly, what are you doing to, uh, build up and maintain that high level of energy?

3:43 Colin Specter: Absolutely. I mean, it, it, it kind of goes hand in hand with attitude, right? So staying, staying positive. Keeping that high level of energy, it's all about making sure you have that balance throughout the day. So focusing on fueling yourself, whether it's with your mind, with the content that, that you're digesting, or the way you're starting your day with a good meal. You wanna make sure you're keeping a high level of energy for the gas tank, right? So a salesperson with low energy, that's gonna be felt by your prospects. If it's a 4 o'clock call at the end of the day and you're at low energy, That, that's gonna come across on your calls. And so making sure that you're, you're pausing throughout the day to rebuild and refuel that energy is gonna make sure that you can keep a consistent energy. You're, you're continuing to put forth the effort, whether it's the follow-up calls, the emails, the onsite visits, and that you're maintaining that consistent energy, at least in the eyes of your prospects. That's gonna help. And what's helped me maintain my position at the top here.

4:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. And your third point?

4:47 Colin Specter: Third point, absolutely focus. And, and I would say within focus, it, it's conviction. So once I'm convinced we are the best solution for the prospective client, my focus on closing that sale and servicing the prospective client becomes my sole mission. So you know that Mark Cuban quote, work like there's someone working 24 hours a day to take it away from you. So I'm that someone working every day against my competition. I'm that salesperson on the other end of the evaluation that all of the competition is afraid of because I am investing my entire mission, my energy on making sure that prospective client becomes a Namely client. So having that focus, that dedication to the sale is what has enabled me to close them.

5:37 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. It reminds me of the very first conversation I ever had on this show was with Mike Dudgeon, who's the top AE, or was the top AE at LinkedIn. And one of his points is that he was paranoid and he was paranoid that somebody else was outworking him. So, uh, I'm reminded of that conversation and thinking he must've been scared of you.

5:59 Colin Specter: Absolutely. I know, uh, our competitors, some of them out there at ADP and Paychex, You know, absolutely. He, they're absolutely afraid. I know that for sure.

6:08 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And what does that client focus actually look like? I mean, let's say that you've decided there's a great fit. What happens from there? What is, what is that? What is the client experience?

6:19 Colin Specter: So absolutely. So in, in the SaaS model, the way we approach everything is, is starting off with the discovery call. So, uh, sales development representative will set up a meeting for you, typically a qualified meeting. For the most part, unless you're doing your old cold prospecting, uh, with a, with a qualified opportunity. So we, we will invest our first meeting with the prospect doing heavy discovery, and discovery's gonna include questions on how they manage their process from an HR perspective, from a payroll perspective, from a compliance perspective. So there's some key points where Namely's gonna be a phenomenal fit. For any company in the marketplace. And there's some companies out there where, where we might not just be a good fit, and we typically won't invest as much energy in that sale or, you know, bow out of that evaluation. So I'd say within Namely, we've gotten a solid, at least I have, I've gotten a, a very specific criteria that I know I need to hit on with any prospective client to allow me to give the green light to say, okay, you're a perfect fit. You're, you are a perfect fit for Namely, and I'm gonna work day and night to make sure I provide you with all of the resources you need to go either present with your executive team or to ensure that your executive team is bought in to the same conviction I have that Namely is the best fit for you. So having that focus, having that conviction, once they've, they've met the criteria, that really drives the other kind of pieces here, the energy, because I know they are the best fit. I'm, fully convinced, and they're gonna feel that throughout my sales process I run with them and the effort I put towards closing 'em, whether it's onsite meetings with the client or prospective client, whether it's the follow-up emails or calls, you know, even after business hours.

8:09 Scott Ingram: Nice. So really just digging in and, and doing the work.

8:12 Colin Specter: At the end of the day, putting it simply, it's, it's doing the work, right? You gotta work hard. You, you get out what you put in in sales, 100%. So it, I, I'm, I'm just a big believer in that.

8:22 Scott Ingram: Nice. Before I dig deeper into my conversation with Colin, I wanted to ask you, the listener, to help me thank our founding sponsor, who is nudge.ai. And all you have to do is get yourself a free account. Uh, so Nudge uses artificial intelligence to help you find actionable insights on your prospects and customers. And all you have to do is go to top1.fm/nudge. That's N-U-D-G-E, top1.fm/nudge, and you can get your account today. So Colin, talk about your role and how you got to number 1.

8:54 Colin Specter: Yeah, absolutely. So today I'm a senior account executive, uh, for Namely. We're an all-in-one HR payroll and benefits solution. I am now based in Los Angeles, California. Uh, so my current role here really started at the start of this year, January. Uh, previous to, to this current position, I was based in our New York City headquarters where I had the last 2 years as an account executive focused on various territories. So in my current role, I'm solely focused on Los Angeles, which happens to be my power base. So I'm originally from LA, and I mean, we see the market opportunity growing here tremendously. And I made the case as well. Namely had asked me if I'd be willing to go to Los Angeles. So kind of hand in hand with the opportunity to come back home, where I'm from as well. Seeing the growing opportunity and booming market here in Los Angeles enabled me, based on my past success, to present them the idea of a remote position here in Los Angeles where I could focus on my power base. I mean, my network here, folks I've gone to high school with, college with, are all here. They're all working in companies here. So that's really where I'm focused now, in that role here in the field.

10:14 Scott Ingram: Cool. And can you quantify your results for us? I mean, what does it take to be number 1 at Namely?

10:19 Colin Specter: So, well, it takes, it takes a lot of work to put it, put it simply. Quantifying results, it's exceeding quota year over year. So always exceeding your targets. And in our case, it's quarter over quarter. So we have our quotas held on a quarterly basis. So I've exceeded well over 100% of quota each and every every year here at Namely. So since I joined in 2014, and I originally joined Namely as a sales development representative, at the time we were a team of 6 sales reps and 1 director of sales. We had no account executives. So I was number 1 for outbound generated revenue. We had no, really no advertising, really no inbound movement. So that was all pure cold calling, uh, prospecting on LinkedIn and generating revenue, uh, cold revenue. Uh, and I was number 1 for, for 2014 for that role. And then 2015, I moved into the, the closing role. We start to build out our account executive team here at Namely. So the actual closers, the folks who, who take a prospect from the, uh, initial discovery phase through the evaluations, demonstrations, all the way to close. Uh, even including demonstrating the product. This is even before we had a product advisory role or solution consultant role here at Namely. So from the SDR role, really, really went into the full kind of all-in-one sales, uh, position, uh, everything from guiding the prospect to, to closing that prospect, uh, and beyond.

11:56 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And, you know, it's, it's interesting that you made the transition from SDR to field sales within the same company. I know we've done a number of episodes here focused on the SDR role. Uh, talk about how did you position yourself? How did you make that transition and how did that go? What advice would you have for others that are in similar places? They're an SDR today wanting to move into the field. How can they set themselves up for success and the progression that you did?

12:22 Colin Specter: Absolutely. I mean, it's, of course it's going to vary company by company and also, you know, what stage that company is at, what stage you're joining that company. I mean, I had the benefit of joining Namely. Very early on. I was the 25th employee for the company and very early with the sales team there. But for today's SDRs, and I tell this to our SDRs internally, if your goal is to become an account executive, and we now have the fortune of aligning ourselves with SDRs or business development representatives, depending on what your company calls them, it's really shadowing the account executive, asking key questions, not only learning about the front end of the sales process. Like the account, the sales development rep's role is, in my opinion, to get folks excited. So you're out there in the marketplace cold calling, dialing for dollars, so to speak, getting prospective clients excited about whatever it is you're representing. And then the difference with an account executive is more from a consultative approach, from at least within our company, It's digging into the process of that prospective client. So I always like to tell my sales development representatives, I, the ones I get aligned with anyways, why don't you start becoming that consultant for them? Not only get them excited, but start practicing early on asking key questions. I give my sales development representatives the same questions I ask prospective clients that I still cold outreach to. So they get, they get that rehearsal lesson on becoming an account executive. They start to understand when an objection comes up, how to handle that objection, how to guide a prospect through a sales process. So, I mean, just some simple advice would be start early on shadowing the top account executives. They're gonna be busy, but I'm sure they're gonna be open to allowing you to hop on some of their calls, shadow some of their calls. If you have the luxury of being in the same office, see if you can sit near them, see if you can take 'em out to lunch. Uh, those would be some, just some early tips there.

14:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Consistent advice. And I think it's, it's great stuff. Colin, what's your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

14:28 Colin Specter: So, I mean, I was really born into sales from a, from an early age. I just remember selling, selling products, uh, in elementary school. We used to do magazine subscription sales. That was in elementary school. You had to sell a certain number of magazine subscriptions door to door. In order to go on a field trip to Disneyland. And so each year, I think in kindergarten or first grade, my dad took me door to door and kind of walked me through the sales process and leaning on emotion with the neighbors to get them to sign up for these magazines they didn't need. And that was really my first kind of sales role, elementary school. And after that, selling Pokémon cards to, to my friends. So we, we would get boxes of Pokémon cards on eBay and my dad would, would load me up with these Pokémon boxes and I'd go into, go into class and it'd be $20 a pack to get these first edition Pokémon cards. And this is in, by this time, 3rd or 4th grade. And, and from there I just have sold all kinds of products throughout my entire career. Everything from, let's see, event space to insurance products to cars. Nutritional products, and over the last 3 or 4 years, software as a service products. So it's been quite, quite a ride within the sales world.

15:57 Scott Ingram: And it sounds like your dad was a pretty early enabler in that process too.

16:01 Colin Specter: Absolutely. He's an entrepreneur in his own right and, and a business owner and sales professional. So having, having him as a role model has definitely helped. Fuel my career.

16:12 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And was there any point, or if you were starting that over again, maybe, maybe not elementary school, some of those sales maybe weren't, uh, weren't voluntary, but is there anything that you would have done differently or set up maybe your trajectory in a different way?

16:28 Colin Specter: You know, I, I think the stars just really aligned for me from a sales career perspective. So I went to the University of California at Santa Barbara. Go Gauchos, uh, for, for my alma mater. And we, we had the fortune of actually having a sales, uh, sales class at that school through the entrepreneurship program. So early, so even in college, I had some, some great training. Uh, my professors there, some of them were the founding members of GoToMeeting and GoToMyPC and, uh, Citrix Online, the former VP of sales. So I had some really good background and understanding, uh, at least in a formal educational setting, uh, for sales and knew right away I wanted to get into technology sales. So I, I would say shifting from elementary, junior high, high school, and college, uh, into, uh, just the path I've taken. I, I mean, there's not much I would really change. Uh, I would say any advice out there for folks, uh, just early on, really early on in their careers, maybe those still in even in high school or college, I would recommend getting into even service positions where you're having to deal with people. I would say that's really helped. My ability to communicate with people, especially in this world. Now we have very complex sales products that, uh, that you're guiding folks through. So everything from, I, I've done everything from, uh, managing valet parking companies to, uh, restaurant services. So just having that experience and communicating with all kinds of people from all kinds of cultures and backgrounds, I, I'd say has helped fuel my success today.

18:00 Scott Ingram: That's, that's great advice. So Colin, what's your favorite sales story? So whether you won or lost and what did you learn from it?

18:08 Colin Specter: So, favorite sales story, and it's not any particular deal per se, or maybe it's one of the best deals I've had in the last 3 or 4 years here, was how I got my job here at Namely.

18:23 Scott Ingram: Let's hear it.

18:23 Colin Specter: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, I was living in Los Angeles working for another startup company that was starting to shutter its doors. Had made the decision I wanted to move to New York City and didn't, didn't really know too much about the New York market, but quickly found all of these startup technology companies that were functioning in Silicon, Silicon Alley, as we call it in New York. So cold called, cold prospected every company that I could find that seemed of interest and reached out to maybe close to 50 or 60 companies with cold emails, templated emails, basically how you would run in any kind of sales process. And one of the, a few of them, several got back to me, but one of them got back to me right away. And, uh, it was Namely. And it, and they said, hey, our, our director of sales wants to speak with you. So I was like, oh great. That's, that's awesome. So I, I, here's his number. Give him a call. I put his number in my phone and his name popped up. It was, it was someone I had gone to college with, uh, a frat, a former fraternity brother of mine from Santa Barbara was now the, uh, at the time, the director of sales for Namely. So I, I, I give him a call. I'm like, hey, uh, Aaron, how you doing, man? It's Colin. He's like, Colin, why don't you tell me you're looking for a job? I'm like, well, I'm moving to New York. He's, he says to me, hey, that, that's, that's real nice and all. Uh, but why don't you call me when you're serious, when you move here? So he, he, he kind of blew me off. He, he kind of, you know, put me on the back burner. He is like, that's really cool. That's really funny that we ran into each other on, on this job posting. Call me when you're serious. Call me when you move to New York. So meanwhile, Move to New York. At the time, no job. I was pursuing a love interest who is now my fiancée, but land in New York City and I have interviews lined up with some of the leading startups in New York City. Things are going great. I'm also looking for an apartment and I'm staying with a good friend of mine in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, I'm on Craigslist looking for apartments and this apartment sounds appealing, so I go, I show up. Meet the individual apartment is probably not going to work out, but they're asking me, oh, so what do you do for a living? Well, I'm not going to tell someone that I'm looking to lease from that I have no job at the time or I'm in between positions. So I say, oh, I work for this HR startup company. He says to me, oh really? I'm an HR director for this major restaurant chain here in Manhattan. What's the company? And I say to him, oh, it's Namely. Have you heard of Namely? He's like, no, what is it? I'm like, well, here, let's pull up the website and walk you through it. So I pop open namely.com. I, and I kid you not, I, at the time, I really was not too familiar with the HR human capital management space, but I'm reading the website to him. I'm like, oh, we do organizational charts. We do performance management. He's like, oh, I love, this is exactly what we need. I'm like, great. Why don't we set up a meeting with my manager? We'll schedule you a time to see the system in action tomorrow. How does that sound? He's like, that would be fantastic. You got to set me up. So I leave the apartment viewing, call up my friend Aaron. I'm like, hey Aaron, look, I have a hot lead for you. I'm getting tons of other job offers. Let's get this going. Do you want me or not? And he's like, what are you doing? Nobody brings us a sale. For their job interview. That's crazy. And next thing you know, he sent me a job offer and I closed the deal and I've been here ever since.

21:55 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. That is a great, great story.

21:59 Colin Specter: Yeah. So that's, that's how I joined Namely.

22:02 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, now let's, now let's turn it around. Let's go to a deep, dark place. You can lay down on my, on my nice leather couch. It's a safe place. What's, what's been the most challenging part of whether it's been at Namely or anywhere else through, through the course of your career?

22:16 Colin Specter: So most challenging part, I would say with Namely in the beginning, it was definitely the learning curve. So I felt early on I was plugging into the matrix and it was information overload.

22:32 Scott Ingram: You can only read the website for so long, right?

22:36 Colin Specter: Absolutely. Absolutely. And the product has only gotten more robust and more kind of services to sell. I mean, just looking back, I know that that was probably the, the challenge, most challenging period of time. And I would say maybe for any SDR or account executive, when you first join a company, you know, oftentimes you don't really have maybe a full grasp on, on what, what you are, what you're selling. Maybe you do, maybe some, some more than most, but I, I would say that that was probably the most challenging thing. It took me a long time to really understand the value of what I was selling. But going back to, to what I was, uh, to what we talked about in the beginning, like the 3 items that fueled success. I mean, even though I never, in the begi… maybe the first 6 months of working for Namely, maybe I didn't fully understand the value. You know, I'd never worked in HR. I, I, I didn't really sit in that buyer's shoes. Uh, it, it's still delivering that positive attitude no matter what. And, and just giving them that can-do attitude. I would say still enabled me to successfully be number 1, uh, from developing revenue and, uh, and fueling me beyond. And it wasn't until maybe my second year within Namely that I fully, fully grasped, you know, the full role and everything. So I would say that was probably the most challenging.

23:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Is there anything, I mean, have, if you had that to do over again, is there anything that you would have done differently to accelerate that learning curve a bit?

24:03 Colin Specter: So I, I kid you not. And, and this, this definitely helped me. I would post anonymous Quora, uh, you know, the, the site Quora where you can ask questions. I was posting all kinds of anonymous questions on, first of all, what, what is it like to sell software as a service? I had, uh, I had the, uh, the founder of SaaStr respond to several of my questions. Uh, I was writing everything anonymously at the time, uh, asking HR folks, you know, how do you evaluate HR software? So just, just doing my best. And I would recommend this for any product, especially the startups out there when you're trying to figure your market fit. Uh, it's, it's just asking those, those kind of questions. I mean, what do you look for when you evaluate solutions for any kind of solution? So I was asking tons of these questions, just trying to get myself into the buyer's mind, into the, like, what, what do I need to be? What do I need to do so that you're gonna get excited and wanna buy from me? So that, that's really where I invested my early days with the Namely, what helped me overcome.

25:03 Scott Ingram: And that's, that's really smart, right? Cause you're, it wasn't focused on trying to get the product knowledge. You were really trying to understand what is, what does my future customer care about, right? How do I get in their head and understand it from their perspective, which allows you to position so much better?

25:20 Colin Specter: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, and, It's gonna be the case for any industry. Even prior to Namely, I sold medical devices for a startup company. We had no proven market, but we were calling physical therapists, occupational therapists, and doing the exact… I basically repeated this exact process we went through, just calling and understanding what is the process you go to with other medical device companies today. So for Namely, it was, hey, I mean, what are you using today? ADP. Okay. How did you go about evaluating that system? I mean, how did you, determine that was the system you wanted. So prior to even speaking with other prospects, I had a pretty good psychological grasp on what, what kind of intrigued the buyer's mind. And, you know, it really fueled me early on.

26:05 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So Colin, would you consider yourself… are you more of a morning person or are you a night owl?

26:10 Colin Specter: I'm a night owl, but, you know, when it comes to, when it comes to my conviction and focus, I mean, I I've had prospects in Europe. I've had prospects in Australia and across the world. And they're, they're, if they're willing to take the meeting, I'm willing to be there for them. So it's, it's really a mixed bag. I'm a workaholic fully. Yeah.

26:33 Scott Ingram: So from, from a, an evening routine then, I mean, what, what does that look like? How are, how and when are you preparing for your day and what are the different things that you're doing? And I'm really interested also in, you know, how the, the building up your energy fits into that and setting your attitude and, you know, let's dig a little bit deeper into some of those elements.

26:52 Colin Specter: Absolutely. Yeah, it's… so I, I, I touched on it slightly, slightly in the beginning, but it's, it's definitely, you gotta find time for whatever your, uh, whatever your thing is. When I say thing, that, that thing that, that, that really gives you satisfaction, happiness, whether it's working out. In my case now, back in Los Angeles here, I, it happens to be surfing. I live very close to the beach, so to catch a surf session, I will wake up you know, 4:30, 5:00 AM to get that dawn patrol. Uh, but when I was living in New York City, it was easily waking up early, hitting the gym, or if I had prospect calls in the morning, if I had to call in Europe in the morning, it would be at some point in the evening. If not the gym, if it's not physical, it would, it would be social time with friends. So it would be, uh, you know, whether it's going out for happy hour with, in New York City especially, happy hour's a, a popular time to unwind, going out for, some beers with, with the team after work is always awesome. But you, you do need to find time for, to refresh, whether it's a physical activity, whether it's time for yourself and reading. In my case, it happens to be more physical activities or social times with friends. But, but just reminders of, of, you know, those bright spots of, of why you're doing what you're doing, keeping yourself kind of focused on, on the root, on, world outside of work, but in my case, I really blend it all in. I mean, I love to work. I really do. And it's just a big part of my life, especially when you believe in what you're doing and see the value of what you're delivering in the marketplace. It just fuels my attitude and happiness, you know, every day.

28:26 Scott Ingram: Colin, are there other habits or routines that are really central to your success?

28:31 Colin Specter: So from a sales perspective and starting to get into the nuts and bolts of of what really drives like the number and success here. I mean, we carry, we carry large quotas. I mean, you're responsible for selling over $1 million in software as a service products and services here at Namely. And so you're going to need to work day and night or find a way to work effectively and smart and in a smart fashion, which, which I, I think I've gotten a good grasp on at this point. Some of those things, those key elements are feeding the top of the funnel, managing the pipeline, and your follow-ups. So I'd say those are like the 3 components that really drive my day, my day-to-day. So every day, no matter what, I'm doing prospecting. I'm going to receive email digest lists from certain publications that I follow here in Los Angeles, and every city has them. I mean, last year I had Virginia and District of Columbia for my territory. So each respective city and territory's gonna have some kind of newsletter or you're thinking like the, like a business journal kind of thing. Yeah. Call it Los Angeles Business Journal. And, and, but even more so specific, I mean, here in LA we have socaltech.com as an example. It's, it's like a, a tech-focused publication where now I'm living and breathing on that publication because they're putting out every single tech company here in Silicon Beach, which is what we call the local area here, that's doing anything exciting. And when I know they're doing something exciting, I know they can get excited about Namely because we really offer an exciting HR option for exciting companies, companies that are doing great things. So, and that's the case, it was the same case in DC. DC had a similar publication that I followed in Virginia as well. So every day I get, they have daily digests. So I'll receive those digests, I'll look at the headlines, I'll see who's gotten funding. And see who's doing anything of interest. And I'll reach out to those respective individuals on LinkedIn or add them to Salesforce and either ask my SDR to add some folks in from those companies. So that's something that happens every single day without skipping a beat. So you always want to fill the top of the funnel with companies that could be a good fit. And you start to get an idea of who that is as you go on. So even before that, it's starting to just understand who the buyers are, like who is buying your product and knowing very effectively who that is to a very specific degree. I mean, you might have some outliers. For us, we happen to know it's tech media advertising companies where they're investing in their culture that are going to be a great fit for Namely versus sometimes manufacturing or some other type of companies. So I'm investing all of my time and energy on prospecting those specific types of businesses and speaking with those specific types of HR professionals. And then, uh, I would say, uh, following up with those you've already spoken with is gonna be the rest of the day aside from, you know, preset meetings. So the kind of the call between the calls is the way we call it here at Namely. You're gonna want to call anyone you've spoken to in the past or anyone you've reached out to in the past, or you've done a demonstration or onsite meeting with. In the past, follow up with them, whether it's with some sort of social selling component, maybe an article that they published on LinkedIn or something exciting you have to share, or just a simple, hey, it's, it's Colin Specter from Namely. Hope you're having a happy Tuesday. Wanted to follow up and see if you connected further with the team on moving forward with Namely as your next HR solution. And being that friendly reminder, being top of their inbox. Is going to be key day in and day out. And absolutely, I have prospects and now clients comment to me all the time that a big reason that they, that they move forward is because we made it, we made it easy for them. We're always top of their inbox. We're always in their voicemail. So they're not having to dig back through and look for that, that agreement that we sent, you know, 2 weeks ago, but I'm reattaching, I'm resending it to them. So those are the day in and day out. Sort of actions I take.

32:44 Scott Ingram: And Colin, on that daily basis, I mean, how much time are you spending on prospecting? And is there a particular way that you structure your day? Like, is that a block of time that you're doing that prospecting, or is it just kind of intermixed?

32:58 Colin Specter: So I would say more often than not, there is a block of time in the morning, usually 8 to 9 AM. I try and do it before I'll have meeting times. I want to do it ahead of when folks are going to be in the office and when I can actually reach their, their inbox or when I can actually get them on the phone and they'll be in front of their computer. So usually it's going to be between 8 and 9:00 AM or sometime thereafter, but, uh, or, or, you know, so sometimes at night I'll catch up, but then actually add them into the systems in the morning when I first get going.

33:32 Scott Ingram: Nice. And what about the rest of the day? Is that kind of built around meetings or are there other kind of blocks of time that you're really protecting to get kind of core activities done?

33:42 Colin Specter: Yeah. So in my role specifically, I'm building proposals. I'm building presentation decks. I am doing demonstrations of the system for prospective clients. So my days are always packed with either building out those proposals, having the actual meetings with prospective clients, or creating my own kind of calls between the calls times where if I have some downtime, which, you know, isn't, isn't too often, fortunately, I, I've been blessed with a lot of activity, especially being now in Los Angeles here. Uh, tons of activity. Uh, it, it's really filling those gaps with calls between the calls or preset meetings by my SDRs or ones that I've set up or building those proposals or, or benefit summaries and, and things of that nature.

34:31 Scott Ingram: Nice. And we were just talking about the Tim Ferriss Show as I took a break to let the dogs outside who were driving me nuts through the first half of the interview. I'm curious, what does the rest of your information diet look like?

34:41 Colin Specter: Yeah. So, I mean, in, yeah, in the theme of podcasts, absolutely love the Tim Ferriss Show. Uh, from a sales perspective, big fan of Grant Cardone. If you haven't picked up his Closer Survival Guide, by far one of the most valuable audiobooks that I've ever digested as a sales professional. I'd say my first kind of years in the SDR role, or early on, I was just on repeat listening to those closer, those objections to the close over and over and over again. Every objection you can imagine, he runs through and prepares you with some types of response. So it just becomes automatic. So big fans of Tim Ferriss, Grant Cardone, Uh, I mean, I'd say Zig Ziglar, Closing the Sale, Secrets to Closing the Sale, uh, are kind of the kinds of folks I subscribe to.

35:33 Scott Ingram: And it sounds like primarily audio, primarily audio.

35:37 Colin Specter: Uh, I do have, I mean, I, I've read tremendous number of sales books, most of them from a philosophical standpoint. I mean, if you're familiar with like The Greatest Salesman in the World, uh, those types of, those types of books or, or The Little Red Book on Sales. Or The Sales Bible. I mean, I've read tons of sales books. I just find, I mean, especially when I was living in New York, I'd say a lot of it depends on your commute and what you're set up for and what you have time for. In New York, it was easy to pop in my headphones in the subway, listen to the podcast on a daily basis or walking to work. These days, I find it's a mix of podcasts and books that I'm digesting.

36:16 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about tools and apps? What are your go-tos?

36:20 Colin Specter: Yeah. So, I mean, we, we're also blessed with having like a great technology stack. So, uh, early on our, our team made a tremendous investment in sales tools. We were early adopter of some of, uh, the sales tools that have been out there for, uh, a few years now. I mean, tools like ToutApp or, uh, Export to Salesforce, things that can plug into your LinkedIn and export data right into your Salesforce application. So we use, and, and that note, we use Salesforce for Uh, our CRM. So having a, a good CRM system built out, I mean, we've just, I, I've just been really lucky. I mean, we have a team that, that has really built that out well for us, built some great workflows. So I'm living and breathing on Salesforce, LinkedIn, and the other tools that, that communicate data between the two as well. Of course, uh, my email and, and various Chrome extensions that work on there.

37:12 Scott Ingram: Nice. And, and do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

37:17 Colin Specter: So it's hard for me to put my thumb on that because I hear folks subscribing to certain philosophies like Challenger Sale, things of that nature. I'm really kind of a mix, a hybrid of everything. I mean, I love to challenge my prospects, like the Challenger Model, but I'm also a very emotionally driven sales professional, so it's really just a mix depending on On a case-by-case basis. I mean, I can't say I subscribe to anyone. I subscribe to the Colin Specter methodology. I guess I'll have to write my own book on it.

37:54 Scott Ingram: There you go. And I think that's probably more common, right? I think those of us that really are driven, we've consumed a lot of this content and rarely is there, you know, one thing that really describes everything. If anything, I mean, maybe there's a core or a foundational piece that you hang a lot of stuff off of, but then I think at the end of the day, you have to make it your own. It won't work. Work, uh, through, through some other way. So, you know, along those lines, I mean, how, how would you describe your style? Yeah.

38:23 Colin Specter: So, I mean, my style, it's, it's so sales, I look at really like it's, it's an art and a science. I know there's others that have said that in the past. Uh, but, but my style really, uh, each, each new prospective client is, is a new canvas that I get to paint with, uh, through my discovery. Through my initial research about them. So I look at it as a case-by-case basis. I mean, I run everyone through the same kind of process. I'm going to do initial research, ask my set of questions that help me delve deeper into their needs and process, but I'll diverge from next steps depending on how they react, depending on who I'm speaking with. So very adaptive in nature. So I have the science of understanding that sales is very process-oriented. You're taking them through kind of a preset discovery, demonstration, solution proposal, negotiation, and close. Like those are kind of the preset methodology that you're gonna run through, even if it's a 1-day close or not, or a 30-day or 60-day sales cycle or your sales cycle, however long it is, you're gonna run 'em through that process. Uh, but it's, I'd say everything in between that is the art, is the art that the sales professional brings, whether it's, it's through their own emotion or through the wordsmithing that, that they use to kind of script and present, uh, the services and value that they bring.

39:53 Scott Ingram: Cool. Colin, let's talk about motivation a little bit. What motivates you and how do you motivate yourself?

39:59 Colin Specter: So I, I'm a highly competitive individual. I mean, my, my entire life I've, I've been in sports. Uh, but what, what, what I love about sales is it's a team sport, but it's also an individual sport. And in, uh, in my sport career, I was in the track team, which is very similar. Uh, and so I, I, I wanna be the best. And mo… what motivates me every day to continue to consume, to continue to work hard for my prospective clients is, is to be the best in my industry. I wanna be the one everyone knows they can turn to. For services, for advice, for whatever it might be, because they know I will be the expert for them. So that motivates me every day to work hard, to deliver my all to whatever I'm representing. And in this case, I'm representing Namely, and I've completely committed to this company and to the value that I bring to our prospective clients. Uh, and, and it motivates me to stay on top and, and work hard because, you know, as I mentioned before, I'm working like everyone's coming to take it away from me. And I got guys slacking me, uh, you know, Slack messaging me all the time. I'm coming for you, Colin. And it just fuels me and I love it. I love the competition. I love being on top, you know, and if you get knocked off the top, it just fuels that fire more and you can come back for 'em. And at the end of every quarter, There's always a few of us that just grind it, put in the extra mile. Midnight before the quarter ends, who's going to get that last deal in and ring the bell? So, that's really what drives me. I'm just one of those guys that loves to be on top of the game.

41:40 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And it sounds like you do a really good job of being in that position with the bullseye on your back and comfortably kind of keep running in front and using that to drive you. And not getting complacent about it.

41:53 Colin Specter: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you look, I look at professional athletes, you know, even after a championship, look at guys like LeBron James going, I think he was on his Instagram after, after he won his last championship, he was back in the gym training. You know, you, you think about that, like in the last 2 years, I mean, I had the pleasure of being a top for my, for my market and industry. And, and, but knowing, you know, the next day, the quarter just ended, Last week, I was number one for my market for this quarter. But knowing that, I'm hitting the ground running quarter 2. I'm already training, I'm already prospecting, I'm already pushing to get close early and often so that I know I can stay on top of that game.

42:34 Scott Ingram: Nice. And along those lines, I mean, is there something that you believe that the average rep would think is crazy?

42:40 Colin Specter: Yeah, I would say if you're thinking yourself average, I mean, I would say that's crazy in my, my perspective. Uh, you know, average rep, I mean, if your goal's to be the average rep, you will be the average rep. So maybe the average rep sees the conviction that top reps have for the value they bring. And I would say conviction and focus is gonna, you'll find that consistent amongst the top reps, you know, for any company and industry. Maybe the average rep's You know, sometimes you join a company and to you it's, it's just a job. And maybe those average reps think that those performing at the top of their game are crazy because they don't understand how somebody could see it beyond just a job. But that's what will always keep an average rep average, in my opinion. So maybe that's what the average rep believes. It's hard for me to put myself in that mindset because if I didn't believe fully and, and truly in what I was representing, I wouldn't be within the organization.

43:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and I think that's key. That's one, probably one of the most consistent themes of the show is just that belief in the impact and the quality of whatever your solution is. And if you don't have that, you're just not able to communicate that to your clients, and it's going to impact everything. I mean, your, your attitude's going to suck, your win ratio is going to suck, you're just going to suck.

44:01 Colin Specter: 100%. 100%. I mean, the second The second you start to doubt yourself is, you know, look, sales is, it could be an emotional roller coaster. It really is. I mean, I have guys message me, just sales folks, guys and girls messaging me, Colin, I'm in, I'm in a slump. How do you, how do you keep it going? What are you doing? I'm like, get back to prospecting. Get back to your power base. Don't you know somebody that works in HR? Can't you call them on the phone? Search on LinkedIn. It's taking action every single day. Not stopping to say, woe is me. Uh, uh, I'm, I'm in this, I'm in this place. It, it's easier said than done. I mean, when you, when you're feeling emotions in a, a different place, it, it can affect everything else in your life. Uh, but I know that once, I know as you keep busy, when you don't really have time to think about that, if you're taking those kinds of steps, prospecting every day, following up with all of your prospective clients, I mean, there's no time to stop and think and be like, wow, am I average? Wow. Why am I in a slump? Because you're pushing and you're, you're, you're not stopping. You're moving onward and upward from any loss. Uh, it's maybe easier said than done for others, but it's absolutely what's kept me going. I've had plenty of losses in my career, plenty of losses, but, uh, I've had plenty of wins and it's, you know, you miss 100% of shots you don't take. So you gotta take 'em all and, and, and keep moving forward.

45:20 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And, and again, along those lines, what's been the most important decisions you've had to, had to make or lessons you've had to learn along the way?

45:29 Colin Specter: I would say the lessons I've had to learn to get to where I am today, some of the big lessons I've learned are always ask for the order. I mean, that's, I believe, a Zig Ziglar expression, but especially transitioning from the sales development role. I mean, I had the fortune of selling other products early on, but in software as a service sales, in the SDR role, your kind of close is getting the appointment. Uh, but in the account executive role in a complex sales cycle, there's so many questions that come up typically, so many objections that come up typically. The biggest lesson I've learned is at some point you gotta ask for the order. And I, I gotta give credit to kind of the tapes and, and podcasts I've listened to for, from Grant Cardone on this. I mean, there just comes to be a place where you just need to ask the prospect, I mean, are you looking for reasons to make a decision or not make a decision? I think it's time we move forward. Don't you? And you get to that, that place where, uh, that's gotta be the biggest lesson I've learned is you can put your foot down, maybe subscribe to that, that kind of challenger role, but ask for the order at a certain point was a big lesson.

46:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Cool. And so this section is fondly known as, this is kind of the soapbox section. And you, we started down this path a little bit earlier talking about, um, suggesting that people get into the business, but I'm curious about what other advice you might have to somebody who's just starting out in their sales career today.

47:02 Colin Specter: I would say read and consume as much as you can. I mean, there are so many great books out there, but consistently, it's the great kind of folks that I'd say deliver the same kind of messages but in different ways. You just start to consume that information differently. I mean, whether you're reading Tom Hopkins or Brian Tracy or Zig Ziglar. Grant Cardone, Scott Ingram. You gotta consume all of that information early and often and on repeat. I constantly go back and reread and relisten to podcasts and books. And I would say 100% reading is gonna be, and listening is gonna be the key to any career development early on.

47:50 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love, love that. What about more mid-career, right? So somebody, they're a few years in, um, let's say that they're not average, they're, they're above average, but they're, they're not yet Colin. They're not at the top. Maybe they're in the top 10 or 20%. What can they do to kick it into gear and, and get to the top?

48:06 Colin Specter: Yeah, absolutely. So I've heard some of your, your other guests kind of share the same thing. And I, I mentioned it earlier with, uh, SDRs hanging out with with account execs that, that wanna make that jump. It's, I mean, take a look at who are the top, who are the top people on the sales floor or on the leaderboard, and what are they doing that you're not? Maybe they're not the ones sending 10,000 emails a month, but maybe they're sending the right emails to the right people every month. And how do they know who the right people are? So you gotta start thinking strategically, what are they doing different that, that, that I'm not doing? You know, I'm sending, if I'm an average guy or girl and, or average professional, just sending tons of emails, making tons of cold calls, but I'm not getting the same results as the top folks. There's gotta be a more effective solution there. There's gotta be some, some kind of magic or something different, but there's no magic at the end of the day. The, the, but, but figuring out what, what those underlying items are. And in our case, it could be knowing who, who to speak with within the organization, having a great understanding of the decision makers. Within the market you sell to. Um, but, but just to put it simply, like some of your other guests have said, I'd say asking and spending time with those, those top account execs and, and, and really picking at their brain there. Yeah.

49:26 Scott Ingram: Cool. Well, I really appreciate that you've listened to some of the other episodes. Uh, and so along those lines, I mean, you've heard the questions that I asked, you've now been asked most of them. What else would you want to know? Right. If you were in my shoes, what's the question that you would ask that I'm not asking?

49:41 Colin Specter: Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So, uh, so if I wanna know about other top sellers in their organizations, I mean, it's, I, I would say I would wanna ask the same exact questions. I mean, what are they doing day in and day out? I think you are asking some of the, the great questions here, uh, to, to really pull out what they are doing day in and day out. I'd say there might be these very specific kind of action items in their respective industry and roles. But what's kind of the added cherry on top they do to help get a deal over the finish line? That might be a great question. Like, what are some, what are some little extra cherries you've, you've added in or, or extra gems that you've added in to a sales process to help get a deal over the finish line? That might be a cool question that might yield some, some really exciting stories. I mean, if folks had asked me that, you know, I've done everything from deliver a bottle of whiskey to the prospect on site to get the wet signature on paper, to send him flowers, to do all kinds of kind of fun little gems. But I think that might yield some interesting and creative results.

50:47 Scott Ingram: I like that. Good stuff. So, Colin, who is the most successful salesperson you know personally?

50:52 Colin Specter: Most successful salesperson I know personally, it has to be the CEO of our company, Matt Straz. I mean, he sold Namely door-to-door to advertising agencies early on. It was him and basically his first employee/co-founder, Katie, who just took Namely as an idea and sold that idea not only to investors but to early clients who believed in the vision. I mean, when we had no product, And has continued to sell all of us here at Namely on the vision for our service and the vision for our product and sell that same vision to our investors. We've just seen tremendous success over the last several years because Matt is just such a strong sales professional. It's amazing. Being able to work with him and under his guidance has been a phenomenal journey. And in that same vein, he's brought on just fantastic sales leadership, uh, in, in Michael Mann, who's our VP of sales, who has just taken our company to, to the heights that we are today. And, uh, I would say those are, I'd say the kind of key folks that I know personally.

52:10 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And it's so fun when you've got a CEO with sales wiring, cause it absolutely pervades the culture and it impacts a lot of things. And I'll tell you, I mean, there's a couple of times that I've been in those kinds of organizations and it is a ton of fun.

52:26 Colin Specter: It's fun. We've got a really fun organization. It's work hard, play hard. I mean, he just did his 50th birthday at Tao Nightclub and everybody, everybody's having a blast. We're, we're big believers in work hard, play hard, and we, we do a great job for, for our, our prospective clients and our clients and, and the employees. And I, I mean, I'm, I'm continuously sold every day on, on why this is just an awesome place and it, it just helps me sell. I mean, it really, it really does. And as you said, it's pervasive throughout the organization because of that fact.

52:58 Scott Ingram: Very cool. Well, you've done one hell of a job in creating some recruiting propaganda here. I think a lot of people may want to come to work for Namely now. So Colin, we've, we've talked about the whipped cream and the cherry on the top. Now we get to tie a bow on this thing. And you know, the, the idea here is let's try and boil this down and create something actionable, some type of a challenge. That the listener can now do, something that they can start right now, uh, put in place for the next week, the next 2 weeks, the next month, whatever that time interval is, what would you suggest that they do?

53:29 Colin Specter: Yeah. So talking to the sales professional, and I, I give this same advice to, uh, to all, all my colleagues who ask me, what are you doing that I'm not doing? Uh, the challenge I pose to you is every pro… I would subscribe to the respect for your respective market, for your respective industry, subscribe to those newsletters. Prospect every day. So for the next 7 days or 2 weeks, I would absolutely add to the top of your funnel and reach out cold to them. Reach out cold to those prospective clients. I would say maybe give yourself some kind of goal of how many you want to add over the next 2 weeks. Maybe every day add in 2 companies. I mean, that seems like a very easy task to do. Add 2 companies every day for the next 2 weeks. But not only add those 2 companies, schedule an hour every day or every other day to reach out to them, whether on LinkedIn, on email, or on phone. You have different mediums, different channels you can reach out to them. I promise you, you'll yield results. Sales is inputs and outputs at the end of the day. It really is. And you know, you're gonna, you're gonna yield some results, especially if you're putting in the right type of prospective buyers into the top of the funnel. So never neglect the top of the funnel. That's going to be the challenge. And over the next 7 days to 2 weeks, make sure you're adding in, uh, some folks every day.

54:49 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic, Colin. My challenge to the audience is for them to come and check out our Sales Success Community. So we are building a free resource thanks to our sponsor Influitive, uh, at, at, uh, well, let's see, how do you get an invite? You go to top1.fm, uh, and join the news, the mailing list. And as soon as you do that, you'll get an invite, uh, to the Sales Success Community. You can also text if you're in the US, you can text TOP1 to 444999 and get in that way. And it's really just for fans of this show. We're trying to create a lot of bonus content, some things that I just can't share publicly in that community. Great way to engage with other people that are also trying to improve themselves and their sales and folks like Colin. So Colin, thanks again for joining me today. This has been fantastic.

55:35 Colin Specter: Scott, it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on the show and thank you everybody out for listening. Wish you all much success this year. Good luck, and feel free to reach out to me at colin@namely.com if you have any questions or want to connect further. 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.