45: AJ Brasel - Selling through the channel and going from $80K/yr. to over $10M/yr. in 4 years at Clover Imaging

0:08 Scott Ingram: You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram.

0:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, I'm joined by AJ Brasel, who is a strategic account executive at Clover Imaging. Welcome to the show, AJ.

0:33 AJ Brasel: How are you?

0:34 Scott Ingram: I am great. So, a lot of new people have really started listening to this show. So, if you're a regular listener who has been telling your friends and colleagues about the show, thank you. And that's actually how AJ and I got connected. One of AJ's colleagues, Kevin Link, is a regular listener to the show. And not only did he tell AJ and some of the other… his other colleagues about it, he also reached out to me and suggested that I have AJ on. So, for those of you who are new listeners, it's important to know that I only interview either number 1 or top 1% quota-carrying individual contributor sales professionals. So AJ, congratulations on your success. And let's dig in right away, like we always do, with you telling us about the top 3 things that you believe have gotten you to the top there at Clover.

1:22 AJ Brasel: Thanks, Scott. Yeah, not a problem. Definitely 3 things that have helped streamline me to the top. Number 1 is just working closely with our internal leadership. Clover is a pretty sales-driven organization, and so I've gotten the benefit of sitting in with a lot of our top sales professionals all the way from the top down and learned a lot from those guys. Also having a full understanding of my accounts from top to bottom to make sure that I can form a cohesive partnership between Clover and their organization. So they're kind of looking at me as a partner rather than a vendor and building up a foundation on trust that kind of streamlines through both organizations. And then, you know, third and foremost, and I think this actually might be the most important, is I'm very, very goal-driven. I set very specific and measurable goals for myself, whether that be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual. And I am very diligent in tracking and monitoring my progress towards those goals and kind of reevaluate if things aren't working out or if things are coming too easy, kind of, you know, reevaluating my goals and maybe Steepening the grade a little bit. So I think that's extremely important if you're going to be a successful sales professional.

2:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. Well, there's a couple of things I'm really excited about with this conversation. One is the fact that you're selling through a channel, and I don't know that I've had anybody else on the show that that is how they're going to market and who they're working with to generate most of their sales. So it'll be interesting to dig into that. And when Kevin made the introduction, he just said, you know, AJ is super methodical guy, and I think that certainly is, is what you're telling us in that third point. So I think we'll be able to get into a lot of detail here. But before we do that, I mean, let's talk a little bit more about each of these points. Your first one was the way that you work with your leadership. And I, you know, I did a little bit of research and prep getting ready for this conversation. You're not kidding about a sales-driven organization. It looked like more than half of your team is involved in sales in one way, shape, or form. But talk about how do you do that and how does that help you improve your results?

3:30 AJ Brasel: Yeah. So I think, you know, coming in as a young guy who didn't really have a sales background at all, I was lucky enough to sit in on meetings with multiple different people. He's now our chairman of the board, but our former CEO who has a very strong sales background, our EVP of sales, our president, our director of inside sales, who I used to report to, and now my SVP who I report to, um, have all been kind enough to let me sit in on different sales calls with different clients that have been in tough situations or situations where we've been doing business with guys for a long time. And I've just picked up and stolen pretty much my entire repertoire of things I lean on or the way I go about my day, the way I go about a specific sales call or difficult situation. It's all been stolen from those guys. So I've taken things, bits and pieces from their process and applied it to kind of the way I want to go about my day and go about my you know, daily strategies. So using those guys as a point of reference has been extremely beneficial to me because they've been doing this forever, and they're all obviously in the positions they're in because they've had success in the past. And so, you know, using them as kind of a mentor to get me kind of to the upper tier has absolutely helped. And now that I'm, you know, have had some success, I still go back to each and every one of these guys and ask questions, bounce things off of them, and have them help me make decisions. So I, I'm really lucky to be part of an organization that's so strong, has such a strong sales group, and we kind of all work as a cohesive team. And so a lot of my success has been really driven by the guys around me.

5:12 Scott Ingram: Well, and how do you pick and choose, you know, what, what pieces that you take from them and incorporate into your own process, right? Is it what they've had the most success with or what you think is gonna fit your own style the best?

5:26 AJ Brasel: Well, I think it just depends. I mean, not always it's stuff that they've had success with. There's definitely things that some of our guys do that it doesn't mesh well with my personality. I'm a little bit more laid back. I'm a little bit more analytical. I'm not that in-your-face sales guy, and there's nothing wrong with being that way. But so things that, that are, you know, have helped other people be successful don't always resonate with my personality, but I pick and choose things that I know I'm capable of doing or things that maybe push me out of my comfort zone a little bit. I think that's important. I don't think people get out of their comfort zone enough. So I've identified some things. It's like, man, I'm sitting in a meeting. I would never say that. Maybe I need to try that or push the envelope a little bit more. So I don't really have a solid answer. I think it's just, if I'm in a situation and I think a lot of people, when you're in sales, you, you've kind of got to fly by the seat of your pants and improvise a little bit. And when you're in those situations and you've been sitting with some of the guys that have been successful, I think you just start to pull from things that you've seen other people do when it comes to being in front of a customer. I guess from in terms of like a strategy and a day-to-day routine, it's definitely I pull from things that resonate most with me. And if somebody gives me some advice and I can see the merit in that advice, I try to incorporate it because those guys have been successful, like I said, and have been doing this forever.

6:45 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. So your second point was the way that you partner with your accounts and really understand them so that you're not seen as a typical vendor. Talk about that a little bit more.

6:56 AJ Brasel: Yeah, so, and I think this goes back to you making mention that I sell to channels. So I don't sell directly to the people who use my product. I sell to people who sell my product, and it's really not convincing them as much to buy my product, but getting them to believe in what we can do and how we can partner up with those organizations. So whenever I go into an account and I take on a new account or I win new business or whatever it may be, I really try to get in there and understand that account's goals, the way they go to market, the way they compensate their sales team, try to understand everybody in that organization's role. And then my job is to go in and develop a relationship with all those people and find ways to make their lives easier. And then also train their sales team, make sure that they're up to speed with our product and understand the value of partnering with Clover a little bit more, you know, a little bit more closely. So I think the way I go about my business is I just make sure that everybody's comfortable, understands everything that I can bring to the table, and I only propose things that fit with their strategy or their goals. I'm not trying to throw things at them that don't make sense for their organization. I try to be really honest with them. I try to make sure that they understand that whenever I'm selling them something, I mean it. I think this is gonna be really beneficial to your organization. And that builds up that foundation of trust. And there's going to be times where they bring more opportunities my way, or they share things that they wouldn't share with other vendors. And I'm able to be a little bit more of an advisor to their organization and help them, you know, maybe see where shortcomings are or maybe see where they could have a little bit more success out there in the field. The great thing about selling to channel is I've got a ton of different dealers that I work with that have been successful in their respective markets. So I can also take things from dealer A that might apply to dealer B, you know, as long as they're not in the same market and selling into the same customer base, I think that I can share success stories and help those guys grow as well. So it's just all about understanding those guys, what their, their strategy is, their growth potential, and their growth strategy is for the year and in helping them achieve those goals.

9:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Great, great stuff. And I won't ask you about the goal piece because I know that we'll touch on that as we go, but I wonder if you could give us just a little bit more context. So we know that you're selling through channel, but talk a little bit more about your role and about, about Clover in terms of, you know, how many dealers are you supporting? What does your territory look like, in other words?

9:29 AJ Brasel: Yeah, so Clover is a remanufacturer of toner cartridges, which doesn't sound that exciting, but it is. It's actually a pretty complicated business, and it's a huge business. I mean, Clover is, you know, a $1.3 billion organization, and we sell to companies in multiple different countries. So we are a multinational worldwide company at this point. So we help our dealers sell product to their end users. And, um, I work with approximately 20 to 25 current customers. I have some prospects that I'm also working with.

10:07 Scott Ingram: And can you also just quantify your results for us? Put, put your own production into perspective.

10:13 AJ Brasel: Yeah. So I started in this role, about 4 years ago, and I started with a territory of existing dealers and a ton of inactive accounts and prospects that was doing approximately $80,000 a year, maybe $100,000. Um, and in the course of the 4-year period from then till now, I'm booking about, I think I did it right around $10 million last year in annual revenue. This year I'm on track to do about $11, $11.5 million. I just, just did about $1 million in sales in, in May. So the turnaround has been pretty swift and pretty steep in the last 4 years.

10:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's fantastic. So AJ, I know this is your really your first sales role. So talk about how, how did you get into sales in the first place and how does your background impact that or what, what caused you to make the shift?

11:04 AJ Brasel: Yeah. So I actually started as a high school biology and science teacher, so I don't have a sales background at all. I, I did that for a couple of years. I was a coach, and I think I was a little bit too competitive. I didn't like the fact that the raise afforded to teachers every year was the same. You know, it didn't matter if I was working hard or the, the guy down the hall was working, you know, half as hard as me, and we all made the same raise at the end of the year. And so I did that for a couple years and just didn't, didn't pan out for me. I wasn't happy and started looking at other options. My brother-in-law actually works for for Clover as a… he's in like the forecasting operations side of the business. And I just kind of started to talk to him a little bit about it. And I came over to Clover as an analyst. So for my first 2 years at Clover, I've been at Clover for 6 years, I was just doing behind the scenes work, a lot of data analysis, working on proposals or working on dashboards for accounts, making sure that the sales guys that were working with some of our large strategic partners had the data correct when they were going out into their sales meetings. And I just decided one day that I kind of liked the idea of getting into sales and started going out with one of the sales guys and kind of listening to what he was doing. And, you know, I brought a little bit to the table and just kind of got my feet wet and eventually went to our current EVP of sales and just asked him if I could get into it. And he basically told me I had to start from the bottom and work my way up. And so I had to take a little bit of a step back and it was kind of scary, but you know, kind of took that on, you know, head on and ran with it. And where I was lucky is I did have 2 years of experience at this company. So I did know the backend of our company and our processes and how everybody's job worked. And I had a lot of contacts internally that would help me get to the next level a little bit. So it was beneficial for me to have those couple of years and maybe in a support role, but yeah, this was my first sales job. It just kind of jumped in headfirst.

13:04 Scott Ingram: So talk about the inner workings of that a little bit, because to go from selling $80,000 or $100,000 in your first year to over $10 million in 4 years, I mean, that's, that's meaningful. Yeah. And that's toner, right? That's, that's not… that sounds like a lot of volume to me.

13:19 AJ Brasel: It is. It's, it's a lot. I mean, and yeah, so absolutely, you know, started at a kind of a lower amount, a small amount of toner every year and end up growing that to a pretty substantial amount in just a matter of a couple of years. And I think a lot of it just started from being diligent on the phones, making sure that I was completely following up with my customer base and, and having a little bit of persistence. You know, I was given a book of business that was dead or declining. Um, a lot of accounts that had pulled their business away from us from, you know, we might've had some issues in the past or we had consolidation of bought another company and they didn't like something that had changed. So there was a bunch of dealers that, you know, maybe hadn't been touched in years. And so my goal was to just go through and kind of of pick through the weeds and find, find the big accounts and the nice pieces of business. And so it took a lot of persistence because there was a lot of conversations that I had that didn't lead to anything. And a lot of accounts that I thought that were going to end up closing for us that didn't come through, but, you know, leaned on my team and, you know, had a lot of help along the way, but got a couple of really nice big closes early on in my sales career. And from there, with, you know, us taking on new companies or consolidating a sales team or whatever it may be, our senior leadership started to see that I was capable of taking on a little bit more. And so there was a couple more bones thrown my way and things that I was kind of asked to manage that were maybe a little bit more difficult. And so just from a combination of me closing business, not by myself, with our team, but closing business and also being asked to take on some accounts that have a little bit more nuances to them or or might need a little bit more support, I've been able to, you know, grow my business from that $80,000 initially to around $1 million a month. So definitely been, been lucky. It is a lot of toner. It's also printer parts and other things, but the vast majority of it is toner. And it, it, you know, it's not the sexiest thing to sell, but it definitely pays the bills.

15:28 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's fantastic. So do you have a favorite sales story or an experience that you had that taught you a great lesson?

15:36 AJ Brasel: Yeah. And I think this is something that can resonate with everybody. Early on, I had an account that was doing a lot of business and it was really the first account that helped streamline me and get me to start growing internally. And they were doing a lot of business with us and a lot of the business was won possibly on price. And I know that every day I was afraid that they were just going to pull the business because somebody was going to come in at a lower price. And so So it was a gravy train for me for a while, but eventually they did pull the business and, you know, I had to take a pretty big step back. And I think that's, it's a good lesson for everybody because if you win business on price, you're going to lose it on price for one. And for two, you need to always be kind of almost afraid that you're going to lose that top account, that account that's getting you paid, the one that you might be comfortable with, or you think is everything is going well. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow. They could go out of business. They could pull the business. Something could change. And if you get comfortable, you know, that's a scary thing. Something could change and all of a sudden you're, you know, your, your income is cut in half or you're not at the top anymore. So I think it's, it's a good lesson. That story has always kind of resonated with some of the young guys that have come in. And, you know, it's something that I try to let people know is you just never know what's going to happen in your territory and you can't get comfortable.

16:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah, no, that's, that's great stuff. And I think there's 2 good lessons in that. I mean, one is, is what you just shared, right? But just going back to the previous story about the way you got your start, I think a lot of folks may not realize that the first year with a company, you do kind of get the scraps and it's, it's a proving ground or, you know, like if you're going into… you want to become a doctor, there's always weed-out classes where they try and like, you got to be serious and we're going to throw a really hard class at you where almost everybody fails. I think a lot of people don't realize that when they get into sales and they're like, oh, this sucks, this isn't for me, and they leave. And it's one of those things, if you recognize that and you're willing to put in the effort and work through it, my experience certainly has been sales gets more and more fun and enjoyable once you sort of have that foundation underneath you.

17:51 AJ Brasel: Absolutely. I mean, you think about it and the amount of people that come in and leave in the first year, it's It's huge. I'm lucky to work for an organization that has a very solid training foundation. You know, you get in and they really teach you how to sell. They've got a very strict process that the new guys follow, and it's still stuff that I follow to this day, and it works. But you have to be persistent because you're going to get 50 nos for every yes you get. And if you let yourself get down on, you know, down, or you start to you know, feel a little bit negative, you're going to fail. So you just got to come in and you've got to realize that, yeah, you're going to be calling on maybe not the best accounts out there or the best prospects, but you're going to find something as long as you just stay persistent, stay positive, and follow the process. Make sure that you get into a company that does have a solid training foundation and they don't just give you a list of accounts and say, hey, have at it. But, you know, as long as you follow everything and you continue to move forward every day and just kind of have a short memory, then, you know, you'll end up being successful.

18:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. So you've done a lot over these last 5 years or so. What are you most proud of?

19:02 AJ Brasel: You know, I think last year when I, you know, I won our Clover Sales Rep of the Year and it was actually the first year they presented that trophy. So just to kind of get this, you know, we've got this big cup that they, you know, have put on my desk now and it has my name on it for the first spot. That's, that's very humbling. You know, there's a lot of great salespeople here. We've got a very, very strong team. And the fact that I was able to come in in just a couple of years and really rise to the top to the point where, you know, not only my name was at the top of a lot of leaderboards, but the leadership of our organization recognized that, you know, I'm working hard and keeping my head down and doing what's right and making money for this business. That, that's something that I'm really proud of. The fact that I came in with, with no background and, and really made something of myself internally is something I'm definitely proud of.

19:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Huge. Well, now let's go to the other end of the spectrum. When did you, when were you the most challenged or when did you struggle the most?

20:02 AJ Brasel: You know, I've kind of got 2 for this. Early on, the first, you know, 6 months of doing this job, it was a grind. I mean, you'd come in every day and there was a certain amount of calls you had to make and a certain amount of we call them discovery documents. So just like account profiles, trying to identify pain points. Days didn't go your way. You know, there was a lot of days I'd go home and I, you know, you just feel like you go through the grinder and you weren't able to have any meaningful conversations. And you start wondering if this is really, really what I should have been doing. You know, I left a job that I was pretty good at with the analyst role prior to this. And there was a lot of times where I went home and I was like, man, I, maybe I should jump back into that. I just not having the success I thought I would have early on. And I think just having persistence and just coming and making sure that I left my attitude at the door every day and just did what they put in front of me in terms of the process and following that. I had a lot of success just getting over that hump by just grinding it out a little bit. And then early this year, I had such a great year last year. January and February started off slow and it made me really realize that I needed to go back to some of the basics Getting a little bit more on top of what had made me successful in the past, starting to run a little bit more metrics, maybe focusing my time a little bit more efficiently like I was doing before, and being a little bit more, I guess, a little bit more mindful of the tasks I was doing to make sure they were the tasks that were gonna end up getting me paid rather than just maybe clerical things or things that weren't as important. So earlier this year, I had a couple of months that I did struggle a little bit and I wasn't hitting my goal, but I just had a great month and just getting back to what I was good at and getting back to the basics really helped me over the hump a little bit and get back to where I needed to be.

21:52 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, again, we'll definitely dig into what some of those things were, but more from a mindset perspective, how are you getting through the hard days, the hard weeks, the hard months?

22:04 AJ Brasel: Man, it's, I mean, it's hard. And this is something that I tell people who are looking to get into sales. I mean, it's such a roller coaster, you know, I think it can just be, you know, wear you out because there's days you leave here and you feel like you could sell anything to anyone and days that you leave here and you just feel worthless. And I think that that's something that all salespeople go through. You know, my dad is not in sales, but when I first got into it, he just really drove into me or drilled into me like, listen, don't Don't get… it's never as good or as bad as you think it is, right? It's never going to be… the highs are never that high and the lows are never that low. And I think it's just important to kind of keep a level head about the day and just take the day for what it's worth. Whenever you leave the office, you know, I still work from home a little bit, but I try to go home and I've got a baby at home, an 8-month-old. You know, I've got a wife. I try to make them my focus and kind of get the day off of my mind. You know, on that commute and kind of reevaluate maybe whenever I put the little guy to bed and I'm sitting up and, all right, this is what didn't go right and this is what I've got to fix for tomorrow. But it is, I mean, the grind is, it's difficult sometimes, but I think that it's important to, to keep a level head and just make sure that you're, you're not focused on the negative. Maybe take a positive away from every day, even if your day is just complete garbage and you leave and you feel like there's nothing good. I mean, if you really think about it, there's gotta be something good that you can pull from the day and that's what you gotta focus on or else you're gonna drive yourself insane.

23:29 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. And I was going to say, it's, it's easy to say, hard to do, right? Because sales is absolutely one hell of a roller coaster ride. Well, let's start to dig into just some of your process and approach, because I know that's a lot of how you're wired. Let's start with just sort of your routine. Take me, take me through a day. You've listened to the show, so you know how this goes.

23:50 AJ Brasel: Yeah, absolutely. So I try to wake up at 5. I go to the gym prior to getting to work and just kind of clear my mind. It's my, my me time, my focus time for, for myself. I come home and, you know, get my stuff done with my family. And then once I get to the office, it's kind of go time from like, you know, if I get in 7:45 to 8 o'clock, I, you know, I run my sales numbers for the day. I've got an assortment of Excel spreadsheets that I plug a little bit of formulas into and look at how my accounts are performing versus last year versus their top month, how How they're performing against their worst month, just kind of looking at what products they're buying. I just do that daily. It's been something that I've done since the first day I got in. I'm kind of a nerd when it comes to statistics. I like seeing progress and tracking things. And so I've got an assortment of spreadsheets that I look at every day and I fill in the numbers and just kind of take a look, make sure nothing's falling off. There's no anomalies that are happening. And if there are, I make sure that I call out on those accounts. I put that on my list of things to do today and, hey, why are you up in this category? Or why are you guys having a bad month? And, you know, I word it a little bit kinder than that, but it just helps me drive my activity for the day. After I'm done running those, I usually block from like 9 till like 11 o'clock. That used to be like my hardcore prospecting time. I would block that off every day. I wouldn't take inbound calls. I wouldn't look at emails. I would just prospect for 2 hours. Now that I'm in a little bit less of a prospecting role, that's become my check-in things off my list time. So from 9 to 11, I really take a step back and look at the list that I've put together from the day before of everything that I need to get done. And I just try to check as many things off that list as I can, whether that be meeting follow-ups from when I'm traveling, or if there's fire drills from, you know, that morning or the day before, you know, because I add things to the list throughout the day. I just try to check as many things off the list and then check emails from 11 till noon. And then, you know, after lunch, I usually take a similar approach. That's After lunch is typically meeting follow-ups and then getting ready for the next day. So I really try to hit it hard in the morning. That's my time to really grind it out. Afternoon is where I make a lot of check-in calls, follow-up calls, status calls, make sure that if something is falling off, I call out on that dealer and have a conversation with them. But the morning is when I get everything done that needs to get done.

26:17 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Awesome. So in that 9 to 11 block, you're also similar to when you were prospecting, sounds like not checking email, not taking inbound calls. You're, you're just cranking, is that right?

26:30 AJ Brasel: Yeah, it depends. I mean, now I'll take a little bit of inbound calls. I've got a couple of accounts that I know if they're calling, it's probably something, you know, it's a fire drill or something important. Or if I've got, you know, I do take inbound calls now, I would say. I think that at this point I've got dealers that know me well enough and I've got a relationship there. If they're gonna call, I'm gonna take that call at this point. If I can't get to it, you know, I can't get to it. But I I don't check email as much during that block. That is my time to get things done. If somebody is reaching out to me now, I'll take it, but I definitely don't check email from 9 to 11. That's just my time that I'm going to be doing outbound stuff. I'm working on my own, my own territory. Um, anything, if somebody emails me, I figure I can get back to them at some point later.

27:13 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's probably less of a real-time expectation with, with email as well. That sounds a lot like kind of the way that I structure my day. And part of it is I just, I like to crank in the morning like that. I know that's when I'm most effective. My energy tends to wane a little bit in the afternoon. And knowing that, I try not to put meetings in the morning and put my meetings in the afternoon so that I still, you know, am maintaining a high level of productivity through the afternoon. But I always sort of think along the lines of, you know, I like to say that I get more done by noon than most people do in 2 or 3 days. And it just sort of comes down to that focus and the work in the afternoon. That's kind of gravy.

27:51 AJ Brasel: Yeah, I agree. And I Afternoon meetings are awesome, right? I mean, that's when I try to schedule my meetings as well. I always try to get everything done in the afternoon because that's when the day starts to drag and meetings always make that go faster. So if I'm interfacing with a customer, which is what I like to do, I like to be either on the phone or out with a dealer and, you know, face to face, you know, I'll put those, those meetings in the afternoon, which is when I typically, you know, or I think anybody starts to drag a little bit.

28:17 Scott Ingram: Exactly. Exactly. What are there other kinds of habits or routines that are central to your success, AJ?

28:22 AJ Brasel: You know, I think this is something that, you know, I think a lot of people struggle with is I try to stay really, really organized in our CRM. We use Microsoft Dynamics here internally. It allows us to be a little bit more customized from what we're tracking and looking at. I try to be super organized in there. I try to go in and regularly update things and make sure I'm on top of my day. You know, all of my calls are scheduled. From the day before, you know, I make sure that all the calls I've got scheduled for that day are in line and they're in there from the day before. So I go in that afternoon, like today, after we get off this call, I'll schedule and make sure everything's lined up for tomorrow in the CRM. That's actually our director of inside sales really drilled that into me and made sure I was doing that daily. But I think it's just being really, really organized in our CRM and in email. I, you know, one thing that drives me insane is I look at other sales reps' emails and they've got 1,000 emails in their inbox and I just don't know how people function that way. So I really, really stay organized in the tools that I use every day.

29:25 Scott Ingram: And what, what are those tools? Maybe besides Microsoft Dynamics one?

29:29 AJ Brasel: Yeah, absolutely. I use Excel a ton. I mean, that's where I track everything. I could not live without Excel. We've got a couple of internal systems for order entry and everything like that. I'll use those every once in a while if needed. But really, I mean, the CRM is, is, is big CRM and email. It's that those are the tools that I live on. You know, that's really the bread and butter there.

29:53 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Easy. What about kind of managing your tasks and those, those lists you talked about?

29:58 AJ Brasel: Yeah. So, I mean, I've got, I've kind of set it up so you can set times for all the calls in the CRM. And I think some people do that and go in, you know, at this time I'm going to make this call. At this time I'm going to make this call, but I just set it up. So my priority calls, the ones that I've got to make first are set at like 7:30. So those pop up at the top of my list. And if something's not a priority, I put that back to like a 2:30 call or something like that. And it just, I can kind of sort through and take a look based on the priority or how important a call is. You know, I use everything. If I've set up a specific email, obviously I plug that into Outlook and that links up to my phone. And I'm pretty sure everybody does that, but, you know, just setting up the day in terms of high priority tasks and low priority tasks in the CRM has been successful for me, but I don't really have a huge kind of technique that I think is groundbreaking for anybody.

30:48 Scott Ingram: Got it. Got it. And you're, like you said, you said it, you're setting most of that up and building that list, those appointments, those critical calls the afternoon before.

30:55 AJ Brasel: Oh yeah. Yeah. 4:30 to 5 is my, it's, that's like my, make sure everything's cleaned up. I'm ready to go for the next day. I don't want to be sitting up at night thinking, oh crap, I forgot to do something. So I just make sure that 4:30 to 5, I get everything set up for the next day. If I have an onsite meeting, I'm printing out any of the documents I'm taking with. To me, if I'm traveling, I, you know, I even do things like, you know, check into my flight at that time. So that's just my make sure that the next day is squared away and I'm ready to go time.

31:24 Scott Ingram: Got it. What about, is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

31:29 AJ Brasel: You know, I saw this on the list of things that you were gonna ask me. And it's funny because I think a lot of sales reps say challenger, you know, just kind of being an advisor to customer. And that's, I've got to fall into that bucket. I think the challenger sale is something that I read early on and something that resonated with me. I do, you know, a little bit of the MEDDIC Sale is something that I think I've started to adopt. I really like, I mean, the last thing on there is having an internal champion and I've really tried to adopt that recently and find that person on the inside of an organization that's going to help me champion my product and be kind of somebody that can help me break through barriers in an organization. And obviously identifying pain is another big one there and that's huge for sales. Challenger is really where I think I fall, which I almost feel like is a cop-out answer, but it's probably the philosophy I follow the most.

32:22 Scott Ingram: Sure. Well, it sounds like a combination of challenger and stealing from all the great sellers that are already in your organization.

32:27 AJ Brasel: Yeah. Yeah. I steal as much as I… I mean, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Right. Nothing that I do is something I've invented.

32:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think this part's probably already somewhat self-evident, but I'd love to hear how you would describe your style.

32:44 AJ Brasel: My style, I'm trying not to be pushy, right? It's the one thing is I want to be an advisor. I want to be a partner. I want to go in and I want my customers to rely on me and trust me and trust that I'm going to give them good information and get back to them in a timely manner. So, you know, I just really think that being somebody who's reliable and somebody that somebody can trust is the best way to win over a dealer or a customer. Nobody wants to be that guy that's calling and trying to push somebody towards a sale. If, if a partnership doesn't make sense for me, I'm going to walk away from it. You know, if somebody is a very price-driven customer or they… their sales organization is… doesn't align with, with what we do here at Clover, we'll walk away. So I think my philosophy is just finding the opportunities that fit well with us and just being an advisor, being somebody that's, uh, reliable.

33:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great stuff. And then what about the motivation? I think you kind of maybe started to hint at this a little bit in, in your third of the, of the top 3, but how do you think about motivation in general and what drives you?

33:48 AJ Brasel: I'm very like progress-driven, right? I don't, I don't like to see anything in my life, whether it be relationships, working out, my career, or anything stall. So using kind of some of the metrics or some of the tracking that I do in Excel, you know, I do it not just for sales, but a lot of things in my personal life. I'm just motivated by seeing that line go up. You know, everybody likes to see, you know, you look at the stock market charts, if you you know, track your portfolio, you like to see that, that line pointing up. And I look at everything in my life that way, almost to a fault, probably. And so it's not compensation. It's not, you know, which is nice. I mean, it's all good stuff and I love winning and I, and I like being competitive, but I don't think I'm as competitive with other people as I am with myself. I like to just push myself to being better than I was yesterday. And if something stalls out, whether it be, you know, sales or something else in my life, I start to evaluate that and look at why that's stalling out and try to get that line pointing back in the right direction.

34:51 Scott Ingram: So give us some examples of the things throughout your life that you're tracking and measuring.

34:57 AJ Brasel: So I set a goal this year at the beginning of the year to run 1,000 miles this year. I am on pace to do that. So I use the Garmin app to track that, which is really, it's a great app if anybody out there runs. I also track all of my metrics in the gym. I work out pretty regularly. I track my net worth, probably too much. I check my net worth and I check, you know, just about everything that I can. Anything that you can put a metric behind, I try to keep track of it. But I would say outside of sales, it's mainly anything to do with working out or finances.

35:31 Scott Ingram: Got it. And where does that live? I mean, do you have different apps that you're using to track those things? I mean, Garmin would be one, obviously, but does that ultimately end up in an Excel sheet or what happens to all that?

35:41 AJ Brasel: Yeah, I use, I use Excel for that as well. Cause there's some things that I like to track that the Garmin app doesn't, doesn't have. I use Mint for finances. I don't use Excel for that. That just, that would be, I think I would drive myself insane. But the Mint app is, it's a free app and anybody, you can plug in like all of your bank accounts and you have your finances, any of your, you know, your mortgage, everything. It will track into one app and show you kind of, you know, what your assets versus your, what your net worth is. And then I also use like MyFitnessPal to track diet. So. So it's probably a little bit of everything, but there are a lot of apps out there. I mean, you just got to find the ones that resonate with whatever you're trying to, uh, to focus in on. I think without having metrics or being able to track something, you can't improve it. So if there's anything in your life that you're trying to improve, I would recommend you find a way to track it or build it yourself and kind of keep an eye on it and hold yourself accountable.

36:37 Scott Ingram: So when you think about those metrics from a sales perspective, what have you found to be the most important things that measure?

36:44 AJ Brasel: So sales to goal by account. So each one of my accounts is a designated goal, and so I measure that daily in terms of what those accounts have to… how they have to perform every month. I track that. I track any leakage reports based on, you know, what they did year prior or what they did… like I said, I think I touched on this a little bit before… their top month of the year or the month prior. So I think those are important on an account standpoint. Early on in my career, I was very, very focused on tracking the amount of calls, outbound calls I made, the amount of presentations I did every month, the amount of, like I said, discovery documents that we held. That was drilled into me by our, by our leadership. It's something that they do track at a, you know, from the sales level for a lot of the new guys that come in. But I think that's important. I mean, it's the stuff that, that makes you successful. So early on, I really tracked daily activities and how that related to growth in sales.

37:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So let's go back to your, your third point was about sort of goal setting, and I'm interested in how you're setting the goals, but maybe more importantly, I'm interested in how you're kind of evaluating your progress against those goals. Cause it seems like that's the thing that you're doing that's, that's getting you that one step ahead. It's one thing to set the goal. It's another thing to make sure that you're, you're moving in that direction.

38:06 AJ Brasel: Absolutely. I mean, so many people come back and they're like, oh, my goal is to grow 30% this year. And then they have no plan. On how to attack that goal. You know, it just, if I, if it happens, if it happens, if not, it not, it doesn't. And they don't track it, you know, anywhere in the way along the way. They just look at it at the end of the year and it's like, oh, I fell short. So why did you fall short? So, I mean, in terms of my, my goal setting is, and we'll take the daily goals out of it because those are easy to track, you know, at the end of the day, if you completed what you were going to come, you know, you set out to complete, yeah, you're good. If you didn't, that rolls over to the next day. But In terms of like monthly goals, if I want to close a piece of business, or if I want to get out and do X amount of sales calls, you've got to set a goal that you can track. So you can't just set, you know, it has to be something that has metrics behind it. You can't just say, oh, I'd like to, you know, be better this month in a certain area. It's gotta be, I want to get this many presentations done, or I want to have this many sales calls, or I want to be out in the field this many days this month, or I I want to progress, we've got a sales funnel that you walk through different stages. I'd like to progress this many accounts to the 90% or to 100% close this month. And so if you have a number tied to your goals, it's easy to track because throughout the month you just make a, you know, me going back to Excel, you just make an Excel spreadsheet and you can just tally it off whenever you do something. And then halfway through the month or at the end of the week, you can track and see how you're performing to that goal. And if you're not performing, you need to evaluate kind of your action plan. If I'm not advancing enough accounts through my sales funnel that I set the goal at the beginning of the month, I'm going to go back and take a look at my sales funnel. I'm going to take a look at all of my accounts in there and go through each one and make sure that A, my goal that I set at the beginning of the month was reasonable, or B, and if it is, then B, why am I not hitting that goal? And I'm going to go through an action plan for each one of these goals. To, you know, what does it need to take? What do I need to do to progress this to the next level? And if I don't have an answer for that, either A, it's not an opportunity, or B, I'm going to get with a manager or one of those mentors that I had talked to before and ask for help. And, and, you know, I think there's no shame in asking for help to, you know, get you to where you need to be.

40:25 Scott Ingram: AJ, that's, that's great. And I know that that last statement is absolutely one of the clips that I will pull out from this episode for those who don't know. I typically will go through these episodes and pull out more than I would like. Honestly, it ends up being 10, 12, 15, 16 different clips and quotes and kind of highlights, and those go onto our YouTube channel and all get linked up in the show notes. So if you go to top1.fm/aj-brasel, or you can go to the YouTube channel, if you just go to top1.fm/youtube, that'll take you to all those clips, and I always organize all of the clips related to a particular episode into a playlist. So lots of great ways that you can go and without listening to the hour-and-a-half-long conversation again, just getting kind of the highlights and the, and the key points from that conversation. That's a great way to do that. So AJ, is there something that you believe that the average sales professional who's not anywhere near number 1 would think is crazy?

41:28 AJ Brasel: You know, it's something that I wish I would have done early on in my career is know when to walk away. I think a lot of people get hung up on opportunities that they think are, you know, the thing that's gonna propel them to the next level. And, you know, unfortunately not everything is the fit that you want. You know, sometimes you take on customers that are, are not a good fit for your organization, or at the time might not be a good fit. And I think it's important to know when to walk away. And to some salespeople, that sounds crazy. You know, a lot of people want to just sell to, you know, get them to the next level. But I think the way to be the most successful and to plan your time the most efficiently is to know when it's not a good fit and to walk away. Something I wish I would have known early on.

42:18 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great, great advice. What about the flip side? Is there something that you see kind of the average seller doing that you think is generally a little bit nuts?

42:27 AJ Brasel: You know, to kind of piggyback onto what you just said is I think a lot of people think they're on an island. You know, the great thing about working for Clover is that I can walk down the hall and ask 25 people a question and ask for help. So many people just get in the mindset that they're going to try to do everything and take everything on by themselves and be a hero. And, and nobody closes business on their own. And, you know, I would recommend to anybody to find an organization that does support their reps and, you know, Everybody's kind of pulling on the same end of the rope. So I think the thing that I think is crazy is not asking for help. That's, that's the craziest thing for sure.

43:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Such good stuff. And I feel like the times that in my career I have struggled the most is when I've been the least willing to ask for help, which is, which is totally ironic, right? Cause it's like, oh, this is my fault. I'll fix it. And you know, that's the time when you really need to go and ask and show that you care and people will help you. I mean, everybody around you wants you to win. Win because we all win when, when you're selling more, right? So that's, that's absolutely great stuff. So that brings us to kind of the advice-giving session. So let's start with somebody that is a ways into their career, right? They've, they've had some success, but they're not at the top. What advice would you have for them to make that leap from average or above average to the best?

43:53 AJ Brasel: Not to beat a dead horse here, but I think that person needs to go in and set stepping stone goals. If they want to get to number 1, find out what it's going to take or what they think it's going to take. Maybe once again, ask for help and set stepping stone goals to get there. Right. You're not going to ever make that leap from mediocre sales rep or good sales rep to the best sales rep. You have to do it in bite-sized pieces. And I think that And if you go into it and you're just trying to, you know, make that leap instantly, you're just going to get overwhelmed. Things don't happen overnight. Just have a little bit of patience, a little bit of resilience, and set goals and make sure that you're, you're actively, actively trying to achieve those goals.

44:39 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then 2-part question for somebody that's just starting out. So the question I typically ask is the advice that you would have for somebody that's starting up. But what I want to add to that for you is is what advice you would have for somebody that's thinking about getting into sales. Maybe they've come across this podcast, they're on the fence, they're, they're in an analyst type role and they're looking at the sales org going, man, those guys are making a lot of money. And maybe that's something that I should do. What advice do you have for them?

45:05 AJ Brasel: So for somebody looking to get into sales, I think that everybody should try their hands at it, at least at some point. If you're in a position where, you know, you don't see a lot of growth or you don't feel like Um, you know, your, your trajectory is, is where you want it to be. I would jump in. I would try and get into it and, you know, give it a year, give it 2 years and see if it works out. At the very worst, you're going to pick up things that are going to help you in other roles. You know, you look at the top executives for a lot of businesses out there, and they might not have all come from a pure sales role, but all of them have done some sort of selling in their career. And I think that, you know, just having a little bit of that background is going to give you an edge. And so somebody who's thinking about it or, you know, kind of curious about getting into sales, if, if they're at all curious and they have the ability to kind of make that leap, they're not tied to a certain compensation early on, because you're going to have to take a step back and there's a little bit of uncertainty there. You know, they should make that, that attempt at least, because it's just going to make them stronger in the end. And then somebody who is, you know, new, just getting into it is… and it's, you know, kind of goes back to what we had said before… is I think it's very easy to get discouraged early on in your career. And I think there's a time that a lot of people take a look at their career and they're like, man, what am I doing? You know, you just got to be persistent. And at some point you're going to take a look back and be like, man, I had that one month that everything just fell into place. And all those accounts or all the that those potential customers or prospects that I was going after for so long, it all just kind of snapped at once. And, and it's something that I, I was told right when I got in is to just stay focused and try to, like I said before, focus on the positive. And, uh, it did work out for me even though I wasn't so sure maybe in the first couple of months.

46:56 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Yeah. Well, cause it definitely takes more than a couple of months. So AJ, what would you want to know about the top sellers in other organizations?

47:06 AJ Brasel: Oh man, that's a, that's a great question. You know, listening to this podcast has been great because I've gotten kind of an insight into what a lot of other people are doing. But, you know, it's always good to learn what other people are doing to kind of catch the attention of prospects. I think everybody has a different means to doing that, you know, whether it be something catchy in email or, or calling out on, you know, a particular person in an organization or whatever it may be. But I love listening to how other people catch the attention of prospects. That's something that I think there is a little bit of, um, art to that. And I think that everybody can go about it differently. And so, uh, that's something that really is exciting to me at least.

47:48 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And, and what is that trick for you? How do you get their attention?

47:52 AJ Brasel: You know, I've, I've done a couple of different things. One thing that seems a little bit crazy is I, at one point was I was just putting time on people's calendars that weren't getting back to me and, you know, just sending them an Outlook invite for a particular time. And that would at least get a response. Being a little bit more intelligent about how you send emails. I didn't blast out emails that just looked like the stuff you were getting from Groupon every day. Trying to be a little bit more… understand their business a little bit more, doing a little bit of research beforehand and knowing what that dealer offers and maybe tying that into the tagline on an email worked or on a voicemail. And I think a lot of people do just delete voicemails. So So, you know, I'd always follow up an email or voicemail with an email that pretty much said the same thing. But I think that there's a lot of white noise out there and a lot of people that just do the same thing over and over and over. And they try to take a one-size-fits-all approach. And I just don't think that works anymore. So many people get flooded with so much information that you've got to tie things back and be a little bit more strategic in your approach and understand their business before, or do a little bit of research. I mean, you're not going to have a full understanding, but do a little bit of research before you send that email or make that first attempt at a, that first prospecting attempt or that first touch.

49:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, yeah, great stuff. Well, and it just dawned on me that, you know, across the 20 or 25 accounts that you support, you're basically supporting their entire sales teams and helping them sell more of your product. How many people is that?

49:21 AJ Brasel: It's a lot. I don't know the answer to that. And some of my dealers and some of my customers have just a couple of people internally and some of them are massive. So, you know, it just, it really depends. They're all so different and they all go to market differently. They all have different goals and their different values and different product lines that they sell. Everybody's a little bit different. So it takes a very customized approach, which goes back to that number 2 point for me is I really have to have a very, very complete understanding of how they go to market and what they do and what they want to accomplish because everybody's so different. It could be a mom and a mom-and-pop shop that, you know, does a lot of business in their area, or it could be a business that has 25 locations and has 50 sales reps and does business throughout the United States.

50:08 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so certainly not one size fits all, but if you could share one thing with them, right, with, with all of those sellers so that they could sell more Clover toner, what, what would that be?

50:21 AJ Brasel: Oh, add value into your customers' accounts, right? Uh, toner can be just a transactional item. It can be something that You can go onto Amazon and buy just from anybody, right? And then it comes down to price. So what you need to do is go in and there's some different services that we do offer, and I won't get into all of that now, but that you can add value on top of that toner cartridge. And from there, rather than just being once again a vendor, you are becoming a partner to that end user, that customer that you're selling to, and becoming once again an advisor. And you can get a better understanding of their print environment, a better understanding of what their needs are, and then all of a sudden, whenever they need a toner cartridge or whenever their contract comes up to bid or whatever it may be, they're not just gonna go out and bid that to the lowest price. Because Clover, the great thing, the thing I love about working for this organization is that we've got a ton of services and a ton of things that we do for our dealers to help make them successful. You know, we're probably not even just a toner company anymore, we're a toner and service company, right? We want our dealers to be successful. And so we're not gonna be the lowest price, and therefore the price out to the market is not gonna be the lowest. You're going to get beat on price 100% of the time if somebody goes and shops you online. So you've got to add value. You've got to be a little bit more than just a vendor to those customers.

51:43 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Great advice, not just for your customers. So AJ, this has been a ton of fun and we always try and wrap this up with something really actionable in the form of a 2-week challenge between the time that this goes live and the time they have something else to listen to. We're recording this before I start this process, but I sort of have a plan that there will be, let's just call it some bonus material in between these episodes. So hopefully I will have started that process. If not, keep an eye on your feed because next week there probably will be something for you. So let's, let's call it either a 1-week or a 2-week challenge. What would you have the listener do to improve themselves and improve their results?

52:24 AJ Brasel: I would challenge everybody to go back and look at accounts that they've lost or accounts accounts or prospects that really rub them the wrong way, or they're almost afraid of, and come up with a plan and go back after those guys. Because that's where I've seen success in the past. It's stuff that maybe scared me a little bit when I got in and got… was early on in my career as a salesperson. And maybe just take a different approach and go back after those guys. I would pick maybe 5 dead prospects that you thought you lost that business and you aren't going to get. And maybe pick up the phone and call those guys again and just see if there's still an opportunity there.

53:03 Scott Ingram: Oh, very actionable. I love that. And if that works for you, I want to hear from you. Send me an email to scott@top1.fm. And again, hopefully what I've been hinting at is already public, but if not, what I will say is always all of the best offers and the earliest notifications and things that we're doing in and around the show are always going to go out to those who have subscribed to the email newsletter. So do yourself a favor, go to top1.fm and get on the mailing list. And if you're in the US, you can also text TOP1, T-O-P, the number 1, to 444999 and get on the list that way. AJ, thanks again. This has been an absolute joy.

53:46 AJ Brasel: Thanks. I appreciate the time. 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.