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Today’s show featured an interview with Colleen Stanley, author of “Be The Mentor Who Mattered.” Also appearing is Julie Jackson, Senior Vice President of Special Market Sales at BSN SPORTS.
Find Colleen on LinkedIn. Find Julie on LinkedIn.
COLLEEN’S TIP: “Every morning in my gratitude time, I run through a list of mentors in my life and give thanks for those people.”
JULIE’S TIP: “Mentorship is a responsibility for everybody – older or younger. I’ve learned as much from the next generation as they have from me.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: Colleen, you brought on Julie Jackson here, and we’re going to be introducing her in a second. But the new book, Be The Mentor Who Mattered: Make A Difference. Be The Difference. We’ve had you on the stage at the Institute for Effective Professional Selling a couple of times when we discussed emotional intelligence. For people who don’t know you, give us a little bit of an introduction. Tell us why you wrote the book. Then I’m excited to talk about your interactions with Julie and her insights on what we’re going to be talking about today.
Colleen Stanley: Colleen Stanley, President of Sales Leadership, and we’re a sales development firm. We specialize in teaching emotional intelligence to sales teams and sales leaders, and also sales management training. Then my latest initiative is the book, Be The Mentor Who Mattered. It’s a brand-new topic for me, although topic to write about, but not topic to think about.
Fred Diamond: I read the book and mentoring is a topic that comes up all the time. As many of our listeners know, the Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership is a big part of the Institute for Effective Professional Selling, and mentoring comes up all the time. Now, you brought on Julie Jackson with you, and I’m very excited to have Julie chime in and give us some of her insights. Julie, it’s great to see you here. Why don’t you introduce yourself and let’s just start talking about mentoring.
Julie Jackson: I’m based in Dallas, Texas. I am Senior Vice President for BSN SPORTS, a division of Varsity Brands. I have been with Varsity Brands in one way or another since college, which is a really long time, and held multiple roles that have been able to go into leadership and help develop great programs, and currently serve as a sales leader for BSN SPORTS.
Fred Diamond: Give us the intro to Varsity and BSN. I’m going to guess that most people listening to today’s show or watching on YouTube have experienced some of your products, maybe they didn’t even know it, but tell us what Varsity and BSN SPORTS does.
Julie Jackson: Varsity Brands is the parent company for Varsity Spirit, Varsity Yearbook, and BSN SPORTS. Many know Varsity Spirit as all things cheer and dance, with cheer competitions, cheer camps, training and education, apparel that you see on the sidelines, is Varsity Spirit. Now we also serve and invest in bands. Think about cheer, dance, band, and yearbooks, so capturing those memories. Then BSN SPORTS, largest team dealer for most all K-12 and collegiate space and club and select. We really go hand in hand because our focus is elevating the student experience through all of the programs that we serve. It’s a great company to be with, just really pouring into kids and coaches across the country.
Fred Diamond: Colleen, I’m not sure if you knew this or not, but my daughter was a competitive dancer and she danced all the way through high school. That was her big thing. She went to University of Florida for college, and unfortunately, it was during the pandemic, so she couldn’t dance on the team. I know that we’ve spent money on your products, so it’s great to have you here.
Colleen Stanley: Fred, for your listeners, my selling career started under Varsity Spirit. I worked for the division that sold the apparel. That’s how Julie and I actually got to know each other. We both love the company and it’s, Julie, I think you’d agree, has given us both a lot of great opportunities due to the culture and just the growth that they’ve had.
Julie Jackson: Absolutely.
Fred Diamond: Colleen, before I ask you about what motivated you to write a book about mentorship when your other two books focused on sales, I just want to acknowledge and applaud you for the vulnerability that you offered, especially in the first part of the book, about your early life. You talked about the death of your brother, how it impacted you, and the divorce of your parents. As I’m reading this book, I’m like, “I know Colleen.” We’re Facebook friends as well. I see some of your personal side with all the beautiful caribou and elk and all those things. But I just want to acknowledge you for the vulnerability and for putting yourself out there to explain why this topic mattered to you so much, because you’ve been toward so many people. We’ve dealt with people over the years who are always happy when we would bring you on our stage and you would explain the whole role of emotional intelligence, et cetera. I want to put it out there for the people who are going to be motivated to read the book. Tell us what specifically motivated you to write this book.
Colleen Stanley: First of all, thank you, Fred, because it really was a decision I had to make. There’s a side of me that’s very public, and there’s a side of me that’s very private. As I mentioned in the book, it was really that conversation I was having with a coach I’d hired, because it literally happened. Now, this is going to sound very woo. I am taking a hike here in Colorado, and it’s almost out of the heaven something comes, “Be The Mentor Who Mattered.” I’m like, “Where did that come from?” I went home though and purchased the URL. That was four years ago.
What I realized is that every morning in my gratitude time, I would run through a list of mentors in my life and give thanks for those people. Then when I was working with this coach on getting more clear on my why for the book, which would influence the marketing, I told her the story of my brother at 14. He was a very charismatic, just wonderful human being. Then my parents’ divorce a year later, and that’s when she said, “Colleen, this is why mentors were so important to you. Your parents weren’t able to fill a void at that point. They were struggling.” I’ve just always felt very, very blessed that I had people that stepped up and I literally would not be the person I am today without many of those influences.
At this point in my life, in my career, I thought, “This is time to tell the story and pay it forward.” My biggest goal, Fred, is I didn’t want my mentor stories to sound like this pat on the back. I really wanted to honor the people that have shaped me. I hope that got accomplished.
Fred Diamond: You told some great stories about how you made some career shifts and how some people guided you through the career shifts. You also referred to our good friend Jill Konrath, who has spoken at the IEPS, and we’ve had her on the Sales Game Changers Podcast a couple of different times.
Julie, tell us about a mentor from you, someone who’s impacted you. Colleen, as we were doing the prep talk about this, you said a mentor can impact you one time. There could be a meeting or there could be a conversation, and they may not even realize that they were mentoring you. I worked at Apple Computer for a long time, and I happened to be in the presence of one of the top sales leaders of Apple. This was in the early ‘90s. This guy’s name was Bill Campbell, and he was legendary. He came to our office, which was in Northern Virginia, and I had an interchange with him that I remember to this day. If I were to say, “Mr. Campbell, you were one of my mentors,” I would be number 1,500 on the list. Julie, how about you? Give us some of your thoughts on mentoring and maybe even tell us a story about a mentor.
Julie Jackson: Calling out one mentor is nearly impossible. I just so identified with what Colleen did, and there’s just so many influences that we can label as our mentors. But as I think about really shaping where I am today, a mentor that I had for years in my life was Lance Wagers, and it was also with Varsity Spirit. What he taught me, and it was by example, is while it’s okay to keep those standards high, expectations high, performance is important, that drive that I always felt, just the drive to win, that it’s with a heart first. Lead with your heart, be vulnerable as a leader. Share who you are, be authentic. That did not come natural as I stepped up into leadership, that authenticity. I was just trying to do and be something that I thought was great. That affirmation, that empowerment gave me the confidence to be really authentic and just lead and mentor from the heart first. I have to always hand it to Lance for just being the perfect example of that for me.
Fred Diamond: Colleen, we work with a lot of students at universities who are pursuing their sales degrees major or minors. We do a show called Office Hours – Sales Professors Unplugged. We spend a lot of time with young sales professionals as well, those who are in the first maybe two to five years of their sales career. I tell them to be mentored. I say, “Be open to that.” I tell a lot of them. I say, “You know what? Find out who your parents’ friends are who are in sales, and ask them, ‘Can we go meet at Panera or Starbucks Saturday morning?’” It’s a gift, don’t you think? To be a mentor. I’m interested in both of your thoughts on that.
Colleen Stanley: Absolutely. When I look back on my life, I was lucky I fell into it. If there was advice I would give to people, you may not get as lucky as I did, so seek it out. The other thing I always give advice to young people on is this, is that sometimes we write about mentorship and how the person’s going to be kind and loving. Let me tell you, there’s times that mentor is busy. They’re getting it right down to business. They’re going to be a truth-teller and you might be like, “Ah…” and the last thing you want to do is say, “Yeah, but.”
I actually have coached people that you might have the most intelligent, wise person mentoring you, but if they may not be delivering in a manner you want to hear, listen to the message. Now, of course, we have plenty of mentors that have both the EQ and the IQ, but that’s one of the pieces of advice I give. Take the advice any way you get it.
Fred Diamond: Julie, what are your thoughts on that?
Julie Jackson: I completely agree. I think mentorship’s a responsibility for everybody. I believe that we all are created for greatness and that we are given unique gifts and talents to share with the world. I believe that that’s a responsibility and a wake-up every day that we all have, whether that mentors older or younger. I will even give you the opposite. I’ve had some younger, the younger generation, that I’ve leaned into learning and listening to how their approach is and how they are thinking and what has worked for them and have taken it in and shared, and it has helped me be a better leader.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. We work with a lot of young professionals, and one of the challenges in sales now is how do you communicate to a younger generation and what tools do you use? Now, there’s a lot that those of us who’ve been in the game for a little bit longer can obviously communicate from a mentor perspective, but more and more, the people that we’re having to sell to, the people that we’re having to communicate to are a younger generation who they may not want to talk on the phone. They may want to be approached certain different ways. You always need to be learning.
Julie, I’m just curious, what are some of the ways that BSN SPORTS provides mentorship?
Julie Jackson: I will tell you, as a purpose-driven person, working for a purpose-driven company is vital to me. Outside of all the commercial side of what we do, that anyone can do. Anyone can sell gidgets here and there. However, the reason why we do it and the decisions we make are based on our customer, the customer focus of taking work out of their hands so they can focus on kids, so they can go coach, so they can go teach. That’s what they want to do. Empowering them, empowering our customer through continued learning, professional development platforms that come at no cost, BSN SPORTS and Varsity Brands provide those.
We have just invested in an incredible female-driven program called SURGE. Our number one focus is keeping females in sports. We have started investing in those that coach and lead female athletes. We learned that 94% of C-suite females were athletes. However, females drop out of sports at a 50% higher rate than males. How do we keep them there so they can go on and be great leaders? We have poured into the SURGE program for those. I think there’s a little bit about that in one of the parts of the book. Those are just a few ways that BSN and Varsity Brands invest in mentorship.
Fred Diamond: You mentioned purpose-driven company. What exactly is that, for people who may not understand what that means?
Julie Jackson: Purpose-Driven company to me is we put our purpose first, and that is elevating a student experience. That’s investing in our coaches and our teachers. That’s investing in our customer and being what that customer needs. Our purpose is making a customer’s life better. I can identify and get on board with that.
Fred Diamond: Colleen, when you were doing the research of the book, and also in the book, you have a lot of stories where people tell their own examples. I don’t know, maybe 30, 40, 50, I guess, in the book, of people who tell a particular story of mentorship, how that affected them. Were there any stories that stuck out for you or anything that stuck out for you that you learned, not just from your history, but from what other people told you about their mentoring experience?
Colleen Stanley: That was one of the unexpected benefits. As we were gathering the stories, I didn’t realize I’d be learning. I remember one, it’s just a learning point where the mentor said, “You don’t have the whole story.” That has stuck with me since I’ve heard that story, like, “Okay, Colleen, what are you assuming?” Now, we all know that when you hear it through a story.
There was another story of a university president, we won’t give away the whole book here, but he’s now a university president, and his story really touched me because an anonymous donor paid his tuition. He was an immigrant to this country, and he has contributed greatly. There’s an anonymous donor. From that, he has been highly intentional about creating mentorship at his university. There were just too many to put a finger on. I would say I learned something from each one. It was almost like this little reminder as I go through the day. That was a surprising benefit from the book.
Fred Diamond: That’s actually one of my favorite parts of the book, was reading all these different stories and wondering how you got them and people being so brave and collaborating. The question for both of you, but Julie first, how often do you get asked to mentor someone? What is your advice for people who request mentorship? Obviously, you’re both very successful, you’ve reached pinnacles of your career. Not everyone is brave to ask, but there are a lot of people who are, hence the reason why we’re talking about this topic. Julie, what is your advice for people who want to request you as a mentor?
Julie Jackson: I hope that I’m approachable. That’s a goal. As a leader and a mentor, I would just say ask. It’s so humbling and an honor to be asked to mentor or to influence someone’s life. I take that very seriously. I just say, just ask. I am asked formally a few times a year, but I would say more often than not, it is in a roundabout more informal way. People ask if I can help walk them through, or what would I do in a situation? Maybe it’s a one-liner that influenced them.
Fred Diamond: As a mentor, what do you prefer, someone to call you as you’re driving home, meet over coffee in the office, meet on Saturday afternoon at a Panera? How do you specifically like to do the physical? I’m curious, Colleen, on what you’ve discovered is the best way to physically do the mentorship.
Julie Jackson: I am a human connection person. I think there’s nothing like it. If we can get face-to-face, we’re going to get face-to-face. If we need to talk, if we need to get on a video, that’s what we’re going to do. Face-to-face always first. I like to meet them where they are though as well. If they’re more comfortable just talking to me on the phone, that’s great. I’ve had one young lady that we have had incredible relationship build on LinkedIn messaging. That’s where she wanted to talk. That’s where she’s asked her questions and it’s worked that way.
Fred Diamond: Colleen, how about you? What is your advice for people who want to ask you or people like Julie to be mentored? What is your best practice, most considerate way, things that they should know before they make their request?
Colleen Stanley: A couple things. I’m going to echo what Julie said, you just ask. In fact, we have a wonderful story in the book about that. I think it’s going to be when people, because the people are pretty well known. Again, spoiler alert. But then the other thing is in the asking, I would say after you ask, always come to the meeting prepared. That’s another thing I’d advise anyone on, young or old, is that mentors are generally really generous people. I have found in my life, most people are generous. However, generous people also don’t want their time wasted. If you come prepared, and then if the next meeting you show what you’ve done to apply, that actually motivates the mentor. I would say ask.
I had a gentleman this year reach out to me. It was, I think, on LinkedIn. I thought, “Is this spam? Is this goofy?” Found out he’s a professor at a university, wants to get into speaking. We set up two or three mentor calls. I don’t know this guy from anywhere, his team just found me. Here’s what was I think delightful and humorous for me and a little bit egotistical, if we could be honest, is there’s so much I know about the speaking business that it was not hard. It’s just sharing what you know. It didn’t have to be me doing a bunch of preparation. I just said, “Have you done this? Have you done this? You’re marketing your book. You got to do this, you got to do this,” and he’s just taking notes fast and furious, and to his credit, would come back and say, “I’ve got this accomplished,” and then we’d talk about it. He reached out on LinkedIn and asked for help. You just ask.
Fred Diamond: You made a great point there. Most of the people who have reached degrees of success are very generous. They’ve reached because of those things. What a lot of them have told me is, don’t just reach out to me and say, “How can I improve my career?” But say things like, “What would be your advice to interface with the C-suite?” Or, “What might be your advice on if I do get a meeting on how to make sure that it’s pertinent and what have been some of your examples through your career?” I love the idea about preparation.
Colleen, in your book, you talk about the perfect storm. Can you talk about the perfect storm of social media and technology and the increasing need for mentorship? Can you give us a little bit of an insight into this perfect storm that you were talking about?
Colleen Stanley: That was really the front part of the book, is what I call the business case, because mentorship is not new. We’ve been doing it in BC times. However, what I saw happening, just on the macro economy, what I was reading, is remote working has increased. Now I managed a sales team of 130, so we were doing remote working before you called it that. However, we were very intentional. This is back in the day before you had computers. Guess what? You picked up the phone, you made a connection. I have spent thousands of hours in a car. With remote working, I believe companies have to be more intentional about creating the connection factor.
When you take a look at the unintended consequences of social media, I don’t know what else we need to be hearing, but folks, it is creating anxiety, depression. One of the things I’m coaching leaders on now is that you need to model the behavior, put the phones away in a meeting. You can put the computers away in the meeting, because back in the good old days, you used to come into a meeting and actually talk to the person sitting next to you. Today, everybody’s answering emails, they’ve got beads of sweat pouring off them, and I’m like, “Seriously?” These are people that fly in from all over the country that don’t even actually know each other that well. That’s the second storm that I talk about, and then the accelerated pace of change.
I absolutely believe with this seismic change we’re seeing with artificial intelligence, no one can go at it alone anymore. If we don’t create these cultures of people helping people, as Julie said, young helping old, I’m going to call myself wise, young helping the wise, wise helping the young. Those are the storms I see as the breakdowns in community, accelerated use of social media that has not really too many positives if you don’t know how to use social media well, and then the accelerated pace of change.
Fred Diamond: It took us 26 minutes to get to AI and we didn’t really talk too much about it. I’m going to ask you both for your final action step, but Julie, we really haven’t talked a whole lot about other things with you besides mentorship. It’s such a gift that Colleen was able to bring you on the show with her. I’m just going to ask you a very broad question. What would be your advice? Give us two or three things. It doesn’t have to be about mentorship.
Like I mentioned, one of the things that the Institute for Effective Professional Selling is proud of is our Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership. We just had our conference and we have our Women in Sales Leadership Forum and our Emerging Leaders Program, which I’d love to tell you more about. Obviously, you do a lot of work to empower women in sports. I love the way you were describing that. If you don’t mind, just give us like a minute on your advice for the sales professionals out there. If you and I were taking a one-minute elevator ride, give us your insights into what you would tell people to do.
Julie Jackson: It’s not rocket science. My advice is truly realize that every single human is created for greatness, that we are created to use our unique gifts and talents to benefit the world, to make the world a better place. That’s the workplace, that’s in leadership, that’s at home in your friendships, that’s what we’re created for. I can get pretty charismaniac about encouraging others for one minute to do that. Truly, it’s about the human spirit and who you’re created to be. As a young sales professional, I’m saying, who do you want to be? What kind of leader? Make those decisions, write down, figure out what are your non-negotiables and what are you bringing to the table? Be humble, go learn, but stand in your greatness. That’s what I would say. I would say it from the rooftops. Then encourage them to find that, knowing they’re going to run into roadblocks, knowing what do you do when you’re running into the roadblock. How do you handle that with grace? That would be my battle cry and that’s what I would continue to do. That’s how I try to lead my sales teams, young and old, veteran and new, is just from the heart.
Fred Diamond: We’re going to have to do #charismaniac, which is a term I have not heard before. Is that one of those purpose-driven things within Varsity that everybody knows?
Colleen Stanley: I think that’s a Julie word.
Fred Diamond: Did you just make it up on the spot, or?
Julie Jackson: It’s a little bit of a me word, because I do get pretty charismaniac about certain things. That is when I am really trying to drive home the power of the human spirit and who we are created to be and what you bring to the table. I know for me, I have gotten lost in trying to look and be like someone else, hence social media and all the stuff there, trying to perform in a way that I’m not created to do. I know I have gotten caught up in that cycle and it’s not worked. It doesn’t work. I know now, and I just encourage all ages, be who you are created to be. Surround yourself with those that are called to greatness, those that help you, and I’m looking directly at you, Colleen, that empower you and encourage you, and that you can learn from, that hold themselves to that high standard. That’s how it works. The charismaniac in me, I can get a little passionate about it.
Fred Diamond: No, that was great. One of the things we tell people is you need to be passionate about what you’re bringing to the marketplace. Everything is energy, et cetera. Thank you so much for sharing those. Once again, Colleen Stanley, congratulations on the book, Be The Mentor Who Mattered: Make A Difference. Be The Difference. We like to end each show with an action step. You both have given us so many great ideas about how to be a better mentor and how to get mentored. Thank you for that. Give us something specific people should do right now to take their sales career to the next level, a specific action that you would request. Julie, why don’t you go first? Then Colleen, you bring us home.
Julie Jackson: Number one is make sure you are aligned with your leader. Aligned with your leadership, their goals are your goals, and you will succeed. Make sure you’re aligned with your leader.
Fred Diamond: That’s a great bit of advice. I tell people, if you want to get promoted, get your boss promoted. That is the easiest path to you getting promoted. Great bit of advice. Colleen Stanley, it’s great seeing you. Congratulations on the book and we’re very lucky to have you in the Institute for Effective Professional Selling world. Remember that one time you did some mentorship of our, we have an award called the Jay Nussbaum Rising Sales Star Award. It’s named after a guy named Jay Nussbaum, who ran Oracle and Xerox Public Sector. He was one of our, what we call our Lifetime Achievement awardees. We created an award in his name. Colleen reached out to me and said, “I’d love to get on a Zoom call with the finalists,” we had eight finalists this one particular year. Do you remember that?
Colleen Stanley: I do. It’s been a while. Yes.
Fred Diamond: Yeah, it was five years ago when we first created the award. Just want to acknowledge you for all you do for sales professionals and have done. Give us a final action step to bring it home.
Colleen Stanley: We said young sales professionals, but I would say any sales professional, especially today, be a lifelong learner and be coachable and take action. Because what I have found, I haven’t been the quickest study on the block, but there is no one that usually can outwork me. I’ve been highly coachable. If I’m stuck, I will go and get help and then I practice and rehearse or apply whatever I’ve gotten coached on. Those would be my three steps. Coachable, learnable. I need to get a word like Julie. Coachable and learnable, be a learningomaniac and then do something with it.
Fred Diamond: You got to put it into play. Once again, thank you, Julie Jackson. Thank you, Colleen Stanley. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Game Changers Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo