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Today’s show is a Women in Sales episode. The interview was conducted by Center for Elevating Women in Sales Leadership director Gina Stracuzzi.
The guest, Randi Deckard is the Senior Vice President, Growth at Belser.
Find Randi on LinkedIn.
RANDI’S TIP: “Sales is a conversation. The key is to simplify the complicated, stay curious, and iterate. Success comes from constantly refining, learning, and being 1% better every day.”
THE PODCAST BEGINS HERE
Gina Stracuzzi: I’m super excited to talk to our guest today, Randi Deckard. Randi has had an amazing career and is really a revenue leader, which let’s face it, that’s what it’s all about. Randi, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to where you are today.
Randi Deckard: I have an unconventional path to the revenue growth engine leadership role. I am actually a clinical scientist by training. Thought I wanted to be a forensic pathologist, a hundred autopsies under my belt and pivoted. I share that because I think that it’s really important to own your journey and it’s okay to change. I had the opportunity to move into a commercial role where I was driving revenue, but selling to pathologists was my first gig. Of course, who knew that ICP? Well, me, because I wanted to be a pathologist.
For the last 15 years, I have had the opportunity to drive revenue. In that first role, I knew nothing about sales, but what I did know is how to talk to pathologists because I wanted to be one. My philosophy is sell without selling. It’s really about helping and understanding and having that scientific background curiosity, being very curious, and also having frameworks from science to sales has really helped me grow. That’s really actually one of my superpowers, is the fact that I didn’t have a sales background, because you don’t know what you don’t know.
I didn’t have anything, not Miller Heiman, Sandler, MEDDPICC, nothing, and I was successful. I think it’s because I just got in there and learned what needed to be done and then just kept iterating and refining. That’s really how I got where I am. I’m over at sales, marketing, and customer success now and absolutely loving driving revenue.
Gina Stracuzzi: Tell us a little bit about your role in the company you’re with right now.
Randi Deckard: I’m at a healthcare finance firm, BESLER. We are TurboTax for hospitals. We help them cut a bigger check. Just like you or I, when we do taxes, depending what we got going on, maybe it’s a little much for us, so we may hire someone. We also have services, and part of those services are not just around the cost report, which is the hospital’s tax form, but just around revenue recovery. Like I said, our whole goal is just helping hospitals get a bigger check and more money.
Gina Stracuzzi: Backing up to what you said a minute ago about just bringing your passion for science and your curiosity. We have talked to so many women over the years that started off as engineers and just a variety of sciences and have really just excelled at selling because they’re really passionate about the topic. They come at it from more of a subject matter expert point of view, rather than a sales point of view. I think that really does help because people can feel your passion, feel your desire to really be a true value. That’s probably why you’re so successful, because you live and breathe it.
Randi Deckard: I think the other superpower with science when you’re doing research is you have to simplify the complicated. I always say sales is just a conversation. Obviously, I’m super simplifying it because there are a lot of steps throughout the process, but I think sometimes we get in our own head. When you just focus on really trying to understand the other person, and then obviously having a strong point of view and bringing that and how you could help that person potentially, I think that makes all the difference.
Gina Stracuzzi: What motivated you to leave the clinical world, if you were so engrossed in it?
Randi Deckard: I know. Number one, I was getting ready to start a family and I knew the hours that I was working and would continue to work were just really not what I wanted with the family. I looked for other things that I could do. It was actually my pathology mentor who said, “Have you considered the commercial side of healthcare? You could sell this and work less hours and make just as much money,” even though it wasn’t about money at the time. It was really my pathology mentor who opened my eyes to another avenue, but the onset of having a family really drove that. I’m very fortunate to have had that choice as I was going through my career.
Gina Stracuzzi: Let’s talk a little bit about your clinical science training and how that helped you in your go-to-market roles.
Randi Deckard: Everyone was like, “How does that work?” The first thing is, as a clinical scientist, I was charged with and taught how to create and design experiments. Well, what the heck is go-to-market? It is one big experiment. Also, in science, you have to be a documentarian. What I mean by that is you have to document everything, and anything that changes, you also do that. Then you’re also taught, when you create an experiment and actually run through it, is what is the one thing that I could change that will move the needle? i.e., I get a different outcome. When you apply those few things, and just being extremely curious and creative, and experiment and designing an experiment, that all applies to go-to-market.
One of the things that I think is the reason why I’m so successful is that science taught me how to connect the dots. Very early on, even as an individual contributor, I realized the way that I thought was so different than my other counterparts, who strictly had just gone through the sales, because I was always interested in everything from business unit economics to even on the client side, how everything came together so I could have better conversations. I think that mindset and applying it both internally and externally, made such a huge difference and helped me with my trajectory.
After a year, because I was charged with getting two million in the first year, I got five, and they’re like, “Hey, if you can do that, can you do it with a team?” Because I was a documentarian, I had documented all my learnings, and by learnings I mean failures and how I move forward to be successful, I was able to bring in a team and move very quickly. I’ve just kept refining and refining, but it’s connecting those dots and I think it’s really what made the difference. It’s just how I think, and that’s how I was taught.
Gina Stracuzzi: I can see how that would all work together. I love what you said about sales being one big experiment, because really, you approach a target in a particular way and it either works or it doesn’t work. I think, to your point, what a lot of us fail to do is document those steps and even to process, why didn’t that work? What could I do differently? We just call another day and maybe we ask different questions, maybe we don’t, thinking it’s just a numbers game. If we just stick after it, of course, I’m simplifying things too, but I can see how your approach really could be quite impactful.
Randi Deckard: If I could just tease that out a little bit. We always talk about the art and science in sales. The science is being data-driven, which obviously as a scientist, I’m a complete nerd, completely data-driven. But the art is the context. Part of the context is the market, the client, and being able to connect those dots. That’s why those parallels between being a scientist and go-to market, I think it really does help, and continually iterating, but you have to know what to change. The only way you can do that is if you are very intentional about what you’re going to change. Like I said, if you’re looking at the data, but also have the additional context, I think that makes all the difference.
Gina Stracuzzi: Yes, I can see that. Would you call that a lab mindset?
Randi Deckard: Yes, that’s my thing. I literally have a little term, #labmindset, and I also have another #refinementloop, because I also think, just from being a leader and leading teams, is the foundation is always so important. The foundation itself never really changes. You still have to iterate. Even though you have a foundation, there’s core things that don’t change, but there are a lot of things that you have to iterate and refine, and that’s part of the experiment. Sometimes my CEO’s like, “Can you use a different word than experiment?” I’m like, “Iterate and refine. There we go.”
I call it the refinement loop, and when I’m coaching individuals, it’s about being 1% better every day. Looking at the data, hey, maybe you weren’t so great in the disco call. Let’s work on that, let’s fix that. Then what’s the next thing? Then over a year working and coaching with someone and a team, you have what I call the compound effect because you are focused continually on improving. Once again, that comes to the lab mindset, because we have a term in the lab, it’s called process improvement, as part of our quality control. When I apply that to go-to-market, that’s that iterating and continually refining. We never stop. It never stops.
Gina Stracuzzi: Can you lay out for us what that grand experiment might look like in a sales call? You talked about coaching and people who have tried things and they’re not working, but can you give us some real-life examples?
Randi Deckard: I think it’s easy if I put on my leadership hat. When I am working with an individual, I can look at the data in my CRM, it doesn’t matter what CRM you use. Based on the data, or if you have a call recording, you can listen to a transcript if you weren’t participating, and you can see maybe where they had issues. But if you take both of those, call listening where you can scorecard the call and also look at where they’re having trouble over time, “Hey, it seems like you’re stuck in this stage. It seems like you’re really good at closing, but you struggle in the early stages. If we work on that, you’re going to move faster.”
Coaching has to be personalized. In the moment, obviously, if I was on a call with someone, I’d never correct someone with a customer. I may steer, but you don’t want to make someone look bad when you’re on a call. Often that’s behind the scenes, but doing that and working with them so they can iterate and see the results. One of the things that I have seen is if I am laser intentional on my coaching, one thing at a time, they fix that and then we move to the next thing, I get the compound effect from the team. I’ve moved, if I can use the term, C players to B, then from B to A, and that’s how I end up bringing my whole team up.
Gina Stracuzzi: That bodes well into the next idea of failure. Thinking about the experiment idea again, part of any experiment is failure, because you’re trying to get to the right hypothesis and parameters. When you have failure, and in a laboratory, it might be one thing, you change a different compound, or whatever the case might be. With people, you’ve spoken about coaching a couple times, some people are more open and amenable to coaching, others are not, and it can be difficult. When you have somebody who is not doing well and who has routine failures, and perhaps they’re a little stubborn to coaching, what’s your methodology in those circumstances?
Randi Deckard: I think that the most important thing is as a leader, it’s my job to bring out the best in people. Part of that is not just knowing them as a seller. I always say that people are more than their number, but it’s actually getting to know them and what really drives them. One of the ways that I’ve gotten around this is twice a year, I actually hold a goal setting workshop. The goal setting workshop is not necessarily related to, “Hey, this is the goal of the company.” It’s really about them as a person.
Just as an example, I have one person who’s writing a book. I have another person who is launching a podcast based on faith conversations. But that ties into their bigger goal of, “Hey, I want to earn the most so I can fuel these things,” whether it’s take a vacation or whatever. You have to know the person’s why so you can motivate and work with them. If I just came at you, Gina, and said, “Hey, constructively, here are the things that we’re going to work on. Here’s an action plan. This is how we’re going to implement it.” It is not the same as me coming to you and saying, “Hey, I know that you said that you wanted to go on this vacation and you needed to earn at least this much because you wanted to have these experiences. If we work on this, you’re going to get these four extra deals, and that’s going to fund that.” Doesn’t that change how invested you might be in changing?
I look at the lab mindset and the refinement loop. It’s my job to utilize change management skills, but change management with people instead of a company making decision on a buying decision. How you do that is know your why. Just like I need to know the why of my customer.
Gina Stracuzzi: In some respects, how you help various people is a bit of an experiment too, because you might try something, and if that doesn’t work, you don’t necessarily push them out the door. You just try something else.
Randi Deckard: Yeah. For everyone listening, I define failure as it’s truly only a failure if you know it’s not working and you keep repeating the same mistake. It’s not failure if you make a mistake and you learn from it and you try again, and maybe you get a different result, and maybe it’s only 60% of the way there. The point is, is that you are progressing towards where you need to be. I think that’s the big difference.
When I’m coaching, I talk a lot about mindset because I think sometimes people get in their head the word failure. That actually ends up causing a little bit of chaos for them because they internalize that. Maybe that’s why some of the resistance is a hard pill to swallow. But if you talk about, “Hey, we’re making progression,” and you can show them, even if it’s baby steps, I think that’s super important as well.
Gina Stracuzzi: That leads me into the next question, which is about your leadership philosophy. I think you’ve covered some of it, or at least how you deal with issues of other people struggling. But what’s your overall leadership philosophy and how has that really led your career?
Randi Deckard: I always talk about being people first. When I talk about being customer centric, it’s internal/external. The reason I mention those two things is that we can never forget as a leader that we’re dealing with another human being. Just like that goal setting workshop, I have to understand the full 360 of a person to bring out the best in them. That’s my job, not for me to have accolades. Don’t get me wrong. There are things that I can celebrate, but my job is to see the best in people and find ways to grow them. Sometimes that means, “Hey, maybe you need to consider another opportunity, whether it’s within the company or outside the company, because it seems like you’re really not happy or you’re not progressing, but I could see you doing this.” That’s okay.
I think the greatest testament to my leadership is I have had people say, “I would follow you anywhere because you have continued to grow me.” Then I have people who have gone on and they’re VPs, et cetera, because that’s what they wanted to do. They wanted to be a leader as well. Not everyone wants to be a leader. Those are the two things.
Gina Stracuzzi: I would be a little remiss if I didn’t ask something about the fact that you have done over a hundred autopsies. What is that like? You must be really popular at parties because people want to know about this. It’s funny, I listened to another podcast, it’s a true crime thing, and that was her line of work as well. Now she’s doing this and she writes books. It’s not something you come across every day, let’s put it that way.
Randi Deckard: I know. It’s funny that you asked me this question, Gina, because when I was going through moonlighting in the morgue, as my mother would call it, I wasn’t allowed to talk at the dinner table. She literally had a moratorium. She’s like, “You are not allowed to ask Randi questions at the dinner table about what happened in the morgue this weekend.”
Obviously, you want to treat bodies with respect, but you’re like a detective. That’s actually why I wanted to be a forensic pathologist, because you’re a detective of finding out how someone passed, and it could make a difference, especially in criminal cases. I’ve always had this fascination for just learning. Period. I love detective books. Anyways, I just went down this path because I was really good at working with the pathologist and digging in and finding what the root cause was. Now I just do it in go-to-market.
Gina Stracuzzi: What killed this deal? [Laughs].
Randi Deckard: I can talk about it at the dinner table. There’s not a moratorium on, “What did you do this week, Randi?”
Gina Stracuzzi: I see a book in your future, Moonlighting at the Morgue. That’s a great title.
Randi Deckard: This is so terrible, my mother would cringe, but I used to get so excited because I’d be like, “It’s a long weekend. That means that there’s going to be floaters and gunshots.” My mom’s like, “I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it.”
Gina Stracuzzi: Not the stuff you usually hear out of especially girls, women. Boys always seem to have a little fascination with guts and blood.
Randi Deckard: If I could blame anyone, it’s my grandfather. I grew up on a farm. For anyone who grew up on a farm, they’ll maybe relate to this. My grandfather used to butcher out in the barn. Even as a young girl, I would see him and I was always curious, what are all the different parts of the cow? If I’m going to blame anyone, my mom should be blaming her dad.
Gina Stracuzzi: And she’s the one trying to shoo-shoo on it.
Randi Deckard: Yes. A hundred percent.
Gina Stracuzzi: That’s an awesome story, Randi. We’re at the point in our conversation where we like to ask our guests for one final action item that those listening can put into place today. There’s a lot of people listening that are involved in go-to market strategies and roles or just day-to-day sellers. What do you have for them?
Randi Deckard: My thing is, and my team knows this, because I say this on repeat, they probably hear it when they close their eyes, is be 1% better every day. What I mean by that is always look for opportunities to upskill or refine. I would be remiss right now if I did not mention AI. If anyone has not got on the AI bandwagon and learned how they can be more efficient or productive in their role, you’re behind. It’s just one of those things you’re behind. Just continue to upskill and then you can keep relevant in the role, because change is inevitable. That’s how we keep relevant, is by upskilling. 1% better every day.
Gina Stracuzzi: I absolutely love that, because that is manageable. We’re all so overwhelmed with so much. 1% is definitely achievable. You can even imagine that.
Randi Deckard: Just pick one thing a day. Be intentional.
Gina Stracuzzi: Absolutely. I’m with you with that AI stuff. I just have a ball with it and I think, “Wow, all the hours you spend writing things and refining them,” it just is so laborious, and like that it’s done.
Randi Deckard: I have a hundred custom GPTs, just as an aside, because you mentioned the writing. One of my biggest time savers is creating, I call it Randi’s voice and brand. With a custom GPT, you can train it on you. That is my creative collaborator. It’s my virtual assistant that helps me write articles. It’s still my original thoughts, but it just helps me go quicker. That’s that efficiency productivity.
Gina Stracuzzi: I totally agree. Mine even came back and said, “I have noted that you like a rather sarcastic tone.”
Randi Deckard: My voice is sassy/snarky, so I’m right there with you. That’s Randi, sassy and snarky.
Transcribed by Mariana Badillo