196: Vicki Kovacs on CEO Mode, MEDDPICC, and Mastering Expansion Sales at SysAid

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. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Vicki Kovacs. Vicki is the top-performing expansion account executive at SysAid for the last 2 years running. Welcome to the show, Vicki.

0:35 Vicki Kovacs: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Scott.

0:38 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Thanks for making the time. I know it is quite late for you. Let's jump in. I really like to start with some immediate value with this show each time we start one of these conversations. So let's start by talking about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales.

0:55 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, great question. I think the number one that I would say has contributed would be expansion for me is very much like a business. It's not about a territory. It's about really owning my business. I think one of our values at SysAid is being CEO mode activated. That's one of our company values. And I think being an expansion manager and an account executive, this is very much, this just embodies that whole CEO mode activated position. Perspective. So, that's how I treat my work, my job, and my book of business that I look after.

1:32 Scott Ingram: Excellent. What's the second thing?

1:34 Vicki Kovacs: I think that running a very disciplined sales process has definitely led me very much to my success. So, I follow a MEDDPICC sales strategy for discovery and for managing my opportunities and what I'm working on. And I think that keeping this as disciplined as possible enables you to really move swiftly through the sales process. Because whatever is not filled out in your med pic are the areas that you really need to focus on. So, I just think that that discipline has helped me for a long time and still helps me today.

2:10 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. And the third one?

2:11 Vicki Kovacs: I think that, especially with AI and how we are leveraging AI and what we're doing, I think our customers, they want to really give confidence in what we're doing. They want to focus on the credibility of what we are building. So, I think really giving the customer confidence, really giving them the ability to see live what the value is, it gives them confidence in me as a person and obviously the company and the product that I'm working for at SysAid.

2:45 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. Yeah, I think more and more as we see all of this AI, what stays for us is the trust and the relationship that we have in sort of guiding our clients in a way that AI just can't.

2:56 Vicki Kovacs: Exactly. I think this is something that AI will never replace, the relationships and the people. And this is actually what I love about my job is the relationships and the people that I get to meet every day. And, you know, I've worked with some of my customers for many years, and I'm still speaking to them constantly. We have a great working relationship, and it almost becomes a friendship because moves over even onto WhatsApp and it's that long-term partnership and relationship with these customers. And I think that's what really gives the added value.

3:30 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. Well, let's contextualize this. So talk about SysAid, talk about your role. How many accounts are you managing and what is it taking to get to number 1?

3:40 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, so my role is an expansion account executive at SysAid. So I look after book of customers. I have around 35 enterprise customers for SysAid, and my role is really to ensure that my customer is adopting our products. So, if they have purchased AI, I want to ensure that they are leveraging and utilizing AI. I want to make sure that we are delivering value. I want to make sure that we are growing the relationship across the organization. SysAid is not just an IT service delivery platform, it's an enterprise service delivery platform. So, it's for the entire organization, not just IT, it's for HR, it's for all departments, finance, operations. So, it's my job to really get that message across and to help our customers understand that SysAid is a platform, one unified platform for all the organization. I think it's the best role in any company, is sales and expansion. You get to know the customers, you get to understand their business, you get to understand their use cases, and you get to grow with them. And that's my job.

4:48 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. And then quantify your results for us.

4:51 Vicki Kovacs: Sure. So I joined SysAid in January 2024. So I've been here 2 years now, 2 full years, which is great. So I get to see my results clearly. 2024, I finished at 166% of my annual targets. I definitely do not stop at 100%. That just gets me more excited. And then in 2025, I finished at 136%. So, I was targeted around $1 million and I overachieved. So, yeah, that's been great. And I'll let you know next year how this year plays out.

5:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah, fantastic. Definitely want to hear. What's your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

5:29 Vicki Kovacs: Originally, I studied psychology when I was at university in London. I studied psychology and I think what I loved about psychology was learning about people, habits, why people behave certain ways. And I think from very early on, that just interested me and I fell into the this career path, I started with, actually, I was in property sales in London and I loved it. I loved meeting people, going around the houses, showing them around. Naturally, I just was really good at the job. And from there I moved into, I think it was SDR roles, so sales development, then business development in different tech companies. I started off as an SDR and I grew into the account executive role. And yes, I guess the last 10 years I've been working at NetApp and Intel and now here at SysAid. So, it's always been a sales role in my career. It's just part of who I am, really.

6:26 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Why did you decide to go down that path? Did you know that that was kind of how you would leverage your psychology degree?

6:32 Vicki Kovacs: When I studied, I didn't think I'm going to go into sales. I just knew I wanted to work with people. And the more that I had experience working with people, whether it was in property or whether it was in technology, I got to meet people and And I really enjoyed that experience. And that took me down this path where I just decided that I wanted to shift into the tech world because I believed that that was a given of where the future's going. And I felt like it was a sensible decision at the time. I still think it's a sensible decision. It's an exciting…

7:04 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. I'm curious if you were starting that journey over today, is there anything you would have done or thought about differently from a career perspective?

7:13 Vicki Kovacs: I think that working with people is definitely something I've always loved doing. I think that's my favorite part of this job is being, you know, working with people. I think that I mentioned earlier about having sales strategies and frameworks like the MEDDPICC. I didn't have that maybe 20 years ago. So, if I'd have had that from the beginning, maybe I could have become the best quicker or learnt strategies quicker. And I think this kind of discipline is something that I would suggest to anyone at any point in their career, definitely starting off.

7:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Did you always have, so as we've talked through kind of your top 3 things, are those something that you've sort of always had or have evolved over time, over the course of your career, as you kind of figured out, hey, it's really important that I do A, B, and C?

8:03 Vicki Kovacs: Yes, I think it's definitely evolved over my career. So, I think the partnership with my customers is something I think really comes naturally to me. I just connect well with people, and it's one of my skills. We all have strengths and weaknesses. I think it's one of my strengths. I think that the discipline of a sales strategy, of having your metrics and knowing who your buyer is and all those parts, that's something I learned over time. I did different courses which taught me different strategies. So, I did a Sandler training when I was working at NetApp, and I did a MEDDPICC training. I even did, I think, a Jordan Belfort training with another company. So, it's all different sales strategies. Strategies over the years, and I think they're all actually quite similar in they overlap, and then you take the best parts, and that I think has built my approach in how I work with customers and how I work in sales.

8:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and I often ask the question, do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy? Is it one of those, or have you sort of taken that combination to create your own?

9:08 Vicki Kovacs: I think I've definitely taken a combination of different strategies, mentors along the way, of people I've worked with. Absolutely. I A long time ago, I was in a training for Jordan Belfort, Wolf of Wall Street. And I think the main thing about that, that really stuck out for me was about, it was about the customer. In order for a customer to buy, they need to love the product that you're selling them. So, when I'm showing them the product, I need to really love that product. I need to understand that product and I need to be excited about what I'm showing. The second one was the company. The customer needs to love the company that you work for. SysAid, as a company, who are we? And I represent my company. So, when I speak to my customers, in fact, in all walks of life of mine, I represent my company wherever I go. So, that's, I think it's an important part of sales. And then the final part that he said was, was me, right? I am a super important part of this sales process. I need to connect with my customer. The customer needs to connect with me. And if those 3 parts are ticked off and are at the best place, then you can move forward in this opportunity. And I think that's, that was one of, that was a really great lesson that I learned just to map that out. And as I said, lots of different parts from different strategies, different leaders that I've worked with.

10:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. For me, that really aligns with maybe one of the biggest, most consistent things I've taken away from, gosh, I think you'll be interview number 196 or some crazy thing. I think of it as belief, right? Is you have to believe in your product. You have to believe in your company. You have to believe in yourself and your process and your ability to deliver value to your customers. And then it becomes a transference of that belief, right? I think same thing said another way. So, the show is called Sales Success Stories. What is your favorite sales story?

11:05 Vicki Kovacs: It's hard to choose one, isn't it, Scott? I think my favorite sales story was when I had a sales process going. The CIO that I was working with, that we were going through the process with, left the organization, and I was left almost ghosted. I just had no one responding to me. The champion or the decision maker actually that I was working with had left the organization. And I was left on my own to try and find out what to do. And, and so I went on to my Sales Navigator and I went to the account and I tried to see what was going on in the organization, if there was any changes. And it was a couple of months where it was quiet and I was trying to reach out, no response. And then I saw that there was a change in the organization and A new CIO had been appointed. And so, I thought, okay, I need to reach this new CIO. I need to continue this process. I need to… this is something that's going to help the organization and I want to get in front of the CIO. So, I spoke to my contacts internally in the organization and I did actually manage to get a meeting with the CIO, but I had the idea to actually do that in person and to fly over. To meet the CIO in person because they always get different emails from all different people. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask my CEO, Avi. I'm gonna ask him, can we go and meet this new CIO in person? Let's fly over. This is a big opportunity. Can we do it? He said, get it ready. They say yes, let's do it. And I emailed the customer and I said, we're going to be in your region in these dates. I'd really like to meet. And I pushed the deal from being, it was moving, then it went completely silent. And then it started moving again, just by these, just thinking a little bit outside the box. And it really taught me a lot. It taught me not to go through the standard generic way of working with people. I need to think outside the box, right? Every leader gets hundreds of emails a day, messages on LinkedIn. I'm not the one that's at the top of their inbox. So, I need to somehow find a way to stand out from the crowd.

13:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I often think about that perspective. Can you imagine how bombarded a new CIO of an enterprise organization must be when they land in that seat? It boggles my mind to just think through how are they even dealing with that onslaught?

13:45 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, exactly. There's some great ways now, though, to really stand out. There are applications where you can have a bubble in the corner when you're doing your email, so you can actually have a video when they open the email. And there's different ways to do things than just sending standard emails like we've always done. So, and that's the great thing about AI is just all the advance in technology and opportunity.

14:07 Scott Ingram: What are some of those other creative ways that you are looking to break through that noise? Because again, your buyer is a very busy executive.

14:16 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, absolutely. They're C-levels. They are full back-to-back, day-to-day, inboxes overly full. I think that as soon as I get in touch with an influencer in an organization, I always ask if we can speak over WhatsApp, if there is any urgency, if there's any needs. I try to build a closer relationship than just the email back and forth. So, I try to get a more easy communication with my customers, whoever they are. And then from that, I've actually built a lot of great partnerships with customers and found and found that I could actually be introduced to more senior executives in the organization just by getting more familiar, getting, just breaking that barrier between the email because it's just, it creates, I guess it just creates that distance. So, I think actually WhatsApp and whatever kind of communication tool you're using locally, this is a game changer in partnerships and relationships.

15:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. I think one, getting to your point above the fray of inbox and also understanding kind of their preferred channel. Again, whether that's text, it's WhatsApp. I feel this came from Irfan Jafar a number of years ago who was at VMware. And part of what he was doing was getting onto his client Slack channel, which to me is, that's the new walking the halls. I do that too. Yeah. It used to be, oh, we go in the office and I have a badge. And so I can go wherever I need to and I can talk to people. Slack is the new version of that, I feel like.

15:52 Vicki Kovacs: Yes, you can communicate with your customers in Slack, in their Slack channels. It's brilliant. Yeah. Those barriers are breaking. So it's great.

16:02 Scott Ingram: Vicki, you have had a lot of good, consistent success. What are you most proud of?

16:07 Vicki Kovacs: What am I most proud of? I think that we almost create our own brand in sales and in our careers. We're working and we are going along year after year, and I think that we've in the end, we build a brand and I'm really proud of the brand, in inverted commas, that I have built for myself. I'm proud of the journey that I've been on and the companies I've worked for, the experience that I've been given the opportunity to have. And I'm really happy with who I am in my career and the employee that I am to my company. I feel proud of that. So, I think, yeah, brand is important, not just in marketing, but in us and what we do. So yes, I'm proud of my brand today.

16:58 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. What about the flip side? What do you struggle with the most? What's the biggest challenge that you continue to wrestle with?

17:07 Vicki Kovacs: Biggest challenge I think would be keeping up with all the new changes, all the features. I'm in an industry which is just changing every hour. Features are being released and products are being launched and changes are being made, and it is It is hard sometimes to really keep up with my business, with my own business. Like I mentioned before, CEO mode activated. I need to know my business 100%. I want to know my business 100%. And it's a challenge. It's a challenge. I have to set aside time every week just to get up to date with the new features in my product, new ways to demo my product. There are new, you It's just changing on a constant basis. So, it's tough. And I think with AI, it's just so much more than it used to be. Like, it's just taken a massive leap.

18:03 Scott Ingram: I think you already gave a hint at this just in terms of carving out some dedicated time each week, but how are you endeavoring to stay on top of it?

18:11 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, I have to carve out time to study, to be on top of my business, to study not just my business, the competition, everyone. I need to understand what's changing in the industry, what's changing in my business, and it really is a matter of time. I need to sit. I do have carved out in my calendar every week time for preparing, learning, updating myself on what's new within the company and outside.

18:40 Scott Ingram: Let's dig deeper into all of that just in terms of how you're carving out time across the board. Let's do it this way. The way I love to ask this question is, Your alarm clock goes off. Tell me what time that happened and then just give us the blow-by-blow through a typical day until your head hits the pillow again.

18:56 Vicki Kovacs: Okay. Yes. So my alarm goes off at around 6 AM and at this time I get myself ready and I get things ready for my children. So I prepare their breakfasts and their school things. So I do the morning routine with the kids and then I usually do some sports, Pilates, something like this, just some me time before I head into into the office. I go every day to the office, which is great. I love it. I look forward to going into the office in the morning. I take my coffee with me for the journey, for my drive in. And I absolutely love coming to work every day with people I work with. It's amazing. I'm very lucky and grateful for that part of my day. As soon as I get in and I've sat down, I am first looking through my emails. And my Slacks. The night before, just to say, I do organise my day for the following day, right? So I look at all my meetings. If there are any decks or presentations that I'm going through tomorrow, I do just go over those. I spend a long time preparing for meetings. That's how my day starts. And to be honest, I'm pretty, yeah, my schedule is very busy. I am with customers all day long, so I don't have so much time in between that, but yes, It's a full-on day, just very customer-focused.

20:21 Scott Ingram: And then talk about that evening piece. What time do kind of the customer conversations wrap up and when are you doing that prep for the next day?

20:30 Vicki Kovacs: My customers have, some of them have been with SysAid for 20 years, 10 years, 5 years. Some of them are quite new. So me, every time I meet a customer, I want to prepare. I want to prepare on their statistics and how they're using the system and how it's going for them. Any issues or problems that they might have currently, any opportunities that we're working on. And when I meet a customer, usually I will have a tailored presentation for them. So, I will spend a long time preparing for some of these meetings, especially when I'm presenting something new, a new feature, a new product, a new launch. There's a lot of preparation that goes in. It can be hours really preparing and digging in and finding the right information to show them and show them how they're using our product, the value, and where we can improve. There's always room for improvement. So, I want to understand what's great and what's not. That's the preparation. And that can be, as I said, a few hours, sometimes more. And then the night before, yes, I will always look through my agenda the next day and just make sure I'm prepared for all of those accounts and customers and meetings that I have planned.

21:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, I probably haven't had near enough conversations with pure expansion reps like yourself on the show. So, talk a little bit more about how are you just thinking about the overall strategy in terms of managing all of your accounts? Do you have set cadences with them? How are you thinking about that structure and that prioritization in general?

22:09 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah. So, I will have cadences with my champions and sometimes, and some of the executives as well. Getting a cadence in is absolutely essential, I think, to the relationship and to ensuring the long-term relationship, because I know that whether it's biweekly or if it's monthly, I'm going to come to that meeting prepared and I'm going to show them what's happened from one month to the next or from the last 2 weeks. So, So this is critical, I think, to relationship building and the partnership growth that you have with your customers. And I think with, as an expansion manager, I have my accounts, which I know they need a bit more attention from me. And there are those that maybe don't. Also, what we do is we can split the accounts and to understand which ones are happy to just go along as they are and those where you feel and you know that they want to grow and they want to change and they want to transform with their AI. And because our company is an AI-driven company, so I need to understand and see that they have and they understand and they, they want to see the value of SysAid and grow with it. Love it.

23:24 Scott Ingram: Are there any other kind of habits or routines that are core to the way that you function?

23:30 Vicki Kovacs: I think that during the day, I always take 5 minutes and I just go and I breathe. I do just like a breathing exercise because sometimes I'm in back-to-back meetings. I'm like back to back to back, and I need to have some time just to breathe and just recenter myself. Because I just find like I'm running and I'm not, you know, I'm not present. I'm not, I just need to get my presence centered again. So, I do have moments where I need to take those 5 minutes just to recenter myself. Because I get almost on a mission. I'm just, I'm running and I just, I forget myself. That's probably one of my habits in the day.

24:11 Scott Ingram: Any others? That's a good one.

24:13 Vicki Kovacs: Other habits, I think, well, when I'm on calls, I think one important part is always having a next call booked. This is one habit that I've created and built up. It's really important that at the end of every call, I have a next call scheduled. I think that's like a one basic tool that we should have leveraging.

24:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What about your information diet? What are you listening to? What are you reading? What are you watching? And when does that happen?

24:38 Vicki Kovacs: I'm part of groups on LinkedIn that I get some great information from. They're very much AI-driven groups. I look at CIO Weekly. There's a few different newsgroups that I am part of. And I just like to really look over, see through the different titles, what's relevant to me. And then I'll go and I'll have a look inside. Those articles. That's one of the ways I really stay up to date, actually, in information and what's going on and what's relevant and new trends as well. Definitely, it's called CIO Weekly, and it's got great insights into any new trends, any new developments in this industry across the tech world.

25:21 Scott Ingram: Excellent. What about kind of the tools and apps that you can't live without?

25:26 Vicki Kovacs: LinkedIn and Sales Navigator. I love it. It's brilliant. I love to set, once you follow and you set certain alerts, you can actually see when there's changes in the organization. This is brilliant because some people see the changes as risk. I see it as a massive opportunity. It's a great opportunity to build a new relationship, to show someone who we are, what we do. It's brilliant. I get very excited when there's a change in an organization, more than I should probably. So, Sales Navigator is fantastic. ZoomInfo is great just to get some more information and understand, you can see what technologies are being leveraged across the organization and just to understand their tech stack better. Yeah, I think these 2 are my day-to-days, obviously CRM and Salesforce and all the basic CRMs and actually chat, obviously ChatGPT, AI tools, Gemini, so many AI tools, Gong, I was using Gainsight and Staircase is brilliant. Yeah. AI just speeds up every process.

26:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Excellent. Excellent. Actually, I think the top rep from Gainsight might be next on deck. So something for us to both look forward to. What about motivation? What motivates you? How do you think about motivation and drive in general?

26:47 Vicki Kovacs: I think that for motivation, I'm motivated when I feel like I'm at my best, when I feel like I'm doing the very best that I can do in every part of my life. I like to be what I see as excellent, right? The best that I can be. I don't look at other people and what they're doing. I look at myself and I work hard. I genuinely love working hard. I genuinely love to work and see the results that I'm getting, that I'm creating. And so, when the product and the company is exciting and the people I'm working with are brilliant and talented, it's just, it's a winning combination. And for me, that motivates me every day. Like I said earlier, I am excited to go to the office. I can't wait. I'm always almost sad to go home.

27:43 Scott Ingram: And just to bring a point of emphasis to that idea of, because it's something I see over and over again where that point of comparison is self and the best version of yourself rather than an external comparison of, oh, I want to be doing better than this other person where it's just not really possible. And a lot of times you don't have all the context for what's really going on there, but you do have all the context for what's going on with you and what you're capable of.

28:11 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, absolutely. I 100% agree. I look at myself. I want to know that I'm doing the best that I can do. And that's all I'm looking at.

28:21 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. Is there something that you believe that the average or typical sales professional would think is crazy?

28:29 Vicki Kovacs: Maybe some reps starting off in their career might think that the internal relationships is not a relevant skill or an important skill. I actually think it's one of the most important skills and it's definitely contributing to my success has been my team, all the leaders in my company. The fact that I can, that I've built up relationships with, whether it's my CTO, whether it's my CISO, whether my CEO, my CFO joins me on calls. I have relationships with, I try to have relationships, it's a big company, so I can't be close to everyone, but in sales, yes, I need to have my internal relationships strong. Especially when we're working together and as a team, we win more than me individually. So, I think internal relationships and especially in sales, you need to know your leaders. You need to have a good relationship. You need to be able to just jump over and say, this is what he's asked, the customer's asking. What do you think? Can we do that? Can we not? Is it a feature we can add? Can it be added next week? No. This is what is, for me, I think one of the skills that is perhaps overlooked until later on, maybe until you figure that out.

29:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love that point. And I think especially as you get into more complex enterprise-scale relationships, it becomes even more important. How are you cultivating those relationships?

29:57 Vicki Kovacs: I think that naturally I talk to people that I'm with. Once I know that, once I join a company, it's my goal really to understand who everyone is, the organization, to meet people, because naturally with technology, there are questions. I have questions every day. Does this product work like this? Can I do that with it? Do we have this feature? Does it work with this technology? There's so many questions, and it's a different person for each question. There are teams building this, so I want to go and I want to speak to them. I don't want to write an email or send a Slack. I want to actually go over physically and say to them, speak to them, and approach, and I think a Approaching is definitely a way to build and cultivate these relationships as much in person as possible or Zoom, just actually seeing face-to-face, not just on Slack. I think this really helps.

30:54 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great distinction. What about the flip side? As you think about the sales dogma that's out there, right? The stuff that everybody believes and says, what part of that do you think is crazy?

31:04 Vicki Kovacs: I think it's crazy to think that you can be the best in your trade, whether it's sales or anything, any role that you have, by doing a 9 to 5 bare minimum kind of day. I honestly think it's impossible to get to your best place by doing the minimum work. I can't understand it. It's not me at all. I see a really big distinction in success between those that kind of want to just do the minimum really, but want the success and those that do the maximum that they can, but also want that success. I just, yeah, I've seen a big distinction between that.

31:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What is that? Is it a number of hours? And you've got kids as well. How are you finding that balance, but also doing the real work and how much volume is that?

31:58 Vicki Kovacs: It depends on what you want to achieve. It's a tough balance. Work and family is a tough balance, especially, I guess, for me that I have high expectations of myself across all areas of my life. You have these expectations and I want to meet them. So, if my target at work is obviously 100%, I don't want to get 100%. I do not want 100%. I will actually feel miserable with 100%. I want to get, I want my 150%. I want to reach high, and I can't do that. I just know myself. I cannot do that if I'm going to come in 10 o'clock and leave at 6, and I need to make my results and my success happen. And everything in life, I think, is a numbers game. The more you put in, the more you get out. And sales, there's no limit, right? The sky is the limit. There's no limit to the success that you can achieve in this industry and what you can achieve with working with customers and growing accounts and growing those relationships. So, the more that you put in, the more you will get out.

33:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What have been the most important either decisions you've made or lessons you had to learn to really get to the level that you're at today?

33:16 Vicki Kovacs: I think what I actually just touched upon, I think one of the biggest lessons is about the more that I put in or what I put in is what I will get out of what I'm doing. And I've seen that in every job that I've had and every company I've worked in, whether it's an SDR or an AE. And also I see it across with my colleagues and present and past VPs, CEOs. Again, everyone that's successful really does go the extra mile. So, I think that's really one of the biggest lessons that I've learned. If I want that success, if I want to be successful, I need to go the extra mile to achieve that. If I don't, that's not something that drives me, then that wouldn't be relevant.

34:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What advice would you give to somebody that's early in their career, or maybe the advice that you would even give to yourself in those early kind of SDR, BDR roles that maybe you wish you had that would have helped inform where you are today?

34:15 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, I would say definitely have a look and get a sales strategy, a discipline. Have a look now at MedPage. Go and learn how to really organize and structure your business, your opportunities, and take ownership. And then you can really highlight and see where the gaps are. And that will lead you in your processes to really understand your customer.

34:42 Scott Ingram: Love that. What about advice that you might have for somebody that is further into their career and maybe they're doing well, but they're not great? They haven't gotten to, I'm number one on the team. What do you tell them? Them?

34:53 Vicki Kovacs: I would say that it's all about mindset. I think that if you believe that you're going to achieve something and you can make it happen, and I think that especially in sales, whether you're an AE or an expansion AE, I think sometimes we can forget to go back to the basics. And for me, the basics is real discovery, really understanding my customer, why they are on this call with me, what is their goals, what are their objectives, what do they need to achieve, and really going back to the discovery part of the conversation. So, I think for anyone that's struggling, or for me when I'm struggling, I need to really go back, take a step back, and go back to day one discovery, which is not 5 minutes. It's a process. There's a lot of information to pick.

35:44 Scott Ingram: My favorite mindset around discovery, and I talk about this all the time, and I try to live this myself, Katie Jane Bailey, was the top performer at Figma. And she said that discovery is a lifestyle, not a stage. That just says it all, right? Every conversation is discovery. There's always something that you can be learning and taking away.

36:08 Vicki Kovacs: Absolutely. There is always another layer of why underneath everything that is being said.

36:13 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. What are the things that you would want to know from other top performers in other organizations?

36:21 Vicki Kovacs: I would love to know. I know how I would create my pipeline today. I'd love to hear more about other top sellers. How do they build their pipeline? Are there any discovery questions or questions, things that they ask a customer, which just is their go-to, really? Yeah, I think I'd love to see how they're building more pipeline, what kind of questions they feel are the most valuable to their customers. Yeah.

36:47 Scott Ingram: What is that for you? What are your go-to questions and how are you building pipe?

36:51 Vicki Kovacs: Go-to questions, I, especially now that we're beginning of the year, I love to ask, I really want to understand the goals and objectives of my customers and especially whether any changes have happened from 2025 to 2026. I try to do a kickoff call with all of my customers in the beginning of the year. And I really want to understand and align to see if there's been any changes in the organization. And this is a great opportunity to go back to discovery, go back to the basics, open up that conversation again of what are they wanting to achieve with SysAid? How are we going to get there? And to give ourselves milestones throughout the year, almost a checklist to see how we're doing, and then to hopefully set up cadences and ensure that we continue this this new partnership, renewed partnership from these 2026 meetings. And naturally these do bring new opportunities and pipeline because there are changes in the organization and you're starting to learn about those changes and then you get to do a new discovery.

37:57 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Do you orient that exclusively around the calendar year start or are you also looking at the different fiscal years of your clients?

38:05 Vicki Kovacs: Because I'm sure those I try to look at the fiscal years of the customers. Majority tend to be the beginning of January. I try to book those all as much as possible as I can according to their years, their financial years.

38:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. I've got some interesting… to your point, most of them are calendar or they're February 1st if they're more tech-oriented companies, but I've got some Mays, June or July here and there. And my craziest one, I've got an August 1st fiscal year start, which is a pretty interesting dynamic. And I think in those situations, you kind of get 2 bites at the apple. It's the start of a new year. And I think just as humans, we gravitate towards that. We all watched the ball drop and all of those things, but then there's this new company year start where I think to your point, very specifically, like what has changed strategically? What's different in this fiscal year that's maybe different from what happened last year?

39:00 Vicki Kovacs: Yeah, absolutely.

39:02 Scott Ingram: Brilliant. We have covered a lot of ground. Is there anything that you had hoped to talk about that somehow I didn't didn't ask the right question to get to?

39:11 Vicki Kovacs: No, I don't think so. I think it's been a great conversation. I think it's really an exciting career path to have being an account executive and an expansion manager specifically. I think relationships is the key. And then that combined with product knowledge, it takes you to be a master in your book of business. So yes, it's been a pleasure to talk to you.

39:34 Scott Ingram: Love it. Let's make this actionable. So for our listener, what would you challenge them to do over the course of the next 1, maybe 2 weeks to improve themselves and improve their results?

39:45 Vicki Kovacs: Wow. I think that I would suggest that you do a MEDDPICC for every opportunity in your pipeline right now. Just have a look on ChatGPT how to do that, each of those parts of the MEDDPICC, and really create your pipeline and understand your pipeline through a sales strategy like MEDDPICC. MEDDPICC, because I stopped doing it for a while and then I started doing it again. And it's really highlighted very quickly what's missing in my information and what I know about these, my customers and my opportunities with them.

40:22 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And if you're listening to this and you've not seen the MEDDPICC term before, it's M-E-D-D-P-I-C-C. So when you do your ChatGPT, you're Googling, you're Gemini-ing, or you're Claude-ing, or whatever it is that you're doing, that's how you want to spell it and get that breakdown. Vicki, this has been Awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us.

40:43 Vicki Kovacs: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

40:47 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.