31: SalesLoft's Top AE - Kevin Walkup - Leverage Your Network

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.

0:21 Scott Ingram: Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Kevin Walkup, who has been the Account Executive of the Year for the last 2 years running at SalesLoft. Welcome to the show, Kevin.

0:35 Kevin Walkup: Hi, Scott. Thanks for having me on today.

0:37 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. So this episode is sponsored by a solution that actually integrates with SalesLoft, and that is our friends at Vidyard GoVideo. Uh, I'll talk about them a little bit more in a bit, but if you just can't wait another minute to improve your email engagement, then go over to top1.fm/v and download their free Chrome plugin. Um, you'll also likely be seeing Vidyard at our Sales Success Summit here in Austin, May 7th and 8th. And if you haven't yet heard what that's all about, please go back to the last episode. I conveniently named that Sales Success Summit, and you can get all the details and then head over to top1summit.com and register today. So Kevin, let's start like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe have allowed you to become the top seller at SalesLoft the last couple of years. What are those?

1:28 Kevin Walkup: Uh, you know, it's, um, Great question. It's kind of all across the board. I think the number one thing that I like to focus on, and this is something that I learned from Ralph Barsi years ago, is treat everybody that you're doing business with like they have a 10 on their head. You never know how that relationship is going to unfold, whether it's unfolding in that deal cycle or down the road. Those referrals are going to come back to you. Those people are going to remember you. Make sure you're treating everybody like they have a 10 on their head. And kind of spinning into that, the second piece would be make sure you're always leveraging your network, always asking for referrals. Referrals are going to be the heart of your business. It's not a cold lead. It's a warm introduction to somebody that could potentially leverage whatever it is that you're selling. So network and referrals are huge, a huge number 2 for me.

2:25 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So Kevin, along those lines, I mean, is, is that a part of your process? Like, is there a specific point that you're trying to ask for those referrals? Like where, where does that fit into just the way that you operate?

2:38 Kevin Walkup: The simple answer to that is all the time. Everybody should always be asking for referrals. I've talked to hundreds of salespeople and a lot of people Don't even ask for them. I saw a stat the other day. It's like 11% of people ask for referrals. 71% of people are actually willing to give a referral. So I ask through on just about every single call I have is who else in your network might be able to leverage a solution like this? And would you mind putting me in touch with that person?

3:16 Scott Ingram: Nice. Easy enough. And you answered the question I was going to ask. I was going to say, you know, just give us an example. What does that sound like? It's obviously not hard. It's not rocket lines. You just have to do it.

3:24 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, exactly. And you don't need to be afraid to do it. People are willing to help you and willing to give out referrals. Uh, it's all you gotta do is ask. It's very simple.

3:34 Scott Ingram: Love it. Awesome. So number 1, uh, treat people like they have a 10 on their head. Number 2, leverage your network and the referrals. What's that number 3?

3:41 Kevin Walkup: Uh, number 3 would be making sure you're creating a win-win experience with the people that you're doing business with. You don't want to come off as the person that is feeling salesy at the end. It's what you're doing is providing a solution to a challenge that they have. So when it comes to the time where they're ready to sign, they are getting value out of what it is that you're selling. And of course you're getting value back by earning a new customer. So having that experience where everybody wins at the end, and that way you're not screwing over somebody that could you know, potentially be giving you referrals down the road, somebody that might buy from you again if they ever get another job. So creating that win-win experience for everybody, making sure that, you know, everybody leaves and walks away with a smile on their face.

4:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, how do you balance that with… I feel like a lot of people think that, but then they get all of this pressure because it's the end of the month or it's the end of the quarter and we're trying to bring everything in and all of this is happening and some of that goes out the window and it becomes your timeline. Not theirs. How do you balance that conflict?

4:52 Kevin Walkup: That's a great question. I think being transparent, you know, right up front with the prospect and asking them to be transparent with you as well, right at the very beginning of a sales cycle, it's always very good to create a mutual success plan. Hey, if we're going to be working together and you're genuinely interested, Let's hold each other accountable and make a plan for us to do business together. That way, on this date, I can hold you accountable to something and you can hold me accountable to other things as well. So making sure that everybody's mutually agreed to want to do business together and being transparent along the way.

5:35 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And certainly something that's come up a lot on this show in previous episodes about having a really good close plan or joint execution plan. Or whatever you want to call it. I think that's really, that's really valuable. So Kevin, for those who aren't familiar with SalesLoft, tell us just a little bit about your solution and who you're selling to in your territory.

5:58 Kevin Walkup: Yeah. So SalesLoft is a cloud-based sales engagement platform. Uh, what it does is help automate a lot of the follow-up tasks that are very menial for sales reps. And we're selling to sales organizations all over the world. From small startups to huge organizations in the top Fortune 10. Anybody that has some sort of process in the way that they're engaging in a sincere and authentic way with their potential buyers and customers, then SalesLoft could be a potential fit for those organizations.

6:35 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And what is your territory specifically? Who are you calling on?

6:39 Kevin Walkup: Uh, so I work with, uh, our enterprise team and we focus on organizations. Uh, for my team specifically is organizations that have more than 1,500 employees. And my territory is planet Earth.

6:54 Scott Ingram: That's a big one.

6:55 Kevin Walkup: I'm lucky enough to be able to do business anywhere. And I was actually, one of my goals a couple of years ago is to close a deal in 3 different continents, and I'm now up to 6, which has been pretty cool.

7:12 Scott Ingram: That's impressive. So does, does that help you or hurt you? I, I find that sometimes having such a big territory can make it hard to, to focus, and you get sort of pulled in a lot of different directions, especially from a travel perspective and things like that.

7:26 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, well, uh, fair point. I think, uh, the technology out there today… I do a lot of stuff over video today rather than going on-site with prospects. I'm still going on-site with prospects, absolutely, but being able to do a video call with Ireland at 8 AM Pacific time in California is much better than flying across the world for a 2-hour meeting.

7:50 Scott Ingram: Agreed, although an excuse to visit Ireland might be okay.

7:54 Kevin Walkup: That's true. You're right, it is tough and it's You really have to focus on prioritizing your time. And as a salesperson that operates all over the world, you gotta be up early and you've gotta be, you know, mobile at, in the evening. You know, I had something come in from Tel Aviv last night at about 10:00 PM and I had to address it immediately. So it's always being on and making sure that you're giving that love to, to your potential customers and letting them know that you're genuinely interested in earning their business.

8:24 Scott Ingram: Yeah, nice. And we'll definitely come back to kind of how you're structuring your day and dealing with some of those demands. But let's start at the beginning first. I mean, how did you get into sales in the first place?

8:36 Kevin Walkup: This is a fun story I like to tell because I've been in sales what feels like my entire life. And I'm sure that you've been driving around a neighborhood and you've seen those little kids out there selling lemonade, right? They've got their lemonade stands. Well, when I was, I think it was probably 6 or 7 years old, I wasn't the kid that was sitting at the lemonade stand. I was the kid that was actually selling lemons to those kids that had the lemonade stands around my neighborhood. That's awesome. Love it. Love it. Since I can remember, I've been in sales and I saw that there was an opportunity for me. Lucky enough, my mom is in the catering business. And she would go to the store a couple of times a week to get all of her food and supplies. And she would drag me along and I would be able to go and spend my extra couple of dollars on, on lemons. And so I had, uh, you know, my, my mule to get me to and from the store at 6 years old. And, uh, my mom was great. She helped me like, you know, pick out the right lemons and do all that. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. So from slinging lemons to slinging software.

9:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So from, from lemonade sellers to sales tools to sales professionals, right?

9:51 Kevin Walkup: Yeah.

9:52 Scott Ingram: So, so what about the… where did the journey begin in more of a professional kind of sales capacity?

9:59 Kevin Walkup: Yeah. So when I graduated college in December of 2009, I graduated with a degree in commercial real estate. And for those that might not be familiar, December of 2009 was probably the worst time to ever get into real estate. It's when the market took a big dump a couple of years ago. And I was kind of stranded with, oh, well, I just studied for 4 and a half years to get into real estate. What do I do now? And a buddy of mine recruited me and got me into the IT staffing business. So I was a recruiter for a couple of months and then got promoted into account management where I was more on the sales side of things. And that's where I really fell in love with helping people. As a salesperson, my end goal is to make sure, again, it's a win-win scenario. So the staffing business, I was helping people get jobs. I was changing people's lives, and it was really impactful for me. And I was there for 3 and a half years before I came over to SalesLoft.

11:00 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And what was, what was the trigger for SalesLoft? I mean, you must have been relatively early in SalesLoft.

11:07 Kevin Walkup: Exactly right. I was actually the 16th employee of at SalesLoft. And I was very happy at Randstad. And SalesLoft approached me. I'd known Kyle Porter, our CEO, for a long time. And they approached me and said, Kevin, we know that you're in sales right now. You're picking up the phone, you're being very persistent and following up with your prospects. And well, we've got this idea. He actually showed it to me on a napkin. We've got this idea of being able to automate some of those follow-up tasks that that you're spending your time doing or writing on Post-it notes or logging into your CRM. We want to automate that piece for you so you can be more efficient. Immediately I was in love because it, that helps solve the challenges I had as a salesperson of making sure that I was following up with my prospects that I wanted to sell to. And I was that guy that was awful at logging things into my CRM. My boss hated it. I was good at getting my things done, but not so good at the menial tasks of logging activities, logging follow-ups, sticking to that plan. And SalesLoft solved that pain for me. And I got so excited about that opportunity of that pain being solved for me. I was like, I can, I can take this to other salespeople where I know they have the exact same problems I've had in the past. And that allows me to go in and help provide a solution to challenges that I know are scattered all over the world. And after that meeting where I was pitched on a napkin of this idea, I went and quit my job at a multi-billion dollar organization to come be the 16th person over at SalesLoft.

12:41 Scott Ingram: That's, that's awesome. And I just, I struggle to understand how it is that as a top sales professional, you would, you would have issues entering data into CRM. I, that's, that's, that's really, really unusual.

12:54 Kevin Walkup: Boggling, right? Unbelievable. Everybody loves to log activities into their CRM.

12:59 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I mean, that's, that's what I live for. That's, that's why we, uh, That's why I have this job.

13:04 Kevin Walkup: So they pay us the big bucks is to do the admin work.

13:07 Scott Ingram: That's right. So Kevin, before we talk about your performance and results, I want to thank the exclusive sponsor of this episode, and that is Vidyard GoVideo. So thanks to Vidyard GoVideo. The rest of this episode will be completely uninterrupted, and I hope you'll help me thank them and help yourself in the process by getting their free Chrome plugin that allows you to create personalized videos that you can include in your email outreach to really stand out and get significant higher response rates. Just go to top1.fm/v, that's the letter V, or go to any page on top1.fm and click on their ad. So Kevin, tell us about your results. I mean, what does it mean to have been the Account Executive of the Year for the last 2 years?

13:51 Kevin Walkup: Well, it means a lot. I'm very passionate about what I do, and I think that when I'm on the phone with customers and prospects, the passion oozes out of me. You can hear it across the phone because I absolutely love sales and I want to be the most effective seller. And so at the end of the day, it's being more consultative and I feel like an educator at the end of the day, sharing stories of what I've heard other modern sales organizations do to be successful and reciprocating those back and helping others learn. And I think that's kind of helped play a big part in being successful in my role is just being a person that wants to help rather than a sneaky sales guy, but just sales versus a consultant.

14:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. And from a quantified perspective, I mean, what did it take to be number 1 the last couple of years?

14:57 Kevin Walkup: In what regard?

14:59 Scott Ingram: How much did you sell?

15:01 Kevin Walkup: Uh, I think I did just over a million dollars in revenue, uh, per year the last couple of years. And, um, I just closed my 590th deal, uh, with the company and, uh, just over $3 million in business over the last 3 years. So you can see it's not a very expensive solution. So it takes a lot of conversations to have to, to close a lot of deals to hit that million-dollar mark. Uh, so a lot of persistence and a lot of referrals along the way as well that have absolutely helped me be successful.

15:41 Scott Ingram: Nice. Now, when it comes to those referrals, I mean, how long do you stay with an account? I mean, once, once the deal's done, do you hand it over to a client success type team? Like, how do you make that work? Once they've, they've been successful with SalesLoft?

15:57 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, great question. We absolutely do have an implementation team and a client success team. And, you know, a lot of what we do, I couldn't do without our awesome success team here at SalesLoft. And you're right, once I do close the deal, I get them introduced to our implementations team. They're gonna walk them through the training, making sure everybody's familiar with the solution. And then every once in a while, I'll go and check in just to you know, think outside of the blue and just say, hey, you know, I was just thinking about you today, read this post that was aligned on some of the goals that you had shared with me 6 months ago, 3 months ago, whatever. And, you know, just wanted to check in with you, see how everything's going. Hey, by the way, is there anybody else in, in your network that might want to leverage SalesLoft? And it's a perfect time to check in, you know, doing due diligence at the same time. Again, I'm always asking for referrals.

16:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, perfect. So what percentage of your deals then come from that referral? Because you've obviously got a really great SDR team. And in fact, we interviewed, uh, your, your top SDR at the time. Of course, she's, she's moved on to an AE role in, uh, Angela Kirkland at the time. She's, she's upgraded her last name on me since then, but we'll certainly put a link to that if you go to the show notes page on top1.fm. But what, again, what, what percentage, how is that sort of lining up in terms of what you're seeing, uh, ultimately close?

17:16 Kevin Walkup: Uh, I would say Maybe 35% of the deals I'm closing are coming from referrals, or I have managed to get a referral in there. Maybe an SDR might set me up with an account. I'll look into it and see that I'm somehow connected to that account and then leverage my network to get referrals once that SDR has already set it up. So it's almost like we're hitting it from 2 different angles.

17:41 Scott Ingram: Nice. Excellent. So tell us the story of a deal, whether it was a particularly meaningful deal or one that was impactful in just the way that you approach things. Do you have a good example for us?

17:55 Kevin Walkup: One of my favorites is an SDR. It was a perfect example from what I was just saying. An SDR had set up a demo for us, and I had a great conversation with the guy. He was, you know, director of worldwide sales for an organization that had 5,000 people. So this guy has very limited time. He gave us 30 minutes. We had a great conversation. He says, you know what? I want you to connect with this other guy that would help run this project. And I want to put you in touch with him, a name I had never heard before. So I go naturally look him up on LinkedIn and he's connected to my old boss over at Randstad where I was before SalesLoft. And luckily I like to treat everybody and put a 10. I have a great relationship with my old boss, even though that I You know, left that organization for a new opportunity. So I reached out to him and said, hey, how do you know this guy? And he was like, he called me immediately. How in the world did you just make the… that's my best friend from college. He's like, let me reach out to him right now and put you in touch. So while that was happening, the other guy put me in touch with this gentleman and he replied back. He's like, I'll give you 15 minutes. That's kind of a push-off answer, right? 15 minutes. It's really hard to even do a little bit of discovery in 15 minutes and especially even create rapport. And while all that was happening, my old boss had reached out to him. He replied to that email before I could even reply to the 15 minutes and said, Kevin, you just earned yourself an hour.

19:28 Scott Ingram: So that changes the game a little bit.

19:31 Kevin Walkup: Yeah. Because of my network and because of You know, the way that I've created these relationships and have created positive experiences for people I've worked with and worked for, I was able to move from 15 minutes to an hour to get this guy's attention. And he looped in 15 other people along the way on his end that he probably never would have even put the… given me the time of day for. And it's funny, I'm actually wearing a watch on my wrist right now that that boss that I reached out to gave me. And that's what started the conversation with him and his old college buddy. We got on a video call. I said, hey, look at this watch. This is from Steve. And he thought that it was fantastic. It was, um, he gave me this watch as a gift of hitting a goal that him and I had set. That was the first time I ever made 6 figures. He gave me this, this watch. I wear it every single day.

20:22 Scott Ingram: Love it. See, I like asking about stories. They, they mean something. That's a great one. So Kevin, what about the, the flip side? What do you find either kind of most challenging in sales today, or was there a time where you were just challenged, where you were struggling, whether it was at SalesLoft or a previous opportunity?

20:46 Kevin Walkup: I think what was really tough for me was leaving my old job and taking this huge risk for this little startup. That didn't really have too much revenue. You know, they had, they had a brand, uh, but I was leaving a multi-billion dollar organization where I was a top producer there and like really had no reason to leave. And, you know, that was my family, my old job. We spent a lot of time with those people and, you know, those were some of my best friends. And, you know, I was wearing a watch that my boss had given me on my wrist that, you know, I, he was like a, as a mentor to me and that Making that decision to leave that organization where I was a top producer, take that risk to come to SalesLoft and, you know, really have to roll the dice. It was, it was a really, really tough decision, uh, just to kind of on a whim say, okay, we're gonna go for something that's very solidified. I know exactly I've got a great base. I'm making great money. I'm going to actually take a smaller base when I came over to SalesLoft, substantially smaller, but it ended up paying off. In the long run. And I'm glad I made that decision, but it was very, very challenging to do so.

21:55 Scott Ingram: Well, let's, let's talk about that a little bit more, because I think that that is a place that many people are faced with. And I was just at a conference this week catching up with, with some old friends about, you know, how they got their starts in sales and how too often you kind of get into a position where, like, congratulations, you're in sales, you know, here's here's the phone book, or here's, here's a list of companies, like, go, go figure that out. Did you get a decent amount of training in that original job with the, with the larger organization?

22:28 Kevin Walkup: Uh, training as far as like, like sales training? Sales training? Yeah, it was at that job, it was a lot of like kind of figure it out on your own, like what works for you. Uh, there was a little bit of training here and there, but nothing like solidified, like a Sandler training that, that Salesforce does, or Uh, any, any types of like real sales methodology training. It was, it was very kind of learn as you go. You know, if you fail, you can find something else. And if you do well, they want you to talk about why you do well and, and what, what got you there.

23:02 Scott Ingram: And I wonder, I mean, do you feel like you could have had the same level of success if SalesLoft was your first opportunity?

23:10 Kevin Walkup: Uh, I think I brought a lot of sales demeanor to the role. And I came from, you know, I was wearing suits every day at my old job. And then when I started at SalesLoft, everybody was wearing flip-flops and shorts and t-shirts. And it was a big change. I actually put in my offer letter at SalesLoft that I'm not allowed to wear suits to the office. And I think my time at Randstad really did prepare me and give me the grit of sales to know that it's okay to fail. You're going to fail in sales. It's 100%. Everybody is. You can't close every deal. Not everybody picks up the phone every single time. So it really kind of gave me that opportunity to know, hey, I'm going to come into this and I'm not going to be 100%. I'm not going to bat 1,000. So I think, yeah, that transition and having gone right from college to SalesLoft, maybe I wouldn't have done as well as I have today.

24:07 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. It's just been something I've been pondering of, of late. I feel like one of the best paths and the folks that I look at that seem to have the most success over time, that first, that first sales job is often with a much larger organization where they get some type of real sales training, you know, and it gives them a good foundation and some good framework to then kind of move off from because it's really hard to move into. I mean, especially in the startup space, right? You've got… you're moving into a new type of role, a new type of industry. You've got to invent everything. And while they're inventing the product often, oftentimes. So it's, it's an interesting thing to kind of think through and think about and creates a lot of challenge for us in the sales role. And actually something I think we're going to build a panel around when we do that Sales Success Summit. Is just talk about careers and how do you progress through this and how do you make some of these decisions. So that's, that's all good stuff. So let's, let's talk about your routines and how you're structuring your day and your week and things like that. So first off, are you more of a morning person or are you a night owl, Kevin?

25:24 Kevin Walkup: I've got to be a morning person. So SalesLoft is headquartered in Atlanta. I spend most of my time in California. So if I'm up at 6, it's already 9:00 AM Atlanta time and the emails and the calls start coming through early. So I've got to be a morning person. And at the same time, I also have to be a night owl as well because I'm doing business all over the world. But I think I like to get my day started off right. I do a lot of yoga and starting my day or even ending my day with my yoga routine is very, very rewarding for me. You have an intent of each class. Every time you hit your yoga mat, it's just you and your mat and you kind of let everything else go. And it's a great way to really kick your day off right and get your mind ready and set for the day. So, that's one thing that I'd like to spend a lot of time on is making sure that I have 1 hour a day where I I completely turn off and it's just me and my mind and my body for 1 hour.

26:30 Scott Ingram: Now, are you going and taking a class for that, or is that… you do a video or some other way?

26:35 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, I go to a studio and, you know, put… there's other people in there with us. We got an instructor. It's fantastic. You can also do this stuff from home too. They've got videos online for those that don't want to go to a yoga studio. Just do it from home and really just kind of have that time to yourself, whether you're doing something physical activity or just that 1 hour a day where I can really focus on, you know, my day with my surroundings and kind of let all of it go, all the stress from sales, everything. It's, it's very, very rewarding.

27:08 Scott Ingram: Nice. So walk us through kind of the structure of the rest of the day. How does that lay out?

27:13 Kevin Walkup: So in sales, it's, you know, almost every day is different. Right? But it's very structured from wake up, breakfast, read the news or read the blog posts that I subscribe to and make sure I'm checking the emails first. And then from there, it's go time. And that's when I start getting on the phone. I like to do calls early in the morning after my coffee. I'm energetic. I'm enthusiastic. And, you know, I'm just out of yoga and it's, you know, a perfect time for me to be at the top of my game is early on in the morning.

27:51 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So what happens from there? I mean, is the afternoon just the appointments that get kind of set in the mornings and previous mornings, or how does that work?

27:59 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, so the afternoon I like to prep for my next day. So usually around 2 o'clock I think about, okay, what did I have on the books today, or what do I still have, you know, later on today? And what do I have on the calendar tomorrow? Let's start thinking about, all right, let's look up some of these accounts. How am I connected to some of these accounts? Do I need to be reaching out to people in my network to get some of those referrals in to help supercharge those conversations I'm going to have tomorrow? It's a lot of prep a day early for what I've got going on and how can I help myself and how can I have my network help me to make sure that I'm going to be successful tomorrow.

28:39 Scott Ingram: So it sounds like one of the, the core tools, and I'm interested in hearing what else you might use, but it sounds like there's a lot of LinkedIn going on.

28:47 Kevin Walkup: Uh, yeah, I use LinkedIn a good bit, and, um, very exciting, we just announced a partnership with LinkedIn. So now LinkedIn lives right inside of SalesLoft. So I'll leverage SalesLoft, pull it up, and I've got access to LinkedIn right there, which has been great.

29:06 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. Any, any other kind of core routines and things that you do that are core to your performance?

29:14 Kevin Walkup: Smile a lot. Everybody here, everybody's heard that, you know, smile and dial, but it really is impactful. It's part of my routine. Make sure I'm smiling all day long. I'm a very positive person. Even if something, you know, shits the bed, the deal doesn't go the way I want, you always got to think of this in an optimistic way? How could I learn from this so I know it doesn't happen again? So that routine is make sure you're always in a positive attitude. That positivity is contagious and other people in your office will feel it. They'll receive some of that positive energy and your customers, your buyers will also receive that positive energy when you're smiling through the phone and when you're getting excited. So that's, I guess, part of my routine is smiling all day long. I love it.

29:58 Scott Ingram: Nice. How, how are you manufacturing that? I mean, what's, what's driving the positivity and, and motivation for you in, in general?

30:07 Kevin Walkup: You know, it kind of goes back to putting a tent on everybody's head, trying to find something that I can relate to when I'm having a conversation that, you know, that will make that person's eyes pop up, or, or, hey, oh yeah, you know, I've connected to this person, or, oh, I used to live in this town. And, uh, just really kind of letting them talk and share a positive experience to me and they start the positive experience and it gets me smiling. By the end of our call, we've built rapport for the first 20 minutes and now we're friends and we're connected and we're networking together.

30:41 Scott Ingram: So, just a good virtuous circle, right? You're kind of playing into it and then it comes back.

30:46 Kevin Walkup: Exactly.

30:47 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Nice. What about your information diet? I mean, what are you listening, watching, and reading?

30:54 Kevin Walkup: I mentioned Ralph Barsi earlier. He's the one that taught me about putting a tent on everybody's head. I highly recommend his blog posts, ralphbarsi.com, B-A-R-S-I. Absolutely fantastic content. He's a thought leader in the space, is a mentor to me, and really just clear-minded on sales, sales process, sales methodology, being the most effective, building your own brand. For yourself. And so I would say that's, that's my number one. Uh, David Cummings also has some great content as well. Uh, davidcummings.org. Uh, follow his blog. He puts out a blog. I think he's been doing it consecutively for like 3 years. He puts out a blog post every single day. And what that means, it's not going to be the longest blog post, which is great because as salespeople, we're You can't sit still like you mentioned earlier. And, you know, I just… a really short little quip, it might be 2 paragraphs. So I love reading David's content. It's quick, it's easy to read, and it's relevant. So David and Ralph are 2 of my favorites that I like to read on a daily basis.

32:04 Scott Ingram: Awesome, awesome. And we will put links to all of the stuff that Kevin mentioned. So just go to top1.fm/kevin. I don't think I've had another Kevin on, so I think that'll work. We'll have that. Have that linked up, um, so you can get to it real, real easily. Um, so Kevin, we talked about LinkedIn a little bit, but what about other kind of tools and apps? What, what are you using most frequently throughout your day professionally or, or even personally?

32:32 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, my favorite, I guess it's an app, uh, it's on my computer, uh, for professionally is an app called aText. It's a text expander. So in sales, I'm sure a lot of people listening can, I guess, equate to this. You end up typing the same sentences over and over and over. And what ATEX does is allow you to put in an abbreviation and it'll populate that sentence for you. Or even something as simple as the word SalesLoft. I type that word a lot. So if I type in SLS on my keyboard, it types up the word SalesLoft for me. It's capitalized already. And even something like cheers, Kevin, I just type in CK and it's Makes me so much more efficient because I don't have to sit there and type in cheers, comma, enter, Kevin. I just hammer right through it. And I've got some that are like 3, 4 paragraphs long of ATECs. I'll go in there and, you know, edit it. But I probably have hundreds of these ATECs saved on my computer, and it's absolutely fantastic. I couldn't live without that app.

33:32 Scott Ingram: That is a good one. You got any more?

33:34 Kevin Walkup: One of my others, for those using Gmail for their email, is the shortkeys and like the hotkey commands in Gmail. They will make you 10 times more efficient. I can get through 40 emails without lifting my hands off my keyboard, from sending to archiving to going to the next, to marking unread or marking read, replying. All of that is done in my Gmail short commands and it is absolutely fantastic. It is, it'll, an hour a day easy will save you just from menial tasks of clicking around inside of your, inside of your inbox all day. It's, you have to think about the things that you don't know that take you a lot of time, like typing the same sentence or putting your hand on your mouse and going up and hitting back to your inbox and then opening up the next email. Those little seconds, you can get all that back by being a little bit more educated and a little bit more strategic in the way that you're getting through your inbox or saying that same sentence and realizing that and adding that aText in. So I would say shortkeys in Gmail, aText, and then Speedy Readie is another app that I use. It's great for reading blog posts. You highlight the text, you hit enter twice, and it allows you to read at… I think I have mine set at 350 words per minute. That way I don't have to read down. It just, it reads it pretty much for me at 350 words a minute. It's a great app as well.

35:04 Scott Ingram: Now when you say reads it for you, it does the scrolling for you, or what do you mean by that?

35:10 Kevin Walkup: Pretty much it puts a little bar at the top and it'll put the word in so you don't actually have to move your eyes. It just will flash the word up to you on the screen and it just blows through these words. And if somehow you can still really get in there and like absorb these words because they're coming in. You don't have to move your eyes on the page. It's, it's really clever. It's free. I absolutely love it.

35:32 Scott Ingram: That is fascinating. All right, cool. So we are linking all of that up and, um, I will find, uh, some type of tutorial or at least a list of those, uh, Gmail, uh, shortkeys or hotkeys, uh, so that you can, you can use that. So Kevin, I'm curious. I mean, it doesn't sound like you had any, you know, formal sales training in your process. Is there a particular like sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

36:00 Kevin Walkup: Um, you know, Jocko, uh, I don't know, are you familiar with Jocko? Uh, Jacco van der Kooij.

36:06 Scott Ingram: Oh, this is a different Jocko. Okay.

36:08 Kevin Walkup: No, I don't, I don't know that sales expert. Uh, he's done a little sales training for us, um, here at SalesLoft. He came to our sales kickoff earlier this year and, and really kind of gave us some methodologies. Um, and he actually had a great tweet the other day. It's kind of top of mind of like the 2 different types of salespeople out there. One is going to give you the sales pitch and one's going to try to be competitive and do a hard close and negotiate really hard with you. And the other person's going to more have a conversation with you, really try to diagnose that pain that someone might be challenged with. And really, like I was saying, educate, share other experiences and really assist somebody in the buying process. And, you know, trade, give and take. Okay. We're not negotiating. We're doing a give and take here. If you need this, okay, then we'll, then I'll take this on as we're getting through this proposal and then, you know, committing to each other, you know, in that mutual success plan. So there's 2 types of people. And I love to be that more consultative type person where, hey, we're just having a conversation here. I'm not pitching on anything. I'm just trying to help. You know, diagnose something you're challenged with and see if I can provide a solution for it.

37:24 Scott Ingram: Is there a way that you try and set that up at all? I mean, I think, I think it becomes clear and apparent from a kind of customer experience perspective, right, that that's the kind of person you are and that's the approach you're taking. Because, you know, when you're, when you're taking the stereotypical sales approach, I mean, everybody can smell that from a mile away. But is there a way that you are trying to frame that consultative approach from the beginning to get people to kind of buy in and participate in it so that they maybe take down their defenses a little bit.

37:57 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, I think, and what I like to do at the very beginning of calls is you spend the first couple minutes building rapport. And in doing that, like in order to earn someone's trust, I found it's great to share something about me at the very beginning. Of the call. You know, what am I doing this weekend? Or something not business-related. Uh, so personal, something like, hey, I was just having a conversation, you know, about this movie that we were talking about going to see. And it really just kind of helps put that guard down. Like, oh, hey, this guy's… we're just chit-chatting back and forth here. We're not, you know, super structured mandated process of, okay, we're going to do this and this and this. And we'll… I'll get to that agenda and I'll propose an agenda and ask if that's okay with them. But really just building that rapport and seeing if you can find some of those connections along the way. Oh, hey, you're a golfer. Oh, that's awesome. You know, I played golf last week, playing Pebble in 2 weeks. It's small things like that and really helps remove that guard. And that way you're being yourself and you're being more natural, just like you're with your significant other. The reason people get married is because they marry somebody that they can be themselves with. Not someone that is, I guess, not human, right? Not intentional. Yeah. You don't want to be this fake person. You want to be who you are and letting your prospects know right off the bat, hey, I'm just a normal, normal guy. I just want to chat. It helps really remove that guard.

39:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, so speaking of not human, I want to go on like a giant tangent here. And I think you're the perfect person to talk to about this because it's something that I think about a lot. So, and I just… let's, let's kind of geek out on sales automation. You know, I'm pretty sure that I've even said on this show before that, you know, a lot of these tools like SalesLoft, I feel like they can be used for good or they can be used for evil. And, and there's a lot of, you know, evil examples that seem to get posted to LinkedIn these days. But what's, what's your perspective? I mean, what's the right way to be thinking about all of these sales technologies as an AE or as an SDR?

40:05 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, and you're exactly right. Good and evil. There's 2 different ways to leverage, you know, a sales engagement tool. You can try to boil the ocean, say, all right, I want to send an email to 1,000 people and it's gonna be an email that's me-generated. This is who I am, this is what I do, this is… and, and this is why you should be talking to me. That's a very me-focused email, and I think a lot of that is what you're seeing getting posted on LinkedIn. People, you know, bashing, you know, bad sales emails because there's no, like you mentioned, human to it. It's a robot going through that. And by leveraging a solution like SalesLoft or any sales engagement platform the right way, you have to have that human element. You have to be authentic in the way that you're engaging. That email needs to be about them, needs to be about how you understand their business. And how you understand that they might have some challenges that you might be able to help with and that you want to earn their business, not just, hey, you should do business with me because I'm sending you a templated email. You really have to be sincere in the way that, that you're engaging and make that engagement about them and how they can be better off by having a conversation with you.

41:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah, you know, I just… somebody asked me, I guess it was HubSpot that was asking for kind of quotes and they're looking at… it's that time of year where we have to start thinking about sales trends for the next year. And I talked about, I think that the pendulum is really going to start to swing back. You know, if, if we've been moving in the direction of automation and scale and, and, you know, AI and all of this stuff lately, I think that, I think that there's going to be motion in the other direction of more human solutions. Right. And it's one of the reasons why I love the, the Vidyard GoVideo tool so much is There's nothing more human than me, you know, with your name on a whiteboard. Like, this is about you. I'm talking to you. I'm a real person. You're not one of 82,000 people that just got this same, uh, email. And I think, you know, the, the tools that are out there, and SalesLoft again is a great example of this, you can, you can use it to do that. It can enable that and then empower that and make you more human. It's, it's just a strong way to sort of augment what you're doing and make you better at it or more consistent about it or things along those lines.

42:37 Kevin Walkup: Absolutely, I totally agree. And I'm a huge, huge fan of Vidyard. They are doing just a fantastic job by humanizing that element of, hey, I'm, I'm gonna sift through all the rest of that junk in your inbox. I'm gonna send you, like you said, a video with, you know, you holding that whiteboard. It's so impactful. Because you really stand apart from all of the other mess in their inbox and people are genuinely more interested. I had a prospect tell me the other day, they would rather spend a minute watching a video that's personalized to them than 40 seconds reading an email. So rather spend more time with something that's more engaging and more beneficial to them. So I absolutely huge fan of Vidyard. Salesforce actually has a Vidyard integration for their freemium version, and they are absolutely fantastic. Love them over there. Great company.

43:34 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, the other thing I think that is interesting and that we have to be mindful about, I make a point of asking when I'm spending time with my… the marketing executives and the C-level folks in my network, I always ask them, particularly in the marketing space, which I think is probably the most… it feels to me like one of the most saturated places in the world because there's, there's literally thousands of tools out there. So if you're a VP of marketing or you're a CMO, like, you're screwed. I don't know how they operate with the amount of salespeople reaching out to them. And I asked them, I like, so what do you actually respond to? Like, how do you deal with this? And was talking with, with one of those individuals just recently. And I've seen this sort of validated in some, in some other things here recently. Is he's like, yeah, you know what? The, the first message, like as soon as I can tell that this is generic, not personalized, I got loaded into some type of a spam cannon. He says, I just, I take a second and I create a rule that's going to make sure that I never see messages from that individual or that company ever again.

44:48 Kevin Walkup: You're spot on. And so that this rep is actually doing a disservice by sending.

44:54 Scott Ingram: Exactly.

44:55 Kevin Walkup: Sending those fully automated emails. They're going backwards. They're burning bridges because they're not being authentic in the way that they're engaging. And yeah, that's to your point. And those marketing folks, I'm glad I'm not in marketing because they just get bombarded all day, every day, and really got to do something to make it through that. So you're not getting tagged as, hey, never ever reply to somebody from this organization because they're just trying to fully automate the sales process. And going back to the evils of some of these tools, it's… these tools aren't built for reps to just dump in 1,000 people, put their feet up, and, you know, casually check for replies every couple of hours. You know, it's meant for automating the menial tasks of what I struggle with, of logging those things into your CRM. Or making sure that you're being persistent and following up, but still doing it in an authentic way, customizing that message and not just fully automating the entire sales process, because that's just only gonna do you a disservice.

46:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So unfortunately, we're still gonna have to work, but the good news is, um, as long as that's the case, then you… then your job doesn't get replaced by, by, uh, by computers. Although, you know, I keep joking, I'm like, you know what, that has got to be so far away because I won't, I won't say its name. I'll call it my Amazon Echo. Um, I ask it to do the same thing every single morning and it gets it right about 70% of the time. And I'm like, okay. And until this, it should just know, oh, it hears me coming downstairs. Like, do the thing I ask you to do. This is not, this is not rocket science. So I don't think our jobs are going away anytime soon, but I think we do need to be moving in that direction. So, I mean, along those lines, Kevin, is there something that you believe or that you do that the average sales rep would think is crazy?

46:55 Kevin Walkup: I ask for referrals. A lot of sales reps might think that's crazy. Yeah, that's, that's a tough question. I think a lot of times I, I say what I'm gonna do and I do what I'm gonna say. And so if I tell you I'm gonna do something, you can then count on me, you can trust me that I'm going to deliver on what it is that that we talked about, what I committed to bring back to you. I don't know if reps would think that's crazy. That's a pretty standard thing to do in sales, but a lot of times they go, yeah, yeah, I'll send you that, and then, you know, you forget about it and they never hear back from you, and then you kind of lose that trust. And, you know, maybe that person doesn't want to work with you now because you didn't do what you said.

47:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Do you, do you have a system for tracking those kinds of commitments just to make sure that you do follow up on them?

47:46 Kevin Walkup: Uh, yeah, I use, uh, like in the opportunity, like I'll take a note and say, I need to send them as a follow-up. I need to send these 3 things. And then my next steps, it'll say, make sure I'm sending these out. And then when I go back into, you know, talk to them again, I double-check, did I, have I sent these 3 things out? Uh, other than really Salesforce, not, not too much to really like a systematic process that I've got.

48:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

48:10 Kevin Walkup: Like a Trello board. Yeah.

48:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. So, so what about the flip side? I mean, is, is there something that the average rep or like the current sales dogma says that you think is crazy?

48:21 Kevin Walkup: I think like fully automating, like going back to that, like fully automating the sales process. You can't automate sales unless you've got a website where people come in and just buy it right off the site. Sales is not meant to be automated. The part that's automated is the menial things. You still have to be human in the way that you're engaging and, and really being sincere with how you're approaching and how you're speaking to and mirroring the, the way that people are talking to you and get them to start mirroring the way that you're, you're speaking with them as well. I think that's also extremely important. You know, a lot of times I've heard that you should mirror the energy that they have, but if they're low energy and you're high energy you might want to get them to pick up their energy and start getting excited about what you're talking about, and what a better way to do that than being the one that's excited.

49:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. So this is… I like to think of this… this is like the soapbox section of the website where I let you kind of impart some advice based on your experience. So what advice would you have for somebody that's just getting started in sales today to set a really great foundation for themselves and to have a lot of success through their career?

49:41 Kevin Walkup: One thing that I did early on at SalesLoft, probably like my second or third day at SalesLoft, I opened up a… created a Google Doc and started writing down my goals, professional goals, personal goals. And even down to today, yesterday I had that document open and I was looking through it and it's an ongoing list from 2014. I've got 3 years of goals. When I complete one of those goals, I check it off. And it is so rewarding to be able to check off that goal that I put on there 6 months ago. And sometimes it's a really small goal, you know, close a deal in Europe. Yeah, that's a small goal, but it's a goal and checking it off is great. So I was looking through my goal list last night and seeing 200-ish goals that are striked through and colored green, meaning I've successfully accomplished these goals. Maybe I would have forgotten about those goals if I didn't write them down. So I think like writing down your goals and keeping an ongoing list and holding yourself accountable to accomplishing those goals. And if you don't, I mean, if you fail, check it off in red and that way you can know, okay, why didn't I successfully accomplish this goal? And I had some in there that were personal around, I wanted to lower my golf handicap. I wanted to invest in the car of my dreams. And lo and behold, I've got now those goals checked off on my list because I wrote them down and I held myself accountable. So I think for people that are new in sales, and that's… I've done this with people that I've mentored that have started fresh right out of college at SalesLoft. That's the first thing I tell them is, let's, let's talk about your goals. Let's write them down. Let's create a document together and let's, let's do this together.

51:25 Scott Ingram: Nice. And I think a really important part that you talked about is you actually go back and look at that list. So how often are you doing that? How often are you in that, that goal doc?

51:37 Kevin Walkup: Uh, once a month probably. So that's the last 36 months, you know, once, once a month or so. Sometimes I'll check it a couple of times a week. And especially if I go and, you know, complete one of those goals, one of my objectives, so exciting to go pull up that goal list. And I see others that I added in there. I'm like, oh yeah, these are other goals I have. And let's think about some more. How can I add to this? And constantly giving myself new goals, new ambitions to, to go and succeed and continue to succeed. One of my goals on the list is be a top producer at SalesLoft, become the account executive of the year. Checked off. It's great. It's so rewarding to be able to go in and do that.

52:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now, what about for somebody who is a little bit further into their, into their career? Right. So they're, they're having some success, but they're not the number one rep. What advice do you have for them to take their game to the next level?

52:29 Kevin Walkup: Read, read lots of books. I think especially for a little bit more tenured people, they, they know those sales processes, and there's so many great books out there that it can really have a huge impact and change the way that you operate deal cycles.

52:48 Scott Ingram: All right, so you just opened Pandora's box there. I'm gonna put my team to work in finding a whole bunch of book links. So give us your top 2 or 3? Where should they start? What have been the most impactful books for you in your career?

53:03 Kevin Walkup: One that I've really enjoyed is… let's see, which one should I give you? The Power of Habit is a fantastic book. Really kind of… it's great for… it's not a sales self-help book. It tells a bunch of stories, but it talks about how you, by creating small habits, they can compound and have humongous impacts down the road. That's by far one of my favorites. Another one, which is kind of a funny book, it'll make you laugh out loud, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Excuse my language.

53:43 Scott Ingram: You were just quoting a title. I understand. That book is hilarious.

53:48 Kevin Walkup: It's a fantastic book. And for those that are looking for more sales-focused books, Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount is a fantastic one. That was actually referred to me by the gentleman I referenced earlier that I got in touch with about having the watch on my wrist. He connected. I asked him, you know, how are you coaching your team? And he says, everybody on my team reads Fanatical Prospecting. So, I went and got myself a copy, read it. It's amazing. It's talking about prospecting is a never-ending thing. You're always networking. You're always looking for ways to connect dots and how you can help others that can eventually maybe turn around, they can end up helping you one day. So, it's just a fantastic book of really being focused on not being the golden retriever that's chasing the ball, but being more of the focus that's like being, being a better person, that will inevitably… the business will come to you.

54:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Great list. Great list. So I'm interested in what would you want to know about or learn from the AE of the Year from other organizations?

55:01 Kevin Walkup: I would, uh, I'd like to know about what kind of relationships they have internally at their company. Does that play a big card in their success? Are they just a lone ranger? They just hang out and they're just fantastic at sales? That's possible. But what about the other people that are involved in deal cycles at their organization? Sometimes you need to get sales engineers involved and actual engineers and people from marketing and sales operations to help you win this deal. Do they have relationships internally? Do they strive to build relationships and meet new people? That would be something I would be curious to learn.

55:43 Scott Ingram: And I mean, what's your approach to that? Obviously, it's a part of who you are and what your process is.

55:49 Kevin Walkup: I think it's extremely important. When SalesLoft was growing, again, I was the 16th employee. When we got to 50 employees, I was thinking to myself, I was like, wow, we're at 50 employees. I could have have lunch with a different person at my company once a week, every day for a year, or every week for a year. I started thinking, I was like, all right, I'm gonna start doing this. So I sent out a doc, hey, sign up. I'm gonna take somebody to lunch every Wednesday, a different person. And doing that was probably one of the best decisions I ever did. In sales, you kind of get stuck in your little sales silo, in your corner, you know, with your sales team. You talk to the sales team. I wanted to know more about other people in my organization. Taking an engineer out to lunch, somebody that would typically not reach out to you to have a conversation, to have lunch with. And I've made more great relationships by doing that over the last 3 years than I could ever imagine. And it's really helped, especially when I'm in a deal cycle and I have a very unique question. I can go to one of these people that I've now known for 3 years that maybe other people on the sales team don't know them that well. And I can go and ask, hey, here's a really technical question. How would you, how would you answer this? Or what would, what would be our answer from an infrastructure perspective? And, you know, since we have that relationship, they're really always more than willing to help. So it's been very impactful for me. And I love getting to know other people, especially outside of the sales world and learning about them. Not even talking about work, talking about how they, how they got to SalesLoft or, you know, where'd they come from? How, what, when they grew up, what did they do? What do they do outside of work? It's, it's been awesome, uh, to be able to be part of that, that culture and be involved in, you know, people's lives outside of just the sales team.

57:32 Scott Ingram: That's, that's huge. And, you know, I, I think at, at some level, sure, you can be the, the lone wolf and you can try and take this all on your shoulders and you can go do it. But when you get to a certain point, and I'm thinking of my interview with Trong Nguyen, who was managing a $50 million book of business for Microsoft, he's like, you can't You can't begin to do that by yourself, and it takes a lot of other people, and those relationships are really important. And it reminds me of literally the best thing I've ever read on networking in my career, and I've read a fair amount about networking for a variety of reasons. Um, there was a Harvard Business Review article, and again, we'll find the link for this and we'll put it up at top1.fm/kevin. Um, I'm pretty sure the article is called Better Sales Networks. And what it talked about is, you know, I think what people think about when it comes to a valuable sales network is the network that they have in their market, right? Because I need to be able to open doors and create opportunities. So hopefully I know some executives and I know people that can help me get into those opportunities. And yes, that's great. That's important. That's one of… and they had 3 or 4 different aspects, but to your point, it was also heavily about the network that you had inside your organization because those are the people that help you get deals and, and kind of answer the harder objections and challenges that you may not know the answer to, and they help you fulfill the deals, right? So if I made a commitment to this client that, you know, this is what you're buying, this is what you're signing up for, and then we're delivering on that and there's a challenge along the way because that happens, then, then you have the network, you have the resources to be able to go and find the person in the organization who can help you fix that and get through that challenge and make good on your commitment that you made to that client, which, hey, all of a sudden now I'm getting tons of referrals. Um, and this person will do reference calls and everything else for me because I was able to do that and connect all of those dots. So incredible, incredible, uh, article that I would highly recommend and shorter than a book. So if you don't want to read The Subtle Art of Um, you know, you know the rest of it, then, uh, then that's a good place to start.

1:00:01 Kevin Walkup: Awesome. I'd love to check that out.

1:00:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So Kevin, who is the most successful salesperson that you know personally? And you can't talk about Kyle Porter and his napkin. This has to be somebody in a, in an individual contributor kind of quota carrying role.

1:00:17 Kevin Walkup: Hmm.

1:00:17 Scott Ingram: Because I know that's where you would have gone.

1:00:19 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, I probably would have, uh, would have led with him. I've, you know, before I go down that rabbit hole, he's been very impactful to my life and has changed it for the better. Anthony Zhang was one of my very first managers at SalesLoft, and he went and he's got a role managing a new team. And I learned a lot from him, and he was one of the top first producers at SalesLoft, and he really showed me the ropes and Like taught me about empathy and really just understanding and caring about sales. And I watched him just blow his numbers out of the water. And he's, he's been very impactful, uh, to me. Uh, Anthony Zhang, he's an awesome guy.

1:01:05 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Let's talk a little bit more about that because I think there is a very, very consistent thread. Um, in fact, it dawned on me the other day that I don't think I've had a single individual on this show and we're, we're north of 30. At this point, I don't think I've talked to anybody who is number one in their organization or top 1% despite their boss. It seems that everybody has a very productive, collaborative relationship with their leadership and their mentors. Talk about what that is for you, the impact that it's had, and kind of the importance of it.

1:01:46 Kevin Walkup: Yeah, I think the ability to be transparent with your direct manager and being able to trust that person is extremely important. So by being transparent, you can tell them with… you can trust them to understand that, here's what I'm challenged with, and maybe we can work together in overcoming some of these these objectives and, you know, and being transparent that they'll give that back to you. They'll tell you what they're struggling with and maybe you can help them. And that way you're both growing and learning together and, you know, being able to share something that you're struggling with and trust that they'll take that and take it to the right people and get the right people involved. So we can come to a solution as a team together.

1:02:38 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So as we're about to wrap up, I wonder, is there anything that I missed? Is there anything that you feel like is a key success ingredient that we haven't yet had a chance to talk about?

1:02:51 Kevin Walkup: We've talked a lot about network and the way that you're treating people. I think don't just hang up your hat at the end of the day. When you're working with your customers and prospects, You know, one thing like with putting the tent on everybody's head, that's not just my professional life, that's my, my personal life as well. It's make sure that, you know, really encompassing who you really are outside of work to really hone in on, on your sales skills and, and practice them outside of the office as well.

1:03:28 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Cool. So the last thing we try and do is make this actionable, right? Tons of great ideas. If you've gotten to this point and you don't have at least one nugget, um, I, I don't know what we can do for you. So Kevin, if we could boil everything down, I mean, and, and create some type of a challenge, and given that we do new episodes every 2 weeks, let's, let's think of this as something that can be done over the next 14 days. What would you have the person listening to this do to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:04:01 Kevin Walkup: I would, uh, ask for folks to go out there and, and see in the next 14 days if they can go get 2 referrals from people that they've worked with in the past, or maybe a LinkedIn recommendation. Build their, their brand and reach out to somebody that they know they've had a great working experience with and, and ask them for referrals. You know, that's for the 89% of the folks out there that are not asking for referrals. Those 11%, go ask for 2 more.

1:04:27 Scott Ingram: And that already Awesome. Easy enough. Go do it, folks. Kevin, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me today and for being so open about what's working for you today in sales.

1:04:37 Kevin Walkup: Absolutely. Thanks a lot for having me on, Scott.

1:04:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And since we literally just started talking about it today, uh, Kevin isn't yet confirmed for the Sales Success Summit, but, uh, there's a very high probability, uh, that by the time, uh, that this is done, uh, you can go check out top1summit.com, uh, and you'll probably see Kevin's headshot and we'll, we'll kind of figure out the details, uh, there. But most importantly, I want to see you there. If you've been gaining value from this podcast and these conversations, then you're going to love the program that we're putting together. And more importantly, the opportunity, just like Kevin is talking about, to actually spend time to build real relationships with sales superstars like Kevin. So give a listen to the Sales Success Summit episode to hear all about what we're putting together and then jump straight over to top1summit.com, or you can always start on our main site at top1.fm and follow the link from there. All right, thanks for listening, and hopefully I'll be seeing you here in Austin May 7th and 8th.

1:05:40 Kevin Walkup: 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.