6: Bloomberg BNA's DeJuan Brown - Creating Value Through Seeking to Serve

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

0:21 Scott Ingram: Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today I'm joined by another top 1 percenter. DeJuan Brown is an account executive at Bloomberg BNA. Welcome to the show, DeJuan.

0:33 DeJuan Brown: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to be here and look forward to our discussion.

0:38 Scott Ingram: Yeah, looking forward to digging in. And for those that are new to the show, typically these episodes, they run pretty long. Our average is a little over an hour, but we try and frontload the value on the front. So even if you're only able to hang around for the first 5 or 10 minutes here, I think you get a lot of value and hopefully find some reasons to want to stick around and hear some more of what DeJuan has to share. So As always, I've asked DeJuan to prepare kind of the top 3 things that have separated him and allowed him to get to the top. And we'll talk about… this isn't the first time he's been at the top, so look forward to digging into that. But DeJuan, I'll let you tackle your top 3 things however you like.

1:16 DeJuan Brown: Sure. Yeah, I think I'll start sort of with what's most anomalous, I believe, and that's sort of a wide-to-narrow thinking. So my thought process goes from wide to narrow, and that leads to me asking sort of the wide-to-narrow questions of my prospects and clients. And if we look at that sort of as a, I guess, an equation, X would be the information that I need to get in order for the meeting to be a success. And then from there, I think, what are some nonlinear ways that I can actually get to that information? So, you know, as an example, as opposed to asking, you know, what time do you want to eat lunch? You know, I might ask you that question to get that information in a variety of other ways. So I might say, you know, are you at your best when you have a full stomach? Stomach after 1 or before 12, right? You know, it's just the goal is to get that information about time, but I want to do it in a way that doesn't lead to sort of the ideal, the idea of the question that I'm trying to get to. So if that makes sense. The second I think would be never-ending quest for a better way. I don't think that in anything I've ever done or any activity I've ever undertaken, there's not been a better way to do it. A better way to kind of approach it. And so, I'm always on a quest for finding that better way with regard to sales, with regard to relationship building, with regard to service. And that assumes really that I can't be the best in every area. And I think that that lends itself to humility, which is a trait that I really covet. And then, the third would be just belief, right? Some people would call that passion. Some people would say it's sort of a mission statement, so to speak, but I kind of borrow from Simon Sinek with regard to Start With Why and his Golden Circle. I'm a big proponent of that, and I think that's one of the things that has helped me get to the top ranks wherever I've been.

3:14 Scott Ingram: Very cool. That was fast. And obviously, the Simon Sinek stuff, there's some good YouTube videos out there. You can check that out. So I still want to go back and touch on each one. So the wide to narrow, I assume what you mean by that is you're asking some broader questions to begin with and understanding maybe the broader landscape and then really drilling in from there. Is that accurate?

3:36 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, that would be accurate. So, the goal is, okay, I need this piece of information, and I could go very linear and straightforward to a question that just gets to that from a yes or no, or even an open question to get to that information. But my goal is to think of the most, I dare say, the most creative ways to come about that information in a conversation. That it's not just the run-of-the-mill interview or conversation with, you know, the prospect or the client, uh, and it really keeps them engaged. Uh, and I think that that's a great way to do things, and it's something that not a lot of my competitors have done. And so it sets me apart.

4:13 Scott Ingram: And what, what's the overarching goal there? Underarching, underlying goal? Is it, is it to connect in a different way? Is it a more authentic conversation? Are you trying to get them off balance in, in some way and, and just change, flipping the script? What's, what's driving that?

4:28 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, initially, I think when I began to do that, the driving factor was differentiation. You know, in the industry that I'm in and the industry I've been in for, you know, I guess 14, 15 years, a lot is run-of-the-mill, a lot is kind of standard, a lot is expectations meet reality, and there's no deviation from the two, between the two. And when you're dealing with, you know, as a salesperson, you already have sort of preconceived notions that you need to overcome and things like that. I want my conversations, A, to, as you mentioned, be authentic, and then B, just be different. You know, so to hear things like yes, and this is something I learned a long time ago as well, when you're in a meeting or having a conversation with someone, for them to say I agree, or yes, that makes sense, or nod their head, in some circles, it's seen as success. I don't see that as success. For me, success is I've never thought of it that way, or, I've never heard that. I've never heard it put that way, or, hmm, give me a minute. Let me think about that. So those are the things that I'm trying to drive towards. I'm trying to drive for actual thought, engagement from a mental level during the time that I spend with any client or prospect.

5:45 Scott Ingram: I like that. And you also mentioned in that, that for you to determine the meeting is a success, how do you decide if a meeting is a success? What are you going for?

5:54 DeJuan Brown: I'm going for teachable points, right? I want to be seen amongst, you know, those that I engage with as a source of information, new or different information. I want to be… I want the meeting and the things that are said and done within the meeting to confirm that there's been something that's been learned from our time so that there's value from that perspective. And I want to have the person that I've met with to desire more meetings with me, whether it be one more meeting, whether it be another meeting, or whether it be right then to do business. And then we meet post-business, post-signing. I want to be the type of person that you want to reach out to for information. And that has to be based on the fact that you felt like you got information from me on our first meeting.

6:38 Scott Ingram: Nice. And then with the never-ending quest for a better way, how, how are you approaching that? How are you constantly trying to improve and finding those areas to work on?

6:48 DeJuan Brown: That's a good question. I think it starts with that question, right? So, you know, you have, as salespeople, we have an endless number of processes that we engage in on a day-to-day basis. Sometimes when those processes seem to be bringing success, we kind of do them mindlessly. And so, what I try to do is to avoid that and be intentional about asking the question, like, is this the best way possible to do X? Right? And that could be from prospecting, that could be from how I actually dial, that could be from a voicemail leaving or email drafting. Every process that I engage in on a day-to-day basis, at some point, and hopefully continuously, I'm always asking the question, is this currently the best way? And that just sets me out on a quest for research, right? So, I mean, Google is a beautiful thing when it comes to this type of research, because you could literally Google the best way to do whatever it is that you're engaged in and continually reading new articles, listening to new podcasts, new angles and directions on everything that we're doing, and never believing that we have it sewn or we have the market cornered on proficiency or efficiency or productivity.

8:00 Scott Ingram: I love it. And we're going to be unpacking that a whole bunch more just in terms of some of those processes and some of the better ways that you have found. So looking forward to that part of the conversation. And then lastly, the belief piece. What is that for you? What do you believe? What's your why?

8:16 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, I believe that. So, you know, I deal in research, right? And so, the product that I bring to clients is a product that allows them to do research quicker, allows them to get better or access to better content. And I believe that even though that seems to be sort of a must-have for most organizations with professionals in it who are necessary to find it necessary to be compliant to any body, any governing body. What gets missed in that is the profitability of that research, right? So for me, my belief statement, you know, is really in 2 parts. Number one, I believe that, you know, if you are doing research, which again, every professional is to some degree, you should be able to do all the research that you need to do in one place, right? I really believe that. And that takes various forms depending on which platform I'm dealing with or which audience that I'm speaking to. But that's one of my beliefs. The other belief is that if you are spending money in a business, right, you should be able to draw a line from a dollar spent to at least a dollar coming back into the business. And so this is where the profitability of research comes in. And again, in the research market, this is not something that's either discussed or believed, or if it's believed, it's not something that's realized as often as people would like. And so I'm here to sort of state that these are my beliefs. And then on the basis of those beliefs, you know, we have created as an organization a platform that actually accomplishes both of these things and then showing you what that is at the end.

9:52 Scott Ingram: And are you working with your clients to, to actually quantify that?

9:57 DeJuan Brown: I am. I am. And there are a number of ways to actually quantify that from… again, this goes back to sort of the wide to narrow thinking when we talk about, okay, one of the questions I've asked, you know, many of my clients who are now clients, who were prospects at the time but are now clients, is, you know, who is your ideal client? Right? And then of the amount of clients that you have, how many of those fit the profile of your ideal client? And inevitably, I hear everything from 10% to maybe 20%. Rarely do I hear anything over 50%. And then the next question is, why is that? And it boils down to either bandwidth or capability and resources. And so, a follow-up is typically, well, then who are you turning away and where are you sending them to and why? Right? And then we get to the place where we, you know, we start to discover over, you know, long experience that many of my clients turn away business that they don't feel like they're equipped to take in on the basis of either personnel or resources, etc. Now, if we quantify what each client is worth that comes into that practice, and then we actually add into that what it means for you to be doing the work that you actually signed up to do, right? So some of these people are in business because they love X, Y, or Z about the the people that they deal with, yet they find themselves doing what they love a very small percentage of the time that they're actually doing their work. Now we're talking about, okay, we're able to allow you to attract those that you love and actually serve them because you have the resources to do so in one place and you can rely on it. And so that sort of thinking drives what I'm talking about as far as quantifying. So who are you turning away and what are they… what is the value of those that you're turning away? What would be the value of actually increasing the amount of the percentage of clients that you work with who are your ideal client? What does that mean for your life that you now get to do more of the work you enjoyed and got into the business for to begin with? To begin with.

11:56 Scott Ingram: Great stuff. Obviously, I think it's already very, very clear that you have a very differentiated approach. I look forward to digging into that some more and lots more. But before I do, a quick shout out to our sponsor here, which is Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform that leverages relationship strength to help you find and keep your best customers. I've been using Nudge myself since a very early beta version, and they continue to add a lot more to that solution over time. So, if you value relationships the way I do, then you're going to want to check out Nudge, and you can sign up for free at neednudge.com. That's N-E-E-D-N-U-D-G-E.com. All right, DeJuan, Talk about your role in a little bit more specifics and maybe give us some context around Bloomberg BNA and how you got to be in the top 1%, because from what I've read, it happened very early.

12:47 DeJuan Brown: Right. Yeah. So, yeah. So Bloomberg BNA, just for some context, Bloomberg, many know, you know, Bloomberg LP, which is in New York City, based in New York City. Michael Bloomberg used to be the mayor of New York, runs that company. BNA, Bureau of National Affairs, actually was founded in 1929. And was purchased by Bloomberg in 2011. And so what we've always done and continue to do is to provide news, obviously from the Bloomberg angle, you know that, and then all manner of content to really every industry. So when people ask me for an elevator speech about what it is that I do, I basically help all of my clients see around corners. If you have a body that you are compliant to and you need to keep track of regulations, legislation, rules, laws, and those sorts of things, then I'm your guy. Matter what industry you're in.

13:40 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then just a little bit more detail about your role and how you climbed up to the top.

13:46 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So what I do, I'm what's called an account executive. I started here just really 2 years ago as of November 3rd, I believe. And what I do is I call on directors, VPs in corporate environments. So directors of HR, VPs of HR, payroll, tax, legal, and corporate counsel, and then law firms as well, to get meetings with them and discuss, you know, some of the things we've already talked about in terms of profitability around the research that they do and how we can increase both the productivity and the profitability of that undertaking.

14:23 Scott Ingram: Beautiful. And then quantify your results for us. I know you've done really well. I'd love you to put some context around that.

14:29 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So, you know, my first year, which was last year, first full year, which was last year, I think I finished the year at 212% of quota. This year we have literally one month left. This month ends today, so we have literally one month left, and I'm currently at around 218% of quota.

14:48 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And that's… that has you in the, in the number 2 slot, gunning for number 1, right?

14:54 DeJuan Brown: Absolutely.

14:55 Scott Ingram: Out of, I think you said about 150 on the team?

14:59 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, I think total when we look at… so we have different positions, they're all kind of lumped into one. We have what we call strategic reps, we have myself, and then we have some specialized reps as well. So I think that total is hovering around 150.

15:12 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And what's your origin story? How did you get into sales in the first place? You've been doing it a little bit.

15:18 DeJuan Brown: I have. And I think, you know, if I were to say my origin within the sales industry would have to be when I waited tables for about 7 or 8 years prior to actually getting into what most people would see as actually sales. But it was there that I kind of understood the value of service and what that meant towards… what that meant to people hearing you you out and giving you an opportunity to actually speak and to make suggestions about the way that they live their lives, right? So when you're waiting tables, you know, for most during my time and in the restaurant that I was in, it was really about just what do you need? What do you want? I'll go get it. I'll bring it to you. But for me, I found that, you know, it was actually a direct tie between how well I served, how proactive I was at anticipating needs, how good I was at making suggestions, that actually tied to how much money I was able to make. And so that's kind of where I owned my skills of communication with people, kind of reading people, emotional intelligence, if you will. Started there, and that led me to my first actual sales job, which was with Intuit, pretty widely known company as well. And that's, that's kind of where everything started for me.

16:32 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And talk us through your track record at Intuit, because you had similar, pretty stellar results there. I'd love to know a little bit more about that?

16:40 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So when I first started with Intuit, it was basically at the request of a friend of mine who said, look, you need to be in real sales instead of waiting tables, which obviously he didn't understand what I thought I understood about the two. But I said, I'll try. He said, just get your foot in the door. And so I started selling. I got in, I was hired 16 hours a week, part-time to sell basically forms and supplies. Envelopes, invoices, that sort of thing. And there, I really excelled pretty quickly and was promoted twice within, you know, within the first year, in terms of the internal teams that they had established there, and just continued to move through. So, at Intuit, I don't think I've ever ranked less than or lower than 2nd place across 3, maybe 4 business units, different levels of responsibility, different client bases, different activities over the course of 12 and a half years.

17:43 Scott Ingram: And knowing what you know now, is there anything that you would have done differently in terms of getting into sales or where you got into sales or just getting that career started?

17:53 DeJuan Brown: Well, I certainly think that I would have been more clear about what the hierarchy of… and this is in quotes, right? The hierarchy of sales, if you will, right? The career path of a sales rep. So, I think I would have spent far less time than a decade or so in an inside sales role, just knowing what I know now.

18:14 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So we're just working on getting into the field a little quicker, right?

18:18 DeJuan Brown: Absolutely.

18:19 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Awesome. And what I mean, that's a pretty good history. Lots of really, really consistent results. Is, is there a particular story that you're most proud of through that, that time, whether that's Intuit or Bloomberg BNA?

18:36 DeJuan Brown: I am. Thank you for that question. I think it's a good one because for me, consistency is a big deal for me. And so over the course of nearly 15 years, you know, 2 companies, several business units, I have… I think probably I can count on one hand how many months I missed, right? And when I say months, I mean by quota, right? So I have this monthly quota over the course of 15 years, and on one hand I can count how many times I've missed that quota. And even right now in the current role that I'm in, since my very first month in the field, which was November of 2014, I haven't missed a month. And that's really important to me because it kind of shows for me personally that the things that I value and the things that I say are important in terms of service and really overserving my community, they pay off. And so, that's really, really something that I'm proud of.

19:37 Scott Ingram: Awesome. What about the flip side? When has it been the hardest?

19:41 DeJuan Brown: I think being… so, my biggest challenge and what's been the hardest for me is actually continual. And that is convincing the principals of any organization or business that what I'm here to do is actually serve you. And so, that's a hard pill to swallow and it's not something that's really, really easy to convey and convince someone of. It takes a lot of consistency. It takes usually a longer time than just, I want to sell you what you need. But that's, for me, the biggest challenge because numbers and quotas and goals, at the risk of sounding somewhat, I guess, cocky, those haven't been issues or challenges for me. How to do the work has not been a challenge for me. What has been a challenge for me is to really convince those that I work with and work for that my primary My goal is to serve.

20:34 Scott Ingram: And how do you take that on? What's the process that helps you help them understand that you really are out for them?

20:43 DeJuan Brown: I have to make sure, and it's a very big effort, and it's something that I have to clearly articulate, that what I say matches what I do. And that is over time, right? It's not, I said I was going to send you an email at 8 o'clock, I sent it at 8 o'clock, and we do that once, and now you're convinced that I'm here to serve. Serve you. It's really just over and over and over feeling, you know, thinking through how can I actually bring value here with no strings attached? And how many times can I do that over the course of 6 months? How many times can I do that over the course of a year? How about when people don't buy from you? How then is my service? And so those are the things that, you know, I find actually make an impact. Again, from an organizational perspective, the people that hired me and gave me an opportunity to do this lovely work, and the people that I actually work for, being my clients, my prospects, those that are in my community, in my district and territory. What does it look like when the sale is over? What does it look like when I said no to him? What does it look like when, you know, I don't reach out to him? So, you know, the assumption is that all is well. Like, what does it look like? What does his service look like holistically? And so that's how I do it. I just make sure that at every step, pre, during, post-engagement, sale, non-sale, all of those things, I am always seeking to serve.

22:06 Scott Ingram: Excellent. And it sounds like your role, you're mostly responsible for opening up your own opportunities and getting that ball rolling. Is that accurate?

22:18 DeJuan Brown: That is. That is accurate.

22:20 Scott Ingram: How are you going about that? What's working best for you when it comes to creating new opportunities?

22:28 DeJuan Brown: Well, the first step to any new opportunity would be a meeting. The way that I locate the people that I want to meet with is through one of my favorite tools, which is LinkedIn Sales Navigator. It's really what I use for 100% of my prospecting. But from there, I just make calls. Again, everything is foundational. There's this foundation that you lay within a particular territory, and then you just build on it. If I'm doing what I just described in the question prior, right, which is serving rabidly, then it leads to people wanting to help you. And so over the first year and some change of working here, you know, my goal was to just overserve my community, overserve this district that I worked in, worked in such that even if I just called And to say, hey, Scott, we met. We weren't able to do business. That's great. Hopefully, you can introduce me to such and such who I see you're connected with on LinkedIn. And these are things that people want to do for you. So the first hand is me doing my own prospecting, and the second hand is really trying to grow relationships within the territory in such a way that it begins to feed my pipeline as well. So, those are the 2 things that I do, and I think I do fairly well.

23:52 Scott Ingram: And I think that works really well the longer you're in that territory, right? The stronger those relationships are, the more those opportunities are creeping up. How do you take it on in the very beginning when you don't have any of that?

24:06 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So, in the very beginning, it's just, again, the differentiation of a service-first mentality makes those It makes the walk from, I don't know you at all, to, I absolutely want to help you, a much shorter walk. So you start by doing that excessively. The second thing is, you know, again, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is what I would, you know, commend to any salesperson out there who has specific people that they're trying to reach, because it actually puts you in contact with anyone you want to be in contact with. And so that is the first step that I took. And, and that was one of the questions, right? So at the beginning, we talked about, you know, there must be a better way. And so for me, there were a number of ways that people gave me to prospect, and I utilized all of them, but continually asking, there must be a better way. What's a better way to do this? I stumbled upon LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and that's been the way that I've actually been able to build the most relationships in the shortest amount of time.

25:07 Scott Ingram: Talk a little bit more about that. How specifically are you using Sales Navigator?

25:12 DeJuan Brown: I'm using Sales Navigator really to do… there's a functionality within it called Lead Builder, and literally you can go in and you can say, here's the geographic area, here's the function that I'm looking for, whether it's human resources or tax or accounting or legal or whatever it may be. Then you can break down to the level of seniority that you're looking for, VP, director, manager, or above or below. You know, down to like you can really get really, really narrow and precise in terms of who you're looking for, where they are. You can get down to business size, etc., etc., and it generates a list for you. But beyond that, you set an alert for that, and then every time someone else comes into that system that matches the criteria that you've set, you get an email. And most times those emails are, you know, multiples. It's not like we have one new lead that matches your criteria. It's usually 5, 10, And then there's a tool that I use that actually moves that lead from LinkedIn Sales Navigator into Salesforce, which is what we use as a CRM.

26:19 Scott Ingram: And how are you… you've got a pretty good-sized geographic territory. So how are you managing that from a scale perspective? Do you focus on different areas at different times, or do you build around kind of anchor meetings? What's your approach there?

26:34 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, I think the latter. So the… and that's a good question because, you know, I didn't quite get that, you know, at the beginning of my career here. But yes, anchor meetings have been extremely helpful for me. So, you know, as I'm… and again, Sales Navigator is extremely helpful in that way because if I say I want to be in Virginia Beach, as an example, you know, twice next month, then I can simply go into Sales Navigator and pull all of my leads from Virginia Beach area, and then I can actually even dig deeper and say, I just want HR-related leads, or I just want tax-related leads. And then I have an entire list that I can call on in Virginia Beach around what I actually want to talk about and spend time doing. So it gives me a lot of freedom in that way as well.

27:20 Scott Ingram: And with Sales Navigator, are you only using it for identification, or are you also using InMails and some of the messaging capabilities as well?

27:29 DeJuan Brown: InMails has been huge for me in terms of actually contacting people. InMails is you know, a pseudo last resort, right? So the first goal is to get them on the phone and have a conversation. But in the, you know, when that fails and I'm unable to do so, then InMails has been sort of a lifesaver because they drop right on the person's inbox, and I've gotten a lot of good response and a lot of meetings set up that way.

27:54 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So let's talk about routines and habits a little bit. Do you have a specific morning routine that you follow?

28:02 DeJuan Brown: I do. It's relatively simple, but, you know, I do CrossFit, so I drink the CrossFit Kool-Aid. And so I do CrossFit in the morning. I wake up around 5:30 every morning. I'm at CrossFit by 6:30. I do that until 7:30. I come home. On the way to CrossFit and on the way back from CrossFit, a total of about 40 minutes, I'm listening to podcasts or Audible books. So it can be, you know, it's a A very, very broad variety. There's no kind of set genre that I enjoy. So it may be Tim Ferriss on one day, and it could be Planet Money on another, or it could be a book, some biography or autobiography or anything. So I do that on the way to and from, and then I get home and I spend a little bit of time with my family and my children, and I get ready for work, and I kind of attack the day.

28:51 Scott Ingram: And speaking of children, you have a few of those.

28:53 DeJuan Brown: I do. I have 6 total children. One almost is not qualified as a child because he's a sophomore in college, but he's still… he is still my child. He's still my baby.

29:06 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. And it's great to hear, you know, that's possible, right? You are at the top of your game at work and still a great family man. And you are outworking me from a children's standpoint, 3 to 1.

29:21 DeJuan Brown: You got some catching up to do.

29:22 Scott Ingram: No, no.

29:25 DeJuan Brown: I'm rooting for you, Scott.

29:26 Scott Ingram: No, I've done as much as I need to do in that, uh, in that area. I've, uh, I've met my quota and I am not going to surpass it.

29:32 DeJuan Brown: That's awesome.

29:36 Scott Ingram: What, what about… so it sounds like the CrossFit, that, that's every day, that's 5 days a week?

29:40 DeJuan Brown: 5 days on and 2 days off, right? Absolutely. Cool.

29:44 Scott Ingram: And then what about… so you, you kind of wrap up with the family and you start your day. How, how does the work day start?

29:51 DeJuan Brown: It really varies, and that's best for me. You know, my personality type would be, you know, if that aspect of life were redundant, I would fall apart. So, you know, it could be a day of, you know, starting off the day by saying, okay, you know what, I don't have a first meeting until 11:00 AM, so I'm gonna spend an hour sending InMails. I'm gonna spend an hour calling, you know, these people who canceled meetings with me in an effort to reschedule. It could be, you know, I'm going to spend time putting together a deck for a teammate, or it really varies for me, and I have to have it that way because monotony is my enemy. So, you know, that really is not something that I could codify in a consistent way.

30:38 Scott Ingram: How do you take that on? Do you just kind of take it as it comes and you look at, okay, well, I've got this open today? How are you thinking about that? Is it a daily approach? Is it a weekly approach? What does that look like?

30:50 DeJuan Brown: Gotcha. Yeah, it's a daily approach for me. What I won't allow, so this is what would be, I think, consistent, is for email or voicemails that have been left for me or sent to me to dictate how I start the day. Right. So at the beginning of the day, you know, after I've worked out and I've come home and I've done those things, you know, at that point I'm thinking, okay, what does my day look like from a meeting perspective? And then, you know, is there any prep that I need to do for those meetings? And then beyond that, it's always in an effort to get more meetings. Obviously. So that, you know, the goal is the same every day. How I approach that is what's gonna differ.

31:27 Scott Ingram: Got it. And are there other habits or daily things that you, that you do no matter what?

31:33 DeJuan Brown: Well, besides CrossFit, you know, definitely checking LinkedIn, reading on what those people that I'm connected with care about and what they've posted, what they've responded to and commented on, and then seeing even that same content or information from those that I hope to reach out to at some point. Point. So one of the, you know, important things for me is just knowing what the people that I care about in the community or in my territory, what they care about, so that I can craft and make sure that I drive content that matters to them. So I think that's something important from a sales perspective. We, you know, many of us have Twitter, many of us have Facebook, many of us have LinkedIn. Not many of us do the counterintuitive next step of saying, how can I serve those who I'm connected better and more. And so I've gone so far as to ask that question, what do you want to see more of from me, those who follow me on Twitter, those who follow me on LinkedIn? And so I spend some time doing that on a very regular basis, making sure that I can kind of stay connected to what they care about.

32:38 Scott Ingram: And what are those? How are you serving those audiences or those networks?

32:45 DeJuan Brown: Well, I post a lot of content, and I engage in a lot of the content that's posted by either prospects or clients or friends in these these various social networks. So I don't post arbitrary content. That's sort of a rule of thumb for me. I could post what I ate this morning, and I could post how happy I am to be the father of 6 children and the husband of one beautiful wife, but I don't know that that adds value to the people who have followed me, and there's a reason that they followed me. And my goal is to understand that reason and then post content that supports it and furthers it and brings value, again, with no strings attached.

33:33 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And how are you finding that content? Or maybe an extended question is, what does that overall information diet look like? We already talked about the morning and you're listening to podcasts, you're listening to audiobooks. What are your primary sources of content for yourself and for your network?

33:50 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So this, you know, it's a great question. It dabbles, it kind of dives into trade secret, but I'll expose some of it.

33:58 Scott Ingram: Come on.

33:58 DeJuan Brown: Right. So, you know, there's an app that's available and it's web and it's application based on smartphones. It's called Buffer, right? And so what Buffer does is bufferapp.com. What Buffer does is it allows you to take content from wherever you're consuming it from and then put it into a queue to be delivered to your various social networks at specific times of a day during the course of a week at your discretion. So that's number one. So, you know, kind of jumping the gun a little bit if we're going to talk about tools a bit, but Buffer app is huge because it means that I don't have to sit in front of the computer and post to LinkedIn and Twitter all day. Yet, those who follow me still continue to get value from me from, you know, periodic postings throughout the course of every day. Now, how do I feed that buffer so that I have a substantial amount of content that's going out on cue? Well, that comes from apps like Flipboard and the News app. Actually, if you're an iPhone user, the iOS, the News app has been enhanced to a great degree so that you can actually go by subject and content area and have it aggregate the news and the articles and the content right there on your phone. You can just look at these things and read through these articles. And get that information out. There's a variety of different news apps and content apps that can all be integrated with Buffer right on your iPhone or right on the computer. There are plugins to Chrome that you can use to, say, buffer some article that you're reading and say, hey, I want to share this out later. That's kind of the first half. The second half is there's another app called Blinkist. And Blinkist is phenomenal for those road warriors like myself, or those who are just really, really busy otherwise, that want to consume good content. What Blinkist does is it actually takes the most cogent points from every chapter of a given nonfiction book and breaks them down into what they call Blinks. So the goal is not to avoid reading books in whole. The goal is to understand which books will bring most value to you should you read it in whole. So, you know, there are, there are 2,450 books on the best way to respond to email, as an example. You don't have to read every one from COVID to cover, but there are some that you might want to. So what Blinkist allows you to do is in 15 minutes really get a clear understanding of the most important and most potent parts of that book so that you can make a determination as to whether it's valuable enough for you to read and hold.

36:49 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. And that's a new one for me. So it's Blinkist, right?

36:53 DeJuan Brown: Blinkist, B-L-I-N-K-I-S-T.

36:56 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, we'll definitely have that in the show notes on top1.fm, uh, on your episode. That'll be great. What about other tools? So we've talked about SalesNav, we talked about Buffer and Blinkist and, uh, uh, Flipboard. I don't use that one. Is that… did I get that right?

37:10 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, I think it's Flipboard. I want to make sure, but Flipboard, certainly, if that is indeed the name, I can check really quickly. Yes, Flipboard. It's an app that's very similar to the news app, but again, it allows you to say, these are the areas of content that I care most about, and then it aggregates that for you sort of as a curator, and then you can utilize that to read articles on the basis of what you care about and then actually disseminate those through Buffer.

37:36 Scott Ingram: Yeah, and DeJuan, I'm going to back off my question just for a second and follow up with… I think one of the traps of all of the social and information is it can be really consuming. Do you have a way of kind of limiting yourself? I assume Buffer is kind of part of that, but how do you keep this from consuming your life and keep you from being at the top of your game?

37:58 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So Buffer is a huge, a huge one, but we all have downtime where we would, you know, if I'm honest, you know, when I look around at my friends and family and, and those that I'm close with, you know, during these down periods, we're typically browsing Facebook, or maybe we are going through Twitter or Instagram, but we do have our phone and we're looking at it. So what I do is I make sort of a, you know, a concerted effort and an intentional choice that, you know, if I'm at a doctor's office waiting on a… waiting to go back for my appointment, as an example, I can take that time to actually go through Flipboard, put 5, 6, 10 things into my buffer so that they go out, and then I'm done. So Buffer is the key to making sure that I'm not consumed with social media because I don't have to be in front of my computer. I can do it at… there are times when you're in a traffic jam and it's standstill traffic. I can load up 5 to 10 things in my Buffer right then and there, and it takes all of 15 minutes because these are short articles. I'm not posting treatises. So short articles to read and see, man, this is a really valuable article. I think my audience would like this. This, throw it into my buffer. So that app is, is how I maintain, uh, sanity in this world and make sure that I'm not consumed.

39:16 Scott Ingram: Very cool. So what, what other apps? I, I cut that question off. Let's, let's go back there.

39:21 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So I mean, uh, you know, aside from those, Blinkist, and then, you know, whatever standard podcast app you use, I think podcasts are extremely valuable, uh, and I do enjoy the podcast. So that would be an the news app, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, LinkedIn itself. Those would be really the key things that are sort of go-tos that I can't live without in this work that I do.

39:47 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And DeJuan, what other podcasts are you listening to? I know you listen to our friend Donald Kelly on The Sales Evangelist. He actually introduced us. Absolutely. So shout out to Donald. Anything else in the sales realm? Beyond what you've already mentioned?

40:02 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, so I do listen obviously to The Sales Evangelist. I actually listened to my first few episodes of something called Philosophize This, which is just a, you know, a podcast that's around philosophy and different schools of philosophy and thought. Planet Money. Tim Ferriss is a great podcast to listen to because some of the questions that we're engaging here as far as how habits and tips and tricks and tools he's asking of the outstanding people in all areas of life, right? Whether it's a chess master or a Navy SEAL. And so, that's kind of him deconstructing excellence, and it's a phenomenal podcast as well. I don't do a lot with regard to sales-specific or sales-centric podcasts because one of my goals is to be as broadly read and listened as possible, because the conversations that I have with people that I'm engaging with aren't, if I'm going to differentiate myself, going to be all sales-related. And so, I really just want to hear how people think, how people formulate their opinions and ideas, and what people's perspectives are holistically and across a large variety of subject matter. Very cool.

41:26 Scott Ingram: And from a book standpoint, so obviously you're using Blinkist to surface kind of the cream of the crop and what you do want to read. What's, what's been most impactful maybe in the last year or 2 for you in terms of your reading or obviously listening on Audible?

41:45 DeJuan Brown: Nothing has impacted me, I don't think, more than Start With Why by Simon Sinek. That's just been, you know, that's totally transformed my paradigm. It's totally transformed the way that I approach relationships and the way that I approach business and sales. And it continues to pay dividends, you know, to this day, and I suspect far into the future.

42:07 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. Well, speaking of philosophy and kind of that shaping, is there a particular sales philosophy that you subscribe to?

42:17 DeJuan Brown: Good question. There is. I think this is, you know, it's almost cliché, but my philosophy is help as many people get what it is they want and need, and you'll get what you want and need by default.

42:33 Scott Ingram: Good old Zig Ziglar.

42:34 DeJuan Brown: That's it. That is it. I mean, literally, when, you know, I'm asked this question quite often and have been asked this question quite often over the course of the, you know, the last decade or so. And that is it. It's… I think it's so simple. It's not easy, but it is simple.

42:51 Scott Ingram: Yeah, without a doubt. And that probably leads… I mean, my next question I typically ask is about your own style, but I think you've really talked about It's really kind of this servant leadership, really serving your community, your company, all those that you work with. Am I missing anything in that?

43:09 DeJuan Brown: No, I think that's spot on. And with that, obviously, so when we talk about nuance, gray area, other areas, the effort is in figuring out and actually sitting with yourself and asking the question, how could I do that in whatever context it is, right? So, you know, if I asked the question, if I wanted to serve this person and let them know that my goal is service to them with no strings attached, what are the sorts of things I would do? What would I send them? What would I say to them? How would I approach them? How would I, you know, go about post-sales communications and planning? You know, how would I communicate that to them in a way that is truthful and full of integrity and actually hammers home the point. That's the hard work, though, because that's not easy to think of these ways in various contexts with various people and personality types. But that is the difficult work. So, again, when I say it's simple, my philosophy is simple, but actually executing against that philosophy on a day-to-day basis across a multitude of people and organizations is extremely difficult.

44:16 Scott Ingram: Well, and let me dig into that difficulty a little bit more because I'm really curious about how you're bridging the gap between that service, which could be endless, right? That could take you in 1,000 different directions and potentially away from, uh, sales and revenue. So how do you bridge the gap between the way that you're serving your clients and, uh, getting autographs on contracts?

44:41 DeJuan Brown: Sure. So, you know, well, let me… can I… if I could, and I know this is against etiquette typically, but I'll ask you a question in return. And that is, have you ever said to someone, call me anytime?

44:55 Scott Ingram: Sure.

44:56 DeJuan Brown: Could be anybody.

44:58 Scott Ingram: Yeah.

44:58 DeJuan Brown: Now let's say you said that to 100 people. Of that 100 people, how many people called you at odd hours?

45:05 Scott Ingram: Very, very few. Single digits.

45:07 DeJuan Brown: There you go. So, you know, at the end of the day, no matter how much I express my desire to serve you and overserve you and serve you infinitely, very, very, very few are going to tax your time by actually taking you up on that. And it's not because they don't believe you. It's because there's something within all of us that has this level of what we deem to be respectful, what we deem to be obnoxious or nuisance, and no one wants to cross that threshold, whatever that threshold is to themselves. So it does not matter. I literally tell everyone, whether they buy from me or not, specifically those that don't buy from me, hey, I want to be a resource. To you. If there's anything you need that you think I might have access to, whether it's people or tools or processes, maybe you just have a question about, you know, who's the best person to come and fix your HVAC. I know people and I want to be a resource to you one way or another. Please call me. Please email me. In 2 years here, 3 people have taken me up on that. So, I think what we deal with often is my goodness, I don't want to give anyone a rope, right? I don't want to give anyone an inch because they may take a mile. Many people don't take miles. There's not a lot of people that will actually take a mile.

46:21 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And that's a pretty good transition. One of the things I like to ask is if there's something that you believe that the average seller would think is crazy.

46:29 DeJuan Brown: Yeah. And that, again, it kind of all ties in, as you mentioned. I think that Again, if I desire to and express and actually execute against my desire to literally serve you, overserve you, outserve my competitor, outserve anyone you've ever worked with, I believe that that is nearly the… I don't want to say that's the only thing I need to worry about or be concerned with, but I really need to put some focus into that. And when I do, success follows, right? So, you know, it's 100% so far, right? 100% of the time that I've been in sales, that I've said, my goal is to serve you. How can I do that better? How can I make sure that you understand that that's the truth about my goal? And how can we work together with that, you know, from that perspective? It's always led to me crushing goals. And, you know, maybe there's some things that are doing, you know, everything is art and science, right? So maybe there's some science piece. For me, that's the science. Maybe there's some art piece, something that I have, have, you know, inherited or some aspect of my personality that kind of lends itself to those outcomes. But from me and having to define what the science is behind what it is I do, it's really just service. And that is a hard… again, you know, it's a hard pill to swallow for those who have, you know, for those who believe that it's really just about beating the concrete, getting your numbers and activity up. And if you do that, then these things will come, right? If I may, you know, I also want to make another differentiation that kind of flows from that, namely that because activity and because the number of calls and the number of emails inevitably will increase the number of meetings you have, which will inevitably increase the amount of closes you have, sometimes that's somewhere we can kind of get pigeonholed mentally into. But if my goal is to serve you and I believe that what it is that I'm offering to you is of supreme service to your organization and to you and to your lifestyle, etc., which I do passionately, then it's going to be very, very much difficult for me to hear you say no and settle for that, right? So there's this, you know, your house is on fire. I'm not going to knock lightly on the door and you say, I'm sleeping, go away. And then I just say, okay, well, great. He must not want to talk now. I'll walk away. There is a… there is a… your house is on fire. You don't know it. Not only can I help you put the fire out, but I can actually make you more money while we do it. It'll be a great experience. You need to… you need to meet with me. I don't feel like people should meet with me if they want to. Like, I really feel like people need to meet with me. And there's a lot that goes into my understanding of what the value is that my company brings, the product that I sell. Payscale brings and what we bring. And so, it means that even with less activity, I'm actually getting meetings that maybe I wasn't supposed to, and I'm actually advancing sales that maybe they weren't supposed to buy, in theory, right? Does that make sense?

49:44 Scott Ingram: It does. And keep going on that, or let's dig into that a little bit more, because what I hear you saying is there's a common belief that sales is just a numbers game and activity trumps all. And what you're saying is if you're smarter about that activity, that kind of the level of quality, the approach, the passion that you're bringing to the table is going to tell a different story and convert better than just going through the motions a lot of times. Is it?

50:21 DeJuan Brown: Yes. Yes. So, I mean, Scott, if you have, right. So, so as a sales executive, of, let's say you have a list that you call. So maybe you have 2 call days a week, and you have a list of 150 people. Well, you have a list of 150 people. So if you call and someone says, I'm not interested, you have 149 more people to call. So your goal is not to convince them that they are interested at that point, right? In theory, you're going to just say, okay, thank you. Can I call back in 6 months? You move on to the next call, you have 150. Right? My understanding of that is, If I get you on the phone, right, you are the only one that I'm concerned with right now. We can take as much time as necessary for me to really convey to you the value that I think I'm bringing and really how important I think it is that we talk, at least meet. So, no is not something that I just hear and say, okay, great. Can I call you in 3 to 6 months? Like, no means, okay, obviously, I haven't been clear about what my priorities and goals are, right? Right? My priority and goal is you and your business and the improvement of it. Certainly, there's not a blanket disinterest in those things, right? Because you run a business. So that true… I mean, I really believe that, like, I really believe that if I'm calling you, it's because I believe that I can help you. And you maybe you don't know it or understand it. But we have to meet at least for 5 minutes, right? 10 minutes. I think that's a differentiator, and it definitely differentiates activity, activity, activity, activity. You'll land on gold. You'll land on gold. You'll get a diamond in the rough here and there. It changes the whole thought process into every time I get on the phone with a prospect, I'm putting the value that I bring forward, and I'm letting you know that I'm definitely passionate about helping you, and I think I can do it, and we just need to meet. And if at the, at the end of that meeting you decide that what you thought initially was your disinterest is accurate, then I'll leave, no problem. But we have to have the meeting.

52:27 Scott Ingram: Yeah, so the difference between hoping to find a diamond, whereas you're just going to squeeze the damn coal until there's a diamond.

52:35 DeJuan Brown: There, there you go. You have to, you have to, you have to do that. You have to believe you have a diamond somewhere in the making to begin with, like, as opposed to stumbling on one-on-one.

52:44 Scott Ingram: Yeah, absolutely. What, what else? What is… what do the other 99% of the reps in your organization believe that you think is just nuts, that's keeping them from competing with you at the top?

52:58 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, that, you know, some of the same things that we're talking about, that activity is, is, is 100% it, right? So if you, if you make 300 calls in a week, you're gonna hit your goal, right? Um, I don't, I don't think that that's not true. But I think it's crazy. Because, because, because who really wants this? I don't really want to make 300 calls in a week. I'll make a lot of calls. Don't get me wrong. I'm an activity animal as well. But again, you know, the belief and the understanding that that is what it's going to take, and that's all it is, I think stymies growth and development in other areas like good questioning, good questioning, and good conversation and, and service orientation and you know, true concern for your prospect. Now, don't get me wrong, like the organization I work in, there are a lot of phenomenal and stellar salespeople. Like, I mean, literally, it's very difficult from month to month to know who's going to come out on top anywhere in the country. Like, it's just, it's that type of environment. Yet, holistically across the sales scope, the scope of salespeople that I've worked with over the 15 years that I've been in the business, the idea that there is a mechanical way to do the work and the outcome will be optimal, I think, is just… it's no longer the case, right? So as much as we need to understand how salespeople should be educated and trained, there's also this training and education that continually goes on with buyers. And if we're not aware of that and kind of tracking with that, we stand the chance of falling into sort of dinosaur realm where no matter what amount of activity you put into it, you get in front of people and there's no value that you bring that's specific and explicit.

54:54 Scott Ingram: So really, it's keeping your content, keeping your approach, keeping the information that you're bringing, the education that you're bringing current and relevant and not stagnating on that is what I heard you just say.

55:06 DeJuan Brown: Exactly. So, I mean, one of the examples is we work with a lot of HR. People, directors, VPs, HR managers, generalists, etc., within that organization. I mean, we have a platform that really serves the HR community extraordinarily well, better than anything I've ever seen, anything my clients have ever seen. However, if I don't know about what's changing about HR in the United States, just generally, it's going to be a pretty stale conversation where I go in and I say, well, you know, do you do this? Do you do that? Do you do this? How are you currently doing it? Well, this is how we do it. Do you want to buy? As opposed to just, let's have a conversation about what you love about HR and what's changing about it, because there's some very drastic changes in the HR realm. Some of it related to the fact that we're not, you know, we don't have a labor crisis, as it were, years and years ago. Some of it related to the perceived role of HR within corporations, specifically large corporations. All of these things that you just pick up by listening to, you know, Harvard Business Review's podcast or reading articles on that. These are the conversations that, again, differentiate. And if you're not able to have those conversations, you can get as many meetings as you want. Want, but you'll continue to drive yourself into harder work and not shorter sales cycles because you don't know what you need to know about the organizations or the industry that you're serving.

56:25 Scott Ingram: Absolutely. So, DeJuan, what motivates you?

56:28 DeJuan Brown: That's a very, very good question. What motivates me is being as valuable as I possibly can. That is to the organization, again, that hired me and gave me an opportunity to do the work that I love. That is to those who have the time out of their busy schedule to meet with me or talk with me on the phone. That is, to those that I love around me, my family, etc. I just really want to be a man of value, right? That motivates me. And so, I drive toward that through the information that I consume, the effort that I put behind learning about people and things and places and industries, etc. Um, that all of that's driving to me being the most valuable man that I can be, um, on this earth for the time that I'm here. Uh, and that is always profitable.

57:25 Scott Ingram: And not that I'm going to take the other one away, but if you could only pick one, do you choose cash or do you choose recognition?

57:34 DeJuan Brown: That's a phenomenal question and very difficult. Um, if you could take one away, do I choose cash or do I choose recognition? You know, and I'm gonna be tricky. I'm gonna be difficult. I'm gonna say I choose cash because the way that I earn as much cash as I possibly can inevitably will get me recognition because it's different and it's anomalous and it's unseen and kind of new and a fresh approach, right? So me saying cash doesn't mean I won't get recognition. I have to get recognition because the way that I'm going to get the cash is going to drive recognition. So I cheated.

58:17 Scott Ingram: You totally cheated. All right. I don't feel like getting out the rope, so I'm not going to tie you down. So, DeJuan, one of the things I think is really interesting about what you've done is you got off to a really good, strong start. At Bloomberg BNA. What advice do you have, or what approach did you take to getting off on that right foot? And, and I think that's applicable whether you're changing jobs or your territory has changed. We're getting into the, the season of change, sometimes massive. So what, what can we learn or think about as, as those things are changing to getting results quickly?

59:04 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, again, another excellent question. I appreciate that. I think, you know, being an everyman or an everywoman, right? So just being an everyperson. And by that, I mean learn everything from everyone, everywhere, every time you engage with them. Like, that for me is super key, right? So when I first started with this organization, I think, in fact, during my interview, one of the questions was, what are you going to do to have a successful start. And, you know, my answer to my interviewing manager at the time was, I'm going to do whatever you say. Right. You know, it's quite frankly, like, I know nothing, you know all. Right. And that is the perspective that we have to bring. So unlearning is very difficult, but unlearning is very necessary. Right. And when I say unlearning, I don't mean forgetting what you've already learned. But I mean, like, this is… these are the people that I'm engaging with and meeting at this organization. Organization know far more than me. They've been here way longer than me. I need everything that they have, right, before I start trying to tweak and change and make more productive and even ask the question that we talked about at the beginning of the call, which is, you know, is there a better way? Before I ask any of that, like, what is the way? Right? And so that is, to me, one of the keys. And I see a lot of failure in that area, if I'm frank, from, you know, new reps, not maybe necessarily not here, but over the course of my career, I've seen new reps come in and really just try to start their first foot forward with all preconceptions and things that they bring from wherever they came from. And that's not necessarily the best route to take. So just learning, again, everything from everyone at every time you engage with them was really, really key for me because I heard so many perspectives. I was able to kind of conglomerate those perspectives into one big ball and then execute as I was told to execute in the same order and priority that I was told to execute and then get that right first. And then I was able to kind of branch off and it was a really quick, a quick process from, okay, I'm doing everything that you said in every way that you said to do it at every time that you said to do it. And I'm having set level of success. Well, now I'm 4 months in, and, you know, it's basically a quarter of the year through, you know, nearly, you know, just over a quarter of the year through, a third of the year, and now I want to start seeing how I can improve on some of these areas personally so that I could have more success in my region. So you can have a very long walk to success by saying, I'm gonna start with my own ideas, paradigms, and perspectives first, and then as those begin to fail, I'll go and ask secondarily and tertiary after you get proven wrong, right? I'll start asking people how to better these things. Or you can take the shortcut, which is I'm gonna hear from those who are set here to train me, teach me, lead me, uh, before I start on my own stuff. And that is very much a shortcut to success in any organization, I believe.

1:02:14 Scott Ingram: That's really interesting. And it obviously ties back to your second point, right? If you take a really, really humble approach and figure there's always a better way. And I, I think the dynamic there of layering in, uh, even though you had 15 years of experience coming in, it's a new company, it's a new approach, and just saying, look, we're going to try it your way first and see how far that gets me. And then, uh, and then improvising, you know, you… it's kind of like, let me get really good at this sheet of music and the way it's written. And then once you've got that foundation fundamental piece, then you can start to have fun with it versus, hey, you know, let's, let's just improvise this whole thing, right?

1:02:59 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, that's, that's just a recipe for disaster. But it's a recipe that many people cook with. So, you know, yeah. So just reversing that, I think, will be very, very helpful to anybody.

1:03:12 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Well, I'm keenly interested in your thoughts on, on this question, which is the fun of this podcast for me is I get to do exactly what you're describing, right? I get to talk to a lot of folks that are, that are at the top of their specific game about what they're doing. What would you ask them if you were behind my microphone? You know, what are you wanting to learn from them?

1:03:38 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, that's, that's again, a very good question. I appreciate it because it's, it's, it's thought-provoking. And I would have to say, really, you know, how do, you know, the top sellers in other organizations… I would be very curious to know how they avoid sort of letting what's next affect, you know, what's now, right? Because if they are sort of the same personality type, you know, at least adjacent to mine, you know, there's always this, all right, well, what's next, right? And so I experienced that at Intuit over the 12 and a half years, sort of experienced that now. I just experience it in life. Like, what What is the next step, sort of the next level, and things like that? But I don't want that to kind of, you know, take away from or subtract in any way from the work that I'm doing currently and how well and efficiently I do that. So how do they manage that? How do they manage sort of this angst that's always like, there has to be the next thing because we're forward thinkers in that way? How do you manage that with staying very, very focused and kind of laser-focused on the things and the priorities of today? That's the question I really want to hear an answer from, from, from those who think that way.

1:04:51 Scott Ingram: And when you say the what's next, are we talking about the squirrel? Are we talking about the distraction? Or are you talking about… what are you talking about?

1:05:03 DeJuan Brown: I'm talking about the earth that the squirrel hides his nut under, right? I'm talking about… right, I'm talking about the whole shooting match, right? So, you know, when I was in… when I was selling envelopes and invoices, there was a building across the street from us where they sold software. But in my building, no one ever walked over there. And I would see people outside all the time and I'd be like, what's over there? And they said, yeah, you don't want to go over there. They sell software. It's hard. And so I literally walked over there and had a conversation with a couple of the managers and said, I'm interested in coming over here. Like, what do you guys do? Right? And then once I sat in that seat, which was a renewal seat, more transactional than, than consultative, I got to a point where I did the work there well, very well, excelled. And then I was asking questions of the management of the acquisition team, which is more consultative and acquiring business. Like, what do you guys do? How can I get into that? What do I need to learn to get here? Then there was another business unit. And so, there's always like, if I look up and I see a group of people or an organization or a business unit that I'm unfamiliar with, I have a habit of not only wanting to know more about it, but wanting to work in it. Excel in it. I have to temper that. Right? And so how do people who think similarly temper that drive to conquer something new with the fact that, hey, you're here where you are right now, you're having a lot of success, there's ways to improve here and do better here before you think about sort of the next world to conquer. And so that's a very, very thin line that I walk regularly. I think it keeps me driving forward. But at the same time, it it could be a bit distracting. And so, I'm interested to hear how others deal with that, if they do at all.

1:06:52 Scott Ingram: Yeah. And how are you managing it? I mean, is it a pep talk and keeping yourself, forcing yourself to focus? Or, I mean, it sounds like at some level that awareness has also created opportunity for you and has been the right thing at certain times.

1:07:10 DeJuan Brown: Sure. Yeah. And I would never say that it's served me negatively. I think right now, having the type of manager that I do, the manager I have right now literally is phenomenal, right, in every way possible. So I can have this conversation with him and not be afraid that he's… his main goal is going to be to talk me off the ledge, right? He listens well. And he talks me through these things when they come up. And I'm good for another several Musk, right? So just, you know, having a sounding board, someone that I could speak to that I'm not… that I don't… that, you know, you know, my wife and I call a certain group of friends we have unflinching friends, right? So I can go to my friend and say, you know, I was thinking that I think I might be able to go to Mars today and have a friend that says, wow, that's awesome, let's talk about that. As opposed to what?

1:08:06 Scott Ingram: Just immediately reacting, right?

1:08:08 DeJuan Brown: Immediately reacting. So my boss is an unflinching manager, and so I'm able to have that conversation and move forward from it without any, uh, fear of being pigeonholed into that's being, you know, this is, this is the type of guy he is, he's gonna end up leaving. Like, that's not the goal at all. It's just really saying, you know, what is next? Can we talk through that? What does that look like? How do I actually, you know, work well enough here to get myself in a position? Or maybe that's not the position I wanted. You can talk through me and educate me in that way as well.

1:08:36 Scott Ingram: And I'm glad you brought up your, your manager. How, how significant of a do you think that your direct manager has in your success now, in the past? I mean, let's speak a little bit more broadly so we're not putting anybody, any one individual on the hot seat.

1:08:53 DeJuan Brown: Sure. Yeah, I mean, management, my direct management in every position that I've had in sales has been very integral in my growth, you know, validating sort of the directions that I think I should go as an individual and encouraging me to say more about it and think through it more, right? I can recall a particular manager where I said, listen, we're doing this this way. I was wondering if there's any way I can help. Actually, let me back up. What I actually said was, I think this process sucks, right? And what he said to me was, okay, well, let's talk about how we might be able to frame that positively and then put you in a position where you can help with it. That was phenomenal. That was life-changing right there because at that point, I learned that complaint frames you as a detractor unless you frame it in a way that you can actually ask the question positively and then you can put yourself in a position to contribute to the the solution. So I learned that right there. And one of the things I said was, I think that we can do this a little bit differently. I'd love to be a part of a team that's put together to help kind of, you know, pilot that. You know what he said? He said, there is a process called process excellence, Six Sigma. There is an awesome Six Sigma course that's given through Villanova. You'll learn about a 4-blocker, you'll learn about TPS, which is the Toyota Production System, these sorts of things. Why don't you take that course. We'll pay for it. And after that, we'll talk about how we can then move the TPS process throughout our team. That way, when you have ideas like this, you can just put them on a 4-blocker, you can try them for 2 weeks. If they work, we'll roll it out broadly. How's that sound? That… I mean, that changed my life. I took the class, right? You know, the organization paid for it. But every time I had an idea about how to advance the team, grow the business, all of these things, he would say, put it on a 4- blocker, TPS it for 2 weeks. If it works, we'll roll it out to the team.

1:11:04 Scott Ingram: I'm trying so hard not to laugh my head off because you keep saying TPS and I just instantly think of Office Space. And I'm sitting here thinking, so let's see, you complained about yourself, you're something, and your boss told you to go write the TPS report, not fill one out. Go create one. No, that's really cool. But I see exactly, I see exactly what you're saying. So, so, DeJuan, What is… and again, let's look a little bit further afield so as not to freak out your manager or your company. But looking 5 or 10 years down the road, what's next for you, do you think? How does this evolve and start to play out?

1:11:44 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, great question. Not one that I haven't thought about. I think that the things that I've learned, the ways that I kind of impact my own individual day as an individual contributor to the company that I'm in and the clients that I serve and the prospects that I meet with, right? Though all of those ways that we've just had a conversation about, my goal would be to scale that, right? So, when we think of, you know, businesses, you're making t-shirts, you sell 5 t-shirts to your friends, like, how do you make that a company, right? So, my goal is to scale that. And so, I hope to do that within the context of the organization that I belong to now. And by scaling it, I mean, How can I impact more people to think similarly? Not the same. We don't want robots and clones, but how can we change sort of the linear equation of thought and action to something more wide to narrow on a broader scale? Like, how can I impact an entire team, right? How can I impact an entire business unit? How can I… and all with the goal of serving again, but I want to serve more, more, more, more, more people. And to be able to do that well, you have to kind of scale and impact, you know, larger swaths of people. Right now, I'm an individual contributor, I kind of contribute to my team to some degree. But I want to contribute more broadly to the company, some of these ideas and some of these thoughts and some of these learnings and some of these experiences, so that our entire organization is impacted by it. And we can impact more nationally, the clients and prospects that we deal with on a regular basis.

1:13:22 Scott Ingram: Love it. And just so I can make sure that you share our conversation broadly, what's, what's the one thing you hope they would take away, right? If you could broaden that influence and impact one specific area that you think would have the biggest difference, make the biggest difference, what would that be?

1:13:41 DeJuan Brown: It's, it's, it's not about us, right? There's, there's literally nothing that we do that starts and ends with us. It's always an outward-thinking, outward-focused perspective. And I think that'll have the biggest impact because it'll impact the questions that we ask. It'll impact the responses we give to questions that are asked of us. It will impact the ways in which we frame the things that we present. It'll impact how we hear what we're hearing, right? There are times when we hear things and we hear them from such a personal perspective that we get hurt when someone trying to help. So, if we can kind of shift all of that just by means of focus and motive, then I think that will impact an entire team of salespeople, an entire company and organization, and an entire industry.

1:14:32 Scott Ingram: I love this. I mean, for me, it just, it aligns so well with my philosophies, right? Because I'm a very client success driven, right? It's about the outcome, not the agreement that we start with, right? That's… I feel like I've actually been thinking through the tools we use to celebrate sales, right? And this idea of we, you know, we bang a gong or we do something to celebrate what in a lot of ways is, is the close or the end. And I feel like it should be a starter's pistol.

1:15:08 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, right.

1:15:10 Scott Ingram: Like, no, I just, I just got us to the starting line. Now the race is on and we want to deliver and we want to help them. And now you almost move into more of a coaching type of role where I want to help my client run faster and achieve more. And so anyway, I'm totally geeking out on what you're about.

1:15:32 DeJuan Brown: Absolutely right.

1:15:32 Scott Ingram: We could probably lose ourselves in this. So, but I love it.

1:15:35 DeJuan Brown: Yeah, absolutely right.

1:15:37 Scott Ingram: Last 2 questions. One is, who is the most successful salesperson you know personally? Ideally, an individual. Individual contributor?

1:15:46 DeJuan Brown: Yeah. You know, there's a gentleman that I know, his name is Jason. You know, he was with me at Intuit for a lot of years. And I've never met anyone who is as good as he is. Like, you know, even my time during, during my time at Intuit, when we, when we finally were on the same team, and I was able to really glean from him, we wrestled back and forth one to nearly every year, right? However, there is something about his approach, his concern for people, his getting to like life questions with clients and prospects about how can we improve your actual life outside of the office? These sorts of things where there was a concern that drove him to an empathy that drove him to a rabid service and success model. He's literally the best. And I've said it for years. When anyone asks me, like, who is, you know, is there a… I've heard this question, is there another DeJuan anywhere? I don't… I won't say… we're vastly different, like, in the way that we sell and the way that we approach and all of those things. But he is the nearly the only person that I could say I'm… I've always been super impressed with him. And he's… that I know personally, that I've always been super impressed with him. His capabilities and skill level are unparalleled. And his ability to ask the questions that no one thought was coming, yet drive toward a goal of serving you is the best I've ever seen.

1:17:26 Scott Ingram: Very cool. All right. So, this is the last and probably the very hardest question, right? If we were to really boil this all down, and I think there are some very, very strong, important themes that you've brought to bear, but if we were to turn that into something actionable, And create sort of a challenge around this. What would you have the person listening to this do right now to take what you've shared and put it in place and benefit from it?

1:17:56 DeJuan Brown: Great question. Great question. So I think this is product or service agnostic, right? So my answer would be think about what it is that you are, because I'm assuming that majority of people that's listening to this is in sales. So what is it that you deliver? Like, what is it that you bring to the table, service or product? And what do you typically present as benefits or advantages or value points? Some people call it value proposition, like all of those things. Take those things, write them down, and then beside each point that you're going to bring up in a demo or presentation or discussion, write the question so what? And then put a question mark there. And then, you know, break down the answer to so what in a few different categories, right? Personal, business, profit, you know, experience, you know, be free with the categories. But answer the question, so what, to everything that you think is great, right? And if you do that, then it'll force you, I think, because this is what it does for me, it forces me to think outside of, wow, your house is on fire. Here's a fire extinguisher. It'll put the fire out. Do you want to buy it? It takes you outside of that realm where you're showing things and telling things and talking about things without an understanding really of why you think it would be holistically valued, valuable to the person that you're talking to. So So, you know, that exercise as an actionable item, I think, will help in different ways for different people. But I think inevitably it will help with our thought process, with the line of questions, with the broadness and sort of overarching scope that we then bring to conversations that we have. Like, all of that's helped by just asking, so what?

1:19:58 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. DeJuan, thank you so much for all of your time, for all of your insights. I can't wait to share this with our audience.

1:20:06 DeJuan Brown: Thank you. I appreciate your time and look forward to listening to many, many, many more of your podcast. Beautiful. All right.

1:20:15 Scott Ingram: Rock and roll, dude.

1:20:16 DeJuan Brown: Thank you. You have a great one.

1:20:17 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Thanks, DeJuan.

1:20:19 DeJuan Brown: All right. Bye now. Thanks for listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast.

1:20:23 Scott Ingram: To be sure you never miss an episode and for an invitation to our Sales Success Community powered by Influitive, subscribe to our newsletter at top1.fm.

1:20:32 DeJuan Brown: FM.