88: Amy Quick - "Super Human" Social Seller at IntelliMagic

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. This episode is sponsored by the 2020 Sales Success Summit that will happen here in Austin on October 12th and 13th. For complete details, click over to top1summit.com. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Amy Quick. Amy is the top business development executive at IntelliMagic in North Texas. Welcome to the show, Amy.

0:44 Amy Quick: It's nice to be here. Thanks for having me on.

0:46 Scott Ingram: I'm so excited for this, especially because this all started with Amy and I connecting on LinkedIn, and I was watching you really just, just crush it from an engagement perspective. You were driving so much good conversation and engagement in what you were doing. I reached out, we had a conversation. I said, we've got to talk about what you're doing. And what's more interesting isn't just that the surface level of what you're doing is so powerful. You then told me, well, in January, I created $10 million in net new pipeline just from LinkedIn. So I can't wait to dig into that and really focus on what you're doing from a LinkedIn perspective. But before we do that, let's start like we always do and talk about the top 3 things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales?

1:36 Amy Quick: All right, let's do this. Well, the first thing is persistence. I mean, for me, that's a big one. I'm a military brat, so I've lived here, there, and everywhere, and I spent a lot of time having to adapt and, and overcome just living in different places, in different houses, on different bases. But the thing that I really loved the most, kind of growing up in the UK where there was not a lot to do, was riding horses and ponies. And I like to joke that they were like little hell ponies because they were just horrible. Most of the ponies, I mean, they just misbehaved constantly. They would bite, kick, take off with me. They refused jumps. You'd ask them to turn left, they'd turn right. I had one pony that would roll with you in the saddle. So if you were standing around kind of waiting for your turn to do something, she would literally just lay down and roll with you on her. But I loved it. I just was fascinated with everything to do with horses and ponies. And every week I would show up no matter how hard the ride was the week before. I rode all the hardest ponies. I had friends that would actually buy ponies to show, and then they couldn't ride them because they were just awful ponies. And I would end up riding them. At shows, I would oftentimes get pulled off the pony I was supposed to ride and get put on the trouble ponies. So I did this. Throughout my riding career. I mean, it transcended into showing and professional career on the horse side of things. But I think that general attitude of just persisting when things are difficult makes all the difference in the business world, especially in the world of sales, because you get told no a lot. You experience a lot of rejection. And for me, that rejection is kind of par for the course. You have to learn how to just push that aside and keep going and even learn from it. Because some of that rejection was well-deserved. You should have been rejected. You did a horrible job with prep or whatever it was. And I think also persistence comes through in the form of how you do your job and what level you do it at. And for me, that meant when I started a job anywhere, whether it was on the customer service side of things or on the sales side of things, I wanted to learn everything there was to know about the organization I worked for, the people in it, the products, the internal processes, the computer systems, the customers. I mean, every layer of it, because the more I understood how the entire machine worked, the easier it was to do my job. I could kind of connect all the dots a lot easier. I knew what department to turn to for problem resolution, you know, for this particular issue. And I was able to kind of persist when things were really difficult, especially with like difficult customers. I would take all those calls and I really had to dig deep a lot of times, you know, as an inexperienced team member, you know, taking a difficult customer call because I was that stubborn person that couldn't say no. But yeah, that really has been a driving force for me to just keep my head down and persevere. Throughout my career. So persistence is number one for me. Number 2 is really just communication. I feel like growing up, I had one of the best role models when it came to communication because my mom was just brilliant, a brilliant talker. She had this lovely, or has this lovely British accent, and people were drawn to it. They wanted to hear her talk, but then the things that she would talk about were always very interesting. She was always very good with engaging people in conversation, asking questions, guiding them into talking and opening up more and laughing. And I would watch these, you know, people just fascinated with talking to my mom. And I loved it. I felt kind of a little self-important actually, as her daughter, this, you know, proud woman that was carrying on these wonderful conversations. And she used to get a little irritated with me, I think, because I'd interject. I'd try to interject and pretend to be an adult. But what I learned from that was the ability to communicate in a way that was clear and concise and poised and professional and fun and eloquent. And when you communicate in that way, people listen. And then another lesson she taught me was how to communicate, especially on like kind of the executive levels. She worked with a lot of base commanders and officers that were showing up to the base and needed to be in-processed and whatnot when she was in the civil service. She would tell me stories about how the other ladies would get really nervous talking to the base commander. And my mom wouldn't, she just wouldn't let it faze her. She would tell herself, they're just people. It's just a title. They're no more important than I am. And that would help her to maintain her poise during those conversations. And so, I used that in my career as well. And as a result, I would get pulled into a lot of boardroom meetings that were really way over my head from a strategic standpoint. But I think I was kind of the color commentary a lot of times. I was that girl that could just talk to anyone. I could engage with anyone. Didn't matter if I'd known them for a day or I'd never met them before. We were long-lost friends. I just liked to communicate. So, very quickly when I started working, I figured out that it was important to communicate appropriately, depending on who it was you were communicating to. And you could kind of modify your communication methods to fit the seriousness of the occasion, but also interdepartment communication was huge. I would talk to everyone, everyone and anyone in every department under the sun. And I valued those conversations. So, because of that, If there was a problem that I needed resolved for a customer, like on, you know, I was doing strategic-level sales, I needed an answer for my customer immediately. I knew that I could turn to a person in the department and communicate clearly what I needed and it would get done. And a lot of times I would get bumped to the top of the list of priorities and I hadn't asked for that. And I think that comes down to the fact that I was constantly communicating with everyone, whether it was in a friendly way or professional way. So, communication to me is huge. And then, the last thing I would say for me is relationships. That's probably, you know, out of persistence and communication, relationships is the one I'm most fond of. I would say that communication feeds into relationships in a large part, but relationships and developing sincere connections with people is a big, big deal. I still have friends from companies that I haven't worked at in 15 years. I mean, we're still connected. I know if I saw them tomorrow, we would pick right back up where we left off. They know that, you know, I would be someone that would show up to their funeral. I have that kind of a relationship with people that I've established over the years through just meaningful relationships. And I feel like a lot of times I'm that person that people will turn to when they need something, when they need help, when they need support, and that is a monumental achievement in many ways, just completely removed from the business side of things, that I can be that person for people. And that only comes through establishing a strong relationship. My best friend and I are both former, you know, she's still a Navy wife. I'm a former Navy wife. And we ended up on opposite sides of the country. And we maintained a relationship where sometimes we would only talk a couple of times a year, but every time we would just pick right back up where we left off and I like to think that that is the case with a lot of the relationships I've made across many different avenues in life, whether it's with other Navy wives, with church friends and family, or my former coworkers, former classmates. But in business, relationships are just as important. It doesn't matter if you've just met a person or you are in a kind of continual working relationship with them, they know when you actually care. They know when you're actually listening to them, when you're showing true emotion and empathy for their situation, when you're genuinely talking to them, you're not trying to push something on them or sell something to them or force something on them. And that's the way I operate in my day-to-day role in sales. I don't have conversations with people I'm trying to sell to. I have conversations with people I'm trying to develop a relationship with. And as a result, they talk to me honestly. They open up about things they wouldn't tell someone else that calls them out of the blue. And a prime example of that is like yesterday, I had a call with a guy I'd never met before, never spoken to him once in my life. We'd set up a 15-minute little discovery call at the end of the day, jumped on a call with him. And my initial reaction was just act like you've known this guy your whole life, you're best friends. And just see what is he curious about? What is he interested in? What does he do? And 30 minutes later, the call started out, hey, I have a meeting immediately following this, you know, kind of a rush, rush. Let me just put that out there immediately and put that wall up, right? That tells you I have a limited amount of time to talk to you. And 30 minutes later, I had 3 pages of notes full of information that this guy shared with me. And I maybe asked 5 questions over the course of the entire 30-minute phone call. It was mostly him talking. And so very quickly I was able to establish a rapport and a relationship with him that said, hey, let's just talk. Like, I'm a friend. Tell me what I can do for you. What do you need? I made him feel that I was interested and curious about his role at that company. And I was, I mean, I can't do my job properly if I'm not curious. And it was great. And by the end of a 30-minute call, we had firm next steps for next week. He's going to meet the team, you know, we're doing a demo. And this wasn't an opportunity or anything that was really on our horizon. So it kind of came out of the blue. And I think all of that came through the fact that I was able to very quickly establish a relationship and a connection with him. So relationship, I think, is the essence of what we do in sales. So those would be my 3.

12:27 Scott Ingram: That's so good. It's all starting to make sense for me as far as like the relationship we've had. We've known each other for, I don't know, a month. And I feel like we've known each other a long time. We've had one other conversation. We probably talked for 45 minutes. And, you know, I think for you it's a two-way street, right? I mean, there was like, cut the garbage. We don't need to do the surface level stuff. Like, let's go deep and really dig into what's going on, what's working. And I think part of it is your openness and you're just your own transparency, which I think is a little part of the secret of what you're doing on LinkedIn as well, right?

12:58 Amy Quick: I think that's the case. And what's funny about our conversation is I was sick as a dog walking through Walmart having this conversation with you. I think I was trying to pick out Valentine's cards for my kids, and I was so excited to talk to you because I thought, gosh, maybe he can help me understand what it is I'm doing on LinkedIn that seems to be resonating with people. And you're right, I'd had several conversations with people in the weeks leading up to our call where they were asking me, hey, what are you doing? You know, what are you doing that's causing such high levels of engagement? And I really didn't have an answer for them. And I think that's because for me, I wasn't thinking about it. It wasn't kind of a necessarily an intentional thing. It was more of just a natural response on my part because I'm a relational kind of person that strives for connection. So, It was a little bit of a mystery to me there for a while, what was driving the whole thing.

13:55 Scott Ingram: Yeah. Well, I think it's becoming more clear. And part of the reason we connected on that call and the reason for my reaching out was, as I've been studying LinkedIn myself, right? It's, it's a game that I'm trying to improve personally. And if you're a fan of this show, you've probably figured out that my MO is I like to learn from the people that are doing it the best. Thus the people that I interview here. And, and from a LinkedIn perspective, I'm actually pulling together what started as, oh, maybe I'll do a webinar with one other person that's doing it well, turned into, no, let me go one better than that and pull together the best insights from 20 or 25 people who are all doing it well. And, and when I say doing it well, the way that I'm specifically looking at it is they're getting high levels of engagement. I don't care if you have 30,000, 40,000 connections and you can't get a like on your post to save your life, right? I'm looking for the folks that are driving real meaningful conversations and doing what you're doing where again, it's not the vanity metrics. Like they're a good indicator if you're able to sort of drive that type of community and conversation. It's a whole different thing when you're driving real meaningful business from it. So, right, let me say right here before I forget, I'm working towards a webinar on April 2nd that will be called Finding Sales Success on LinkedIn. And for now, until that webinar happens, if you go to top1.fm/linkedinsalesstars, all one big messy word, that will have a link to get registered for that webinar. After the webinar, there will be a bunch of stuff on that page, including the recording of the webinar. But we're building this big PDF, probably an ebook as well. There's a lot of stuff that's coming together around this. But again, for me, this conversation was, that's all well and good. Let's figure out how to do LinkedIn well. But the ultimate doing LinkedIn well is I'm driving business because of this. So we're almost there. Let's contextualize this just a little bit more though, and talk about your role, who's IntelliMagic, what is it that you're selling in sort of your day-to-day sales role?

16:07 Amy Quick: Right. So IntelliMagic, we've been around for about close to 20 years now. And really what it is, it's operations analytics. So it's performance monitoring for IT infrastructure, specifically like the z/OS mainframe and also the distributed and SAN networks. And so what we do as a company, I mean, it goes back to, you know, 15 years ago where we actually created a product called DiskMagic that IBM uses. So, IBM is technically one of our customers at IntelliMagic. They have licenses for a few of our different product lines. And then, we kind of went from there and established the company that they actually redesigned the software and made it far deeper and just extremely, extremely granular type of data that it can analyze and show, you know, root cause for service degradation. It can tell you problems that are going to occur before the end customer is even feeling the pain of it. So, there's some of that machine learning, statistical machine learning going on there as well. It's able to predict things and help big, big data centers just be more proactive with their performance monitoring. You know, when alarm bells are going off, it's already too late. That's our ethos as a company. You know, one of the interesting things about it is, you know, IBM's a customer, but they're also a competitor. You know, Broadcom is a competitor. Really, every major storage vendor is a competitor because they have their own, a lot of times, in-the-box storage, you know, performance monitoring. I like to say we're a little fish in a very, very big pond. We're a very nice fish. We're one of the premium types of fish, but we are still swimming in a very, very big pond that's highly competitive. And, you know, our competitors like IBM, they have a sales rep on the ground in every major city and every single one of our target customers' ears at any point in time. I mean, they're taking them out for lunch. They're talking, you know, machine learning and showing them all the bright, shiny new tools. And here I am in a desk in Southlake, Texas, trying to prospect and engage business with all of my targets in North America and South America. That's a huge geography to cover. And that's a big ask. So, for me, one of the things I kept kind of driving home in my role is the fact that it's physically impossible for me to be everywhere at once. I can't be on the ground in all of these major cities competing against the IBMs. I have to figure out a way to make myself stand out as a sales rep, kind of grow my own persona and my own visibility. And by default, I'm growing visibility for IntelliMagic as a whole. So, I mean, one of the funny things is I believe my personal Facebook page has more followers than our business LinkedIn. So, what I'm doing there is I'm saying, okay, I'm just going to be myself on LinkedIn. I'm going to show who I am as a person, who I am as a sales rep, how I operate in that space. At the same time, I'm going to promote you know, IntelliMagic events and content. And my goal is to get in front of, or at least become exposed to the decision-makers that I ultimately need in some of these deals, far deeper in the deal cycle that I need the buy-in from. The guys that are not going to answer a call for someone they don't know, the men and women that are in the roles signing the checks and having conversations with people that they know and trust, vendors that they know and trust. So, I really had to strategize about how to grow Amy Quick. So, when they're seeing that name or hearing that name, either through emails or through outreach efforts that I'm initiating on my end, or from down the line within the organization, yeah, we're working with Amy Quick on this deal. And, you know, They're going to be more responsive. That's my ultimate goal is maybe to create a little bit of almost like a celebrity, you know, oh yeah, I've heard of her. And that's the key to social selling in a nutshell. It's not about the vanity metrics like you talked about. That's all rah-rah. What it is is about getting you to the point where you have elevated your name and your brand and your company's brand by default. Fault that people that are important, that are going to be signing these checks and taking your calls, and you're going to be working with much deeper in a deal are actually responding to you. And that's what I've seen a big uptick on in the last couple months of me being more active on LinkedIn. And it's really impressed me. It's impressed my bosses who I can walk in their office and say, hey, So-and-so just connected with me on LinkedIn. They just responded to my message. We have a meeting set next week after 6 months of failed prospecting attempts. I mean, that's incredible. If that doesn't prove that social selling is an important element and important component to, you know, your regular traditional sales methods, then I don't know what else is. So that's kind of where I'm at with things. It's been very interesting and I really am fascinated by this topic. So, I'm looking forward to digging in more.

21:31 Scott Ingram: Yeah, we're going to be tearing it apart here for the next couple of months as we work towards that webinar and pulling together these assets. And before we talk about the specifics of Amy's results, let me tell you just a bit more about the Sales Success Summit. This is our 3rd annual event built for this Sales Success Community that's happening here in Austin on October 12th and 13th. And this event is different from every other sales conference out there because it exclusively features the top-performing sales professionals you've heard here on this podcast. And my rule for guests on this show is they have to be active, quota-carrying individual contributors who are either the outright number one top seller in their organization, like Amy, or at least in the top 1% of performers on a very large team. You won't find any gurus or quote-unquote sales experts on the stage at this event, only real practitioners. It's an intimate experience with a max of just under 200 participants where we all get an opportunity to learn from each other. I could go on and on, but the details are available for you at top1summit.com. And the sooner you register, the better your price as tickets increase $50 per month until they're sold out. Again, all the details are at top1summit.com. And Amy and I talked a little bit before this about, hey, I want you to come down. There's a really high likelihood I'm probably going to want you to be on stage. And then Amy said, well, what about my husband? Turns out, Amy, your husband probably meets the criteria and may be somebody that I have to talk to on the podcast in the future. Tell me about that.

23:05 Amy Quick: Yeah, so my husband is super jealous. I'll start with that. No, so my husband is a Navy veteran. He's a former submarine nuclear mechanic, and he had 11 years in the Navy. And then as he was transitioning out of the Navy, he went through a program that takes active duty military and very new veterans and trains them on the, on tech, high tech, and also sales, which are 2 areas where they don't really get a lot of exposure in the military. But the funny thing about military guys is they have just extremely large amounts of grit. I mean, they are very, very determined. They're usually highly organized. They're very good communicators. So there's a lot of things just a lot of inherent qualities, leadership qualities that they have coming out of the military that make them great in the world of sales. They just don't know how to sell a lot of times. So he actually got picked up by TechQualled and he went through like a 1-month crash course on the high-tech industry and how to sell. And then they actually do interviews and find these guys jobs in the like big tech organizations, kind of like entry-level sales positions and sometimes more like, you know, straight into like account executive roles, depending on their background. So, my husband has been working for Check Point for about 2 and a half years now. And he's just absolutely crushed it. This last year, he was the net new logo for the entire company for North America. And he's just recently promoted up into the territory manager position where he's actually handling some strategic accounts now. He's loving it. He's having a ball, but he's just annihilating his quota. I mean, he's doing phenomenal. And he doesn't have a very big LinkedIn presence. I mean, this is true traditional sales hustle. He is dropping off donuts at like 5 different places a week. He's probably in 3 or 4 meetings a day. He's just really driving hard. So yeah, he's definitely someone that I would say is a top performer in his company. And we've had some interesting conversations. Lately because I think we're very competitive and we're not usually very competitive, you know, in regards to each other, but now our paths are crossing. So, the dynamic has been very interesting. We've had a lot of fun conversations about, oh, oh, that deal. Okay. Yeah. Well, I guess I'm going to have to step it up in my job now. So, I'd love for you to talk to him as well. And I know he said he'd love to come to the summit and at least attend, if not to speak himself, but, you know, I digress. That's up to you.

25:42 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. That's fantastic. Well, it seems like he's been living with and learning from a pretty good role model the last few years too.

25:48 Amy Quick: Well, and what's funny about that is I have more sales experience. And I mean, it's just going back 10, 11 years, but he has blown me away with how natural it has all been for him. And he's the type of guy, he's a lot like me. He could talk to anyone. So again, going back to communication, and he's a really, really good active listener. So, that ability to sit back and kind of just get the lay of the land, listen to everyone, and then engage and know exactly what questions to kind of ask, you know, to move the deal forward. And something else he does that was really interesting, we were actually talking about it the other night. He was talking about how, and this sounds a little egotistical, but it's not. His customers don't guide the sale or guide the deal. He does. So, he really puts processes in place to make it very easy for them to see the light at the end of the tunnel, for them to see how this whole process with him is going to work. And because they're able to see that, oh, okay, this is how we get from point A to point B, it makes that entire sales cycle so much easier on them because they can lean on their sales rep to do a lot of the heavy lifting. And they have faith that he's going to get them through that deal and ultimately get them the product that they need. So, it's been really interesting to see that. And I've learned from him as much as he's learned from me. I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'll swallow my pride. So, yeah, we have an interesting marriage.

27:22 Scott Ingram: Man, that's amazing. And what's funny is just coming off of this last interview that I did with, with David and Ehrin Weiss, and it's having great support systems, right? It's having your significant other supporting your efforts, it's having good leadership and good management, you know, helping you succeed. I really think that that is such a core part of the top performers. It's really hard. You're not going to be the number one sales rep when you're struggling in your marriage, right? That's not a thing. You can't do both of those things, I don't think, in your head at the same time. And same thing if you don't have a really good, productive working relationship with your leadership and with the other peers on your team. Speaking of team, Someday we're actually going to talk about your results, but you and I had a fascinating conversation about like the word team in sales in most cases is total garbage. It's just a collection of individuals, right? At the end of the day, we're all kind of competing with each other. I mean, sure, the manager has that group's number, but very rarely, in only a couple of instances, have I seen really strong cultures where there truly is kind of this team dynamic, and we're trying to find ways to win together. But your dynamic at IntelliMagic, like, really is a team environment. You want to talk about that?

28:38 Amy Quick: Yeah, I love it. I was kind of skeptical coming in because I am a competitive sort of person, and I've never been in a sales role where it's been team motivated. So we carry a team-based quota that we just split between all of us, and it has been phenomenal. I work harder than I think I've ever worked before. And the reason behind it is because I'm not just working for myself, I'm working for my team. And if I don't work hard every day and don't put in the effort, then I'm letting them down. So it has changed the psychology of how I present myself in my day-to-day job. I feel a lot higher level of accountability, even though I don't have a quota that is just my burden and my burden alone. And because we're a team, we work very cohesively with each other. So we split up deals and it's not competitive at all. It really doesn't matter if James has 5 deals and I have 3. There's no animosity there. There's no tension. It's just everyone working for the benefit of everyone. And it's, you know, kind of like socialism in a way, but in this situation, it actually is working out because It's made us more cohesive. And that goes for the management too. I mean, the trickle-down effect is there because they are also a part of the team and they influence us. So, if I need help, you know, digging in and strategizing on a deal, I can turn to my VP and I can turn to my managing director. Brian is my VP and Brent is my managing director. And I can say, hey, look, I need a little help. Strategizing on this deal. I'm not quite sure where to take it. I'm not quite sure what player I should really be focusing on. And, you know, and they'll actually take the time to strategize with me. Whereas I think at a lot of sales organizations, you have a VP overseeing multiple people with their individual quotas. Some of them are just balling and blowing out their quotas and doing phenomenal. And some people are struggling. And I think that a lot of times, We tend to focus on the struggle, right? How to fix the struggle. And I think, you know, if this guy over here is performing and doing phenomenal, great. But this person over here is struggling a little bit. And I think that's where we break down. And in a team environment, I don't feel that anyone ever really struggles because we're all there to kind of lift them up, to pick up the slack. If, you know, at one point in time, my coworker James was in the middle of a life move, you know, he was picking up And moving to California from Texas. It was in the middle of our year. I think it was like October. And there was going to be a couple of weeks where he was moving across the country and there was no blip on the radar, no bump in the road. We all just kind of picked up the slack, helped him, you know, through that. I was there to do whatever administration tasks he needed kind of done when his focus was a little bit elsewhere, right? I mean, that's a major life change. And then as soon as he got back and got settled in, it was like nothing had happened. You know, it was just everything just kept moving forward. So I really love it. And I think as a team, we can celebrate our success in a far deeper way because we did it together. So yeah, I'm a huge fan of like the team-based quota I think work-life balance, stress, all of that is improved just astronomically when you have a group of people working for the common good.

32:14 Scott Ingram: The other thing that's just fascinating to me, and it again kind of dovetails with the conversation that I had with David Weiss in Houston, he was challenging me. He's a big fan of, I think it's Marcus Buckingham that did all of the StrengthsFinder type of work, right? And kind of leveraging your strengths. We were talking about this idea of taking this body of knowledge now that, shoot, this will be my 88th interview or something like that, that is top sales performers and creating almost a learning path and sort of peeling this back because there's a whole variety of different styles, right? Some folks take a more extroverted approach. Others are much more thoughtful and introspective and introverted in the way that they go about things, more process-oriented, things like that. And what I asked him was, okay, well, in that scenario, are we focused more on helping people sort of build up the gaps, or is it really just doubling and tripling down on the strengths? And again, he brought back kind of the Marcus Buckingham research. He's like, if you shore up somebody's weak areas, you might see a 15%, 20%, 30% lift. If you help them really, really leverage their strengths, you can see a 4 to 6x improvement. So, I don't know about you, like, I'm all about 500% more than I am about 20%. And this idea, if you're in that team scenario, then you can start thinking about what are we each great at? Can we just focus on those things and, like, almost bring on role players, right? Like, we need a kicker, right?

33:45 Amy Quick: Right.

33:45 Scott Ingram: But, like, I can't kick to save my life, but there's somebody out there who's a great kicker. So I think you can really build a team in that way. And I'm actually thinking just in some stories that David was telling off the record about some dynamics within his own team, and he just saw like, this person has this wicked strength over here, but, you know, they're not creating enough opportunity over there. Like, okay, well, why don't we have like a great opportunity creator? And I'm not talking about like the SDR concept. And I mean, this whole topic, I'm gonna have to shut myself off here in a second because I'm gonna get on a giant soapbox. But I mean, the fact that like the SDR is this more junior thing and somebody just starting out, it's like, wait a minute, how powerful would it be to have somebody that is really an expert and has been in this industry for a while that has the relationships and has that deep knowledge? Wouldn't they be amazing at opening the door if we compensated them right? For it?

34:42 Amy Quick: Yes, absolutely.

34:45 Scott Ingram: I think there's this opportunity to really do this, right, to create these team dynamics. I'll let you speak to that for just a minute, and then I swear to God, we're actually going to talk about your results.

34:55 Amy Quick: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, I mean, this is a conversation that's near and dear to my heart. The StrengthsFinder… Brian Howard, my VP, before I got the job, he was like, hey, take the StrengthsFinder assessment. And I got the results back, and I was blown away, blown away by how accurate it was. And what was really interesting to me is within those strengths, you also see the weakness that, you know, is a result of some of these extremes in your strength ability. You know, like responsibility is one of my strengths, but within that, that means that, well, you know, I can go off the deep end a little bit. I can stress and maybe be a little codependent and worry that, you know, I haven't gotten a task completed and that affects other areas of my life, you know. So, I think that it's very, very dynamic, that leaning on someone's strengths. And so, what Brian has done is every one of us has had a strengths assessment. We all have our strengths framed on our desks so that we can see, you know, who's got what strength. And what I found fascinating is that they are focusing on our strengths. So, James, he's my account executive, He is a little bit more introverted than I am. He's got different strengths than I do, and he uses his strengths in a way that helps him do his job effectively. My strengths are completely different. Like, I'm looking at them now. I'm an Achiever, Learner, Responsibility, Arranger, and Woo. Those are my top strengths. And all of those I employ in my role to get the greatest benefit. I mean, That's how, as an organization, they're focused is what can you do well? Let's let that person do that really well. And we will see a tremendous benefit from it. And yes, we can work on some other areas. Like for me, organization, you know, I have an ADHD brain. I go in a million different directions sometimes. So working on organizing and kind of Scheduling some time for deep focus is important to me, but if I just focused on organizing my life, because that's where I'm weaker, I would lose time spent on all of these other valuable components of my personality and me as a person. And, you know, woo. I mean, for a sales rep, that's a phenomenal attribute to have. Let them loose on the world, you know, let them talk to whoever the heck they want to. So, as a team, using something that is highly motivating and positive as your base for how you're going to encourage that person to work has been mind-blowing. I mean, it's like, I feel sometimes like I'm in the Twilight Zone where I work, because I've worked in places that were completely polar opposite, where they would focus on the weaknesses, they would drill down into what you're doing wrong, and you would feel this kind of constant source of tension and not being good enough. And where I'm at now, it's like, hey, it's okay if you fail. You're human. We'll pick you up. We'll keep going. And also, you're awesome. And that's the main vibe you get day in and day out where I work. And it's been incredible. And I would encourage any organization to kind of look and lean in that direction because from an employee perspective, When I go to work and feel like I'm respected and they care about me and they're treating me with integrity, I'm going to work so much harder for them.

38:23 Scott Ingram: This is so good. So I think this is actually maybe part of the roadmap. I may go back to a lot of the folks that I've interviewed, ask them if they've either done StrengthsFinder or to do it if they haven't, and maybe we even make it a core component of the summit. I just pulled mine up. I did mine about a year and a half ago. Mine are Maximizer, Futuristic, Activator, Strategic, Relator. In the show notes on Amy's page, if you've done this, if you want to add your own to the comments, I think that would be fascinating. And you can get there if you go to top1.fm/amy-quick. That will have all of the notes and resources. We'll have a link to the StrengthsFinder test. I haven't looked at it in, in a while. It's probably $30. I mean, it's like a laughable amount of money to be able to go and get this understanding about, to your point, Amy, not just your top strengths, but also like, what are those weak points that you maybe want to just, you know, skirt around those and avoid those situations a little bit? Okay. I promised results. And so thank God you checked the box because we had this amazing conversation. You're killing it on LinkedIn. I'm like, Amy, please, please, please tell me you're number one. So talk about what your results have been in Telemagic, both from kind of a sales results perspective, but also just some of the results that you're now seeing on LinkedIn, maybe add just a little bit more color and quantification to what you've been able to do there as well.

39:43 Amy Quick: Sure. Yeah. Well, I'll start with the fact that I haven't been at IntelliMagic for even a year at this point. I mean, March will be one year. And when I started, my main job was to be kind of a slash between an SDR, a BDR, and an account executive in a way. My goal there was to help get stalled deals moving, was to kind of dig into those opportunities and develop relationships and figure out what we needed to do in order to get a deal done. Because we knew there was pain there. You know, there was a lot of preexisting conditions that existed that we could really come in and help that organization as a whole. So, that was really cool for me. I got to really dig into deals from a very early stage. But then, another proponent of that was just, again, exposing me and kind of getting my name out there so that I would get responses. And I did have a lot of success in the last year. In 2019, we increased the overall pipeline activity and the number of opportunities and just active contacts and by 140% over 2018. I mean, that's huge. That's a 140% increase in pipeline activity from one year to the next. So that was a big deal. We actually went over quota on our team. So we finished at 179.6% of quota. So we went 80% over quota, which was a great accomplishment. So I was really excited. To support the team there and just to see that come to fruition. And then what I noticed is over the course of the year, and especially as I started utilizing LinkedIn more and more and more, I was doing these sequences where I would, you know, call and then email and call and email. And it was maybe a couple touches a month. I didn't want to overwhelm a lot of these accounts. You know, it's a lot of times in the world I operate in, there's only 5 or 6 contacts at a company that I really need to kind of get engaged with. So, I didn't want to overwhelm them, but I was trying to come up with creative ways to get them just to respond to me. And the more human I was, the more funny I was, the more kind of disarming in ways I was, the higher response I would get. So, I would do all sorts of things like disruptive prospecting. I would drop off cookies and I would send, you know, funny packages. I mailed like a 1977 replica Pontiac Firebird, the Smokey and the Bandit one, to one of my managers at one of my major accounts, because I found a Facebook picture where he, he had the car. And so I found the replica car and I sent it to him with a little care package for Christmas. And so I've done things like that to really kind of just get some attention, shake the bushes, so to speak. But that in and of itself wasn't enough. So I started really using LinkedIn more. And what I noticed was like over the last 6 months, there were a handful of accounts where I could track and see that they were opening my emails. They were clicking on links, but they were not responding. And I thought, hmm, okay, they're looking at my email, but they're choosing not to respond. And I really had to ask myself why, why are they not responding? What possible reason could there be? Is it because they're busy? I mean, that's, the most likely, you know, result. And/or did they maybe already procure a different solution? Or, you know, are they not experiencing enough pain to justify having a conversation? So I really forced myself to kind of start breaking apart from the inside, the internal motivations for why they're not responding. And then as a result of that, I started to adjust how I was communicating some of my email messages to them and some of my phone calls and voicemails that I was leaving. And then step 3 on that was I'm going to connect with them on LinkedIn. So, I connected with several contacts a few months back. And of course, like a lot of contacts, you know, they were just sitting there pending. They hadn't accepted the connections. And I started sending some fun emails. Like I sent a Dilbert comic strip to one guy and lo and behold, he responded. And I was like, wow, a Dilbert comic strip. That's what did it. Okay. But he said, you know, I do want to talk. I'm really sorry I haven't responded before now. Let's shoot for a conversation in Q1, in January. And I was like, yes. All right, good. This is something, this is progress. And then I noticed about a month later, he finally accepted my connection request on LinkedIn. And you can see, you know, when they viewed your profile and you can see when you have Sales Nav, you can see the time they spend on profile. And that was really interesting because he spent like 10 minutes on my profile. And I knew that he must be looking at my content. I mean, either that, or he just opened it up on the screen and just stared at my picture for 5 minutes. So, I thought, okay, well, he's familiarizing himself with who I am as an individual. And I'm like, at first I got a little scared because I thought, oh my goodness, like I'm talking about sales advice and giving sales tips. And, you know, strategizing about deals. And here, this, my perspective, you know, my prospect is reading this, but as it turns out, I think it enabled a much deeper level of respect for who I was as a person. And so, as a result, I ended up on a 13-minute phone call with this guy, moving him to next steps, which include a strategic onsite. And this is a deal that no one really thought would go anywhere this year. It's a big chunk of change. And same thing happened with another deal. My connection request got accepted. I noticed that he was actually looking at my content. I think he'd even liked a couple of my posts. And I mean, they were sales advice posts, you know, and this is a customer liking them, or at least viewing them. I can see, you know, at what company people are viewing my content. So, It was very impressive that I could take that back to my bosses and say, look, this is kind of what finally pushed them over and got them to commit to a conversation. And once you get them in a conversation, they kind of feel like they know you a little bit already. And so, when I talked with them, I was like talking to a long-lost friend. And the conversations were very casual and easy and probably about 25% technical and 75% Relational and fun, and do you like barbecue? You know it was more relationship than it was super sleazy, you know sales tactics. So LinkedIn for me is that humanizing factor. It's getting me to showcase my personality ahead of time so that the relationship is a little bit warmer by default, and that's kind of where I've seen the most success. Success is the fact that these people I've been emailing and calling now for just shy of a year, and they're showing up on my LinkedIn. They're not engaging, but they're watching. They're kind of like those silent watchers people talk about. And then, when I'm having conversations with them, they're far easier. And by default, I can move them forward to next steps in a much more genuine and easy kind of natural manner. I mean, even going as far as to say, well, I think it makes sense that the next step is this. And they just kind of agree and go along with it because you've… that rapport is there. So, I guess that's my encouragement to people when, you know, they're looking at LinkedIn and how they can utilize it from a strategic standpoint to socially sell and progress deals, which is ultimately the goal is use it in the way that you want to, to grow your kind of your personal brand. Keep it professional, but don't hide or mask who you are as a person and have some fun with it if you want to. I mean, that people like fun people. So, but then keep an eye on who's viewing your profile. Are your target companies viewing your profile? Are your connections that you actually need to talk to accepting your connection requests? And if so, are they viewing your profile? Are they viewing your, your content? Are they engaging in any way? And using messaging at that point, I use the voice messenger a lot. I leave lots of voice messages. That seems to be working. I've had about an 80% response from prospects on voice messages. A lot of times it's just kind of shocking. They're not expecting it. So they respond. So yeah, I really In 2 months, I can say that almost every single one of the deals that I'm working with currently, I am connected with them on LinkedIn. They have viewed my profile, engaged with content, talked with me on the platform. I've even set next steps and meetings through Messenger because they're not responding to emails because they probably have 250 emails unread. So it's working as a platform for social selling.

48:49 Scott Ingram: And my perspective, and I think part of what you're doing is Pardon the pun here, but you are superhuman, meaning like you are just so real yourself, right? It's not all super buttoned up all the time, right? You're posting about your ponies and all the things that you're doing like in real life. And there's also something about, and I think it's a lot about who you are and you're just communicating it well, coming back to your, your top points is there's something about what you're doing that you are insanely approachable.

49:22 Amy Quick: Yeah, I agree with that. And sometimes that's a thorn in my side.

49:26 Scott Ingram: I can imagine.

49:28 Amy Quick: But because of the type of person I am, and this is something that I would encourage other people too, it makes me curious and interested in other people. I don't really care what people have to say about me. I honestly don't. The opinions are, you know, they're nice and But what I care about is just getting to know other people. I mean, there's so many interesting people on LinkedIn. And so for me, the more genuine I am, the better, because I mean, people talk to me about stuff that I don't think they're talking to other people on LinkedIn about. I have trolls that all they do is post negative comments on other people's stuff, and yet they'll talk to me about real life, what they do for fun, you know, and I interacted with them. And so. I agree with you. I think that it's not something that I've like set. It's not like my mission in life is to be super relatable, but that seems to be the case. And I want that for more people. I want more people to feel like they can genuinely connect with other people because I think that that's been missing in our lives. We're highly digitalized. Everything is online and social media and Twitter and Facebook and all of that. They kind of allow you to remain separated, whereas I think LinkedIn is really pushing people to actually literally connect. I mean, I've… François Bourdeau, he's partnering with me on the 5 on Friday initiative that we're doing, which is literally peer-to-peer mentoring, giving advice to other sales reps that need help with cold call scripts and demos. And I never met him, never had a conversation with him before. When he reached out to me and said, hey, look, like, I would really love to do this with you. What do you think? And I thought, okay, stranger, person I've never met. And now we're like besties, you know? So it's been fun. I've enjoyed it.

51:25 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. So one thing I wanted to come back to is you said that you changed your approach to the calls and the emails that you were sending. I have an idea what that might have been, but talk about that just a little bit more as well.

51:38 Amy Quick: Well, I think that people oftentimes lean on talking about their product and their solution. And the minute someone starts reading an email about a product or solution, it just delete. And so, I started looking at the psychology behind emails and all of that. And Josh Braun is a great one to follow for stuff like that. He's really kind of broken down the whole psychology behind emails and how they're read and interpreted. So I started modifying and like coming up with really fun subject lines that were really not obvious, but not, you know, sleazy. And I also started changing my first intro lines. So my intros were much more personal. I mean, I would talk about conversations that we had the last time we spoke, or I would just kind of joke or tease or kind of throw out some sort of like witty one-liner instead of getting just straight to brass tacks. And then with the one email that my decision maker actually responded to, which was the Dilbert comic, the Dilbert comic was a comic strip about, you know, Dilbert's manager saying essentially that it's not all about the customers, it's all about the sales and the numbers, right? It's a numbers game. And Dilbert saying, but shouldn't it be about the customer? So, what I did was I popped that in there and I said, you know, most organizations are just worried about what they can gain. And then, here's the Dilbert comic. And then, my line is, but I care about what objectives are important to you. And that was it. And then, the next line was an invitation to talk. And that was the email in a nutshell. I didn't talk about technical jargon. I didn't include a bunch of links. I wasn't pushing the product. And that's what he responded to. And that was huge for me because I realized that, yes, technical content education is important. They need to know what we do and why it's relevant to their job and their responsibility, but they also want to talk to a person. And those are the emails that people have been responding to when I'm just personal. I'm not asking, I'm not pushing our product and the technical side of it overly. And I'm also talking about higher-level business. Initiatives. So, if I know that they're in a cost-cutting mode or there's a focus in one kind of area of the business that's a priority for them as an organization, I'll talk about that as opposed to, and our solution can do X, Y, and Z. I'll say, hey, this is a problem for other sites too. You know, we're hearing this from our current customers that this is a pain for them and this is how we're working with them to solve it. Does it make sense for us to talk and find out if this is an objective for you guys moving forward. And those sorts of emails and just changing the language of them in a way that it makes sense that they respond to it has made all the difference in the world.

54:39 Scott Ingram: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So, I don't think it's ever taken me an hour to get to somebody's origin story.

54:45 Amy Quick: Sorry.

54:46 Scott Ingram: No, this is way too much fun. This is totally fun. How did you get in sales in the first place?

54:51 Amy Quick: So, it was a long story, but I'll give you the short version. I don't have a college education. I went straight into the workforce out of high school. Matter of fact, I worked at the credit union while I was in high school that I ended up working at immediately following my graduation. And so, I was very quickly kind of enveloped in the world of customer service. And when you're at a credit union, specifically in a bank, you know, you're always up So there was that component of it, upselling them to a money market account or whatever it would, you know, whatever it was. So I got to see that from a young age and I got to experience the kind of the fun of like, oh, let's see if I can get them to open a money market account today. But it was sales on a very mini level. And so I ended up in customer service. That's where I really cut my teeth. I loved customer service. It was all about, you know, solving problems, helping people, being someone's best friend. And I did components of customer service that were both like internal focused. So it was focused on working with our internal customers. So like our branches and, you know, sales reps, helping them track products and, you know, get price quotes and stuff like that. And then also external customer service that was customer facing. So I did all of that. And I loved it. But, you know, the one thing that really fascinated me was working with these sales reps because I would help them a lot of times with their customer problems. And I really loved their personalities. A lot of them were really rambunctious and funny and sarcastic and sometimes kind of rude. And I found that a challenge, like, oh, these guys are really hung up on themselves. You know, like they think awful highly of themselves. And it really kind of was, I don't know, very interesting to me. I ended up getting into sales because I had helped a showroom manager with some of her customer service issues. And she actually approached my boss and said, hey, we're going to be posting a showroom consultant position in sales, and I really want Amy to apply. Would you support her if she's interested? Would you support her in transitioning over to a sales role within the organization? And lo and behold, my manager pulled me in the room and she said, look, I think this would be great for your career. I think that you would be phenomenal in sales. And I wouldn't say that to just anyone. And I hate to lose you because you're my best worker, but I think this is the right move for your career. And I was really blown away that my manager would support me in that. And knowing that now she's losing her lead, you know, customer service rep, and she's going to have to fill my shoes. And that's how I got started in sales was basically getting recruited and encouraged to do it. So, having that sort of a start where someone believed in me before I'd even done the job was highly motivating and encouraging to me. And it enabled me to really jump in and just give it my all. And I loved it. And the same thing happened. When I moved on from… I worked with Ferguson Enterprises and that's where I started in sales. And then I left and went to CMA CGM. And when I started with CGM or CMA CGM, I started in a customer service role again. And just like at Ferguson, I advanced very quickly. I went from customer service to cross-training in multiple different departments. I was asked to be on all these different task forces. I had managers asking for me by name. They would email me and say, hey, we've got a job posting. Can you apply? And the sales department, that was where my interest really was. I really wanted to get back into sales. And I remember the manager saying, hey, Amy, we're going to be posting a position. Do you think you'd be interested in applying? And I said, well, hey, I'd love to, but the minimum requirement for this position is a bachelor's degree and I don't have one. And so I can't even apply. I'm not qualified. So, that position posted and someone got it and, you know, time went on. And next thing you know, I get a call from the supervisor of the sales team again. And she says, look, we're going to be posting another position next month and I want you to apply. And I said, well, I'd love to, but we've been down this road. I'm not qualified. And she said, you are qualified now. And I didn't really know what she meant at the time. She just said, if we put this position out there, I need you to apply. Immediately. About a week later, I got called into the office by HR. They said, listen, here's the situation. There's been a request that we change the minimum requirements for these inside sales roles to show bachelor's degree or relevant work experience. So, we've adjusted our policy and you are able to apply based on your experience. Are you planning to apply? And I said, well, absolutely. So, I applied for the sales job and got it. And wouldn't you know, about a month later, the requirements changed and they went back to the minimum requirement of a bachelor's degree. So they literally changed their requirements for one position so that I could apply and get on the team. And I was blown away. Like, if that didn't give me an ego, I don't know what else would, but I was like, wow. And I think that's when I really knew. That maybe I was good at this if other people believed in me. So I might as well believe in myself. And, and that was it for me. After that, I was like, sales and sales for life.

1:00:20 Scott Ingram: That's fantastic. And I always like to ask, you know, from 2 perspectives, right? Knowing what you know now, right? Having worked at a variety of different roles in a variety of different companies, if you could go back and do it all over again, and maybe I want to think about it a little bit differently. If you today were 20 years old, 22 years old, and were embarking on this career adventure, knowing what you know now, knowing the current environment, what would you do? How would you approach the beginning of your career?

1:00:49 Amy Quick: Well, I would say that I would have gone to college to get my degree because I think that would have made my life easier. But I feel like because I dug in and was working when a lot of my friends were in school, I mean, getting a 4-year degree, partying, living up life, going thousands of dollars into debt. And I was working. Sometimes I was working 3 jobs because I was teaching riding lessons and training horses on the side, as well as working my professional day job. And then occasionally I would cocktail waitress at night to earn a little extra money because horses are expensive and that's an expensive side habit. So, you know, I get asked that a lot, like, would you have gotten a degree? And I think for myself, I would have wanted to have said, yeah, I have a college degree. That's probably one thing I would change, but it's more just for my own… I love learning. I love education. I was very, very good in school. I've gone back to college and I've started working towards getting a degree. I made the president's list both semesters. I had a 4.0 GPA. I mean, I got like 113 in one of my classes. My college professor was like, this is ridiculous. Like, no one gets 113 in my class. And so for me, that's one thing that I would, would have done differently is I would have gone to school and gotten my degree. But again, I kind of go both ways on that. I wanted a degree so I could say that I did it, but I don't think it necessarily would have benefited me as much as me going straight into the workforce and really cutting my teeth, doing the work day in and day out and the hustle of it. Again, that persistence thing. I had to work hard. I had to work my way up from, you know, the bottom to the top, so to speak. I'm not at the top yet, but, you know, shooting for the stars. So, that's something I would have done different. And, you know, I think, I don't know that there's anything else I would really change. I think that I've gotten a lot of unique, varied experience. I've worked in strategic sales. I've done the SDR stuff. I've done inside sales. I worked in African sales line when I was at CMA. I mean, it was like a foreign sales desk where everything was coming in in gibberish. And I was like, oh, great. You guys want me to manage this? Okay. So, every single one of these roles that I've had has taught me something that's just invaluable. And so I wouldn't really change anything there as far as like my career.

1:03:23 Scott Ingram: Yeah. What's been like the highlight? What are you most proud of through your entire sales career?

1:03:29 Amy Quick: I think I'm most proud of the fact that I took a 7-year break between my initial career in sales and my current career. I took a break to be a mom. I had 3 kids. I was a Navy wife. So I traveled and moved all over, you know, the East Coast with my husband. And that was really tough. I was not the type of stay-at-home mom. I was very, not dissatisfied with it because I love my kids and I loved being home with them and giving them that, you know, mom there all the time. And, but there's a little bit of unease with that, the lack of sense of direction. So I found that in those 7 years, I would often fill my time with volunteering. You know, I would volunteer at the church and all these different groups and, and 4-H, and I would volunteer with different veterans organizations. And I always had to do something. And I feel like that 7 years, when I came back into the world of sales and I was interviewing for jobs, I was getting a lot of Well, you're, you're only qualified for like an SDR role. And at first, I was mildly insulted. I was like, no, I've done strategic-level sales. You know, I've worked multimillion-dollar deals before. I am not going to be an SDR. I had to overcome my own sense of pride and like, I've earned this, and accepting the fact that, you know, I did take a break. I took a 7-year break, and maybe it makes sense for me to go back and start from scratch and work my way up. And if that's what I have to do, that's what I'm going to do. And so, I dug in and said, all right, I'll take an SDR role and took the SDR role. And within, I guess, about 4 months, I'd promoted to Director of Sales and was actually doing, you know, full-on deals and closing deals. And so, that was very humbling for me. And I was really proud of myself that I was able to kind of take that on the chin and say, You know, yeah, it sucks that I'm being penalized because I took time off to be a mom and to be a Navy wife, but I get it. And I do know that there is a certain sense of, okay, the world has changed. I need to dig in and relearn and practice and hone my skills again. And I did that. And I very quickly moved forward in that role into a much, you know, more advanced position in sales. So I was really proud of that. I was really proud that I was able to come back and just say, all right, you know, let's do this. Let's roll up our sleeves and get the job done.

1:06:06 Scott Ingram: Well, and I think your history sort of shows like if you get into the right organization, you do your thing and you know, people are going to see what you're doing and what you're capable of, right? Very few people, I think, spend 4 months in the SDR role before they get promoted, right? It's really just, okay, let me find the right place. Let me just do what I do, people are going to see this and I'll be able to move into the correct position. Is that fair?

1:06:31 Amy Quick: Yeah, I mean, to put it mildly, in every single job I've ever had, I promoted to the next level in less than a year. So when I was at Ferguson, I was in what was called distribution center customer service. In less than a year, I got promoted to the lead of the entire team, and I think it was like a team of maybe 15 of us, and there were senior people that really should have been promoted into that lead role just because of seniority. And they weren't. I was promoted above them. And that happened often. I mean, it happened when I moved over to CMA. I promoted up very, very quickly in less than a year, usually in every role I've been in. I promoted to strategic sales really quickly. I was actually in inside sales for maybe like 3 or 4 months. And then they had one of their strategic girls that was going to be going out on maternity leave. And they said, well, Amy, you're going to train with her for a few weeks. She's going to teach you, you know, the ins and outs of her accounts. And then you're going to do her accounts for, you know, 6 weeks. And I'm like, okay. But I just said, okay, let's do it. And I managed her accounts for 6 weeks and somehow didn't completely destroy them. So, as a result of that, and As soon as they had an opening on the strategic team, I mean, I just slid right into it. So, I think fear is not something I struggle with, and maybe some people do. And that's a component of, okay, let it go and trust that if someone else thinks that you're capable of doing this, you're probably capable of doing it. So, just try, give it a shot. And at best, especially if someone else is encouraging you to do it, I mean, if you end up doing it and it's really not the right fit for you, then it wasn't your choice to begin with, in some ways. I think that IntelliMagic, I was very intimidated starting this job. Brian and Brent, my managers, know this. The technology was very, very complicated. And they told me, look, it's going to take you months just to learn the acronyms and the verbiage and how to even communicate what we do. And understand the technology in a way that's meaningful enough that you can go and sell it. And I was like, challenge accepted, you know? And when I had my review with Brian a few months back, it was really funny. I was sitting there, he was just all positive. He was such a good reviewer. I was like, you're the best, Brian. But at the end of it, he marked down that in 6 months or 7 months on the job, I was operating at the level of someone that had been with the company for 2+ years. And that to me was really like, wow, okay. And he said, like, you learn the technology, you talk about it in a way that makes you seem like you've been in this industry forever. I mean, people, you know, they trust what you say. You do really understand the nature of the industry. And all of that, I think, came down to the fact that You know, when you work somewhere, if you want to advance, you have to earn it. You gotta dig in and do the work that it takes to establish relationships, connection, and again, persist in learning, and that'll get you where you need to go. So yeah, it's been interesting, interesting that I seem to advance quickly, but I don't know, sometimes I think that's a good thing and sometimes maybe it's a bad thing, like jump in the deep end.

1:09:58 Scott Ingram: So, we talked about the highlight. What's the lowlight, or what's been the biggest challenge through the course of your career?

1:10:03 Amy Quick: You know, it comes back to that education example. So, I felt like I was often at a disadvantage because I didn't have a degree. I felt like a lot of times in conversations with people, you know, especially when I was talking about taking other jobs and other roles, I was always intimidated by the fact that I didn't have a degree. And it did psychologically affect me in ways. I probably didn't try for positions that I was qualified for because of that. But I have a friend who has a master's degree. She's phenomenal. And I remember that I got promoted into sales and about 6 months later, she wanted to try to promote into sales as well. And even with a master's degree, she didn't get the job. Like she applied like 3 or 4 times and did not get accepted for the role. And for me, it was kind of an eye-opening moment. And I talked with her about this and I said, you know, what do you think it is? You know, and do you think you're nervous during the interviews? You know, can we role-play and work through this? And she said, you know, I think that you have to have the personality for it. And she said, and maybe I just don't have the personality for it. And she said, and all the degrees in the world don't qualify me for the role if I'm not qualified. And I was like, wow, that was very startling to me because I thought, gosh, you have a master's degree. You're qualified to do anything. You know, I was in my early 20s at this point. And I saw that as like this token of just, oh my gosh, like that's the pinnacle, you know, outside of a doctorate. Like if you have a master's in something, you're a master, but Psychologically, for me, I really had to learn that, you know, having a degree, while that would be an exceptional accomplishment for me to say I have that, it wasn't hindering me in my career, really. Realistically, doors that I needed to open were opening whether I had a degree or not. So that was the biggest challenge for me, was not being hard on myself that I didn't get that. It wasn't a choice. I wanted to go to college, just life kind of got in the way of that when I was in high school. And, and it is what it is. But maybe one day I'll go, I'll go back and finish my degree. I've got some credits to finish up, and then we'll see.

1:12:22 Scott Ingram: Yeah, it's an interesting topic, right? Because particularly in sales, does it really matter, right? I think at some level, I mean, as you're moving into the workforce, the degree just sort of shows like, can you be persistent? Like, can you work through something over the course of, of a number of years, right? But at a certain point, Having the conversations, learning business, actually being in sales, a few years of that, you know, after that entry-level point, I don't know that it makes any difference at all. I don't know that there's anything that I learned from my degree that I apply on a daily basis. I mean, I did mine as kind of an afterthought, honestly. I mean, I started my first company when I was 20 years old and, you know, went back and, you know, worked on my degree as kind of an afterthought, mostly because I just wanted to check the box. To your point, it was helpful to have had that box checked because when I went into my first, you know, quote unquote real sales role with ADP, I wouldn't have been qualified had I not gone through that effort. So it did help it at some level. But again, I feel like that was a $30,000 bill I paid so that I can check a box on an application.

1:13:26 Amy Quick: Yeah. And, you know, we were talking about my husband earlier, same thing with him. I mean, he's got like I don't know, like 160 college credits or some absurd number of credits, no degree. And he's brilliant. I mean, he's a brilliant man and it's kind of, we laugh about it sometimes because we're like, gosh, like you could have gotten 2 degrees and he doesn't, he doesn't have the actual piece of paper. And I think at one point in time it bothered him, but now he's gotten to the point where he's like, I mean, do I need it? You know, honestly. How is it going to change anything? I'm already functioning at the level of, you know, that I need to be functioning at. And a piece of paper and a degree isn't going to do it for me. And I think for me, it was more, I'm just such a nerd. You know, I love school and I love learning. And all of my professors, when I was in New York, when I went back to school and started, you know, working towards getting my degree, they all wrote like just glowing letters of recommendation for me. I was probably like, teacher's pet in every single one of my college courses. So I love school. I love learning. And I think that's probably what, if I was to go and finish my degree, that is the only reason I would do it is because I'm curious and I actually love doing college courses for some strange reason. But yeah, I agree. And I know a lot of sales reps that are phenomenal sales reps. And they have a basic high school education and they're amazing. I mean, you can sit and talk with them all day long and never run out of things to say. And I think that right there is the key in determining your success in life. If you're able to just put on a hat and wear it and own it. And so, yeah, I completely agree. I think, you know, there's, there's wisdom to be gleaned from going to school and getting a degree and I wouldn't knock it, but I definitely don't think it's a prerequisite for success, at least not in the sales world.

1:15:25 Scott Ingram: Well, and I think you hit on the most important thing, right, is this fact that you love to learn. And I would much rather work with somebody, and I would bet on somebody's success if they see learning as a lifelong process and they just need more, right? They seek it out versus, I got my college degree, I checked that box, now I'm done learning. Like, forget that. Like, that's… there's zero value in that. It's, it's continuing to go with this. Amy, why don't we do this? Because I know it's Saturday morning. We have got kids stuff that we both need to get to. Why don't we talk about just kind of the routines part, the routines and habits piece of this, and then we'll wrap up. And if you're open to it, I'd love to have you back on at some point. We'll kind of continue the conversation, but talk us through your day in the life. If there is such a thing as a typical day and the way that I'd like to do this is the alarm goes off. Tell me what time that happens, and I literally want the blow-by-blow until your head hits the pillow. Okay.

1:16:22 Amy Quick: This is an entire podcast in and of itself because there's so many variables. No. So, I wake up at 5:45 AM every morning, get the kids up with my husband. We usually tag team that. He's not a morning person, so I usually kind of own that a little bit more. Get the kids to the bus stop. I usually hang out with the kids at the bus stop. For 10 minutes. We'll do all sorts of goofy things. We'll film videos and we'll talk about the day. And, you know, usually there's some bickering going on. And then I actually commute 2 hours a day. I drive an hour to work. So my mornings are usually filled with either listening to podcasts or books on Audible or just jamming out to some music. And I get to work, settle in. I'm usually the first one there on the sales team, and I usually start the day with just general admin. I just look at my calendar, see what I have, kind of wrap my mind around the flow of the day. And then I actually do something called time blocking where I block off every hour of my day. So there should be something that I'm accomplishing every single hour. And I have to do that because I have ADHD. And if I didn't do that, I would be just ping, ping, ping, ping everywhere. And then usually the first thing I do is If I'm going to post something for LinkedIn, that I do it first thing in the morning. And I will admit that I have a list of content and ideas and things that I want to post, but a lot of times it is like, hmm, what do I want to say today? And it's usually very relevant and based on something that has happened to me in the last day or so. So most everything that you're seeing that I'm posting on LinkedIn is relevant to the day a lot of times. And then, yeah, my day-to-day is just filled with either deal strategy. It could be, you know, technical demos that we're working through, and then also basic SDR functions. I mean, I make a lot of calls, I send emails, I'm constantly working on disruptive prospecting activities and coming up with a plan of actions for different events, trade shows, and webinars, and driving attendance to those. And so, my days are very varied in, you know, the different tasks that I accomplish. Every day is a little bit different. And I'm usually heading home by like about 4:00 PM to try to avoid Dallas-Fort Worth traffic. I know you've lived in Austin, you've probably experienced some of the same stuff occasionally. It's a mess. And I'm usually home in the evenings and, you know, from there it's sports and supper and horses and just life from there. And that's about my day-to-day. I usually end up working a little bit more in the evenings. Once the kids go to bed, I usually hop on and do some sort of work, whether it's on Five on Friday or, you know, LinkedIn stuff or work.

1:19:04 Scott Ingram: So when you do the time blocking, how many blocks is a typical day? Give us a little bit deeper sense of what those tend to look like.

1:19:11 Amy Quick: Yeah. So basically I start blocking at 8:00 AM and I usually block by either the hour or the half hour depending on the task. So my first hour block is admin, and I use that on current opportunities because that's where the highest level of focus needs to be, and I want to spend the most amount of time there. And so if that rolls over into the next hour, I'm okay with that because that's the essential activities that I need to get accomplished for the day. So I usually do current opportunities and kind of prioritize it by that, and then I block off usually hour chunks of time. 1 hour is just for prospecting calls. So it could be for calling on next steps, could be for calling for webinar follow-ups or trade show follow-ups or inviting people to trade shows. But I block off an hour of my time and I set it to busy so no one else can block that time. And I protect my prospecting time. And I do that 1 hour at least for calls, 1 hour for email prospecting. And that's because a lot of times you're tweaking templates. And subject lines and, you know, coming up with relevant content and updating links. And, you know, so there's time that goes into that. So everything I do is by hour chunks. And then I will also throw in like little half-hour chunks, like, you know, my LinkedIn posts or respond to LinkedIn messages or share an article on LinkedIn or whatever that may be. And I'll give myself, you know, a 15 or 30-minute window of time to do that. And I slide those in throughout the day as well. So every hour, including my lunchtime, I block off my lunch and just flag that as personal. But my whole calendar is full with either hour or half hour or 15-minute increments from 8:00 AM in the morning until 4:00 PM in the afternoon. Yeah. And I do that every day and there's some things that reoccur. So like my LinkedIn posts reoccur every day. And I have other tasks like my calling blocks and my emailing blocks that I just set to reoccur every day. And then that way I don't have to go in every day and just, you know, manually update my schedule. It's kind of one of those things that just makes it a little bit more efficient. And I know every day I'm going to have this time and this time to do these administrative or prospecting functions.

1:21:21 Scott Ingram: Perfect. And then you mentioned podcasts and Audible. So what are you typically listening to on the drive?

1:21:28 Amy Quick: Oh my goodness. So I made the mistake of posting about all the different podcasts that people are listening to. And I was really overwhelmed. There's like a ton of podcasts, but the last few podcasts I've listened to were Morgan J. Ingram's podcast, um, his SDR Chronicles. I listened to that because he invited me on and I did a podcast with him. And then also the Lunch Break podcast with James Bawden. I've been listening to that. Your podcast, I've listened to one episode. I won't lie, I've gotten one episode down. And then on Audible, I have been relistening to Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. This will be my second time going through that. I love that one. Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount. Really, any Jeb Blount is great to listen to because that… I think that he is far more focused and intentional in his process. So I like to listen to that. And then I also have about 5 books, like physical books, that I need to finish reading. But I keep getting sent books. Does that happen to you? I don't know. Is that a thing?

1:22:30 Scott Ingram: Oh, you have no idea what happens to me. I live in a little bit different world. And in fact, I was just thinking the other day, I'm like, I need to have a local event and everybody who shows up is going to get some kind of book because it's just getting a little out of control. I'm way more Audible these days. And in fact, I don't remember the last time I read a physical book that wasn't more for pleasure. For whatever reason, it's just been much more audible. So these books are really starting to accumulate around here. And so if you're coming to the Sales Success Summit, maybe that's where they show up. Like, it's just gonna be, it's gonna be a big table of books, a giant pile. You can take whatever you want.

1:23:07 Amy Quick: Yeah, that's so funny. You should do that. That would be comical. And you should encourage people to bring their books.

1:23:13 Scott Ingram: You know, it's funny because I thought about doing that before, right? Just doing sort of a big book exchange kind of thing. I'm trying to recognize, like, a lot of people are traveling. Do you really want to add a whole bunch of book weight? You know, if everybody's bringing sort of 2 books like, hey, here's books that really have impacted me, that have been meaningful, that I'm willing to pass along, I think that exchange would be a lot of fun. And I guess they are traveling, right? So you're going to be getting on a plane. You've probably got time to consume a book.

1:23:37 Amy Quick: Yep. And I think, you know, I mean, there's something that for me, there's nostalgic about the old school books and flipping pages. And so I listen to Audible, but I will read a book. It's just, I've been blown away by like everyone keeps keep sending me books, and I'm like, am I a celebrity? What's happening here? I don't know what's going on. And I've actually messaged them and said, listen, I have 2 books in front of yours. I'm just being honest, it might take 6 months for me to read your book, but just know it's on my list and I haven't forgotten about it. So, but yeah, probably more information than we could possibly consume in a lifetime, so we'll give it our best.

1:24:13 Scott Ingram: Yes, yes, this is the challenge. And you know, I think it ultimately, it kind of comes back to some of these recommendations and things like that where you've, you've got to pick choose. I was just doing this with Jack Wilson. You know, I had the same situation going on. I had about 4 books that I was listening to simultaneously. I finally knocked 2 of them out. I was like, this has got to stop. I can't keep simulcasting like this. I've got to get focused and get a couple of these done. So it's been fun. Well, Amy, this has been even more fun than I thought it would be. And I knew it was going to be a lot of fun. So I appreciate you taking time early on a Saturday morning to spend with me. I know that this for us is probably just the beginning. I have a feeling that you and I are gonna talk some more, probably privately, certainly some more publicly if you're open to coming back at some point. And then really, really looking forward to spending time with you and meeting your husband and just hanging out with you guys at the Sales Success Summit in October.

1:25:06 Amy Quick: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I really appreciate you bringing me on. I loved the first conversation that we had. I'll never forget it. It was very enlightening for me and I got to know you very quickly and I developed a great level of respect for you. So, I certainly appreciate you bringing me on and letting me babble here for a little while. And yeah, I'm very much looking forward to the summit. It's on the calendar already. We are locked and loaded for that. So, looking forward to it.

1:25:31 Scott Ingram: Well, come join us, top1summit.com. Ladies and gentlemen, Amy Quick.

1:25:35 Amy Quick: Thank you. I appreciate it. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

1:25:41 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.