66: Craig Nishizaki of UpTop on How to Get to the Top

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: This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Dale Carnegie. We're getting ready to do a webinar together that I'll tell you about in just a few minutes. But if you just can't wait, well, then you're my kind of salesperson, and you can go to top1.fm/dale right now to get all the details and to register. Welcome to the show, and thanks for listening. My guest today is Craig Nishizaki. Craig is the Senior Director of Business Design and Development at UpTop in Seattle. Welcome to the show, Craig.

0:56 Craig Nishizaki: Thanks, Scott. Nice to meet you.

0:57 Scott Ingram: So looking forward to this conversation. Before we dig into your role and what it is that UpTop does, Let's dig into some immediate value like we always do and start with the top 3 things that you believe have contributed most to your sales results.

1:13 Craig Nishizaki: So the 3 things I believe that have helped me in my career is early on learning and following a sales methodology or process and learning it so well that it becomes part of your DNA. And I was fortunate to find a coach, mentor, sales coach early on that just really drilled that into me. And so his point was get your process to where you are at the aha phase, where the questions and discussion flow real smoothly. You're able to ask and go deeper into qualifying or disqualifying prospects. You're able to build trust and all those things. You're not thinking about what the next question is you're going to ask because it becomes part of how you talk and how you interact with folks. And so that allows for more consistency. And that was the first, one of the first things early on that I learned. And then secondly is constantly learning. So knowledge is powerful. You know, the buyer in an enterprise sale spends most of their time not interacting with you. You know, if you think about enterprise sales cycle, I think Gartner has a stat that only about 18% of that buyer's time is spent interviewing vendors. And if they're looking at 3 vendors and you're getting less than 6% of their time and their attention, And so being able to have domain knowledge and business acumen to present or position yourself as an advisor and differentiate yourself from other salespeople, I think is really important. And when I talk about constantly learning, I mean, you know, when I was in the telecom space, I went out and did installations with the technicians. So I understood what exactly happened when they installed a phone system or a data network, or, you know, early, early when I was working in the office equipment industry, you know, understanding from a technician perspective what it is that they do to maintain something so that I could then use that information to help position us as a good solution for, for that client. And then I think the other part of it is, you know, looking, understanding the market, understanding trends, but understanding your product and service strengths and weaknesses as well as those of your competition so you can learn how to position your product, your service, and your company in the best light. As a solution for that prospect. And then the third thing is just taking pride in the work. You know, most people won't do what we do as salespeople or not as salespeople. They wouldn't want to be a salesperson because they don't like the nature of it, but even most salespeople won't do the work. You know, it's the idea of starting your day well, you know, getting in the office early, spending that first 30 minutes reading, learning, prepping, finishing strong. You know, when I was early on in a, my role selling, my first job selling copiers or office equipment, I really learned that, you know, on Friday, late in the day, everyone was kind of talking about what they were going to do that weekend. And I spent that time sending out or making calls, you know, just trying to do some outreach toward the end of the day on a Friday. And I got through to people a lot easier. And then early in the day on Monday, when everyone was talking about what they did on the weekend, I was doing the same thing and it seemed to be successful for me. So I just kind of adopted that as part of what I do. And then, you know, Russell Wilson, the quarterback for the Seahawks, has a saying, separation is in the preparation. And it's, I think, just being very prepared for everything that you're doing throughout your day, whether it's prepping for a sales call, whether it's prepping for a meeting, setting the agenda, etc., so that you're in control of what happens as much as possible. And then that you're able to slow down the conversation because you're already thinking through what what the steps are. And that leads into kind of owning your calendar, having a consistent prospecting habit. I've had times in my career where I haven't, and, you know, 3 to 6 months later you see the net result of that where your sales results dip. And so that's, you know, proof right there that having a consistent habit is necessary. And then I think at the end of every day, you know, because sales is oftentimes a lonely battle, or you feel like you're… you need a safe harbor, you know, and you could be your best coach or you can be your worst enemy. I think at the end of the day, what I like to do is ask 2 questions of myself. Did I give my best effort today? And did I provide value to my clients, my company, my colleagues? And if I can't be honest with myself about that, then that day wasn't a good day, right? If I came out of the day feeling like I did, then even if I didn't win a deal or I didn't advance a deal or I got some nos, et cetera, that was a good day. So that's kind of the 3 things that I've built into my daily habit. And I think that that's helped me be consistent over the years.

5:41 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Tons of great stuff. And I have a lot of follow-up questions, but rather than doing that, why don't we contextualize this a little bit first and then I'll go back to some of those points. Actually, before I have Craig tell us about who he works for and about his role, let me tell you about something really exciting I'm working on with Dale Carnegie. We're getting ready to do a webinar together on May 15th to talk about the Top Principles of Sales Success. And now I've done over 65 of these interviews and have asked every guest what it is that they think differentiates them and has allowed them to get to the top. In this webinar, we're going to dig into the most common contributors to top 1% level success that I've seen after having interviewed all of these top-performing sales professionals like Craig. For all the details and to register, go to top1.fm/dale. And you're going to want to do it right now because those who register early are going to get a free copy of B2B Sales Mentors: 20 Stories from 20 Top 1% Sales Professionals. Again, that's top1.fm/dale. And I won't be offended if you pause the podcast and register right now before you forget. Did you do it? Okay, now back to Craig. So just talk to us a little bit about what is your role and who is UpTop?

7:07 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, so UpTop is a user experience design and development agency. We're based in Seattle and we work with clients around the country. And typically what we're doing is working with senior leaders at companies that have an idea that they think will have a material impact on their business, and we're helping them articulate that vision and bring it to life. Typically as an app, as a tool, as a digital experience, whether it's a website or a web app. If you look at our client base, we have a large number of enterprise clients like Microsoft, Amazon, Disney, Belkin. We've done work with Starbucks, Expedia, T-Mobile, et cetera. And my role is on the business side, account acquisition and account direction. Well, I have my own portfolio of accounts and a quota that I need to reach. As an individual contributor. And then I also have a person on my team that's another salesperson, so I'm managing that person. And then I'm working with our exec team and our practice leaders to ensure that we're delivering great work, because great work sells more work in our space. Your reputation kind of precedes you. And so, you know, by doing that, we've been able to build our business a lot on word-of-mouth reputation in the sense that we have a large number of clients that are repeat clients. So like 95% of our clients hire us for multiple projects after the first one. And then, you know, when they go to their next company or they get promoted, you know, close to 100% of them will take us with them.

8:37 Scott Ingram: Good stuff. And then contextualize your results for us a little bit.

8:41 Craig Nishizaki: Results-wise, so I've been in this industry for 9 years, or almost 10 years now. I had a 14-year career in the telecom internet services management, managed services space, made the transition in 2009 when the economy tanked and decided to get out of that industry where I was selling to IT and started looking around, got into the user experience design industry and realized that most agencies The selling is being done by the founders, which are typically, you know, designers or folks that came out of a creative industry to their sphere of influence or to their, the people that know who they are. So that's kind of how I got into it. And over the last, you know, I'd say 5 to 6 years, typically I'm averaging $2 to $3 million a year in services sales. In our industry, typical salesperson that's not coming out as a founder of the agency is going to generate maybe $1.5 million. To $2 million on average. And so it's really kind of applying some enterprise sales methods into a creative space and being able to use storytelling and case studies and business outcomes as your method of communicating value.

9:55 Scott Ingram: Love it, love it. And we'll definitely circle back on the, on the stories piece because it was, it was Chris Ortolano who introduced us initially because I was really looking for… I want a great storytelling sales professional. So that's how this connection came about. But I want to go back to your kind of top 3 points, and you said that you're following a sales methodology. What methodology is that?

10:19 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, when I first got into sales, I worked for a Canon office equipment dealership, and the methodology that we were formally trained in was SPIN, the Neil Rackham methodology. And I adopted that, I worked on it, I learned it, and It helped me tremendously. And then about a year and a half into that, that job or working in that industry, I had gotten stumped where I was having a lot of conversations and I just wasn't able to get people to make a decision. I was basically relationship selling, you know, people liked me. They didn't want to say no and hurt my feelings maybe. And I was too scared to ask the question. And so I invested my own money and went to Sandler training. To kind of see if there was some tips I could use from that method. And it was helpful in the sense of challenging folks by asking questions in a different way and really driving toward, you know, a no. But more recently, I've taken the approach of the Challenger sales model in the last couple of years. And SPIN and Challenger are very interrelated in a sense, but it's been great because there's so much chatter. In our space from an agency perspective. Everyone says they do great work. Everyone says they've led innovation projects. Everyone says they've built these great apps. And for the end customer, you know, how do they know? They don't know. And so using some of the challenger methods to challenge people's thought process around really what's going to help them be successful has been helpful.

11:49 Scott Ingram: And is that just in terms of, you know, the clients coming to you and telling you what they want, and they're probably telling everybody else that they're looking at sort of the same things, and you're able to differentiate just because of the questions you're asking and the way that you're leading them to think about the project differently?

12:06 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, that's a big part of it. You know, I'm constantly working on learning better ways to ask questions. I feel like that's one of the things that being part of a design agency has really helped me with, because when you think about discovery and trying to understand the mental model of the end user when you're designing a product for them, You're really going from strategic questions down to tactical questions. And if you're not savvy, if you're not confident, you're going to go straight from strategic to tactical. And I see that happen with salespeople a lot of times where, you know, they may be using a BANT or some sort of a qualifying methodology and they're asking the question verbatim, basically, you know, what's your budget? What's your timeframe? And there's some ways to weave that in. You know, after you've gained some trust by asking questions that then have that end user or that customer say, wow, this, this guy or this gal is very savvy. I want to tell them a little bit more. You know, good questions lend to good dialogue more so than telling people stuff.

13:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah. So how do the stories fit into that then?

13:16 Craig Nishizaki: So When I'm meeting with or talking to a prospective client, and I, the first thing I want to do is really understand their role, what it is they're trying to accomplish, and understand what problem it is they're trying to solve. And 9 times out of 10, they may know the surface of the problem, but they haven't been able to identify the root cause. So a lot of it is just having questions that allow us to reframe what the problem is. And then as we're gathering that information from them, I know of customer stories that are relevant to the problem they're trying to solve. So typically when someone's looking at an agency, my viewpoint is they're saying, hey, does this company have relevant experience in my industry or with this problem or on this type of digital device or surface? Do they have expertise inside their company in terms of the individuals and the type of work they do? Have they done something this big or this small? You know, do they only work with these types of companies or do they work with a company like ours? And then they go down, you know, below that to, do I trust that they can help me be successful? And that's through customer testimonials and case studies, et cetera. And then you get to the bottom where it's price and timeframe. And so for me, as I'm talking to somebody, I'm trying to identify those stories that are going to map to them. And I call them situational case studies. And so it's thinking of things more so in the sense of a use case or a scenario versus a customer. And so I think with a lot of case studies, when you read them, it's, hey, we did this awesome work for Microsoft. Here's what it is. Instead of, you know, this company had a big problem. They, they were challenged with hiring 6,000 salespeople around the world, onboarding and training them and help and making them be effective in a shorter period of time. Here's what we did. And so it's kind of flipping it to seeing what the problem is to align to that customer.

15:12 Scott Ingram: And then let's take like a giant step back. And because I'm curious about what does sort of this combined Sandler, SPUN, Challenger process look like? Like, could you sort of outline what that looks like?

15:26 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, I mean, I'll have to say I don't use Sandler as much as I used to because just the phrasing of how the questions work doesn't mapped to my brain as well. And so I don't know if it's out of laziness or out of default, I kind of have gone back toward SPIN and adopting Challenger. But how it works for me is, so what I know is if I get a chance to talk with a prospect, do a capabilities presentation with them after I understand what they're, what they're trying to accomplish is, then I'm able to walk them through, you know, situation, problem, implication, need, payoff as part of the conversation framework, right? And I'm of the belief that you can talk someone right into a sale and you could talk them right out by talking too much. And so my approach is typically not saying as much. It's the idea of, you know, making sure I really understand their situation, making sure I really get a good sense of that problem. And then how it's going to impact their life. Like what's the compelling event that's going to cause them to buy or not buy? Because our biggest competitor is status quo. It's really them doing nothing. Our second biggest competitor is them having an internal team do the work. Then our third biggest competitor is other agencies, right? And so since I know that, and I'm, or at least I believe that, then that's how I kind of frame the conversation going forward. So typically for us, it's, you know, somebody… if it's an inbound inquiry, you know, I reach out and follow up with them, say, would love to have a brief conversation with you. That conversation may be 15 minutes. It's getting to understand who they are, what their company is, what their role is, what the problem is, etc. Then it's a real brief intro and then setting up a capabilities overview where we can walk through the type of work that we do And then walking them through a sales process from there. If it's an outreach, it's, you know, identifying who the right targeted prospect is within an organization, asking them if they have specific problems to see if I could generate interest. And then from there, again, it's like a 15-minute, then a 45-minute conversation. And it's a process. And our typical sales process for somebody that doesn't know us and may not have an immediate need is about 6 months. And then if they do have an immediate need and they're educated on what the value of user experience design is, you know, it could be as quick as 2 weeks.

17:53 Scott Ingram: Got it. And you said that you're kind of managing a book of business. You've got a lot of repeat folks. What's, what's kind of the mix between brand new clients that you're working with versus repeat customers?

18:04 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, for me it's about 60/40 or 70/30. I try to keep the mix where I'm bringing in new Prior to me being in the role of managing folks as well, you know, our company did an analysis and found that I had brought in 75% of the net new business over the previous 4 years. So there's that land and expand approach in the enterprise space. And then I'm also going out and looking for new net new.

18:30 Scott Ingram: Got it. And I assume that the larger weighting is towards existing and repeat customers.

18:35 Craig Nishizaki: For me, it is just because those are, you know, I'm getting a master service agreement in place. With a large enterprise and then going in and trying to find new organizations within that we can work with. So even though it may be like an Amazon or a Microsoft, that customer, that company may have multiple projects going with us at the same time.

18:56 Scott Ingram: Got it. And then your second point was around constantly learning. What are sort of the primary sources of that learning for you? How are you developing your, your business acumen and really delving into the industry and all these things?

19:09 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, great question. So Industry knowledge and knowledge of user experience design processes, methods, all those things I think are hugely important for the work I do. We tried to outsource some SDR work, but inevitably when you make that first contact with a product manager, UX manager, et cetera, they're going to ask some very specific questions that are domain-specific. And so, so that didn't work for us because we would have to ramp up those SDRs on a lot of different scenarios. And so what we've found in looking at this is that kind of just, I don't know if you call it decomposing how I have conversations. A lot of it starts with gaining trust that you know what you're talking about. And so for me, I'm doing a lot of reading of Gartner research notes. I use Flipboard on my iOS devices to consume news content in tech. Design, development, and business industries or those categories. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. I'm looking for content trends, et cetera. My Twitter, I don't really have a huge number of people that I'm following. I'm kind of using it very narrowly to follow specific folks in our industry and companies, et cetera, to see what they're talking about. I've been listening to a great podcast, UX Cake, a good friend of ours, Lee Allen Arredondo, runs that. It has great industry leaders speaking about various design methods and challenges that they've been facing. And so that's kind of how I consume information to try and stay on top of things and be knowledgeable. And then our design team and our development team also, as they gather information, they feed it over my way. So I'm looking at things all the time to try and pick out information that would be helpful.

21:01 Scott Ingram: And then how do you translate that? So you talked about the SDR thing didn't work because they just didn't have the domain knowledge. So how do you take that information and use it to, say, open a new conversation?

21:13 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, so that's why a lot of it is listening, you know. So, you know, when you first… in our space, when we're first talking with somebody, it's really understanding what it is that their problem is, what it is they're trying to solve. You know, why are they actually talking with us? And then it's lending them some knowledge about how we could help solve that, having that domain knowledge, and then also mapping that with some business acumen. So you can talk about outcomes versus just processes and deliverables. That's, that's kind of how it manifests itself.

21:44 Scott Ingram: Awesome. So Craig, where did all this start? You talked about telecom, you talked about office supplies. How did you get your start in sales initially?

21:52 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, great question. So when I was in college, I wanted to own my own business and be an entrepreneur. I had some mentors and they suggested that I learn how to sell professionally. And my first job was working, like I said, for a Canon office equipment dealership selling copiers. You know, typically a new salesperson churns in about 90 days in that industry. And I struggled. I mean, by nature, I'm introverted, had not the greatest self-esteem coming out of college and wasn't real confident, but I'm in now outside sales role hunting new business, right? It's kind of counter to who you are. And so I ended up quitting that first job, but then the owner of that company, their company was acquired by a larger dealership and he was now managing another sales team and he recruited me back. You know, he saw something in me, I guess, that I didn't see in myself. And I felt like I owed it to him to do the work. And so really dug into training and learning, you know, the process. And what I found about myself is I'm not the best cold prospector. I'm actually really good face-to-face, right? And so every opportunity that I had, I needed to make count. And so what I learned was how to really do a solid discovery requirements gathering, and then frame a demo that would then position you as the right solution, that you've heard them, that you understand their needs, and then also would plant what I would call landmines for the competitor, knowing, knowing what their product could and couldn't do. And so that helped me, right? That was the first 3 years of my sales career. And then what also happened, like I told you, was I was having a lot of conversations and wasn't able to get them to make a buying decision or say no. They were just kind of sitting in my pipeline. And my second manager, who, you know, he was the proverbial, you know, male model, top performer, excellent natural salesperson, but not the best manager. And he was just dumbfounded. He's like, you know, you have a lot of stuff in your pipeline. You're just not getting it moving. So he challenged me with what seems like a crazy challenge, but he basically said, you need to piss off a person every day for the next 90 days, give them your card and have them call me or I'm going to fire you. And, you know, I was like, whoa, that's totally outside of my comfort zone. And, you know, I probably didn't do the best job of pissing someone off, but for 90 days, every day, that was something I had to do to kind of break that that cycle of niceness, if you will. And, you know, that was a big lesson for me in terms of, you know, having to break through some things. And so I used to, you know, just trick myself. Like, back in the day, you know, this, this was back in the '90s, right? So a couple decades ago. But, you know, you didn't have a smartphone, so you had to know what time it was to get to your appointment. And I would do things like not wear a watch for… I didn't wear a watch for a couple years so that it would force me to go talk to people and say, hey, Do you know what time it is? Great. Thank you. My name's Craig. And just get out of that comfort of not talking to people. So that's how I got in. And then 3 years into my job there, one of the guys on my team… actually, let me step back just a second. So I, so for that manager, I became one of the leaders on his team, started training some of the other salespeople on how to do an effective demo, et cetera. And, but then I found out that this was kind of a hamster wheel job. Like I was, a geographic territory rep. So it's like a small business rep. And I was just doing the work, doing the work, doing the work. And I wasn't really able to get into like an enterprise opportunity where they would buy multiple products or lease multiple products over time. And so one of the reps on my team went to a startup telecommunications company and I went there to save him. Basically, I said, you know, he's making a mistake. I don't know what he's doing. I'm going to go get Larry and bring him back. And I went over there. And ended up interviewing and realized that they would pay me a salary plus commission, you know, whereas in my previous job it was straight commission with a draw. And I thought, that's crazy, they're gonna actually pay me a salary and a commission? I'm gonna go. So I went, and that's how I got into the telecom space. And the lesson I learned was that your sales process is transferable to a new industry, your habits and disciplines are transferable. And I went from selling capital expense or to an operating expense, right? So going from a capital piece of equipment to a service, a telecom service, an internet service. And what I learned was for monthly recurring revenue type sales, a great measurement of quality of your salesperson is looking at their booked sales versus billed revenue and accounts receivable, because there were some reps that were selling bad deals and their booked sales numbers were huge, but then those contracts weren't billing out at the level committed to. And so I learned a good lesson there about, you know, being able to check the quality of sales in that role. So that's kind of the origin story of how I got into sales.

26:55 Scott Ingram: And why stay? I mean, so the intent was to do something entrepreneurial. You started into sales because that was an important step. How come you never left?

27:03 Craig Nishizaki: So I've had a couple of companies that I've started along the way, and I looked at, you know, I had a consulting firm. And then we got brought into a telecom interconnect company, a phone system dealer to run their business. We helped them grow. Then we were acquired by a large company out of Oklahoma. And I took on some leadership roles there. And what I realized was as a salesperson, you can really have that sense of entrepreneurship and building out a portfolio and owning your business. You know? And so I found that that was kind of satisfying, that idea of being an entrepreneur. And then in the role I'm in now, at this agency, you know, I'm on the exec team, there's an equity stake. So there's, you know, so in a roundabout way, I did become an entrepreneur by really owning my, owning my portfolio of customers.

27:55 Scott Ingram: Love it. Love it. So I'm really fascinated by this idea of kind of the way that you were challenged to break yourself of the, of the nice guy or, or the way the Challenger Sale sort of positions against the quote-unquote relationship salesperson. So I don't know if you would agree with that method, or if like, what would you suggest? Like somebody is, you know, I'm just too nice, I'm too into this relationship thing, I'm not able to get deals to move forward. I mean, exactly what you described at the beginning, right? The way that you were perceived. Like, how would you have them get out of their comfort zone and break through that and get to the place of a more challenger type of style?

28:35 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, I think it's, you have to be brutally honest about how you're using your time and who you're meeting with. And when you go back and look at your calendar and your meetings and you see the same people over and over and over, but you're not really getting, moving a deal forward, you're in the friend zone, right? You're, you're just not gonna make it, right? That relationship isn't gonna move to a commitment. You're stuck. And so the idea of learning how to swing the pendulum, You know, there's this idea that if a pendulum is stuck on the bottom, there's no movement. So if you can move it negative or move it positive, at least you get it to move and then a decision can happen after that. And so, you know, learning how to do that and oftentimes taking it to a negative and then moving it back is a positive way to get that conversation going. I've had a number of reps on my teams in the past. I've managed a number of sales organizations And you can just see where they're in their pipeline, they have the same deal and it's just stalled. And so from a management perspective, how you help with it is you force that unless there's a next decision or a next step scheduled, that deal falls out of your pipeline or it goes backwards. Because otherwise people sit on these fat pipelines and they're just not going anywhere. My boss at the time, you know, I really disliked him. For what he was doing at the time. But when I look back on it, I think that that was one of those, you know, he's trying to get my big boy pants on. And so sometimes you have to do that, have a little tough love. And one of my managers later in my career called it coaching up and coaching out, you know? So you're either going to coach someone up or coach them out into a different role. And sometimes salespeople have to move into a different role. Maybe they're in the wrong role at the company. Maybe they're at the wrong company. Maybe they're not selling the right type of product for their nature. Like I'm not a transactional salesperson. I'm more of a consultative solution salesperson. So I need to have something that's complex solution to sell versus, you know, a widget or a thing. But there's other people. I had a guy on my team last year that he was more of a kind of a SaaS sales guy. He was selling large ticket SaaS software. Solutions, but it was very transactional because he knew exactly what the script was, what the features and benefits were, etc. Whereas what we're doing is oftentimes bespoke, right? It's really trying to find a better way to solve the problem for that customer. And so, so just being in the right role, I think, is also a way to solve that.

31:05 Scott Ingram: Yeah, nice. So I mean, you've been in a lot of different roles, a lot of different situations. I think you've really obviously come to kind of understand yourself. If you were starting that whole process over again, is there anything that you would have done differently?

31:19 Craig Nishizaki: I think right now, you know, make sure that you find a company with a great training program in an industry that's in a growth industry or with a solution that's solving a real problem. Get a mentor or a coach right away, somebody that you can have be and be willing to be brutally honest or allow them to be brutally honest with you. And live modestly so you can build up your go-to-hell account. And what the go-to-hell account is, is it's, you know, 6 months to a year of money that you could live on so that if your company or if your manager does something that is counter to your values, you can tell them to go to hell. And what I mean by that… so one of my mentors told me to do that, and I thought that was so smart because otherwise Otherwise, your bills dictate your decisions, right? If you're… whereas, you know, back in the day they used to want you to get into debt. I don't know if you remember that back in the day, but oh yeah, sometimes managers would want you to get in debt. Go buy a boat, you just sold a big deal. Go buy a new car because they felt like that would motivate you. And for a lot of people, that kind of pressure would just crush you, right? You make bad decisions. And so one of my mentors told me to build up this go-to-hell account, and I remember When I was in telecom, my manager said to me, hey, what would you do if I fired you today? You know, I don't even know why he said it because I was one of the top folks on his team. And I said, you know what, I would pack up my stuff, I would shake your hand, and I would go work for the competitor and kick your ass. And he just looked at me like, I can't believe you just said that. I mean, so, you know, he never, he never moved forward with letting me go, but that's the mentality you have to have. To make it, right? Because your motives and their motives may be totally different.

33:02 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. So I love stories on the show, and, and you're obviously sort of a story-centric seller. What, what's your favorite sales story through all of these different adventures?

33:14 Craig Nishizaki: I was trying to think about this. They're not real big stories, they're kind of small stories. There was… when I was working in that first job selling copiers, there was a salesperson there named Arthur Nelson that He was a major accounts rep. He was consistently successful and always out of the office, but I saw him in the bullpen or in the, in the sales bullpen making calls one day. And I heard, I was listening in on him because I wanted to know what he was saying. And he was talking to the person and all of a sudden he stopped and then he dialed back and he said, hey, I don't know what happened, but my phone cut us off. I apologize. And then he just went back into it and kept going. And afterward I asked him, I said, you know, what happened? He goes, well, the guy hung up on me. I just called back. And I said, how do you do that? And he said, well, I believe that what we have to offer is so valuable to them, they would be foolish if I didn't at least have the conversation. And so it's that knowing who you are and what you're in and where you're going. And that was a great lesson. Right. Another one would be, I was working for a company called Zeta Technologies. I was the director of sales for their Nortel division. And I had a VP of sales that was very, very strong salesperson and very savvy. And we were going through one-on-ones around, you know, in our sales meeting, kind of talking about deals and forecasting and what's going to close. And I remember hearing myself say this, and I remember hearing a couple other people say this, say, hey, I hope to have this closed on, you know, next week, or I hope to have this done by this date. And he basically slams his hand down and says, hey, hope is not a business strategy. And I, I just latched onto that, like, get rid of that language from your vocabulary when you're talking about what's happening, what are next steps. Those are kind of 2 of the ones that I think really hit home and that stuck with me.

35:12 Scott Ingram: Yeah, good stuff. Now, from an accomplishment perspective, what are you most proud of?

35:18 Craig Nishizaki: I think, you know, it's interesting. I think at different phases of my career, there's different accomplishments that I've been really, really excited about, right? So early on, it was seeing my income level go up each year, which means, you know, that you're doing better, you're getting better at your craft. And then being promoted into a management role And then becoming a VP of Sales where I was running a regional VP of Sales where I was running the West Coast for a company. That was a, you know, kind of a vouch that, hey, you're, you're also a leader, not just an individual contributor. And those are 2 of those things. But then when I look back on it all, I think that at the end of the day, there's, there's a lot of folks that over time I've had the opportunity to help influence or encourage or train or model for that have made sales a career because they see a guy that's, you know, not the homecoming king or the quarterback of the team necessarily, wasn't, you know, the smartest kid at college, etc. You know, pretty average guy being able to make a good career, a great career out of selling by being willing to outwork other people, by being a little more savvy about how you do it, trying to work smart, but also putting in the effort and being a person of their word.

36:36 Scott Ingram: So great, great stuff. What about the flip side? What have you found to be the biggest challenge? Or maybe there was a time in your career that you've struggled the most?

36:45 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, I mean, I think there's been a couple of times where I've struggled the most, right? Early on, like I had mentioned about being too nice, too insecure, not a closer. And And, you know, I used to have this fear of closing. And what I realized after taking the training and the one thing that Sandler really helped me burn into my brain was you start closing at the first conversation, right? You're doing trial closes all the way along. You're basically making small agreements along the way. Then you don't come to the big question at the end. It's not a big deal because you've already had those little conversations. That was a big one for me. And that really helped me kind of get over the hump in terms of being able to close more deals. Another challenge would be in roles where at midsize and sometimes small companies where you're tasked with managing as well as selling and being able to do all that while you're helping your team. Right. And so that's always been a challenge. Where you may take on too much. And so I think for me, it's being more honest about what I can and can't get done, and then how I'm going to manage the folks and make sure that they're being successful. Because in my mind, as a manager or a leader, your job, your, your commitment is to your team to help them be successful, create an environment for them to flourish, break down walls internally, etc. But then you also have your own responsibilities. Responsibility and not getting so out of whack that your responsibility, your personal commitment, your quota doesn't get attained. And so that's a constant struggle. You know, at UpTop, I do both, and there's been times where I've done it well, and there's been times where I haven't, and I've had to own that and kind of get back onto the discipline of prospecting and those types of things.

38:39 Scott Ingram: So, well, and let's talk about that some more, right? Because I think there's, there's often this choice that we have in sales, whether we stay on the individual contributor path, or if we want to go into leadership, what do you think is the most important thing, especially for somebody that's, that's at that decision point? What's the most important thing for them to think about or to know sort of going into that type of opportunity or that type of choice?

39:03 Craig Nishizaki: I was coaching one of my friends of mine through that a couple of years ago. And so you look at, as an individual contributor, what's your income opportunity? What's the market opportunity? What's the runway? Like, how much longer do you think you could sustain that level of effort and that level of success? Then you look at what the company opportunity is. Is there more opportunity to grow in the direction you want to grow by becoming a leader or manager within your company and then in your career? And it's kind of leveling all those things also against what are my commitments? You know, do I have external commitments? Do I have a young family? Do I have… am I newly married? You know, what kind of travel is this gonna entail? You know, because I always, you know, ever since I was younger, I always said, you know, if you make a 6-figure income, the company kind of owns you, right? In a sense of either the company or the clients are gonna need you. You're important. If you're making, you know, less money, your role may be not as important. Important, but now you're contributing value to the business, value to your customers, et cetera. So you're going to be pulled in a lot of different directions. Do you want that as part of your life? And for me, I think I was, my ego wanted me to, and my ego and my, my want to be more influential as a leader really kind of drove me toward wanting to be a sales manager or VP of sales, et cetera, early on. But then what I realized also is the further up the chain you go, the further away from the customer conversations you get. So, and I really enjoy being face-to-face with the customer prospect and having the whole sales process and, you know, doing the proposal, presenting and getting the yes, right, or the no. And so it's kind of figuring out what things like that stir your cocoa and then being honest with yourself about where you want to go. Versus falling into a trap necessarily. Now, on the other side of it is, as you get older, trying to figure out, you know, is in my industry, in my space, is there a point in time where my age is going to play against me? You know, if you're just being honest, everyone's getting older, right? No one gets younger. Tomorrow you're a little bit older. And so how do I evolve, or how do I, how do I change who, who I am as a brand, as a personal brand and what I can bring to the table so that I can stay relevant and, you know, make sure that I'm in a role that's going to help myself and my company, my family, etc.

41:35 Scott Ingram: Man, a lot of good stuff in, in that one. I, you know, people know that I've, I've talked about this a lot. I talk about being my… myself, my choice has been to be what I call an intentional individual contributor, right? And for a lot of the you described, right? Because I love being very close to the customer, right? I want to be on the ground floor. I'll say this in jest slightly, but not all the way. I already have 2 children. I don't know that I need 6 more or whatever the number would be. And you don't have to have, you know, speaking to the ego thing, right? You don't have to have the title to be a leader, right? I consider myself to be somebody that leads from the field. You don't have to call me a VP or a chief anything for me to still have that same kind of impact. So I love kind of the perspective that you shared around that because I think too often and frequently we get subjected to this because we end up working for some of these folks. Too often you go down sort of the ego path or this is what I'm supposed to do without really thinking it through and thinking through the implications. And I think your experience is so relevant in this because you've seen and done it all. And, and it's not, it's not theoretical.

42:49 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, thank you.

42:50 Scott Ingram: Whereas I can't speak to the sales leadership thing because I haven't done that, nor do I really care to.

42:55 Craig Nishizaki: The last kind of big role I had at a national sales team, so I was managing people across 3 time zones. I was traveling probably 2 to 3 weeks a month. And, you know, when you travel, if you're kind of a workaholic type or someone that's kind of you know, overcommitted, you end up working, you know, 13, 14-hour days, eating poorly, you know, et cetera. And this was before I got… right before I got married and I realized, you know what, I want to buy a piece of my life back. And so I kind of intentionally stepped out of that type of role more into a smaller, smaller business where I could bring value and be an impact player and not have some of those external pressures. Yeah.

43:36 Scott Ingram: Great, great stuff. Okay. So let's get super granular on the other side of things. And I can tell that you're a very, you know, kind of process-structured kind of a guy. So walk us through just how you organize your day, starting with the alarm goes off. What time does that happen? And give us kind of the blow-by-blow.

43:53 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, so I have a young family. I have a wife and a 6-year-old daughter and a set of 3-year-old twins. And so we're busy, super busy. So my day typically starts 3 days a week. My alarm goes off at 5. I try and get out of the house before everyone wakes up and go to a yoga class from 6 to 7, then get in the office by 7:30. 2 days a week I stay at home, have breakfast with the kids, and then either myself or my wife walks our daughter to school, and then I head into the office. Typically first thing in the morning I'm clearing out my emails, all the junk. So if anyone's sending me prospecting emails overnight or before 7 AM, they're Typically going in the garbage. I don't read them. And then during my day, my workday, I try to schedule my week by Friday the previous week. And I leave some gaps because inevitably, you know, one of my sales folks or myself are going to set up some meetings that need to pop in. You know, the day is pretty much consumed with meetings, appointments, outreach, et cetera. And then I leave the office by about 4:30 to try to be home by 5:15. To have dinner with my family, bathe the kids, get them to sleep, and then get back online about 8:30 to 10. So I call it time shifting. And, you know, done this for long enough that our exec team and folks on our team know what I'm going to do. So if they send me something at 4 and they don't hear back till 8:30, they're not wondering if I'm out, you know, at a matinee or something. But also I'm real transparent with them. You know, where I'm at, what I'm doing. I'm on Slack letting them know, hey, I'm heading out because I want people to never question my integrity, right? Because when I walk in the office every day, I would look around and I, I wanna say, hey, that person's working on a project of mine. That person's working on a project of mine. That person's working on a project of mine. And I don't, I don't want them to feel like they're doing all the work and Craig's just reaping the benefits, right? So that's kind of how my day looks. Typically when I get in, I'm trying to read some industry news, some stuff to expand my domain knowledge. I'll listen to podcasts on the drive in, and then sometimes I'll just zone out on the way into… I'll listen to sports radio and stuff like that. But it's all about trying to set up the day to where I can be, you know, efficient, effective, productive.

46:13 Scott Ingram: And any podcasts that are relevant and worth mentioning? You mentioned CX Cake. Is there anything else?

46:19 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah. UX Cake. UX Cake.

46:20 Scott Ingram: That's right.

46:21 Craig Nishizaki: You know, that's the one I, what I find is if I have too many going on, then I just get distracted. So that's the only one I'm listening to right at the moment.

46:31 Scott Ingram: And then what about apps and tools and things like that? What's, what's core to the way that you function?

46:36 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah. So, you know, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, obviously Evernote, DocSend. I love using that when we're sharing proposals and presentations, because then I get a sense of what the person's… if they're actually looking at it and then what they're looking at. Trello, you know, one of the things that Chris Ortolano and I were working on was trying to get a BD toolkit put in place when I had hired some new folks. And we realized that I had all the stories, the capabilities overview, the case studies, all that stuff, all the objection handling, all that was in my brain. And so I set up a Trello board that basically is BB Top tracks, and each stack of cards is a different topic. And so on the mobile phone, a person could actually flip through those cards and have answers to different questions and case study information. And so, you know, that's one of the things I use Trello for. And then Keynote for presentations. There's some great animations and things like that. And, you know, being able to add visuals to your story are so powerful. And it's one of the reasons why if I can get somebody in one-on-one where I can screen share with them or show them our presentation, and they can actually see the work that we've done with motion and animation in it, our close rate goes way up.

47:53 Scott Ingram: And is that something that you have that skill yourself? Or is that you just have the benefit of you've got a great UX team behind you and you're able to pull those kinds of things together.

48:03 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, I mean, that's one of the great things about having a design team is I kind of tell them, hey, here's, here's what I'm trying to communicate, and then they think about it and they come back with something. And so we've built out the template, the framework for our capabilities overview, and I tell the story, but they really are the magic behind that.

48:20 Scott Ingram: That's awesome. Yeah, because that's, that's my weakness. Visual, visual stuff is not where, where I excel. So certainly have to, have to find some design resources and things like that to help me. I'm also curious about what was your process for sort of getting those stories and that stuff out of your head onto Trello and into that card deck and stuff?

48:40 Craig Nishizaki: No, it's kind of a therapy session. Chris would basically… he and I kind of put together the story framework, and then we would start talking about what was the situation, what's the problem that you guys are solving for. What did you run into? And things like that. And then Casey Jones from Better Growth, she was working with us as well on our messaging. And so kind of walking through that with her as well. And then I basically recorded myself recently, recorded myself giving a presentation using QuickTime kind of screen capture. And then we chopped that up into smaller bits for each case study. And we're putting that now into the Trello board so somebody can learn on the fly, you know, about, about each story. And you can do things like doing an audio recording and then just running it through Rev.com and getting the transcript, you know, to save some time versus manually taking the notes. So it's trying to figure out ways to hack it to get the actual verbiage, the content up there.

49:42 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Now it sounds like you're using that mostly as sort of an internal internal training, onboarding, enablement type of tool. Did you make any of it client-facing?

49:50 Craig Nishizaki: We didn't. It's mainly for the internal people to, you know, be able to have conversations, you know, basically almost… I don't want to call it a playbook because it's really just content, but it gives them the information that they need to be able to answer the questions and frame the questions with the customer or the prospect.

50:08 Scott Ingram: Got it. All right, let's switch gears into motivation. What is it that motivates you and how do you think about motivation in general?

50:15 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah. You know, when I was younger, money and nice cars and travel, like all those material things really motivated me, right? As to why I wanted… well, actually the first thing that motivated me when I got out of college and my first job was to move out of my parents' house. Right. And then after that, it was just money in general because I didn't have any, but really now it's providing a great life for my wife and my daughters. Being an example for my daughters as to, you know, dad works hard, he takes care of us, he's super busy, but he always has time for us. When he's with us, he's intentional. You know, that's one of the hardest things is putting your phone down because you'll be getting emails and there's always something to do. But at mealtimes, etc., it's making sure that the devices are away. And then, you know, for our company, Our CEO's been very gracious and I think generous in taking care of us as a company. And so I want to make sure that I'm bringing value to the company, to him, to my counterparts. And again, it's asking those 2 questions. Did I give my best effort today? And did I provide value to my clients, my company, my colleagues? And that's really my motivation. Right. And then, you know, for outside of that, secondarily, it's you know, making sure that I'm leaving some, some legacy, right? And if the legacy is, hey, they had to hire 2 people when you left, that's a good legacy. Or, you know, financially, if you're able to contribute to a cause, that's a good legacy. So those types of things, being successful in your, in your role as a salesperson is a means to the end.

51:49 Scott Ingram: Yeah, love it. So with, with your 2 closing questions of the day that you're asking yourself, are you… is that just a a mental exercise? Are you documenting any of that? What does that look like exactly?

52:00 Craig Nishizaki: You know, I'm not documenting it. I probably should, but it's when I'm walking out the door, you can do a gut check. You know, did I cash it in today or did I give my best effort? Right. And then did I provide value to my clients, my company, my colleagues? So is there anything that I left undone? Was I in a meeting where I didn't either provide some value or you know, move things forward? When I was speaking with my colleagues, was I positive, uplifting, encouraging? If we had a problem with a project, were we trying to solve a problem or cast blame? It's all those types of things that you can just quickly go through in your brain. And at the end of the day, it leaves you with an emotional feeling of success or failure, right? Success, or I could do better.

52:42 Scott Ingram: Well, and that's what I was going to ask, right? Is… so is that for you, does that tend to be sort of a congratulatory, celebratory conversation? Is it a coaching, a self-coaching conversation where you're thinking, you know what, I need to work on X and Y? Or is it, or is it a self-deprecating conversation where you're like, goddamn it, Craig, what? You didn't do this.

53:03 Craig Nishizaki: I think mostly it's a self-coaching conversation, but there are times where I've screwed up or I've not given my best effort, right? And you got to own that and you got to make sure you don't do it day after day or else 3, 6 months from now you're not going to be around. You know, when your pipeline's dried up and you're not able to be successful.

53:21 Scott Ingram: Very cool. So, Craig, I'd like to ask and just get some perspective. Is there something you believe that the average sales rep would think is crazy?

53:30 Craig Nishizaki: So relational selling doesn't work anymore. It may have a long time ago, but not in today's marketplace. If you haven't read Challenger Sale and if you haven't read The Challenger Customer, that's something that I would recommend. Reading because there's some great research on that topic. And, you know, there's… I can name people that have been on my sales teams or that I've been peers with that relationship selling was their approach. And if I look at them today, where they are in their careers today, you will see that they are not as successful as they could be. And I'm a relational person, you know, I want to build a relationship, but I do it in a consultative solution selling mode. And so you're building a relationship, but you're bringing value. It's not, you know, you're not bringing them to a baseball game. You're not just taking them out to dinner. And in fact, we were out at a new customer, a large enterprise customer, and we were meeting with our client and their internal IT group. And as we were going around and doing introductions, the head of the VP of the IT group said, so let me get this straight. You know, this person's the lead designer. This person's the project manager. And this guy here is the guy that I go to to go to get tickets to a game. And the fact that he looked at me that way and said that was offensive, but in the creative industry, right in the, if you think of marketing agencies, et cetera, that's what the role of that account director had been previously. And that's not how I view what we do and what I do. And so, you know, it's important for me to be able to change that perception. He's not the person that we sold to, and he doesn't know us at all, but he was just kind of characterizing that as that's what a salesperson does in this space.

55:20 Scott Ingram: Man, you answered most of the question I wanted to ask, right, which is sort of drawing this distinction, because I think it's dangerous, right? I think that relationships still matter, right? It's not like they're not out of the equation. And if you read… I mean, you really have to read the whole of Challenger. I think Challenger is really, really dangerous if you only read like the first quarter or the first third and you stop, right? You have to read the whole thing and understand that these things all come into play. But if I were to recharacterize what you said, and I would agree with this, is that it's the wine and dine style of relationship. If it's only about I'm just gonna try and make you feel good and there's no substance to that relationship and there's no value to that relationship, that is the wrong kind of relationship sales.

56:03 Craig Nishizaki: I agree. Cool.

56:05 Scott Ingram: Now, what about the flip side? What does the average sales rep believe that you think is crazy?

56:10 Craig Nishizaki: I think, you know, sometimes success can be your failure, right? So if you get into your role and you have some quick success right out the gate and it may have been a bluebird, it may have been just some circumstance allowed you to win a really big deal. You can read your own headlines, you could kind of believe that what you're doing is going to pay off, and what you'll find is it will in the short term, but then you'll see a big dip, and then the activity kind of goes back up again. And I think what the average salesperson may not believe is being consistent over time is going to help you create success. More so than having bursts of big effort. When I first got into the UX design industry, you know, my LinkedIn connections, I had about 700, but they were all in the IT side from a telecommunications and data networking perspective. So I really had to build a whole new network. And so I set a goal of, you know, making 2 new connections a day, pretty modest goal. And then also, you know, reaching out to folks and just doing the one-on-one. Just doing the activity. And at first it didn't seem like that was going to pay off because I wasn't seeing an uptick in opportunities. But within about 30, 60 days, conversations started sparking and then introductions to other people started sparking and all that. And what those early conversations allowed me to do was practice my pitch and practice my questioning, fail and stumble over my words, etc. And so, you know, I think sometimes with the nature of selling where everyone's provided a script and they know the playbook and all these things, or appointments are being set for you or whatever it is, just, you know, putting in the consistent work to learn and do is going to pay off in the long term.

57:58 Scott Ingram: That, man, that is, that is good stuff on, on a bunch of levels. I'm curious, do you still do that type of, of networking and relationship building?

58:07 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, the only… so what's changed for me is I don't do as many in-person evening networking events as I used to. You know, I used to be really involved in a lot of things up here in Seattle. And after we got married and after we had our first child, I cut back on that because, you know, for me, there's evening time is really important for me to spend with my family. So I, if I'm going to go to a networking thing, it's going to be a breakfast or a lunch or something during the day. Trying to be more involved virtually, whether it's, you know, jumping into a community on LinkedIn or through some other source, are the ways I would do that. And then having a balance of grabbing coffees and lunches with contacts that I have to network, you know, get referrals, networks, network and get introductions as part of my mix, but not my only activity, are kind of the things I do.

58:58 Scott Ingram: Got it. Yeah. So, I mean, I could go off on this forever, but I feel like that type of a process is so ineffective in the beginning, just because you have to do what I think of as like filtering, right? It takes a little while to find your people and the people that really connect and those that are in a position and not only a position, but willing to help and willing to make those introductions. And it gets easier as you get to that point that you just described after the 30, 60, 90-day point where you're getting introduced to other people and, and they're essentially doing the filtering for you. So I don't have to go have 4 bad meetings to have 1 good meeting. That introduction did that filtering for, for me. So I'm getting 1 good meeting almost every time.

59:44 Craig Nishizaki: Yep.

59:44 Scott Ingram: All right. That's my networking tangent for today. So let's dig into just, just some general advice. You know, you've been at this, had a lot of success, been consistent about your success, which is certainly one of the things that I look for in the folks that I interview, because exactly what you described, it's a lot easier to have one spectacular year. It's a lot harder to have great year after great year after great year and be consistent about it. So what advice would you give to somebody that's just starting out or in the early stages of their sales career listening to this today?

1:00:18 Craig Nishizaki: Again, I would say learn a methodology that you can… a sales method or process that you can learn so well that it just becomes part of who you are and how you function. Get a coach and a mentor right away. I would say again, learn as much as you can, be a sponge about your industry, your product, your solutions, your competitors, the problems that the types of prospects or customers, your ideal prospects are trying to solve for. And then look at industry research so that you have some knowledge that you can bring to the table. And I think the bigger thing too is I call it embrace the uncomfortable silence. Like when I'm in a, in a meeting, a lot of times I'm just asking a question and sitting there listening and not saying much, and then asking another thing that sparks a deeper conversation and then sitting there. And I remember on one of my first sales calls at my current current job, I was with our sales… or not one of my first ones, one of the first ones that our CEO went on with me. And he would just jump in because he didn't understand why I was being quiet. But if you're able to embrace that uncomfortable silence and allow that other person to talk, and then you spark it with another question that lets them go deeper, there's a tremendous amount of trust that starts being built in that conversation. At the end of the day, they may not know much more about your company than they did when they came, but you know a lot more about what they need than, than when you first sat down with them. And from there, you're able to kind of craft your message that really provides a lot of value and drives things forward. You know, that's the early part of it. And toward the end is when you're closing, right? And you're, you're saying, hey, what's… are you ready to make a decision today? Are you ready to move forward, etc.? And sitting there embracing that uncomfortable silence allows you to You know, kind of force the issue that they have to give you an answer, whether it's yes, no, maybe, or I'm not the person that can make that decision. But just those are the main tips I would give to someone that's getting into this industry today. I think the last one would be that, you know, people may, may criticize you, may gossip about you, et cetera, for the fact that you're getting into sales or whatever, you know, but sales is an honorable profession. You know, it's, it's a profession where that everyone, no matter what industry, they need to learn the skills, right? If you're in a, if you're in a dating relationship, you're a salesperson. If you're… because somebody's bought your, your bill of goods, right? If you're a doctor and you have good bedside manner and you're able to convey some diagnosis in a manner that gives someone some hope, or at least gives them a plan for what's next, he's kind of in a way selling you on this plan, right? And so look at it as one of the best professions that you could be in. And it's a skill that you would need if you wanted to own a company, if you want to be a leader, et cetera. So never waver in that if you're new and you're, you're wondering if you've made the right choice.

1:03:19 Scott Ingram: Great, great stuff. I want to come back to just one, one point though. So you, you talked about getting, getting a coach, getting a mentor. Early. Share some advice and perspective around finding the right coach and mentor and kind of going through that process, because it's easily said, most people don't do it, and they don't think about what's the best way to do it.

1:03:39 Craig Nishizaki: You know, you have some filters, right? Look at someone that's been doing what you're doing for 10 years. See how they live, and would you want them to be your coach? You know, how's their relationship with their spouse? How's their relationship with their kids? Are they the same person at work as they are outside of work? You know, would they have a motive for you to be successful or would there be an ulterior motive to that relationship? You know, are they knowledgeable and skilled in the method, the sales methodology that you want to become expert at? Have they sold the same type of services or products? To the same types of customers that you were going after. You know, at the base level, that would be my filters, right? And it's not you meet them one time or you ping them on LinkedIn and you say, hey, you're my mentor, you're my coach. It takes a while to build that relationship. And then you decide whether or not you want to have that relationship and they decide whether or not they want to have that relationship with you. It's bidirectional. And then you have to ask yourself, am I going to be willing to be vulnerable? And am I going to be willing to take their brutal, brutal honesty? And if all those things are, you know, yes, then, then you found the right coach.

1:04:54 Scott Ingram: Love that. Love that. Love that. And, you know, it's, it's one of the things that I'm trying so hard to create essentially that dynamic at the Sales Success Summit later this year. And, and I think first you get the benefit of My goal is, I don't know if we'll quite get to this level, but the goal is for 25% of the audience to be the folks like Craig who've been on this show, right? So the beauty of that is you've heard their story. Like, you've got a really good sense after these conversations take way too long, but I love it, right? You've got a really good sense of just who they are as human beings, not just the way that they sell, but the way that they're organizing their life. And I mean, you know that Craig cares about his family. You know where his priorities are at, like those types of things and wanting to create that environment. Because to be honest, it's hard, right, to find a good pool of people like this that are driven, that are in a position and willing to give back and help and do all of this kind of stuff. So certainly a dynamic that I'm working on. One of the things that we're doing to accelerate that process or seed that process is everybody that has registered for the summit so far. We've been doing a monthly call on Zoom the first Friday of every month just to allow everybody to start to get to know each other and start to foster those relationships and allow people to start to connect. So, if you haven't yet dug in and registered for… forget checking out. It's time to get in there and do it because we're going to sell out. Out here in the next couple of months, the Sales Success Summit. If you go to top1summit.com and go check that out, I think that you will thank me and I will thank you, and we're going to have a great time. And I haven't twisted Craig's arm yet, but with any luck, Craig will be there to join us as well. So, Craig, let's talk about the other end of that spectrum. We talked about the early career stuff. What about somebody who's more established in their career? They've, they've been doing okay. Maybe they've been doing well, but there is certainly another tier for them to achieve. What advice would you have for them?

1:06:58 Craig Nishizaki: You know, it's, is your heart still in it? Like, is this something that you really want to be doing? And if it is, what do you feel like is holding you back? Is it the company? Is it the product? Is it the industry? Is it who you're selling to? Is it the story, etc.? And then what are those things that you can control? Are all those things, if they're out of your control, then maybe you need to move into a different space, different industry, different company, etc. If any of them are within your control, then what are you going to do about it? Are you going to, you know, sit and wallow in it, or are you going to actually make a difference and try to solve the problem? And then that's the first thing. And then secondly, would you get brutally honest with how you're using your time? I had done an exercise a while back. I do it periodically. I haven't done it lately, but it's where you take your day and you break it down into 15-minute or 30-minute blocks, and you basically look at how you're spending your time all day. A lot of times people think that they're being productive when they're working on a proposal or they're talking about a deal or having a meeting about something, and so their actual selling time is really like an hour a day. You know, I think people, people's days have changed obviously because they're checking emails on their mobile devices and, and, you know, sometimes you direct message someone on Twitter or you hit them up through text or whatever. But the reality is how much of your day are you actually talking to a prospect or a client and being really honest with yourself of if you increase that by 15%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, what would your output or your outcomes look like? Right. And then the other, the last thing would be that whole coaching up or coaching out, you know, it's again, kind of being honest with yourself about, do I need to move into a different role, different company, different industry to spark greater success, to kind of light my fire? You know, those are the kinds of things I would, I would talk about if I was meeting with someone that Was in their career a little ways and they were struggling.

1:09:02 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And then what would you want to know about the top sellers in other organizations?

1:09:08 Craig Nishizaki: Yeah, I think I would love to know, you know, how do you break through the noise to reach your target prospects? You know, what are the things that you're doing? What methods are you using today that are effective and what methods are no longer working in terms of reaching prospects, communicating with them, working them through the sales process? Process, you know, and what tools and apps are you using?

1:09:29 Scott Ingram: Awesome. And what is that for you? I mean, how are you breaking through the noise for yourself?

1:09:34 Craig Nishizaki: You know, we're trying to work on more content, downloadable content, and webinars and live events that get us out in front of our target audience to be seen kind of as thought leaders without calling ourselves thought leaders. Article that I wrote, it's on LinkedIn and on Medium about how to be a UX design thought leader without being a complete a-hole. It's a little tongue-in-cheek, but it's true to our space in terms of people that call themselves thought leaders, but it's kind of really positioning ourselves with providing good content and all that. And then using that content to, as part of our email, part of our outreach to folks, or using events as a reason to call. Things like that, things that bring value are kind of how we're trying to cut through the noise and tools we're using. You know, actually I was using this great tool that it's not available anymore, but I was using a tool called JetBuzz recently to kind of do some LinkedIn outreach that was kind of revolved around an event that we were going to invite people to. And it allowed me to connect with a number of new folks and start conversations with them. So, you know, looking at it to try to find a tool to replace that from a LinkedIn automation and sequencing perspective, and then also looking at a replacement tool for email sequencing.

1:10:55 Scott Ingram: So got it. If you have tips for Craig, reach out. So Craig, this has been awesome. I think you've shared a ton of great advice and great wisdom, and I always try and boil this down as best we can. Can into something very actionable that the listener can take on and do over the course of the next, call it 1 to 2 weeks. What would you challenge them to do to improve themselves and improve their results?

1:11:20 Craig Nishizaki: If you don't have a sales methodology that you're following, I would recommend, you know, picking up a book and starting to read, whether it's SPIN, whether it's Challenger, whether it's value selling, whatever it is, and then try to identify a method that you're going to follow and be consistent with. I would also say over the next 7 days to 2 weeks, look at your schedule, your calendar, and see, you know, obviously how many appointments you're having, how many touches you're making, all those things. And then if there's any places in your calendar that are leaking time where your time could be better spent in a more, you know, there's a better use, highest, most valuable use of your time. And that's the second thing. And the third thing is really go back to your why. You know, why are you doing what you're doing? Do you know who you are, what you're in, and where you're going? And then get real committed to that because at the end of the day, you know, you are your brand. You are the one that's going to help you be successful or not. And then the product that you're selling is basically the means to the end to get to your goal.

1:12:26 Scott Ingram: Great stuff.

1:12:27 Scott Ingram: 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.