18: Top Medical Device Sales Consultant - Robbie Siegel of Medline - Relationships, Routines, Challenges and Changes

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.

0:23 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, I'm in Las Vegas with Robbie Siegel. Robbie works in the medical device space with Medline, where he was the Corporate Account Sales Rep of the Year, one of about 150, and one of just 2 reps in the company that sold over $6 million last year. Welcome to the show, Robbie.

0:41 Robbie Siegel: Thank you very much. Glad to be here.

0:42 Scott Ingram: Before we really dig in here, because Robbie's backstory is pretty fascinating, as you can imagine, we'll work like we always do to really front-load the value with my asking Robbie what he believes were the top 3 things that allowed… have allowed him to get to the top and really absolutely crush it last year.

0:57 Robbie Siegel: Well, Scott, thanks for asking. I appreciate it. Um, you know, first and foremost, you know, hard work. I don't think, you know, all the techniques and all the strategies and all the, you know, all the, um, you know, different things that we can implement in our business… if we don't work hard, uh, if we don't do the road work and we don't put in the hours, you know, there's… we're not going to see success. So I once saw, uh, Sugar Ray Leonard speak, and, and it was a What I took away from that was, you know, he just talked about roadwork. You know, no matter how good he was at boxing, he still had to run the miles. He still had to spar. He still had to do every single little thing every day so he knew he would be prepared for the fight. So, you know, first and foremost, that hard work, you know, there's nothing that, you know, you can substitute that for. You know, the second thing I think would be just positive attitude. I think it's very important to love what you do and to enjoy what you do. Uh, that comes out in your interactions with your customers. Um, when you have that, uh, interaction and you have that positive attitude, people want to be around you. They want to spend time with you. Uh, they enjoy, you know, they enjoy your interaction. So I think that's, that's important. Um, nobody wants to work and do business with people that, you know, are always complaining or whining about their personal lives or frustrated over, you know, the processes in their companies and those sorts of things. So I try to eliminate from that that from my speak. And I think lastly and most important is probably what I call self-reflection and analysis. I spend a lot of time trying to look at what I do every day and make sure that what I'm doing is the most efficient and most effective thing I can be doing. I think by nature, we get into just a process and a routine. And sometimes routines can be very good and they're very important in our business, but sometimes we don't want to shake up the routine. We just kind of go about doing the things that we do every single day. We, some of those things are intentional and some of those things are unintentional. It has to do, you know, we develop our day because our kids go to school at a certain time. So, we have to drop them off at school and we do this and we do that. And so, I really spend a lot of time looking back and trying to assess the choices I'm making to what and especially what is taking up the majority of my time Especially my non-selling time. That's, that's when I look back and I reflect and I try to do an analysis. It's what am I spending time doing that's not helping me grow my sales or not making me money, and how can I eliminate that or at least reduce the amount of time I'm doing those things?

3:28 Scott Ingram: Awesome. A good couple of follow-up questions on, on each of those things. Along the lines of the hard work, I'm wondering, is, is there a way that you can sort of quantify that for us? And what is that roadwork for you? Like, what do you see as those core activities that are driving the results that are maybe not directly sort of the, the sale, the actual sales activity, if that makes sense?

3:50 Robbie Siegel: Um, I think a lot of it is, you know, just, just, you know, everything from prospecting. Um, you know, our business changes, and so the way we identify potential new customers, um, you know, spending time trying to do that, spending… once I identify those, you You know, getting out and, and in my business, it would be making the calls, doing the cold calls, doing the follow-up work, doing the thank you emails, doing, you know, writing letters. You know, it's a lost art is writing a personal note and trying to, you know, send nothing stronger than sending a thank you note in, you know, through snail mail as opposed to, you know, so we've gotten so used to email and text, but email and text is somewhat impersonal. Um, and so just, just all those little things, uh, you're not going to be successful if you don't, you know, just put in the hours and put in the hours and the follow-up and all of that.

4:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah. How much of your week or your day is involved in prospecting, and how many letters are you sending or notes are you sending?

4:50 Robbie Siegel: You know, when I was first building my territory, I mean, it was, you know, upwards of, you know, 50 to 70% of my time was know, prospecting and, you know, doing all the follow-up and the thank you letters and all of that. Now that I've established my territory, I've been very fortunate. I had a very fortunate year last year. So, in the past year, that's probably cut down to almost 20%. But as I've kind of… as I stabilize that business, I imagine I'll still probably spend, you know, close to 30%, 40% doing that if I want to continue to grow my business.

5:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Is that a, is that a daily habit, or do you block it in, in different parts of the week?

5:29 Robbie Siegel: No. For me, it's, I mean, it's, it's daily. You know, I try not to, you know, I try not to spend time being a fireman is what, you know, how I was trained. I don't, as much as I can, you know, hey, we all have things that happen where we've gotta jump on the issue, and we've, you know, we have an emergency. But at the same time, I, I understand that just because someone else has an emergency doesn't mean it's my emergency. And I think we can fall into a trap of reacting to every email, reacting to every voicemail. I really try not to do that. And when I see those coming across, I assess them and say, look, is this, you know, is this… are they going to die if they don't, you know, have a response from me in the next hour, you know, by before tomorrow morning? And then probably 90% of the time they don't need that. And that allows me to spend more time doing the real work, the real, you know, prospecting, selling, strategizing. And not so much chasing those things. And I can work on those things at night after my kids go to bed or up in the morning, you know, when, when it's not selling time.

6:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Definitely. And I, I saw something you wrote about some frogs. So I think we'll be talking about frogs here in a little bit. So are there things that you're doing to maintain and enhance just the positive attitude, or is it more being conscious and keeping out the negative? And what, what is that?

6:43 Robbie Siegel: You know, I've… and, and probably no need to talk about it in this podcast, but I lived a very And we're welcome to talk about it. But I lived a very challenged life growing up. I had a lot of adversity in my life, more than you can imagine. And I think when you've have gone through all of that, it's very hard not to have a positive attitude. It's very hard not to have a positive attitude as blessed as I am today. So I think some of it comes from just my history and, and knowing how fortunate I am to to be able to get to wake up every day, have a wonderful family, have a job that rewards me and allows me to do what I want to do every day. And, and I try to keep my head on straight. And, and when I have those moments, you know, where, you know, where you're frustrated and you're angry, we all go through them. I try to, you know, what I call have a little perspective. You know, think about, think about people that have cancer. Think about, I mean, I spend time thinking about, you know, how fortunate we are know, those of us that don't have to deal with some of that adversity in our life.

7:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Absolutely. I wonder how much… maybe we will come back to a little bit of that. How formative was that early experience to kind of the drive and the attitude and the things that you have now that are contributing to your success?

7:58 Robbie Siegel: Extremely. Extremely formative. It's… it gave me an attitude of there's nothing I can't accomplish. It gave me somewhat of a no fear attitude in the sense that I overcame so many things. There's not much, there's not much you can throw at me where I wouldn't, I would worry very much about overcoming those things. It's, it is what it is. I, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be able to overcome just about anything. I've, you know, I, I try not to come across arrogant. There's a fine line between arrogance and confidence, and, and I'm, I'm definitely a very confident person, and I'm sure some people would tell you arrogant, but at the same time, it's, It's just it has a lot to do with kind of everything I've been through in my life.

8:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And then the last piece, and and you said it was the most important. I think it's pretty interesting. I'm curious about what is your process for self-reflection and analysis? How often do you do that? How do you go about kind of thinking about those routines and the things that are that are foundational?

8:56 Robbie Siegel: You know, I I probably try to do it about once every month, where I'll sit back and and you know a simple way to go about doing it is to to just sit back and and try to take a look at. The time you're spending and pick one thing that is gobbling up your time. And so, once a month, I'll take a look at, you know, whether I'm… whether it's because I'm being inefficient in the way I'm organizing my emails or the way I'm taking notes, whether it's just a process that I have at work that I have to deal with. And I challenge people even that I work with, you know, somebody had told me something they were dealing with the other day and I said, you know, what Why don't, why don't you get out of the middle of that? Why don't you just push it to this person? They were like, I didn't know we could. And I said, I don't know that we can, but have you asked? You know, why not?

9:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, that's the question.

9:43 Robbie Siegel: Yeah, I, I'm always asking that. Why can't I do it this way? Or why can't someone else do it this way? Or why can't I get, you know, assistance on this? Or is there a better way to go about doing it? And, and so I, I probably once a month try to analyze that. I, I try to set it up kind of at the beginning of the month. I try to You know, we all kind of get, as the month is getting towards the end and we're closing the month, we're more focused on sales, sales, sales. I close the month and then I try to spend a, you know, a little bit of time at the beginning of each month trying to figure out what's that, what's something that I could improve on. So, and my goal is always the same, to create more selling time. The more I know, the more that I am selling and I am in front of customers, the more I'm going to be able to hit numbers, drive income, drive commissions, everything that I want to do. And Um, that's always the goal.

10:29 Scott Ingram: What's a recent example of that where you, you found something, made a change, and that's kind of freed up something for you? Either a recent one or a really impactful one.

10:37 Robbie Siegel: You know, I had… when I first started with, um, the company I'm with today, um, you know, we're a 100-year-old company. It's a, it's, um, you know, Medline's a fantastic company. It's a family-owned company, 100 years old. Um, but at the same time, being a 100-year-old company, sometimes you have 100-year-old processes. And I found I stepped in at a very high level as a division manager into the company. So, I was not having grown up in the company, I didn't understand the processes very well. And one of… and it was just basically taking it as simple as it is, taking from prospecting an account all the way to closing it and getting it set up in the system and getting the first order and maintaining the account. And I found it to be, you know, very difficult for me to manage because I had not grown up in the company. And not… I didn't know who to email and who to ask for this and who to do this. So, I spent… it probably took me 3 months, but I developed what I referred to as a roadmap to success. And I took every, you know, and I kept modifying it and modifying it to the point where it was a finished document of 25 steps to, you know, making sure there's not an existing account, making sure that it's connected to the right agreements, making sure, you know, those sorts of things. And I produced that and I shared it back with… and I did it for my sales team. I was in a manager role at that time, and I did it for my sales team because as new reps coming in, I could recognize they were struggling with the same thing. And I shared it with them, and then I shared it back with our education teams and our, you know, our, uh, you know, teams that do all the training. And, um, and is now a document that they share with everybody as they're coming through the company.

12:12 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And, and you just alluded to it. I think one of the really interesting things I want to touch on today is the fact that you came from… you spent many years Uh, in sales leadership roles and, and have very recently come back to an individual contributor, uh, opportunity. Talk about what, what led to that decision. Um, and, and I think there's a lot of people that listen to the show that are on that, on that fence, right? I may be a really strong individual contributor. Do I want to go down the, the management track? So talk about just that decision and, and what led to that change for you.

12:42 Robbie Siegel: Yep. Well, my, my background in general was in leadership and, you know, uh, management in a sense that I was a high school teacher. And a football coach, right? So, I've got… and a wrestling coach. So, I've got that coaching mentality and I've got that teaching. So, I fit very well into the leadership role. So, when I started in medical sales, I was within 1 year, I was already pushed into a leadership role and running one of our sales teams. So, I didn't get a lot of time to spend in a true, just being a sales rep role. I spent the next 16 or 17 years doing leadership and management and different sorts of roles. I came to a point in my career where, and it's ironic, I think of this as my selfish time, but I decided to be selfish as far as my career went and pull back and be a sales rep because, for me, it was about my family. I've got, you know, 2 children. I had been doing a lot of traveling over many, many years. One of my children is special needs. And I just said, you know, I want to get back to just, you know, being in charge of myself. Doing what I can do, selling a lot for the company, you know, hitting goals, you know, and, and, uh, and, and reduce it. For me, it was reducing the travel, um, was the most important thing. And luckily, I worked for a company that very much still wanted me to be a part of the company and gave me the opportunity in the role I'm at today. And, um, and we made it work, and it's gone very well.

14:07 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And talk about your role, especially since I'm not really familiar with, with medical device sales, so how that actually works. So give us, give us kind of the background.

14:16 Robbie Siegel: So, what I do, I work for a company called Medline Industries, and Medline is both a manufacturer and a distributor of medical products. In essence, we are the… what I do is I'm the grocery store for a doctor's office. Doctor's office needs everything from needles, syringes, gauze, Band-Aids, gloves, you know, toilet paper, everything they need, and we are, among a few other companies, one of the companies that will be their grocery store. We're kind of a one-stop shop for everything they need. From pharmaceutical products, equip capital equipment, and those sorts of things. Because doctors' offices are different than hospitals. Hospitals have teams of people that acquire those products, but doctors' offices, the same person that orders is the same person that checks the patient in, is the same person that, you know, um, you know, gives the injection and checks the patient out. So, uh, we act more as consultants and, and allow, you know, we're a one-stop shop for all those practices, everything from a physician office to an urgent care, cardiology, specialties, all those different practices.

15:16 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And talk about just the, the territory development process, because you got to this point and got to number 1 in, in really the second year in territory. It sounds like you built it kind of from nothing. So walk us through kind of that start to finish. What was the approach? How did you so quickly build this thing up? Because I would imagine some of those other, you know, 100+ folks have been at this a little more than 2 years.

15:36 Robbie Siegel: Yeah, definitely. Uh, well, and I, you know, I've got an unfair advantage.

15:40 Scott Ingram: I…

15:40 Robbie Siegel: while I've only been at it for 2 years, for you know, 17 years, I trained other people on how to do it. So, um, I had spent a lot of time teaching and explaining, and, and I'm proud of what I've been able to do because, you know, there's a saying out there that says, you know, those who can't do teach. And I always wondered, you know, as much confidence as I have in myself, if I go back in the field, can I really pull this off? Everything I've been telling is… is what I've been telling people for 17 years, is it the right thing? Yeah, is it really the right thing? And I'm about to find out when I step back in the territory. And so You know, I took the things that I had been teaching for many, many years and I applied them. And, you know, probably the single biggest factor in my quick success is developing relationships. You know, relationships with people that were already successful. You know, in our world, we deal with the, you know, GPOs and the sales reps for GPOs, which have a lot to do with how our customers determine which distributor they're going to work with. And so, I networked very much with the successful people. In my market. And I'd let them know I had arrived. And that might sound, you know, a little bit arrogant, but I told them my background and said, you know, this is what I'm doing and I'm doing this for my family. And I highly suggested they get on board with working with me because someone's going to get on board working with me in this market. And I recommend you do that. And they could tell from my background, my education, you know, how much time I had been in the industry that they would want to partner with me. And so, I found colleagues that would want to partner with me, you know, other vendors that would want to partner with me, and eventually led to many, many customers wanting to partner with me.

17:22 Scott Ingram: So, it sounds like it was really a process of selling yourself, right? It was, this is a relationship with me. I'm going to be somebody who's going to take care of you. Of course, I've got a great company and a great product line behind me, but at the end of the day, I'm the one that's going to deliver for you. Yep.

17:38 Robbie Siegel: It was a combination of that. And also, while I work for a great company, the company I work for is somewhat new. In the physician office space. So, there was a piece of also developing some confidence in those, with those other people that, you know, we can pull it off in this space as well. We were very successful as a manufacturer in hospitals, in surgery centers, but we were new in this space. And so, I, I had to make sure, you know, using my background and, and giving them the, you know, explaining to them that, that if, if we weren't gonna be successful in the space, then I wouldn't have chosen to be a part of this company in this space. I, I, you know, I, I have options and I could have done a lot of different things. And And I very strategically chose this role.

18:18 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Talk about what, what is the relationship development piece for you? How, how are you starting that? How are you thinking about maintaining those and growing those relationships over time?

18:30 Robbie Siegel: The strategy there is, you know, I'm, you know, a lot of people refer to me as intense, and one of the reasons I'm intense is because I just, I view time as our most valuable resource. So when I think about developing those relationships, I am really thinking about I need to be successful. I need to be successful as fast as possible. Um, and I strategically target those types of relationships. Like, who am I going… you know, I think the more important part than how I'm going to develop those relationships are who am I going to build those relationships with, um, and who am I going to partner with and who, you know, because no matter what we're selling, there are generally other companies or groups that were involved within that process. And so, you know, my first step was figuring out who do I want to, you know, stand next to in my sales calls and partner with and do those things. And once I did that, it was, you know, just spending a little bit of time. And luckily, because of my many years in the industry, you know, people knew that, you know, they were betting on me. They were betting on me that I would be successful And if I'm successful, then they're going to be successful because I'm a lot of times promoting their products or promoting their companies along with my own. So, it was really like we said before, you know, selling myself and selling what really, you know, selling what I'm going to be doing, right? I kind of, I made it feel like, and I believed it entirely, that it's a foregone conclusion that I am going to be highly successful in this market. Do you want to be successful with me or not?

20:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah, well, and, and it's almost a qualifying process around that who. So I mean, were there particular criteria you were looking for? Because at the end of the day, it's who, who am I going to invest the time with to build those relationships? And you can't do it with everybody. So how are you making some of those decisions?

20:22 Robbie Siegel: I think probably the same way I'm asking them to make the decision about me. I was looking at who is successful you know, what companies were successful in this market already, um, what people were successful in this market already. Obviously not my competitors, but people that would be viewed as partners and, and strategically targeting those people to say, I'd like to be successful with you as well.

20:44 Scott Ingram: Awesome. You know, so let's talk about a little bit more detail around the origin story and how you got into sales. You said you were a high school teacher and coaching and some other things there. And maybe this is a good point to just insert. I don't think we need to go super deep, but I'm curious about some of that… what was my word? Kind of foundational adversity that you faced.

21:06 Robbie Siegel: Yeah. Well, I mean, the adversity, I'll make it quick, but I had 2 parents that were hippies in the '70s and got involved, too involved into drugs. And so, I have 2 parents that were very much into drugs. And it's ironic when we see the growth of heroin today, but they were the original heroin group back in the '70s, late '60s, '70s. And eventually, my… not because of that, but my mother developed multiple sclerosis. And so, as she developed MS, she realized she needed family support. Parents split. And when I was 7 years old, I was living with my mother who was for the most part, fully handicapped, legally blind from the time I was 7 until, you know, I, you know, until I was older. And I had to grow up. I did everything for the family and, you know, everything from, you know, making money as a kid, you know, selling newspapers and delivering newspapers and working door-to-door sales even when I was, you know, 12, 13 years old, those sorts of things. And, you know, I, um, You know, I think very much our success in life is determined by what we do, what we choose to do. But there are some things where, you know, I'm not an extremely spiritual person, but I thank God. And I thank God for 2 things in my life, among other things, but 2 major things in the development of my life. And one was that I was a very good athlete. Because I was a very good athlete as a child, coaches and teachers wanted to be a part of my life. They wanted me on their sports teams, and they So, they would pick me up and they would take me home and they would take me to their houses for dinner and I would spend the night with their kids. And so, I had a lot of that in my life. And I think the other thing is that I very much thank God that, you know, I'm highly intelligent. I chose to become a teacher out… so, because of the mentoring of many teachers and many coaches, I wanted to be a teacher and a coach. So, I went to school to be a teacher. I was a mathematics teacher. That was what my major was for 4 years. And when I became a teacher, I really understood that not everybody was created equal when it came to intelligence. I always thought prior to me being a teacher that some people just worked harder than others. And when I became a teacher, I had students in my class that worked very, very hard, and it did not come as easy for them as others. And I recognized that, you know, I was blessed to… for things to come very easy for me in regards to just just conceptually understanding those sorts of things. But at the same time, that's when I really learned to respect the fact that you don't have to be that person. You can just work very hard. So, those 2 things helped develop, you know, somewhat, and that my upbringing and having to deal with all the adversity in my upbringing, some, you know, a semblance of confidence that after going through all of that and working as a child and I ended up with, I ended up with a 4.4 GPA in high school, captain of the wrestling team, you know, on the football team, all-county, all those things. And I ended up with a full academic scholarship to college. So, I went to college and, you know, spent 4 years at Florida State University. And, you know, that was kind of the background. So, coming out of that, you know, just kind of getting in back to your question about, you know, the background of my history is is that was, you know, having gone through all of that, it makes it very easy for me to take a look at whatever I have to accomplish and feel like this is nothing. This is, you know, whatever I've got. If I've got to build a new territory, I'll build a new territory. If I've got to switch companies, I'll, you know, I'm happy where I'm at right now, but someday, you know, I'll always be able to handle whatever adversity's thrown at me.

24:53 Scott Ingram: Yeah, very cool. And take this however you want. I think we may want to put a little bit of the lens on, you know, was going down the sales leadership track, you know, the right path early on. Um, I mean, if you were starting over today, yeah, at whatever point, would you have made some different decisions kind of knowing what you know now?

25:13 Robbie Siegel: You know, I don't think so. I'm not a big… um, I'm not big at looking back in regards to, you know, regrets and those sorts of things. And I, and I like that, um, hey, whatever happened in the past has formed who I am today. So I don't think I would have done anything differently. The company I worked for, um, you know, allowed me to become a leader very early. I developed a lot of skills, uh, in managing and coaching and teaching people doing that. Um, a lot of the skills that I had as a teacher, you know, I was able to apply to that role. Um, when I felt like I was done with that role, I went and did a startup where I had to, you know, hire… I was a VP of sales and marketing, had to hire a national sales force. Um, got to work with some absolutely amazing people. I, uh, the chairman of our board was John Sculley. The ex-CEO of Apple. So, I know John Sculley very well, stayed at his house, worked in the technology, like medical device technology sector. And so, I just think, I don't think I would do anything differently. I've really enjoyed, you know, all the different roles I've played. And I think, you know, the advice I would give to anybody in that is don't do anything for other people. Do it for you. Do what's best for you at the time it's best for you. So, there was a time when being in leadership roles was what was best for me, and they were, they were great things to go through, and I enjoyed it. And at this time in my life, uh, I just made the decision it would be best for me to be in a sales role, uh, and, and I'm loving every minute of it and, and enjoying the accomplishments I'm, I'm having as a salesperson.

26:44 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Is there a favorite sales story that, that you have? Maybe it was a, a sale that you, that you won, maybe that you lost that has also been just very instructive as, as you've gone through all of this?

26:59 Robbie Siegel: Probably the, the one that I'd… it's a recent one in the past year that, that led to a lot of the accomplishments that I had, you know, in 2016. And I… we partner with a company called Welch Allyn. And Welch Allyn, among other things, makes a lot of products for vision, vision screening, vision diagnosis. And, and they had recently released a new product that had to do with diabetic retinopathy. You know, and this is a major problem. And one of the reasons I'm proud of it is because I really do believe there's a lot of things we sell. And one of the reasons I enjoyed being a teacher is I enjoyed making a difference. In my role today, there are things that I can introduce to clinics and to doctors' offices that can make a difference for them and make a difference in a patient's life. So, one of my large customers is a customer by the name, you know, it's a part of UnitedHealthcare called Optum. And Optum is…

27:52 Scott Ingram: One of my clients as well. I know them quite well. Yeah.

27:54 Robbie Siegel: So, I handle Optum mostly here in the Las Vegas market, but somewhat around the country as well. And they were struggling with getting patients, all patients that are diabetic. Diabetes leads to blindness. And the reason diabetes leads to blindness is because it leads to what's called diabetic retinopathy, where their eyes get, you know, potentially cloudy. And as a diabetic patient, they tell you every single year you should go to the ophthalmologist to have this test done. But as anyone will tell you that deals with diabetic patients, there are so many things going on. They don't wanna go to more appointments. And so, a lot of times, they don't go to those appointments. That's a problem for the health system because they need those results. It's a problem for the patient because they're eventually gonna go blind if this goes undiagnosed. And we were able to put this equipment, you know, it was a tune of close to half a million dollars of equipment in all of their facilities in, in the Las Vegas market so they could do this screening while the patient was there in the office and didn't have to go have another appointment at another doctor's office, you know, have to figure out a way how to get there, those sorts of things. And, and it made a big difference to Optum because they can now hit the measures thing in our industry called HEDIS, and they could hit their HEDIS measures because they were able to get those results where before they weren't able to track them down if they went or didn't go. And even if they did go, could they get the results back from the ophthalmologist? So it made a tremendous difference in the lives of many you know, of my customer being able to hit their marks, but more importantly, in the lives of those patients that, that hopefully we, you know, preventing someone from, from going blind that didn't need to go blind.

29:28 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So really, it sounds like just thinking big picture, thinking about the solution and, and what's gonna, what's gonna impact that patient, that practice.

29:36 Robbie Siegel: In that example, I, you know, I introduced the product from the ground up. They didn't know the product existed. They didn't know it was available for their clinics. Doing everything from the, the prospecting to the ground up to finding the right people to talk to within the health system, all the way to the end, to the implementation. So, you know, a lot of times we sell products that somebody inquires with us, do you have this or do you have that? This was an example where I actually went to them with the concept. So it was very fulfilling.

30:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, and obviously, as a story of this, you're not just sitting back and order taking. You're really taking solutions and being proactive and building those relationships that are making a difference. Awesome. So we talked about the adversity in your childhood. What about through your sales career? Like, what has been the hardest part, um, that, that you've had to work through, and whether it's this role or, or through some of your previous leadership experience?

30:30 Robbie Siegel: You know, I, you know, just based on what we've talked about before, there's not a lot of things that, that I have looked at and I've been like, you know, what am I going to do? What am I going to do, you know, with the, with the adversity? But I think in general, um, The, the hardest thing to deal with is that, you know, we, we go to work either in a… with a company or in a job or in a role, and today it looks like this, and, and tomorrow, you know, a year or 2 from now, it changes. Some people would probably look at that as adversity, and they would get frustrated. And, you know, when I first started this, it was like this, and now because either of an acquisition or just because new laws have passed or those sorts of things, That's probably, you know, I, you know, there's a terrible book out there called Who Moved My Cheese, which they should just have it as one sentence. You know, things are going to change. You have to change also.

31:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Deal.

31:21 Robbie Siegel: If you don't change and you don't deal with it, then you're gonna starve. And so that's probably the, the adversity that I've had to deal with is just understanding that, you know, the, the company I was at before Medline was a fantastic company. That was the company that was a startup. It was, you know, called Watermark Medical. We… I loved what I was doing, but at some point, the company went in a different direction than the original foundation of the company. And really, the same thing happened in my original company called PSS World Medical. I think a lot of people, when that happens, they get angry, they get frustrated, they get, you know, sour and bitter and those sorts of things. And I don't. I just say, well, That's what's best for the company. That doesn't mean it has to be what's best for me. And so, at that point, that's when I began looking for another opportunity. And sometimes, what is best for the company, I think the changes that were made at PSS World Medical when I was there were good for the company. They had to make those changes at that time. But it doesn't have to mean that it was best for me at that time. And that's why I moved on. And so, you know, I think that's, I would describe that as adversity. But to me, it's just, you know, somebody's moved the cheese. It's time to move on.

32:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Cool. So let's, let's kinda deep dive into some of the habits and routines and, and things like that. So one of the things I've, I've learned to kinda qualify as we get into this piece is, are, are you more of a morning person or are you a night owl?

32:45 Robbie Siegel: I'm both.

32:47 Scott Ingram: So you don't sleep?

32:48 Robbie Siegel: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I mean, I'm up very early in the morning doing work before, you know, if I can quantify that as anything, what I'll tell you is I'm a family person. And because I'm a family person, my family is typically up and active and doing things very much throughout the day. You know, and obviously, they have school and those sorts of things. But I, I get a lot of work done before my kids are awake. I get a lot of work done after my kids are asleep. All that kind of non-selling follow-up work, the follow-up emails, the, you know, running of reports or whatever I've gotta do, I try to do that either in the early morning hours and the after, you know, after the kids go to bed hours. And I probably live on 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night. I take my kids to school every single day. There are many days I'm picking, you know, them up from school. And, you know, that's just a choice I have made that I'm going to… I don't work from, you know, 8 to 5. A lot of times, I will spend time, you know, throughout the day participating in their lives, and then I'll put in more roadwork before or after hours to do that. So, I choose to make that the priority, you know, and that's why I chose the role I'm in right now so I could be a bigger part of their lives.

33:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. So it sounds like, you know, you're having success all the way around. This isn't just you're crushing it on the sales side, but the contribution you're making to your family and that priority is awesome. So let's take each of those pieces. What does the morning look like? How much time do you have kind of in that block? How are you structuring that kind of process-wise?

34:19 Robbie Siegel: Yeah. You know, as I said, I try to spend about 2 hours in the morning. So I'm usually working, you know, about from 6 to 8 in the morning. Morning, you know, just, just doing, um, you know, morning routines. Um, I, right now I'm spending more time on email and those sorts of things and follow-up in the morning than I would like to. There are times, and, um, as I said, I like to kind of challenge the way I'm doing things, and there are times where I kind of will start to challenge what I'm doing. And I've had times where it's just an, it's an unfortunate part of my, of what I'm dealing with right now. I've got a little bit more follow-up than I like. And so I'm having to spend more time doing that. But ideally, there have been times where I try to spend, you know, some time in the morning either reading, you know, reading something that's motivational, you know, those sorts of things, reading a book, you know, those, you know, try to spend a little time getting my head on straight in the morning as well. I think sometimes when we just dive into emails first thing in the morning, you know, we can be frustrated by 7:30. We don't wanna go to work. You know? So there's I'm constantly challenging that and, um, you know, depends on, you know, what I have on the plate at the time.

35:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah, kind of avoiding the other people's priorities that we were… yeah, we were talking about earlier. So I saw you made a comment, um, maybe on LinkedIn about eating 3 frogs before… yeah, opening email. Talk about that.

35:39 Robbie Siegel: Yeah, I had a good friend post an article about, um, you know, just high things that highly successful people do. And so, you know, talking about, you know, what do, what do I spend, you know, I'll read those things. I wanna read, you know, what other people are doing. It's one of the reasons I'm sitting here today is to be a part of this, to, to not only share with the things that I'm doing, but hopefully learn more about the things that other people are doing. And, and in that article, I think it's from Mark Twain, talked about, you know, there's a quote, famous quote from Mark Twain that was in there about if you eat 3 frogs, you know, before breakfast, everything will taste better the rest of the day kind of thing. And then the concept behind it was I think by nature we all want to procrastinate on the more difficult projects we have. It's a lot easier to answer a one-line email, to delete an email, to call somebody back and have a quick conversation than to tackle that big project. So, the eating 3 frogs before breakfast concept was, hey, before you get to all those easy things, you know, pick a couple of the projects and maybe it's just something that's going to require you to make 3 or 4 phone calls and, and have to, um, you know, do a little research and, and craft together a nice email and, and attachments. And it's just not something I can quickly respond to. But it's that thing that sits out there for weeks and weeks and weeks because you don't want to tackle it because it's legitimately going to take…

37:04 Scott Ingram: it's going to be hard.

37:05 Robbie Siegel: It's going to be hard, and it's going to take you not answering your phone and not looking at your email, and you need to just dive into this thing for a good hour and you can knock it out. And so it's, uh, I thought it was a great suggestion to just before you get to any of those other things, just dedicate yourself to doing that, you know, first thing in the morning and getting it knocked out.

37:24 Scott Ingram: Nice. So what about the evening process and when are you working out in this? Because clearly you're working out at some point during your day.

37:30 Robbie Siegel: Yeah. Um, so the working out piece gets back to family. So my, my daughter is, uh, you know, I encouraged her to be involved in swimming and she's on a swim team. So, I had her be on the swim team that is at a local gym. So, um, I took her 3 days a week, you know, sometimes 4 days a week for swimming. And when she's at swimming, I'm working out. So, um, you know, just trying to… you know, it was funny, I, I met… I was getting a smoothie for my daughter the other day, and there was somebody, you know, somebody from a different gym advertising their new gym they're opening. Um, and he said, well, what are your you know, what are your fitness goals? And my response was, you know, survival, you know, not having a heart attack, not diabe… you know, avoiding diabetes. You know, I'm not trying to, um, you know, I'm not trying to, uh, win any awards or run triathlons or do any of those things. But, um, you know, because of the situation with my family, I want to be a part of their lives as long as I can. And I think it's important to have fitness involved. And so, you know, just, just trying to I've worked that. There's a, there's a great book out there. The name of the book escapes me for a second. I'll try to remember it. Oh, the, the, I think it's called The Power of Full Engagement. But I'll, I'll get the information to you if you want. But the, you know, in the book, it talks about rituals and habits. And it's very interesting. And it talks about, it takes you through, and it, it kind of circles back to what I'm talking about as the things that are bogging you down or the things that are eating up your time. In this book, it focused on the things that are kinda draining your energy. And the… and, and what it eventually got to is I want you to identify those things in the way you wanna live. And, you know, it broke it down into 4 categories. It was, you know, physical, mental, spiritual, you know, those sorts. There was a 4th one. But what it talked about is once you've decided, look, this is what you want and this is what you want out of life and those sorts of things, What it got to was what they called rituals and habits. And it said, you know, habits are things that we do on a day-to-day basis. They're just habits. And whether we like it or whether we realize it or not, they were formed by rituals. And sometimes, most of the time, our habits are formed by rituals that we didn't decide on. Our kids got to be at school at a certain time. Our… we eat dinner at our… my wife gets off of work. It's, you know, at a certain time. And so, we develop these kind of habits based around unintended rituals. And what this book explained was, you know, look, if you want to change that and you want to have a habit in your life, then be very specific with your rituals. Create the rituals, write those rituals into your daily routine, because if you do that and force yourself to do it over a long, long period of time, then it will become a habit. And so, knowing that I wasn't working out enough and those sorts of things, then, you know, I said, let's, let's get, you know, she was interested in swimming and get her on a swim team. And it made me commit myself to going to… and now, it's become somewhat of a habit that, look, I'm gonna work out. These are the hours I work out. And I think even if she wasn't on the swim team, I would be able to continue that because it's now a habit in my life.

40:46 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So, first, just context. How old are your kids?

40:51 Robbie Siegel: A 6-year-old and a 14-year-old.

40:53 Scott Ingram: Okay. And what are the other habits and routines that, that you've sort of built into your day that, that have become part of you?

41:02 Robbie Siegel: You know, they're… most of them are just around being efficient with, you know, with, you know, with follow-up and with… I find it difficult with today's day and age in regards to everything from email, social media. You know, everybody expects a quick response. Right? We don't live in a world where even getting back to somebody the next day is okay any longer. So some of those habits and rituals are just about, you know, not at the same time, we don't wanna live our lives by just staring at our email all day waiting for an email to come in because somebody expects a quick response. So, you know, I've, I've just developed some routines about, you know, only checking emails at within certain hours and within certain ranges. Once I, You know, I try to do that all in the morning, or I try to do that in my evening routine. But once I get out in the field, I try not to respond to any emails that I consider… you know, there's the chart I'm sure most of us have seen in our careers, the important versus urgent, you know. And, and I try very much not to respond to anything while I'm out in the field engaging customers and working with customers unless it is genuinely a true emergency and fire. And You know, most of the time we can't have an impact on the results of that anyway for, for 24 hours. So it's okay if I get to it 4 hours later. And, um, no, I think those are just some of the things that I've tried to implement.

42:28 Scott Ingram: And I wonder if that is maybe something all of us should be thinking about a little bit more. I, I think of that in just in terms of being present. You know, if you're setting aside, I know that I'm going to go check in and deal with email and some of those channels at this time. And when I'm in the field, I'm just with my customer. I don't need to worry about pulling out my phone every time it beeps, buzzes, or does whatever it does. I mean, is, is, are you thinking about that or is it just sort of a side effect?

42:53 Robbie Siegel: Yeah, very, very much. Uh, and, and I think a place where people can, can slip up there is they can assume because their customer might be acting differently that it would be okay for them to act differently. So just because you're standing in front of somebody and they're looking at their phone and they're not giving you their full attention, Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you shouldn't do this, that you should act the same way.

43:16 Scott Ingram: That's not an appropriate time to match and mirror their behavior. Right?

43:19 Robbie Siegel: Right. Right. So, I mean, be like you said, be present and be a part of that. You know, and I think, you know, I wouldn't, you know, necessarily remind them that they're not being present. Sure. But at the same time, maybe, maybe they'll eventually match and mirror your behavior and, you know, those sorts of things.

43:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Cool. What does your information diet look like? What are you reading, listening to, watching?

43:42 Robbie Siegel: You know, I, I don't… I wish I had more time to do some of that, to be, to be brutally honest with you. I, I, I just started following a blog from a gentleman at salesforce.com that writes kind of a daily, just a daily success blog by the name of Colin Nanka, I believe is his last name. And, and he's writing some interesting stuff. So I'm trying to pick up on just little things like that. You know, that are just more positive attitude, successful things like that. At the same time, I'm reading, you know, my, my older daughter does have some special needs, is in the autism world. So I just finished a book, you know, very much about, you know, what she's going through and potentially how to be a bigger, you know, a bigger resource and, you know, a better parent for her. Most of what I'm, most of what I'm reading and spending my time doing is not related directly to just my career. Is more related to me as a person and me as a father and as a fam… you know, some things for my family. I think, um, I know that if I'm better in that part of my life, I'll be better for all of my customers. And so, I spend more time trying to be a better father and family person, um, you know, and husband and those sorts of things because if I'm successful there, I've got a happy life, I've got a happy wife, right? Everything's gonna bleed into being able to do my job much better and take care of my customers. Customers the best I can.

45:10 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And those couple of things that you mentioned, we'll be sure to link those up in the show notes. So I've lost track of what episode this is going to be, but if you go to top1.fm, or you can also text if you want to get on our mailing list, if you text TOP1 to 444999, that works in the US, you can get on that list that way as well. Are there particular tools or apps or other kind of technologies that you're using that are core to the way that you're functioning? Yeah.

45:37 Robbie Siegel: I mean, I am a big fan of technology without a doubt. The, a simple app that I don't know how everybody in the world doesn't have the app is the one that I might… my favorite is TurboScan. If you don't have a scanner app on your phone that turns it into a PDF and allows you to modify it, those sorts of things, and I, I shake my head. You know, I, I think you should have, even if your company doesn't offer it, I think you should have some sort of CRM. That you're working with. Most companies are offering it at this point, but, you know, staying organized and having some sort of, you know, customer relationship management program. There are free ones out there that if your company doesn't offer it, you could do it yourself. But, but keeping that updated. I was very early in the technology world. I went all the way back to, like, the original Treo phone.

46:28 Scott Ingram: With, with the, the funky letters you had there?

46:30 Robbie Siegel: The funky letters and the sound.

46:31 Scott Ingram: Oh, no.

46:31 Robbie Siegel: Wait.

46:31 Scott Ingram: I'm thinking Palm Pilot. Sorry. I'm on the wrong…

46:34 Robbie Siegel: I'm on the wrong track. PalmPilot was a phone and it had like a heart. It was almost like an original before the BlackBerry.

46:39 Scott Ingram: We're totally dating ourselves, Robbie. This is not good.

46:40 Robbie Siegel: Yes. And, um, but, but I understood the concept of if I put the effort in the front side and put my data in electronically and I put my information in and I take the time to input all of the information it takes more time on the front, but on the back side, it's going to help me so much more, uh, be organized and strategic in what I'm doing and be able to get resources and run reports. So I'm a big fan of using whatever CRM your company offers. Um, you know, you taking a, you know, taking a look at all the apps that are available out there, um, you know, using the apps on your… if you're, if you're using a CRM, there's probably an app for that CRM. There's probably a business card app that will… you can take a picture of it and it'll load it into your CRM, you know, those sorts of things.

47:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, one that I've been using for years and it's so good, it's invisible. I'd forgotten about it. So, we're here in Vegas because I was in town for a conference. I haven't been outside in 4 days. But, you know, I've got a lot of clients and other folks that I've been working with where text is a much better channel than email or just the phone to be able to coordinate and get together. And I realized I've been using an app called Evercontact. And what Evercontact does is it looks at the details that are in somebody's email signature, grabs all that information, and automatically adds it into the contacts in your phone. That thing saved my life about 3 times this week. And again, it just, it runs automagically in the background. So, wanted to give that Evercontact shout out there. And again, I think it's finding some of those just core basic things that, and tracking that information.

48:19 Robbie Siegel: If you go back to the concept earlier that I spoke of, of what's taking up my time, and a good example would be…

48:27 Scott Ingram: and that's stupid, I don't want to type in freaking phone numbers.

48:29 Robbie Siegel: At some point in your career, you were probably spending time searching, like, how I'm… I, I can't find this person's information, I can't find this person's information, I can't find… and you're searching old emails and you're searching all that kind of stuff. And if you… and, and you, you know, whether you did it consciously or not, you were mentally said, I'm spending too much time doing this. Is there a better way? And that's when an Evercontact comes into play and says, you know what, I could reduce, you know, if I take the time to implement this app and start using it, I potentially can reduce 2 hours a week that I'm spending searching emails for somebody's email address, cell phone number, you know, whatever it might be.

49:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, exactly.

49:12 Robbie Siegel: Yeah.

49:12 Scott Ingram: Well, and when you're doing… I meant to ask this earlier… when you're doing sort of that self-reflection and analysis process that we talked about before, are you, over the course of the month, are you kind of capturing things that, you know what, I need to think about this when I, when I do this review later in the month? Are you ever kind of noticing those, those things that are popping up, or you just remember?

49:30 Robbie Siegel: And what I typically will do is just immediately type it. That's… I think that's a lost art of putting things down on paper or in notes or those sorts of things. We… they cross our minds, and there's, you know, we get into kind of… we're talking about that habits and rituals, and, and get into the habit of every time something crosses your mind like that… I think it does for all of us. I don't think anybody is unique, right? I can't believe I'm dealing with this. I wish there was a better way. Stop at that moment, however you want to go about doing it… typing an email to yourself, having a notepad, Write it down so you come back to it later. Because what, what 95% of people out there do is it crosses their mind and they never do anything about it.

50:12 Scott Ingram: Yep. And they forget it.

50:13 Robbie Siegel: And they forget about it until the next time it happens. And then they say, yeah, it just happened again. How annoying. And they don't do anything about it. And it's the upper 5% that, that take a look at those things and somehow create a habit to put it down somewhere, to, you know, put it on a calendar. I wanna do something you know, I'm gonna figure out, is there a solution for this? And then turn… and eventually, that becomes a… the habit will turn in… I'm sorry. Make it a ritual.

50:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

50:40 Robbie Siegel: And the ritual will turn into a habit that that's just how you'll live your life is you will constantly, you know, it'll become a part of your life in the fabric.

50:48 Scott Ingram: I was, I was really influenced. My process has evolved a lot since I, I first read this book. And actually, I didn't read it. I thought the book was a lot worse somehow or other. I listened to, I swear it must have been a 2-day conference presentation by David Allen who wrote Getting Things Done. And he, one of his things is you just get everything out. You've got to capture that information, but then you also need a system to process that information. So, you know, one of the things that I do where it comes up, and I think this is universally applicable, where things that I need to talk to my boss about, I just, I have a running list and it has all of the agendas for all of our one-on-ones that we've had. It's just sort of a running list. And as things are popping up, I just add add that to the list. So when it, you know, next Tuesday when we talk again, oh cool, I remember I need to ask him about these 5 things, or here's a couple of things that I need some help with. Same thing with, with my clients, you know, with, with my very largest client, I have a weekly cadence with our executive sponsor, and I'm just over time building that list as things kind of pop into…

51:47 Robbie Siegel: yeah, if you think about how many times you engage somebody, whether it be a colleague, a boss, uh, you know, a customer, and they say, you there was something I wanted to talk to you about. And you hear that, and, and it's because they don't… haven't built a ritual and turned it into a habit of what you just described, of saying, hey, you know, I, I've, I've got a note on my phone, a notepad on my phone, or whether it's a handwritten notepad, whatever you wanna do. I recommend trying to stay electronic in today's day and age. But for sure. But, you know, whatever, turning it into that, you know, making sure you have a place for those kinds of things. The book, by the way, I remember the name of the book is The Power of Full Engagement.

52:24 Scott Ingram: Okay.

52:25 Robbie Siegel: Called The Power of Full Engagement. I, I don't know the author, but, um, excellent. It's a difficult read, um, but if you go through it, I mean, it really breaks your life down into 4 specific categories, and it makes you really look back at, you know, the way you're doing things and the things that are draining your energy and the things that are draining your time. And then it literally will take you how to change that.

52:45 Scott Ingram: Nice.

52:46 Robbie Siegel: Great book.

52:46 Scott Ingram: Robbie, is there, is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

52:51 Robbie Siegel: You know, in the companies I've worked for, um, the first company I worked for, we had what was called impact selling, um, which impact stood for investigate, meet, probe, apply, convince, tie it up. Um, I've seen SPIN selling out there. I've seen all of that. Um, you know, I, I think some of those selling strategies, there's nothing wrong with them because it's just a process to take you through the right way to do things. Um, there's, there's 2 things that I would tell you are critically important, and one of them follows the other one. If you're genuinely doing it right. And the most important thing is that, that if you, you know, let me take it one step back. When I first got… when I was deciding to go into sales, um, I was very hesitant. And the reason I was hesitant is I've told you a little bit about my background. Well, my father was as used car salesman as it gets. He literally was a used car salesman, and he was everything that was bad about used car salesmen. And when I thought about going into sales, it made me very nervous. And I have a good friend who works for, you know, I don't compete with him directly, but works for a competitor by the name of Tom Davidson. And Tom was a friend of mine from college, and he was anything but what I would consider to be a salesman as far as his style. And I remember calling him when I was getting ready to leave teaching, and he asked… and I asked him, I said, you know, Tom, I just didn't think you would be interested in sales and would be successful at sales. And his comment to me was, You know, if you do what's best for the customer and you're genuinely looking out for what's best for your customer, he goes, look, you will lose some battles, but you will win the war. And his point was, you know, there's always gonna be people out there that are gonna oversell and talk too much. And, you know, and sometimes they're gonna be convincing because they're willing to say things that are not necessarily true, and a customer will bite off on that, and you might lose that battle, but in the end, you'll win the war. And so, So I think if the… no matter what, you know, process you're using, if your process includes genuinely doing what's in the best interest of your customer, okay, you're not going to fail. And the piece of that that's in every sales process and program that's out there is asking what we called probing, which is asking open-ended questions. And if you're genuinely trying to do what's in the best interest of the customer, that is the only thing you would ask. So you would all… you wouldn't ask leading questions because if you're asking leading questions, you're leading them to what's in your own best interest. And so I think that's the, the… what, no matter what system you're using, doing what's best for your customer and asking them open-ended questions. And I think the mistake that a lot of people make in this is they get too narrow. Stay very, you know, people ask me what's my favorite, you know, question to ask when I'm kind of just first going into an office and you know, and I'm having a first discussion with maybe a, you know, a CEO or CFO or chief medical officer. And my question is always the same, would be, you know, there's a lot of changing going on with healthcare. How is that impacting your, your practice? That's… that couldn't be any more global, high level. I want to know what is going on in their world and, and then potentially apply whatever I have to try to make it better for them. And, and, and along the way, I'm probably gonna end up selling them something. Because what I have is, is they're going to have to pay for, but it'll make it better in their world.

56:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. Are there any other just favorite sales questions that you have to help guide that conversation? And I, and I want to acknowledge, and I just, I love that you shared that. I think there continues to be just such a misconception about what sales really is. It's not, you know, successful sales, you know, here I am talking with an individual in a single geographic territory that sold $6.4 million, and he's not wearing an awful coat, and, you know, there's not ooze coming out of him in kind of the process, right? So, what are… are there any other questions that you really like to ask that open up that what's really right for the customer?

57:03 Robbie Siegel: I don't know. What I probably want to share with you instead of questions would be, you know, 2 things that I think benefits that I can share with you that, that I think all salespeople, um, could use. One would be I have a philosophy. I'm an ex-football coach, so I like the concept of moving the ball down the field. I think that, um, one of the reasons I come across as intense is because if I'm not moving the ball down the field, I get very frustrated. And what it might… what I mean by that is I want to constantly be, um, there's a goal at the other end I'm trying to score a touchdown and I, I gotta keep getting first downs. And so, in every sales call I have, I want to try to take whatever I'm working on a little farther and a little farther, and I get frustrated. And so, I think people spend too much time not taking the ball down the road in something they're working on, and they forget that in football, every once in a while, you have to punt. Right? So, I think sometimes they just forget and they constantly, they're just cycling in the same customer. With the same information and they're not moving forward.

58:06 Scott Ingram: You're on the 33rd down. Right.

58:08 Robbie Siegel: I mean, yeah, there's only… you only got 4 downs until you get a first down. And if you get a first down, you get to start over. And so, I think that's one thing that I think a lot of salespeople spend too much time with customers that are not advancing. I mean, get out of there. Go find a better opportunity. The second thing that I would tell you is, you know, we've really lost the art of just closing. And I had some good friends that I worked with at my last company that, that ironically was a medical sales company, but they had come out of selling advertising. They worked for a company called Athlon. It was sports, and they, they had to sell, like, to, you know, big, big Fortune 500 companies trying to get them to, you know, work with their subscription. And they were great closers, and I learned a lot from those guys and, and really the art of We tend to talk too much. And when I train on this and when I teach, when I was in management roles, you know, we… there's some of the cliché sayings, he who speaks first loses, those sorts of things. But we tend to, as salespeople, want to, you know, hey, you know, we wanna give the customer, well, you know, here's the quote you requested. And we don't wanna shut up and make it uncomfortable. And what I tell people is, look, if, if, if you're not making… if you don't get to that uncomfortable position where you're putting a, a little bit of pressure on somebody to make a decision, then you're probably failing. You need to do that. And I think a lot of people don't do that any longer. And they'll… the, the people that are good at closing recognize, I have to, I have to do that. I have to push just enough to make it uncomfortable to get them to make a decision. And, and we tend to want to present something as, you know, here's the quote you asked for. Um, and instead of just saying, you know, when can I place the order and shutting your mouth, we want to say, here's the quote you asked for. I'm not sure when you guys are gonna be ready for it, but if you're ready for it soon, I'll be happy to help you out with it. Let me know if there's some more information you need. And we start just babbling instead of just shutting up, putting a little bit of pressure on them, and making them respond to the question that, that you need answered.

1:00:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. And I was gonna ask, like, what does that sound like? But you delivered it. It was 5 words.

1:00:19 Robbie Siegel: Yeah.

1:00:19 Scott Ingram: 5 words, period, halt, full stop.

1:00:22 Robbie Siegel: And, and don't say a word and, and, and ask them, you know, you're, you're requesting they make a response. And, and if you start talking before they make a response, you've let them off the hook. And, and it shouldn't be… you're not asking in a bad way. You're… look, you're trying to do something that hopefully is helping their business and your business. And, and usually that uncomfortableness is because they haven't thought about it yet, and they need to think about it, and you're forcing them to think about it at that moment and at least provide you a response of, you know, you know, to move the ball forward.

1:00:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

1:00:52 Robbie Siegel: Yeah.

1:00:53 Scott Ingram: It's, it's one of the things that for me is, is kinda fun about the podcast because I asked… I don't remember which Oh, it was when I asked for the sales story because I didn't have that in the list of questions that I sent you to kind of review and prepare for. And it took you some time to kind of prepare for that question. And I had the urge to bail you out and, oh, wait, wait, we can come back to that later or any of that other stuff. Or I could just sit here for a minute and wait for you to process and come up with a great story.

1:01:17 Robbie Siegel: Yeah.

1:01:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, same thing. So, along those lines, one of the questions I like to ask is, is there something that you believe that the average seller would think is crazy?

1:01:28 Robbie Siegel: Give me a minute on this one. I think the, the concept that you're supposed to know the answer is, is something that when you're first, when you're young in sales or potentially new or just maybe you're, you know, been around a long time, it's okay not to know the answer. It's okay to research the answer. It's okay to get back to a customer. I think by nature we want to always have the answer on our fingertips and provide them the, the, you know, this great response because I'm on stage and I'm boom, I have it off the tip of my tongue. I think that customers appreciate the fact that you may not have the answer. You're willing to do work for them. Go find the answer and provide the follow-up and do that work for them. So I think, um, you know, people probably think it's crazy that, that you're willing to say, you know, I don't know, you know, it's a good question, let me go check with a couple of, uh, the vet, you know, vendor, colleague, whoever I've got to go work with, and I'll get you a very accurate answer and I'll get back to you. And I think that's, that's, that's quite all right. I, I Because I work in distribution, we have to live that way because I deal with potentially 300,000 different products and all types of different medical specialties, and they're just gonna be answers I don't know even though I've been doing it for 20 years.

1:02:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great. So the next couple of questions, in some ways, this may be… I like to think of this, this is like the soapbox session. But I like to think about if you were giving advice to somebody who's just starting out in their sales career, What, what would you suggest they do? And I think, you know, you bring some additional value here with the years that you've spent in sales leadership because you've probably had this conversation, uh, before. But, but how do you get them thinking and in that right frame of mind to build a really, really strong foundation to reach very high levels of success in a sales role?

1:03:30 Robbie Siegel: Um, well, a good friend of mine from college that was also a colleague of mine in 2 different companies, uh, by the name of Charlie Alvarez, Um, the first bit of advice he ever gave me was knowledge is power. Um, and, you know, while that's kind of a cliché, knowledge is power, um, what he was really referring to is the fact that there's so many variables and things in our careers, um, that we don't have control over. But what we do have control over in a lot of ways is, is the knowledge of what we're you know, the selling or the content of, of, uh, the products that we have. So, um, the, the advice that I would give to anybody young is, look, you can't… there's, there's things that are uncontrollable and things that you can't control, but one of the things you control is being a master of your, uh, of your, uh, you know, your products, your company, whatever it might be. And there's never any excuse in my mind for you not to have some of the basic information that, that you should have, that you could have learned, um, just, just reading textbooks, um, or just reading brochures that your company has, or just learning about the things that you sell. Um, so the more you know those things, um, you know, and have that knowledge, the more, uh, you're going to be able to, you know, be a true consultant for your customers. So I would say, you know, that's, that's You know, that was a big one for me is just don't, you know, there's trends in the industries and variables and things that change. They're uncontrollable. You know, we, we talk about that circle of influence. Well, here's something I can completely control is how much I choose to be an expert in my category and be the expert. And, you know, life will get easier for you when you go out to sell.

1:05:24 Scott Ingram: Love it. What about somebody who's further into their career, a little bit more established, They're doing well, but they're not at the top. They've, they've got more room, or maybe they've gotten into a little bit of a funk. What, what would you suggest to them to really turn it on and get to that next level?

1:05:40 Robbie Siegel: The first thing I would do is I would challenge them to disrupt their routines. I think one of the reasons we get into funks is because we get into just kind of this day-to-day routine and we don't challenge it and want to do things differently. You know, the, the, there's another good friend of mine who was the president of one of our previous companies. His father worked in the DEA. And the DEA had a very hard, fast rule that you can never be in the same position for more than 5 years. And you always have to… after 5 years, you have to change positions. And the reason they had that was because they believe that if you've been in the same position for 5 years, you will start to build up Um, uh, for lack of better words, you'll start to believe your own crap, okay? And you're gonna… you're, you're in a market and you're like, well, these, these are the untouchable customers and we don't do well in that space and we're not good with these products. And you start to believe that because you've had real-life experiences in your market that are making you feel that way. The reality though is that things might have changed and you don't realize they've changed. You don't realize that, that either leadership or the industries shifted. And so, um, short of being able to go to another territory or take another job or those sorts of things, if you're not going to make those kinds of changes, change your routines and don't believe everything that just because it happened to you before it has to happen again. And so I would say just disrupt your routines, disrupt your, your way of thinking, you know, and find more selling time.

1:07:25 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. Is there a question that you would want to ask of other top sellers in other organizations? In other words, if you were in my shoes having a similar conversation, what's, what's the question that you'd want to know?

1:07:41 Robbie Siegel: I'd be most interested in just understanding. I think it's the things you're asking me, how they're going about organizing their time, what they're spending their kind of non… we'll call it their non-day-to-day routine time doing to try to, you know, you know, to try to advance their, their mind or their strategy. You know, I, I constantly go to, as an example, the App Store and to just look at the top-selling apps. And I go to the category that's… I think it's called organization or you know, something like that, and you can categorize the apps that are out there because I'm trying to figure out what are other people downloading, I think, to be more efficient. I'm… that's, that's what I want to always know because, you know, getting back to family, I want to work as little as I can and be successful so I can spend more time with my family. And there's only so many hours in a day to, you know, work hard and be highly successful and be a father and be a husband and stay in shape. And, you know, so, so I'd really wanna know what, what are they doing to, to organize their time, develop successful routines, you know, those sorts of things.

1:08:58 Scott Ingram: And is there anything left there? I mean, we've, we've talked about some of that stuff. Is there anything left that, that you'd wanna share that's, that's been helpful for you in, in that area, just in, in your ability to be efficient and manage all of that?

1:09:09 Robbie Siegel: I think I think we've discussed it. It's it's not accepting the way that it's being done today. Just just constantly challenging it, taking a look. I bounce from I'm writing in a notepad to you know what? I'm going to start using the taskbar in Outlook. You know what? I'm going to start flagging things and and you know I've gone to where I've had multiple notebooks where I have a daily notebook and then I have a projects notebook, like a weekly, and then I have a long-term projects. And I have like, literally, I look like a, like I have a Trapper Keeper from high school with different categories.

1:09:45 Scott Ingram: There we go dating ourselves. Yeah.

1:09:46 Robbie Siegel: Because I'm writing like things in different. So, I don't know that there's a right answer there. The right answer that I know is not accepting the way you're doing things because you've been doing them that way so long and challenging in order to get more efficient and shake things up.

1:10:03 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Who's the most successful salesperson you know personally?

1:10:08 Robbie Siegel: Um, wow. There's a gentleman, he works for a competitor of ours out of, uh, Phoenix, Arizona by the name of Kendall Altrogi. Um, and I've always admired Kendall. Um, he's a friend of mine. Um, and what I've admired him for was kind of the things we've talked about today where he's probably the most successful person at the company I came from But he was definitely the most efficient. He seemed… there were highly successful people that looked like they just came out of the washer. I mean, they were frazzled. We would be at meetings, and they couldn't, you know, they're… everything's a problem. And then Kendall would walk in, and he was as calm, cool, and collected. And he found a way in a business where most of the people in our business are dealing with, you know, we're really dealing with low-level, you know, you know, nurses, administrators. And Kendall found a way to run his business by dealing with CEOs and CFOs and the physicians directly. And I just always admired the way he did that. And he's, you know, been highly successful for many, many, many years. And, you know, I like that I felt like because of how he ran his business, he could live the life he wanted to live. And I think that's the… that's an important takeaway is that none of us are working, you know, we may love what we do, but, right, we're not working because this is, you know, for the sake of just working. Right? And most of us are trying to, you know, earn a living and, and make enough money to live the lifestyle that we wanna live. And Kendall was probably the best example of that of, of anybody that I worked with.

1:11:46 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, you set up my transition there perfectly because I was gonna ask, like, what is it for you that kinda motivates all of this?

1:11:52 Robbie Siegel: Yeah, for, for me, it's just, it's, it's, it's spending, it's, it's living the life that I want to live, spending time, you know, with my family, creating security that, you know, if, um, you know, I live way below my means to try to, you know, create, uh, security for my family that no matter what comes down the road, we'll be prepared for that. And, um, you know, enjoying, enjoying life.

1:12:15 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So the, the last question, this one's a tricky one. I, I try and You know, we've, we've been talking now for, you know, a little over an hour. What is something actionable, tangible that the person listening to this, like, okay, I'm inspired, I want to go out and do this, what can they do right now over the course of the, the next week or 2 that's going to make a difference for them?

1:12:37 Robbie Siegel: If you're to create some type of a maybe a challenge for them, you know, I, I would go either grab a notebook, you know, that you haven't been using, or go buy a notebook. And what I would tell you to do is start to write down the things that are… you get… you're getting frustrated, you know, you can feel your blood pressure rising over something you're working on. Write it down. Um, the things that you're spending the most… the majority of your time on, you know, and, and things that are gobbling up your time that are non-selling, write them down. Start to analyze immediately what are the things that are impacting your attitude because you're getting frustrated, or eating up your time and preventing you from selling more. So you can… because if you… until you do that, you're not going to be able to take the next step, which is how do I change that? So I would immediately start to analyze. You know, it's, it's people… if you ever listen to, you know, Dave Ramsey or any of these people that talk about financials and those sorts of things, the very first thing they're going to tell you if you want to fix your financials is You need to do an assessment of everything you spend money on, categorize everything you spend money on and see how much you're spending eating out, seeing how much you're spending shopping at, you know, for clothes, see how much you're spending. I think we should be doing the exact same thing. What am I… it's my work budget. It's not money. It's my time.

1:14:01 Scott Ingram: Your time budget. Yeah.

1:14:01 Robbie Siegel: It's my time budget. And what am I spending my time doing? And somehow quantify that over the next, you know, week or month. What you're spending them, you know, your time on and figure, okay, if I could just take an hour or 2 a month out of answering emails, you know, or responding to these types of emails, that's an hour or 2 more I could be selling. You know, if I figure out the things that, that are causing me to have grief, um, I'll give you an example of one was when I read that book, The Power of Full Engagement, I realized that I was getting frustrated over listening to certain voicemails that I listened… part of my routine was listening to them, the corporate voicemails. Like, this is back, once again, dating ourselves when we used to have a corporate voicemail. Yep. And I would call into that corporate voicemail, and I'd get messages from, you know, the corporate guys. And, and, and, and I believed at that time a lot of those guys were out of touch of what I was dealing with on a day-to-day basis in the field. And so they would frustrate me because they'd be like, you know, they really think this is what we're working on? Like, I'm… I can't. And I would get upset, and that would trigger me to have a bad morning. And, and understanding that, I changed to where I only listen to those corporate voicemails at the end of the day. I listened to them after 5 because I did not want to bring that frustration into my day and more specifically into my customers. So, something as simple as that, like trying to pick up on the things that annoy you. You may not be able to eliminate them, but you could change from dealing with them in the morning or at lunchtime and deal with them at the end of the day. Just looking at that type of stuff and assessing that over the next, you know, week to a month, and then come back to it the following month and say, all right, what could I change? And, you know, I'm not Obviously, I have nothing to gain promoting the book, but the Powerful Engagement helped me with a lot of that understanding, you know, and it… because it took you… the first part of the book really took you to that understanding of those things, and the second part was, okay, literally writing down the rituals that will change those things to turn into the habits, you know, to become habits in your life to live a more successful life.

1:16:20 Scott Ingram: Awesome.

1:16:21 Robbie Siegel: Yeah.

1:16:21 Scott Ingram: Robbie, this has been incredible. I'm so glad that the timing worked out on such short notice and just really appreciate and value your taking the time with this audience.

1:16:30 Robbie Siegel: Great. Thanks so much. I appreciate what you're doing for us and let's all go sell some more.

1:16:34 Scott Ingram: All right. Thank you so much for listening all the way through my conversation with Robbie Siegel. I've now listened to this a couple of additional times, and this may very well be my favorite episode to date. And whether this is the first episode you've listened to or if you've listened to them all, I sincerely want to hear from you. I've been at this now for just over 6 months and would so, value your feedback. Just send me a note directly to scott@top1.fm. That's the number 1. And let me know what you think. Was this your favorite episode too? Did you like another one better? Are they too long? What am I doing right? Better yet, what could I be doing better? Just let me know. It doesn't have to be super long. Just share a quick note. Send that to scott@top1.fm. I would really love to hear from you. Thanks for listening.

1:17:24 Scott Ingram: Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast. To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.