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Today’s show featured an interview with Vice President @ Infinite Electronics Jason Koshy.
Find Jason on LinkedIn.
JASON’S TIP: “One of the most important things I took away from that is that in sales, it’s just as an important career as being a doctor, an engineer, or any other profession. To be proud in what you do and to do it to make a difference in your customer or your end customer’s projects, or whatever the business is trying to do, is critical.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: I’m excited today. We have Jason Koshy with Infinite Electronics. He was a guest on my Sales Game Changers Podcast. Jason, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
Jason Koshy: My name is Jason Koshy and I’ve been with Infinite Electronics going over 20 plus years. I’m Vice President of Global Sales today. I oversee business development and a lot of the outbound activities, and also some strategic things with some of our acquisitions and integrating them into our business.
Fred Diamond: You were on the Sales Game Changers Podcast. I invite people to go up to salesgamechangerspodcast.com and search on Jason Koshy and learn a little bit more about his story and how he leads sales organizations and works with customers. Jason, tell us a great sales story.
Jason Koshy: I’d like to share how I got into sales and also why I’m passionate about sales in general. My background is that I’m an electrical engineer. While I was in college, I wanted to get some experience in engineering and just really hands-on stuff so by the time I graduated I could more align with my degree. I was really lucky to find a local company that did RF testing, assemblies, and also machine shop. I worked for them while I went to college. I just learned a lot, a small company. I got a chance to see a lot of inner working stuff that you probably wouldn’t see at a bigger company, from accounting, to operations, to testing, sales, all the things in between. It was just a great experience for me.
As I finished up my college degree and I was about to graduate, one of my classmates that I used to do some of my technical engineering circuits classes with had a job at a local company and he was recruiting. He came up to me during a job fair, because I was just looking for opportunities to see what next step was, and he said, “Hey, we have this application engineering position at this local company. Why don’t you throw your resume in?” I said, “Sure,” and I did and I actually got the job.
That was a really big shift for me from being a operational technical guy to being a technical support, interacting with an installer all the way to an engineer. Taking very technical information and catering it towards the audience of who needed the installation or how do I technically use this product in my system.
I did that for a year, enjoyed the customer interaction, really enjoyed it. I started working in operations, the VP of ops, because of my machine shop background, wanted to help implement ISO 9000 for the facility. I supported that and also did some lean manufacturing and engineering improving processes, and I’m like, “This is my career path. I’m going to be technical operations.”
About six months later, I got an opportunity where we had a customer who had an issue, and the president of the company came to me and said, “Hey, look, we got one of our top customers, they got this issue. We need you to go up there and help them out.” I ran home, grabbed my stuff, took a late flight out so the next day I could help the customer resolve their issue. This customer made switchgear that went into hospitals. Really critical. When I got there, what I realized was that a hospital had lost a panel because an event came from the utility that damaged the panel. They had to move patients from one wing into another wing. There was a tremendous amount of pressure on the doctors, the nurses, and getting equipment to help support these patients who have a range of things that they’re dealing with. You don’t want to be in a hospital where you’re already not feeling well, and now you got to share a room with somebody. That’s the narrative that this company’s team told me, the operations, sales, and all of their engineers.
We met, worked through it, by about lunchtime we had it resolved, and ecstatic, they rushed the equipment out and they were like, “Hey, Jason, we want to take you out to dinner and we really appreciate you coming so quickly.” We went out to dinner, broke bread, had some drinks, and really built some good relationship with them. I come back to the office and I just go back to doing what I do.
A couple days later, the president calls me in and he says, “Hey, Jason, tell me what happened when you went up there.” I’m getting a little nervous like, that’s not a really great tone. I said, “Well, I went there, I helped them out and fixed their issue, and I talked to them after and everything’s good. There was a hospital that had issues and they were able to get it there and get everything back up and working on getting patients moved over. I think it was a success.”
“Well, they just told me that they don’t want to work with a sales guy and they only want to work with you. Did you ask them if you wanted the account?”
I said, “No, I never asked them if I wanted the account. I just went to help.”
That really was my first opportunity to service a customer. Because they’re such a big customer, they had no choice but to give it to me. Now I have a pissed off sales guy, but that wasn’t my fault. That really gave me my first opportunity to interact with a customer in a different way.
Really what I gained out of that was that I really enjoyed the process. I learned that starting with empathy to really understand what motivates your customer is important, and really solving a problem or finding a solution that’s an extended part of their internal teams’ activity to support a project is super valuable. That’s why you create value. Then I think the other thing I learned was that making friends to build lasting relationships is critical. I felt like the salesperson did not have as good relationship with the customer as I did.
I gained all of these experiences and I kept saying to the team initially, “I don’t want to be a sales guy. I don’t want to be a sales guy. I’m an engineer. I graduated with an engineering degree, that’s what I’m going to do,” and that was shifted. That really shifted my mindset. That’s really how I got into sales. Knowing that you helped out in some way with these patients that were needing help and getting power back to a hospital really created great value for me. Also, self-satisfaction of being part of something that helped a bigger problem. That’s how I got into sales and really been passionate about it ever since then.
Fred Diamond: I’ve interviewed a number of people on the Sales Game Changers Podcast who came up the technical route, and there was a moment like that where you were sent to go deal with a customer challenge. Then you could talk to the customer, so you weren’t trying to sell them anything, you were trying to solve their problem, and you could speak at their language, being technical. Not everybody can make that transition, and not everybody wants to make that transition. I’m curious, you mentioned that it was a moment in time, but did you ever have any inkling prior to this that, “I might make a shift one day. I’m affable and I speak well,” or anything along those lines?
Jason Koshy: No. What I knew about sales was the guy who came to my house knocking on my door. That’s what I knew about sales coming from purely an engineering and operational background. I was so young in my career at that time, I really didn’t understand all the complicated things it takes to really manage an account and really find success.
Fred Diamond: Tell us a tip that you learned from that great sales story.
Jason Koshy: One of the most important things I took away from that is that in sales, it’s just as an important career as being a doctor, an engineer, or any other profession. To be proud in what you do and to do it to make a difference in your customer or your end customer’s projects, or whatever the business is trying to do, is critical. You might be supporting a first responder, a hospital, a military customer, you might be using communication equipment that’s sending information to soldiers in the field. What you do matters and you have to make a difference. That’s what I learned and that’s where my passion comes from, because every customer interaction, it matters and you can make a difference. If you think of yourself as a sales professional, and our profession is just as good as any other doctor, and we’re just at the same level as any of those professions, I think you’ll find the passion and the success to accomplish the things that you want personally and professionally.
Fred Diamond: There’s a couple of great things there. One is, are you familiar with an author called Lisa Earle McLeod? She wrote a book called Selling with Noble Purpose. At the Institute for Excellence in Sales, we definitely believe everything you just said. I love it. Sales is a profession, and if you’re a professional, what are you doing to be professional? The other thing too is the story you told about how you solved that customer’s problems. What great sales professionals know is that this is their customer’s career, this is their customer’s life. The customer has chosen to be in charge of facilities at a hospital, or they’ve chosen to be in charge of operations at a call center, or a government agency, whatever it might be. That is their job. They want to be successful at their job. Most people who have reached the level that we’re talking to in sales, they are professionals in what they do. They’re engaging you to help them achieve their goals, to satisfy their constituents, their customers, whomever it might be.
I want to thank Jason Koshy with Infinite Electronics. That was a great story. My name is Fred Diamond. This is the Sales Story and a Tip Podcast.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo