33: Antony Rhine - Octiv's Top Strategic Account Executive

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.

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0:21 Scott Ingram: Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, I'm joined by Tony Rhine, who is the top senior strategic account executive at Octiv. Where he is their top performer, because on this show I only ever interview the number one seller or those who are in at least the top 1% in the larger sales organizations. Welcome to the show, Tony.

0:42 Antony Rhine: Thanks for having me today.

0:43 Scott Ingram: This episode is sponsored by Vidyard GoVideo, and I'll tell you more about them in just a few minutes. And you can get access to their free plugin by going to top1.fm/v. We're also ramping up towards the Sales Success Summit here in Austin next May. So you can learn more about that at top1summit.com. And use the code SSS for Sales Success Stories to save $150 on your registration. Oh, and before I forget, a special shout out to Phil Keane for getting Tony and I connected. Thanks, Phil. So Tony, let's start like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe have allowed you to get to the top in your role there at Octiv.

1:25 Antony Rhine: I mean, I would always start with knowing Phil Keane. He is, um, you know, he's every bit of my inspiration, jokingly. I think the top 3 things that allowed me to get to the top at Octiv, you know, I focus on decisive action day to day. So this is a habit I formed over the past few years, but just making decisions based on the amount of data you have instead of just failing to act and waiting on perfect data has been a big help for me. I try to live and operate keeping all options on the table at all times. And I think later on we can talk about kind of where that plays in. And then, um, I'm a little bit old school, but I live under the philosophy that people want to do business with, um, folks that they know and like and trust. So I try to stay as relevant as I can to the partners and customers that I work with and give them a reason to know me, like me. And obviously I want to prove my trustworthiness every, every time we interact.

2:21 Scott Ingram: Perfect. So let's dig into each of those just a little bit. I'm curious when, when you, what's an example of the decisive action that you might take where you don't maybe have enough information?

2:33 Antony Rhine: So in my role, as you said, I'm a strategic account executive, so I sit in a bit of a hybrid spot. I'm definitely a seller by nature, still hunt business, but I do wholly own a couple of accounts that I'm responsible for revenue growth on. It's pretty frequent that we'll find some work stream where our technology should fit in, where we may wanna pursue action, try to figure out where we fit, how we fit, who we should be talking to, but I'm pretty quick to, I guess I'd say act, claim kind of ownership over that work stream, ensure that our technology is being provided, not necessarily before we know that we're a fit, but definitely in terms of, is it a fit from a business side? I worry about the technology kind of secondarily to the results I think we can drive. I don't know if that's too esoteric of an example, but I'll figure out as much data as I can along the way and just kind of decide to pursue things. Out of the gate.

3:31 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. So, so no analysis paralysis in your world?

3:34 Antony Rhine: Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

3:36 Scott Ingram: So what does it mean to have all the options on the table? What's an example there?

3:41 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I get it. So I'm renegotiating a global contract today. And, you know, you get, you get high hopes on things like that when you're looking to partner with a large company over, over a long time. Today we have maybe 6 agreements in place with this customer, 7 maybe. If I look across the board with each being supported by 4 or 5 order forms, so we have paperwork across the board. And one of the things we set out to do was get all the paperwork under one umbrella, centralize Octiv's ownership inside of that organization, and try to drive it forward. That company is in a little bit of economic turmoil in the market, and so one of the things we decided to do was kind of work toward an entirely different structure. So Octiv is a SaaS-based solution. We're per-user-per-month pricing, very traditional SaaS-based company in that sense. And frankly, the way we were working together wasn't gonna jive with kind of the market pressures that our customer was feeling. So I, you know, instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, kind of went to the drawing board 5, 6, I think at the end, maybe 10 times to come up with a solution that worked for them financially and also helped us protect our revenue, grow the user base inside of that customer and get a long-term commitment. I think when I look at those things, you have to, You do start with the end in mind. You have a goal, you have a target, dollars you want to sell or expansion side of the base that you want to capture. But at the end of the day, um, you have to keep every available option on the table and reserve the right to get smarter with, with each interaction or each conversation you have with them.

5:22 Scott Ingram: Got it. So it's really just about being creative, uh, in, in your approach and not, uh, not, not taking anything out of that tool bag.

5:32 Antony Rhine: Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, it's about breaking rules a little bit, right? We, especially in sales, we tend to operate, well, especially in software sales, you tend to operate inside of a world where you feel like the rules are stringent, right? You feel like you have to operate within certain bounds and you certainly need to be respectful of some boundaries, but nobody writes the rules for business in terms of how you need to engage with a customer. You write those together. Uh, in the contracts that you work. And I think in every single interaction, you have the right to get as creative as you want.

6:07 Scott Ingram: Nice. So let's, let's go to the last piece. Your third one was, uh, you get people to like you, sounds like.

6:12 Antony Rhine: So what's… I hope they do. Yeah.

6:14 Scott Ingram: What's, what's the process there? How do you think about that? Uh, because if it is something that you are taking on kind of strategically as part of your approach.

6:22 Antony Rhine: Yeah. Well, I think there, there's some self-selection in there too. I mean, I, I'm really active in choosing who I work with. So anytime I start a relationship with a prospect or a customer, I'm at least hoping, or I'm trying to gauge them as much as they're trying to gauge me. There are a lot of shoppers out there who try to commoditize the things that we do, and I believe that a big part of the software that we sell is the service that we provide and the white glove kind of servant disposition that we take to our relationships, especially mine. So there's a bit of a, it's a code 8, right? And I want them to choose me as much as I wanna choose them. So that eliminates some of the hardship you may have in making people like you, I guess, because you're choosing who you're spending time with. But in terms of how do I get people to like me, I try to be an expert. I try to be sympathetic and understand their world as much as I would any of my friends' universe when they have a problem going on, right? People seek out software because they have an inherent business problem. Understanding that problem, being sympathetic to the economic conditions inside of that company, the political culture, whatever that may look like. You build relationships in understanding those things. So I think context is king in that scenario. And the more questions, the more engagement and touchpoints you can have with that person, the better. So I guess for me, it's a combination of establishing credibility, one, being relevant in, You know, it's just honestly being nice, being somebody, being somebody that people want to like, you know?

8:04 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. Well, speaking of context, maybe you can give us a little bit more context just around your role and Octiv for those who aren't familiar.

8:13 Antony Rhine: Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, my role, uh, it's a strategic account executive. It is truly the hybrid between, um, traditional account management whose responsibility in software is adoption, growing the base and ensuring you're delivering return on investment to what the sellers sell. And then selling. So in some ways I'm choosing my own destiny and what I'm selling because my feet are to the fire to ensure that they're adopting our technology. Octiv as a company, we create digital document solutions. When Octiv's implemented, it can look like a document generation engine for proposals or quotes or commercial teams to support transactions. We can look like a contract lifecycle management solution where you're generating agreements on the front end and managing the lifecycle of those on the tail end. Um, and, and today we support some presentation capabilities in the marketplace. So, um, when I, when I frame us, uh, to a customer, I want to be that, uh, at least on paper, and that can be digital paper, but, uh, on paper, I want to be that transaction engine for your commercial team to partner with your customers.

9:22 Scott Ingram: Excellent. Cool. So before we talk about Tony's performance and results, I want to thank our sponsor for this episode, and that is Vidyard GoVideo. Thanks to Vidyard GoVideo, video, the rest of this episode will be completely uninterrupted. And I hope you'll help me thank them. And of course, 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 significantly 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 Tony, quantify your results for us. What does it take to be number 1 at Octiv?

10:03 Antony Rhine: So I'm 185% annual achievement on quotas. I carry 2 bags. I have a new business bag and then a bag for my strategic accounts. With those strategic accounts, today I'm averaging about 135% year-over-year growth account-to-account for that strategic customer base. Trailing couple-year performance plus this quarter, I'm, you know, 8 of 9 quarters at that, at that average mark of about 185% quota achievement.

10:36 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. So, you know, we've… I realized a ways into this after many interviews that we call the show Sales Success Stories. And of course, we dig into kind of the story in the background. But what was missing was an actual story. So I was hoping you could tell us about a particular deal that you found meaningful or impactful in your career that we might be able to learn from.

11:00 Antony Rhine: Yeah, um, I worked with this guy, his name's Adam Miller. He's young, he's, um, I don't know, mid-20s, came on board maybe 4 years ago. Um, we were working with, or we were targeting, he and I together, he was my sales dev rep, targeting a large CRM company that everybody knows, hoping to partner with them and sell them TinderBox. At the time we weren't yet Octiv. Um, probably the most inspiring thing I've seen in sales and why it's my favorite sales story, Adam called into their VP of global sales 26 times with, with no results. Um, just hammered the phone, um, in a really methodical way, calling after hours, calling during hours, a couple emails here and there, but 26 calling touchpoints. On the 27th call, the guy picked up the phone and praised him for his persistence. Ended up setting up a meeting and we closed out a transaction with that company about a month and a half later because he was so impressed with the persistence of the company and then with the relationships we were able to build over that month. So it was a really, I don't know, it was an inspiring story to see kind of a young seller at that time drive so hard and then our ability to work as a team to close that transaction out.

12:19 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. And you talk a bit in your, in your top 3 about how you have that, that action mentality, but it's also a part of what you insist of your team. How, how are you thinking about… because certainly, especially on the account management side, you're always kind of bringing your team together and trying to get the best out of them. What's your approach to that and keeping them on kind of that same page as you are to move things forward?

12:46 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I mean, I think it starts with trust. So I, probably an internal joke is I'm not as good of a delegator as I should be. I try to take a lot of the workload on myself. And if it takes me longer to explain what I need or what I'm asking for than just to do it myself, I tend to do it myself. But I think my approach is one of trust. I try to enable every member of my team. And for the most part, we're peers. These aren't direct reports or anything in that sense, try to enable them to first have as much information as they need, or that I can give them to make a decision. And then I try to push them hard just to make decisions. It's pretty rare for us, as fast as our accounts move, and especially given that we work in a world where we're selling to sellers, it's hard for us to get all of the information we need to make the perfect decision. So I kind of preach the action is better than inaction, waiting on data, right? And I do expect, and I'm pretty harsh about it, I expect decisiveness and execution from the team. I ride team members pretty hard if an email that holds all of us on the email thread is unresponded for, for a certain number of hours. And I set the tone early in the relationship with all my customers and all my prospects that I'm effectively available at any point if they wanna reach me. I block out a couple of hours a day to spend with my kid, of course, but, but even then I'll take a call when I need to, um, just to get a sense for what they need. And then I'll set a, set a follow-up time, uh, that's achievable and ensure I follow up every time. So, you know, that's, I hold the same expectations for my team at large.

14:30 Scott Ingram: Nice. And we'll absolutely come back to, uh, just how you're maintaining that level of organization and staying on top of everything. But before we go there, I'm interested in what is your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place?

14:44 Antony Rhine: I grew up on a… well, I grew up on a double-wide and, and, you know, upgraded to a farm in the middle of rural Indiana. Um, so I… not, not a terribly interesting story. I mean, I grew up in a small town, really poor small town, where for the most part kids, kids weren't expected to go to college at the, at the time, right? Um, it wasn't what I'd call kind of a staging area for academics. Um, but my, my parents ran a hotel, which is very kind of servant attitude-like organization. My dad specifically, he was, he was the innkeeper. He ran that on a college campus, a local college. And so he, he had some inns there, always tried to keep me in front of folks at the university and tried to instill in me kind of this, the servant attitude. So, you know, I spent a lot of time around that university kind of getting, getting driven by my dad. He delegates the same way and has the same type of expectations that I do. So I'm sure I picked that up from him. But, you know, over time, uh, really just decided that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what I need to do today, or do what I do, what I can do today, so that, you know, tomorrow I don't get caught in the same trap that I see a lot of others in my hometown going through. So that became a bit of an emotional driver for me to, to work harder and kind of work my way out of Um, out of rural Indiana into some sort of business capacity.

16:08 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And so what was that first kind of sales role, sales experience?

16:12 Antony Rhine: Oh man, I graduated. So I went to DePauw University, small, small school in Indiana. I graduated without a job, um, moved to Indianapolis with a couple of buddies, and 2 of us were hired into a sales role selling shingles. So physically selling… I called them at the time roofing solutions, but we were, we were selling shingles. Um, after a hailstorm had hit Indianapolis. And, uh, it was like lightning in a bottle. All you had to do was show up, be brutally honest with the homeowner, help them work through their insurance policy and get a new roof on their home. Um, and it was actually really interesting at the time. There are a lot of, a lot of storm chasers out there, and, and there are obviously lots and lots of honest sellers in that market. But just like any other market, there are some some folks who I don't think have the customer's best interest in mind. And so the table stakes there, if you can just be honest and, you know, kind of responsibly show up and manage the crew installing those shingles and follow through and call and check on the homeowner, you would get referrals at an unbelievable rate. And so my buddy and I, we were a tandem selling pair inside of a couple of neighborhoods in an upscale indie neighborhood. And we just crushed it that summer. And I decided if, if the table stakes are that you need to be honest and keep a customer in mind and sales in general, it's a great industry. And if people can't fulfill those obligations, I can, I can, I can make a hell of a living just, just beating that tranche of individuals.

17:46 Scott Ingram: You know, I love that. And, you know, it's funny. I mean, I think one of the things that has come out of this show and all the conversations to date is just how stereotype-crushing all of these conversations have been, because at the end of the day, like the path to success is that. It's not being a shyster. I mean, maybe that's a path to very, very short-lived temporary success, uh, but, but certainly not anything that you can build a career around, right? So speaking of career, I mean, what are you most proud of from an accomplishment perspective, whether that was Octiv or someplace else?

18:19 Antony Rhine: Hmm. Um, so, so my third gig… so I went from that roofing, roofing job to, to headhunting, which is obviously just a cold calling extravaganza of fun. I started a business. I ran a headhunting firm for about 5 years, managed to take that apart and in some form sell portions of it. But in the time that I did that, I owned that business, I probably managed a book of business so far beyond my own understanding and impact of what we were doing, both for the companies that we were serving and the people. And the reason I would lean on this, I had beers the other night with a guy that I placed into one of the companies. And, you know, it was a step-up type role. People don't move from one job to the other, location to location, unless they're moving up in life. But I didn't realize how transformative some of those moves we were making were. And one of the things he shared with me was that he was most impressed in working with our organization because every time we would call, we were asking about, you know, What's the impact to your family? How do your kids feel about this? How's the wife feel? You know, all those kind of personal things that at the time I was, I was still a little naive. I was in my late 20s. I didn't realize that those were abnormal questions to ask. Those are, to me, kind of, again, table stakes type thing. So I guess just the impact I've been able to have on some of those folks, especially when I owned that business, I think that's probably what I'm most proud of.

20:01 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And so, I mean, this is, this is a huge range of experience from roofing solutions to, to headhunting to software sales. Is, is there anything that you would have done differently either along that journey or the way you started out that journey? Yeah.

20:18 Antony Rhine: Yeah. I'd break more things. Um, and I mean that in, in, in the positive sense. I have this, uh, my CEO today is phenomenal. His name is David Kerr. And we have kind of the mentor-mentee type relationship, which is nice to have when you're in a sales position. But I think I started when I was talking through kind of adapting and keeping everything on the table. I wish I would have realized earlier that, you know, it is always an option to live in chaos. It is always an option to challenge and bend and break things, whether it's comp plan or antiquated rules about what you're supposed to do when you sell, or, you know, my VP of product probably won't love this one, but I think she'll respect where I'm going, kind of breaking the vision of where the company's going, right? You see yourself as, I was at TinderBox when we were a document generation solution, and I'd been on the front edge of pushing us along with Rachel and her team into this, you know, contract management space, because we do so many things so well. But it, but so much of it is a matter of understanding where weak patterns of behavior or outdated principles live, or where there's bad data, and taking a really offensive mindset to, for lack of a better term, to break it. And I wish I would have realized that you can do that, that there aren't rules governing, governing that earlier in my career.

21:47 Scott Ingram: That's, that's fantastic. And, you know, I think some of the very best sellers really I mean, I don't know if I would use the word break, but it certainly is applicable. But they, I would say they push their, their companies, right? Because we're where the rubber meets the road. We're, we're seeing what's happening in the marketplace, how our customers are using the solution or how they want to use it and can absolutely drive roadmap and what that vision looks like. And everybody gets better in that circumstance when it's, when it's real. So Tony, you talked about your CEO being a mentor, and it's one of the things I'm realizing I need to go back and, and kind of update my standard flow of questions because it's the one thing that I haven't included, but it almost always comes up. I think it's such a, a significant contributor to great performance. So how do you think about… how do you… let me just leave it open. Like, what, what are your thoughts on mentorship in general?

22:45 Antony Rhine: I think it's really important. You know, kind of back to your last question, I think it's something I overlooked early in my career. I've taken a lot of guidance in my life from my grandfather and my father. They're both fairly successful business guys in their own right, but just really down-to-earth quality people. And, you know, I've always been, and I think a lot of sellers would fall into this category, I'm pretty headstrong. I have a certain amount of ego, and I, you know, when I tend to think I'm right, I think I'm right. But there's an entire world of experience outside of yourself. And so when I look at someone like David, and he willingly listens, but also very willingly challenges everything along with me, you know, I don't think that you can get caught in a more important feedback loop in life than someone who understands why you're spending so much of your time doing something, how you're addressing that time spent, and what you're doing inside of that. And allowing them to fairly openly either critique, suggest, or offer consideration to what you can be doing, either to improve your own personal circumstance or kind of improve the customer's experience in working with you. And I think that probably that model, if it's customer-centric, fits to any specific role that would exist or any specific function that somebody may be operating in.

24:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So what about the challenges? I mean, what's the hardest part that you find in kind of either the day-to-day or as you think more broadly over the course of your career, just being in these types of sales roles?

24:29 Antony Rhine: I'm emotional. I mean, like, I'm super emotional. I get attached. I don't know that I'd say I care too much because I don't really believe in that as a concept. But, you know, like, I started when we were talking about building relationships with customers. I select, I think, as stringently as my customers do that I want to work with them. I turn away revenue in that sense at times just because I, you know, I don't want to devalue what I do. And I sometimes I just don't want to work with somebody. That's a reality of kind of who I am. And I'm emotional enough to know that, or I'm aware enough of my emotion to know that. But I do think, you know, if I'm working to craft a solution for someone, whether it's a customer at large or an individual in life, I tend to invest really heavily. And, you know, when it doesn't work out, the low of that can be a little debilitating for me at times. And it's something I'm working on personally. The high of that, the flip side, people at Octiv will tell you when we close a deal or when we go live with a workflow, I'm usually, you know, the guy running around with a, a beer at 2:30 trying to cheers people when they're on a phone call. So my highs are also high. But yeah, the biggest challenge, the ups and downs of business in general, it takes a very strong mentality to manage that, or that ignorance is bliss blindness. I'm really happy I'm not blind to that at this point in my career. I love living through that. But yeah, those emotions, those are things David and I talk about regularly. Um, and so that, going back to your mentorship question, a great part of that is just learning how to manage through the emotions. And, you know, working with somebody with gray hair like David's really helpful because he's been there and done that.

26:21 Scott Ingram: So, Tony, I think that is so important. And, uh, I think you've exposed another gap that, that I have in these conversations, although, you know, you can only do so much in an hour and a half. But how are you managing through the emotions? Because we certainly all go through them. This is absolutely probably the most emotional role there is.

26:43 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I mean, working out and booze has been my normal diet for it. And mostly kidding. I think my approach recently has been making things more about the team. So you can, you know, the high of a high, if you spread it over a lot of people, it stays high enough but maintains some type of balance. So getting to a point in my career where I understand that the collective we were responsible for that win, whatever it is, whether it's winning a deal or again, going live with a workflow, spreading those highs out across that team and ensuring that every member of that team looked good in that process and did well in that delivery, that's been really helpful in managing the highs. I am not as good on the low side. I tend to take the low side pretty personally. I try to hold it to myself. But what I think, especially recently, David and some other leaders at Octiv have seen that and are kind of taking that same high philosophy that I have and spreading it around. They're pulling on that low a little bit to help balance it out. And I think that's a pretty natural reaction. You see that in the passing of a family member and the way families kind of rally around those kinds of things. Yeah, it's a really neat cycle to get through, but I don't… I neither have advice nor kind of good description of how I'm managing through it other than trying to spread it and dampen it in some way. Does that make sense?

28:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it does. I mean, I love the win idea. You know, I think that sharing that and not keeping that to yourself and in some ways, you know, that wave will hopefully take you through some of the down periods because, you know, I don't think I've talked to anybody yet who is just literally always winning. You know, there's… you know, nobody has that kind of a batting average.

28:45 Antony Rhine: Right, right. Well, and let's be real, especially in sales, you don't own the win. There are a lot of people supporting me. I know that. But if for any transaction, right, someone in marketing brought you that lead, most likely someone a few years ago taught you how to talk to somebody, most likely, and someone built the product or service that you're selling. So yeah, spreading those wins out and ensuring your team knows that they did a good job I think is critical.

29:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah. You know, there, there was a process that we had back in the day when I was working for Bazaarvoice. And actually, actually, I think the timing on this is going to be okay that I can say I'm going to be doing a live podcast interview at the Enterprise Sales Forum meeting in January on, on January 11th. And I'm actually going to be interviewing Bazaarvoice's number one seller there. I think his… he's in a global account management type of role. One of the things they did there back in the day that I thought was genius is after every significant win, the seller was expected to send a company-wide email. So this was like everyone at company and they got abbreviated. So it was, well, you can, you can figure out what the letters were, but these emails were called How the Deal Was Done. And what was so great about that process is a few things. I mean, one, you could take it on as a motivational deal to where as you were working through a long, complicated, complex deal, a lot of us would start that email in draft form and start dropping in the names of everybody who contributed. Because to your point, it takes a freaking army to get some of these deals done. And if you're really being conscious of everybody you need to recognize, it was just such an amazing process and made you so mindful of what it took. And then obviously just massively impactful to the rest of the organization to see behind the scenes. Like, this isn't… this isn't Scott trotted out, waved his magic wand, and poof, we have this gigantic client on board now. It was like, no, no, no, the 40 people were involved in one way, shape, or form in bringing this deal to fruition. So I love that. And I'm glad that you reminded me of that story because it was such a great process and one I'm going to think about perhaps re-adopting because it was, it was such a fun way to kind of share those, those win stories in a lot of really meaningful ways.

31:22 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I, there's, there's a high likelihood I push for Octiv to adopt that. That's a, that's a, that's a neat approach.

31:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So let's go in and talk about the kind of the routines and the process and that sort of phase. So I've learned over the interviews that the first question I have to ask here is Tony, are you a morning person or are you a night owl?

31:43 Antony Rhine: Morning person.

31:43 Scott Ingram: Perfect. That's my favorite kind of person because that's what I am. So where does, where does that start? When, when does your morning start? And walk me through kind of the, the morning routine.

31:54 Antony Rhine: Yeah, the, the mornings used to start around 5:30 or 6:00. I have one particular customer who, when he listens to this, he'll know who he is. He, he loves to wake me up earlier than that. He's a former commanding officer for the Marine Corps, so he doesn't mind dialing my phone between 4:45 and 5 o'clock in the morning. So I've developed a habit of waking up around 4:30 in the morning. I'm trying to figure out the routine though. Like, I don't have a set rhythm in life in general. I just kind of bounce between things. I don't believe in multitasking. So, you know, I kind of focus in on something and just go. The only things that I have as a, as a true routine. I have this notebook that if you saw it, you would laugh at me. Like, I have days planned out through February 11th, or at least portions of those. It's sitting in front of me now, that's what you heard flipping, sorry about that. But I, every night, diligently plan out my day the next day, so calendar's up to date, I check attendance on every meeting in a probably scarily habitual way, and I organize my day around effectively an Eisenhower matrix. What do I need to do immediately? What is it I need to delegate? What do I need to schedule? I own an inbox for everything else. I write down kind of my loop of things that I'm working on that week at the top of the page next to it, and I review that to start my morning. Try to do about 45 minutes of reading, couple cups of coffee, and move forward with work.

33:28 Scott Ingram: Nice. So you… there's so much there that I want. The first thing I want to make sure that I don't lose sight of is you said I don't believe in multitasking. Please talk about that.

33:40 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I just don't buy multitasking. One, I'm not good at it. If I'm going to dig into something, I want to understand it and I want to focus on it. I have some very odd combination of being ADHD and OCD. So if there are 10 things in front of me, I'm going to touch and look at and play with all 10. Um, and I learned that really early trying to study in college, uh, transparently. But, um, yeah, I, I don't buy into multitasking. And I think focus, um, focus creates an environment for one, more creative solutions and outcomes, and 2, better results and faster results.

34:20 Scott Ingram: Yeah, totally, totally agree. And I find that anytime that I violate that rule is, is basically where I get in trouble. And it's, it's really what led to, I mean, it's been years at this point. Um, but my Facebook account is deactivated. It's, it's not even live because that is just…

34:37 Antony Rhine: I'm not on social media either.

34:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's just a pit of distraction. Yeah, there's, there's nothing, there's nothing good that comes out of that. Now, LinkedIn for me professionally, like, that's, that's a relevant tool, but, but Facebook is useless in my world. So let me put you on the spot a little bit because I'm always looking for like these interesting goodies that we can stick into our Sales Success Community. And for folks listening, if you've not yet joined that, all you have to do is either take text TOP1, T-O-P, the number 1, to 444-999, or just go to top1.fm. And when you get on the mailing list, the very first email that you receive is an invite to this private Sales Success Community that we have. And I'm always trying to stick really interesting, valuable resources in there. And I'm wondering if, if you could create either a sample page that, you know, that doesn't have anything too confidential on, or maybe just create a sample page for us in terms of what is the structure of that prioritization. Is that something you can share with me?

35:40 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I'm happy to.

35:41 Scott Ingram: Fantastic. So we'll put that in the, in the Sales Success Community. And let me, let me provide some context too, because you, you broke the evergreenness of this, but that's okay, um, calling out the, the February 11th. So we're actually having this conversation December 15th. So that's 2 months of… you've basically know where you're going to be, what you're doing, and how you're going to make it happen is what Yeah, yeah.

36:03 Antony Rhine: I mean, to an extent. So, so the, the structure is physically, it's like, it's a list of 5 things that I need to do now, 5 to delegate, 5 to schedule. There's an inbox and then notes for the meetings. What you'll see as you flip through the pages as it goes further and further out, I, I schedule a curriculum for myself, um, sort of like your, your Facebook piece and my Facebook piece. We share that. Um, I, I don't deal well with information overload. I like to go deep. Deep in a subject. So I'm on this really big find my own why, try to drive discipline, and, you know, all these factors. So I'm on this big self-learning thing. So I've got, I don't know, 12 books that I plan to read between now and then in different, different fashions. So I've skimmed them all and I've laid out the chapters I want to read. It's very obsessive. And then anytime I have trips planned, you know, I kind of block those areas, shade them out inside of this. So it's It's partly calendar, although it's completely a notebook, and then partly it owns my curriculum. And then it also has this very serial killer-y section, at least that's what everybody I work with calls it, that lays out, you know, the 5 or 10 that I'm dealing with in the moment. So David Kerr, as I mentioned, one of my customers, couple other customers, I'll have a list of every open topic we have and sort of the next action steps going along with it. It's… I'll share it. Uh, it's, it's probably overkill for most people, but it's the only way I maintain sanity.

37:29 Scott Ingram: I, I love it. And, you know, I, I have this philosophy. I try not to interrupt my, my guests as they're talking. So I'm not one to like burst out laughing if I can control it. I'm barely controlling it. This is, this is really fun. I love the, I love the serial killery section. So I, I'm eager to get a taste of, of what that looks like. So along those lines, when you say you kind of shade out the travel, how is it Travel. How do you, how do you deal with travel?

37:59 Antony Rhine: I love travel. Um, you know, how do I deal with it in terms of managing my day-to-day or just how do I, what's the, orient me to the question a little more.

38:10 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I'll just give you my, my personal sort of selfish orientation. So this last year, um, has probably been the least I've traveled in the last 8. I am perennially on the road about 40 to 50% of the time. And I don't, I still haven't figured out why. Um, but it's been great. Year I'm, I'm down in the 20 or 30% range and I'm like, oh my God, am I productive when I'm not traveling that much? So, so the question is really just around how do you maintain sanity and a level of productivity while you're on the road? Or you, do you just say, forget it, I'm, I'm on the road, I'm focused on these things while I'm on the road and I'll get back to everything else when I get back?

38:50 Antony Rhine: Yeah, no, super, super simple answer. Um, so just like the, the notebook, um, not, not, not the epic movie The Notebook, but just like the notebook that I maintain. My calendar when I travel, and everybody who's ever traveled with me can attest to it, I detail every bit of the trip in there as far as the knowns. So if I have meetings, I'll have, you know, obviously that blocked, but I'll have the travel to the meeting blocked, the travel back to wherever I'm going blocked. If I intend to do dinner with or without someone, that's blocked. The trip to the airport, where I'm checking in, the approximate time, some reading time, I block it all, so that I don't… well, so that I don't cheat myself on things that I want to accomplish while I'm there. On the productivity side, I think, you know, it depends on your definition of productivity. To me, in my particular role and based on my style of selling, building and maintaining relationships… and not that I don't think that's important to everybody in sales… is particularly important to me. And so, you know, if I'm sitting in a room, uh, even just, you know, shooting the stuff with a customer for an extra hour, I see that as some level of productivity. Um, if, if I'm learning something new about that customer, if I'm learning ways we can impact their business, whatever it is, I view it as productivity. Now, the time in the hotel, very different. Um, I, I try to get a little bit of a personal block in there, either for reading, uh, maybe a quick workout, definitely good dinners Um, so you, you lose a little bit of productivity there, but I'll also, I would, I would argue almost anyone, I'm more productive on an airplane than I am in my office chair.

40:32 Scott Ingram: Yep. Yep. There's, there's something about the air, the recirculated air at 30,000 feet that if you can, yeah, actually I think the worst thing that ever happened to flying was Wi-Fi.

40:42 Antony Rhine: Oh, without question. There's no question.

40:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah. I actually, I love when it breaks because it's, it's, you know, and a lot of times I've just gotten to the point where I, I, it's not worth turning it on. It, that again, it goes back to that. It goes back to the distraction, you know, and, and I think when you have that super focused time and I think, I think that aligns. I mean, the place where I've sort of gotten in and just seeing this difference is when I'm on the road, I'm there. It's really about who's there. It's the clients that I'm meeting with. It's other relationships that I can further develop while I'm in whatever city that is. Is, uh, and, and working on those things and not so much the more action-oriented, uh, kind of to-do list stuff that you're typically cranking through, uh, when you're, when you're back in the office. But it's, again, it's, it's, it's a struggle. There's something about the energy that travel takes and everything else and the toll it takes. And you talked about working out. What, what does your workout regimen look like, uh, at home and on the road? Sad.

41:45 Antony Rhine: It's sad. No, I'm, I'm, yeah, I am way out of shape for where I want to be, but I try, especially when I travel. I'm better about it when I travel. I'll wake up, I'll try to do 30 minutes of PT, whether it's push-ups or a jog or just something simple. I try to stay away from gyms at hotels. The germ level in those things just grosses me out, even if it's the cleanest hotel. I just can't, I can't get myself to go in there. But I try to get out on the street in whatever city I am, run for a little But, um, yeah, and I'm just substantially better at it when I'm traveling than home.

42:19 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. Well, again, since we've already disclosed the dates on this, uh, today is the day I'm several hours away from the delivery of my Peloton bike. And oh, I'm, I, so I'm going to disclose all sorts of secrets in this episode. It's that time of year, I suppose. Um, I actually taught indoor cycling at the, at the downtown YMCA here in Austin for about 6 years and loved it. I retired, uh, a a couple of years ago. And, you know, I've, I've bounced in and out of other stuff since then, but looking at that thing, I'm… I know myself and I know how competition and metric-driven I am. And so that thing, I, I already know, like, I don't even have it yet, and I know that is God's gift to exercise and just the, the way that I operate. So I'm stoked about that. If you're listening to this and you're a Peloton rider, then you need to find me because we're… it's on We're going to make some stuff happen. So that's going to be fun. And so the other thing for me is looking into 2018, my morning routine is going to change. It'll be interesting to see how that gets incorporated in and what that looks like. So the last thing I wanted to dig into from kind of the routines perspective is you talked about your why and discipline curriculum. Typically, I ask kind of what the information diet looks like, and you can certainly answer that question, but I'm fascinated because I tend to do the same thing. I tend to go down very deep rabbit holes. Years ago, I read like Tony Hsieh's Delivering Happiness and went down this crazy positive psychology trip. And then, you know, I've gotten into biographies more, more recently. So I'm really, really… and I've definitely been down the habit path. So talk to me about like what, what is that? How do you structure that? And then what do you hope to really ultimately get out of it?

44:14 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I think it… I, I think the biggest thing right now, like, I did the whole Simon Sinek Find Your Why, right? So you do the, the golden circle piece, you look at it personally, um, and I don't, I don't know that I have it figured out. So I, I started reading a few… I don't know if they're motivational, but self-discovery type books, leadership type books. There's a, there's a great book by a former Navy SEAL named Mark Divine called The Way of the SEAL, and it's all about thinking like an elite warrior, leading and succeeding, etc. He had all these recommended readings, so I kind of went through like a quick skim of that book, looked at his recommended readings, thought I could build a little bit of a curriculum around this. He has this whole concept of finding your set point, which is, you know, understanding your purpose, understanding your value structure, digging and challenging yourself, and getting to a place where effectively you find your why. And so as I went down that track, I'm like, well, you know, there, there are all these things I've never focused on in my life. Things like discipline, although I'm very regimented, I hadn't thought about discipline as a practice. So, you know, you end up picking up another book, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, and he's also a Navy SEAL, so I'm kind of on this weird military pattern, and Carol Dweck's Mindset. So I end up picking up all these books, and this happens to me when I'm in an airport. So the counter to the productivity when you travel is book sales. Like book sales in an airport, I have to just be, I am funding so many people's career off of these things. But you know, you buy these books that are well advertised. They have different areas that fit into this structure of, at least for me at the moment, is like kind of finding my why, finding my business voice, figuring out my drivers. You know, and it's not necessarily around do I wanna stay in sales or get out of sales, right? 'Cause I kind of love what I do, but I don't know. Necessarily know why I love it. I haven't put enough time and thought into knowing why I love it. So it's a little, little part self-discovery, little part education, reorientation of how I, how I'm doing business, how I'm, how I'm living life.

46:23 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. And as you started talking through that, I was going to recommend Extreme Ownership. It sounds like you've already been there. That, that for me was probably the most impactful book that I've read in the last maybe, maybe 2 years. I really, That, that just struck a chord with me.

46:38 Antony Rhine: So, so I'll start reading that just to give you a glimpse of my notebook here. I start Extreme Ownership on Friday, January 12th. So I'll, you know, I can, I can circle back with you after I get through it a couple of days after that.

46:53 Scott Ingram: Yeah, let's, let's do that. And I'm actually going to reread it. Heck, maybe, maybe this even turns into a Sales Success Stories book club. So, you know, given, given this episode will go live January 2nd, I think that timing might work. So again, I'll follow up with you. You and maybe we'll get that whole curriculum into the Sales Success Community. So if you want to dig in, uh, with, with Tony and I, particularly around Extreme Ownership, I think that is such a great way, uh, to start the year. That'll be, that'll be a ton of fun. So let's, let's pivot and talk, well, not too far and talk about, um, just other kinds of tools and apps beyond your, your notebook. It sounds like your notebook is pretty core to a lot of what you're Yeah, it is.

47:36 Antony Rhine: Uh, is this the part where everybody, every software seller like shamelessly plugs their own tool? Like I can't live without Octiv generating proposals and contracts for me, or is it, you know, uh, more about just what I actually do day to day?

47:49 Scott Ingram: Well, well, both.

47:50 Antony Rhine: I don't know.

47:51 Scott Ingram: I don't know that I've had too many sellers that have that kind of Kool-Aid that they're able to, uh, talk about, uh, drinking other than, you know, maybe the, maybe the SalesLoft team and the Vidyard team, those guys for sure. But, uh, no, I mean, I talk about that. That because, I mean, you're obviously selling to sellers. I think that's, that's relevant, uh, but I'm interested in any of those kind of core tools and apps and things that you're using.

48:17 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I obviously use our stuff. I use, you know, Salesforce as my CRM of… or our CRM of choice… and email. I'm, I'm really simple. Um, I have, I have this particular notebook and my methodology around it. I have a… I have that Moleskine pen that translates your notes. So I'm super diligent about handwritten notes during meetings, and I was finding I was taking too much time retyping those and Evernote, so I have, you know, I guess this pen is technology that supports me there. Beyond that and Evernote and standard screen share technology, for a software sales guy, I'm embarrassingly light on technology tools. I abuse phones though, I'll tell you. I go through 2 cell phones a year. I just beat the heck out of them, both in terms of time on the phone and the headphones. I have like the Beats X Wireless now, which are easily the best headphones ever. I think that's probably the most critical thing I use day to day. So I have 2 sets of them so that when one dies, I just fire the other one up. But from a, from a true sales tool standpoint, I'm probably as basic as it gets.

49:26 Scott Ingram: So is that, is that the emotion coming through? Like, are you just gripping the hell out of your phone? Like, I've never heard of anybody going through 2 phones a year.

49:33 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, so I worked with this guy Travis and his His lady friend recalls, calls me his other lady friend, right? Because I'll just pick up the phone and dial people. Like, I probably, I truly probably spend 9 hours on the phone a day. That's probably pretty accurate every day except for maybe Saturday and Sunday, it cuts in half. Often with coworkers, reselling partners, or with a customer. I mean, I put some miles on phones.

50:04 Scott Ingram: Nice. So what prompts those calls? Is it in the notebook? Is it on the list? That you're gonna do that, or is it… talk about that.

50:14 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I mean, I don't wanna give away my total secret, but it's usually premeditated. Like, I know, I know on a Thursday that I plan to call Travis on Saturday and probably again on Sunday, and I usually know what those topics are gonna be, um, unless he addresses them first on, you know, say Friday while we're in the office. So some of that's premeditated and a thing that I use to kind of motivate or keep conversations going. Um, that's probably 50%. The other 50% is, it goes back to that OCD part of me. If a topic is in my head and I think it's important enough, and I have a pretty rigorous cycle of evaluating what's important or not, I'm gonna call and just figure it out. I can't let it just sit and fester. I'm not good at letting things wait till the next day. I'm the classic, classic rom-com type guy where I need closure and I need it immediately. So yeah, that's usually what prompts me. Opposite.

51:04 Scott Ingram: All right, that's… I'm losing out on my withholding my laughter. You are hilarious. So, so let's, let's go to a topic where maybe you can't have as many jokes about. What… how do you think, or how would you describe, or do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

51:22 Antony Rhine: No, I don't. Yeah, I've read, I've read the books. I… the Challenger Sale, which, you know, It's a pretty obvious philosophy these days. I don't know that I have a particular philosophy. I try to keep myself on that adaptable cycle, right? I try to be… working in software, you see these engineers, these incredibly creative, talented type guys try to put themselves into this agile framework. I think the agile framework in general is super appealing. I don't know if that's a sales philosophy or methodology, but I'm trying to learn from our engineers and watch how they kind of manage their stuff and even treat my sales cycles that way. So there's some experimentation in my philosophy. The only like quarter-to-quarter carryover that I have that I subscribe to in terms of how I hit my targets, how I look at my book of business is I set 3x multipliers on all my goals. And I get genuinely pissed if I don't hit my 3x. And recently, when you hit your quota, your quota goes up exponentially every time, right? That's just standard sales living. And so it's getting harder and harder to hit my 3x goal. So I'm in this process, and maybe this is why I'm on the Find the Why process of trying to figure out, is it that I don't adapt or live within a particular philosophy? Is it that, what is it about the way I go to market myself that's kind of limiting me from getting to 3x my quota? Or, you know, is David just setting my targets way too high? I don't think it's the latter at all, but, you know, in general, no. I mean, I try to hit 3x goals, whatever I have to do, scrape, push, and not customers. I don't push customers, but scrape and push myself to do, you know, 100 more calls in a day if I'm in a prospecting cycle, or, you know, work with a customer to understand more needs or where we'll fit better and be pretty firm in that I need help growing their book of business. I'm not afraid to ask for that. Um, but yeah, I don't think I have a specific philosophy.

53:30 Scott Ingram: So every time you open your mouth, I've got like 8 things I need to go chase down. The first, the first thing I think is just, is interesting is I'm watching agile get applied to so many things so successfully. A couple of my clients, um, have basically become agile marketing departments, which is fascinating to watch, but I've not seen any, I don't think I've seen any book or any writing around agile sales. So that might be an interesting thing. To look up and see if there's been any application there.

54:01 Antony Rhine: There are a few experimental online articles that I've read. I've taken some to sales leadership before. I mean, it looks really hard to apply in sales because salespeople are, in general, they fancy themselves super, super special, sit inside of their specific philosophy. And so much of selling is controlled by the customer that I think agile fits so well. The adaptability of it, given your particular niche, whether you're owning a couple of customers, whether you own an industry, a vertical, a discipline, whatever it is, Agile, there has to be application for it. I'll write the book with you if we can figure out a way to make it work and get somebody to apply it and experiment with us. I think there's a fit for it.

54:47 Scott Ingram: There you go. There you go. Well, and you just reiterated the other thing that I wanted to ask about, and that is you said, you know, the customer is really in control, and you also said You don't push customers. So, so talk about that.

54:59 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I, I detest high-pressure sales tactics. That's what I meant by I don't push customers. I push them to get out of their own way from time to time. But it goes back to that I want to be likable thing, right? Customers want to choose to do business with me. I choose to want to do business with them. And so I don't think bullying… and that's probably the wrong word to use this day and age… I don't think pushing so hard on a customer to get them to make a decision is the right tactic. I don't think it's motivating in any way. I think, you know, from a solution standpoint, especially in software, if your product, your approach to the sales cycle, if those are both sound, then the only other factor in the equation is timing. And pushing doesn't solve the timing equation. It doesn't get somebody budget necessarily. Asking the question of how you can support them in going to get budget and then building a plan together, that's how you get budget. You know what I mean? And so, so, and those are, those are simple terms to put it in, but I, yeah, I just don't, I don't buy into the philosophy that you should, you should push customers. It's part of where, you know, you heard me reference the Challenger Sale. I like a lot of things about that, but the concept gets applied in such an extreme sense sometimes that it frightens me. If I were a buyer, I would respond horrifically to some of those approaches that I've seen.

56:19 Scott Ingram: For sure.

56:20 Antony Rhine: For sure. Yeah.

56:21 Scott Ingram: It's funny. I have a lot of conversations about Challenger and I think, you know, first of all, it gets taken out of context a lot of times and people just misread it as, oh, so I just need to be a jerk. Um, like, well, no, that's, that's not what we're looking for. So yeah, it's, you know, I, I don't know, it's one of those things like in moderation, there's definitely some great insights and some good stuff in there, but oh, absolutely. It's just, it's just, I don't know, it's, it's done wrong and really hard to, to execute completely.

56:49 Antony Rhine: Look, if you, if you don't have credibility to start with, then you're not going to be able to motivate the customer by either challenging or using a high-pressure sales tactic or, you know, otherwise motivate them. The motivating factor is always going to be, I want to do business with this person. They know what they're talking about. They have my team, my needs in mind, and those are met by whatever it is they're selling. And I think, I think the Challenger Sale explains that. I think where people apply it miss is that they don't work from that base point of credibility and trust.

57:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we've, we've answered this and talked about it enough so we can skip over it if you think that's appropriate. But typically I like to ask about kind of what motivates you and how you think about motivation. And certainly that comes back to the why conversation we've been having throughout. Anything you'd want to add to that?

57:47 Antony Rhine: Um, I mean, Maybe this is obvious, I'm a control freak, right? And I think just like anybody, I wanna believe that the choices I'm making are meaningful. And there's always this question, I guess, of why in relation to the things that I'm doing, why am I running a 4th mile when I've already run 3 today of all days? Why am I putting so much scrutiny on this proposal, right? Or if I can align you know, smaller tasks, which are usually the ones that take the most motivation, and pull those into some sort of coordinated constellation of meaningful projects and tie them to goals or values, you know, it fuels some, some, I don't know, for me, some sense of control. And as a control freak, you know, when that internal lotus of control is getting triggered, I feel very satisfied in that sense. So that's the part of the Find Your Why that's so motivating to me is that, you know, it comes back to feeling like you're part of something bigger.

58:47 Scott Ingram: That's fascinating. Very, very interesting. All right. So here's the part where I feel like I may need my mute button, uh, because I'm gonna, I'm gonna set you loose now. And, and the first question is, is there, is there something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy?

59:04 Antony Rhine: Oh, hmm. Um, oh shoot. I don't know how to say it. Um, I guess I guess, yeah, I don't buy into the work smarter, not harder thing. So I know that's like a small statement, but so many people use the concept of, oh, I'm working smarter, I'm getting to know so many things about this company before you've ever had a contact with that company, that it just, it stinks, right? You're just, you're skating hard work to pretend like you're getting an education on something that may or may not be relevant in life. So yeah, I mean, I think that's probably the one thing that I believe that a lot of people would say is crazy is that one, I guarantee I'll outwork you and probably win business over you. And 2, usually when you think you're working smarter, you're just being lazy.

1:00:03 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's funny. Every now and then I get to go on other sales podcasts and that tends to be my opportunity to really really like distill a lot of this stuff and really think through the themes and the other things that have come out. And one thing, I mean, I always sort of say like hard work is basically a given. Like you don't get to be number one if you're not working your butt off. Yeah. You know, maybe there are smarter ways that you could be doing it, but I'm yet to talk to somebody who's like, oh, I'm just the smartest guy there is. I work 4 hours a week and I'm killing everyone. Like, nope. Yeah.

1:00:35 Antony Rhine: Yeah. Tim Ferriss, The 40-Hour… or The 4-Hour Workweek, man. I mean, that's the philosophy, right? That's where it was sort of birthed. And there's so much fact to it that you could pull it off, but I don't think people put the level of thought and thoroughness into what it would mean to actually work smart instead of hard. I think that research has, and this is sales-specific, but research and thorough understandings of the marketplace have, have just taken over an entire generation of sellers who could just pound a phone and probably get better results.

1:01:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Well, and, and I think there's something to be said for you can learn an awful lot in a conversation, right?

1:01:18 Antony Rhine: Right. And that's, you know, there, there's, there's something I was going to note in the, in the serial killer notebook of mine. Uh, so every, every single meeting I have, I make 5 bullets. 3 of them are circles and 2 of them are arrows. And I learned this in recruiting. I had a really interesting boss back then who's like, hey, look, every single call you make, you can get a piece of information about a business because what we were effectively doing was poaching employees from businesses and putting them somewhere else, right? So the goal of that call, Scott, if I were to call you, I'd be like, hey, you want a new job, man? Like, you know, however you say it. And you'd be like, not particularly. And I'd be like, well, do you know anybody else who does? And of course, then you get defensive. And I'd be like, well, I talked to Jerry down the hall. And he'd be like, Jerry, Jerry Matthews? And I'd be like, yeah, Jerry Matthews, obviously. What does he do again? And then you just start getting people's names, right? And so you learn to like scratch these little bits of information by pulling on threads. But my approach in sales is for every call, every meeting I have, I wanna give 3 things and get 2, right? So I'm giving a little more than they're, they're getting more than they're giving. But any call you make, you can learn something about how to sell a business more than you're gonna get off of their LinkedIn profile. I guarantee that. I can call, we sell to salespeople, we sell solutions for salespeople mostly, but I can call a seller at a company, they will brain dump to me for an hour on all the things they need as an organization because that's the type of person they are, right? They're salespeople and they wanna talk and share. It's so, especially when you're in industries like ours, just going through the motion of making those calls is important, but also the practice and being able to communicate with another human. You know, that's, it's a lifelong journey, you know, and it's probably one worth pursuing if you plan to be in sales.

1:03:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, okay. So the 3 gives, those bullets, are those documented ahead of time? Do you write those down through the conversation? So how does that process work?

1:03:15 Antony Rhine: No, no. So that's that's part of either my morning ritual. I found recently I'm doing better thinking at night, so I've been writing them down the night before. Trying to give you an example from the book here. Yeah, I mean, so here's here's a good example. This is from an internal meeting today with one of my account managers, but it's you know how do we grow past this specific obstacle we have? That's something I plan to share. I have a con. Concept. Here's where I see we can go higher in the organization. Here's where I think she should be focused. Here's where I think I should be focused. And then there's a do you agree type statement. So this isn't as definitive, and I'm trying to shade a little bit of the detail. But, and then the 2 gets, I usually look, I mean, well, I obviously look to come from them to me, and it usually piggybacks, you know, 1 or 2 whys deep into the conversation off of one of those But you get these little gems that come out in every conversation that if you review them, you know, later that night, you can usually give a little more depth to whatever your follow-on is going to be to that person. And I think it applies for almost every conversation.

1:04:21 Scott Ingram: Fascinating. I feel like I need to spend 2 hours just with you and your notebook and dissect this damn thing. So, and I don't know if this is a transition to that or to something else, but I typically follow that, that last question that I asked 20 minutes ago. So is there something about you that… and maybe I should just ask in your office, right? The rest of the sales team thinks is crazy about the way you operate.

1:04:47 Antony Rhine: Well, I… well, yeah, I think they think I'm crazy in general, probably with the way I operate in my notebook. I think the whole concept that I choose who I work with, and I'll turn away money at times. That's, that's caused people to take a second glance at me before. Probably nobody that I work with today, but probably some, some folks who have transitioned off the team who were either short-lived or, you know, didn't get to see me do that as much. But I do like the whole concept of playing a little bit hard to get in the marketplace. I don't think my personality fits working with every customer, or prospect rather, I don't think that every customer's personality or interests fit either me or Octiv, and I'm pretty quick to let people know that. So, you know, I think people would think that's a little crazy because in general in sales, the concept should be that, you know, you have money, I want to take that money and give you a solution, but I don't think that's always the case. I'm pretty willing not to make the first move and wait and be creative with the counter punches if I wanna chase somebody back. Um, and I think I'm good at suppressing that eagerness or that, that desire to just go straight in and, hey, we fit. I want to work with you and let's do this on behalf of, you know, either one, building a longer-term relationship or two, knowing that we're going to work together either way. I want to ensure that when it comes down to time to negotiate with that partner, I have at least some, some leverage left.

1:06:21 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's, that's, that's fascinating. So I just can't, I can't get over your damn notebook. Does this thing have a name? What do you call this, this monstrosity? Generosity of yours.

1:06:31 Antony Rhine: Rhodia is what it says on the front of it. Uh, so, so I, I literally… I do actually call it my serial killer notebook. I have a, a customer named Ashley who is the only customer I've ever allowed to look deeper than the page I'm on inside of the notebook. And, and yeah, she… that's what she calls it. She calls it the serial killer notebook.

1:06:50 Scott Ingram: That's… that is so fantastic.

1:06:54 Antony Rhine: So I wish I had a cooler name it like, I don't know, you think of like a good brewery name, like War Pig or something, like 3, I don't know. But there's nothing cool about it. It's, it's just a really beat up notebook.

1:07:08 Scott Ingram: Well, and, and the serial killer notebook says so much about what it is.

1:07:12 Antony Rhine: Well, hopefully not, not at face value.

1:07:14 Scott Ingram: Well, right, right.

1:07:14 Antony Rhine: Yeah, yeah, right, right, right.

1:07:15 Scott Ingram: But, and there's no like red yarn with pushpins connecting anything, right?

1:07:20 Antony Rhine: No, no, no, no.

1:07:21 Scott Ingram: So Tony, what, as you look back at your career, what have been some of the most important decisions you've had to make or Lessons you've had to learn to get where you are today?

1:07:33 Antony Rhine: Hmm, it's a really good question. Um, I think the decision-making things… probably the decision-making thing is the most important decision I made. That was going to be a really ambiguous statement. I think the, the decision that I actively made to make decisions instead of waiting until I had everything, that was, that was something I did young. I think it's really benefited benefited me. I also think, to follow on a conversation from just a minute ago, not buying into a particular sales philosophy or copying cheap, cheap tactics that everybody else is doing, you know, kind of being part of that crowd, I think it's helped me. I mean, I stick pretty hard to who I am and the Midwestern values, you know, growing up in a rural community. I stick pretty hard to that, even in the way I communicate in a very formal, you know, sit-down-at-a-board-meeting type interaction. So, you know, I think it is really valuable to act differently, not intentionally differently, not like I'm not a hipster in that sense, but like act differently than the crowd, one. Decide to make action instead of kind of wait on information, and then continue to test different things that work for you, um, and choose the ones that are most natural for you to define your personal style or your brand or whatever the right word is there. I think, I think, and I don't know if that was a proactive decision to do all of that, but it's what I've done. And I think that's probably what's driven me or helped me kind of figure out how to get to this, uh, the place that I'm at today.

1:09:15 Scott Ingram: I like it. Decide to decide.

1:09:17 Antony Rhine: Yeah.

1:09:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. What advice would you have for somebody that's just starting out in their sales career today to maybe accelerate that learning success curve?

1:09:27 Antony Rhine: Kill your ego. I think so many people… I know I was one of them… get stifled early in sales by a couple of successes. So you see someone just starting out in sales come in, they either take down a big deal or take down a series of deals, and they're all energy and all ego, and they're probably really good because, you know, you don't get lucky repetitively, especially early. But being able to check your ego and understand that there's a lifetime of learning about business and people in front of you, and just staying open to the concept of the fact that either you're not right one, or, you know, the landscape changes continually, the people involved, that changes. Like, getting rid of that ego and just being completely open to keeping options on the table, whether those options are learning or trying something different or engaging in new ways. That's what I'd say.

1:10:36 Scott Ingram: Nice. And what about somebody who is further into their career? Maybe they're on your team. Maybe this is advice you actually give, right? They're, they're doing well, but they're not number 1, what advice do you have for them to notch up that next ring?

1:10:50 Antony Rhine: I think, yeah, you know, probably I would probably tell them to figure out why they want to be there. And it's not that, not that I'd be encouraging them to go away. And it's not that whole vision board concept. Like, you don't need a picture of Jessica Alba in a sports car and all that on your desk. But, but take it further and figure out why, why you're selling, why you're selling. If we were talking about Octiv, why you're selling Octiv. Octiv, figure out if your decision-making process in selling or just business in general is mature enough to describe whatever it is your long-term vision is, right? How do you assess… well, and that kind of begs the question, how do they assess whether or not they're at their top, right? So one thing I try to stay away from, everybody's context in sales is substantially different. I know it's an inherently competitive community. I embrace and I love that competition, but it would be really hard even inside of Octiv to compare me as the top rep with… I'll stick with the example of Adam Miller, who was my SDR and is now just absolutely crushing it in the mid-market, right? He doesn't have the same type of… well, his companies don't come with the same type of bankrolls, right, that maybe the enterprise or strategics do. He certainly in the mid-market would be afforded more opportunities to target. So when you look at like how you define somebody's top Like, I think it's personal, right? And you should be competing with yourself way more maybe than your peers. You should definitely be competing with your industry peers though, and so that may be a good comparative point. But if you don't know what it is you're chasing, if you can't just define kind of what your long-term mission is and what success would look like, then I think you're gonna continue to struggle at that point in your career. It's almost the classic midlife crisis. It's like, like a mid-sales career crisis moment. You got to figure out who you are.

1:12:39 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. So what, what is that for you? I mean, how do you define success right now?

1:12:45 Antony Rhine: So this is, this is like, I'm midway through this, this find your why journey. Um, right now I'm working off this very like Jerry Maguire, like what, what happened to me that day that positively influenced the business in in terms of revenue, customer satisfaction, and personal growth, right? So my personal growth obviously impacts the company because I'm part of the broader talent pool inside of the organization. And so I have this little bit of a journaling mechanism. So that's measurement number one. And then there's, sales is easy. I mean, the most obvious measurement is, did you hit your quota or not? And then did you hit your personal quota or not? I think everybody should keep kind of an ulterior goal. So that's probably a little hokey. I'm still trying to figure out my why, man. I'm trying to figure out exactly what I would define as success. I think I probably fit into that category where I'm looking for folks to give me advice and try to get a gauge on where I am on the path to my own top, you know? Yeah.

1:13:54 Scott Ingram: So I'm smelling, I'm smelling something here, whether it's some kind of a bonus episode where we circle back once you feel like you've got a good handle on that. Or, or maybe both of these things happen because we haven't had a chance to connect on this. But perhaps you and your serial killer notebook are going to be on stage at the Sales Success Summit. And because that's, that's the whole point of… that's why I want to do that event, is have a place that we can work through a lot of these things that we're thinking about so that we can reach new heights and achieve our own definitions of success. So we'll talk a little bit more about that offline, but I think that there's some really interesting stuff that we can do here. So along those lines, what would you want to ask? I mean, if you were in my seat and you wanted… and you were interviewing other top sales professionals, what would you want to know about them and what they're doing?

1:14:50 Antony Rhine: Oh, man, I like the dirty stuff in our industry, man. I love hearing hardship stories. The gruesome, tough, hard-to-pull-over deals and the tough client scenarios. And then the flip side of that, like those moments of brutal honesty and clarity with a customer. Like, I love the nitty-gritty type conversations like that. Because we just talked about it, I'd love to know how others are defining their peak. Like, how, you know, how are my industry peers defining success for themselves? I think that's something I've been struggling with and would love to know more about.

1:15:30 Scott Ingram: Yeah, for sure. So it's actually something I've been thinking about is drawing out. I mean, we talked about it early when you, when you told your, your first story, like there's not quite enough deal stories that we're really digging into in this show. Is, is there… do you have a particularly gruesome one you can tell us?

1:15:50 Antony Rhine: Not that's mine. No, I haven't been through a lot of gruesome, gruesome deals. I hear about And not even necessarily inside of… I mean, guys talk like you go to these, you go to these trade shows and you hear about guys getting undercut by a competitor off percentages, or like you hear about competitive leaders calling other, other companies and like trying to get the rep fired, like crazy stuff like that. I hear those things. I don't know any of them to be true though. Like I haven't seen anything particularly gruesome. I just get, it's like junior high gossip. I get caught in circles where you start talking about that and I love those conversations.

1:16:25 Scott Ingram: Even if they are fake.

1:16:27 Antony Rhine: Yeah, I mean, but there's no way to like, like, I don't, I don't know. They're never firsthand stories. And so you never really know. And you get 4 or 5 sales guys around a table who probably are, I usually hang out with my competitors when I'm at these trade shows. So like, you always wanna one-up each other. So the degree of realness in those conversations is questionable. The most gruesome I had recently, Like, I just flat out got beat on a deal. I want to say it was midsummer. It was like classic getting caught with your pants down. And it was, you know what, it was a byproduct of multitasking too. I was working on closing out another transaction. A quick turn type deal came in the door, loved the guy, we built a good relationship. I wasn't pushing him hard enough on follow-up. And one of my competitors was, they just flat out beat me on the deal. Deal. It wasn't, it wasn't gruesome, but it was like, it was a super cutting loss for me. That's, that's maybe the best gruesome story I have. Like, it's not even… that's, that's not too sexy. I don't have that, I don't think.

1:17:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah. Well, and to your point, I think a lot of times they are, they are fish stories. So I think as much as possible, we want to stick to the, the first person, like, okay, this, this is what really happened. Although, you know, the fish still can be, you know, 22 feet long. Right, right.

1:17:47 Antony Rhine: Well, and let's, let's be frank, most often you lose the deal, right? I mean, that's, that's what really happens. It's not that somebody comes in and beats you, because it's not… it's never like a fair fight, one-on-one punching bag type thing. It's, you know, either you either made the right moves or made the wrong moves in the deal, but you, you chose your path and you either won it or you didn't. So yeah, I, I don't know, but I find those, those stories really interesting when they're told, even, even for nothing else than the level of creativity that I see amongst my peers Oh, too funny.

1:18:21 Scott Ingram: So is there anything that I should have asked or a particular story or anecdote that you were hoping to share that somehow I haven't gotten to yet?

1:18:31 Antony Rhine: No, offhand, I don't, I don't think so.

1:18:33 Scott Ingram: All right. Well, with that, why don't we get to the actionable challenge that we try and create at the end? Because again, I am dispositioned toward action as well. And I think it's great to have these conversations and I think there's a lot of takeaways. But I think it's so much better if there is something that the person listening to this can now go do to make themselves better and improve their own results and get closer to their own definition of success. So over the course of the next 2 weeks, because that's how long it is between episodes here, what would you suggest that the person listening to this show do to improve themselves?

1:19:12 Antony Rhine: To the tune of my just make a decision on the data points you have thing, I think, and I may… I'm going to try this as well because I haven't put it in this type of terms before, but I would proactively make a decision and I would be really honest with yourself and the prospects that you're working with. Make the decision and make the call on whether or not you can provide the very best service to whoever it is you're trying to sell to and force the decision, right? Get them, if you're not the right vendor, help them get down the path to find someone else who is. And if you are the right vendor, then start making decisions to move, to either move that deal deal forward or create some type of motion in that opportunity. So I'd go straight back to making decisiveness a habit and apply it to the prospects in my funnel, because at least right now, a lot of the… well, on January 2nd, a lot of the software industry will be moving into their last month of their last quarter. So get the deals moving along by making decisions.

1:20:18 Scott Ingram: So Tony, this has been so fantastic. I really appreciate all your time. And for those of you listening, I just had an off-the-record conversation with Tony. And given that he is a man of action, he immediately committed to being a part of the Sales Success Summit, and he will have his ratty serial killer notebook. And so we'll, we'll work through the details of exactly what his presentation is. But I think you can get a pretty good idea of, of where it's headed and what those overarching themes are. So if you want to join Tony and I and so many of the other amazing guests that I've had on this show, at the Sales Success Summit, hop on over to top1summit.com. Again, that'll be May 7th and 8th, 2018, here in Austin, Texas. And don't forget, use the code… there's, you can, there's an opportunity as you're registering to enter a referral code, and if you put in SSS for Sales Success Stories, that will save you $150 on the spot. So now's your chance to be decisive and take action. Go register right now. There's really no reason to wait any longer. Thanks so much for listening, and Tony, thank you you for joining me.

1:21:29 Antony Rhine: Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast.

1:21:35 Scott Ingram: 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.