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Today’s show featured an interview with Cortney Steiner, a sales leader at IES Premier Women in Sales Employer (PWISE) Carahsoft
IES Women in Sales Program Director Gina Stracuzzi conducted the interview.
Find Cortney on LinkedIn.
CORTNEY’S ADVICE: “Make sure that you have something for you, that you have time for yourself. What works for me is I love exercise. I love running, I love swimming and biking. Ensuring that I have at least a 30-minute window during the day, sometimes that’s at 4:00 in the morning, or 8:00 at night, but making sure that I carve time out for myself so that I can have a recharge moment and be the best that I can be for my customers and for my teammates.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Gina Stracuzzi: Cortney, welcome. I’m super excited to talk to you. You and I have had the opportunity to sit on some panels together and to work together in other collaborations. I’m super happy to have you on as my guest. I always like to start with having my guests introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are.
Cortney Steiner: Thank you, Gina and Fred. I truly appreciate the opportunity. I love the conversations and I’m looking forward to this. My name’s Cortney Steiner. I’m with Carahsoft. I’m one of our Sales Vice Presidents, and I oversee some of our major vendor partner relationships, including Adobe and Microsoft and several others. I just hit my 20-year anniversary with the company. Before Carahsoft, I was a college student, so Carahsoft was my first job out of college. I grew up in South Bend, Indiana. I went to Indiana University and couldn’t leave the state because I couldn’t afford it for college. I decided I was going to go East Coast or West Coast. Carahsoft presented an awesome opportunity as a startup company back then in 2004, took the job and here we are today.
Gina Stracuzzi: It’s so interesting because over the last two, three years, I have met more women who have been with their companies for a really long time. It’s not a situation where I can’t afford to leave. It is genuine excitement, genuine opportunities that the companies have provided, and real growth. I love hearing that.
Cortney Steiner: Yeah. The opportunity that I’ve had at Carahsoft, I still don’t think I’ve reached the ceiling of my potential in my career. Every single day with our growth mentality, there’s always something new and fun that we can go do, and it’s amazing to be a part of that.
Gina Stracuzzi: When we’ve talked before, one of the things that I’ve always been really fascinated by is not just your excitement for your job, but the way you care about your team and how your goal is to keep them going and growing. Talk to us a little bit about how you inspire and educate not just your team, but those around you so that you are all working towards the same purpose.
Cortney Steiner: I’m going to pivot to my why really quick. First and foremost, I truly enjoy taking care of our customers, our people, growing the business. Early on in my career, just as a hundred percent sales rep revenue generator, my passion was always taking care of people, solving problems. I’m not afraid of hard work, or I’m not afraid of really digging in and understanding a customer’s situation and a challenge maybe, and how we can fix it. Totally fascinated by the idea of how much technology can solve our customer’s challenges. Bridging that gap of understanding and also Carahsoft’s position in the marketplace. We’re a distribution partner, so critically important that we are always aligned with our vendors and our end customers and our channel resellers. Everyone plays such a critical, important role in ensuring our customer success.
Early on in my career and being a sales rep, managing all of those different things, I was always driven by that, and I felt a tremendous amount of success with helping bridge all of those pieces and pull those pieces together to solve problems. Then eventually as I continued to grow with the company realized that that passion also extended for helping my team. It wasn’t just external, “Wow. I really enjoy helping my teammates grow, being a resource for them,” eventually growing into a mentor type position and then ultimately a leader. I’m very motivated by helping others. I think that’s where I found my niche with leadership, and it feeds into my leadership philosophy and style.
Gina Stracuzzi: Talk to us a little bit about your leadership style and how that has evolved over time, because one of the things that we talk about that comes up in the Women in Sales Leadership Forum quite often is women often struggle with how to develop their own brand, especially if they happen to be in a corporate culture that doesn’t really allow them to speak very freely. You are very fortunate you work for a man who really believes in personal growth for everyone, not just men. But not every woman is fortunate to have a Craig Abod working for them and with them. Tell us about how you developed your leadership style from the early days and where it is now.
Cortney Steiner: I didn’t take an assessment or do any kind of self-reflection. I didn’t understand how important it was to know who you were and your brand until I was probably about 10 years into my career. I took my first self-assessment. I wasn’t surprised by the results. I found out that I really like helping people and I’m really empathetic, which was on brand for me. I was very lucky that my passions also matched the passion of my company that I worked for, as you mentioned. That’s really cool. From that I was able to try and figure out, what do I love? What do I care about? What is important to me and how do I weave that into my leadership style?
The themes that were important to me, commitment, loyalty, honesty and integrity, communication, the ability to inspire, but the ability to inspire not just by words, but through action, and creativity and problem solving. Then ultimately patience is important to me. What I do is I make every effort to lead by example and demonstrate all of these things in every aspect that I do, or in every aspect of the job. Regardless of title, regardless of tenure, not being above any task and demonstrating that, being available.
Then also, I’ve been very fortunate to learn and work with some amazing mentors and probably the best mentor in the biz, Craig, our president. He is the epitome of leading by example. That’s inspiring to me. I hope that my leadership style inspire inspires others, I think it does. That’s what I strive to do every single day. But then I also early on found myself where leading by example doesn’t mean that you’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I like to lead in the job itself, but also I try to lead by example with family and life and balance and all the things that come with having a family and a personal life. I try to lead in that area as well.
Gina Stracuzzi: It’s a lot. I think that is the best piece of advice that anyone can follow, is to lead by example. Don’t try to be things that you’re not, be authentic. If you don’t ask people to do things that you wouldn’t do, you really can’t go wrong. But we all know that there are setbacks and failures, so maybe can you share one with us and what you learned from it?
Cortney Steiner: Lots of setbacks and lots of lessons learned. I had a really deep conversation with an employee this morning and I said, “Hey, if it’s not hard and it’s not challenging, is it really worth it. We’ve got a good plan, it’s going to be a 10-step approach to get through. There’s no quick answers, but again, it will be worth it in the long run.” I’ve learned that setbacks and failures are not, and I try to coach anyone that I work with or that I mentor, that they’re not the end-all be-all, and they shouldn’t be a litmus test for your success. It’s not always about the setback, it’s about how you manage it. It’s how you handle it, it’s how you learn from it, how you grow from it.
Setbacks and mistakes have taught me the importance of taking ownership and accountability. If there’s anything that I try to our newest hire, to our most senior person, and I try to as early as possible educate people, it’s okay. I guarantee you, you will make a mistake. You will have a setback. Take ownership and accountability right away so that we can spend the majority of our time learning from it, fixing it, moving forward from it.
Having a good support system, I think, that’s the other thing that I’ve learned. Taking accountability and ownership, but then also having a good support system, both in the office and at home, being a good listener, having a good resource to bounce ideas off of, to problem solve. You can’t be an island. How do you navigate a setback on your own? That sounds devastating to me. Having a good ecosystem of people that you can work with in and out of office is important. Then, of course, finally, being a good listener, approaching every situation with an open mind. Craig has a saying of, “Sometimes there’s 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 sides to any story.”
Gina Stracuzzi: At least, yes.
Cortney Steiner: Entering every situation with that mentality has really helped me be a better employee, better at my job, and be a better leader.
Gina Stracuzzi: At the risk of dating myself, when I came into the workforce, there was no such thing as personal brand. There were no such things as really caring bosses. If your boss said to jump, you asked, “How high?” If you didn’t like your boss, tough. There was no sit downs, one-to-ones, let’s talk this out, which is so great, because it really helps people grow in their careers. Something you said a second ago about tending to a setback all by yourself, and it came up at the Women in Government Technology event that Carahsoft hosted last week. The idea of fear and how it holds people back, but primarily women. Talk to us about that a little bit and what you see and how you handle that when you see it.
Cortney Steiner: For me personally, fear is definitely weaved into a lot of decisions, especially in the early days that I made. Being a people pleaser, which I don’t think is a bad thing, and being extremely empathetic, which again, I don’t think is a bad thing, being that way caused a lot of fear for me in terms of I held myself back early on because I was fearful of lots of different things. One was, okay, if I have a big idea, well, what if it’s a terrible idea? What are people going to think about me? Is their perception of me going to change? I was worried about that to a fault. Inability to advocate for yourself because you’re fearful of what others will think or that it’ll somehow impact your brand or what you’re trying to portray, those types of things drive fear for me, and I know they drive fear for a lot of women.
Early on in my career, not so much today, but my age. Who’s this young person who has only been on this job for five years, or even now, this person who’s only been at one company for 20 years, what do they know? Overcoming that and becoming emotionally resilient, one of the things that we talked about in the panel a couple months ago, that’s definitely something that no one talked about when I first started, and it’s being talked about more. I think we need to talk about it even more, but it’s how to be emotionally resilient. Be able to overcome if maybe it is a bad idea. But take that and say, “Okay, well, I want to find out why, why is it a bad idea so I can go back to the drawing board and not be offended at the no.” Take it as a learning experience to be better and to come back with a stronger idea or maybe truly understand what the customer actually wants. Sometimes getting a no is, “Okay, well why?” Then you finally learn what the requirement is, and you can change your pitch. It doesn’t mean it’s bad. No is not a bad word.
Gina Stracuzzi: I love hearing that you’re a recovering fear-aholic, because it’s important for women, especially younger women, to see that somebody that’s successful felt those things themselves at one point, and you can either get over it or you can let it paralyze your whole life and your whole career. So what if people don’t like your idea? You used your voice and you got it out there, and five minutes later, Bob will repeat it and everybody will love it anyway. I pick on Bob a lot. But we’ve all had that happen. You’re like, “Hold the phone. Didn’t I just say that?” The more you use it, the more you get used to using it. That’s clearly what happened for you, which I’m glad to hear, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now.
Cortney Steiner: You have to be no ego. You have to be open to feedback. You can’t be defensive, you can’t be afraid of constructive criticism. Especially as women, we are so tough, and it’s okay to be tough.
Gina Stracuzzi: Even though sometimes when you’re tough, then you’re aggressive. Yes, it’s a balancing act, but what is the alternative? To do nothing gets us nowhere and we win nothing. Better we balance and try and win than just to be stagnant with things. Let’s talk a little bit about where you see opportunities for women in sales. Your ecosystem at Carahsoft is so rich and so vast, and yes, you may have worked for the same company for 20 years, but the breadth of experience that you have garnered working with all these different companies is a wealth that few people have. What do you see happening in the world of sales and where do you see some real opportunities for women?
Cortney Steiner: There are so many opportunities for women everywhere. The women that I am fortunate enough to work with and work for are amazing, compassionate human beings. The women that I work with are the hardest working women I’ve ever seen. They have so much care and passion for everything that they do. Being that authentic, that natural authenticity that so many of the women that I work with and so many of the young women that are coming up through our company, is so inspiring to me. I think we need more women in leadership to help nurture, coach, mentor, and grow everyone, whether it’s other women, men, it doesn’t matter.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see more women in the boardroom and at the table speaking up and advocating for themselves. But truly rising up into leadership positions if that’s what they want, and that’s their path, but being able to coach and mentor others to continue bringing up others, I see that as a huge advantage for women.
Gina Stracuzzi: The opportunities are there. You bring up a good point about the mentoring. We all should be giving back and lifting others up. It’s really critical for younger women. It’s interesting because I’ve had lots of conversations with lots of people about mentorship programs, and a lot of companies have forced mentorship. It’s not that it’s meant to be forced on people, but they do the matching and it’s not always a good match. Really, if it’s not a good fit, don’t be afraid to say so. If you see someone that you think would be a good match or someone who inspires you, ask them.
Cortney Steiner: I’m really glad you brought that up, and I hope my team would say the same, but we have encouraged within our business unit that you are open to talk. Here’s your leader, but you are welcome to talk to anyone on the leadership team, and you are welcome to develop a relationship with anyone that you connect with. Reflecting back onto the difficult conversation I had to have this morning, the employee shared with me their connection that they’ve built with another mentor on the team, and that was completely organic. I love that. I really love creating an inclusive environment where people feel comfortable collaborating and communicating.
Again, back to the ego, and I try to have my leadership feel the same. What’s worse? Them not coming to you and communicating to someone, or finding a mentor or a resource on the team where they can actually communicate and collaborate? It’s way worse for them to bottle up inside, or be forced with a mentor where neither party is getting what they need. There’s a lot of organic mentorships that happen in our business unit, and I’m very proud of that. I’m very proud of my leadership team for creating such an environment where people feel comfortable.
Gina Stracuzzi: You learn so much if you can connect with somebody that’s maybe even in a different business unit. You learn more about the company and that makes you even a greater resource. It’s not personal if somebody doesn’t click. It’s not like you click with every person you ever meet. It’s just not logical. I love the idea of organic mentorship and that you promote it and welcome it. That’s a great attitude to have because it’s not fear-based, and it’s not ego-based, as you have pointed out. That’s really powerful.
We’ve gotten to the point where we are at the end of our conversation and we like to ask all of our guests for one final piece of advice that our listeners can put into place today, or at least start thinking about how to interject that into their career or their day. What do you have for us?
Cortney Steiner: I would be remiss not to say that we’re in August and it is the middle of our public sector busy season. As a company, Carahsoft, we’re predominantly supporting public sector and highly regulated industries. Our federal customers, our partners, and our vendors need our company and each of us now more than ever for the next 45 to 60 days. Just being laser focused on being available for our customers and being responsive and helpful to help our customers the best that we can for the next 45 days is critically important.
But with that being said, also, it’s a lot of hard work. It’s a marathon between August and September, it’s a 60-day marathon. Making sure that you take some time to have a thought of your own. Don’t put yourself on the shelf for the next 60 days or 45 days, but make sure that you have something for you, that you have time for yourself. My example for me, what works for me is I love exercise. I love running, I love swimming and biking. Ensuring that I have at least a 30-minute window during the day, sometimes that’s at 4:00 in the morning, or 8:00 at night, but making sure that I carve time out for myself so that I can have a recharge moment and be the best that I can be for my customers and for my teammates.
Gina Stracuzzi: Women tend to keep pushing forward and we’re always going to make time for ourselves, and then it just doesn’t happen. I was with you with marathons and all that kind of stuff, but 4:00 in the morning, I’ve never been able to do that one, but it’s a good point.
Well, thank you very much for joining us, Cortney. It’s been a great conversation as always. Good luck with your federal buying season, and everyone else too listening, if you’re in that world. I look forward to talking to you next time.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo