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KEY MOMENTS
Key lessons from your first few sales jobs: 06:08
Name an impactful sales mentor: 13:26
Two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader: 17:39
Most important tip: 27:37
How do you sharpen your saw and stay fresh: 31:58
Inspiring thought: 33:33

EPISODE 091: How Do You Grow Sales Revenue When the Trade Show Venue is Full? Consumer Electronics Show Sales Leader Denise Medved Tells How

DENISE’S CLOSING TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Always be learning, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re not taking the risks you’re probably not failing or making mistakes and if you’re not failing or making mistakes you’re not recognizing your true potential because every time you make a mistake you’re learning that much more and you’re getting that much more experience. Maximize and recognize what your full potential is because it’s a long journey.“

Denise Medved is the Vice President for Sales and Business Development at the Consumer Technology Association (CTA). CTA holds events such as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)..

She’s been in the trade show industry for more than 20 years.

Prior to coming to CTA, she created, owned and sold a portfolio of consumer events for cooking and entertaining enthusiasts.

Find Denise on LinkedIn!

Fred Diamond: Well us who exactly you sell to today.

Denise Medved: We sell to any company that has technology that ultimately hits the consumer. It could be automotive, it could be smart home products, it could be sensors. Literally every vertical is now in the technology industry so we’ve got over 4000 companies exhibiting in the show. Our universe of companies is enormous and it’s very broad.

Fred Diamond: What excites you about that? Tell us what specifically you sell and what excites you about that.

Denise Medved: My team is in charge of the exhibit space sales as well as sponsorship sales which drives the bulk of the revenue for the show and what excites me about it is this is the largest trade show there is out there. We are in Las Vegas every January, we’re over 2.78 million net square feet of exhibit space and believe it or not, we’re venue bound. There’s not a whole lot of room for growth for us so to me, that’s a phenomenal challenge. I love being able to have that kind of a challenge.

As you mentioned, I’ve been in the trade show industry for more than 20 years, CTA is my first foray into the association world. Prior to that I spent time at Reed Exhibition companies, National Trade Productions, IDG World Expo, and they’re all on the for profit side. Within those organizations I spent a lot of time launching shows so my expertise prior to coming, how I got my expertise in the industry was working in the for profit world primarily on either early stage shows or launching shows. I went out on my own in 2005 to take my business experience of trade shows and marry it with my passion of cooking and entertaining and I created the event that I wanted to attend called “The Metropolitan Cooking and Entertaining Show.”

I took my business skills that I learned along the way from my financial degree from GW and my time on Wall Street and working in the for profit trade show industry and created a consumer event that I wanted to attend as somebody who loves to cook and entertain. My goal was to launch it, build equity value and sell it within 7 to 10 years.

Fred Diamond: Where were those shows? Were they around the country or just local DC?

Denise Medved: They were around the country. The first one I launched was here in Washington DC and that’s actually still going on and then we launched the same show in Atlanta, Houston and Dallas.

Fred Diamond: You were a finance major, you said, in college?

Denise Medved: Yes.

Fred Diamond: And you worked on Wall Street for a little bit? Tell us a little more about how you made the shift into sales.

Denise Medved: When I moved home here back to Alexandria, Virginia I had very specific criteria in what I was looking for in a job. I was burnt out from living in New York so my criteria was I didn’t want to have to get on a highway to go to work, I didn’t want any more than a 10 minute commute, I wanted free parking, I wanted a nice physical environment in which to work and I wanted to be able to control my own destiny in terms of how much money I was going to make and so basically that meant I needed to be in sales.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned a few seconds ago that CES is the biggest show that there is. Give a little insight for some of the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast on what type of sales challenges does that bring. That show has continued to raise in importance as companies launch new products and as the Internet of Things continues to grow, etc.

Denise Medved: There’s multiple kinds of challenges that we face. One of the challenges that we have is that the demand for our product is pretty high. We’re in a very enviable position where we have a lot of incoming leads, they’re not all qualified leads but there’s a lot coming our way. There is a tremendous amount of demand for companies with particular types of products that want to get in the show and we have a finite amount of net square footage or booth space available for companies based on product categories so that’s a challenge.

Managing the inventory, managing the expectations of the customers and it’s a heart breaker from a sales leader’s perspective as well as a sales person’s perspective to have to turn somebody away because we don’t have product for them to buy.

One of the other sales challenges that we have is when we’re launching a new marketplace so for example two recent market places that we’ve launched, we launched Smart Cities last year and we launched the Sport Zone the prior year. Those I can probably acquaint more to a startup type of a show where you really got to roll up your sleeves, put on your miner’s helmet, go out there, find the prospects, convince them why a technology show is appropriate for them.

When you’re calling on a sports company you’ve got to convince them why they should be thinking about CES as an avenue for them to go out there and do some marketing. Those are just two of the different kinds of many challenges that we have.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you answer that question for us: how would you convince a sports team that they would want to be at the Sport Zone?

Denise Medved: Sports teams are the ones that are attending so you take a company that has sports technology, say for example they have technology that’s focused on enhancing the athlete’s performance. Taking measurements in terms of their heartbeat or some of the different bio metrics and what have you. The sports world is starting to employ and use technology on a much more regular basis and using that data to make decisions either that’s driving an athlete’s performance or is making a venue smarter or enhancing a fan experience. They’re at the beginning stages of that.

CES is bringing together the entire community of people who are focused on using technology for their vertical markets to enhance their vertical markets so a sports team for example if you’re an NFL franchise and you’re gunning for the Super bowl, what do you want? You want your athletes in tip top shape throughout the entire season. You want them recovering as fast as you possibly can. You want to be able to use artificial intelligence to be able to predict when they’re over tired or when an injury might be coming down the pipe to protect that athlete ahead of time. That’s one example of how that information can be used.

Fred Diamond: Just to make sure I’m clear, you’re going after companies that make technology for sports teams so you’ve had to sell them that they want to participate in the show and the way you would promise them that it’s going to be a worthwhile use of their time is that you’re going to be bringing sports teams. How’s that been going?

Denise Medved: We’re going to be bringing sports teams, we’re going to bring player’s associations. Actually, it’s been going really well. We are so fortunate in the fact that CES is such a strong brand internationally and typically when you pick up the phone or if you write an email and you say, “I’m from CES” you’re usually getting a response so we’re very fortunate and I know we’re very fortunate in that respect. It’s not like we’re going out and launching a sports technology show from the ground up and it has no brand recognition, no cloud, no nothing.

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

Denise Medved: I wouldn’t say I have any specific areas of brilliance. I would say that throughout my long career and primarily as a sales professional and making my way up the ranks from having my own territory to managing teams, running and owning my own company, selling the company and what have you and managing different shows and all aspects of the shows, if I look at the sales piece of it there’s really two key components that I discovered very early on in my first couple of sales jobs.

There’s the people side of the sales business, it’s being able to go out and network with people and create relationships and get your foot in the door and sell them and have the right sales pitch and overcome the objections and not be afraid of asking for the close and presenting the material and being able to communicate in a really great, concise, professional manner and giving them the information they need to be able to make a decision and hopefully the decision is yes. That’s the sales piece of it, that is a really key piece to helping you accomplish your numbers but the other side of the business – and I don’t know that this is often thought of from a salesperson’s perspective – is really the operational/administrative side to running whether it’s your own sales territory as a salesperson or running a sales team or running a company or an organization.

I think that what I’ve been able to learn over the years through my experience is how to work smart, how to work efficiently, how to think really creatively and solve problems, all leading to driving that revenue and driving that bottom line. I would say if I had to say what’s the unique thing that I bring to an organization, it’s this background of having carried a bag, having had to reach my own revenue numbers, having had to figure out how do you run a territory, how do you manage that pipeline, how do you reach your revenue numbers, how do you use the tools that are at your disposal? I remember when I was at NTP, National Trade Productions, my first go round getting into the trade show industry when my criteria was free parking, so I landed up at NTP.

When I first got there we didn’t have any computers, we had big print outs of companies and we were calling companies and I said, “I got to figure out a way to organize this data. I got to create a pipeline” and then we got computers and I was like, “This is really cool, now I can put this in the computer, I can learn how to use this tool to make myself that much more efficient and work that much smarter than the person sitting next to me” and I would say learning and using and mastering the tools is what enabled me to be successful at the people side of the business which I had anyway. I had that people side of the business but what’s the difference between making your goal and exceeding your goal? It’s working smart and creatively and using all these tools that are at your disposal.

Fred Diamond: Obviously you’ve had a great career, you’re now running sales for the largest trade show in the industry, you’ve probably had some impactful mentors over the years who’ve given you some advice, some guidance. Could you tell us about one or two of those and how they’ve impacted your career?

Denise Medved: Sure. Sam Smith, I love Sam. He was my very first boss at National Trade Productions and Sam really taught me the whole sales funnel from a lead to a prospect to qualifying them to moving them through a pipeline to getting them to say either yes or no. A yes and a no are both really good answers. A yes is a really good answer because you’re getting a contract and you’re that much closer towards your goal. A no is also a really good answer because you’re getting them out of your pipeline and the key is keep that pipeline moving, keep it fresh, have things at every stage, don’t let things get stale.

He really taught me that piece of the business and the people side of the business and, “Hey, Sully, here’s how you overcome some objections” or, “Here’s how we’re going to get our foot in the door. Let’s go out and network” so that was phenomenal.

Then Nancy Walsh who just recently left as the president of Reed Exhibitions North America, she was the VP of sales when I was at Reed as a sales rep and then I got promoted to sales director. She was really a fantastic in terms of the organizational skills. Be concise, be efficient, get things done. I would say as I look at sales from both the people side as well as the organizational and the efficiency side, both of those really contributed, I learned a lot from both of those.

Fred Diamond: I have a quick question for you. You mentioned before that there’s a huge demand for companies that want to participate in CES. We’ve interviewed over 100 Sales Game Changers to this point for the podcast and that is a uncommon problem. Most people are struggling to find clients, to find prospects, there’s huge competition. Of course you have competition as well, but how does that lend you to being a sales manager of the people on your team knowing that you have this great demand and one of the biggest challenges you talked before is figuring out how to optimize the space and people that are coming in? How do you manage your sales team from that perspective these days?

Denise Medved: From that perspective it’s about managing the influx of the leads that are coming in. CES always has to be relevant, our marching orders every single year are it can’t be the same show as it was the year before. Let’s re allocate inventory and new products are always being announced. We always want to be on the cutting edge, we always want to stay relevant, we always need to have a marketplace that is focused on the latest technology. For example, wireless. That was a hot category umpty ump years ago, we still have it as a category but at some point it’s not new, it’s not fresh, it’s not bringing in the media, it’s not the talk about it factors.

One of our challenges is how do we control the size of that marketplace and control the vendors that want to get in there and give them the right messaging that, “Yes, you’re important but unfortunately there’s no space for you right not” and motivate and gear the sales team’s energy towards the new market places. Prospecting, finding the right new key companies and really managing the inventory that we have. Even though we have weightless for some market places there are other kinds of inventory that we have that are not always sold out.

Not only do we sell traditional exhibit space within the convention center, we’re selling meeting rooms, we’re selling hotel suites as both exhibit suites and hospitality suites. Looking at the inventory and managing the inventory and gearing the sales people’s attention towards, “Gosh, we have X number of square feet in hospitality suites in this particular venue that isn’t moving, we need to figure out how to move that” or, “We still have X number more companies we need to get into the sport zone or into smart cities or into smart home. Let’s gear our energies and focus in the areas where we have the inventory available to sell.”

Fred Diamond: You manage a team here at CES, of course it’s the largest trade show, we talked about that. As a sales leader, what are the two biggest challenges you face?

Denise Medved: I would say when I first got here, we have a phenomenal sales team and actually most of the revenue producers who were here when I got here are still here and I feel very blessed in that regards because there’s a tremendous amount of institutional knowledge, but one thing that CES did not have, we didn’t have a CRM. I looked at that and I said, “For one of the largest trade show companies or one of the largest trade shows out there not having a CRM I felt as though put the organization at a little bit of risk” and knock wood, yes, it’s been very successful over the last several years.

The economy’s been robust, this technology sector has been very robust, all of that was great and working in CTA’s favor but I looked at it from a business perspective and said, “Without a CRM, the organization’s at risk. If the economy takes a down turn, if we don’t have data that we can look at then we are setting ourselves up for some failure.” So the first thing I did when I got here is I put a CRM into place so we had to collect all of the data, all of the past exhibitors, all of the prospects, and that was a task.

Then giving people career opportunities within, the way it was structured there was not a lot of growth opportunities especially for the revenue producers so how do you create growth opportunities for revenue producers, career opportunities for them for revenue producers so that they don’t leave the organization. Then how do you create territories for them? Because it was a very unique situation and everybody worked as a team environment and they worked really well in that environment but there were no individual territories so with all of these incoming leads I didn’t know was everything being worked, was it not being worked so we worked really hard over the first year and a half, two years that I was here to instituting sales force, making it the center of our team, the center of the entire sales organization creating territories, creating career opportunities for the revenue producers, managing pipelines, teaching people how to manage the pipelines so things aren’t getting stale.

Managing the inventory and really putting a lot of processes into place that was going to mitigate what I viewed as serious business risks for the organization particularly since CES funds 90, 95% of CTA and all of its lobby and activities, research, membership, all of those things it’s feeding right back into the technology industry.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you take us back to the #1 specific sale success or win from your career that you’re most proud of?

Denise Medved: The one that stands out for me the most is being able to get really creative. I’m going to talk about something from the metropolitan cooking and entertaining show which was a portfolio of consumer events that I launched. That business model is a little bit different than a traditional trade show. In that business model you’re still getting revenue from exhibit space sales and sponsorship sales but you’re also getting a significant amount of revenue from the consumers buying tickets to come in to see the show. The balance of the revenue coming into the organization is more heavily weighted towards the attendee side than it is towards the sponsorship and exhibitor’s side but just by a factor of maybe 10% versus in a B to B model, 95% of the overall revenue from the events coming in from exhibit space and sponsorship sales.

The reason I’m using this particular illustration as an example is because I want to illustrate and underscore how problem solving, getting creative to achieve what you want comes into play in any kind of a sales situation. We would build a big, huge theater that seated 2500 people and we would hire food network stars. Paula Deen was a big person that we worked with and we hired her and she cost us a lot of money but we built the theater that sat 2500 people and we were able to do 3 shows with her.

We had the opportunity to generate revenue off of 7500 ticket sales to see Paula. We were like, “Oh my god, this is great.” We said, “OK. $55 to see Paula. If you don’t want to see Paula, $25 to get in.” I knew that she was popular, I had no idea how big of a star she was. We sold out all 7,500 tickets. The first session was starting at 11 o’clock in the morning, the doors were opening at 10. At 8 o’clock in the morning, 2000 people were lined up because everybody wanted a front row seat to see Paula.

The head of the Washington Convention Center came down to find me with the fire Marshall and said, “Denise, what are you going to do about these 2000 people wind up here?” and I just started laughing hysterically and said, “Wow, this is a great problem to have.” We figured out how to get the people in and what have you so immediately after the show I said, “How do I solve that problem?” And after every single show I always say, “What are the top 3 things that need to be solved? No matter what role I’m playing in a show, what are the top 3 things that I need to solve?”

So I needed to solve that problem and I said, “OK, I know what I’m going to do. We’re going to not have every ticket be at $55, we’re going to create tiered tickets. The cheap seats in the back will now be $55, the ones the next few rows ahead of those will be $65, the next ones a few rows ahead of that will be $75 then $95 and guess what? The front row VIP meet, greet and front row seat is going to be $500.”

Just by making those decisions and getting creative on solving that problem led to an increase of about 25% revenue. Same costs, so the following year we increased our revenue by 25% just by doing that and solving that problem. We got creative about it, it was sales, we pitched it to the consumer and the consumer bought it.

Fred Diamond: Did you sell out again the next year?

Denise Medved: We did, yeah.

Fred Diamond: Good for you, with Paula Deen as well?

Denise Medved: You got it, yeah.

Fred Diamond: Good for you. Those shows are huge and good for you for finding that out and figuring that out. Again, we’re talking to Denise Medved. Denise, you’ve had a great career in sales. You’ve also had a great career as an entrepreneur but did you ever question being in sales? Was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me?”

Denise Medved: No.

Fred Diamond: OK [laughs]

Denise Medved: That’s it, no. Never. I’ve always loved the challenge.

Fred Diamond: Last question before we take a short break here, listen to one of our sponsors. How does it feel representing one of the – if not the biggest brand – in technology trade shows?

Denise Medved: It’s such an honor for me and I love it and after I sold my events and my management contract was running out I had an opportunity to go launch some more shows and I’d been in launch mode or growth mode for 12, 15 years and that’s exhausting, quite honestly. I was like, “If I could get that, I would feel so honored to be able to do that.” That’s truly how I feel, I’m honored to be part of this organization.

Fred Diamond: What would a good sales professional look like to sell this type of a product? What type of skills do they need to have?

Denise Medved: I go back to what I was talking about, you have to have the people set up the skills and you have to have the organizational set of the skills. You can have the gift of the gab and go in and close as much stuff as you want but if you’re not organized to run your territory or to have an up to date pipeline or creative enough to come up with solutions or have the skills to put together a good looking proposal in word or understand a tool that’s been put in front of you and use that to your maximum, your gift of the gab is not impressive to me if you can’t master the other set of skills.

Fred Diamond: What’s the most important thing you want to get across to junior selling professionals to help them improve their career?

Denise Medved: #1, if you’re in sales, you’re in sales for a reason because you’re highly motivated probably by money. Never expect to meet your goals, always expect to exceed your goals, just go in with that mindset right from the get go and if that’s not your mindset sales probably isn’t the right choice for you for a career. Know the fundamentals of sales, know how to prospect. I tell our team over and over again that just because we have gobs of incoming leads it doesn’t mean they’re all the right leads, we’ve got to know how to go out there and prospect and that’s a unique skill set in itself.

Master the fundamentals of both the people side of sales as well as the operational side of sales. Always know where you are in your personal territory against your goal. Every single day know exactly where you are and know exactly how you’re going to reach your goal and exactly how you’re going to exceed your goal. Know exactly what you are going to sell every single month and develop those skills in terms of soliciting objections and developing the rapport and all those kinds of things that are associated with being a good salesperson.

Fred Diamond: Very good. What are some of the things you do specifically to sharpen your saw and stay fresh?

Denise Medved: I spend a lot of time with the clients continuing to listen to them because I think as any kind of a salesperson you need to be a really good listener and that’s the way that you pick up on vibes of market shifts or a shift in trends of how the customers are thinking and what have you, or something that’s just specific and unique to that company because at the end of the day, if people are cutting budgets, you want to be the thing that they have to have and that they have to keep so I’m always listening. Then learning the new technologies that can enhance the sales process or processes within an organization, there’s new things coming out all the time and so one of the things that I’m starting as my personal initiative this year is to really use LinkedIn, connect with all the people that I have the connections to. I’m not always as disciplined in linking into my LinkedIn as I should be so I’m connecting with them on LinkedIn. Then I’m starting to get key messages about CES happenings out to them so that’s one way of communicating with the key audience without inundating them with yet more emails.

Fred Diamond: What’s a major initiative you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

Denise Medved: I’ve had a long, great career and I’m very grateful for all of the experiences that I’ve had and I feel as though I can contribute to make positive, valuable contributions to the organization, the organization is going to value me. Working closely with my peers in the marketing department and the conferences department and the finance department and the operations department is really key.

Having good collaboration amongst my peers there. Then I feel as though it’s my responsibility to groom the next generation of sales leaders here and one of the reasons that I wanted to come here was because I feel like I have a lot of experience. I went to the school of hard knocks, I got a lot of bumps and bruises and I made a lot of really expensive mistakes and I have a motto: never make the same expensive mistake twice. If you can help prevent somebody from making that expensive mistake, do it.

Give them the wisdom that you learned. Mentor people, help to coach them to get to the next place in their career. That’s sort of how I focus on continuing with my success. Staying relevant in the market, staying on top of things, on top of the companies, the organizations, the technologies, all of those kinds of things.

Fred Diamond: Again, you are representing perhaps the biggest brand in trade shows today, CES, but sales is hard. Even with all the demand for your shows you said there’s a lot of things that your team needs to do to optimize the space and to optimize the participation and make sure you have all the right vendors, etcetera. People don’t always return your calls or your emails, what is it about sales as a career that keeps you going? Tell us a little bit about why – you’ve had such a great career in sales – why you see it being such a great career for people listening to today’s podcast.

Denise Medved: I love the thrill of the chase and I love the win and sales is probably 95% rejection but it’s like that 5% that gets me charged and going. It’s 5% that the relationships that I created and somebody’s buying me, I’m a firm believer that people aren’t buying what you’re selling, they’re buying you, they’re trusting you to represent what it is that you’re selling. That to me gives me such a rush and creating the relationships that turn into lasting friendships with the customers, that keeps me going just as a salesperson at heart.

As a sales leader knowing that I am hopefully having an impact on the overall organization and people’s careers here, putting some processes and systems into place and coaching people to become the best sales professional that they can be.

Fred Diamond: This has been a great interview. Again, the number of people we’ve interviewed already Dan Cole with Hargrove, Ryan Brown at NTP Events, they all said we got to get Denise Medved on the Sales Game Changers podcast. So thank you so much, Denise Medved, again VP of sales and BD for CES, you’ve given us some great insights on how CES works and how your sales teams are – I just have one quick question before we ask you for your final thought as we hear some sirens going in the background, as we’re broadcasting today’s show from Arlington, the offices of CTA. Do you like Vegas? Are you a Vegas person?

Denise Medved: I like going to Las Vegas, I’m not a gambler. I’d much rather buy a brand new pair of loafers than throw money away gambling but yeah, I love Vegas.

Fred Diamond: Very good. What’s a final thought you want to share with the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast around the globe?

Denise Medved: I would say always be learning, don’t be afraid to make mistakes, don’t be afraid to take risks, don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re not taking the risks you’re probably not failing or making mistakes and if you’re not failing or making mistakes you’re not recognizing your true potential because every time you make a mistake you’re learning that much more and you’re getting that much more experience. I just firmly believe in maximize and recognize what your full potential is because it’s a long journey.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 091: How Do You Grow Sales Revenue When the Trade Show Venue is Full? Consumer Electronics Show Sales Leader Denise Medved Tells How first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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EPISODE 063: Sales Executive Jason Stookey Helps Tech Companies Partner with Law Firms, Legally Speaking

Jason Stookey is the vice president of partner development for the International Legal Technology Association, also known as ILTA.

He’s a sales and business development professional with more than 18 years of experience in the tradeshow and event industry with a proven track record as an achiever in developing strategic and profitablerelationships.

22,000 members strong serving CIO, IT leaders typically in law firms, corporate council and the like.

He also ran sales and business development for the National Association of Broadcasters, the NAB.

Find Jason on LinkedIN!

Jason Stookey: I’ve been in sales and business development for 21 years. Got started in a small trade show organization that specialized in doing events in Russia and the former Soviet Union. This was right after the fall of the Soviet Union and we specialized in actually going outside of the Mosque of Saint Petersburg corridor and believe it or not, my first business trip was to Siberia. I went to a city called Novosibirsk for 5 weeks so it was definitely an eye opening experience and it definitely toughened me up pretty quickly.

I work with the International Legal Technology Association, a non-profit organization that specializes in sharing best practices, education and various pieces of information to CIO’s, IT directors of the legal community. Our members consist of CIO’s, IT directors and anybody who’s involved in technology for the legal industry. The legal industry as a whole is very conservative and with technology expanding and innovation happening at such a rapid pace, you could say that the legal industry is being moved forward kicking and screaming but there’s really some exciting technologies that are going to disrupt that industry. Such things as artificial intelligence, block chain are coming in and it’s a great time to be involved with it as there’s a plethora of new companies that we need to introduce into this community. From a sales perspective, there’s a lot of blue ocean opportunities so it’s really exciting right now.

Fred Diamond: Jason, I have a quick question for you. You’re right now selling for a not for profit, for a trade association. How does that differ from a for profit organization?

Jason Stookey: Almost no different than selling in a for profit environment. We have goals, objectives, revenue, metrics that we have to achieve. The one nuance that comes up in a non-profit environment is you do have to take into consideration the needs of the membership at the end of the day where we don’t have shareholders or investors or private equity to be accountable to, we have to be accountable to the membership and so we need to always be conscientious that what we are doing is serving the overall mission of the organization.

What I do specifically and what I’ve been involved with specifically in the non-profit sector really does focus at the end of the day on advertising opportunities, whether that’s in events, print publications, digital advertising or somewhere in between. But again, it’s virtually the same as working in a for-profit environment.

Fred Diamond: So you have a number, you have a quota, pretty much?

Jason Stookey: Absolutely. You would walk into the sales organization from the outside and recognize it immediately as being the same. Now that said, a number of non-profits do struggle with creating successful sales environments but I’ve been fortunate through my career to be involved in associations that have highly successful, well-oiled run sales organizations. It’s from my perspective, very different and I’ve worked in the for-profit advertising sector as well and as I said, it’s virtually the same.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Give us a little bit of a peek into your career. How did you first get into sales as a career?

Jason Stookey: Like everybody. I knew from 5 years old this is exactly what I wanted to do – I’m kidding.

Fred Diamond: [Laughs]

Jason Stookey: I was in college and I was studying for a final in philosophy of law because I thought I wanted to be a lawyer and at 3 O’clock in the morning, studying with my best friend I looked over and said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.” I was in a fraternity and a few days later an alumni from my fraternity came to speak at the business school and this was 1994, 95. I was young and impressionable and he came in with a sharp looking suit and he had pager and he drove a BMW and I said, “What do you do?”

And he said, “I sell trade show space.” And I said, “I don’t know what that is, but can you get me a job?” He said, “Can you send me a resume?” And I said, “What’s a resume?” [Laughs]. A little tongue and cheek there, but sent him my resume and sure enough he introduced me to my first job and that was the one that I referenced earlier about doing events in the former Soviet Union. I was kind of a Jack of all trades position but it morphed over time into being responsible for selling exhibition space and sponsorships for that event.

Not a well-planned out strategy to get into sales but once I got into it, I started to find out I enjoyed it and then I got successful and it just kind of blossomed from there.

Fred Diamond: What are some of the things that you learned from those first jobs? You mentioned that you spent your very first job in Siberia, ladies and gentlemen, for five weeks. Tell us some of the things that you learned that have stuck with you.

Jason Stookey: Primarily those early days I had to be self-taught in terms of sales technique and training, and so I would go to various events or lunch and learns and I was always going seeking a silver bullet – the thing that would make me successful 100% of the time on every sales engagement. That obviously doesn’t exist but through that I learned new techniques and started to learn on my own probing questions, startling statements, learning to create unique selling propositions and formulated probably at the time a little bit of an unorthodox style but I just kept refining it on my own.

Then realized that I was much better in person and face to face than I was over the phone and so if I had an opportunity to set an appointment and get a meeting back in those days, it was primarily going to other trade shows and events, I found that I would be much more successful in that capacity.

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

Jason Stookey: I’ve been fortunate to be associated in the technology space for the better part of 17, 18 years and that started when I joined the Consumer Electronics Association, now the Consumer Technology Association. They’re the producers of the Consumer Electronic Show. I got to know technology on a first hand level and understand the sales channels and the needs and objectives of that community and was able to parley that to my time at the National Association of Broadcasters where it’s a lot of the similar brands but serving different markets. You understood the rhythm, the cadence and the needs of that community in terms of marketing and how they’re trying to build market share, grow their revenue, what their distribution channels are, what their challenges are and through that became very good at consultative selling.

Being able to take people down a natural path to create a solution that met their needs. I don’t consider myself a stereotypical sales person in the sense that I don’t have to talk a lot, I don’t have to be loud and boisterous but I listen really well and I focus on key words, being able to relay that back to the customer and help go through the process of thinking with them through their challenge we can come to a solution at the end of the day that meets their needs. Just to summarize, I’m pretty comfortable selling into the technology space for Consumer Electronics but audio video equipment in general and then being very good at being able to take them through a journey.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned that a lot of your career was in technology and one of your areas of brilliance is understanding technology companies and how they’re trying to provide solutions for customers. Now you’re at the ILTA, the International Legal Technology Association. Are the major vendors that you work with usual suspects, the Microsofts, the Ciscos, the Oracles of the world?

Jason Stookey: Yeah, there’s definite opportunities for us to penetrate those companies. Yes, Microsoft is an obvious player that we work with. Some other ones that may ring a bell, LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters, those are HP, Canon, Konica Minolta. Again, I have a comfort level working with those companies because I understand the decision making process, how the budgeting process goes so it’s comfortable for me. Being able to work in those bigger, more complicated, corporate environments, I’m very comfortable with.

Fred Diamond: Take us back through your career, we always ask the question about mentoring. Tell us about an impactful sales career mentor and how they impacted your career.

Jason Stookey: Dan Cole was my vice president of sales at the Consumer Electronic Show in the early 2000, I think starting in 2001 and I knew of Dan through the trade show industry because he had a positive reputation and I actually had seen him speak at an industry event on sales training. When he came in, I was excited because I thought it was really going to bolster my skills and I would learn a lot from it. That couldn’t have been the furthest thing from the truth at the very beginning.

Dan came in with a different style, put in some best practices, created what I would loosely call a level of regimentation that needed to happen and I felt that it did nothing but inhibit me. He was coming in trying to build a team and he had one person in particular that had bought into his system. Everybody else was fighting it and I finally went into his office and said, “I give up. I don’t know what you’re trying to do, just tell me what you want me to do.” And we ended up having a very cathartic, two hour conversation and we spoke freely and from there it just started to build a level of trust and support.

That was when I learned it’s as much about the sales technique as it is to building a successful sales team where everybody’s bought into the same vision and program and rowing in the same direction. I would say that that was a pivotal point in my career. I always talk to Dan about it to this day, we talk on a frequent basis and he still makes fun of me coming in as a snot-nosed kid and saying, “Just tell me what you want me to do” because I was at a point of frustration. Dan’s definitely one of the most impactful people on my career.

Fred Diamond: That’s great. Dan’s the VP of sales at Hargrove Inc.. We did have him on a previous podcast, he gave a lot of great sights and he’s also introduced some people to the Sales Game Changer community that we will have on future podcasts as well. Jason, what are the two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader?

Jason Stookey: I would bucket them into sales motivation and then lead generation. Lead generation in the sense of going out and engaging people who may not be familiar with you or have not thought about why they should work with you and in today’s world where you are getting bombarded with email, social media, you never answer your phone, getting people’s attention is the most challenging thing. Getting sales people to understand how to cut through that clutter and deliver value in the statement that they are trying to convey right off the bat is a challenge.

It needs to be done on a repetitive basis and you’ve got to continuously be engaging that and trying to find new business and coming up with new things that will get people’s attention. Definitely try to lead with value, lead with a piece of education, lead with something that that person would think, “Wow, I would benefit from talking to that person.” I’ve seen it a million times and I still see it today where people just, I like to say, vomit information in their very first engagement and it goes absolutely nowhere. I can see that in a face to face conversation or in emails that people write. You’ve got to get a quick nugget and build that trust and kind of go from there.

Then from a sales motivation stand point, the challenge always is to find what is that button to push with that individual. It cannot be a one size fits all type of approach. Some people want to be challenged through financial rewards and we’re in sales, we all want financial rewards. Some people want recognition, some people want just to be left alone and be the silent hero. It’s constantly trying to figure those people out, understand what motivates them, get in their heads, be empathetic and push them along to success. And being patient [laughs] from my perspective, just because there’s a way that I would do it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s their style. Those are just a few things in a quick 30 thousand foot overview.

Fred Diamond: You had mentioned when you had that conversation with Dan back when you asked them what should I do and you mentioned that the realization you had was that you’re building a team and if you think about the team, various people come to the game with different skills and different approaches. At the end of the day you want someone who’s bought into your vision. One of the challenges that we hear from the Sales Game Changers that we interview is alignment from the C suite to the sales management down to the field level sales people or the people on the phone, if you will. That definitely fits in with how do you ensure that everyone’s basically on the same bus, so to speak, and helping your organization achieve its goals.

Jason Stookey: You set on something that’s very important there, the alignment within the organization. If you do not have that, especially in a sales leadership position where you’re not aligned with senior management and all the way through to C suite it can be a challenge and you’ve got to be conscientious of those people’s background. If they’re not necessarily coming from a sales perspective, you have to make sure that you are spoon-feeding the information in a way that they understand it because there’s a lot of predisposed biases about what sales does and they’re not necessarily true.

I’ve had more than my fair share of conversations with people that ask, do they fully understand what sales is? Do they fully understand what we do? That’s important so from a managing up perspective as being a sales leader, you need to make sure you’re effectively managing up and communicating up the chain of command as well because otherwise, you’re going to get a little kink in your hose and it’s going to be challenging to work forward. I say that from experience.

Fred Diamond: Just curiously, because a lot of the people listening to today’s Sales Game Changers podcast don’t really know the organizational structure of a trade association not for profit. Could you tell us for a few moments what does your reporting structure look like?

Jason Stookey: Again, generally it’s fairly similar to a for-profit environment. In my current position I report directly into the CEO. Previous at National Association of Broadcasters NAB, I was a vice president sales and business development, reported into an executive vice president which in essence was the business unit leader and he had a sales leader, a marketing leader and an operations leader. Again, fairly similar to the for-profit environment.

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

Jason Stookey: It would have been when I was selling directly at the Consumer Electronics Association and I worked on Dan Cole’s team. Dan had implemented an annual sales contest called, “Winning the Annual Crown” and for three years in a row I came in second place to my good friend Kirk Smallwood. The only thing that we won out of this was a little glass trophy but I wanted that thing so bad, I buckled down on the fourth year and just did not stop and was relentless the entire year.

At the end of December when I knew that I was not going to be caught, I clenched the annual crown. I went into Dan’s office and I said, “I got it.” And it was just off of a relatively small sale, I can’t even remember the company, quite frankly, but I remember the moment and then we would have a ceremony after the Consumer Electronic Show. When the show ended we would have sales team dinner when Dan would present that trophy and that was fantastic. I still share that trophy everywhere I go, it’s in my office right now and to this day I have one. It was for me, winning my own Super bowl and I beat Kirk Smallwood.

Fred Diamond: Curiously, what did that signify to you? You talked about one of the two biggest challenges being sales motivation.

Jason Stookey: It was a motivator. Not to sound arrogant, but I knew that the commission was all going to be there and even when I was coming in second, it didn’t mean that my commission was any less, I was doing really well but this was the icing on the cake. This was the thing that I wanted that validated me as being, in my mind, successful. I earned it and I earned it the right way, I just persevered through every single sales opportunity and didn’t turn anything over to an assistant.

I drove everything home because I wanted that. That moment has lived with me and I try to convey that to my sales teams in some way, shape or form as I move forward. It’s not just about the money, it’s about the personal gratification of reaching that mountain top.

Fred Diamond: Did you ever question being in sales after you made that decision to move in? Was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me.”?

Jason Stookey: Candidly, no. Once I saw the light, it matched up very well with who I am. I was athletic in high school, played basketball, soccer, baseball and quickly learned that sales is very competitive and I liked the scoreboard aspect of it. Are there days where you’re in a drought and you’re just like, “This is ridiculous.”? Yes, but I can’t really remember going back and saying, “I don’t think sales is a career for me.” No, not really. Once I got in, I got hooked on the drug pretty deep.

Fred Diamond: Jason, what’s the most important thing you want to get across to the selling professionals listening to today’s podcast to help them improve their career?

Jason Stookey: For people getting into the sales profession, I’d go back first to what I shared earlier in that there is no silver bullet for sales. This is all going to sound very rudimentary but it’s true, there are no shortcuts in sales. You need to put in the time, the energy, you need to do the due diligence, you need to be methodical in your approach, you need to keep your pipeline organized at all time, you need to understand where there are potential peaks and valleys in your pipeline because you may have moments of glory but you will probably then fall off right into a valley or drought if you’re not bringing in leads behind it.

That’s something that I see all the time, people get intoxicated with their hot streak and then they go cold, and it’s because they didn’t do the due diligence of bringing in new leads into your pipeline. Again, you have to have the mental fortitude to be able to accept the fact that you’re going to here no more than yes and you can’t take that personally. There’s a number of things, especially for young people today, they need to take a good, hard look at themselves and say, “Do they have what it takes to be in sales?”. I could talk for hours about this, especially with junior sales folks because I’ve tended to have a number of entry level sales positions and have seen a wide spectrum of successful ones and unsuccessful ones. I could speak ad nauseam about that. [Laughs]

Fred Diamond: What are some of the things that you do specifically yourself to sharpen your saw and stay fresh?

Jason Stookey: I read constantly, especially in the sectors that I’m involved with. Make sure that I’m looking at trends and making sure that I’m aware of the new players into the market. Try to network with other sales professionals when I can, it’s easier said than done but I do get a lot of inspiration and oxygen when I have that ability to chat with people about their problems and just commiserate sometimes. In terms of actual skill sets, I need to do a better job at that, I could always be learning more but my typical style is to read. I was just reading about commission plans yesterday, different ideas, for example. My go-to is reading.

Fred Diamond: What’s a major initiative you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

Jason Stookey: At ILTA, I’m part of a regime change. We’re the new CEO, new VP of marketing, myself. I work with the vendor community as mentioned earlier on companies like Microsoft, LexisNexis, etcetera. There’s a bit of a chasm between the business vendor community and the rest of the organization so as a way to make sure that we’re serving the needs of this community better, I created what I’m calling the partner advisory council. It’s a group of 10 individuals from various levels of customers and we’ve created basically an n user group for them to share feedback on how we can better service their needs, create new opportunities, really get them to be part of the process. Their engagement deepens their commitment to our organization and it helps with the sales process when you have your customers selling for you. Giving them that sense of ownership helps and we’re starting to see some fruits blossom from that.

Fred Diamond:  Jason, as we’ve spoken, sales is hard. People don’t return your calls or your emails. Why have you continued? What is it about a sales career that keeps you going?

Jason Stookey: I’ve stayed in sales because I enjoy the endorphin rush of getting that close and seeing that contract come through or that PO come through is a natural high for me. I am addicted to it, I can’t stay away from it. Even in a leadership position where I’m managing, I have to be involved at some level of doing the fundamentals with sales because there is no greater high for me than getting that. That is what motivates me at the end of the day, I love it. I absolutely love it. [Laughs]

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you give us one final thought to share with the listeners on today’s Sales Game Changers podcast to inspire them?

Jason Stookey: I would say sales is the one career where you can really determine your lifestyle based on how much energy and effort you put into your work. I remember my grandfather who just passed away recently telling me at a very early age, two paths he suggested for me. One, he said, “If you want to be a doctor, be a radiologist, they don’t really have to talk to people very much and they don’t have to deal with all the blood and guts, but if you want to talk to people go into sales because you have an opportunity to influence people in a positive way, share value and reap some financial success out of it.” and I followed that path because I didn’t really want to be a radiologist [laughs] or a lawyer, for that matter.

You can control your own destiny in sales and if you are a sales performer, you will always have an opportunity out there for you regardless of the economy or the market or what have you. If you find that in yourself and you stay in it, you will have a good life.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 063: Sales Executive Jason Stookey Helps Tech Companies Partner with Law Firms, Legally Speaking first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.