54: Microsoft's Carson Heady - Master the Day

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

0:24 Scott Ingram: Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Carson Heady, who is currently a cloud transformation specialist at Microsoft. Welcome to the show, Carson.

0:33 Carson Heady: Thank you so much, Scott. Excited to be here.

0:35 Scott Ingram: Well, I'm glad you're here. And before we start to dig into your backstory, which looks to be fascinating, why don't we jump straight into some immediate value like we always do and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed most to your success?

0:50 Carson Heady: It's a wonderful question. And again, excited to be a part of the show. It's funny that if I'd answered this question years ago in different roles, I would have probably had a different response. But I think the one thing that been most thankful for has been the endurance and perseverance side. Really, that ability to outlast some of the downtimes or the famine to get to feast, because we all face these things. And the longer you're in sales or in leadership, you're obviously going to face different variables, things that are out of your control. And it's all about how you react and keep a steady hand on the ship that is really going to determine your success or lack thereof. I would also say adaptability. I've been in a few different verticals. I've been in different roles. You know, I've been laid off through no fault of my own. And so I've had to reinvent myself as a different type of seller and as a different type of leader many times. But I think the core fundamentals are always going to be there around, you know, if you gravitate toward people and process. So whether you're inside sales, outside, inbound, outbound, individual contributor versus team selling, there is definitely a component of adaptability being able to come in and really look at your parameters and figure out how to best operate in that playing field. And then finally, I would say building a network. You know, I just was talking about how important people and process are, and really the people, whether it's people that you're working for or with or clients, the network that you're building is going to be so valuable, not only in the role you're in, but no matter where you go. I was actually having a conversation with a colleague the other day, Looking back through, you know, just kind of my career and steps that led to where I am. And, you know, there were… there was a conversation that I had years ago that if that had not happened, I wouldn't have been in the last few roles that I had been in just because of where, you know, I was able to connect the dots. And whether it's a career contacts perspective, mentor relationships, finding jobs, or even prospecting for leads, utilizing all the resources at your disposal to find and develop those relationships is one of the most valuable things you can do.

3:02 Scott Ingram: Yeah, Carson, those are so great. And you know what, what really surprised me is when we pulled together the 60 stories for the book, there was no organization, right? I just, they all came in and it was my job to kind of figure out what the categories were. And I was surprised that I think 14 of the stories, so nearly a quarter of them really fit into that relationship bucket. And I think that is such a core piece of what sales is and networks at every level. I love that you kind of called out this isn't just with your clients that you're building relationships with, but it's also with colleagues and with others across the organization. But I want to go back to how you said that when you first opened up, you suggested that this is maybe not how you would have answered years ago. How would that answer have shifted? How would you have answered? What would the top 3 have been 5 years ago, for example?

3:59 Carson Heady: You know, 5 years ago, I think I operated pretty much just off of sheer internal motivation. Success, you know, drive for success, drive to win. You know, there were a lot of those types of things that were probably my drivers early on. You know, my motivation early on in my career was literally for mastery of craft and then for advancement. I had financial motivators. And as I've gotten older, you know, it's been more family-focused and career stability-wise and really just continuing to learn and grasp onto new concepts. I can't believe sometimes that I had the audacity to start writing a sales book in my 20s because I had no idea what I was doing at that stage relative to where I feel like I am now. And I feel like I've got a lot more of an eagle-eyed view of where my sales career has been and where it is and where I want it to go. I realize now that I still have a ton to learn, and I think that's one of my driving forces now that wasn't 10 years ago. I wasn't looking to learn everything, you know. I was looking for best practices and how I could emulate those and make them part of my arsenal, but I really wasn't looking as much much for some of the other pieces. And frankly, as sales folks, we've got to earn our stripes, as it were, and pay our dues. And I think that's where that endurance piece comes in. I've seen so many sales reps, and I've managed reps in the past that come in, they have maybe 3 to 6 months of what they deem a success, or they show up at the top of the charts, and then they're wanting to be promoted. They think they're ready for the next level or for another role. And true role mastery or true sales excellence is not about excellent sales numbers per se. It's really about the, the value that you continue to add and then being able to pick up other pieces to fill in any gaps that you've got in your process and, and making those strategic personal relationships as well. So I think there are so many different components we could spend our entire lives in selling and not master them all. So I think that the endurance side and realization of how important that and adaptability are have been the biggest ones that I've added over the last several years.

6:11 Scott Ingram: Yeah, that's, that's fascinating. And I think the best are students of this craft. I mean, I've been at this for 15 years and I feel like I have so much to learn. It's why I do the show, right? There's, there's so much more opportunity and potential to grow. And as soon as you feel like you've got it all figured out, you're probably in trouble. Yes. So let's contextualize this a bit. Talk about your role, or maybe even better, maybe you want to talk about your evolution there at Microsoft.

6:38 Carson Heady: Certainly, you know, wonderful company to work for. In fact, I'm sometimes I'm in awe of just the amount of talent that I'm surrounded by. And just that being able and being so humbled to be in a room and realizing that I'm far from the smartest guy in the room. You know, I started out as more or less a business manager. It was a brand new role and kind of a player coach. I had a team that I was leading, but furthermore was going out and actually doing some of the many of the one-to-one meetings myself. And in fact, that is the role that beget my following role, as it typically works. I made a lot of very strategic relationships in the small and mid-sized space, and I was tapped to come on board as more or less an account manager in what was a pretty big space company size-wise. You know, I had a few hundred accounts that I was overseeing and working very closely with our Microsoft partners as part of that endeavor. And then this, that role had more or less morphed into kind of a field account manager and now my role as a cloud specialist. And really what that means is I orchestrate pieces of the account team for all of the opportunities that fall in my territory, for any facet of Microsoft Cloud. So there's a lot of those and there's several different buckets that I'm measured on, but it's, it's definitely evolved around Microsoft's reinvention of itself. But then furthermore, as just more reinvestment in the small and medium-sized business space.

8:05 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Now let's go back even, even earlier. What's your origin story? How did you get your start in sales?

8:11 Carson Heady: So it's all about who we know, right? I got out of college and I had been working at a grocery store for some time. A friend of mine, his aunt actually was a high level at AT&T, at the time Southwestern Bell. I was able to get an interview there. And, you know, Scott, I was looking for a customer service type role, you know, just something to pay my increasing bills after moving away from home. And I got a little bit more than I bargained for. The training class was fascinating to me. I found out very quickly that it was not only sales, but that it was going to be something totally different than anything I had ever done. But there were 12 in my training class and Just two got out. The rest retreated to prior departments or left the organization. And I, you know, I was from off the street, so I really had no choice. And I just moved. So, you know, I stuck it out and got out on the sales floor. And within a few months, I was tops in the office. So it was a very interesting and just very eye-opening experience.

9:10 Scott Ingram: That's fascinating. So I think that I've seen this over and over again, right? There's really just one of two paths into sales. There's the intentional path, which seems to be the minority. And most of that comes from there was a relative or parent or somebody who was in sales. And then the rest of us, the majority of us, come to it through some type of hopefully happy accident, like, like you did. Knowing what you know now, if you could go all the way back to the beginning stages, whether it was that role or subsequent roles, is there anything that you would have done differently?

9:43 Carson Heady: You got how much time you got? There's a lot of things I would have done differently, Scott. And I think most of it gravitates toward building a stronger network earlier in my career, really understanding the value of that. You know, I found myself actually laid off and looking for work completely unexpectedly and out of the blue. And when you go out and you apply for jobs online, you're up against hundreds, maybe thousands of people. So it's very difficult to stand out and to find a role, especially one that's comparable to one that you've left if you've been doing well in your career. Had I had a stronger network, I probably would not have had some of the challenges that I had. But it was great because I taught myself and trained myself with doing research online, you know, how to utilize tools like LinkedIn or how to, you know, really meet some of these hiring folks, how to target them from a conversation perspective, how to get their advice, and how to really parlay those relationships into, you know, potential jobs. And those types of fundamentals have also really helped me from a prospecting perspective and also teaching prospecting. I've been recognized here at Microsoft for my prospecting abilities and results. So just there, you can never start building your network too soon. So I think that'd be the first one. And I think the other very important, like kind of a 1B, would be just how to really better navigate the political landscape of corporate America. You know, it was very shocking to me early on just to see how, you know, in certain situations, there are things that happen that are completely out of your control, and you can either react to them or you can learn from them. And the younger version of myself probably reacted in cases that I should have just learned and should have worked harder to build consensus. You know, I was promoted multiple times at a very early age, and, you know, I really didn't have anybody showing me the ropes. So if I could go back and really talk to that younger self, I probably would have reacted better in certain situations.

11:51 Scott Ingram: Wow. You are making this hard. So we've got prospecting, we've got networking, we've got navigating political landscapes. You are, you are a goldmine of depth. So we're, we're going to, I'll do the best I can to sort of manage this. But before we start to talk about your results, let me talk just real quick about the book that went live last week. It's now available in all formats virtually everywhere. So if you jump over to top1.fm/book, you can get yourself a copy. And if you've already read it, because a few of you supported campaign that helped make the whole project possible. If you would do me a huge favor and write a short review, those are massively important. And I really want to hear what you think and which stories are resonating the most. One, actually, one of the things that I'm learning is maybe a misconception about the book. We didn't just take the podcast interviews and transcribe them and chuck stuff into the book. All 60 of these stories were written for the purpose of the book. So they are new. There are things that you haven't heard on the podcast. There's a lot of depth and a lot of really interesting stuff there. So again, top1.fm/book for all of the details. And I really appreciate your support of that project. So Carson, let's talk about your results. What has it taken to get to the top of the leaderboard where you're at? And I know you've done that really consistently over time.

13:10 Carson Heady: It's a great question, Scott. And because it's been at a few different companies, I will try to outline some of the guiding principles. Number one for me has really been gravitating toward where I can find best practices. I've always gravitated toward the top reps. You know, I want to soak up everything I can. I want to listen to what they're saying and doing. You know, going out with the really smart technical folks, as an example, in my current role, and just listening to what they're saying, what's getting a response, what types of questions are being asked, how they're answering them, and then being able to weave that into my own story. You know, it's far back as with Southwestern Bell when I was a phone rep, just listening to what other folks were saying. I think one of the biggest pieces for me was trying to craft that into my own selling script, as it were, not necessarily reading off a script, but even just jotting down notes of things that I wanted to make sure that I brought up on each call or in each meeting. And the technology's changed. Obviously, now I can put that in front of myself on a laptop, as opposed to years ago when I was sitting at a desktop computer, and I can put sticky notes right there next to me, remembering that core verbiage that, that gets the response. One of the other things too is figuring out how to adapt, because inevitably, whether it's every year year or every half year or every quarter even sometimes, there will be components of your, your compensation that will change or how you're measured. You could go strictly from a widget measurement to a percentage to goal to having multiple buckets. You know, I mentioned right now I have 6 different buckets that I'm measured on, and I've had situations in the past where I had one. It was one guiding principle of revenue. So I, I think being able to be, as you mentioned, Scott, a student, a true student of selling, figuring out what those parameters are and then where can I, you know, best position myself to operate in those parameters? So if I had to really pick one guiding one, though, it would be gravitating toward what's working and figuring out how to add that to my own arsenal. And it's worked across every role that I've been in. Now, there was one role that I did step into that was brand new, that it was, it was basically created, and I was able to walk into that. And whereas sometimes that, that may seem a little freeing, there are parts of that that are, that are terrifying, because, you know, you're, you're, there's no blueprint for success there. So because of some of the things that I've mentioned in our discussion thus far, as far as how to process, you know, how I learned how to prospect, how I taught myself how to use some of the tools that were available, I was able to use those. And that's what gravitated me toward the top spot in that particular role 8 quarters in a row. I'm the top rep, top business manager in that role across 100+ folks that were doing it because of these fundamentals and because of that process, you know, creating a referral system, creating basically a process that was equating to results and doing that because of tactics that I picked up in prior roles. And I think that's one thing that I certainly want to point out is that every role that I've ever had has beget the next. And I think especially as you have a body of work, you know, Scott, you mentioned that you've been doing this 15 years, you tend to look back sometimes and realize you play that connect the dots and you look at where a role led to the next and to the next and how tactics that you learned in one role were very well utilized in another role completely. We always take these things along with us on the journey, and you never know when they'll pan out or pay off. But I think the key is always using everything at our arsenal to be successful. And when we run into the inevitable changes, we quickly look at how we can pivot, how we can take these new changes into our process and just change the process. You know, there's, there's a… the reason that we get into slumps a lot of times is because something in the process changes. And that's why it's so important to go back to those fundamentals of people and process, gravitate toward the right people and focus on figuring out what the right process is for success.

17:09 Scott Ingram: So much good stuff. So let's, let's put some numbers around that. In particular, I know you had those 8 consecutive quarters of being number 1. That was a relatively recent accomplishment. Put that in either percentage terms or dollar terms. And then is, is that… I mean, how do you think about that strive for the top? What are you using as your own kind of internal set of metrics to make sure that you're achieving at that level?

17:36 Carson Heady: Yeah, it's a great question. And I actually wrote an article once that was more or less focused on if you focus on the people and process, the results will come. And I'm a firm believer in that because I've rarely focused specifically on a number or on an end result number. What I've more or less focused on is I know that if I have X number of contacts or if I have X number of prospects that I reach out to, I'm guaranteed to have a conversation or a meeting. And those are the types of things that I know that if I walk into a meeting, I'm going to walk out with 5 different opportunities. And I know that for every one of those opportunities, I'm probably going to close 2 out of 5 or whatever it is in this current role. And I believe that I've, I've tried to utilize those governing principles as I focused from a numbers perspective. And it's equated to numbers, you know, with AT&T, I was anywhere from 125% to goal all the way up to 330% at various points in my tenure. There were some roles where I averaged 200-plus percent. At the end of my time there, I was leading a department that started with 10 reps in, you know, just a small call center in St. Louis, and it grew to a 3-state operation. We were doing, you know, we started out with a $10 million goal for year 1. By the end of my time there, I was doing almost $60 million in annual billable revenue. Then in other roles, you know, I've had anywhere from $20 to $50 million goals. I've always been successful in achieving the goals that have been set. And from a percentage standpoint, it's been anywhere from, you know, I've had my times where I've been 100, 101%, all the way up to, you know, 150 or higher, just depending on what buckets I've been measured on. So like, as an example, my current role, I'd mentioned I have 6 different buckets. The primary governing ones that I fall into, some are widget-based, and then the others are percentage-based. And so right now I'm ranging anywhere from 101 to 166 at the last time I looked. So, it's all derivative of those types of things. And there's been situations where, you know, there were no set goals as well, which is ironic. So, I've set goals for myself and for the team based on, a lot of times based on past performance, but with a component or a kicker set in there for an elevation, whether it be 15% to 25%. I've always sought, you know, what's the growth that could be number one expected and also realized and achieved. So, there have been situations before where I was the guy setting those goals and I've worked with, you know, my leadership or with the business partners that I was working with to kind of set those benchmarks.

20:16 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. Have you ever missed?

20:18 Carson Heady: I'd love to sit here and say that I have not missed, but I did have a time where I did miss one time, and it was quite a learning experience. Yes.

20:28 Scott Ingram: Well, you got to talk more about that.

20:31 Carson Heady: Sure, I, I can be happy to because I think it was an important part of my journey. You know, I, I walked into a situation where it was a, it was a tough territory. They had missed… that territory had missed goal for 5 consecutive years. And I was also under the impression that some of the business partners were going to be a lot of the ones bringing in certain relationships. And I was prospecting into some of the other areas as a result of that. And the number at the end of the year was 96%. It was, it was challenging. And a lot of my peers missed as well. But I've never, ever, ever compared myself to other people that are not hitting. I compare myself to the goal and what could I have done? What could I have done differently? So I reinvented again, and looked at, okay, where, where did we miss? And there wasn't enough pipeline coming from some of the channels, some of the other channels that were supposed to be generating pipeline. So I looked at those processes, and I inserted myself into those processes, I figured out what wasn't working. And I took on a lot of additional work in that and lightened my load in other areas, so that I could focus more on what I felt were higher propensity leads and the parts that I could control that I previously was leaving up to other folks. I took over them myself, and then the following year I hit 105%. Great learning experience. I was the first person that hit goal in that territory in 6 years. And I will tell you, it was exhilarating and exhausting, but it was very fulfilling. And it was a situation where I was able to look at, okay, this is… I missed goal for the first time in my career, and I got to look at why. I got to understand the whys behind it and where the process had gaps, plug those gaps in the process, focus more on some of the higher dollar stuff, delegate better. And it was a success.

22:21 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Now, when you think about improving that process, and I think what you suggested was there's a lot of kind of reprioritization, right? Doubling down on here's what's working, let me fix the things that are broken, let me free up some time that's, that's maybe less productive. How are you doing that? How are you structuring your day, your week, your, your energy all Wonderful question, Scott.

22:44 Carson Heady: Every day… this is another contrast from earlier in my career as well. When I was much younger, I would look so far ahead and into the future and think about all the possible ramifications. And I was always thinking about the next role, and I was in a hurry for the advancement and what's coming next. As I've gotten older and I've been able to, I guess, smell the proverbial roses a bit better, I focus just on the day. In fact, a lot of times breaking down even to the opportunity. And when you open up your calendar, You know, looking even at like today as a prime example, what is imperative for the mission today? Is there something that could conceivably move in favor of something else? Is there a call or a meeting that could go to next week even and not sacrifice any part of the process? I realized that I was trying to do too much. I think a lot of us do that, especially when we are competitive and when we have a history of being top performers. We have a tendency to take on as much as humanly possible. Possible because we think we can do it all. But frankly, that dilutes our effectiveness. And one thing that I really did learn that year was that there were things that I was taking on or meetings I was taking that were not adding value to my overall year, to my performance. And there were things that I could cancel or that I could move or that I could deprioritize in favor of prioritizing things that would matter more in the big picture. And that was my biggest learning, honestly, from that year was how to better prioritize how to better look at each opportunity and each call or meeting, each prospecting session, each day at a time, and just master that day, you know, and at the end of that body of work, it was a success. It was a masterpiece by my standards, by our company's standards. So, you know, I think that would have been the learning from, from that side of things was how to just better prioritize based on what is mission critical and what's not. And, you know, just making those types of decisions, being able to make those types of decisions. And sometimes you got to communicate to folks Hey, I'm… I've got to choose this or that over this meeting today, or, hey, this today is not going to work for this session. I hate sometimes being the bearer of bad news, which is, you know, is something that comes with the territory a lot, but nevertheless doesn't make it fun. And so I had to get better at basically just saying, hey, I've got to prioritize some things today. There is a project that I have to get completed, or this or that. Can we meet next week? Or let me reach out to you when a better time presents itself.

25:21 Scott Ingram: So when you think about mastering the day, what is the planning process like? How are you structuring the day? How are you deciding what those priorities are?

25:31 Carson Heady: That can be pretty wide-reaching, and so I'll touch on that a couple of different ways. It's when I look at my week, you know, I think a lot of us will have like a dedicated prospecting time, dedicated time for administrative work that has to be done, whether it's, you know, updating pipeline or reporting forecast or You know, just when we do customer-facing time, you know. So I think it's important to always prioritize those types of things. I have a general rule of, you know, trying to take Mondays and Fridays for both table setting on Monday, and then Friday just kind of recapping the week, looking back through, are there any, you know, items that I left open, you know, follow-ups with my team or with customers, etc. So I think you want to set those general parameters. Looking at the individual day, what I always task myself with and with, you know, my team with is, can you walk away from every single opportunity or every single call or meeting knowing that you left no stone unturned? Did you control everything that you could? Do you understand the specific needs? You understand this, understand the specific reasons maybe why they didn't purchase? Because I think a lot of times, you know, I've seen managers or seen the mentality where it's, you know, well, you didn't sell that, you've got to sell more of this or that, but no real why behind it. So I think really being able to focus on each of those meetings and opportunities… did you establish, number one, what the client or what the partner that you were meeting with wanted to achieve? And number two, did you establish your own company and personal initiatives? I've got this thing I call the Holy Sales Trinity, and it's the customer, the company, and you. And every one of them have to benefit from every transaction. So I try to make it very centric on those types of items. The first, you know, whenever I go into a meeting, I always make sure to kind of recap where we've been, establish what we're meeting for today, ask if there's anything else that they want to achieve. And then I try to make sure at the end of that to recap, make sure that we've achieved all those things and address what the next steps are. And if I'm able to do that in a given day with all the sessions that I've got, and I'm also able to send any kind of follow-up… I'm a big believer in communication. You can probably tell because I talk a lot and I talk fast, but I'm a big believer in communication. In fact, probably sometimes over- communication, because I think communication is an area where it's that communication or lack thereof or ineffective communication is the reason for a lot of turmoil or issues, whether that's in relationships or in the workplace. And so I believe very strongly in making sure that I'm communicating throughout the day with all the folks that I may be touching from a kind of a sales food chain perspective. So when I'm looking at my day, you know, it could be a partner meeting. It could be a customer meeting, a meeting with my boss, it could be a meeting with leadership, it could be prospecting hour. But whatever it is, it's spending that time and it's spending that time heads down and making sure that, you know, if I'm prospecting solid for an hour, I'm not looking at my email, I'm not allowing myself to be pulled into the minutiae or the fires, because those are inevitable anyway. Something is truly an emergency, somebody can call my phone and I can, you know, or text me or blow me up as it were, indicating that it's a fire that it's got to be put out right then and there. But when When you're focused on a part of the process, focus on that part of the process. Don't allow yourself to be pulled into the rest of the minutia because again, I believe that dilutes our effectiveness.

28:58 Scott Ingram: Gold, gold. Let's get even more granular. So walk us through kind of a full day in the life. Like alarm clock goes off. What time does that happen? Give… walk me through start to finish.

29:09 Carson Heady: You're going to think I'm absolutely crazy. So that's why I typically… yeah, I typically set my alarm for about 3:00, 3:30, and the reason I do that is because I will hit snooze a few times before I get up and then I go to the gym and I'm usually in the gym for at least an hour and a half to 2 hours. I will use that time. I live in a household that's dominated by my wife and kids from a TV perspective. So I'll use that time to kind of unwind, watch maybe a program on, on Netflix or some streaming service while I'm on the treadmill, do some lifting, etc. And then I go home, I'll get my oldest daughter out of bed, get her ready for school, maybe make her breakfast. And then, you know, while I'm at the breakfast table, try to engage her in some dialogue. She's getting older, so she wants to talk to me a little less and less sometimes. Sometimes she's really chatty. But from there, it is, you know, I'll start working a little bit at the breakfast table and, you know, take in what's transpiring, you know, read my LinkedIn feed, read Sales Navigator feed, read articles, etc., kind of what's going on in the business, read the Business Journal, you know, figuring out what's going on in the industries and then the geography that I touch. And then typically I will go to the office once my daughter is off to school. And it could vary. So a lot of times I will either be at the office or I'll be out in the field meeting with customers. If I had to pick a general trend to the day, I would say it's a mix of conference calls, meetings, could be in-face, face-to-face meetings, could be meetings at their site, could be meetings in my office. We do a lot of events as well, and, you know, really a lot of my time is spent evangelizing, you know, the, the kind of the changes. You know, if you follow Microsoft, you know, we've made a lot of pretty substantial changes from a transformation perspective over the last few years. So I spent a lot of time really evangelizing that and some of the programs that are available for our clients and partners, you know, in order to better themselves. And then frankly, I love the fact that I get to get out and sell sometimes also. That's the best part about my role. So, you know, just spending time doing that. And then toward the end of the day, really just trying to recap the day, whether it's sending out communications that I may not have been able to do earlier in the day, recapping meetings and next steps, making sure to delegate any activities that need to transpire. And then a lot of times I will additionally confirm the sessions for the next day. This is actually a best practice that I pulled from another business partner that I've worked with, shooting a a quick note just to say, you know, hey, good afternoon, just wanted to confirm our session for tomorrow. Because I can't tell you how many times that something changes with those plans or there's something else that they forgot to tell me that they want to talk about or another resource that I can bring to the table. So it's always good to kind of confirm those sessions. Something may change and free up. And there are times, Scott, when I'm double, triple, quadruple booked on my calendar. So I have a lot of those in-the-moment prioritizations. What's more important for me to be on? Is it to support this opportunity that opportunity, this conversation over that. So there's a lot of those types of game time decisions. And, you know, while I try to fit a lot of my work activities between, you know, 7:30, 8 o'clock, and 5, 5:30, you know, I'm always on, on email. I think that's one fun thing about technology is that we can kind of keep abreast of these things all day, all night. So yeah, I'm very selective though about my evening time because during the day, I'd say kind of a midday thing, if I'm able to, I will try to unplug for a brief bit. And then furthermore, family time is the way I spend my evenings. I think that is one of the most important things that I've added over the last few years is just that, that family time toward the end of the day to really just remind myself why I do what I do.

32:53 Scott Ingram: And how old's your daughter?

32:54 Carson Heady: So I have 2 now. One is 11 and the other is a year and a half.

32:59 Scott Ingram: Wow. Big gap. Yeah. Well, so what's fascinating is literally this morning I got a note from a listener and, and he was, he was actually right. As I looked back through sort of the more recent episodes, he was frustrated by the fact that nearly everybody I was talking to, they were talking about these pristine morning routines because they didn't have families. And I looked back and I went, well, if I look at the example of the book, of the 20 folks that contributed to the book, 60% have families. So, being at the top is not only for those who are single. You can absolutely do this with a family. And I think what I'm hearing that you're doing is… and so, what I want to understand, it's very rare that I hear about somebody getting up earlier in the morning, than I do. What time does the snooze button pushing end and you actually get out of bed?

33:47 Carson Heady: Usually 4:30. Yeah, I'll try to get to the gym by 4:30, 5 o'clock. It's right down the street from me. That'll give me a good couple hours before I got to go home, take out the dog, make coffee, make breakfast, wake up my kid, that sort of thing.

33:59 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it. Yeah, so that's, that's about the time I'm up. I'm usually up about 4:30, and that's, that to me is the biggest game changer, right? You just, you have to find a couple of other hours where there isn't stuff coming at you, right? There's no… nobody ever blows me up at 4:45 in the morning. It's never happened, not once in my life.

34:18 Carson Heady: So I couldn't agree more. I think that those… some of my best ideas for the day are things that I can't forget come to me at 5:15 on the treadmill while I'm watching a TV show. It's just… it's amazing. And you're completely unfettered because your mind is free and able to, you know, really just kind of unwind, but at the same time, you can come up with ideas because you're not being hit by so many different things at the same time.

34:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So, and obviously you're continuing to learn and develop yourself. So what is the information diet and when does that get consumed?

34:52 Carson Heady: Yeah. You know, and I want to obviously make a precursor. So Microsoft bought LinkedIn. So, you know, while I'm not, I'm not trying to endorse LinkedIn throughout this entire session, but I do want to say I use a very good amount scrolling through LinkedIn posts. I've got a really strong and eclectic network of folks. So people that I've worked with, you know, in previous roles, currently people that I respect from a sales perspective and leadership perspective, and then also people that are within my organization. So really just trying to read that as a digest. I will read some of the tech, you know, online tech sites and blogs. I've really come to set up alerts from an email perspective. So I have about 5 different alerts that will come through to my email. And then I also get the Business Journal. So I think those types of things are key because every Every day, inevitably, I'll see one or two of my clients that are mentioned, whether it's an acquisition, whether it is a new C-level that's been named. And those are the things that I act on immediately. You know, I will say social selling, which I think that we're coming up on the day where that's just going to be called selling because it's going to be so ingrained in us. But social selling has led to a lot of the successes that I've had from a client-building perspective. And just utilizing tools like LinkedIn to find these people, what an amazing tool, right? I mean, you're able to go out, find somebody geographically or find the right title at an organization, or when there's a change at an organization, find that person and reach out to them and hopefully meet them. You know, I think those are the types of things that have helped tremendously. And then finally, you know, the other pieces of the digest, you know, again, as I kind of bleed into my… bleed into my day, you know, just kind of scrolling through that Sales Navigator feed. But I also have other stuff that, that kind of I've been totally accessing the creative side of my brain for the last couple hours because I'm watching Netflix and I'm transitioning into my day. So, I also kind of check up. That's when I do my fantasy sports and I tee up my articles for the day and that sort of thing. So, it's a transition because then once I'm fully in work mode, I've got to shut everything else out and I make a concerted effort to do it. So, I really try to digest all that stuff upfront and then kind of go from there. And I can't tell you how valuable it is too when you find some of these articles that are pertinent to, you know, maybe conversations that you had with a client or a business partner a week, you know, a week or a month ago, and you're able to just send that to them in real time and say, hey, saw this, thought of our conversation, what are your thoughts? Or how are you addressing this, you know, currently in your business? Though that can start… that can be a quality touch, and it took, you know, maybe 10 seconds to send that, but it's a quality touch of that client. You're not trying to sell them anything, you're just trying to start that conversation and show them that you were listening the last time you talked. So I think a lot of those activities and some of the things that you digest early in the day will absolutely inform the conversations that you, you have the rest of the day.

37:41 Scott Ingram: Well, there were a lot of great insights there, and you actually answered one of the things I was going to ask, which is how do you keep social from becoming a giant distraction and a black hole? Because I think that's the trap, is, you know, we think that we need to be all involved in social, and yet it just becomes yet another distraction. So what I heard you say is you've really got a time and place for it. It happens in the morning, you're digesting, that's when you're doing a lot of your engagement, and then it's really just basically put away to the next day.

38:09 Carson Heady: Couldn't have said it better myself. You know, it's… I think it's a situation where a lot of us get… it's minutia, right? It's something that can be… we could be sucked into like a vacuum, and it can be very time-consuming. But, you know, if I've carved out an hour to do prospecting, sure, I'll dive into that piece. I will be very focused on my intent and what I'm trying to do, that it's a numbers game, that I, I try to take it one step further. You know, whether it's instead of targeting 1 or 2 or 5 people at an organization, I may target 20 to 30 to get somebody to talk to me and then work my way up into where I want to be. I'll spend maybe 10, 15 minutes on social first thing in the morning, and then I probably won't go back into it unless I get a business alert midday that a new CFO or CIO was named, and then I'll try to find that person. But Scott, you absolutely have to compartmentalize that, that just like a lot of other things in your day to keep it from just being noise.

39:06 Scott Ingram: Yeah, great, great, great stuff. So let's transition from there into the prospecting. How do you think about prospecting? How are you structuring that time? How are you being effective?

39:15 Carson Heady: I have found that much like my fantasy sports, that I've got to take the emotion out of some of that stuff. And I've got to, no matter how good I think my message is, or how compelling I think I can write an email because I've tinkered with my verbiage for just, you know, for years. I can feel like I've got the best foot forward, but I've got to be cognizant that the likelihood of them replying, the probability is relatively low. You know, a lot of these C-suite folks are inundated with different pitches and they've got a business to run. The likelihood of me getting through on the first try can be slim. And so a lot of the folks that I'm trying to target are that I think people in my, my role or in a lot of other sales roles may be targeting these businesses decision makers are probably not going to be necessarily receptive to that cold email or that cold call. So I've got to think about the best way to enhance my probability at success. So right out of the gate, I think a lot of us would tend to… if I want to talk to the CEO, I try to go for the CEO, right? If I want to go for the VP of Sales, I'm going to go for the VP of Sales. But challenge yourself to step outside the box or what you think the status quo is. Because remember, if you go after what the average seller is doing, you're going to define yourself as average and you're going to pigeonhole yourself. So I really just tried to challenge myself to do that one extra step. You know, going after… it's one of my greatest social selling wins actually was I found an organization that was basically just trialing one of our services. Okay. And I just saw them on a report and I spent some time on LinkedIn and went out and I found probably 30 different people that worked at the organization and I sent them a very nice introduction note. I had 11 of those people accept my invitation. The one that I needed to talk to was not one of those 11. I waited a couple of days so as to not seem too opportunistic, and then I reached out to those 11 folks, and then I had one of them respond, one out of those 11, and said, you need to talk to this guy. So I reached out to that individual by the phone, by phone, and said, hey, you know, I was told to call you by this individual, and, you know, I saw that you were trialing one of our services, just wanted to see how things were going make sure you were aware of all the things that you guys are eligible for as a managed account from our organization, that sort of thing. And basically just wanted to come out and visit with them and see where we could best support them. So we had a lot of resources that could, that could assist. That ended up leading to one of the biggest deals in my division. But it all started with fully realizing that the people that I wanted to talk to were probably not going to respond and working my way in with who would talk to me. Cast a wide net. That is probably one of the best examples of advice that I can give from a prospecting perspective is play the numbers. Yeah, I was talking earlier about looking for jobs. There was a period of time where I was out of work and I probably applied… I applied to hundreds of jobs in order to actually land on one. And, you know, you got to realize you're up against other sellers, you're up against competing solutions. How is your message going to magically find your way to the right person and get them to respond. And the other side too is it's a lot of times it's about the planets aligning. You know, you may… your message may land on somebody a certain way today and land on them completely differently in a week, or they may see your note and fully intend to respond, but just it never happens. And because you didn't follow up or reach back out, you failed to make that connection. So I believe strongly that you've got to find, number one, the way to forge that initial relationship, but number two how to make… continue to make quality touches. And that's where I mentioned earlier that, you know, if I see an article that's pertinent or that I deem as pertinent to that industry or to, you know, what that company may be facing, I'll send it to that person, especially one that I've connected with, and just say, hey, saw this this morning, thought of you, wondering how you guys are broaching this in your organization, that sort of thing. So prospecting doesn't all begin and end by just finding the right people. It's also making sure that you start and continue the conversation. You know, I'm, I'm not a marketing statistician, but we've all seen the statistics about, you know, once we have that initial conversation, how much of your momentum is lost if you don't reach back out within the first week or the second week or the third week. You know, your, your momentum is completely gone at a month if you do not follow up and continue the conversation. I'm a firm believer that if you get the meeting, and you get to the table and you walk out with the opportunities, if you effectively manage those opportunities, you're going to increase your probability at success. And it's all about probability and odds. You can put your best foot forward, you know, kind of tweak your messaging, figure out what works, what doesn't as far as your outreach, and then also cast as wide a net as possible. There have been campaigns I've run where I've reached out to 100 people just to get one conversation, and I call that a win. But some people might be discouraged about that, but that harks back to the endurance piece that I talked about earlier. I'm willing to reach out to 100 people to have that one conversation because I know what I can do with that one conversation. So prospecting begins and ends with having the right tools, but also giving yourself the best probability at success. Cast a wide net with the right message and you're going to have the best probability at success at each step of the game.

44:40 Scott Ingram: Tons of greatness. And I'm not going to flog the prospecting thing too much, too much more because my next interview, so the next episode will be with another SDR that the stories that I've heard, I haven't talked to him yet, but the stories that I've heard are, are pretty epic. So, I'm looking forward to really doing a deep dive for those of you that are interested in the prospecting side of things. I got something for you. So, stay tuned on, on that. Carson, let's go back a little bit and talk about, I mean, you have had a lot of consistent success across a lot of different roles.

45:12 Carson Heady: What are you most proud of at the end of the The people, the people I've been able to meet. You know, I wrote a sales book. I obviously haven't sold enough to retire, but I've been able to have conversations like this one. I've been able to connect with people all over the sales industry, all over the world. And furthermore, just people in my organizations that I've worked with and for, you know, just people that have been mentors along the way and people that have aided in my journey, teams that I've sold on and with. And managed, those have been the most rewarding conversations and most rewarding relationships. The thing I'm most proud of is the number of people I've been able to interact with, because I believe strongly that I've picked up stuff from every single one of them. Now, if I had to pick a specific career accomplishment outside of getting a book published, because that was something that I had always wanted to do, I would honestly have to say how I rebounded from the year that I missed goal. That was a challenging time for a lot of reasons. And, you know, it was tough for somebody like me who, again, I, you know, I'd written a sales book and professed to, you know, have had some success in some of these other areas and in these previous roles. So to have missed goal for a year, I mean, it was a humbling experience. But, you know, there's 2 ways that you can go from having a setback in your career. And I've had several setbacks in my career, you… but you can lay down, you can wallow in it, or you can stand up and say, hey, I'm going to learn from this and I'm going to just… I'm going to turn it up a notch and I'm going to blaze a new path forward. And that's what I've chosen to do each time. I've been very thankful for where that journey has taken me. And I think, again, that leads back to the people that I've been able to interact with.

46:52 Scott Ingram: Well, and talk a bit about… I think you gave me the best opening you're going to give me about kind of the sales book. And as I understand it, this wasn't one book. You wrote a series. Talk about that.

47:01 Carson Heady: Yeah, there's 3 today, and there's a 4th in my brain. But writing a book was something I had always wanted to do. You know, I was… I wrote these silly comics when I was a kid. I also wrote these books that I incorporated my friends into that were all the talk at school, but they never went anywhere. I was at AT&T, and I was… I found myself writing these articles for our newsletter, a company newsletter, and they'd go out every week. And I was writing a column, and I found myself gravitating toward writing about sales. There's a lot of sales books out there. I don't know if you know that. And there's… they've been done very well. So I didn't want to try to replicate that or take that or steal that message. I wanted to put a unique spin on it. So I actually created a fictional author of a sales book who just so happened to be a young sales manager, and I wrote about him and his experiences, how he learned the things that he preached, sometimes the very, very hard way, how he kind of paid his dues and made some mistakes and, and learned through the, through the way. So that's when I wrote Birth of a Salesman. I actually started writing it about probably about 10 years ago and incorporated several different core components of selling, you know, a lot of things that we've touched on today… prospecting, you know, how to achieve your numbers, and, and just the, the components of the sales call, etc. And I wrote about that. And then finding a publisher and that whole process was also just like what we've talked about today. That was a sale in and of itself. It's a numbers game. I reached out to almost 1,000 different publishers and agents, and I had a handful that agreed to read my book. I had a few that agreed to publish it, and I picked the one that had the best distribution at the time and just never looked back. Everything that we do, if you truly believe in it, just see it through, see where it goes, no matter how I got hundreds, hundreds of rejection letters, which obviously wasn't easy because I had written something that was what I felt was my lifeblood. So, it was something that I'm very passionate about. I love writing and it's been an interesting journey and it's opened up a lot of conversations that I've been able to have over the last several years. And I got a job offer. Actually, I got a job offer several years ago and joined this organization. And a few months in, I actually asked my boss, you know, how, you know, what, what gravitated him toward my resume. And literally didn't miss a beat. It was because I had written that book. I would not have gotten that job if I hadn't written that book. And it was… I think that's where maybe for you as a seller, it's not about writing a book, or it's not about this or that, but find what makes you stand out and utilize that to your advantage, because that's what your unique draw is. And that has been something that I've carried with me. I don't talk about it a lot, lot, you know, especially in my work mode. I don't bring up my books. Obviously, people can easily research it. But that's been something that has been a big defining area of my career because it changed my perspective on everything. It changed my perspective on selling. And I've since obviously looked back at it and said, you know, this is how I felt when I was younger. And now I feel a lot differently. So it's been great from a learning perspective.

50:09 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And we will put links to the books like we always do in the show notes. So if you go to top1.fm/54, this is episode 54. So we'll have the links to the entire series in there if you want to check that out from Carson. And I think, I mean, having just been through that process, there is, whether it's a book or a podcast, apparently I do too many of these things. There's something, there's so much that you learn from taking on these type of big projects, right? Where you have to, for me, it keeps things really interesting, right? There's a lot that you have to go learn. Learn and figure out and people that you have to get in touch with. And it's just like you said, it's all another sales process. So, and I think you learn more from getting out of your core day-to-day and applying that same skill set in other ways and finding additional takeaways from that process that you can then incorporate and use to improve what you do in your day-to-day.

51:08 Carson Heady: So well said. You know, Scott, I would say that, you know, it's one thing to create something that you're passionate about, but… or to even be very passionate about your, your trade, your craft, your, your sales product or service. But it's quite another to find unique ways to pitch that, to get into the situations where, you know, it makes sense and the planets align and you're able to get that sale. And, you know, that process was a big learning experience. I bought a book to teach me how to sell a book to publishers and whatnot, did a lot of online research. We've got a lot of great tools that are available available. But honestly, the fact that it's so easy now to self-publish and, and to do some of these other things, I mean, it's… it makes the, the landscape is, is, is ever-changing. So I think it speaks to that adaptability piece. I admire the heck out of you for, for doing this type of show because there's a lot of them out there. But what I love about this one is the unique focus and, and the focus on top… talking to people that are top performers. And now that you're talking about episode 55, I can't wait to hear about the, uh, the prospecting that you've got on the next episode, because I'll probably learn something there too.

52:16 Scott Ingram: There we go. There we go. Carson, what about the flip side? What, what have you found to be the most challenging part of sales today? Let's, let's think about this in kind of present day.

52:27 Carson Heady: I, I think it… a lot of it is just the inexplicable variables that are out of your control. And there are times where things that happen that are, you know, that are really just not or perception of something that you cannot change, you know, whether it's perception of your organization or somebody that won't talk to you as a kind of a custodian of your organization because of something that happened previously that again was outside of your control. And there are, just like prospecting and just like the, you know, the numbers game, there's only a certain number of those things that you can really turn the tide on. And of A few years back, I had a manager who… and, you know, it seems like common sense, but he literally just said to me, control what you can control. And that was a mantra. It has been a mantra for me for the last few years, especially as I look at managing my day differently, or, you know, how I react and respond to things that my younger, brasher self would have reacted completely differently to. Is there's a lot of things that will happen that are out of your control. There are perceptions that you… that are unfair that you may not be able to change, whether that's a customer perception or a partner perception. But I truly believe that if you're constantly looking at the best ways where you can add value and you're legitimately available, and just again have that mantra where you're controlling what you can control, when the opportunity presents itself, they'll know where to find you. Or you'll be in the situation where you can step in and change the dynamic. That could be a situation, you know, I've had situations where a customer wouldn't talk to me. There was a change within their organization, a leadership change. The new leader came in and now I have a very strong relationship with that organization. So, you know, never completely write off a situation. Never decide to completely look away from a potential revenue source or a potential medium that might help you get leads. You know, don't discriminate. Against any possible source of revenue or prospects or leads, etc. I think, you know, a lot of it is do what you can, control what you can control, add value everywhere you go, and sometimes it's just bide your time and put your focus… to our earlier point, Scott… putting your focus on the things that you can prioritize and that are gonna have the biggest impact on your overall scorecard or on your overall holy sales trinity: customer, company, and you. At that given moment.

55:01 Scott Ingram: Awesome stuff. Let's go a little bit deeper and put this in the context of managing your career, right? Because there's only so many things that you control, that we control, especially as, as individual contributors, right? There's a lot of things in terms of territory and comp plan and what you… who your leader is and, and what they're thinking. And there are so many different things, and even your industry, there's a lot of elements that you're not in direct control of. How do you deal with that? Think about that, particularly in a career context, and think about, is this the right place? Do I stick it out? Do I adapt to this new situation? Or do I take this as an opportunity to go find the next big thing? How do you process all of that for yourself?

55:48 Carson Heady: I love that question, Scott. Obviously, there were several things that you touched on. It's all about perspective. You know, when you talk talking about changing territories, changing compensation, etc. You know, I've worked for companies that have made a lot of massive changes, and I've had to be, you know, part of that process and figure out, you know, what's, what's the landscape now? You know, once the dust settles, what's the landscape now? There's a couple of things that I really try to hold dear in all of that process. Number one, whether it's the role that I'm in currently or the company that I signed on for, I agreed to take on this role, right? I agreed it, you know, on hire day, I made a contract, whether that's verbal or whether that's on paper. I made a contract with the organization. They agreed to bring me on, to pay me, to train me, and to help me be successful. And I agreed to bring the skills that I touted in my interview and the experiences that I bring with me. I agreed to parlay that into achieving expectations and doing the, the expectations of the role. The other piece is, for instance, in an account management perspective, you know, you talked about changing territories, changing compensation. You know, they reserve the right, obviously, in that contract, quote-unquote contract that we signed, to make changes to the variables. And furthermore, from an account management standpoint, I've had a lot of accounts that have moved in and out of my patch, a lot of times to my detriment. It could be a situation where a higher-tiered group felt that that account could use more TLC from our organization, so they got rerouted. Look, the company loans us these accounts. They don't belong to me. I can't be possessive. And whereas I may have drummed up the initial relationship, I may have developed a ton of pipeline, you know, multimillion-dollar pipeline, or closed deals there, account doesn't belong to me. It belongs to my organization, and it's up to them to see fit to where they want it to go, how they want it to be nurtured, etc. I did my job. And as long as I continue to have a job, I'm going to be thankful for that. I'm going to be thankful that I still have accounts that I can work in. And the job shifts. I think it, again, it all comes down to perspective. I've had situations where I had a lot of pipeline move out, but in return, my quota went down. So, and it became a lot more attainable. So I can translate that into the dollars and cents. 10 years ago, my younger, brasher days, I might have reacted differently. But now having been through some of those situations and being realistic, about it, I can say, you know, look, these aren't my accounts. I can't be possessive with it. And I've got to pat myself on the back to say, hey, I did, you know, the job was done. I did what I was charged to do. And this is my new set of accounts and be thankful that I've got that. The other thing is to just finding your path to goal. You know, yesterday is gone, right? You know, the experiences though come with you. And I think the number of times that we're able to kind of reinvent ourselves or pivot or adapt, that's going to be instrumental in the success that we have today and going forward. So I think it's really important to do it that way. Is it the right place? Do I adapt? Do I leave? I've made all those decisions at various points in my career. I left once to, to do something that I thought I'd be more passionate about, and it didn't pan out for me. I've stayed in places that I didn't want to be, and frankly, typically… and I'm gonna hark back to the book Think and Grow Grow Rich, it teaches us that successes often come after the point where most, most people would have given up. So I firmly believe that all things, good or bad, don't last long. And so if you're in a bad situation and it's a situation where you can stick out, do it. Stick it out, see where it goes, accept the learning, and you're probably going to be better off in the long run because you're not going to have to… look, there's a lot of factors, you You're looking at your… you've got a base pay, you've got commissions that you can probably rely on. Maybe there's some inconsistency, but you can rely on for the most part. You've got benefits, you've got a client base, you know. So there are a lot of things that you stand to conceivably give up if you move, plus your tenure. You go to another place, the grass is always greener, right? You're gonna see the things that are attractive about it, but once you get there, you're going to have things that will frustrate you as well. So be very, very careful if you look to make a move. There are some situations that are probably, you know, very, very much screaming at you, get out of the situation that you're in. I mean, if your organization is, is folding up, or, you know, there's the writings on the wall that your organization is laying off a lot of folks in your organization or in your business unit or whatever it is, certainly be on the lookout for where you may be going if you've got to have a plan B. But I think that goes back back to your network. Because if you've got a situation where you've got a few options, where you've got a strong network that can help you in the event of an immediate need for other work, you can do that. But if you're asking yourself, is this the right place? Do I adapt? Do I leave? It could be as simple as, you know, what is truly on the other side? What are your alternatives? And make a pros and cons list. It sounds a little… maybe that sounds a little bit silly, but I've done that many, many times where I was faced with a decision like that, made a pros and cons list, looked at the pros of staying versus the, the pros and the cons of leaving, and decided to stay even though I was in a place where I was not sure. I was unsure if I could continue to perform in that role. And frankly, I stayed, and within a few months everything changed and got a lot better. So I'll tell you that that's kind of the message of the experience speaking, is that the good and bad stuff, it's not going to last forever. You may have a great situation and the bottom might fall out. You may have a bad situation and everything may turn up roses. So I find there's value in staying the course, especially if you're looking to advance, because those are the types of people that leaders are going to gravitate toward, is somebody that could weather the storm.

1:01:51 Scott Ingram: I'm gonna go run through a wall right now. I've… that, that was so much just great perspective, I think. I mean, clearly there's a lot of maturity and, and you've learned a few lessons along the way, but I think that that is an extraordinary way to think about it. And particularly Particularly when it comes to the networking piece of that, I feel like the more conversations you're having, and let me put this in the perspective of just the broader sales community, which is one of the things that I'm trying to bring together and connect and lift us all up, right? The more that we can talk through these things and you can get this perspective from other folks that are around you, right? If you're thinking about getting out of a current situation and going somewhere else, man, talk to a lot of people in the somewhere else and get to the core of what is the reality of that situation. You know, to your point, Carson, right? Every… the grass is always greener and you, and you only see the roses. You don't see the weeds yet because you're just not tuned to that. So go talk to people that, you know, walk through the weeds every day to get to those roses and understand kind of what that circumstance is. And again, I feel like the more you're building relationships that way, it's just, it's just going to serve you. I mean, that's, that's certainly served me. And in fact, I'm getting ready to have a conversation next week. So this all should move pretty quickly. So I'll reference this. Real time with the hopes that it'll show up live pretty quickly. I'm going to do an interview with James Carbary, who runs the B2B Growth Show. Great podcast. It's a daily podcast. So it's a lot, but they're short episodes. And they have really drummed up this idea, this term called content-based networking. And it's what I do. I mean, Carson and I have never had a conversation before right now. You know, we connected, this is happening, but I can promise you that Carson and I are going to help each other out. And who knows what will, what will come of this? And it's all because of the, the show and the energy that I'm able to put into it. So whatever that is for you, I think it's kind of figuring out how do you add value to that network. But there's just value in the conversations and, and being a sounding board to other people and being open to them and asking them questions. And, you know, Iron… I, I just teased something in a newsletter here recently. I got an email that mind-blowing. Gentleman closed a $38 million deal. Don't worry, I've got him coming onto the podcast soon. You know, it was 8 times his quota for the year, you know, 7-figure commission check, all of those things. We had an incredible conversation later that week as I was traveling home, and he said, you know, steel sharpens steel, because he'd all… he also signed up for the Sales Success Summit that's coming next October. And I said, well, why are you coming? What's going on? And he's like, you know what, I decided at the beginning of this year, I'm going to become a student of sales. I've been in sales a long time, but I'm really going to seriously make this my craft. I'm going to take it seriously and invest in myself, and I'm going to improve. And lo and behold, he does this absolute mega deal. And the first thing he does after he closes that deal is he signs up for the summit to hang out with us because he knows that he's going to get better because he's going to get to bang up against Carson and get, and get better. And it's going to get better.

1:05:01 Carson Heady: I love that, Scott. It is, it's a constant learning. And, you know, there's something to be said for having those successes and those great months or those great quarters or years. I think that that's all wonderful. It's great to look back on those learnings and those moments, but there's no better way to really pay it forward or to be a student of sales than learning from the other people that are succeeding, sharing and adding value in those situations. You know, me having a success doesn't take food off the table from many and many, you know, many of my peers. So why am I not having conversations with them, figuring out what's working for them and what's not? Where can I add value for them and vice versa? And then furthermore, just slowing it down. You know, we were talking about some of the roadblocks and challenges. Just kind of slow it down. I was talking about taking a day at a time. You know, a day achieved is a success in itself. And I think, you know, we start out with these ambitions. We want to make sales our craft or whatever that ambition is, whatever that goal is. We want to have a better month or a better year. And we set off down that path. There's going to be a lot of deterrents that come up, but it's the resiliency and that endurance that keeps you going through it. You can't do it alone. And I think that's why great salespeople like to latch on with other great salespeople because they're constantly cognizant that it's a society, right? I mean, we are folks that have a common thread, whether it's that motivation that burns from within, whether it's that experience, or whether it's those golden nuggets, as it were, that there's a lot that we can all learn from each other. And I encourage everybody to, you know, don't get caught up in the day-to-day minutiae. Take time to have and develop relationships with other sellers.

1:06:47 Scott Ingram: Couldn't have said it better myself. Carson, what about… do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy?

1:06:54 Carson Heady: You know, that's tough to say because there's so many out there. I think the biggest sales philosophy ever for me has just been the, uh, just simplify it as much as possible. And that's been around people and process. I feel like if the right people are following the right process, whatever that looks like, there will be success, period. You know, it… so as As a leader, it's all about finding the right people. I've had growing pains from a hiring perspective. You know, we were talking earlier about a team that I had that started with 10 people and it grew into the hundreds. And I interviewed thousands of people to get to that stage, but it was all about finding the right people, right? But if you've got… even if you've got the right people and they're doing the wrong process, you won't be successful. And I've had situations like that too. I've come in, there was a team, years ago that was on the verge of being shut down. They were in the 70-ish, you know, 70-ish percent to goal range for several months in a row. And, you know, the company just didn't see the value in having them anymore. And I agreed to take over that team and came in. And I think a lot of times, to the people point, you know, the right people may very well be in place. And I think anytime you're a brand new manager, or you walk in, you want to make immediate changes, or the team thinks that, oh, hey, the new boss is going to come in and make all these changes. And I did the exact opposite. I came in, I sat with the reps, I figured out what… I asked them from their mouth, what's working? I watched them in the role and saw what was working, what wasn't. And then as a team, we picked the strategy that was going to carry us forward. We had 141% the first month together. And then from there, that team obviously stayed open, but became a really big advantage to that segment of the business because of what their value was. So I think it's people and process. It's people adding value, you know, finding the right value to add, but it's having the right process. And that can change. Again, you know, we're talking about all the adaptations. Things are going to change with territory, with compensation. Sometimes entire segments of your business might be sold off. I've seen it all. And it's being able to adapt the process in that time. And a lot of… and us as people, you know, we as people, we will continue to evolve as as well. And I think that adds to our value. If we're able to endure these things and have these experiences, that's what's going to add the value. So if I had to say that I subscribed to one sales philosophy, it would be kind of a makeshift, just like everything else I do. I try to pick up little pieces here and there, different pieces of philosophy. And for me, it boils down to people and process.

1:09:28 Scott Ingram: And I realize this question is one that probably needs a 2-day answer, but give us the highlights. Like, what is your process? What are at least the core building blocks?

1:09:41 Carson Heady: So I'll talk to that as a seller, and because I think that's one common thread that we all have is that no matter what we're selling, whether it's direct to customers, whether it's selling concepts internally, whether it's selling my kid on why she should do her chores, it's, you know, I think as a seller, My process is, number one, setting forth the strategy that's going to lead to success, and number two, executing. Now, those are obviously going to branch out in a variety of different ways, but the strategy towards success will bleed back to the relationships. Do I have the right relationships internally and externally that I need? What do I need to do to get them? Furthermore, do I have the right knowledge and the right understanding of, you know, how to, number one, do my job. Number 2, how to prospect, how to use the tools that are at my disposal. Number 3, how to, you know, do I have the knowledge that I'm going to need to go out and speak intelligently about my products and services? And how can I continue to improve my knowledge? A lot of our organizations, you know, sales training is like a crown jewel. There are organizations that are very well known for sales training. And I've also been in organizations where there was little to none. So we kind of built our own little community that was really helpful, you know, it really served to make sales scripts or share information, that sort of thing. So I think you've got to make sure that those foundation pieces are in place: the right people, the right relationships, the right tools, the right knowledge. And then it's all about execution. And it's execution in the face of those additional additional deterrents. You know, when I was a sales manager several years ago, I was, I had second, you know, I was managing second-level managers and we'd a lot of times bring in their managers, their reps. You know, we'd listen to calls, we would study reports. It's really easy to take a report and say, hey, you need to sell more of this widget. But it's quite a different one to look at, okay, so in looking at your body of work, where are you strong? Where are we strong as a collective? Where are we missing it? And what is the process for that individual widget that's not leading to success? Because I can't go to somebody and say, hey, sell more of XYZ product. It's really, okay, what's the process for selling XYZ product? Are we talking about it? Is our knowledge there? Do we have the right tools? Because all of those things will go back to the foundation. If the foundation isn't there, you can't be successful, you can't execute at all. So I think from my process as a seller is making sure that I've got that entire foundation, but making sure that I'm executing successfully. And when I was bringing in those reps and having those conversations, we would always, you know, I was talking about this when I talked about taking over that business unit. You agree on a process, right? You have to sell change. You know, we sell change to customers, etc. But we're selling change internally as well, whether even if it's to ourselves, I've got to sell myself on why I should make a change or not with my process. And if I see a compelling need to do it, and my fear of standing pat is outweighing my fear of change, then that's what's going to compel me to make that change. So I've got to make sure to diminish the fear of making the change. And if you… one thing that I used to do is I would stand up, I gave kind of a picture, kind of a PG-13 version of Wolf of Wall Street, and I'd stand up in the middle of hundreds of reps and I'd hold up sales reports and I'd ask them, who's satisfied, 100% satisfied with their sales results right now? And invariably, you'd have one person out of hundreds that would raise their hand to that and we'd kind of laugh a little bit. But the reality is, is that none of us are 100% satisfied. We always want more, right? So why would we be willing or unwilling to make a change to our process if we could get more? So it's about minimizing that risk. I can make a few tweaks to my process, try to make it better, try something And if I agree that it's solid, I need to go out there and consistently execute it because that's the biggest thing we're missing. You're not going to have consistent results without consistent execution of process. And that's the biggest thing I would see is that we as sellers, we'd go out, maybe try something new. We read it in an article or we heard it on a podcast and we tried it one or two times and we fell flat on our face. It felt uncomfortable and we stopped doing it. But the reality is, is that if it's truly a good addition to your arsenal, just go out and execute it. Because if it gives you a better probability at success… look, I could go to the casino and I could lose 5 card games in a row and I could be the greatest card shark there is, or I could put it all on black and lose 5 times, but probability says there's still a 50/50 chance that it's going to be black the next time. You've got to play the odds, you've got to play the numbers, and if it's a better change to your process, make the change consistently executed and it will lead to consistent results. Because it's all a numbers game. Have faith in the process, have the foundation there, and if you consistently execute on it, you will have consistent results, period. And if you can trust that, if you can almost trust fall into that process, you will win.

1:14:53 Scott Ingram: I think that's right on. And when you… when we opened the conversation, you were talking about a little bit about your motivation, but what motivates all of this for you today.

1:15:04 Carson Heady: You know, when I was a… when I was younger and I got started in sales, it was about making my parents proud of me because I was an only child. And I, I was one of those kids that just never really felt like I was keeping up with all the really just smart kids in my high school, or I wasn't the star athlete in certain sports, etc. So really it started out as just I wanted to make my parents proud. Then it was I got a taste of that, that new lifestyle, you know, the ability to make additional money. And it was very money motivated. In my younger days. As I got older, it became more about the career and the body of work and doing something that I was proud of, you know. And, and then as life continued to transition, as it always does, and I had a family, now it's really about how can I best provide and how can I best add value, leave a legacy, and make sure that I've, I've best made these, these relationships. You know, I was talking about the reward, and the biggest reward for me has been those relationships. And so I, I proactively look to forge as many new prosperous relationships as I possibly can. So those are… I think that we all have different evolving motivations throughout our time. But if I had to say there was one governing principle, it would always, it would always be I'm motivated most by pride in my work. I don't want any number to be next to my name that isn't indicative of my best.

1:16:28 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. And I love that you kind of shared the evolution Right? It's, it's, it's not point in time. It certainly evolves as the life stages evolve.

1:16:37 Carson Heady: Agreed.

1:16:38 Scott Ingram: Is there something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy? Beyond besides the alarm clock goes off at 3 a.m.?

1:16:49 Carson Heady: That would be a big one. I think the biggest one is just the, the complete disregard for, for the number, for the goal. You know, there everybody you talk to a lot of average sales. Folks, you know, the average salespeople and, you know, things that come up in conversations and just kind of an average conversation with sellers. And, you know, they talk a lot about quotas and goals. And there have been roles that I've been in, I didn't even know my quota. I didn't really pay attention to it because I was so focused and obsessed with the process. And I knew that if I mastered that process, I'd win. And I did. And so I feel like sellers probably listen to that and they're like, man, what do you mean you don't know what your goal is? Or you don't know how you get paid on this component? Like you haven't studied every single line of the compensation schedule that's 10 pages. Like, I, I don't, I don't focus on those types of things, and I don't focus on all of the different qualifiers necessarily that are going to get me to win a sales contest. But I've won several, and I've been able to parlay that obsession with the right people and the right process into the result. And I would imagine that some people probably think that's crazy.

1:17:56 Scott Ingram: Well, and I think if you go back to your holy sales trinity, the idea of, you know, when you, when you focus on the customer and doing what's right for them and helping them win, all of the other stuff tends to just kind of fall into place.

1:18:11 Carson Heady: Actually wrote an article that was just about that, that exact topic. You said it better, but I think that that's dead on, Scott. When you're, when you're focused on where can you add value, whether it's for the customer or for your organization or for the business partner that you're working with, even if it's not something that you realize immediate value on, you never know where that's going to go. That customer, that person that you added value for, that you helped out, they may go to another organization and in a different role and bring you in. That business partner that you helped out with the event or with prospecting, or you threw them a lead or whatever it was, that may come back to you 10 times where they start going to you or referring business your way. So I'm a firm believer in not being shortsighted in that, you know, just looking at every single transaction as it is, or looking at every single individual component of the role, I think it's key to take yourself outside of the numbers and look at the people and where you're investing. Because everything you do, whether it's an investment of time or energy, you're investing in future harvest. You're planting seed for future harvest that will spring up to results. And you may be planting seeds in multiple different buckets, some of them grow grow quicker than others. But that's why I always say, you know, don't, don't rely on just one prospecting method, or don't rely on just one place to get your referrals or one place to get your leads from. Because if you have a… cast a really wide net and you have several different mechanisms or processes that are working that are conceivably bringing you leads, even if it's just one lead that it squeaks out, that may be the whale. So I think again, it's take yourself out of the, out of the numbers piece. Don't get so hung up on the numbers. You may want to apply numbers to your process to make sure you know that it's working and figure out where you want to tweak it. But don't get obsessed on the end result. Get obsessed on the process that will lead to the desired end result.

1:20:15 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Now, what about the flip side of, of that question? What is it about the average sales professional that you think is a little crazy?

1:20:25 Carson Heady: I think it's crazy that they want to do… that they want to focus on the average. You know, like, I've, I've talked to a lot of sellers and like, well, you know, sales are down, but yeah, I'm doing just as well as the average. Or, you know, yeah, I didn't… I take about as many calls as the average, or my average talk time's the average, so I'm doing fine. Or, you know, I don't want to stand out, or I don't want to be number one because then I'm just gonna get all the negative attention, or, you know, this and that. I feel like the people that make excuses for why they don't give their all, or why they just kind of hide or try to compare themselves or their numbers to the average without challenging themselves to go that next step. I find that crazy because I don't understand it. I don't understand excuses, and I don't understand, you know, how some people react and respond to things that happen that are outside of their control. Now, I get it that these things happen. They happen inevitably. But the people that are able to hang in there… and like I was talking about Think and Grow Rich earlier, if the longer you're able to endure, the likelihood of your success grows exponentially. So I feel like with all this information that's out there, with quality podcasts like yours, and with quality sales articles and books and all these things that talk so much about different processes… look, you can subscribe to any of them, they work. I feel like what I don't understand is people that are not just not driven to challenge themselves to go to that next step, because at we all have motivating factors, right? Even if it's the rep who just wants to cling to their job because they want the benefits or because they need the paycheck or whatever it is, you know, some of us are driven to be the best at everything that we do. Sure, the pay is nice, but more pay is going to come with greater results, that sort of thing. So we all have motivating factors, even if it's just clinging to the job. But my goodness, I'd want to cling to that job as, as much as humanly possible. And I'd also be cognizant that there's 100, maybe 1,000 people who want the job that I've got that I'm taken for granted. So I find it crazy when people compare themselves to average or don't do what they know they should to take their performance to the next level.

1:22:39 Scott Ingram: Well, and what would you advise them to do? And let's break this into 2 pieces. So let's start with the advice that you would have for somebody that is just getting started in their sales career. Maybe they've, they've started in an SDR role or they're, they're taking on their first AE opportunity and they're just at the beginning, what would you suggest they do to build a really great foundation for future success?

1:23:02 Carson Heady: Soak up everything you can. Look for people that are winning in the area that you are in and try to take what they are doing and make it part of your arsenal. Forge relationships, you know, whether… figure out who is winning, you know, be in a solid… have a solid rapport with them, you know, develop that relationship because they're There are people that I've met 15 years ago in my sales career that I still talk to quite frequently, that I look to for advice, that I, you know, I know those people better than people that I went to high school with. So the people that you grow with in your career, the people that you started your training class with on day one, I mean, you're never going to forget these people. So I would say gravitate toward the right people, soak up everything you can from a best practice perspective, and really develop those relationships. Because those are the things that are going to carry you through. You can apply to all the jobs in the world, you can try all the different sales mechanisms in the world, but you're not going to pick up anything better or have better job referrals or better networking opportunities than just the people that you come across along the path. So I'd say that would be the biggest thing I'd tell people that are starting out is just be fully cognizant of what's out there from a people and resource perspective and from a best practices perspective. And never turn down an opportunity to do something, no matter how uncomfortable that it may feel. I think there was a really good Richard Branson quote about, you know, if you get an offer to do something and even if you have absolutely no idea how you're gonna do it, say yes and then figure it out. Because some of the best experiences that you have are those ones where you're flying blind or you just take the flying cannonball leap into the deep end of the pool. You're gonna have fun. You're gonna learn from it. Worst-case scenario, it's a situation that you can learn from. And we learn sometimes best by falling flat on our face. But some of these opportunities that we seize can lead to, uh, just unexpected but quite wondrous experiences.

1:24:59 Scott Ingram: Now, what about somebody who is maybe more mid-career? They've, they've gotten to good. They're, they're performing. Maybe they're making club, but they're not yet great. What advice do you have for them to make that transition from good to great?

1:25:12 Carson Heady: They need to ask themselves why they want to be great and what they're willing to do to get there, because it, it's uncomfortable, Scott. You know, you've, you've got to challenge yourself and, and continue to ask yourself… this is a, it's a process too. It's a continuous process. You know, it's not just one day you ask yourself, do I want to be great? And then you change yourself, and then you're magically great and you stay great, because it is a constant process. You've got to keep challenging yourself. I'm a huge fan of Michael Jordan. Watched him as a kid, managed to make it to a game and see him in person once, and read books about him. My favorite was The Jordan Rules. And I studied his philosophies. And, you know, he had retired from the game 3 times. He retired from the game once because he felt like there were no challenges left. He constantly asked Phil Jackson, his coach, to bring him new challenges. You know, could he maybe lead that game in assists, or, you know, some of the hustle stats that maybe don't show up as attractively on the box score? He was constantly looking for new challenges for himself, and that's what we have to do as sellers. What's the new challenge? I've had my territory, my comp plan, my accounts change drastically, and I've had to challenge myself to look at what's a unique unique way that I can approach this. I've had customers or accounts that didn't talk to me for a long period of time, and yet I was tasked with selling them products and services. So I have to challenge myself to find a unique way to get them to talk to me. If maybe it wasn't the first 17 tries that I made, maybe the 18th will. And so I think to make that transition from good to great, you've got to challenge yourself constantly. Find different challenges, new challenges for yourself. Maybe it's different metrics that you can lead in or master that you weren't selling before. Maybe it's doing a, a job shadow of a job that you're completely uncomfortable with or know nothing about, or spending time with resources that are on your team or in your organization of a facet of the business that you want to know more about. Make yourself more complete, more whole. Because even in the situations where I was the number one rep or the number one manager, there was more that I could learn. There was more that I could do. There were things that I could do better. And I think that's where you've got to be, is you've got to look for the areas where you're weak or you're uncomfortable or where those opportunities exist and go out and master those too. Become a student of selling in those aspects too. And if you constantly do that, and it's… that's a challenge in and of itself. But if you constantly do that and you challenge yourself to find unique ways to better yourself, that's how you can make the transition to greatness.

1:27:55 Scott Ingram: Carson, I'm just thinking about the fact that we only scheduled a 2-hour time block together, and I'm, I'm feeling like that's a really good thing, because if not, I worry that this would be a 6-hour interview. We would just keep going and going and going. This, this has been a blast, but let's, let's try and wrap it up here, knowing that I'm sure there will be some future stuff that we will do together. And I always try and end on an actionable challenge, right? So we've talked about so many different things. What would you challenge the listener to do right now that they can apply over the next, say, 2 weeks before that, that new episode focused on prospecting comes out? What can they work on for the next 2 weeks as your challenge to them to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:28:42 Carson Heady: Take a really hard look at your schedule and your priorities and rethink how you're, how you're going about things. And that's not to say that you need to change or even change drastically. I'll tell you, the biggest changes in results can happen with the smallest tweaks to process. So if you believe that there needs to be a change to process, it often doesn't have to be a massive change. And I think that's a misnomer. Sometimes the very smallest tweaks to your process can make a huge huge difference. You know, maybe you're feeling overworked or stressed. Cut out a couple of the meetings, maybe remove a couple of the meetings maybe that don't add immediate value or that don't need to happen right this second. You know, maybe you carve out a little bit of extra time for something else, something that you need to do like prospecting. But take a really hard look at your schedule. Figure out what needs to transpire, what's mission critical, what have you… what do you have to do now? And maybe you're even adding a few things. You know, hopefully we've uncovered a couple of things today, uh, on the session with, you know, prospecting and how just a little bit of time investment can really go a long way. You know, just being consistent with your execution, finding something that you believe needs to be part of your process, scheduling it, and executing consistently, even if it's a small amount of prospecting time, or if it's that small amount of time that you use at the end of the day to kind of recap the day, follow up really quickly on any open-ended items, finding ways to make quality touches of your clients or your business partners that take 5, 10, 15 seconds of time. Those things go such a long way. You know, one thing that I'll kind of close on with that is not only do I really look at the, the priorities and look at my schedule and figure out what's got to happen, what's mission-critical, what can move, but the other thing is I'll rank, I'll stack rank out my my deals, right? The deals that I need or that I feel confident in, or that, you know, really, I… it's kind of my path to goal, right? So I will kind of stack rank those out. And, and really, you want to prioritize those things because I've found, even as a seller myself, sometimes I will spend a lot of time spinning my wheels on the deals that are not going to get me there. And I allow myself to get sucked into that vacuum, into the minutia. So maybe you stack rank some of your deals from a standpoint, you make sure that they're getting the TLC that they need to get to completion. If you need to delegate or you need to bring in another team member or a business partner or whatever it is to kind of help carry the load, do that. But invest very strategically and wisely with your time. Stack rank those deals and every day go down your list and ask yourself, is there anything I can do today to impact this deal? And then do it. And then if there's not, go on to the next deal. Or if there is, go on to the next deal after you've completed that task. And I think those 2 types of activities, touching these things every day and kind of going through those exercises. Going through my deals may take me 10 minutes, might result in me sending a few emails, just catching up on where things are. Some days I will move on because I just emailed the person yesterday, or because I already have an update, or next step is in 2 weeks. But get through, get used to doing that every single day. You'll have those quality touches, and it just takes a few minutes of your time. If goes a long way.

1:31:55 Scott Ingram: Carson, this has been really, really incredible. I have, I have a couple of fans of the show who will email me or text me and say that they know that they're in for a great episode when it's longer than 90 minutes. And I know that's where we're going to be with, with this one. And if you are still listening to this, you are so our people. Thank you for committing to the show and improving yourself. And I always love hearing from you guys. So you're, you're more than welcome to send me a note anytime you like. You can reach me, scott@top1.fm. Hopefully you've already picked up the book. Uh, if not, if you enjoyed this conversation with Carson, you're gonna love the book. Go to top1.fm/book to get your hands on that. Carson, again, thank you for your time. Thank you for inspiring and motivating us and giving us so many great ideas that we can go put into action. How about right now?

1:32:44 Carson Heady: Scott, most fun I've had in a while. Thank you so much for the opportunity. 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.