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Today’s show featured an interview with John Podolak, Chief Revenue Officer at IMPRES Technology Solutions, Inc.
Find John on LinkedIn.
JOHN’S TIP: “At a macro level, aligning with your partner’s priorities is key. Executives appreciate honesty about where you’re aligned—and where you’re not.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Fred Diamond: We’re going to be talking with John Podolak at IMPRES. John, we first met you at the IES 14th Annual Sales Excellence Award, where we recognized Jim Kelly, then of Dell and now of Google, with our Lifetime Achievement Award. I want to let people know that the 15th Annual IES Sales Excellence Awards will be on May 1st, and we’re going to be recognizing some amazing people, Anthony Robbins, who used to run Nvidia’s Global Public Sector, Beth McGrath, who runs Deloitte’s Global Public Sector, and Kristina Bouweiri from Reston Limousine will be our Entrepreneurial Sales Leader of the Year. We’re also giving out our first AI for Sales Excellence Award.
It’s great to have you here. I’m excited to talk to you for a couple reasons. One is, we interview a lot of people on the Sales Game Changers Podcast from the manufacturer side or the developer side, like the Microsofts, the big brands, Oracle, Amazon Web Services, Salesforce, Hilton, et cetera. We’ve also interviewed a number of people from the partner side, and you have been at the top level in both. You ran Dell’s Strategic Partners Program and now you’re a leading sales professional at one of their top partners. We’re going to be talking about both sides.
We’re also going to be talking about building winning sales teams. That’s always a challenge. Even in challenging times, you still got to hire great people. We’re doing today’s interview in early March. A lot of kids are graduating from college, so there’s a lot of recruiting going on. As a matter of fact, I was at the National Collegiate Sales Competition this past weekend at Kennesaw State University and saw a hundred great young sales professionals looking to start their careers.
John, give us a brief introduction and then I want to go right into that question about what are some insights into working on the vendor side and then working on the partner side.
John Podolak: Thanks, Fred. I’m originally a naval officer. I flew a brief career as an airline pilot. After 9/11 when we all got furloughed, I moved into IT. I had some time at a system integrator, spent eight wonderful years at Dell in business development and capture management there, and then have been building a company at IMPRES for the last decade. We’ve grown 10 times and our profitability has increased dramatically during that time. That’s a little bit about who I am.
Fred Diamond: One reason I’m also excited is that we have a lot of people who listen who are at the channel and they work for value added resellers or distributors selling into the marketplace. We have a lot of people who work for the manufacturers, the vendors. One thing we want to talk about today is what do the people who sell for the vendors need to know about the partners? Vice versa, if you’re working for a partner, what do you need to know that’s driving the counterparts, your manufacturer’s rep or your vendor rep?
Give us some insights into both sides. Let’s start with the manufacturer side. You were at Dell for a long time. What are the sales professionals, the sales leaders, what are they thinking about? Then on the partner side, what are they thinking about and what drives them?
John Podolak: I got to see this both from the capture side and then watching the sales guys, what mattered to them at a large OEM. This is my opinion, my beliefs, but my observations are the most successful OEM sales guys have their piece of the portfolio that they sell themselves, but they also choose a handful of partners. The right amount depends on the account breadth and who the person is, but let’s just say they’ve got three partners they pick. You can’t pick everybody, you can’t get to know everybody, but those three partners they pick are extremely important because they’re force multipliers for them. Because one individual sales rep at an OEM can only touch so many customers, but if he can trust VAR partners that have established themselves for a variety of reasons that I’m going to share with you, then he can do a lot more than he could do by himself. Fair enough, would you agree with that, Fred?
Fred Diamond: Absolutely. I’m thinking a lot of people have heard, we’re well over 750 episodes. You and I talked about this, when I worked for Apple Computer, I got my MBA thesis on channel theory and design. In retrospect, maybe I should have created an online company or something, but nonetheless, I got really deep into the weeds about what drove both sides. On the manufacturer side, you don’t really talk a lot about margin. Now you do, but you talk about market share and you talk about penetration and product mix. On the partner side, margin is a big thing. Talk about that a little bit.
John Podolak: On the OEM side, it’s important for both sides, the channel partner and the OEM as they get to know each other, understand what your comp plans are, what’s motivated. It’s real easy on the channel part of the VAR side where we don’t manufacture anything ourselves. It is straight margin. We are paid on the delta and ideal between the costs we get and what we present to the customer. That’s where we bring the value. The best VAR partners are bringing value. They’re not selling from behind the computer and just looking at bid boards. But what OEM partners value in my belief is they value a field-enabled sales force, guys and girls that are physically getting out in front of the customers and have appreciation for the mission that the customer’s doing. They have that credibility.
They have some level of technical competence, whether it be themselves or field engineers that go along with them. Those are some important traits, and they have really good sales and operations res support in the background. They provide that white glove service. When they win a deal together, they move very quickly, they execute well and just really provide the OEM sales rep a level of confidence that, “Hey, my 1, 2, 3 partners, and for us we trust IMPRES, and IMPRES has this. They have our back.” That trust is so important. Some famous person once said all politics is local, and it is so true in sales, because we may say we’re really good with one OEM, we may have the paperwork in place, the reseller agreements, but really it comes down to the individual sales team with their peer-to-peer relationships. It’s got to work.
From my team, which I’m very proud of, we try to establish ourselves as mission credible, that we understand what the customer’s mission is. Some of our guys, I’ll speak to the DOD team, we’re ex-military. It was easier to get that customer admission. Now we have additional folks on the DOD team that weren’t, but they’re passionate about becoming part of that community. They do the research, and these are some of the things that they do to establish credibility with the OEMs.
Then ultimately, to be one of those handful of partners that an OEM picks, you got to deliver net new pipeline. That’s what the OEM rep wants. If I’m going to partner with you, I’m not just looking for handouts. I’m bringing that OEM partner net new deals, net new opportunities, demand signals that they wouldn’t have otherwise, so it increases their pipeline. Then we do a good job communicating with them where they are in the phase, because we realize their management are asking them questions, not about just the deals that maybe they’re directly selling, but their entire pipeline. For us to be a good partner, we’ve got to manage our sales force and share where we are in phase on the deal through the lifecycle deal.
Fred Diamond: It’s complex, especially when you’re selling into large markets like public sector, financial services, et cetera. There’s a lot of factors that come into play. There’s budgeting. We’re doing today’s interview in March. We’re in the middle of the federal government trying to figure out its budget and where it’s going with that, et cetera. There’s a lot of competition. I remember one of my past podcast guests said that the public sector, federal specifically, is like the NFL of technology. It’s the biggest marketplace. Even with what we’re going through, it’s still going to be the biggest marketplace in the world by far. It’s such a critical need for the solutions.
With that complexity, talk about relationships at the executive level. I remember I was at Apple Computer and Compaq Computer for a long time, it was the beginning of my career, and there were things that I heard from the VPs that I don’t want to repeat. I remember thinking, “God, if our partners heard some of this stuff.” Talk about developing the executive level relationships. The point I was just trying to make with this, there’s a lot of pressure. The higher you get up in your company, and especially some of the larger OEMs and manufacturers we’re talking about, it’s very visible, it’s critical that success happened. Talk about developing relationships at the executive level, and then let’s talk about developing relationships at the field level. The guy from the OEM who’s in charge of Air Force and his three partners that you’ve alluded to, what do those relationships need to look like?
John Podolak: Let’s start with the executive level. I see my first job talking to OEM execs as sell my sales team. Sell the value of my sales team and describe the character they bring to the table, the way they are field enabled. They’re out there in front of customers and doing the things that we discussed, that I believe that OEM reps at the individual level care about, so do those execs. Also, it’s about setting the enabling factors company to company, that sometimes may not be in place yet as you get going. Maybe it’s a discussion about a GSA letter of supply, adding that to our GSA schedule certainly have done that.
Then future contracts that are important to them that they are going to need a key partner on. But at a macro level, aligning with their priorities. Your priorities aren’t always going to align with all of theirs, and you have to be honest on certain areas that are not a fit. Executives appreciate that so they can make assessments and decisions of, “Okay, here’s where we can focus our efforts.” Because whether you’re an executive or at the field level or an individual contributor, you want the efforts that you are spending time on to be mutually shared and supported by your partner. It’s never fun if you’re spinning your wheels on and you didn’t have clear communication that the partner wasn’t necessarily aligned with the direction you’re going, and you may not get the support you think you’re going to get when it’s time to ask for a deal registration or a teaming agreement and that sort of thing. Aligning on priority is super important.
Fred Diamond: You’ve been on both sides. You worked for the OEM and now you’ve been on the channel side for a long time. Before we start talking about building sales teams, give us your insights on what drives the sales professionals. You were at Dell for a long time and now you’ve been at IMPRES for a long time as well. What drives the VAR sales rep? What gets them up in the morning? What gets them excited? Obviously making money and hitting your quota, et cetera, but when you’re a VAR rep and you get up in the morning, what are you thinking about? What’s going to make it a great day? Then the same thing on the manufacturer side. What does he or she get up thinking about and what makes it a great day for them?
John Podolak: I’ll first say, you’ve got to identify with the mission. Whatever your customer’s doing, you’ve got to be interested in their mission, genuinely interested in what they’re trying to accomplish. Now, if you’re a new field sales rep or a new inside rep and you just got assigned to account and you don’t know anything about them, that’s a tough asset at the beginning. But the good news is, the call to action is you got to research. You got to learn your customer. But let’s go back and say that you already have some affinity with the customer and you know who they are, you understand their mission, that’s rule number one. Of course, the other side of the equation is, what are they trying to solve?
Having a good ear and listening before you speak to what your customers are saying so that if there’s a particular technology or a particular service that they are looking for, that you have line of sight to go bring that to the table for them. You can be a force multiplier for the customer’s efforts and help them with their market research.
Now, that may mean your company may have that already in their quiver, but if they do not, you may have to get involved with internal communications with your own leadership and sell the business case of the importance to your customer to bring this new technology or the new OEM into your portfolio so that you can be successful helping your customer be successful.
Fred Diamond: You were at Dell for a long time. You’ve been in the channel for eight years. Is there anything you miss about working in the OEM side? Things that you enjoy that you just miss?
John Podolak: It’s certainly bigger. My whole career, before coming to IMPRES, I was always with big organizations. It was the military, it was airlines, it was large SIs, it was a large OEM. For me, it’s been fun to go to a small business. We’re 100 people. I tell people when they come in the door, 99% of their decision authority is looking at them in the mirror when they get up in the morning. But going back to your question about a large OEM, certainly the camaraderie across a large organization, and I was at Dell for a while, and I still live in the Austin area, so it’s nice to maintain the relationships with a lot of my OEM colleagues. But I think just the breadth and the numbers involved at a large OEM is a lot of fun.
Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about building winning sales teams. What do you look for when you’re trying to bring on a new channel sales professional? What are some of the characteristic or traits? I know we talked that college athletes interest you, so let’s address that.
John Podolak: You come to a VAR and you’re a corporate athlete, whether you’re an athlete or not. But number one, and you hit the nail on the head when you used the word professional, people who carry themselves with professionalism, who communicate well, are dressed appropriately and carry themselves well in the environment. Human nature, people work with who they like. If you can find somebody that is outgoing and extrovert and can carry a conversation with a group, that is going to be more of a strength. Something I look for as opposed to somebody who’s in a large room is a wallflower. That doesn’t mean if you are a wallflower, that those aren’t skills you can’t develop. Just know that people like me that are hiring outside field reps, that’s what we’re looking for, that extrovert trait, if you will.
I throw a word around, I’m sure I didn’t coin it, but sales DNA. What’s sales DNA? We’ve hired people that have no sales experience, but I tell you, they had sales DNA. These are some of the traits they had.
Now, you mentioned college athletes. I was not a college athlete. I coach youth sports and I’m certainly a fan of college athletes, but let me tell you, some of the things that they bring to the table, that’s just in them, they’re competitive. They have short memories, i.e., if they have a bad play, they’re not down and out and they come back because they’ve got that competitive nature and they want to win. Think about it, going to college and managing sports, that’s a big ask. They’ve demonstrated work ethic. They’ve demonstrated that they can grind.
When you are starting out in sales, it is a grind. You have to show up. It is hard work. When you put that work in over a period of time and everybody has a period of ramp time, but at some point, the goal is where, I don’t want to say you’re not working as hard, but the work that you’re putting in is showing fruit consistently.
Fred Diamond: One of the distinctions that came up on the Sales Game Changers Podcast was, and I’ve interviewed a bunch of athletes. As a matter of fact, I did a show a couple years ago when I interviewed two baseball pitchers who both made it to the major leagues talking about the pitcher’s mindset. One of the pitchers brought up the idea, everybody wants a win, every athlete wants a win, but it’s the unique athlete and the unique sales professional that gets to the elite level that hates to lose. I want to win. Everybody wants to win. Are you willing to give up, the sacrifice, being in the gym at 3:00 in the morning? Which also goes back to sales, how much research are you willing to do? We use the word professional a lot. How much are you willing to apply to things like your nutrition, your diet and stuff like that, exercise, again, you coming from the Navy, understanding mind, body, spirit, et cetera?
You talked about the customer’s mission and why that’s so important. I’ve interviewed, in the over 750 Sales Game Changers Podcasts, probably at least 25% were sales leaders in the public sector space. Typically federal or state and local, in some cases education. I always ask the mission question. You were in the Navy in the beginning of your career. Talk about understanding the customer’s mission and how critical that is for you being successful. You’ve said a couple times on this podcast that if you don’t appreciate that or you don’t get that, you’re not going to be successful. You’re in the wrong marketplace. This is, in a lot of cases, the public sector, specifically federal, is very mission driven.
The first question is talk about your why. You served, but tell us a little bit about why your whole career, a large part of it has been in servicing the federal customer. Then how critical is that for a sales professional to be successful at the VAR and the OEM, if there’s a distinction that needs to be made?
John Podolak: I’ll start on the DOD side. Before I took the role I’m in, I ran our DOD team and I did a fair amount of DOD business when I was back at Dell. I spent 12 years of active duty. I flew jets off of carriers. I did a staff role at CENTCOM during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom, and saw the intelligence side there, was in the J-2 there. It gave me a broad understanding of naval operations. I’ve also spent time on surface ships in my college days as part of growing up. I understood Navy, and when I went to CENTCOM, it gave me a broader sense. I understood DOD because it was a joint command, and certainly we were in a time of conflict at the end of my career and then also in my IT career. It was easy to translate mission.
We sell IT. We sell servers, storage, networking. You put that on the shelf and look at, it’s not very sexy. It’s not. You’ve got to identify as a salesperson and seek to find out what are they going to do with that gear? What situation, action, result, because they’re putting that new solution in there, what business growth or what mission impact are they going to have because of what they’re doing? Then you can be so much more successful having conversations with them of that mission-enabling technology gear you’re trying to sell.
Fred Diamond: It’s a great answer and it’s just so critical to understand. Just curious, back to my question to you about your mission. You went to the Naval Academy. Was your father involved in the military? Personally, John Podolak, why is this your mission?
John Podolak: Interesting. I grew up in a modest household in Bristol, Connecticut, and my dad was former army. He had just served in the ‘50s for a couple years. For me, it was an opportunity for adventure, honestly, to get out and do the things that at the time young boys were interested in. Then it evolved from there. Sure, flying jets off carriers was very cool. Going around the world was cool. Through that experience, seeing what the military did for the freedom of the country and what our country does as a force for good across the globe, it was easy to get aligned with the patriotic mission of the DOD certainly, and what we did. Then you look at our civilian agencies and what they do for everybody at home, whether it be Homeland Security, whether it be the Veterans Administration, whether it be the Department of State or the Department of Labor, and the forces for good that these agencies are. Anywhere in the federal space, how can you not get behind the mission of the folks that you’re supporting?
Fred Diamond: Give a message here to sales professionals in the channel, specifically. Value added resellers, sales professionals, as a leader, what does their leader expect from them? What do you expect from your sales professionals? For the people on your team who may not be listening, and for the people all through the channel, as a leader, what do leaders expect from them?
John Podolak: Activity and effort. You got to have a plan and then work the plan. That sounds so cliche, but it is so true. You can’t just wake up in the morning and not know what you’re going to do. You’ve got to apply energy to the plan, and then show your work. As a sales leader, for us at IMPRES, we use Salesforce. Other companies use other CRMs. That is the way to communicate what you’re doing as a sales maker so we know how many calls you made, we know what your pipeline looks like, and we can validate that.
If you’re a field sales maker, show up. Show up in the field. You got to be okay to have a door close in your face from time to time, and be relentless, be competitive, and know that at some point, you’re going to see your name on the company’s leaderboard. If you’re not near the top or you’re near the bottom, you cannot be satisfied with that. We talked about athletes. Some of the guys that I’ve hired, as they’re starting out, they’re at the bottom of the leaderboard. They’re like, “I’m not going to be there. Watch me next year. Watch where I’m at on that leaderboard next year.” It’s so important, whether you’ve been an athlete or not, and I wasn’t.
I was a high school athlete, but that competitive spirit, it builds camaraderie among your fellow sales peers at your company. I love when the guys are talking trash with each other about who’s going to be on top of who on the leaderboard. That’s good competitive spirit. It just shows they care. It’s important to them, and it’s an internal metric, but at the end of the day, we’re supporting the customer. The customer is who we want at the top of the leaderboard. By us helping the customer be successful with the solutions we’re putting in front of them, we win.
Fred Diamond: John, you’ve given us so many great ideas. Give us one more thing that people should do right now, an action they should take right now after listening to the show or reading the transcript to take their sales career to the next level.
John Podolak: If you’re a field salesperson, pick up the phone and call that customer that’s been on your list that you haven’t gotten to yet. Even our best sales guys, we’re always asking, “Who’s your next customer?” Those customers are great. Who’s your next one? Especially in this environment, you may have to pivot. How you planned on selling this year may be changing, but the goal is not going to change, especially if you’re coming off a great year. You may have to pivot. Again, plan, take action, pick up the phone and call that next customer.
Fred Diamond: Pick up the phone. Great bit of advice. The greatest sales tool of all time still remains the phone. Once again, John Podolak, thank you so much for being on today’s Sales Game Changers Podcast. My name is Fred Diamond.