186: Relentlessness, Efficiency, and Positive Energy - Keys to Sales Success with Dylan Katcher

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.

0:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Dylan Katcher. Dylan is the number one top sales performer at Bloomberg Industry Group as a senior enterprise relationship partner based in Denver. Welcome to the show, Dylan.

0:36 Dylan Katcher: Hey, thanks so much for having me here, Scott.

0:38 Scott Ingram: Really looking forward to digging into this. You sent me some really interesting notes about your top 3 things. And for those who maybe aren't familiar with the show, I always like to start with some immediate value. And I ask my guests to talk about the top 3 things that they believe have impacted their sales success the most. So Dylan, why don't you maybe just go through these at a high level? What are the 3, and then we'll take them one by one.

1:02 Dylan Katcher: Sure. Thanks, Scott. So number 1, always relentless and never complacent. Number 2 would be efficiency. And number 3 would be positive energy while being a person, not a salesperson.

1:15 Scott Ingram: Oh, these are so good. And again, your notes are awesome. So I'm looking forward to just digging into these. So always relentless and never complacent. Talk about that.

1:23 Dylan Katcher: Thanks. I think that's key for any job, but especially in the life of being a salesman. It's key to really, regardless of whether it's the start of the year, like how we are right now, and I'm at $0, or at the end of the year when all those deals that I've been working so hard on go ahead and close, treating every day like it's the same and treating every opportunity like it's the same. Because no one wants that desperate salesperson reaching out to them and say, hey, you need to sign it this day or anything like that. Obviously deadlines do help get things done, but making sure that I'm just always going ahead and treating every day as effectively and as strongly as possible. With that too, it's you either have that like fire in the belly or you don't. It's one of those things with that competitive, like sports nature that I grew up with where always dive for that basketball, always try for that extra thing or extra question to ask, try and sort of push back at them a little bit in an intelligent way so that you can make sure that you're giving it your best shot. With that too, we could talk a little bit more about it as we go on, but got the nickname FILO, first in, last out, and definitely goes in with a aspect of always being relentless and never complacent there.

2:27 Scott Ingram: Beautiful, beautiful. I will be sure to ask you about that as we go in here. So the next one you mentioned is efficiency. Talk about that.

2:35 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, everything I look at, I try and really do it as efficiently as possible because time is money and it's what I sell as well. I think pretty much all of us to some extent, we're selling efficiency to other people. So I want to practice that myself. That is with leveraging CRM systems like Salesforce to make sure I'm not missing anything as well as being efficient with my notes and follow-up tasks. Phone calls always before emails, because you could speak a lot quicker than you could write emails, and you could have the response back and forth with one another a lot more efficiently that way too. I think just quick and easy things though too, like saving email templates. So if it's something similar that I'm sending to someone else, hey, just send that email template over, make a quick edit if you need. Another big one that I preach is moving calendar invites instead of just reaching out to say, hey, I see you didn't show up. When do you have availability to reschedule? And then all of a sudden they go into some dark hole or black hole and you miss them and you never could follow up again. Another one there too would just be delegating to others when appropriate. And by working with colleagues, leadership, product development, my client service partner, sales associate, etc., to make sure that things that others can help me out with may even be better at those roles than myself can really help with us all getting to those goals more efficiently.

3:44 Scott Ingram: Nice. Talk about that calendar invite piece again. I'm not sure that I got that exactly.

3:48 Dylan Katcher: Sure. So number one, I always try and make sure to have a follow-up call in the books. That is key. People will push back on it sometimes. Hey, just follow up with me in 2 weeks. Okay. Hey, no problem. If it's all right with you, let me at least just send a tentative calendar invite for us to touch base in 2 weeks. Maybe does this date and time sound okay to you? If that time doesn't work, just let me know either before, and we can always adjust it from there and make sure that you have that on the books. At the very least, it's a reminder for me to call them, follow up with them via email, and they see it on their calendar too, to make sure, oh, I was supposed to talk to my leadership or my boss about this. Let me make sure I'm following up with them. Then obviously it happens sometimes people don't show up to meetings and it's key. What I found is I'll call them and if they don't show up, I'll leave a voicemail and say, hey, sorry I missed you at this time. Want to make sure that we could still touch base regarding XYZ. So I tentatively moved our calendar invite back to the same time next week. If that time doesn't work for you, please let me know and happy to adjust it from there. I typically put that in the calendar invite and sometimes too I'll make sure I email those clients some type of value from me saying, hey, thought it'd be helpful to send you this 2025 tax outlook report and I moved this calendar invite. Invite back so they see the value and see the reason to reconnect too.

4:55 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. I mean, again, from an efficiency perspective, it totally makes sense. So rather than trying to negotiate that next time, you're just saying, hey, look, here's a time. And I think defaulting to if this time worked for you last week, the odds are pretty good that it might work again next week, right?

5:10 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, exactly. And worst case scenario, they don't show up. And once again, it's at least that reminder that you would have probably had to set for yourself anyways to follow up with them. But now ideally they follow up to that meeting or they respond to the email and choose another time to reconnect.

5:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, perfect. Perfect. All right. Let's touch on this last one, which I may be most interested in. So bringing positive energy while being a person, not a salesperson. What do you mean by that? Yeah.

5:33 Dylan Katcher: So the positive energy part, you may already be hearing just from me here in the conversation. And I've heard others say that having that positive energy and that enthusiasm, which is genuine, it really has them excited about the product, excited about the resource as well. And I'm sometimes dealing with like taxing legal research. It may not sound like the most exciting thing. So if I could be that person's 30 minutes of interest or excitement in a day, something that they're then taking out of something that may be a bit more humdrum for them, that's definitely a win there. Then they definitely remember me too with that curiosity, confidence, and I'll try and bring in that humor as well with the positive energy throughout. But really, most importantly is being that person and not a salesperson. And it's a lot easier to say no to some salesperson that is knocking on your door or yelling at you and saying, hey, do this or do that. But if I can make that personal connection with you and just say, hey, how's your day going so far? Instead of saying, how are you doing? Just a simple little change like that, when you say, how's your day going so far? All of a sudden they may be open to speaking a little bit more. Oh, it's going all right, but my kids are still at the house because it's snow day here. Oh, I know how that goes. That's definitely a little bit rough, but good thing we got a heating system here to keep us warm, whatever it may be. So that then, okay, now at the end of that call, hey, hope you drive safe on the roads with all the snow out there this weekend, whatever it may be, so that I'm a person, I'm looking out for them, having that personal connection. So then they want to show up to those follow-up meetings. They want to be my advocate and They want to work together.

6:56 Scott Ingram: Nice. Nice. All right. Let's contextualize a little bit. Talk about your role and how you got to number 1. And just to be clear, this isn't like a one-time thing. Oh, last year you were number 1. You have had a super consistent run. So give us all that context.

7:11 Dylan Katcher: Thanks. Yeah, it's been a long journey. I was hired for what was at the time Bloomberg BNA. You may know one of the OGs of the podcast, DeJuan Brown, interviewed here, there with you for his Bloomberg BNA role. Bloomberg acquired BNA, it was about 15 years ago for nearly $1 billion. Now we by the name Bloomberg Industry Group. You probably know Bloomberg for the terminal side of things on the financial services industry, as well as probably for their news. Bloomberg Industry Group, sister company, we help out basically with the tax and legal version of the terminals, helping in-house legal and tax professionals, as well as my colleagues help out law firms and accounting firms too, with a research platform to officially like mitigate risks, minimize outside consultant spend, proactively stay ahead of the changes with news analysis, time-saving practice tools. All in like one place so that instead of them having to go to Google to find the answers or say, hey, I don't know that answer, they go into our like research platform and now they could be confident in that type of expertise.

8:05 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then put your results in perspective for us, kind of quantify that.

8:09 Dylan Katcher: Yeah. So the first year I was the Rookie of the Year after going through initially our START program, it was called at the time, and I finished at over 250% of my annual quota for that year. Ever since then, I've increased in my overall annual revenue for the company with this past year closing about 180% of my quota with $1.6 million overall there. And that's been over pretty much the past 10 years here now for the company.

8:36 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. That's awesome. One of the things… so you mentioned in your top 3 there, just having that fire in the belly. You've now been at Bloomberg for 10 years. How do you keep the fire in the belly after a decade?

8:48 Dylan Katcher: I think that's another thing that you either have it or you don't. It's a blessing and a curse sometimes though too, Scott, I'll tell you, because when you do win these big deals or have something great happen, I celebrate for that moment and then it's on to the next thing. And that's the first thought that goes into my head because I know that there's some other ball that's juggled up in the air that I want to make sure to win there as well. It's definitely just having that always hungry mentality. It goes back to like being relentless and it's something that I just want to be successful and I want to not be that versus I don't want to be that one-hit wonder. Now it's, you know, I have a child at home and I want to make sure that I'm the best example for her and showing how this hard work ethic can, you know, have a successful life for your family. Whatever the motivation is, it's really just trying to be the best version of me every day.

9:32 Scott Ingram: Love it, man. How old is your daughter?

9:34 Dylan Katcher: She's about 16 months now. Wow. All right.

9:37 Scott Ingram: You're on the early side of that journey.

9:39 Dylan Katcher: Dang.

9:40 Scott Ingram: I will tell you, don't blink. My youngest turns 17.

9:46 Dylan Katcher: Wow. Congrats.

9:47 Scott Ingram: This Saturday. So as folks are listening to this, probably the prior weekend, she'll have turned 17 and my 19-year-old goes back to college.

9:54 Dylan Katcher: Oh, wow.

9:54 Scott Ingram: This weekend as well. So yeah, it happens really, really fast. Get ready for a ride.

10:00 Dylan Katcher: I got a lot to learn there from you. Yeah.

10:02 Scott Ingram: Let's look back in your history and what's your origin story? How did you get started in sales in the first place?

10:10 Dylan Katcher: I pretty much knew I always wanted to go into sales after I realized the furthest I was going to get in basketball was touching the rim with my competitive background and knew that that competitive background was going to be able to earn me the most with sales by what I put into it, getting the most out of it, as well as being able to interact with clients, people, customers on a day-to-day basis. With that, I went to James Madison University and I was helped found actually the Professional Sales Club there at JMU. That was something where I realized, hey, I always grew up doing like sports as like the extracurricular activity. And I was like, wait, why isn't there some type of extracurricular for sales professionals or aspiring ones? So it helped begin that where then we're able to bring in top sales professionals from around the area to share their best practices with us, sort of like how we're doing here on this podcast today. I was able to learn from them. And from that, actually, someone from Bloomberg BNA came to our school, was able to recruit me to what was our START program there at the time. And from there, that was like a year-long training process where we learned the ins and outs of the company, client service, and really dive deep to like learning the product, also learn different sales skills. And I went above and beyond to like try and learn things on the train rides of like listening to podcasts like this, reading books like How to Win Friends and Influence People and other sales methodologies. And after going through that START program, at the end of it, you cover the vacant districts where there isn't a local representative, and then they eventually want you to go out to those territories. I saw a need though after that where I was like, hmm, there's all these vacant territories and they want me to go out to this spot here. And I'm not going to say the different cities, but they weren't really of interest to me. I was enjoying my time in the DC area at the time. And I said, hey, to the VP of Operations and VP of Sales at the time when I was just a young person out of college. I said, I see an opportunity here to continue covering these vacant districts. There's more than just one available. Can I go ahead and cover these here? And they said, hey, we'll let you just cover one at a time. Was very successful with that. Then they allowed me to cover 2. All of a sudden, I kept doing more and more. And at one point I was covering over 10 different territories across all the different time zones. 'Tis where I got the name Philo from everyone at the office because I was first in, last out, making sure I was handling meetings for people from the East Coast time zone all the way to staying late on the West Coast time zone. And extended my START program to an extent for 6 months where I covered those vacant districts in those 6 months, closed more than a year's worth of quota and they were like, okay, that was way over budget. We need you to actually go out to a territory. Then Colorado became available to come out here to Denver. The rest was history as I met my wife about 6 months later. In that year, I was the first overall top sales rep in my first full year with the company.

12:52 Scott Ingram: Man, that's fantastic. Do they still have a START-type program like that?

12:56 Dylan Katcher: Yes, they do. Now it's called B-Launch. We got a little more creative with the names with the Bloomberg touch behind it. But yes, we do. And programs from the START program, I helped begin this AEP pair-in program, we called it at the time. Now it's basically what a sales associate or BDR maybe refer to of calling on meetings for representatives to try and help them out there. And I was talking to our management people and I was like, hey, I feel like there's opportunities for me to help out others while getting some sales experience here. And they're like, fine, we'll get some reps to give you their toughest cold call lists and you go ahead and call them. And others would like dread that. I was pumped. I was excited. I was like, finally I could have numbers behind my name here, show people that I could call like over 200 people in a day. And started setting meetings with some of these toughest people available. That even included setting meetings for DeJuan Brown. And when I made sure to set those meetings for them, I asked, hey, can I listen into those meetings if they're like WebEx or Zoom or whatever it may have been at the time so that I could learn then from their experiences also? And it was really a great growing experience.

13:55 Scott Ingram: Man, that's awesome. I mean, there are… that type of training and onboarding I think is becoming quite rare. So it's really cool to see companies that still have those kinds of programs, especially extended like that. Like a year-long program is very different than Here's a month, here's six weeks, and good freaking luck after that. Versus hey, we're going to be really reasonable about this and recognize there's a lot to learn. You're not going to figure it all out in a month or two months.

14:23 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, you're absolutely right. And we'll also bring in people that have been successful sales representatives into the company, and they'll go through that type of training program. So it's two different approaches. Both can be successful, but this was definitely a great way to really know how everything worked within the company, so that then when I was interacting with support people and really getting questions on the product. I really was that expert and I was ready to go. I actually think it was too long at certain points when it was going slower and I wanted to get out in the field and I was an eager beaver, but it all paid off in the end.

14:53 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, I was going to ask about that. I mean, it seems like you must have gotten so many reps with that extra time, with those extra territories before you actually went into the field. How much of a difference do you think that made in… I'm guessing more in the early years, like in the early first couple of years that you were in that territory. How impactful was that versus versus having just gone straight into it?

15:15 Dylan Katcher: Definitely impactful because having that opportunity to really learn and during that time too, I was really trying things in like unique new ways. I was doing role plays even though I wasn't selling to customers. I was doing role plays with my other start team members and learning, hey, what's their tactic? What's not? But the main thing I took advantage of during this time was finding opportunities to reach out to those other top representatives. I hear about it on your podcast here as well to understand what were they doing? What was successful? What was not? So that I can then form that all into the Dylan version and make that me. And that was definitely a huge difference maker so that I knew what these other top 10, 15 reps were doing and what it took to get to the top.

15:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love what you said about the Dylan version. I mean, to me, that's the most important part, right? Is yes, you want to observe a lot of other top performers, but you probably find some stylistically are just too different. You're like, okay, that works amazing for them. I can't pull that off. That's just not me, right?

16:13 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, it's got to be my own custom suit that I'm wearing. That's for sure. It can't be someone else's dress or whatever.

16:20 Scott Ingram: I was like, wait a minute, this sounds like an analogy that I keep trying to torture.

16:25 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, exactly. It's definitely one of those situations where you may try it, like I'll try it once, then I'm like, okay, wait, got to go back and let me see how I can refine this so that it's a little taste of this, but now bring the Dylan version of it. So I'm still my authentic self. Love it.

16:40 Scott Ingram: Love it. You really do listen to the show. I appreciate that.

16:43 Dylan Katcher: I gotcha.

16:44 Scott Ingram: Let's talk about your favorite sales story. Maybe it was a huge loss and you learned a heck of a lesson from it. What's your favorite story in all these years?

16:54 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, well, favorite loss wouldn't be one of my favorite stories. So we'll go for one of the wins here. One that comes to mind, I guess, would be I wake up early in the morning and I see a text from my boss and he says, hey, can you run a demo at 6:30 AM Mountain Time today? And I'm like, yeah, sure. I was like, who's it for? He goes, okay, it's for this big company that we just have the representative that was covering that account. He left the company, so can you handle it for us? I was like, sure, let's go for it. Got my workout in a little bit quicker that morning, got on and there's people based internationally and US, did the meeting all on the fly, went really well. And what was key was how I just right off the bat was like, wow, I'm starting to get really great feedback from them. Let me just write this all down in a really organized fashion. And then I made sure to ask like, who else do we need to connect with? Who else do we need to show this with? All of a sudden that one meeting turned turned into about 50 other demos, trial setup calls, follow-up calls where we got all of their feedback. I made sure to put all of that feedback in an organized Word document. That was one of the many selling points that the legal operations team was able to use for their legal team's leadership group that were the ultimate decision makers that I wasn't allowed to meet with. I had to go through them. The other thing was with that legal operations group, I learned what were the different other services that they're using, what were the costs of them, And was able to lay out, okay, here's all those costs, here's all those rates that we can replace ourselves, and was able to show here's that ROI, here's all this positive feedback so that it was pretty much a no-brainer business case for them to present to leadership that they ultimately signed up for with one of the biggest deals for us at the time.

18:30 Scott Ingram: 50 demos at least.

18:32 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, it was a lot because it was a group of about It was about 100 total users. So yeah, about half of them we connected with and wanted to make sure, like, it's a big difference if you just send like a trial access link to someone. To actually think that they're going to log in is one thing. To actually think that they're going to log in and know how to take advantage of unique tools that they couldn't get anywhere else is another. So it's, hey, we can provide you with this trial access, but we need to show you the resource for it first, get your feedback on it so that we can help you make the most of your access. And then let's make sure we have a follow-up call So that we can really write down your feedback, see if there's anything else you need to see, and then we could re-extend it from there if you need to.

19:09 Scott Ingram: That is awesome. You mentioned getting your workout in a little bit earlier and faster than usual. Let's walk through your day. Your alarm clock goes off. What time does that happen? And give us the blow-by-blow till your head hits the pillow again.

19:23 Dylan Katcher: Sure. Yeah, I'm an early riser. I'm waking up at like 4:45 AM every day, and it's to really get after it where start off with picking up the French bulldog off the bed that's been snoring louder than me. His name is Fritz, and we bring him outside, make sure he takes care of whatever business he's got to do. I set up my wife there with her morning coffee, and I begin my workout. Big Peloton guy, whether it's on the bike or going on doing different yoga and stretching, which I make sure to do at the end of every workout. And midway through the workout though, I do have to call my wife at 5:15 AM for her morning wake-up call. And after I get my workout in and she's downstairs, I help set her and my daughter up with their breakfast. And I have my healthy breakfast as well. I used to be like watching SportsCenter in the morning. I made a new change this year. I'm trying to learn in the morning instead. Now when I'm having breakfast and putting away the dreaded dishes in the dishwasher, I'm listening to podcasts like this one, like Founders and other ways to really grow myself and learn overall and take that shower, get ready for the workday so that I'm in front of the computer by like 6:30 AM Mountain Time, which is 8:30 Eastern Time, so that I really take advantage of all those East Coast accounts that I help out with. And then right before 7 o'clock hits, that's when my daughter wakes up. Make sure to give her a kiss. Good morning. And typically I'll begin meetings pretty much nonstop throughout the day, beginning at 7 AM Mountain. Wow.

20:45 Scott Ingram: Okay. Let's see. I have many follow-up questions. What is a healthy breakfast for you?

20:50 Dylan Katcher: It varies, but I'm lucky I have an amazing wife that really helps out with a lot. Lots of times it could include oatmeal with banana, berries, peanut butter. That's definitely one of the big ones.

20:59 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I love the heavy lifting you're doing, like taking care of like, hey, I'm going to make sure my wife gets her coffee, she gets her wake-up call. Everybody is squared away.

21:08 Dylan Katcher: The least I could do for all the things she does for me.

21:10 Scott Ingram: Where are you in your Peloton journey? How many rides and what's your username if you want to share it? Because we're going to need to connect.

21:16 Dylan Katcher: Oh, that's fair. I think username is DKatch and I got to be like D-K-A-T-C-H. My last name is Katcher, but with a K. And amount of rides, I want to say I'm somewhere between the 500 and 1,000 mark because I know I hit the 500, but I also do a lot of outside rides when it is good weather during the year.

21:35 Scott Ingram: Okay. Very nice. Very nice. I do not ride outside anymore. Austin has just gotten so built up that I want to live. So sadly I don't go out, which means I've got a lot more Peloton rides going on. So for those, like I said, Dylan, you and I will have to connect. I'm just Scott Ingram. So I'm very easy to find. And sometime, it depends on exactly how hard I get after it, but I would say sometime for sure in the first half of the year I'll hit 1,000 rides.

22:00 Dylan Katcher: Nice. That is awesome. Well, that's got to be the one ride you make sure to do live then. So hopefully they give you the call out on there.

22:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally, totally, totally. That's a Wilpers ride for sure. Actually, it was pre-pandemic. It's been a long time, but I did get into the studio. I've done a couple of live rides in New York. In fact, I think when I did it, I took… was it everyone? I mean, I tend to do really ridiculous, stupid things. It may not have been every class that they did that day. I did at least 3 in a row or some crazy stupid thing where they were just looking at me funny. Like, wait, what? You're doing what now?

22:32 Dylan Katcher: You must've been dripping from one place to the next there. Oh yeah.

22:34 Scott Ingram: There were multiple wardrobe changes for sure.

22:37 Dylan Katcher: But yeah, I like the yoga and stretching classes that they have too. That really helps me out with relaxing so that I get in the right mindset before the start of the day.

22:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, man, I do not take advantage of that enough. I really need to. My wife has a private Pilates studio in the house, so she brings some clients in there. She just got a book the other day that was something about Pilates for stiffies, which, as I say now, sounds really wrong, but it's meaning for stiff people who are not flexible, which is also an accurate description of me. Let's get into a little bit more of kind of the information diet. So you mentioned a couple of podcasts, but what else are you listening to kind of on the regular? Are you reading stuff? Are you watching any other things? When all does that happen? What are the core resources for you?

23:24 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, in addition to your podcast, which is a great one, another podcast I've been listening to lately, I like Founders. That's a good one to listen to about how these founders got to be. And really, they connect some of the skills and the traits that make these people so unique. And what a lot of them align with a lot of the top salespeople I hear about, which is really just being a diligent and hard worker. And how that really can make the difference and caring about what you do too. I also am always reading anything about our company, like internally. We'll have like, we use our Convergence news aggregator system of learn about competitors, learn about the industry when it comes to legal and tax research. That's key. We have like an email come out internally too on top 5 things to know about like updates to our resource. I'm always checking that out and then, oh, hey, this would be relevant to that client, Oh, hey, this is an update that now maybe could get me back in the door here. So leveraging those as well throughout the workday, I'm listening to like classical music sometimes in my earbuds while I'm making calls to clients or prospects so that it's a nice, calm and relaxing way to go about it in between phone calls. And the instrumental doesn't distract me there too much. And I guess in addition to that information, we'll also include a lot of sports as I'm a big sports fan here too.

24:36 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Very nice. You've a lot of consistent success over the last decade. What are you most proud of?

24:45 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of things there, but I'd say most proud of is the fact that I didn't get, as we talked about at the start, like complacent and say, oh man, I'm the top rep. Like there isn't any more things to add to my information diet and grow with because I'm definitely reading other sales-related books. I'll reread How to Win Friends and Influence People and things along those lines, but always just finding ways to, to self-reflect. I think that's key in how to grow. And that's allowed me to say, okay, hey, Hey, you know what? I did this, but as I'm sure every other top sales rep knows, the negative of doing well is then they up your quota a lot more. So you got to close more and got to find ways to get more strategic, got to find ways to grow. And every year improving in my overall sales and finding ways to not just be a better overall salesperson, but a better version of me and prioritizing that like, hey, being number one at the company is one thing, but being the number one version of myself and being the number one overall father, husband, etc., that's what's really most important. And that's what I'm most proud Nice.

25:42 Scott Ingram: I'm really curious about the self-reflection piece. How often does that happen and how does that happen for you?

25:49 Dylan Katcher: Sure. If it's something big, it happens naturally where it's like, oh man, that was a big meeting. What did I do here? How could I have done that? One of the first ways I do that is I'm working a lot via Zoom and remotely. I cover the whole nation, a lot of the top financial services organizations and a lot of large enterprise accounts. And I'll have multiple monitors up. In my extra monitor, I'll be typing in notes. On the meeting throughout it, but I'll do shorthand and make sure right after the meeting, if I have the time to add in any extra follow-up notes. And right there when I'm doing that, I think, okay, what did I show them? What did I forget to show them? Or what did I not have time to show them? Okay. Hey, I asked this, but I still need to learn a little bit more about the decision-making process, or like they still need to confirm their timeline. So I'm really using the aspect of going through my notes and writing out notes right away and being very organized about that so that I could self-reflect on it as well as then in my follow-up meeting, I'm ready to go with, hey, glad we could connect. I realized we didn't have time to show you X, Y, and Z. Do you have 5 minutes to go over that? And then we'd love to follow up on that timeline aspect that I know you need to confirm. Once again, going back to efficiency, the self-reflection, it could be once again a blessing and a curse because you could overdo it and overthink things too much. And that's why sometimes you do need to release from work there overall. But if you care about what you do, the self-reflection comes naturally.

27:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about the flip side? What do you find to be the most challenging part of just the selling motion today?

27:13 Dylan Katcher: Getting in the door is definitely one of the toughest parts. It's always been the toughest part. I think it always will be, which is getting that meeting. I'll handle the full sales cycle with the help of a sales associate. Sometimes it's called BDR for helping out with scheduling meetings too, and have a client service partner, sometimes referred to as like client success, to help out with the onboarding and training side of things. But when it comes down to it, I'm really working to try and set the majority of the meetings and you gotta get creative. Number one is picking up the phone. It's tough, and especially when you call a lot of people and you don't get any answers, but that's the easiest way and best way to get the meetings for when they do answer. If they don't answer the phone, it's even more difficult because emails, especially now with generative AI and all these different outreaches that people are having, finding ways to really grab their attention. And you could do that same email to different people and it works for one, but not for the other. So there's no silver bullet. So yeah, I'd definitely say getting in the door is the toughest part.

28:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, what most consistently works for you? I mean, you mentioned the phone. I mean, anything that feels unique or special about your approach there or just anything else that you're doing in that process?

28:18 Dylan Katcher: Number one is being organized. For example, when I have my call list and I'm going through it like in Salesforce in an organized way, I make sure like I have on my task that it will say call XYZ for this meeting, leveraging the fact that their other department, this person in this department already uses that resource. So when I call that person first, I make sure to, to try and make that personal connection. It's a lot tougher to do in a very quick phone call when people hate cold calls, but to say that like, hey, my name is Dylan. I'm with Bloomberg Industry Group. How's your day been so far? And if they could give you that answer, whatever it may be, oh, it's not going too good. Or, oh, hey, pretty tired. I was like, yeah, I know. I got a case of the Mondays too, whatever it may be, where I just have that quick, like one-liner back to show, hey, I'm a person I can relate to. Or like, hey, yeah, I know it's not going the best for me as well. Hopefully this 15-second call could make your day a little bit better. Just wanted to reach out because I work with so-and-so in your other department. They recommend we connect as well since we could help out your department with X, Y, and Z. So do you have a few minutes available to connect this day or this day? And if they say no, or if they say they're not interested, genuinely ask them, oh really? Why? And it's trying to use the groupthink idea of, hey, we already help out all these other people that are similar to you in your industry that are using this. Do you think it'd at least be worthwhile to take a look at it? If you don't find it useful after 10 minutes, you just let me know. I'll take no offense, but worst case scenario, At least you know what's available. So in case you have something that comes up in the future, you can know to reach out to me for help.

29:44 Scott Ingram: I'm going to make up a word I'm kind of excited about because I love the way you're doing this. I mean, maybe other people do it, but it seems really smart to me. I'm going to call it pre-searched. So the fact that you did the research before, you've got it noted in the call so that from a flow perspective, you can just crank through those calls and, you know, hey, when I call Dylan and I get him on the phone, I'm going to talk about this rather than getting out of that flow state and going, okay, yep, I need to call Dylan, but what am I talking about? What is that thing? And having to do that research in a way that interrupts your thing. Am I kind of getting that right?

30:18 Dylan Katcher: Absolutely. Yeah. Because if you're going onto LinkedIn, trying to do that, trying to do that research before the call, et cetera, it's too much work. And I'll even put in like, hey, they used this resource at this previous company. So I'll know to touch on that, whatever it may be, so that I can have any tidbit. And I just have that all and just ready to go on that call because there's a lot of times they don't answer the phone. So I'm not having to do that research before each call and then, oh, they don't answer and I wasted that time. I'm good to go once I have that call set up. The next time I try them, the next time I try them, once I finally do get that answer, I sort of compare it to being like an outfielder in baseball where you may not get the ball hit out to you that often, but when it is, you got to be ready to go and catch it. And when they answer the phone, then I'm ready to go.

30:58 Scott Ingram: Man, that's worth the price of admission right there. I think that that little nugget, just having that note about, hey, when I get this person on the phone, this is exactly what I'm going to talk about. And to your point, it's evergreen. The first 3 times I call you, I don't catch you. So that's not wasted effort, but it's going to work when I get you live on the 4th attempt, right?

31:15 Dylan Katcher: Yeah. If it's on the 4th attempt, honestly, that's a win. I'm ready and able, how you said, to like overcome it. And there's sometimes over 100 calls to a person. And throughout that, I'm sending emails and I'm spreading it out. I'm not calling them 100 times within 100 days by any means. This may be throughout the years, but eventually the persistence could pay off. And if you don't get in that door with that one person, try and find someone else. To then become your champion and get you into the door another route there.

31:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah, man. I mean, I love the stick-to-itiveness because I have a feeling that you're not kidding about having called people over 100 times over a period of years.

31:49 Dylan Katcher: Yes, definitely true. And I'll change my phone number up. Sometimes I'll call from the office line or the cell phone line, just mix it up and they don't see the same number coming up all the time.

31:57 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Any other, just to kind of put a bow on the routines, any other habits or routines that are just really core to your success and the way that you I would say eliminating distractions throughout the day is a key thing for me.

32:12 Dylan Katcher: Unless it's something essential, I'm really focusing on those sales and revenue generating tasks throughout those call-in hours so that, okay, hey, during that, before the morning starts and after those call-in hours, that's when I'm getting those administrative things done. That's when if there's something that's not urgent, but like personal, I got to follow up on whatever it may be, that's when I'm doing that. If it's a lunch break, I keep it to 15, 20 minutes so that then I'm back at it. And that type of efficiency, it really helps out so that those other people that are just working the 9 to 5, they're not going to be that top representative because they're not going to be able to be getting as much done throughout the day and saving a lot of those other internal meetings, those one-on-ones. I try and save those for like Friday afternoons when people aren't picking up their phones and when I could still meet with my team members, for example, like internally to get things done, but knowing that I won't be able to get much done with the clients.

33:08 Scott Ingram: Nice. That is similarly probably the biggest focus for me, particularly in this early part of the year, is trying to get into more of a deep workflow state and getting out of distractions. I just started using a new email app called Spark.

33:24 Dylan Katcher: Okay.

33:24 Scott Ingram: So it's consolidating my emails across multiple accounts and allowing me to clear stuff really fast. So it groups like, oh, here's all the notifications, here's all the newsletters, rather than one at a time, archive, archive, archive. They're all kind of grouped together. I can sort of skim through and go, okay, I need to look at that one and that one and the rest of this. Yeah, whatever. Gone. It made me way more efficient. And what I'm really trying to do is just get out of the inbox. I mean, I still tend to live in email where I'd rather… I'm like, gosh, if I just go through this process, Maybe three or four times a day, so I'm never more than a couple of hours behind. But in those in-between periods, I'm really focused on hey, I'm knocking out real meaningful activities and just trying to cut down on the distractions that again, I've used the word flow a few times, like that just get you out of that flow state where you're not cranking, and it feels good to be cranking, right?

34:17 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, I wish I had that spark functionality when I was coming back after taking two weeks off for the holidays most recently because the amount of emails that you catch up on that are like admin related or. Just like notifications that you don't need, but you still gotta click through them so the inbox goes down to zero. And you're absolutely right though, you get in that endless cycle of just, you finally finish catching up on the emails and then there's that next one that comes out. So I try and do like a green, yellow, red type ranking for different things where, okay, hey, this is green, just respond to it now, get it done, this is important. Or like, hey, red, just put this on your notes to get done later. Like this follow-up, it's not urgent, you could even do it like on Friday afternoon. And yellow, okay, hey, maybe this is something you delegate to someone else Or once you do have a breather time, then get that one done. So really being able to rank through those things as opposed to just saying, okay, head down, get this done, get this done, get this done so that then I could really prioritize and ultimately focus on those larger opportunities.

35:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. How are you coding that? Where do you put the green, yellow, red? Is that a literal thing or you've got folders for that or what is that?

35:20 Dylan Katcher: That would be really nice if I did that, but for the most part, I'm just making a to-do list on Microsoft Word. I'll have a, like a notes app also on my phone for if I'm on the go. And then I'll also like keep that email open. And I'll use Salesforce tasks. But yeah, not actually coloring them up because the amount of time I think it'd take for me to do that, sometimes it's a little tougher, but I will flag the different emails.

35:40 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So actually, and the way that I did use Spark is that's exactly what I was trying to solve for. I'm like, oh my God, I have across these email accounts, probably 1,500, 2,000 emails. So yeah, it helped me burn through them so fast. It was fantastic. Well, speaking of which, I mean, what are the tools and apps that are kind of core to your functioning professionally and personally? I mean, what is all the stuff that you're using?

36:02 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, number one, as I'm an early riser, alarm clock is the key app to the day and a timer. I gotta set reminders and follow up on everything so that it doesn't fall through the wayside because I put my head down and I'm grinding throughout the day. I want to make sure I'm not forgetting anything. So like using the Notes app, like I mentioned, Microsoft Word, I'm using a calculator, just the calculator app on the phone. So those are some like quick little simple ones, but then also using Salesforce inside and out to like its full capabilities where another big thing I mentioned, like taking notes throughout the meetings. I have all my opportunity notes in one spot. So to the next level, when I'm calling on that prospect, I'll also have it on my call list, a link related to that opportunity. If they do answer, I can also click into that opportunity and see all of the notes of even more details of, hey, I met with their colleague that shared this feedback and have all that laid out and have it in date order so that I'm as organized as possible. ZoomInfo is another big one for getting those phone numbers and smiling and dialing. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, we'll leverage that. And also for being prepared for the meetings. And in addition to Peloton, it's Spotify. We can't forget about the Bloomberg app as well.

37:09 Scott Ingram: Very nice. Very nice. Let's switch gears a little bit and talk about philosophy and style. Is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

37:21 Dylan Katcher: More than a philosophy, a quick and simple mantra that I've always lived by is make things happen. It sounds simple, it may sound cheesy, but it's always in my head. My task list in Salesforce, it's called Make Things Happen. My tracker that I use Excel to track the different sales that I'm closing. It's called Make Things Happen Tracker. The reason why is you either watch things happen or you make things happen. It's easy to say, man, this person's doing that, why can't I do it? Or man, I just want to ask to get a raise, but have I really earned that raise? Or saying, oh man, that person, they're a big-time leader at that company. I don't know if I should call them. Screw it. Just make things happen. Just call them. And what's the worst that could happen? And just go for it. And I've definitely read different sales books, different strategies, and I don't think there's ever one perfect silver bullet in how we talked about. I think it's forming it together and making that your own. But it's key that I found too is finding the value and showing that value as early as possible in a call, especially with those people that are drivers so that, hey, maybe there's more discovery to be done later and maybe there is more things that you need to ask, more things that you need to learn about them. But hey, at least 5, 10 minutes into that conversation, you need to have shown them some type of value. So that then they know to continue this conversation with you and continue to share that information as well.

38:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. Stylistically, using the Make Things Happen sort of framework, which I love, and the fact that you actually name it that. So just the overarching mindset and it being reinforced is so cool. But how do you describe your style then in that approach?

38:54 Dylan Katcher: It's persistent and diligent, constant activity. It's one thing to the next. If I'm not in a meeting, I'm working on setting a meeting or I'm working on some important follow-up tasks. Task that I need to get out for that next meeting or send the pricing information, whatever it may be, and really being as involved and in control as possible. And that's throughout the entire sales process, throughout the customer's decision-making process, trying not to leave much up for chance. Oh, hey, you're reaching out to another competitor to compare? No problem. That's actually very smart that you're doing that. Can you tell me what are you going to be looking for during that comparison? Do you think… I know we just provided you with trial access. Would it be helpful to have our trial reextended for you so that you could do a side-by-side comparison? Person. At the very least, because I think it's smart that you're checking that out, could we have a follow-up call after you've checked out that other resource to listen to your feedback, see if there's anything you found from that one that you don't see from ours so that we can compare? Things like that to really make sure that I'm as involved as possible. Similar to how, okay, hey, I can't meet with the decision maker. How's that process going to go when you're selling it to them? How can I help you sell this to them? Things along those lines and genuine enthusiasm, curiosity throughout the entire process, really caring about what I do and caring about helping others. Along with sharing that human side and maybe adding a little bit of humor throughout, really, I think puts it all together into that sales style here for me.

40:14 Scott Ingram: Love it.

40:14 Dylan Katcher: Love it.

40:15 Scott Ingram: What motivates all this? What drives you? How do you think about that?

40:19 Dylan Katcher: It was first, I always had a chip on my shoulder. Like one of the struggles I had initially when I went through that StartRep program was I was actually ranked last and I had a bigger head. I have ADHD, so I was having troubles focusing. It was a slower process as we talked about too. So it was tough for me to take everything as seriously because I wasn't in real-life scenarios. And I realized, okay, I need to hunker down and I need to really focus. And I also need to learn that all this knowledge that I'm gaining from all these different representatives, all these things that I'm reading in these different books, I was trying to just spit that out and show that off to other people instead of saying, hey, how could I really simplify this information down in an easy-to-understand way while making that my own and being myself? And once I put all that together, it was a real game changer. And what motivates me now, at first it was, hey, let me number one and prove that I can do this. And ever since then it was, let me be better than that. Let me keep improving. Now it's overall, I'd say it's changed with being a family man of just being the number one version of myself and realizing, hey, it's important to work hard, but I have a hard stop every day at 4:00 PM Mountain time because that is when daddy happy hour begins. That's the best time of the day. If you don't have children and you're listening to this, that's when the witching hour is, as they call it, when they start getting hungry for dinner, where my wife helps out with the meal and I help out with playing with my daughter. And it's the most amazing time, man.

41:44 Scott Ingram: Say more about that. What all happens in daddy happy hour?

41:47 Dylan Katcher: I love this. Well, the holidays just passed, so she definitely has more toys now for us to play with, but it could really be a mix. She's walking around now too, which makes it a lot more fun and exciting. But yeah, we'll be in the playroom. She's got this like cool like fort kind of thing where she can play on that and make different like gymnastics type activities for her. We're reading different books. She knows all the different animal sounds at this point. So we're playing with that and it gets fun. Her big thing is she hears when my wife or I on a phone call will say bye. And so to anyone now, even if she's saying hi, instead she just says bye-bye.

42:23 Scott Ingram: That is awesome. The thing I miss the absolute most is reading, going to bed, and just putting them to bed. Reading to my girls was the most fun thing for as long as they would put up with it.

42:33 Dylan Katcher: It's amazing. It's really nice. And it's a really great time being able to read that story. My wife and I take turns going back each night reading books. She has her favorites. She's even at the point now too, though, if we start reading a book that she doesn't like, she'll literally take the book and she'll close it on us and say no. She'll shake her head no and say no, you got to go find me another book.

42:53 Scott Ingram: All right. So what are the kids into these days? What are the books that are fully approved and what's getting rejected?

42:58 Dylan Katcher: Ooh. So she's into some of the classics too, which is nice. Like she likes Goodnight Moon, which is a, I know, a big popular one. My wife last night read The Tiny Baker. If you don't have that one and you have kids, it's very cute. It's sort of like Dr. Seuss kind of vibe with big food issues going on all over the place, but tons of quirky and fun rhymes. But probably her favorite one is Moo Balla La. If you've read that one, that one gets a little crazy, but the list goes on and Oh, that's awesome, man.

43:25 Scott Ingram: Seriously, I miss that time. It probably won't be too long. I'll blink again and I'll have grandkids, so I'll get to do it all over again.

43:31 Dylan Katcher: Wait, Scott, you're telling me you're not reading Moo Ba La La to your daughter in college right now?

43:34 Scott Ingram: Come on, my 17-year-old. Yeah, she's not. So that one gets closed for sure.

43:38 Dylan Katcher: That should be her birthday gift, right?

43:41 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Let me pull out the soapbox for you. I would love to know if there's something you believe that the average or typical sales rep would think is crazy.

43:53 Dylan Katcher: One of the themes that I've talked about is picking up the phone before emails. It's amazing when I talk to reps that just first come in and they could have been successful at other companies too, and they're like coming over to work for us and say, hey, I already just sent out a mail merge to everyone and now I'm looking at my accounts. We're just like, wait, why did you do that? It's just like such an impersonal way to go about it. Yes, you're not hearing the rejection no because you're not picking up the phone, but you're also not hearing the answer yes typically because you're just sending a mass email. Like really not personal email out there to people and you're not getting that actual response of gaining those meetings. So that's number one is picking up the phone. With that too, it's always having a conversation about the pricing or legitimate pricing and packaging options call before sending pricing via email. You need to have that conversation. Sometimes you may not have it like fully prepared, at least give them the idea and the next steps. And every now and then you need to adjust to some extent, But I will mention, hey, I know you want to go over pricing and packaging to ensure we're providing you with the best possible rate, we're meeting your needs, and we just answer any of your follow-up questions and discuss next steps. Want to make sure we can have a quick 5 to 7 minute pricing and packaging options call. So do you have availability this time or this time? And I'll even sometimes have to move my opportunity back to the following month. And this goes back to like not being desperate, but I know that it's more important to have that one call that's going to be effective 2 weeks later than trying to just send a pricing email when then they're like either get Sticker shock, or you aren't able to hear their reaction. They're going to have follow-up questions to you back and forth, and now you're going back and forth via email where you could have easily explained it over the phone. So really picking up the phone, having those actual human connections is key.

45:35 Scott Ingram: That is a really, really good call out. What about the other side? Is there something that the typical sales rep believes that you think is crazy?

45:44 Dylan Katcher: I think it's when they want something, whether it's a raise, whether it's more responsibility, more ability to go ahead and actually find themselves in a larger role or want something more for themselves, but without actually putting the work into it and thinking, oh man, I didn't get to this result, or like, I am not doing that well, but there's all these external factors when actually, are you looking at yourself? Are you asking others, hey, what could I be doing better? And really how they don't reach out to others as much as they should to actually gather feedback or they don't self-reflect enough to find ways to improve and really have that fire in the belly to work harder. And it's tough even when I meet with clients when they don't care as much about their job and being efficient. So it's tougher to sell to them. So sometimes then I have to find a different champion. But really, when you don't care about what you do, it's tough for me to relate because I just always want to care about what I do, care about helping others, and then all the great things happen from there.

46:45 Scott Ingram: I want to connect this back to your own story and asking for more and getting more and just kind of the lead-up to you managing 10 territories in those early days, right? Like, that's a big ask. Like, you really went out of your way to do that and were successful in it. But I imagine you had done a lot to kind of back that up. What was the preamble to that story?

47:07 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, so it kept going into showing the numbers behind it. Like when I did that AE start pair and now it's like just like a BDR sales associate type role showing that like, hey, I could call over 200 people in a day and hey, I could take the toughest list of cold calls and I could turn those into meetings. And then when it's okay, hey, I'm covering this one territory in a rural area that I may not be as familiar with, and I'm in that hadn't previously been successful, and I'm actually closing deals there remotely when most people would be in person in those territories at the time, and I'm showing that something's happened there. And then I'm now okay, I'm showing those results, and hey, I have the gusto to actually try and sell the VP of Sales, VP of Ops on me covering another territory. And they say, hey, if they're willing to ask me this question, just think about how they could have that type of gusto and guts to ask the VP of tax or VP of legal to sign up for our resources. So having that type of approach and then covering a new area and learning about each area's personalities and people and the different industries, really gaining that altogether. I just kept proving myself, always having that chip on the shoulder. And what's nice too about CRM systems like Salesforce, you're seeing how many meetings that you're having, you're seeing how many dials you're making. And when you constantly see that those numbers are higher than everyone else, you realize, hey, these extra dials turn into extra meetings, which turn into extra deals. And this is how he's making it happen. And that's compared to these other people that are at these lower numbers to really then see the success comes from there.

48:38 Scott Ingram: Nice. So super simplified. It's like step 1, earn it.

48:42 Dylan Katcher: Yeah.

48:43 Scott Ingram: But important step 2, then ask for it. Is that a fair, super simple synopsis?

48:48 Dylan Katcher: Yeah. Especially if you're in sales. Like, what's great about this is you have numbers behind it.

48:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

48:53 Dylan Katcher: Don't ask for it on your first day on the job, or don't ask for it when you're struggling. But if you want something, work hard and then get to it and then ask for it. And that's what's key is if you have the numbers behind you, then you have the respect there. And hey, if you maybe ask for something a little bit larger than what others may think would be reasonable, at least you have that backing of, hey, here's the reason why I'm asking it, because I know that this is for the greater whole. I think the other thing too is when you have those asks, Make sure you realize what's in it for them. Okay. Is this really just something for you? Because really my asks are, hey, let's improve the product so that all of us could sell more. Let's improve this system so that not just I can be more efficient so that everyone can be more efficient.

49:35 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. I think you maybe touched on this. Maybe there was a different inflection point. So you talked about literally being in last place as you came into that program. And I'd like to ask, like, what was the most important decision you had to make or the lesson you had to learn to get where you are today? Was it that period or was there something else?

49:56 Dylan Katcher: That was definitely a period with the biggest lesson. I think there's 2 lessons. One came from that, which was realizing that I need to be me and be my authentic self. And that, yes, there's all these other people that did all these great things that you're learning from and that are doing these great things that are teaching you these different ways to be successful, but you need to be your own version of yourself to be successful. And that's going to be great. The other though, too, is then yes, you have yourself and there's things that you may not be able to change as much, but other people may not be able to change themselves as much. And this is looking at DISC profiles, personalities, getting into how we were just talking to about looking at people in different regions of the nation and area, people in different roles. Like I'm dealing with a tax versus a payroll versus a legal professional. They're all very different. And it's amazing when you can get that one champion and they're excited about the resource and they're excited to be that person to help sell it for their company internally. When you have those people with you, really be able to like champion them up. I'm also dealing with administrators and legal operations, gatekeepers and ways to get in. And I try and make everyone my best friend and I try and talk to everyone like I'm talking to my best friend that I'm catching up with after not seeing them for a year, but we're picking up right where we last left off. A little thing that I even do for that is if I call a gatekeeper and I ask them, okay, can I speak to so-and-so? They say they're not available, whatever it may be. I first asked them, oh, hey, my name is Dylan, by the way. And what is your name? Oh, okay. So-and-so. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And are you able to see their schedule and see when they'd be available for me to try back or when we could schedule a 5 to 10 minute call? Even if that doesn't work out, I make sure to put in my notes and like on that next task for when I call back, hey, this is the gatekeeper's name. So when I call, oh hey, so-and-so, great to get reconnected with you. I know we had connected just a couple of weeks ago and you said they weren't available, so I wanted to make sure to reconnect with you here and see how things were going and if they're available now.

51:47 Scott Ingram: More pre-search. I love it. So Dylan, what advice would you have to somebody that is just getting started in their sales career today?

51:57 Dylan Katcher: It would definitely be number one, caring about what you do. Find a way to care about what you do and the people that you interact with. And that could be seeing, okay, hey, is your company involved in philanthropy? And do you care about helping out others that way? Do you care about helping out others with efficiency or saving money? And that's something that now you have that genuine aspect that you're sold on what you're helping them with, so that you believe in the product even more than just knowing that it's great, but knowing like what it could do for them. That's definitely number one. Number 2 is wake up 10 minutes earlier, start Start there and see how much more you get done. And then see if you can wake up a little bit earlier the next day and try and add that little bit extra to your day. And even if that extra 10 minutes or whatever that you're taking out is something for, again, something personal done, now you still have that 10 minutes freed up elsewhere though, to get more work done. And it's also really just learn from others and be a sponge, reaching out to those other people, finding what they're doing and shadowing their calls. I like the idea too, that when others shadow me now, I picked up from your podcast that I try and have others tell me, hey, what did you learn what would be something I could improve upon. So I'm trying to gather feedback now from it too. I mean, that was something helpful that I picked up from this podcast. And I just give that as an example because there's always something for me to learn too, even though I've been in this for 10 years and there's always something new to grow. So just keep trying to find that extra next tidbit so that you can keep growing and become a better person every day.

53:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So good. So good. What about for somebody that is further into their career and they've either gotten to this place of I'm good, I'm solid, but I haven't found that gear to greatness. What do you tell them?

53:34 Dylan Katcher: I'd first ask them, why do you think this is happening? And I'd ask them to self-reflect. I'd then ask them to say, have you been reaching out to the other top representatives and have you been asking to see what they're doing? And have you been shadowing their calls? You need to have a little bit of humility to an extent. And I, for example, like there's another top representative at our company. I just made sure to start this year because I want to keep growing. I set up a monthly call with him so that we could just share best practices with another. And there's always ways to grow. And hey, are you doing that? Are you doing something similar so that you could be learning from others? Are you bringing your manager onto a call so that they can maybe share their feedback with you after that and say, hey, maybe here's some areas where you could improve? And also, are you working as hard as you could be working?

54:19 Scott Ingram: Nice. Super simple, super straightforward. I think one of the reasons I love this show, but really love kind of this community and the summit and the things where we're able to get together is being in the spot that you're in is a lonely spot. I mean, I love that you've connected with another top performer at Bloomberg, but when you're consistently number one, it's hard to find people to really look up to, to take you to the next level. What questions do you have for the top sellers in other organizations who are in the same position that you're in?

54:49 Dylan Katcher: If I had one question to ask them, it would first be, when do you have some availability to connect so that we can share all of our best practices together and really collaborate and grow together? In addition to that, like when I would have that opportunity, asking how are you getting in the door when there is that gatekeeper in front of you, when there is that point of contact and sometimes there's only one that you call all these other people and they say, hey, no, you got to go through this person and they don't want to meet with you and they aren't open to it. Like, what are you doing? How do you handle that? What are some of your unique approaches outside the box to get in the door besides phone call and the dreaded email that just goes into their spam folder sometimes? Sometimes. And the other one would be, how do you celebrate the successes without always just moving on to the next thing so that you can really enjoy that moment? But then also, how do you keep growing as well? And what are you doing to learn and further your knowledge?

55:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that. I think sadly the answer to the second thing is we suck at celebrating and it's always like on to the next. It becomes rote. I'm curious for you, this idea of not the gatekeeper but the bottleneck, when you get to this single person that you can't break through, what have found what kind of works from a creative approach perspective?

55:59 Dylan Katcher: That's what my manager would have asked as well. Like, oh, hey, what are you doing now? What has been working? So then I try it. It's all different things. One of my big ones is I'll try and get in the door since we sell sort of to 3 different groups, both legal, tax, and payroll professionals. If they have like a tax and payroll department and I've either sold to them or I'm working on that and I can't get in with the legal team, leverage that relationship, get in the door with the tax team. And then my big move when I get a referral is not to say, oh, hey, what's their name? And then I try and reach out to them, said, oh hey, that's their name. Could you connect us in an email together and give us a quick introduction? Just let them know in a quick sentence that Dylan's been helping you out with Bloomberg Tax or whatever it may be. And they also help out with Bloomberg Law. So he wanted to make sure he could connect with you and he's a great guy, whatever it could be, so that then they know that it's a warm intro. It's not coming up as an external email. And then I follow up to that and now I have that opportunity to get in. That's definitely been the number one route is those types of referrals. The other one is trying to find anyone else in that group, in that company, to get their buy-in, even if they're not the decision maker, even if it still eventually has to go through that other person, but then say, hey, I'm really having troubles getting in touch with this person. And I know we've built this strong relationship and I know you see the value here in it. What can I do here? Like, what am I doing wrong? How can we make this happen? Because I want to help you, but I'm having troubles. So can you, as a person-to-person here, help me out so that we help you and then try and put it on them a little bit to be my champion and get me in the door.

57:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I love this. I think this has become a little too overlooked and there is so much emphasis on the cold and we don't talk enough about how do you make it not so dang cold. And so much of that is it's leveraging other relationships. It's, can I get a referral? Can I get an introduction? I love your call out of ask somebody for help. Like, hey, I've been trying to break through with this person. Do you know them, if you were me, what would you do? Right? Do you know about them? What are they into? Just asking for help. People are happy to help. You just have to ask the question.

58:00 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, I'll do that with gatekeepers sometimes if they know, like, hey Sandra, I know this is probably the 10th time I've been calling you over the past few months. And it's really just because this isn't a cold call. Like, by the way, I'll say that too. I never look at them as cold calls because in some kind of way I've helped out someone similar to you in a similar role. So there's a very high likelihood that this is going to be helpful for you too. I look at it as I'm just a marketer and I want to be able to show them this option that they're not aware of yet. And just to have that opportunity, I'm not selling them on it. I just want to show them what's out there and then you decide from there. And by taking that type of approach, I think it can really help out and having that mindset and then even having that kind of conversation with a gatekeeper or whoever it may be to say, Hey, person to person, how can we make this happen?

58:47 Scott Ingram: Nice. I love that, man. This has been fun. We have covered a lot of ground. Is there something I didn't ask that I should have, or something that you were hoping to touch on that somehow we didn't get to?

59:00 Dylan Katcher: I'd say we've talked about a lot of success and a lot of the positive. It's not all rainbows and butterflies, and it's really seeing the hard work that goes behind it. It's tough to teach. It's pretty much impossible to teach like the work ethic side of things. Like I'll share all of my best tips, tricks, practices, whatever it may be, shadow my calls, share insights. But to have that fire in the belly, it's one thing that you can't really teach. But to also say too is having that strong character and will behind yourself is key because there's a lot of failures. For example, just this past year, I lost the biggest opportunity I had ever been working on, what would've been the biggest deal for the company, and we lost it. Lost it. And if you felt like having 50 meetings and demos was a lot, this was over 100. This was 3 years worth of work. This was connecting with all these different people. I was talking about having a Word doc worth of feedback. It was over 10 pages worth of feedback of direct quotes from what these people were saying on our resource and what they had shared with it, trying to show it to as many people as possible, getting their buy-in. We came in at even a much more competitive and better price, but the problem was what was perceived as product deficiencies compared to the competitor. And that was really tough for me since it was out of my control. Unfortunately, I don't build the product. And it was really tough because everything I could control, I did as well as possible. I did that recipe for success. It didn't work out though. And it was really tough. When you have small losses, they hurt too, but this one really stung and it was disheartening. But I think it's how you handle those situations. It really shows yourself and who you are as a person as well as a business person. And that's why I'm using actually specifically there the word business person, not salesperson, because I took that and said, hey, you know what, that day to my manager, let's schedule a meeting with our chief product officer. I know they're busy, but this is that important. And let's get that meeting and let's tell them this feedback that we heard so that we can make these improvements so that the next big opportunity that I get together for, so that one of my colleagues does, that we're not having the conversation this way, but we're talking about how we want it because we made these improvements. For them. And taking that type of approach and now having to build that relationship with product and leadership allows us to make sure that now we're improving overall as a company and makes it so that, hey, yes, this really stunk when this happened, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel and now we can make something good out of this as well because now we'll get a bigger deal from it in the future.

1:01:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, man, I love your mindset there. I think to me, this is the biggest sign of… I did a webinar recently talking about what is an A-player. And I think if you only look at the dynamic of revenue results, you often miss so many intangibles that you really touched on, which is, yeah, it totally sucks that I lost this deal. But now how do we turn this into an opportunity that's going to benefit the company? So the fact that you were like, I'm in the worst hurt there is right in this moment, because this is a super gut punch. But we've got to get this to product. This is an opportunity for us to level up. So that. And again, the fact that you said not just so that I can win the next one or that we can win this back in the future, that we can all continue to win and differentiate and not have this deficiency going forward.

1:02:13 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, exactly. And I made sure to then share that feedback with other top sales reps and managers. And they're saying, oh, we actually have heard some of that feedback from other customers and opportunities too. So then we're realizing, okay, but they may not have brought it up to like the product team. So, or some of them may have, but it might've not been handled in the right way. So now, okay, let's really bring this all together. Let's all get on the same page so that we can have the best possible resource here together built on what the customer needs. So we're winning all together here.

1:02:40 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You set yourself up and then answered the question I would have asked you, which was sort of what's your favorite failure, which it sounds like maybe that is. I'm really curious about, was there ever a time where you lost that fire in the belly? Have you ever had a period of burnout or a time where you didn't have it?

1:02:59 Dylan Katcher: People have asked me that one before, because they see my energy and they see it. I mean, I know you can't see me on the podcast right now, but I'm at a stand-up desk. That's key. Helps out with the energy as well throughout the day. There's definitely been a lot of changes. Like I had one manager who was amazing throughout the majority of my career. And he made an amazingly selfless decision to have me go from this advisors group to our corporate group to have more opportunities for selling. So things like that were tough, where then learning with new managers, But then, hey, he shared what worked with us, what didn't, with the new managers that have helped me since. And we've had success, but something like that was tough as well as leadership changes. And with those leadership changes, territory changes and the relationships that I've built up, and then all that work I put into this deal, but now I got to go after something new, or I got to try and rush to get that deal done before I lose that territory. Those are all really tough things that will happen. I'd say actually at one point there was leadership changes and it was COVID. So no one's picking up the phone either. It was really difficult there. And I'd say there's a week where I lost a little bit of drive. And why I say that is I vividly remember it. And I remember then after the days, I felt like crap. And it was because I wasn't working as hard as I could. And it was because I felt like I wasn't putting as much into it as I could. There's obviously a lot of external factors and reasons for it. But then I was like, wait, sort of like what I just talked about with that big opportunity when I lost it. Hey, there is some positive here. Let's find creative ways where all of a sudden I was sending video messages to people because they weren't picking up the phone during COVID to like get meetings. And I was having fun with that. And I was finding ways to really learn about the new leadership and realize, oh, hey, some of these territory changes, these are good because these new accounts, it's new opportunities for me to go after. And instead of looking at it half empty, that glass being half full and having that approach has definitely like kept that fire in the belly for me.

1:04:43 Scott Ingram: Okay, so let me ask this. Does it feel like, given what you just described, is it the action and the work that creates the energy, or is it the energy that allows you to do the work?

1:04:56 Dylan Katcher: Sort of a chicken and egg kind of situation there, Scott. I think it's a little bit of both, but I think it's genuinely being excited to just have an interaction with someone. Even if they're going to tell me no, it doesn't scare me. It's honestly something where it's like, it sort of excites me in a sense where it's like, okay, they said No, but oh hey, why so? Why is this not of interest? And I try not to be that annoying person to them, but I also try and really get excitement because if I can overcome that and I can at least get that opportunity to show it to them, I can't tell you how many times people have said no, and then I eventually get that meeting. And then at the end, one of the best things to hear as a salesperson and in my role is I get at the end thanked for my persistence, and they're ultimately happy with what we've been able to help out with. And that's why I was saying before, like none of these calls are cold calls because I know that if I have that persistence and we have this conversation. Conversation, there's a high likelihood that this is gonna be helpful for you because I've helped someone similarly out. So that positive energy just comes with the opportunity of, I genuinely like to help people. And now I'm excited about this conversation that I'm about to have, whether it's a warm call, we'll call it, or that meet-in or whatever it may be to really then ultimately drive those actions and success.

1:06:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I think for myself, the activity drives the energy. It doesn't work as well for me to try and psych myself up like, oh, I'm totally motivated. I'm gonna go do all of this work. Versus just doing the work and being in action and feeling good about, hey, I'm working hard, that makes you want to do more of that. And it sounds like that's kind of what happened to you with COVID Like, you fell out of it because you're like, well, I'm not working as hard as I can, and now I'm all… I think you experience it way less than mere mortals, but the rest of us, this happens more frequently.

1:06:39 Dylan Katcher: Yeah, it's definitely not easy. And hearing no or not getting answers is really tough, but like having that idea in the back of my head too of, oh, hey, maybe this is the first time I've called this person 100 times. Maybe this 101st time is the time they're going to answer. And having that type of positive mindset at all times keeps me excited as opposed to like, ah, I don't even know if I should call them anymore. Like I'm dreading this. Do I even call them? Okay. Now I'm thinking about this versus that mantra that I have of like, just make things happen. Just make the call. The amount of time I've been thinking about doing it, I could have already called them and gotten it done and maybe gotten that meeting or hey, maybe it just moves on to the next thing and now called the next person, but at least we're trying. And I can look back on, I just try and take everything day by day. And did I do as well as I could that day? And I feel like if I worked as hard as I could that day, made the most calls, set the most beat-ins, handled that pricing conversation as well as it could be, whatever it may be, found that solution, asked the right question. Eventually, even if those sales don't come in right away, that hard work will pay off. And with sales too, depending on everyone's sales cycle, it may show up 6 months later. That hard work that you put in earlier, it may show up a year later, but it really does pay off in the end. You just got to trust it. Love it.

1:07:46 Scott Ingram: Love it.

1:07:47 Dylan Katcher: Love it.

1:07:47 Scott Ingram: Love it. All right. Let's try and boil this whole thing down, distill it to its essence and make it actionable and turn it into a challenge. So what would you challenge our listener to do over the course of the next 1, maybe 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:08:03 Dylan Katcher: Sure. A couple of quick, easy hitters I think would be number 1, wake up 10 minutes earlier, see how it goes. If it's really that tough for you, by the way, nice little secret for waking up early, just go to sleep a little bit earlier. You still get the same amount of hours of sleep if you do the math. Number 2 would be before you're about to send that email, pick up the phone and call them. I know other customers and clients, they may not have that as their main preferred communication method. And if they really tell you that, I'm not telling you to piss people off, but go ahead and really give it a shot and tell them the reason why you're calling. Like, hey, I saw you sent this email, but thought it'd be a lot more efficient to just answer your questions over the phone here. And really try to do that before you go just head down into typing things out. Those would be definitely 2 of the big ones. Another one would be reach out to someone else that you admire, whether internally at work, whether externally that you know as another top sales representative or top professional, whether it could be a manager, whoever be and ask for feedback, go to learn from them. And whether that is having just that one-time call, but ideally having that follow-up call, having that monthly call or bimonthly call, it doesn't have to be anything crazy. Do it on like Friday afternoons, but gather feedback so that you're doing more than just your own self-reflection, but really ask others for how you can grow and how you can get better. And I even do that with my clients too, especially after I win the deal, because I don't want to make it awkward sometimes before the deal. But hey, no, we went through this. Or even if I lost the deal too, like, was there anything I could have done better? Anything we could have done different here so that we could improve our product and service overall there for you? And constantly asking for feedback, it's only going to make you better as long as you're receptive to it.

1:09:38 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. Dylan, this has been awesome, man. Thanks for the time. Thanks for the energy. Really a pleasure talking with you.

1:09:43 Dylan Katcher: Hey, thanks for the opportunity, Scott. Love the podcast and can't wait to listen more. 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.