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EPISODE 181: MOSAIC Exec Patti Dumas Posits Why Marketing Leaders Won’t Have Success Unless They Understand Sales

PATTI’S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Embrace learning, make mistakes, stay focused and find those friends and people that are going to inspire you and keep you motivated.”

Patti Dumas is the Senior VP of Sales at MOSAIC.

Prior to MOSAIC, she held sales and marketing leadership positions at HBP and Balmar.

Find Patti on LinkedIn!

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you tell us a little more about you that we need to know?

Patti Dumas: It’s fun to talk about my history because I really am a hybrid in terms of my experience. I came with an MBA in marketing and we’ll chat a little bit about that, but that’s what led me to my sales career. Throughout my career I’ve worn both of those hats which I think is integral, because from a marketing perspective if you really don’t understand sales then you shouldn’t be doing your job. I’ve always had a very strong handle on both the sales and marketing side of what I do.

Fred Diamond: Has most of your career been in the printing side of the business?

Patti Dumas: Yes it has, but I started at Xerox. After I finished my MBA at George Washington University, how I got into sales is fascinating. I had a phenomenal professor named doctor Sal Divita. Doctor Sal Divita was the most amazing marketing professor I ever could have had, but the one thing he always taught me is I had no right to go into marketing if I didn’t understand sales. He told me I clearly had to go and figure out sales, so I got a job at Xerox, I was hired and I sold with them for about a year, year and a half.

What I realized, I had a friend that had gone on the print side of the business at the time who was suggesting to me that although I was at Xerox and loving it, I was a little fish in a very big pond and would I not want to consider taking my talents and learning how to be a big fish in a smaller pond. She introduced me into the print industry so I went from my first job at Xerox where I had Spin Selling training and great training background to move into the print world.

Fred Diamond: For a lot of the Sales Game Changers listening around the globe, Xerox was the gold standard for sales. You mentioned Spin Selling, Neil Rackham’s name has come up not infrequently over the course of the 200 somewhat interviews that we’ve done. I didn’t realize that about your background, that obviously gives a little more color into how your career came about and I’m excited to talk about that. Tell us about MOSAIC, tell us a little more about what you sell today, tell us what excites you about that.

Patti Dumas: MOSAIC is such an interesting organization and I love it just by our name, that gives you some insight into the organization. The legacy side of the business was the print side, but what we morphed to over the last 4 to 5 years is truly the marketing services side where we holistically have brought on experts that can go to clients and drive strategy, drive the narrative, help with the web development and really take a multi-channel and a strategic approach to help them drive their business to their clients.

Fred Diamond: How has that been with a company that’s historically been in the print side and has now moved into marketing and marketing services?

Patti Dumas: It is so much fun and every day to me is something new. What makes it so fascinating is the owners strongly believe in hiring the best and the brightest. We’ve brought on people from Discovery Communications, from USA Today, we’ve brought on people from Street Sense on the creative side, so they’re really looking to hire people from outside the industry to really help us reach our clients.

Fred Diamond: Marketing is a broad term, what are some of the things that you guys excel at?

Patti Dumas: Specifically what we’re fantastic at is going in and helping clients. We almost like to say we like to augment where they need services. What we see in many organizations that we’re working with whether it’s education, whether it’s corporations, whether it’s associations is they’re very limited in their marketing staff and quite often they might be wanting to drive home a new program, a campaign strategy. Sometimes they don’t have what it takes internally to get that messaging right and then to take it to market whether it’s through whatever channels that they’re using. That’s where we can help.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little more about how you first got into sales as a career and how that transition took place.

Patti Dumas: It was interesting, I came out of college working for an organization called COMSAT who paid 100% for me to get my MBA at GW. I went to school three and a half years’ nights and during that time it really became apparent through my professor and through others I met in the program that sales was something I should consider. From the day I started it I’ve always loved it so even over the years while I’ve been able to have a hybrid role where I’ve also been in charge of marketing, the core of me is sales. The core of what I do for our clients is really always that driven of, “How can we help a client?” and I’ve been very fortunate to always have that sales hat on. That’s never come off my head, even when I was doing marketing.

Fred Diamond: I have two quick questions for you. You have an MBA, do you believe that salespeople should get MBA’s? Would there be value to a sales professional getting an MBA?

Patti Dumas: Absolutely, I do. Here’s why, it forces you to really study and understand more about it, just like I’m always constantly reading whether it’s what I learned from Spin Selling, Challenger Sales, reading Forbes Magazine, all these different avenues we have to find information daily. An MBA gives you that much broader perspective holistically on how organizations work, so no matter what company you’re going to focus on you’re going to have a much better understanding of how to research that organization, how to be prepared for that organization, how to think like a business person, not like a salesperson. I think an MBA is a fantastic way to really further your career and have another way of looking at what you do for a living.

Fred Diamond: One thing you just talked about which comes out often on the Sales Game Changers podcast which I know was going to come up today is you need to treat it as a sales professional. You need to treat your business as a business and you need to continue to bring value to your customers which isn’t just giving them a good deal or a good strategy on how to implement your technology or your products or your offering. It’s really about how they grow their business, so aligned with that for people who have listened to the Sales Game Changers podcast – again I mentioned Xerox was the gold standard, if you will – why don’t you tell us some of the key lessons you learned from some of your first few sales jobs?

Patti Dumas: That’s such a great question. I’ve learned a lot of things, I’ve learned how to make mistakes and I’ve learned how to grow from those. Whenever I hire people it’s really important that they understand I expect them to make mistakes because that’s how we get better at what we do. I’m big on critiquing and I’ve always critiqued myself, and I learned that in graduate school. We used to do a lot of role playing, so that was a big focus in the program. That role playing really taught me even on my presentation and how you prepare for it, how you look to others.

Preparation is key, the other part is really planning out what it is you want to say, what you want to accomplish and what does that mean then? That means you’ve done all you research, so always be prepared. As I’ve told salespeople over the years, you are the ones that keep the company going, you’re the ones that help drive the revenue, you’re the ones that are helping to keep people employed. If you’re not prepared for that sales call, if you’re not ready to go out there and do the best for the company then you have no right to be part of it. I’m all about preparation, dry runs, people here will laugh but I really believe in dry runs to make sure we’ve got our game together and always be focused on the next opportunity.

Fred Diamond: What does that mean, what is a “dry run”?

Patti Dumas: A dry run is to get the team together that’s going to present, because we’re in such a multi-level world of how we present now. It used to be reps would be out in the field, that’s no longer the case. We’ve got technology people, we’ve got creative people, we’ve got marketing strategists so there’s a number of people that could be on any sales call. On the same side, because you’ve got 5 people on the other side of the desk that are in different roles and quite often when you’re going in those organizations you don’t know what each silo is going to ask and need from you. It’s very critical to really be part of a team that sits and presents and works through all the different things that we could present it with, that dry run is what really helps us focus on that. I believe strongly in them, let me put it that way.

Fred Diamond: Again, we’ve done over 200 Sales Game Changers podcast interviews. I don’t believe we’ve interviewed anybody from the printing space, if you will and I know that MOSAIC is now also in marketing services. For our listeners around the globe, can you tell us a little bit about selling printing services and what that looks like and who do you sell to and what some of the things that might be related to it are?

Patti Dumas: Such a great question because printing over the years has evolved and changed. As printing has migrated to maybe shorter runs, it’s much more dynamic, it’s much more personalized. Our printing presses, our pre-pressed department that prepares everything for print, we’re much more versatile in our ability to provide a message that’s much more targeted to people. One on one we have a variable data department that can really help drive that and then on the back end we have all types of support whether it’s fulfillment or mailing services or sending out specialized kits or packages for membership, it could be new member campaigns.

There’s such a variety of things we can provide clients. The beauty of it is I can tell you in the last 3 years there’s been an upswing in print, people are realizing that web-based marketing isn’t the only way people want to communicate. I was reading an interesting article this morning talking about decision making on the direct mail side and 70% their finding of consumer decisions are now being made through some type of direct mail piece they received at home. We’re getting mail again at our mailboxes, if you haven’t noticed, catalogues are back, a lot of web-based organizations like the Amazons of the world setting up stores. You’re seeing more and more print being driven and print helps drive you to the web. The beauty of print is it also helps get you to the web to look at making purchasing decisions.

Fred Diamond: That makes sense, how can you integrate those strategies. It’s an interesting thing you just said – print is on the upswing.

Patti Dumas: Absolutely, especially in the retail world. They have found that they cannot just rely on web alone to get their message across and print is quite often getting people to go make buying decisions.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you tell us a little more about your specific area of brilliance? Tell us what you’re an expert in.

Patti Dumas: I like to say that I’m an expert in making sure I have experts around me, because I have found in our industry that you really need to rely on that team to be brilliant and that we all have our own strengths and our own weaknesses. Finding the right people around you and being part of that team is what I’ve always excelled at, being able to hire and recruit fantastic people. Also in the decisions I’ve made in my career is to go to people that are going to challenge me and make me learn every day. Never stop learning, I’m big into reading and Ted Talks and podcasts and all sorts of ways to get information. My area of brilliance I really feel is by having the best people I possibly can around me.

Fred Diamond: For the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast, as you know, we do the interviews typically at the guest’s office. We’re doing today’s interview at the offices of MOSAIC, you gave me a beautiful tour of the print facility in the back but one of the first things that you said when we walked in the door is, “We have this great team. We have this great, new marketing leadership team and they’ve really helped us transform the business.” Again, you worked at Xerox so you’ve worked at some great companies, you’ve held sales leadership positions, you have an MBA, you must have had some great sales mentors along the way. Why don’t you tell us about an impactful sales career mentor or two and how they impacted your career?

Patti Dumas: I love talking about that because my first mentor was doctor Sal Divita I mentioned earlier in this podcast, from George Washington University. He and I stayed friends for years and I would have lunch with him every year for many years and talk about our successes and where I was going and he’d always give me great advice. Along the way, my best mentors are now my four best friends. They’re all females in printing at the time and what we found is we worked hard, we played hard, we knew that we were going to be successful but we always drove each other to be better so we were always competitive.

We rose up the ranks into vice president positions, all of us so it was really fun to see these women in my life become better at what they were but it was because we challenge each other. I would challenge any new rep in the field to find those mentors, not just people that are above you but your peers that are going to push you to be better. It’s not just people above you that do that, it’s what you find in yourself and how others do it and they are now my best friends. We travel and do vacations together and it’s just a lot of fun to know how we started.

Fred Diamond: I want to pursue that for a second, it reminds me of the great Jim Rohn quote that you’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Talk more for the Sales Game Changers listening about that process. You found four women, so tell us a little more about that, how frequent did you meet? Where did you meet, what the relationships have been like, did you compete with some of these women as well?

Patti Dumas: Absolutely, we all were in sales together at Balmar at the time and we were very successful salespeople. We were working very hard but we all wanted to further our careers and we would all kid each other and drive each other about sales numbers. We’d always be telling each other what we did for the month, what our next opportunity was and we’d have a lot of fun but we also were competitive, let me make that real clear. One of them got promoted to vice president and then a year later I was promoted to vice president, then my other friend was promoted to vice president so we were all moving up the ranks and working for different divisions of the company but we had a lot of fun along the way.

There was such a competitiveness but a wanting of each other to be successful and really promoting each other and always being there for each other which is what really led to the friendship that grew out of it. As competitive as it was, it was also a very comfortable, friendly way but it made us work hard, I’ll tell you that.

Fred Diamond: I want to follow up on that real briefly. Again, one of our sponsors, the Institute for Excellence in Sales has a Women in Sales program and you were involved with that when we first created the program and you were very active in some of the mentoring that we did in the program. If you don’t mind my asking the question about Women in Sales, you talked about how you wanted each other to be successful. Again, you’re a very successful woman in sales and marketing leadership, can you talk about some of the results of that and how you view yourself being a woman in sales?

Patti Dumas: It’s very interesting especially in the printing industry because it was not years ago very well known for having women in sales, let alone in management positions. It’s been very fun to work my way up the ranks but it’s because I believe in just being a part of a team and sales is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s what you do and how you produce and I think for any female that was coming up the ranks you could quickly see it doesn’t matter. That’s something I’ve always been very fortunate to do and that’s what I believe has helped me in my career. I’ve had so many successes along the way but all of those were driven by people around me as being part of it.

Fred Diamond: Before we talk about one of your biggest successes, why don’t you talk about the two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader?

Patti Dumas: One of the biggest challenges we always face and I’m always thinking about is what is it our clients are going to need next, because so much of what they’re driven by is what their own clients need. We’re really studying what is the future of what’s driving our clients, what is their stress levels and then aside of that is how do I recruit and hire for that for the future? So I spent a lot of time in the last 6 months re-examining the future of the sales force, what does that look like, reading books, talking to experts and getting a feel for how they believe the future of sales is going to look from a team perspective.

You can’t just go out anymore and hire field reps and hope that you’ll just hire a bunch of them and they’ll sell, you really have to look inward in the organization and look at inward sale support making sure that the people you’re hiring are going to be prepared to help the customers we have. It’s a much more strategic view and they have to be able to think differently and think much more thoughtfully and intelligently. There’s another word for that, to be empathetic to our clients and really be studying what it is they need and listening really well, but the ability to be strategic is going to be key.

Fred Diamond: Empathy has come up not infrequently on the Sales Game Changers podcast as well and I like your concept. You have to understand how you can provide value for the customer and I liked the way you answered the #1 challenge being thinking about where your customer’s going and how you can continue to bring value to them. That comes up time and time again on the Sales Game Changers podcast, is the sales professionals who will be successful in the future are truly bringing value to customers. You’ve mentioned Spin Selling before and you mentioned Xerox, that’s something that Neil Rackham has taught for years. It came out of Xerox but it’s much more imperative now, don’t you think?

Patti Dumas: Absolutely, in fact I’m a strong advocate of the Challenger Sales and that’s helped drive my way of thinking because sales has evolved. How we go to market and how we talk to clients and everything we’re talking about today has evolved dramatically since Spin Selling. It’s much more methodical and much more research-based because we all know by the time we get to sit in front of that group of people, 70% of their decision making has been done for them. It’s being prepared to help address that 30% to really show where your differentiator is, it’s one of the main challenges that we have and why we have to think and hire differently for the future.

Fred Diamond: Briefly, Challenger Sale has also come up not infrequently on the Sales Game Changers podcast. What are some of the things that you’ve implemented from that Challenger strategy to be successful?

Patti Dumas: I make my new reps read the book, we have discussions about it but I believe strongly in them understanding what that really means. I’m fortunate to be friends with Matt Dixon who was one of the authors of the book, I’ve shared lots of conversations with Matt over the years. What I really drive home for people is that to have a right to have a seat at the table you need to understand who it is you’re talking to and understand their challenges and not be afraid to talk to them about ways to look at their business differently if you have a right to do that. That has to do with doing your research and being prepared.

Fred Diamond: You can’t just wing it, you mentioned preparation a number of times before. To get to the Sales Game Changers level you’ve had to really understand your customer and where they’re going, their industry, what they’re faced with and what some of the big challenges are that they’re faced with. You eluded to the fact that you’ve had some great successes over the course of your career, why don’t you tell us about one? Tell us about your #1 sales success or win from your career you’re most proud of.

Patti Dumas: It’s hard to narrow that down but I will tell you I’ve been fortunate to have great successes. One of them was quite a few years ago with a large biotech firm and I look back and think what made that such a successful win for us, and it was because we had with us a team of people putting that proposal together and really studying the solutions the client was going to need. We worked very hard on that and very specific as to what it is the client needs. When we help the client, we work the proposal so it goes back to the theory of the Challenger Sale but we realized what they were asking for wasn’t exactly what they needed. We also knew that for us there were some technology integrations and some things that needed to happen that we saw ahead of time, so we were able to address those and be prepared for those. That made a huge difference in the client’s eyes, and when we came in and showed them what we thought was missing from it, that drove them to the next conversation which helped us get to the win. It was pretty exciting because we had the right technology people in the room to be part of that proposal.

Fred Diamond: Did you ever question being in sales? Do you ever think to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me”?

Patti Dumas: I have never had a day where I thought that. I have truly been fortunate in my career and loved what I’ve done, I love what I do, I wake up every day looking forward to what I’m coming in to do, I’ve never thought twice about it. I think having that marketing background for me has been invaluable and always having that side of my head thinking about our clients. I love sales and there’s never been a day – there might have been frustrations along the way, but not a day that I haven’t wanted to do this.

Fred Diamond: I’m just curious, before we take a short break and listen to one of our sponsors you mentioned this group of four other women. Did you guys give yourselves a name?

Patti Dumas: The Tomatoes [Laughs]

[Sponsor break]

Fred Diamond: Patti, what’s the most important thing you want to get across to the selling professionals listening around the globe to help them take their careers to the next level?

Patti Dumas: One is always be learning. Reach out to every type of vehicle that you can to learn more about the sales process, to learn about your customers, always be curious and be willing to critique yourself and be honest with yourself. After every call I ever do there’s a critique that I do to think what we could have done differently, what we could have done better. Be willing to be open to the fact that everything we do is not perfect in life and you’re just constantly learning, but you learn from learning from others. Listen to podcasts, watch Ted Talks, read what the best sellers are, ask others around you and be willing to really listen to advice from others.

Fred Diamond: We mentioned the mentor question before, do you consider yourself to be a mentor to a lot of people and if so, do you enjoy that?

Patti Dumas: Yes, I love it, absolutely. I love to help drive success for others. My biggest role is to help drive success for others and to help mentor them to be the best that they can be.

Fred Diamond: Every once in a while we get some Sales Game Changers who approach people to be mentors. How can you set someone up for success if they want to be mentored?

Patti Dumas: I can show them the resources to go after, I can tell them that they have to work harder, work smarter, I can give them tools to make sure that they know how to move forward with their business in the best possible way and just tell them to be the one that works harder than the one next to them.

Fred Diamond: Patti, why don’t you tell us about some of your selling habits that have led to your success?

Patti Dumas: Embrace learning, #1. That’s a strong selling habit, I read something new every day. Challenge yourself to do things that others wouldn’t jump in to do and I’ve always done that in my career. I’ve been tasked to do things that I know nothing about, to provide technology solutions and learn new things and I’ve always jumped in to do it. Always be willing to be that one person that says yes when asked to do something that others don’t want to do.

Fred Diamond: What are some initiatives you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

Patti Dumas: I mentioned earlier we’re really looking at the future of the sales force, that’s going to be critical to us. What does that force look like? I’m doing that through reading and talking to other experts and really embracing different ways. What’s fun at working at this organization is they’re completely open to that philosophy. We’re really going to be testing that along the way, and the other thing is to always be prepared and studying what our clients are doing, new ways about talking to them about helping them with their business.

Fred Diamond: Patti, I’m going to ask the next question slightly different. Typically we ask, “What is it about sales as a career that keeps you going?” but since you’ve spoken so much about the future of the sales force, why would you encourage someone to come into sales as a profession?

Patti Dumas: I would encourage someone because in their career they will meet more people than they ever could have imagined meeting. They’ll be challenged by learning more about themselves than they ever knew possible, they’re going to always be learning, they’re going to have to really put themselves out there in a way that’s not always comfortable and be open to taking on new things and new responsibilities. You’ll never have a boring day in your life.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you give us a final thought to inspire our listeners today?

Patti Dumas: Embrace learning, make mistakes, stay focused and find those friends and people that are going to inspire you and keep you motivated.

Fred Diamond: I just want to ask one quick follow up. You’ve mentioned mistakes a couple times along the way, can you share some of the mistakes that you’ve made that have helped you lead to your sales leadership?

Patti Dumas: Yes, one of them had to do with not being prepared on a call one day. I picked up the phone and called somebody in the morning without preparation and he answered the phone and I didn’t know what to say to him. As I babbled on, luckily we became friends later but I realized how important preparation was, and that was early on in my career. Most of the time when there’s been mistakes that has to do with not being prepared or have not been focused enough, that’s why I always love to critique myself after calls and critique the salespeople and the team that we’re with as what could we have done differently. You learn from that and move on. We’re all going to make those so we just have to learn from them.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 181: MOSAIC Exec Patti Dumas Posits Why Marketing Leaders Won’t Have Success Unless They Understand Sales first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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EPISODE 165: Hear How Competing in Triathlons Has Made Appian’s Kristin Scott into a Top-Tier Sales Leader

KRISTIN’S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Stay curious. Be open to learning new things – and that could be new ways of selling, that could be new solutions you’re offering, that could be really understanding what your customer’s needs are. Make lasting relationships and act with a spirit of generosity. The importance of being generous and raising your hand to new opportunities, to helping people, to sharing your opinions and comments and advice and helping colleagues, it all comes around to help you in the end.”

Kristin Scott is the Vice President of US Commercial Sales at Appian.

Prior to taking over sales leadership at Appian, she held sales leadership positions at CEB now known as CEB Gartner.

Find Kristin on LinkedIn!

Fred Diamond: Kristin, it’s great to have you on the Sales Game Changers podcast. Why don’t you tell us a little more about you that we need to know?

Kristin Scott:  I’m from the east coast originally, grew up in Connecticut then went to school in Maine at a college called Bates. I’m an avid runner, have participated in a number of triathlons including a half Ironman series which is a blast. I really love working with my clients, my customers and my team. I’m so excited to talk with you on the podcast.

Fred Diamond: The triathlon, what is your favorite part? Is it the running, the biking or the swimming?

Kristin Scott: The swimming is the easiest for me, but I love the running. It’s the end.

Fred Diamond: Have you gone to Hawaii or any of those big races that they have?

Kristin Scott: I did the half Ironman in Australia which was fantastic, I did that a couple of years ago.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little bit about what you sell today and tell us what excites you about that.

Kristin Scott: Appian sells a digital transformation platform. What that means is we build custom applications rapidly to support our customers across a wide variety of industries and across a wide variety of functions. It could be improving their customer experience, it could be improving back office operations and it could be anything from a governance risk or compliance process. The exciting part of that is you’re on the front line of change initiatives, so you’re helping companies think about different ways to go to market, different ways to support their evolving customer base. You’re supporting new initiatives that are exciting to drive efficiencies, it’s really a fantastic platform that’s providing a ton of value.

Fred Diamond: I’m just curious, a lot of people who listen to the podcast want to know who the guests sell to. What are some of the titles? Is it IT, is it App development, who are some of the people that you physically sell to?

Kristin Scott: It’s a great question and I think that’s the beauty of a platform like ours that’s so flexible. We actually sell to any different type of industry, my team really focuses in on financial services, insurance and what we call broad markets but we have a fantastic group of customers in the federal space, life sciences and healthcare. As you look at a CEO’s director of ports, we’re basically selling to anyone in the C-suite and below so our applications can be used by finance, HR, sales, marketing, operations, legal. The sky is the limit in terms of who we get to engage with.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little bit about yourself, how did you first get into sales as a career?

Kristin Scott: I first got into sales when I was at school, I led our student fundraising program where we would call 6 days a week to alumni and parents of current students and get them to make donations to the school fund. I loved it, I loved the cold calling aspect of the role, I loved being able to learn the different stories of people that had attended the school and also try to convert them into a yes. Often times we’d get a lot of push back where people felt that they had already spent enough money on their college tuition and we had to convince them why it was important to continue to give back. That led me to my first job at CEB Gartner actually doing what was then called a marketing associate role, but it’s really a business development role where I was scheduling meetings with CFO’s at Fortune 1000 companies.

Fred Diamond: What are some of the key lessons that you learned either at your CEB new job or back when you were making cold calls to get alumni to give back to the university?

Kristin Scott: There were so many fantastic lessons that I learned early at CEB Gartner. At the time it was the corporate executive board, but I think the one I mentioned in terms of the student calling program was this relentless persistence really enjoying converting people from a no to a yes and just being creative in terms of approaches and ways that you can help folks realize why you’re calling and the importance of it. I’d say persistence would be #1. I think the second would be a relentless focus on preparation, I know that that’s a common topic on your podcast, I’ve heard many of my peers talk about the importance of preparation. That was a skill I think I learned early on that has afforded me my success and my career.

I think lastly is just the focus and importance on doing really solid discoveries asking really smart questions. CEB Gartner did a fantastic job training me early in my career around the importance of being inquisitive and being curious, and being on the front line of a lot of these important initiatives that the C suite were faced with.

Fred Diamond: Can you teach someone that? Let’s say you have a couple new SDR’s or BDR’s. Can you teach them how to ask better questions?

Kristin Scott: I absolutely think you can. I like to think about it in terms of someone having the motivation and then the competency. I think you can teach the competency piece, I think we’ve done a fantastic job here rolling out enablement programs that are all around how to do effective discovery and how to ask the right questions and smart follow up questions. I do think you have to have an innate sense of curiosity, you have to be inquisitive and you have to have that motivation. I don’t know if you can necessarily coach or train that.

Fred Diamond: I would have to agree with you. Of course persistence and preparation comes through in a lot of the Sales Game Changers podcast interviews that we’ve done, but curiosity as well. If you have the curiosity, you’re going to really put yourself in a position to help your customer. Almost everybody that we’ve interviewed in the Sales Game Changers podcast sees that, that they’re there not to sell, they’re there to assist their customer in achieving their goals.

Kristin Scott: Absolutely.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little more about you, what are you an expert in? Tell us a little more about your specific area of brilliance.

Kristin Scott: First, I have to say I love this question. It’s one of my favorites when I listen to your podcast because I think it’s so interesting to hear people reflect on what they think they’re an expert or brilliant in. It gave me a nice opportunity to think about myself in a different way and the first thing that jumped out to me was an openness to change. I think that has served me really well in terms of being a change agent, as an individual contributor but now in a leadership role actually helping folks manage change effectively. It’s so important today, I think the amount of change that we’re facing in terms of roles, our customers, our companies, it’s so important that folks be change agents and that they be open to it and curious to change and they actually see change as an opportunity, not as something that’s being pushed down upon them.

I’m actually leading a panel next week at our annual user conference in San Diego called Appian World and the topic is leading through change. It’s a fantastic line up where we’re going to be talking about effective practices on managing change, what are the leadership skills needed to do that effectively and then what does the future workforce need to look like so that we can sustain this change.

Fred Diamond: We’re going to be running today’s podcast way after you do that panel discussion, so good luck and I hope it went well. What are some of the insights that you think are going to come from that, just curiously, as a sales leader to ensure that your people can embrace change?

Kristin Scott: It’s a great question. The historic way of doing change management has always fallen short when you think about communication and how you communicate the change. Most companies fall into this terrible trap of communicating down. They work together as a leadership team to come up with a great new idea and then they email it down without really getting buy-in and support from the folks that will be impacted by it. I think a key lesson in talking to the panelists was all around how you do an open source change management and communication strategy where you get people bought in that actually feel this is an opportunity for them to grow and evolve. I’d say communication best practices is really at the top.

Fred Diamond: I would think for a company like yours, again you’ve reinvented a lot of the way that people create their applications, not to mention the culture has to be open to embracing change as well.

Kristin Scott: Absolutely, and I think that’s one of the reasons that I love working at Appian is we are just on the front lines of change, of helping our customers change but also as an organization. I joined, we were 200 people, we’re now north of a thousand so as you can imagine, change is ever-present and it’s fantastic.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you tell us about an impactful sales career mentor or two and how they impacted your career?

Kristin Scott: I’ve been fortunate to have so many wonderful mentors across my career, and really strong leaders that I would say weren’t necessarily official mentors but people I could look up to and try to emulate. All of them share common characteristics that I aspire and I try and reflect in my own leadership style.

I look at someone like Carla Harris from Morgan Stanley who talks about impactful and authentic leadership. A lot of the women and men that I’ve had the pleasure of either having a mentor relationship with or being part of their organizations have all brought strength and warmth and authentic leadership to the table which I think is so important if you want people to follow you, if you want people to be inspired, if you want people to be successful.

I’d say those are the top 3 things that stand out to me in terms of those relationships. Then early in my career I had some wonderful mentors that really helped me identify what my strengths are, so I’d encourage our listeners to take things like Strengths Finder which is a fantastic assessment to really understand what are you naturally good at and how do you find opportunities where you can really thrive and leverage those strengths.

Fred Diamond: Just as a note, we’ve actually interviewed Edward Hughes, of course he was the Global Sales Leader here and we also interviewed David Mitchell who is currently the Senior VP of Global Sales at Appian. What are some of the biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader?

Kristin Scott: There are two that jump out to me. One is a common refrain that I’ve heard on pretty much every podcast that you’ve had and that’s around recruiting. Finding the right talent I’d say is a continued challenge and focus for me. The second is how do we find ways to simplify the buying process for our customers? Why that jumps out to me is I think it’s really difficult to be a customer today. I know for myself when I’m out trying to procure different things, it’s overwhelming.

There are a ton of options out there to solve your challenges, there’s a ton of information at your fingertips and there are so many people now that get involved in the purchase process that I find it often leaves our customers feeling risk adverse. They’re overwhelmed by the amount of information so they need more information. They’re overwhelmed by the options so it stalls and delays deals because they want to make sure they make the right choice and that can often time lead to buyer’s remorse when you feel like, “Did I make the right decision or not?”

I think for Appian we’re really seizing on that challenge as an opportunity to really help our customers through that buyer’s journey, keep things simple, make sure that we’re really prescribing to them how best to evaluate us, what are we a good fit for, maybe recommendations for other technologies that would be a better fit to solve their needs. I’d say that’s front and center for us.

Fred Diamond: That’s a great answer and of course you were at CEB now CEB Gartner when the Challenger Sale came out, and of course you probably spent a lot of time with Matt and Brent, the guys who wrote that book. Challenger Sale is something that has come up not infrequently on the Sales Game Changers podcast and part of it is the complexity of the buying process, if you will. You talked about how Appian is trying to address that, so you gave some general ideas but what’s one or two things that you’ve done physically to make it easier for your customer to purchase your software?

Kristin Scott: There are two things that jump out to me. We’re a platform to build custom applications so we can really support a wide range of needs. What we’ve rolled out is really a roadmap and a framework to give them ideas for what are good applications to use our platforms for. What are the right use cases, the right projects? The second would be actually helping them and mapping out what the buyer’s journey should look like, so we are very transparent with mutual action plans or sequence of events, different companies have different names for them.

That’s been really helpful, we leverage that out of the gates to help just simplify it for our customers to say, “These are the different things that are going to have to go on and these are the different people that will have to be involved.” We actually can take charge, and to use the Challenger wording it’s teach, tailor, take control. It’s that take control part that I think we’re really helping our clients with to coach them through the process.

Fred Diamond: Take us back to the #1 success or win from your career that you’re most proud of.

Kristin Scott: I actually have to say each year gets better and better. The opportunity I’m in now to lead the US commercial team is the one I’m most proud of and really most bullish about what we can succeed. I have a fantastic team, a fantastic product and a really terrific organization, and I mentioned in the beginning we are on the front lines of some really powerful change initiatives with our customers. That’s really exciting, I’m very proud of it.

Fred Diamond: It’s very good when you see the results of what you’re selling to the customer and you have those partnerships, and when you hear from your customers that they achieved their goals because of using your technology. Do you document as many of your customer examples as you can so that you can use them as fodder when you continue to sell?

Kristin Scott: Of course, that’s the most powerful way to sell, to actually sell through stories. That’s the most powerful tool we have and I’d say that’s been front and center for Appian’s growth year over year, having our customers be really proud of what they’re delivering on our platform and be really open to talk about it. We have tons of fantastic videos for folks that are listening to go see what our customers are doing, I think it’s really important.

Fred Diamond: We’re talking today on the Sales Game Changers podcast with Kristin Scott, she’s the VP of US Commercial Sales at Appian. Before we take a short break and listen to one of our sponsors did you ever question being in sales? Again, you went to CEB right after college. Did you ever think to yourself though, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me”?

Kristin Scott: Never. I’d argue that everyone is actually in a sales role to some capacity. Regardless of what function you’re working in, you’re really always selling yourself, you’re selling your ideas and I’ve loved every peak and valley and have never questioned whether or not this was the right fit for me.

Fred Diamond: You run triathlons or compete in triathlons. If you would have said, “Absolutely” I’d be a little bit surprised. Good for you for answering the question the way you did. Kristin, what’s the most important thing you want to get across to the selling professionals listening around the globe to help them improve their career?

Kristin Scott: There are a couple things that I’d love and reflecting on advice that I was given when I was starting my career. I think it’s stay curious, I talked about how important it is to do proper discovery and ask smart questions but the more you’re open to learning new things – and that could be new ways of selling, that could be new solutions you’re offering, that could be really understanding what your customer’s needs are – I think that’s so important. The next would be just make lasting relationships.

Early in my career I formed really strong friendships and relationships with both my colleagues and my customers, and those are relationships I have today. Even though we’re not still working in the same industry or environment, we’re still keeping in touch and it’s so important. Then I’d say act with a spirit of generosity. I’ve been fortunate to work at two organizations where that is a pillar, a core value driver for both organizations, at CEB Gartner and now in Appian. The importance of being generous and raising your hand to new opportunities, to helping people, to sharing your opinions and comments and advice and helping colleagues, it all comes around to help you in the end.

Fred Diamond: Tell us about some of your selling habits that have led to your sale success.

Kristin Scott: One would be preparation, just being incredibly focused and diligent about preparing for everything. I talked to my team about the importance of preparing for every meeting, every scenario, every outcome and preparing for internal meetings as well. I think once you make it a part of your daily habit, it becomes so easy and it’s just a natural method that you take to making sure that you’re on top of your game.

The second is just really being customer obsessed, really focusing in on understanding your customer, being a trusted adviser which I think you really get through that preparation piece which is why I said that as #1, and then the third selling habit I’d highlight is a little bit of what we were just talking about, Fred in terms of the take control part of the Challenger Sale. I use the word prescriptive with my team, but it’s really be a coach to your clients, help them through the buying journey, make sure you know what the next steps are you’re driving towards because it will make your customer more successful in the end.

Fred Diamond: A lot of times salespeople presume that their customer knows more than they do and they really don’t, especially in the buying decision. They don’t know everything about every vendor, they don’t know everything about all the competition, they don’t know about all the possibility of what your solutions could provide, those are the best sales professionals out there. Kristin, why don’t you tell us about a major initiative you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

Kristin Scott: I’m a big believer in sales culture and how important culture is to the performance of teams. One of the initiatives that I’ve rolled out this year is really taking a look and examining both myself leading this as well as my front line managers on what are the key strengths that our team are bringing to the table and really being thoughtful to identify across every single person at Appian – at least in US Commercial – what is their strength.

What are they bringing to the table and how best can we connect everyone across the organization to drive stronger collaboration, to make sure we’re leveraging that to empower them through things that they’re naturally good at. It has been really fantastic to see the team collaboration that’s happening where people might be really good at telling customer stories or doing discovery or talking about competitors. Being able to share those learnings across the team has really led to an improvement across the team.

Fred Diamond: How are you doing that and how are you making that known, what Joe is particularly skilled at to the rest of the organization?

Kristin Scott: We actually have a working document that we use where we’ve identified all of the competencies that we think are important and then we’ve listed out the individuals that we’ve identified, and there every single person has to be identified for at least one strength. On the spreadsheet it’s open to my management team to be able to when they’re doing coaching sessions with folks on their team to say, “You have an upcoming meeting on this topic, it’d be really helpful for you to go to talk to your peer” and it’s just a great way for us to connect across the organization.

Fred Diamond: A lot of times you find out somebody is really good at something years into their tenure, and it’s great to be able to classify that and have that known. Kristin, sales is hard, people don’t return your phone calls or your emails. You have a lot of competition, your company has emerged as a very successful company but it’s gone through iterations over the years. Your customer has more challenges, you even talked about how challenging it is for customers to buy. What is it about sales as a career that has kept you going?

Kristin Scott: I think the most rewarding things in life are the most challenging. I look at the half Ironman that I did, it was about a two mile swim, 56 mile bike and a half marathon afterwards, and it was so rewarding at the end of the finish line. I think that’s why I love sales so much, is there’s so many different challenges that you’re faced with and the feeling of success after you’ve helped a client with an important initiative or helped a team member be more effective, that’s so rewarding in the end. I genuinely love it.

Fred Diamond: I just want to ask you a quick question because the whole concept of the Ironman and the triathlon, how has that led you to become such a top flight sales leader as you are today? Do you think about things as your running, or the competition? Just tell us one or two things from being that person that has led you to become a top flight sales leader.

Kristin Scott: I think there are three things that jump out for me in that question. I think the first is we’ve talked about the importance of preparation, I’ve made that part of my daily life and to compete in an Ironman triathlon you have to do a ton of preparation. You have to be really effective at managing your time because it’s a big commitment to be able to prepare effectively for it. That’s helped me in terms of how I’ve spent my day and what I’m focusing on has definitely benefited me in my current role.

The other is just I have a natural competitive streak and so triathlons are a great way for me to flex that muscle, set my own goals and I’d say that’s true within sales. The last is just I think some people work out and train listening to music, I actually don’t listen to anything when I’m swimming, when I’m running, when I’m cycling and it’s a great time for me to actually think about my customers, my business, have some time to be mindful and really take a moment to understand what’s going on.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you give us a final thought to inspire the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast?

Kristin Scott: I’m hiring. We are hiring and we are bringing in fantastic people to the organization so if I could leave a final thought, it would be to your listeners to let them know that we have exciting opportunities and we are a fast growing company. If they’re looking for an exciting opportunity to be on the front line of some massive change initiatives for very large customers, this is the team to join.

Fred Diamond: Nothing wrong with that. We did today’s Sales Game Changers podcast right on the sales floor at Appian. For those of you listening around the globe, Appian is based in Northern Virginia, a town called Reston about 10 minutes away from Dulles Airport, about 20 minutes away from Washington DC. We’re actually up here in their office which is on the 17th floor in one of the buildings in Reston, we’ve got a beautiful view of the expansive Northern Virginia, we can see the Blue Ridge Mountains, we can see DC out in the distance. A lot of energy on the floor, a lot of stand up desks, a lot of people gathered here huddling, it’s definitely a high energy place to be.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 165: Hear How Competing in Triathlons Has Made Appian’s Kristin Scott into a Top-Tier Sales Leader first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.