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Please register for SALES GAME CHANGERS LIVE PANEL: How Sales Leaders are Leading Teams and Customers Moving Forward With Jennifer Fisher and Patrick Devlin on Wednesday, May 5, 2020 2:00 PM EDT here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Since we conducted this interview before the Pandemic of 2020 hit, we asked Jim what his advice is for sales professionals during the pandemic. He offered the following:

• The evolving landscape is an opportunity to provide clarity of your brand: stay true to your foundational principles and let those guide your decision-making.
• Consistently showcasing your value will help you weather systemic changes. People expend resources – time, money or loyalty – based on its connection to a return on investment. Give them something to value.
• This is the time to qualify and quantify your stretch goals and look at them with fresh eyes. Don’t be burdened by past norms; it’s all a clean slate now. Trying to fit within previous models is a waste of effort, so choose to be bold.

EPISODE 230: Monumental Sports & Entertainment President Jim Van Stone Offers Engagement Strategies For Sports Sales Professionals to Prepare for Arena and Event Re-Opening

JIM’S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “This is the time to qualify and quantify your stretch goals and look at them with fresh eyes. Don’t be burdened by past norms; it’s all a clean slate now. Trying to fit within previous models is a waste of effort, so choose to be bold.”

Jim Van Stone is the President of Business Operations and the Chief Commercial Officer for Monumental Sports and Entertainment, the company behind the Washington Wizards NBA team, Washington Capitals NHL hockey team, and other teams and enterprises and the arenas where they play.

Like me, he’s from Philadelphia so you may hear a little bit of Philadelphia coming out through the course of the conversation.

Find Jim on LinkedIn here.

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

Jim Van Stone: Thanks for having me today, Fred it’s a pleasure to be with you, I’ve heard so many great things about your podcast so the opportunity to spend some time with you is fantastic. A little bit about my background, I’ve been in professional sports for about 25 years and started my career in Philadelphia with the Philadelphia 76ers really focused in the sales area. I sold tickets for the better part of 5 years and then got promoted to run the department and ever since then it was really the launch of my career.

I think one of the things in sports like many other industries is to get ahead and get more responsibilities and get promoted you have to move around. I’ve been in Cleveland, I’ve worked for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I spent some time with the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Phoenix Coyotes. I did two stints with the 76ers and the Flyers and then I’ve been here at Monumental for the last 14 years. It’s a little bit of a journey across the country but it’s been a fabulous experience. Most of my career and background has been both in the NBA and the NHL.

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

Jim Van Stone: My first job ever out of college, I sold telephone systems for a company called Executone. It was a great company, very forward thinking, probably ahead of its game when it came to the digital landscape of telephony but I didn’t really have a passion for it. I grew up playing sports like many people that are in the business and when you take a look at professional sports, everyone wants to be a pro athlete but there’s literally 300 to 500 pro athletes in the world. My best opportunity was really to get involved in it from a business operation standpoint and sales standpoint.

One of the things that I loved about selling tickets is that I felt like I was on the front lines every single day and it was a very transactional sales process when it comes to the ticketing side. You had the opportunity to close deals almost on a daily basis so that thirst for closing opportunities I thought was tremendous and it really helped launch my career. Right now what I do on a day to day basis is help set strategy for revenue generation areas. We have three main core areas that we focus on, one of those is certainly the ticketing business that we have and we have a beautiful building here that when people come down for a Caps or a Wizards game, we have 20,000 people in the stands so it’s a really great opportunity but we have a big sales force.

We work with our ticketing group to set strategy selling a variety of different product lines, I’m also heavily involved in our global partnerships group which sells sponsorships across our entire Monumental portfolio and our portfolio is interesting. We certainly own sports teams, we also manage buildings in the marketplace so collectively the buildings that we manage bring in about 4.5 million people a year through the turnstiles so it’s a pretty big operation from that standpoint. We’re also involved in the media side, we own our own OTT network, we have a big out of home business so we sell integrated sponsorship platforms across many of the different product lines that we have. The final area is our executive seating department which sells our 110 suites that we have in the building, our very many VIP clubs and spaces focused on the B to B community from a business development opportunity. Helping set strategy for those revenue generation areas is critical for us, we also have a big merchandise business that I’m involved in and I think working with al of our people leaders to make sure that they have all the resources that they certainly need is first and foremost my biggest objective.

Fred Diamond: On the executive suite side you mentioned B to B executive suite, so who do you physically sell to and why would someone buy a suite? Give us a little more insight into that.

Jim Van Stone: I think we’ve got a great platform here. We do about 230 events a year, about 3 million people through the turnstiles. I think Capital One Arena which makes us really special is that we’re a mile from the hill, a mile from the White House, really filled in an area that’s heavily populated on the B to B side. Our customers and clients that buy suites are businesses that are looking to grow their business. It’s a great facility for them to host clients, prospects or customers and spend three intimate hours with them at a live sporting event. That one-on-one relationship developing opportunity I think is absolutely tremendous.

We do very well, I would say. Most of our companies are large integrated businesses in the government contracting side, military contracting side but a whole host of different industries that really need that suite opportunity to invest and spend some time developing their business. A lot of the big companies also utilize them for employee incentive programs so that’s another really big aspect of hosting a suite. When you’ve got this private living room of your own in Capital One Arena and you’re watching a great Caps game, Wizards game or a concert, there’s no better way to entertain 20 guests.

Fred Diamond: Again, we have Sales Game Changers listening around the globe. Congratulations, the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup two years ago. Does it get easier or harder when the team hits the highlight and wins the championship?

Jim Van Stone: We’ve had tremendous success. It’s certainly the Capitals, the Mystics this year won the WMBA Championship, another great opportunity for us.  I think winning and being a part of something special like that really congregates the community and everyone wants to be a part of it. I think we work really well with other teams in town also and seeing the Nationals win the World Series, I think when all boats are successful it lifts all tides and all the boats rise. It’s a great opportunity to really share in this. Winning certainly helps, but I think more importantly you need to have your strategy based on your business and health of the current time.

Certainly winning allows you to capitalize on some things but I think we also need to be in position when the teams are going through a rebuilding process. I think there’s a lot of strategy and a lot of focus that takes in that and that’s why we have a very large staff. I would say probably over half of our full-time employees that we have here at Monumental, our in revenue generating departments really helping us grow the business and becoming profitable.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned you sell executive suites as well. Who’s the customer for that? Is it marketing, is it HR, is it sales? Who do your people sell to for those?

Jim Van Stone: I would say most of the key and final decision makers are certainly your C-level executives, but I would say certainly the marketing departments, the sales departments are critical from that standpoint. I think they lead a lot of it, I would say probably about 3/4 of our customers that we have are using suites to grow their own business or retain their customers. I think certainly the sales and marketing areas, but I think ultimately it comes down to that C-level executive. Once you get buy-in from a C-level executive, I think that helps get those final contracts signed and get people activated and we have a great on-boarding program. When you take a look at 230 events a year, that’s a pretty big investment from a time standpoint so our job is to make sure that once we get a commitment from a company we do have someone to manage its suite for many organizations. I think making sure that they understand how to manage it effectively is critical and important so we definitely do a lot of on-boarding.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned that you started your career selling telephone systems. Tell us about how you first got into sales as a career.

Jim Van Stone: I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications so I think you were either going to do TV, radio or you’re potentially getting into sales if you’re a communications major. I ended up getting into sales and I sold for Executone for two years. My territory was Passaic County, New Jersey up in north Jersey and I went from business to business cold calling. Talk to someone about cold calling of what it was like in the early 90s, you’re banging on a lot of doors and you’re getting a lot of rejections so I think it really humbled you and forced you to be creative in terms of the way you approach the sales process. I found it really rewarding. Certainly when you get told no it’s not a fun experience to go through but I think it makes you better and I think it really prepares you for that next opportunity and I think once you are able to develop a good relationship with someone and you see some success and you get some deals done, it certainly builds your confidence.

Fred Diamond: We’ve interviewed some Sales Game Changers who’ve started their career that way, they were selling copiers or fax machines or something related to telecommunications door to door. What are some of the key lessons you took away from some of those first few sales jobs?

Jim Van Stone: I think just like everyone else in sales, never give up. You never know what that next big opportunity is going to be and you always have to be learning. I think being a student of the game is really critical, learn from other people, learn from the challenges that you face, learn from other industries. Always be learning is certainly critical in that process and not being afraid to fail. You’re going to get rejected quite a bit so I think the more that you can learn from those experiences, re-develop your skill sets, I think it’s going to put you in a much better situation to succeed long term.

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

Jim Van Stone: Specific area of brilliance? That’s a tough question to answer. I think one of the things that we do well here at Monumental is I think we really work well as a team and I think working with others is absolutely critical. Building collaboration is really important especially if you are in a sales leadership type of role. We’ve got to work with many other departments, we’ve got to work within the team space, we have to make sure that everyone’s really working in the same common goals to really get us to accomplish what we need to. Collaboration is one of the things that we’ve learned quite well here as an organization, I think it’s one of the things that hopefully I do well.

I think listening to our team, especially also the sales executives that we have there on the front lines talking to customers every single day. We’ve got to be able to hear them give us feedback in terms of what clients want, what clients are looking for, what challenges people may be facing, what opportunities are and I think sharing that amongst the group of things that are working really well is critical and important for us. I think collaborating with the team first and foremost is what I try to do as best that I can on a continuous basis.

Fred Diamond: Again, you’ve been in sports sales, you’ve been selling tickets and related things for over 20 somewhat years now, two decades. You mentioned some of the teams that you’ve sold for, we’re doing today’s podcast, it’s 2020. How has the industry changed? The ticket sales industry, how has that changed from when you started from where it is today?

Jim Van Stone: Across all of our different revenue areas that we have, I think technology has changed everything. When I was selling I didn’t have beautiful programs like Salesforce.com or some of those different opportunities so I think the ability to connect with many more people today really puts the sales process in a completely different situation. When I was selling and just starting like many people in the early 90s I had my shoe box and my tickler file and I was going through that, but I think today’s day and age with technology we’re just really able to deliver our message in a much cleaner fashion. I think we’re able to canvas and connect with many more people than we ever did, I think certainly working with groups like we have an internal business intelligence team that works with us on strategy and analytics about the right customers to go after and we do a lot of lead scoring on that. Today’s day and age technology has really put many organizations in a much better situation.

Fred Diamond: Again, we’re talking today with Jim Van Stone, he’s the President of Business Operations and Chief Commercial Officer for Monumental Sports, they sell tickets for the Washington Wizards, Washington Capitals, you said 230 events per year?

Jim Van Stone: At Capital One Arena we do 230 events a year. We also manage EagleBank Arena at George Mason University, we’ve got Medstar Capitals Iceplex in Arlington which is our trading facility for the Capitals, we also have Medstar Wizards Performance Center in the new Ward 8 area that was just built and that’s our training facility for the Wizards and all of our basketball teams. Plus, we also have our Mystics to play all their home games over at the new 4,000 seat entertainment sports arena. I think when you take a look collectively at all the different venues that we operate it’s almost 450 events that we do on an annual basis and about 4.5 million people through the turnstiles. It’s a great opportunity, I think when our guests are coming to our beautiful arenas and facilities to actually see our teams play, perform, connect with people that they want to connect with, I think it’s an incredible opportunity and it’s something that we really take very seriously.

Fred Diamond: To get to this place in your career you must have had some great mentors along the way. Why don’t you tell us about an impactful sales mentor and how they impacted your career?

Jim Van Stone: That’s a great question. I would say probably one of the most impactful sales mentors that I’ve had was a gentleman named Fran Cassidy who was my boss at the Philadelphia 76ers when I started my career. Fran was incredible at developing relationships, I think the other piece is that he was always very astute at looking at that next opportunity so he took a lot of strategy into the process. Frank came from a background of selling sports memberships and then I also worked with a gentleman named Pat Croce who started Sports Physical Therapist that was sold to NovaCare.

Fred Diamond: He owned the Sixers for a while.

Jim Van Stone: He did. Really great background but they were all about relationships and developing rapport with customers, getting to understand what people’s objectives are. One of the things I remember most about Pat Croce, for example, Pat would say someone’s name the first time he met them literally a dozen times and he was probably the best person I’ve ever seen of remembering a person’s name. Talk about how respectful that is and how it allows you to really connect with someone very quickly, that was fantastic. Fran, on his end, was someone that knew what buttons to push from a sales team standpoint, he knew how to nurture the team, he knew how to get people in their best prepared moment and at the end of the day, he was open to new ideas and he brought in incredible amount of strategies to the position. I learned a lot from Fran and continue to maintain a great relationship with him.

Fred Diamond: I have a quick question for you, a little bit different question. You talked about technology and you talked about all the things that need to happen today for a sales professional to be successful. Relationships, you talk about a guy like Fran Cassidy, I’m sure he had tremendous relationships in Philly with banks, hotels, hospitals, restaurants and retail institutions. Is that still important with what you do today? For someone to be successful let’s say at a junior level or coming into sales, how does that play now with all the technology and the transactional type of technologies?

Jim Van Stone: I think that’s a great question, I think that’s one of the things that we really focus especially with our younger sales team that we have in the thickening area is making sure that they’re continually working to develop that one-on-one relationship. I think sometimes that certainly does get lost with technology, technology is a resource for us but I think still people buy from people they like and people they respect and people that understand what their objectives and goals are.

I think that one-on-one relationship is absolutely critical and I think when you look at our facility here at Capital One Arena with the 230 events, for a given Capitals or Wizards game someone could come down here and have a game changing experience. They can see a Hall of Fame moment that happens and that’s a really personal experience when you’re there live and in person. For us, when we look at all of our guests and customers and they’re coming to see us, we take that very critical so I think getting out to meet as many customers as you can on a game night is important. I think many times people are experiencing some of the events that we have here with other loved ones that they go to games or events with so trying to get to know them on a one-on-one basis I think is critical. I think relationships are valuable and the better relationships that we develop with our customers I think certainly lead to high levels of retention and we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve had high levels of retention for our customers, especially our season ticket holders on annual basis.

Fred Diamond: What are the two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader?

Jim Van Stone: Certainly with new employees that we have, new reps understanding the process. We all have a journey and there is a runway there and it just doesn’t happen immediately so I think being patient certainly for a younger, newer sales rep is a little bit of a challenge. I think mentoring and working with people on a continuous basis is critical for us. I think the other thing that we have to be mindful of is that what we do in our business to a degree is somewhat of a luxury. We have to take that very serious and I think delivering value for customers is something that keeps us up at night and makes us always push to look at doing things differently understanding how trends change and what that process is in terms of what people’s interests are in some of the sports and activities that we have. Certainly that’s a part of the process that keeps us up a little bit.

Fred Diamond: That’s an interesting thing you brought up. On the Sales Game Changers podcast it frequently comes up that today more and more you need to provide more value. You’ve always had to provide value in sales, but you just brought up value as something that needs to continually be grown. What kind of value? Obviously if someone’s buying a suite or if they’re buying a block of tickets or something they know what they’re getting. They’re going to come for a couple of hours, watch a game, have some food. What more value could you provide to continue to grow your customer base?

Jim Van Stone: I think people want to feel connected, they want to feel like the insider so communicating to clients about the changes that we have on a consistent basis and being very proactive, that is really important. I think the experiential opportunity and making sure that experiential opportunity really builds a connection with our products and also the customer is important. We do some fabulous programs built around some of our biggest clients and even some of our not so biggest clients, we want them to feel connected to the players and feel part of the team. We’re always looking at things that are unique and different and establishing great programs from that standpoint.

This past weekend, for example, our suites department hosted many of our suite holders at Medstar Capitals Iceplex for an open skate program and they had the opportunity to have one of our players come out and do a chalk talk with them so they felt part of the team in that process. I think constantly looking at value opportunities that you can create above what just the ticketing experience is or the game day experience is important.

Fred Diamond: Obviously you’re going to remember the game but remembering the chalk talk with Ovechkin or whomever shows up, you’ll remember that for like 40 years and you bring your kid with you or something. That’s going to stick with you, again, the game is a great experience but all those unique things. Take us back to the #1 specific sales success or win from your career you’re most proud of.

Jim Van Stone: I don’t know if there’s one that stands out specifically. I think we have had some really large deals that we’ve been able to do the last couple of years but I think some of the ones that are most memorable and one of the biggest ones we’ve had was our Capital One Arena naming deal. We’ve had a long term relationship with Capital One and we understood what their values were, we understood what their objectives are and I think when the opportunity presented itself we worked a long time  with their marketing team to make sure that we could put together the right program for them that would deliver value for Capital One.

Customers are really important for them so we worked on a variety of different programs that would allow greater engagements. One of the great opportunities that we have is that if you’re a Capital One card member or bank customer you get discounts on tickets, you get discounts on food and beverage, you get discounts on merchandise. We wanted to deliver value to their end customer so we worked really hard putting together some programs that met a lot of their goals and initiatives. I think that was a really rewarding deal for us.

Fred Diamond: Before we take a short break and listen to one of our sponsors, again, you’ve been in sales your whole career. It’s very visible what you’re doing, people see the suites being used and they know what it is. Did you ever question, though, being in sales? Did you ever think to yourself maybe you should have gone the communications route back there or something? Do you ever say to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s really just not for me”?

Jim Van Stone: I don’t know. You’re in sales yourself, Fred.

Fred Diamond: We’re all in sales, my friend.

Jim Van Stone: When you’re in sales and you get a deal done and you close a big deal that you’ve been working on, I don’t think there’s any rewarding experience… It’s like being an athlete growing up and scoring the winning goal or winning basket, that high and that exhilaration that you get still pumps up a lot of sales executives and it’s one of the things that I’m passionate about. I think we all want to win more deals than we lose, but the deals we’ve lost we’ve grown from and we’ve probably tried a different direction as we move forward but I still think getting a deal done gives you that feeling of being an athlete and it’s a great rewarding opportunity. Seeing people successful as a manager I think is even a greater feeling because you’re seeing someone that’s poured their heart and soul into trying to get an opportunity closed and they see success on that. It makes it feel really gratifying.

[Sponsor Break]

Fred Diamond: Jim, we have listeners around the globe. What’s the most important thing you want to get across to the junior selling professionals to help them take their career to the next level?

Jim Van Stone: I think the most important thing is to be open-minded and always be willing to learn new ways and new techniques. I think you have to practice to really customize what your presentation would be or your pitch but I think it comes from hearing a lot of different people and the way they do it and how they’re doing successfully. Always be committed to learning and trying new things. Even with my career, I still feel like I come in every single day and I learn new things so I think if you make sure that you continue to practice, educate yourself and continuously learn you’ll put yourself in a really good situation and continue to grow your career. I think the moment you feel like you’re an expert in one particular area, it’s probably going to pass you by before you know it so I think being open to trying new ideas and looking at different ways to do things is critical and important.

Fred Diamond: Along the lines of that, why don’t you tell us about one of your selling habits that have led to your continued success?

Jim Van Stone: One of the things that we do really well here and I think it is an important part and its probably what’s helped us get some of our deals is that when we approach a deal, it’s just not a one-on-one basis, it’s not a sales rep and the customer. When we go into large pitches we integrate many people in our organization into the pitch so I think having it be approached by a team effort really says to a customer that we really value their investment and their time with us and I think it’s very helpful. There’s large sponsorship pitches that we go in with literally a dozen people, people from our marketing team, people from our social and digital group, people from our business intelligence team, our service department, our sales leadership. I think the more that you can do things collaboratively as a group, it will lead to much greater levels of success so certainly having that team approach. We’re not looking for one hero, we want the entire team to be successful so I think approaching sales that way is really important.

Fred Diamond: Tell us about a major initiative you’re working on today to ensure your continued success.

Jim Van Stone: We’ve been very entrepreneurial as a company and we’ve looked a whole variety of different things. One of the areas that we’ve been really successful at is continuing to grow our media side of our business. A couple years back we’ve launched our own over the top network, Monumental Sports Network, which has been very well received, we’ll broadcast live probably about 500 live sport events traditionally focused in the grass roots area. Certainly high school sports is a big part of that but that’s been a new initiative for us on the media side that I think has allowed us to really think differently about some of the different programs that we’ve done. E-sports is another area, we’ve gotten very active in e-sports.

We own some equity in Team Liquid which is the most successful e-sports organization in the world and we own NBA 2K team and we’re very active on the NHL side. I think being very entrepreneurial in spirit, being open to trying new things is certainly some of the initiatives that we’re working on and some of the things that we want to continue to focus on. We’re always looking at what those next big opportunities would be and one of the big things that’s happening in DC that I think is going to be interesting is sports betting, legalized sports betting. We were the first organization to announce a partnership with a company called William Hill that is an industry leader in sports betting and we’re excited about once they get their application license, about bringing that to the marketplace. We think that’s an incredible opportunity that’s going to help us bring an additional million people to the complex on an annual basis. Being willing to try new things and being very entrepreneurial is really important to us.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned sports betting, you mentioned e-sports, you mentioned some of the new arenas that you’ve opened up in the last couple years. It’s not like 30, 40 years ago when there was one building, you had to fill it, you mentioned media as well so a lot of exciting things. I want to thank Jim Van Stone for being a guest on today’s Sales Game Changers podcast. Jim, before I ask you for your final thought, sales is hard. You have a lot of competition, you’re not just competing with other sports teams in town but you’re also competing with entertainment dollars, you’re also competing with people watching games at home. What is it about sales that has kept you going and what is it that you’re telling your team members about sales to keep them going as well?

Jim Van Stone: What we try to encourage people to do is to look at the big picture. Certainly when you go out and you find a new deal you’re the hunter in that process, so you go out and find that deal but what’s equally important is the relationship side and being a farmer and cultivating them. We think if we can establish a relationship, if we handle it the right way and deliver for customers, show value and deliver great customer service that we’re going to create an incredible customer for life and they’re going to be a fan for life. I think continuing to grow that part and that path is critical for us. Making fans and having people support your teams, I don’t think there’s any greater feeling but when you have a customer that is constantly renewing, wanting to be a part of it or growing their relationship with you, that’s also rewarding in that process.

Fred Diamond: Congratulations, you have a great product, the stadium is amazing, the arena is amazing, all of them are amazing, it’s a great time to be in sports in DC like you mentioned. Not a lot of people have historically thought of DC as being a sports center but the Nats, the Caps, the Wizards have some great players as well and the Mystics, like you mentioned, they won the WMBA.

Jim Van Stone: I personally think that DC is one of the best sports towns in the entire country, I’m passionate about it, we believe in it and the success of the last couple of years has really gone a long way. There was probably an absence of titles in this market for quite a few years between the Capitals, the Mystics and now the Nationals. It’s a really great vibe in this town and community.

Fred Diamond: I’ve got to ask you, though. You’re from Philly, do you still think Philadelphia sports or have you totally made the leap over to everything DC?

Jim Van Stone: I am all Washington, I believe in Capitals, in Wizards and in Mystics from that standpoint. I’m still an Eagle’s fan, tough day yesterday for us but no, I would say I’m all Washington and the Nationals certainly are the prize of the baseball team in this area.

Fred Diamond: Before we break, why don’t you give us one final thought? Again, we have Sales Game Changers, you’ve given us so much great insights here to think about, we greatly appreciate it. Give us something else, give us one final thought to inspire our listeners today.

Jim Van Stone: Be open to trying new things, there’s not one right way to do things. Continue to push yourself, continue to be aggressive, know that we’re not going to win every deal but the deals that we win are going to be big and it’s going to help you as you develop relationships with your clients and you’re going to be able to continue to grow them at a very fast rate.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 230: Monumental Sports & Entertainment President Jim Van Stone Offers Engagement Strategies For Sports Sales Professionals to Prepare for Arena and Event Re-Opening first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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EPISODE 072: Veeam Software Federal Sales Leader Mike Miller Stresses How Taking an Athletic Approach to Your Sales Efforts Can Lead to Huge Success

MIKE’S CLOSING TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “It’s having an athletic approach to managing your business. It’s being driven. And when I say athletic approach, I don’t just mean the physical demands of it. I mean you have to look at what you do as a profession, you have to train for it, you have to be aggressive about it, you have to not take no for an answer and you have to understand that failure is a part of it. “

Mike Miller is a technology sales executive with almost 30 years’ experience in building winning sales and management teams.

His well-rounded background includes experiences in direct sales and leading teams from 6 people to over 1,000.

Mike has been the GM and SVP of North America Sales for CA, has run the public sector sales teams at Juniper Networks, has run world-wide sales for a few interesting startups, owns a sales training and management consulting business and now manages the federal business for Veeam Software.

Find Mike on LinkedIN!

Fred Diamond: Tell us what you sell today, and tell us what excites you about that.

Mike Miller: I work with Veeam Software, we sell high performance replication backup and recovery software all across the data management space and we have a lot that sales guys get excited about. From a technology standpoint, our software never breaks and I can tell you for somebody that’s been doing this for 30 years, you can almost never say that. It’s really exciting to have software that’s that reliable.

Our partners are Cisco, HPE, VMWare, IPM, Exagrid, NetApp, PureStorage, the list goes on. They’re all amongst the premier partners in the industry. Many of them sell our software direct and sell them on their own price list which is very exciting. We’re an 827 million dollar company still growing at 30% per year. In fact, in over 30% per year, year over year. One of the things that I’ve always looked for as a sales rep is we have a unique business value, in fact, we have more than one.

We’re the only company in this marketplace that can guarantee that back-ups will actually recover your environment. And as any sales rep knows, if you have a unique business value, that gives you something to sell. You find somebody that needs that and you focus on it.

Fred Diamond: Who typically do you sell to? Is it a peer IT sale or you sell obviously in the federal space. Tell us a little bit about your customer.

Mike Miller: Our customer ranges from somebody who is working at the data management storage level, so at the administrative level all the way up to program managers. The more important it is to have the applications back-up and running, the more mission critical those things are, the further up the food chain we have a tendency to go.

Fred Diamond: You’ve been a career sales person, we mentioned 30 years of technology sales with some great brands such as CA. Tell us about the beginning of your career, how did you first get into sales as a career?

Mike Miller: My first job in sales was with the Washington Bullets selling season tickets. I would drive around the Beltway to the capital center when in 1977, 78, when they were actually on their way to winning a world championship, so it was a lot of fun and it was actually easy to sell so I thought sales was like that. When I got out of college, I tried my hand at utilizing my degree in economics to manage a bank and ultimately because I also had to wait tables to make ends meet I started gravitating back towards sales as a profession.

So I took a job selling first investment products, so I was a stock broker and then I took a job selling home improvements because they gave us leads and then I met my future brother in law who was working for a little start-up at the time 1984 called Oracle, still a very small company, and he told me that they were paying him a base salary of 60 thousand dollars a year which to me was inconceivable at the time.

My biggest goal in life was to make 100 thousand dollars a year. He told me they were paying that in base salary plus commissions, so I knew I was in the wrong business and I wanted to get in that business so I started selling copiers so I could have business experience and reading the want ads every day, and eventually I found a job for software, didn’t say what the company was and that company turned out to be CA.

Fred Diamond: CA of course, was known as Computer Associates at them time and it was a classic technology company with a classic sales environment as well.

Mike Miller: Absolutely. In fact, if Charles (Wang) was still there, I’d probably still be there but Charles was an amazing man. He actually wanted to emulate EMC at the time, so he was very focused on getting the best sales people that he possibly could because he was one of the best sales people that I ever met, if not the best sales person that I ever met. It was a great place to grow up.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned you started your career selling tickets for the Washington bullets or sponsorships? What did you have to sell?

Mike Miller: Season tickets. They would have a stand at the end of the portals in the capital center and sell season tickets, and the team was doing so well that it was easy because we would sell season tickets by getting a deposit from the people that were interested in going to see the team last year and everybody that wanted to buy play-off tickets got first on the list if they were a season ticket holder.

Fred Diamond: We actually interviewed Patrick Duffy who’s the VP of partner sales at Monumental. Mike Miller: Great firm.

Fred Diamond: Yeah, great firm and of course, they actually won an award from the Institute for Excellence in Sales last year. What are some of the things that you remember from that, or even maybe selling some of the investment products you did that have carried with you today?

Mike Miller: The earlier lessons that I had were that sales were hard. It was a very difficult profession and it was something at the time that I found much more intimidating than exciting. The Washington Bullets piece was actually reasonably easy because again, people wanted to get access to the playoff tickets, so I thought sales was just going to be simple, was just a matter of showing up. And as it turned out, a lot of the early sales that we made cancelled, because all they really wanted was access to playoff tickets and they were perfectly happy to give up their 50 dollar deposit on season tickets. Later on, after the season was over I learned that it was much more of a grind, it was much harder getting out there and trying to get people to give you money for a product.

Fred Diamond: Interesting. Did you like selling the sports products?

Mike Miller: I did, I liked everything about being 17 years old and being associated with the world championship basketball team and being able to go out to the capital center and meet great players and ownership and be able to see concerts because I was out there. All that sort of stuff was fun. The job itself was great during the season and became much more challenging during the summer time when once again, we were out going from business to business trying to convince businesses to buy season tickets. And it was back at the time when season tickets weren’t very expensive, they were 9 dollars for center court per game.

Fred Diamond: When along your career path did you make the shift into selling into the federal marketplace?

Mike Miller: That’s a great question. I was at CA for 7 years. I started as a sales rep selling commercial with the worst possible territory which is sort of how things were in most companies and certainly it was how it worked in CA. I did really well in my first year, I did double my annual quota in my first year so I got a good territory. In my second year I did triple my annual quota and then I got moved into management and I was terrible at it. I begged to be demoted and I was.

Eventually, I got a really good mentor who taught me how to manage so I was moved back into management and when I was ready to make the move from regional VP position into a senior VP position, that was when I was moved to commercial from public sector.

Fred Diamond: You just raised up something that comes up once in a while during the Sales Game Changers podcast, the missed notion that you should move your top reps into sales management. Obviously now, you’ve had a great career as a sales leader and you mentor a lot of people, and you’re leading federal sales as you mentioned before and you mentioned during the introduction that you’ve managed as many as a thousand people.

Take us back to that moment, though, because we have a lot of people listening to today’s podcast that are you 20, 30 years ago that want to get into a rich and growth career in sales. What triggered the notion for you that you hated it and you wanted to be demoted out of sales management?

Mike Miller: That’s a great question. When I moved into management, I always felt as a sales rep that it was going to be easier because you get to spread the risk, you get to mitigate the pain a little bit. What I learned when I moved in there was that in fact what you’re doing is you’re not spreading the risk, you’re no longer having one quota, you’re having five quotas. It’s one big quota, but it’s still for five people. what I was finding myself doing was that I was still selling really well with my existing customers and the people that worked for me responded well to the way that I responded from a management standpoint.

They did well, but the people that didn’t respond well to that didn’t do well. So I went from doing double and triple quota to barely scraping by and doing less than half the quota. As it turned out, there were some fundamental lessons that I had not learned and the most important one that one of my mentors taught me later on in my career was you have to get to know individual people.

You have to get to know what drives them, what inspires them and what motivates them and then coach that way. That was a valuable lesson for me because it’s something I didn’t have when I first moved in and the last thing I wanted after a year of making half as much money as I’d made the previous few years was to manage people.

Fred Diamond: Tell us what happened when you went to management and said, “I want to get back into carrying a bag, back into being a solo individual contributor”, if you will. Because a lot of people that listen to today’s podcast, they’re striving for the next position. They believe it’s in management and I’ve seen a lot of the people listen to the podcast kind of hold on a little too long when they’re really not in the right place. What happened when you went to your management and said, “I want to get back into the bag carrying role, I want to pound the pavement again.” What was the response?

Mike Miller: He was nurturing in his response, he actually said that I thought I could do it but he appreciated the fact that I was having a financial impact and maybe now wasn’t the right time. Before he would let me go down and take that position, he made me do one of the hardest things that anybody has to do which was to let somebody go and said that part of the challenge was me not knowing how to do that and part of the challenge was the sales reps not being able to deliver for me and we both were going to pay a price, and that was something that he made me do. It was one of the hardest things I ever did as a sales professional.

Fred Diamond: Thanks for sharing that story, because that’s definitely one that has come up not infrequently and we hear all the time the notion that the best sales professional doesn’t make it into management and a lot of it is timing. A lot of it is you need to learn, you need to mature and then maybe later on in your career, you’re ready. I’m sure we’ll hear some of that story in a little bit. Mike Miller, what are you an expert in? Tell us a little more about your specific area of brilliance.

Mike Miller: That’s a great question, Fred. My sense is asking really good questions is probably one of your areas of brilliance, fair?

Fred Diamond: Yes, it is.

Mike Miller: Awesome. For me, I’d say it’s two things. We talked about in the pre interview was that one of the key things, one of the most important things from my perspective, from a success standpoint is being apathetic. What I’ve seen from sales reps who are the most successful is they are the ones that listen the most, they are the ones that are the most sympathetic and they are the ones that care about their clients. I genuinely care about my clients, I care about my company, I care about my product, I care about my customer’s mission. I think that’s why I gravitated ultimately towards public sector once I got in there, because I really and truly do get excited about the mission I was supporting at federal government.

The reality is that if you have that characteristic, then your customers know it and they trust you, and one of the hardest things to ever get in sales is that development of trust and that’s something that comes with that sense of empathy. The other things that I’m really good at is that I’m coachable, so at this stage in my career I still look to be coach and I have people that I rely on on a regular basis. I also consider myself to be a good coach whether it’s for sales reps, whether it’s for sales managers, whether it’s for 10 year old baseball players.

Fred Diamond: Tell us about an impactful sales career mentor and how they impacted your career.

Mike Miller: I’ll tell you about two of them. One was the person I just mentioned. His name is Mike Guido, he was the president of the Americas for CA back in those days and my senior vice president. These are just over the course of that number of years. The first time that I had a really successful quarter was my second quarter at CA and I had done half of my annual quota in that one quarter. One of the things that he said to me was, “Congratulations”, obviously he gave me the high fives that you would expect, but he also said, “Anybody can do it once. A real sales professional can do it over and over again.”

That made me put a chip on my shoulder and it also made me thing what do I have to do to be that person that can do it over and over again. He was really helpful in that regard. He also had a lot of things that I still incorporate as part of my daily activity. One of the things that we talked about was maximizing your face time and being athletic with the way how you manage your territory, that was something I got from Mike.

The other mentor I had from CA was a guy named Rick Chiarello. He’s done a lot of phenomenal things in his career. What he did for me was he was that person that taught me how to manage. He taught me how to understand individuals, and he didn’t just focus on me managing a team and focusing on a number, but he focused on me as an individual and how to make me better, and taught me ways to do that and I really appreciate that. That’s stood with me through all these years.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Actually, for the Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast, when we were walking into the interview someone actually came up to you and you mentioned to me that’s someone that you’re mentoring. Do you get a lot of requests to be mentored yourself? Or to mentor, I should say.

Mike Miller: Yeah, there are people that have gone through sales training with me through the years or people that I just know from my network. I can tell you that when I was coming up early in my career, I relied upon people that were in sales and that were successful and I would pick their brains and ask them their advice, and I had people that would share that with me because there were no degrees in sales when I got out of college.

There are some now, to the credit of some universities, but not many. They still tend to be more focused on marketing, so I’ve always seen that as a whole and I’ve always enjoyed helping people that are choosing this profession, because it really can be life changing to help them to see what it takes to have that kind of life changing success in sales.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the challenges that sales leaders are facing today. What are the two biggest challenges facing you today as a sales leader?

Mike Miller: Mine are going to be personal. It may not apply to all sales leaders, obviously. I have a really good team. In fact, I’d say they’re exceptional. Our company, which is also exceptional growing in at 30 + % per year, year over year, my federal team grew at 60% last year. I believe they’re talented enough to grow at an even faster clip this year. One of the challenges that we have is that we’re all home officed. Almost all of us work remotely, so building that sense of not just a team, which we have really well, but the sense of having a culture where people practice and role play and do the things that really do sharpen the spear. That’s harder to do. You have to be very disciplined about doing that, and that’s definitely a challenge that we face.

That’s something that I think really helps when you’re in close proximity, and as I mentioned as we were talking beforehand, I’m still a big believer in practicing. I do that with good friends of mine like Kevin Carr who was on your program earlier. He and I will hit situations where things didn’t go exactly as we thought they should of and we’ll call each other and role play and say, “What happened? Let’s try it a different way.”

The second biggest challenge, this is something that hasn’t changed much in 25 years of sales management. That’s getting people to move outside their comfort zone. People have a tendency to get into a rut. Sometimes it’s because they thought that the way that they were doing things was the right way and they got a little bit of success, and they think that that’s the way to the bank even though it’s super hard and super restrictive, and getting people to move outside of that sometimes is challenging whether it’s because the fear of not doing it the way that they used to or just because of the lack of comfort.

Fred Diamond: Mike, you’ve had a great career, we’ve mentioned 30 years a number of times here working for some great companies, CA. Take us back to the #1 specific sale success or win from your career that you’re most proud of.

Mike Miller: That’s a great question. Generally speaking, when I look back over my career I like to think of the people that have moved on and become senior VP’s and CEO’s and COO’s, whatever their vision was for themselves, so I do view that as my biggest success but if you want to think of my single biggest win: I was negotiating a deal – and this was at the time that I was one of three general managers in North American sales for CA. I was in a pre-meeting on a Monday night with my senior VP and his regional vice president and we were negotiating with a fairly large bank on a very significant opportunity, and I had through my career been one of those negotiators that was not always as consistent as I should have been, as far as asking for balanced concessions.

I would do the biggest mistake that you could ever do which is giving unilateral concessions. I had learned through some very good training that I had gone through and some very good experience that I had over the previous year, that I wanted to make sure that I had a really good principle negotiation. So in this particular example, we had what was the biggest deal I ever negotiated at the time. It was the biggest sale that we’d ever proposed at the time and we were going back and forth, and everything that they asked for I asked for something of equal or greater value in return.

Some of the things they asked for seemed insignificant but I wanted them to understand that the way that I approached their partnership was that I respected them enough to give them what I viewed as the best and final offer with the first proposal. So I didn’t give them something with a lot of fat to be able to trim stuff out of, and I wanted to let them know up front that that’s what they had but they were professional negotiators, they go to school. So we were going back and forth and everything they did, everything they asked for I asked for something in return.

There was one thing in particular that they asked for which was a concession on the maintenance side, which for a deal of that size I potentially could have gone to the CEO and asked for it, but I knew what the value that was and they were in heavy acquisition mode and I knew if they acquired more banks or if had had more merchers that it would be worth a lot of money. So I pushed back really hard on that one and I said that was going to be a deal killer if they had to have that. The two people who were in there negotiating who are also people you should probably speak with – Stu Flagel and Van Harmen, they both had looks of horror on their face because this meant a lot to them, this was more than triple Van’s annual quota and this was a big chunk of Stu’s annual quota. In the end they put that aside and we asked for a couple of things, we pushed back for a couple other things and eventually one of the people in the room on their side said, “I give up.” and I was afraid that I had screwed things up horribly and I was getting ready to apologize.

I started apologizing and he said, “No, no, no. We’re OK.” and it turned out that one of the people in the back of the room who was not making any noise was just taking notes on his laptop, was a senior VP of finance and he printed out an addendum to our existing enterprise licence. I took a look at it, confirmed that it had everything in there, it matched all of my notes, I give it back and said, “That was good”, he signed it and handed it to me, asked me to sign it and hand it back and we walked out of there with a contract for 124 million dollars on December 18th. Didn’t even make us wait till the 31st and what makes it sweeter, and what makes it even a bigger win is that they did continue to buy banks and almost 12 months to the day but one year later they did another deal with us for 294 million dollars, and it was all because we saved that one clause.

Fred Diamond: Good for you. Mike, this has been great information. You’ve had a great career in sales, that was a great win that you just told us there, win for you and for the customer, of course for your company. Did you ever question being in sales? Did you ever say to yourself, “It’s just too hard, it’s just not for me”?

Mike Miller: I said that a lot of times. Do you know what my mom told me when I told her I was getting into sales?

Fred Diamond: No.

Mike Miller: She didn’t say anything, she started crying.

Fred Diamond: Oh, jeez.

Mike Miller: After she finished crying, she said, “I can’t believe you’re going to take this good University of Virginia education and you’re going to waste it on a career in sales.”

Fred Diamond: Oh, man.

Mike Miller: She later changed her mind, obviously, because it worked out really well but obviously when you have a career that has you go either every year or every quarter from hero to zero – and that’s if you did well – it’s challenging, you can feel like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up a hill. You get it to the top and you hit your number, then it rolls back down, you got to to it all over again. But I’ve learned over time how to manage the process, I get excited about it and I’ve learned that the better you get at the job, the easier the job gets.

Fred Diamond: The interesting thing there – going back to your mother there, for a second – is if you think about having a 30 year career in sales, especially with the story that you just told us, think of all the value that you provided to that customer. You mentioned the next year, they went off and bought even some more banks which then made the technology that they were purchasing from you even more valuable and helping them grow their business. One thing that great sales professionals get to do is you see how the customers are utilizing what you’re bringing to them and helping them make their jobs easier, and helping them achieve their missions.

Mike Miller: Absolutely.

Fred Diamond: Mike, what’s the most important thing you want to get across to junior selling professionals to help them take their career to the next level?

Mike Miller: If you really want to take your career to the next level, and you don’t truly love what you’re selling and you don’t truly love the customers that you’re selling to – and I don’t mean that in any way other than caring about their mission, caring about what they do, caring about their timelines, caring about their success – then you’re never going to be successful. You owe it to yourself to find a product that you do have that level of passion for, and a company and a market that you do have that passion for and a customer base that you have that passion for because when you do, you get excited about your job. You get excited about your profession and frankly it makes the job so much easier.

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

Mike Miller: I believe sales is a learning profession, as I mentioned before. There was no such thing as a sales degree back when I was getting out of college and if there was I probably would not have studied it. That was not what I saw myself doing when I was in college, but the things that I regularly do is I still pick up a sales or a business book every quarter, something new because I want to be able to either learn something new for myself or I want to learn something new that I can teach my sales teams. I think it’s important to do that on a regular basis.

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

Mike Miller: Through the years I’ve been very business plan driven, from the time I was a sales rep I mapped out what it was I was going to do, where I was going to get my revenue from, where there were openings in my customers as far as which products they had from us, which products they didn’t have, which products they had from a competitor. I’ve been doing that from the time I was a sales rep up until the time I was managing senior vice presidency, very much a senior plan focused environment.

One of the things that I’m working on right now – and I’ve just rolled it out to my sales team at Veeam – is a very prescripted business plan. It’s a business plan generator, helps them to plan their year in advance. It also has what’s probably the most important element of every good business plan: it has check points they can see on a month by month basis and on a quarter by quarter basis not just by looking at revenue because that’s an easy gage, but by looking at the things that contribute to revenue to see if they’re on track.

Fred Diamond: What might some of those things be?

Mike Miller: Some of those things would be how big is your pipeline, how fast is your pipeline growth. Are you keeping track of how steadily things are progressing in the sale cycle, and is the sale cycle consistent?

Fred Diamond: Very good. Mike, we talked over the course of today’s podcast about some of the challenges facing sales. Sales is hard, people don’t return your calls or your emails. Why have you continued? Again, you told your mom that you were going to go into a career in sales and she spent all this money on this beautiful UVA, of course you were in state so it wasn’t really that expensive but what is it about sales as a career that keeps you going?

Mike Miller: In the beginning, honestly, it was fear. When I started at CA, it was two months before my daughter was born and prior to CA I don’t think I was that successful in sales. I was OK, I was getting by, I was pretty good but I didn’t work as hard as I needed to, and when she was born that lit a fire in me and it really changed how I approached my profession. I made sure that from then on, I was maximizing my customer face time. I was spending my evening with my young family, I would kiss my wife and daughter and then later my wife and son and daughter and put them to bed and then I would stay up and learn and I would take advantage of that time.

Now, I didn’t have to do that all the time, you have to have a life-work balance but I really did make sure that I was maximizing the time I had during the day, maximizing my selling hours because selling hours were money hours. I always found that if I approach my job that way, it became significantly easier and much more rewarding.

Fred Diamond: Mike, I want to ask you one last question before we get your final thought. You just mentioned maximizing customer face time. The more selling hours, of course, the more opportunities to make money. You sell into a federal space. It used to be that you could go into any federal building, you could walk the halls, you could go have your meeting. After 9-11, of course, security significantly ramped up. You can’t get into the pentagon anymore, you can’t get into a lot of federal buildings without an appointment and things related to that and the customer doesn’t want to see you as much as they used to. So what do you do about that? How do you handle that particular challenge and how do you coach your sales team to try to get that customer face time when it continues to get harder and harder to do?

Mike Miller: It definitely does get harder and harder to do. The longer you’ve been doing it, the easier it is for you to have some of the passes that can get you through. You might be badged in the intelligence community which means you can get into the pentagon without an appointment. However, there’s still ways to maximize face time even for those people that don’t have that kind of a clearance. And when I say face time, it’s not just sitting across the desk. It could be doing a Webex, it could be having a phone call.

It’s maximizing your customer interaction. It’s not sending emails, although emails are worthwhile. It’s not sending links to great demos or videos, it’s having a conversation. Ideally, it’s a face to face conversation because then you can see body language and you can see how they’re reacting. You can see whether their eyes are rolling or whether their eyes are staying focused and they’re not in their heads. But we have to find ways to be creative and maximizing that face time, and we also have to be doing some of the things that are old-school and new-school, which is when we’re having those meetings asking, “Who else here should I be meeting with? Would you mind walking me over there and introducing me to them?”

Asking basic questions like that so that you can maximize face time and you can find more people, and you can widen your scope of engagement because at the end of the day if you really want to solve problems, especially in the public sector, you have to talk to a lot of stake holders because it’s a very broad solution set. It’s never going in and selling a product, it’s selling a much more broadly focused solution set.

Fred Diamond: Mike, give us a final thought to share with the Sales Game Changers listening today to help them take their career to the next level and to inspire them.

Mike Miller: The best advice I ever got really does ducktail from that. It’s having an athletic approach to managing your business. It’s being driven. And when I say athletic approach, I don’t just mean the physical demands of it. I mean you have to look at what you do as a profession, you have to train for it, you have to be aggressive about it, you have to not take no for an answer and you have to understand that failure is a part of it. That there’s nothing wrong with no and that it’s not personal. That even the best baseball player hits one out of three. The best sales rep is probably closing one out of three which means that you’re going to fail twice as much as you’re going to win but if you stay engaged and you maintain your integrity, and you maintain your athletic, vigorous sense of work ethic, at the end of the day it’s the only profession I know of that can let somebody like me change my life as dramatically as I was able to.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 072: Veeam Software Federal Sales Leader Mike Miller Stresses How Taking an Athletic Approach to Your Sales Efforts Can Lead to Huge Success first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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EPISODE 027: Monumental’s Patrick Duffy Is a Wizard at Helping Companies Maximize Their Sports Marketing Investment

Patrick Duffy is the senior vice president for global partnerships for Monumental Sports & Entertainment, headquartered in Washington, D.C. Patrick is a graduate of Florida State’s MBA program. He joined Monumental in 2014 and oversees marketing partnerships for all of Monumental Sports’ properties, including the Washington Capitals of the NHL, the Wizards of the NBA, the Washington Mystics of the WNBA, and the AFL’s Washington Valor and Baltimore Brigade, as well as the NBA’s e-sports venture, NBA 2K.

In addition to sports properties, Monumental Outdoor and Monumental Sports Network’s Partnership Marketing fall under Patrick’s management. Patrick has a long track record of success throughout the sports industry. Prior to his current role with Monumental, he served in a leadership role with the Tampa Bay Lightning and also with the New York Islanders earlier in his career.

Find Patrick on LinkedIn!

Patrick Duffy: I grew up as a lifelong sports fan, so I am fortunate enough to be in this industry and really the sales profession as a whole. It has been an absolutely fantastic experience here at Monumental and having grown up in Long Island, New York, and I had spent some time in Florida as you mentioned. I have four little girls, so balancing that with the career in sales and in sports is always a challenge but a lot of fun along the way.

Fred Diamond: Have the girls been on the ice yet with sticks?

Patrick Duffy: They have. Still working to get them up to the level of what we see on a regular basis, but they love coming out to games. They’re very fortunate with the great ownership group here that supports the work-life balance, and being able to get them out to sporting events is a lot of fun. It’s great to see them grow and enjoy what I enjoy as well.

Fred Diamond: You sell things that are fun, but I know in the sports industry it’s sometimes very hard to sell partnerships and tickets when the team isn’t doing as well or hasn’t done well for a while. Of course, it’s always good when the team’s doing really well. But let’s talk about your career. I’m excited to learn a little more about you and some of your evolution and lessons that you learned. Tell us a little more about what you specifically sell today and what excites you about that.

Patrick Duffy: For us, we offer brand engagement through sports and media properties, so it’s a really unique opportunity and an exciting atmosphere. In the landscape of the world today, where I think we really are able to cut across the grain is that live sports has really become one of those few things that you have to consume live.  For us, to be able to really engage brands and story-tell during that moment is really impactful, and you really make a measurable impact for folks.

Fred Diamond: Take us back. How did you get into sales as a career?

Patrick Duffy: While I was at Florida State I took an internship with a minor league hockey team in town. I really didn’t realize that sports is a part of the business world and there were opportunities there. I did a little bit of everything from slingshot T-shirts on the ice to literally pick up the Yellow Pages and call companies, or individuals in some instances, to buy tickets to the games. I recognized that I’m really passionate about sports. I’m not fortunate enough to be out on the ice or the court. I don’t have that level of expertise. I then cold-called just about every NBA, NHL, Major League Baseball, and NFL team and landed an opportunity with the New York Islanders, which was exciting for me having grown up in Long Island and now having the opportunity as a first job out of college to go back home and work for the team that you grew up admiring.

Fred Diamond: Now you’re working for some of the biggest brands in sports. You’re working for a great ownership team. You’re working for some teams that have a lot of loyalty amongst the fans. But you mentioned you we were working for a minor league team back in Florida. What were some of the key lessons that you learned from some of your first few sales jobs that have carried with you through today?

Patrick Duffy: First and foremost, work ethic is key in the sales space. I think when you look at it, your hustle is controllable. Ticket sales is really a volume-driven business, as is a lot of different sales roles, so that was something I really took to heart. I really just tried to benchmark myself against the rest and really push as hard as I can.

Fred Diamond: You’ve been in sports marketing your whole career. Tell us a little more about what you’re an expert in. Tell us a little bit more about your area of brilliance.

Patrick Duffy: For me, it’s really working with various brands and our team as well. Just getting out in front of various key partners, both prospective and current, and really getting to know their business and listening. A big part of what we do is learning and listening in trying to put together a compelling story of how we can intertwine their brands with ours to really meet their objectives and goals and, at the end of the day, drive the business for them moving forward.

Fred Diamond: Tell us a little more about sports marketing. Do your calls get answered right away because you’re calling from Monumental and you’re representing an exciting group of products? Or do you have to work hard to get in the door? How does the balance work these days?

Patrick Duffy: It’s not a lot of inbound. It’s outbound, so it’s very similar to a lot of other industries. Certainly there is a bit of cachet to the sports industry, but not everybody is a sports fan by any means, so we work with people who are sports fans. At the end of the day I think everybody values a strong audience, so that’s really what we try to focus in on and make sure we can tell a compelling story of what we can deliver. It’s a lot of outbound and heavy effort, but at the end of the day, kind of what is to be expected in the sales space.

Fred Diamond: Another question, going off course here, but a lot of people listening in are going to be sports fans, because if you’re in sales you’re probably competitive and you’re probably following some teams. Is it the sport you’re selling? At the end of the day, what are you selling to the customer? Is it the sport, is it the association? What is the thing that really resonates with your customers that you found in your career in sports marketing?

Patrick Duffy: I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily the sport. I mean, it’s certainly part of it, but it’s really the audience. When you’re looking at sports, at sports teams in general, attendees will be coming to a game. Generally you have to have discretionary income to be able to afford tickets, and you’re usually very passionate about the teams and brands, so you certainly want to tap into that. If you’re a brand that’s definitely attractive… I think it’s the audience and the demographics of that audience. That’s what we really try to foster, not necessarily lead with the sport itself. That’s part of the overall experience and what we can deliver but not the core of it, so to say, from a deliverable standpoint.

Fred Diamond: You’ve mentioned your customer a number of times. Who is your customer? Who are you trying primarily to sell to?

Patrick Duffy: We work with just a number of brands across various industries and categories, so we try to align with really great partners whose goals and objectives and values match ours as an organization. We try to be very thoughtful on who we approach in various industries and try to align with those folks and also work with other brands that are really trying to grow along the way. We’re fortunate with a number of properties here, from hockey to basketball to football to women’s sports—lots of different avenues that we can look at and our media property as well, with our digital network and our out-of-home space. So there’s lots of different avenues that we can go with things. It’s great to have a lot of tools in your tool belt.

Fred Diamond: Patrick, you’ve had a nice long career here. Tell us about an impactful sales career mentor and how they impacted your career.

Patrick Duffy: I’ve been fortunate during my career to work with a lot of great people. Here at Monumental, ownership is great, so it really starts at the top and certainly I glean a lot off the vision of the ownership team. Here at Monumental, our team president and I work together every day. Jim Van Stone is fantastic, and every day I learn more and more. In my years in Tampa, head of our team Ron Campbell and Sean Henry in particular were fantastic. Sean’s the CEO at the Nashville Predators now, somebody I keep in contact with on a regular basis, sharing ideas, and just someone I really learned a lot from in my earlier career.

Fred Diamond: Very good. What are the two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader? You’ve been doing this for probably close to 20-some years. You’ve probably seen things change. What do you think are the two biggest challenges right now as a sales leader?

Patrick Duffy: Proving the metrics is very important. Obviously buyers and partners these days are very sophisticated. I think in the old days of sports, it was just the cachet of being involved with a team that was the big driver. Now you need to have measurable results. Marketers need to prove that the investment they’re putting forth is rewarding and fruitful. For our end, we’ve really drilled in deep on the business intelligence side and grown that end of our business to ensure that we’re driving measurable results for all of our partners out in the world today.

Fred Diamond: Take us back in your career. You’ve had some great successes. Tampa Bay, of course, won the Stanley Cup when you were there. What is the number-one specific sales success or win from your career that you’re most proud of?

Patrick Duffy: Stanley Cup was a heck of a lot of fun. You certainly feel a part of that being within the organization… You certainly felt part of the team, so it helped me get and replicate that here in D.C. with our teams and reach that championship level as well.

Specifically on the sales side, some great experiences were in Tampa, where I wore a lot of different hats during my 10 years there and had some success while I was overseeing ticket sales. We had brought on a really big partner to oversee one of our big entitlement spaces there when it wasn’t really my necessary role. It was more about driving our teams to sell more tickets there. It was nice to step outside your space and show your merit. That’s kind of what further grew my career, really showing that ability to not only do a great job at the role that’s in front of you but also being a team player and driving results for the organization as a whole. In recent times, our new naming-rights partnership with Capital One that you mentioned at the top is phenomenal. It’s something that we’re deep in the process of getting off the ground, and it’s going to have lots of benefits for both partners, which is what you love to see in a true partnership, so we’re excited about that.

Fred Diamond: Another question here from a sales perspective. You were with the Tampa Bay Lightning when they won the Stanley Cup. Was the next year easier or harder as a sales professional?

Patrick Duffy:  I think my perspective on that’s different than most. With the Tampa Bay Lightning and us winning in ’04, the next year was a lockout. That was extremely challenging. The upside was we had the Stanley Cup for two years, but at the end of the day that’s a tough thing because it’s out of your hands and out of your control. We were trying to bridge that gap with the uncertainty of when we were going to be back. Is it going to be tomorrow, next week, next year? Ultimately that year was cancelled, and we had to wait until the next year to come. It was a different environment, not normal. But I would say for most, in the normal environment of having a championship success, usually the next year is a fruitful year.

Fred Diamond: I want to ask you a question about that year. As we talk to a lot of these sales game changers, it seems that most people have had a nice straight career. Most people that I’m interviewing have had a great ascension from a great company to a great company to another great company, continued success. But we all know the line of sales success has waves and things like that. Here you are. You’re a sales executive, and all of a sudden you don’t have a product to sell. What did you do that year? What was that year like? You just had the highest of highs. You won the Stanley Cup, the biggest prize in sports. Now there’s a lockout. There’s this trust customer. They don’t know what’s going to happen. Do you mind telling us a little bit what that year was like as a sales professional?

Patrick Duffy: Yes, that year you really had to become a psychologist on top of a salesperson, so to say. It was a lot of just trying to keep up on progress even thought it was drips and drabs and update the group and certainly sell the hope that the season’s going to be right around the corner. It was an evolving process. Certainly a week or two in is not bad. A month, it starts to get a little bit more uncertain, and then once that season finally was cancelled it was pointing to the fact that we’ll be back quickly thereafter.

In Tampa, we were fortunate. We had an Arena Football League team there too, with the Tampa Bay Storm, so we shifted some efforts towards that other product. Revenue lines weren’t certainly as large as what the NHL team was, but it still added some focus towards that to keep everybody busy and bridge the gap a little bit.

Fred Diamond: You’ve worked for some great brands. You’re working for one of the biggest brands in sports and entertainment right now. Did you ever question being in sales? Was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “It’s just too hard” or “It’s not for me”?

Patrick Duffy: Not really. What I love about sales is there’s always tomorrow. I’m not one to give up very easily. You’re not going to hit a home run every time along the way, but the way I look at it is, if your effort’s consistent and you’re methodical in your process, you’re going to see those results. You may go through the ups and flows—I think any salesperson does—but let’s keep a positive outlook at the end of the day. I think I’m always optimistic that the next day will be better than today.

Fred Diamond: Patrick has been talking about understanding the brands that you’re trying to sell to and what their initiatives are. He also talked about how the buyer has changed and the fact that you now need metrics. You need data. You need information to prove to them that their investment in your offering, in this case sports and entertainment branding and partnerships, is critical. You have to become more intelligent about providing information to a sophisticated buyer.

Patrick, I want to get some tips from you now for the sales game changers listening to today’s call. What’s the most important thing you want to get across to junior selling professionals to help them improve their career?

Patrick Duffy: I think work ethic is key in the sales space. I think coming in at a junior level you need to out-hustle folks. Certainly that’s controllable. As you out-hustle people you’re certainly going to learn along the way. And then you can start to outsmart people, so I think I’ll hustle out of the gates and then I’ll outsmart people down the line.

Fred Diamond: I have to imagine you have a pretty high-profile position within your organization as the global partnership sales VP. What are some of the things that you do on a daily basis or a weekly basis to keep your saw sharpened?

Patrick Duffy: From my end, I try on a regular basis to talk to other counterparts across the industry, gleaning ideas from other folks. We are fortunate in the sports leagues to have a number of people in other cities throughout the country, so certainly I have a close group of folks there that I’ll bounce ideas off and hear their perspective as well in regards to what they may be experiencing. Also attending a number of key sales conferences, whether industry specific or not industry specific, to try to get out as much as possible amidst our normal schedule here to make sure we’re keeping everything sharp.

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

Patrick Duffy: For us, it’s continually looking at how do we advance the ball and staying out in front of the game. We have been fortunate as an organization, even in my three-plus years, that we’ve grown a lot here. When I arrived it was just the Wizards, Capitals, and Mystics. Since then, we’ve added two arena football teams because we love arena football so much and we wanted to double down, so we added a team here at Washington that plays at Capital One Arena, the Washington Valor, and we added the Baltimore Brigade, who plays out of Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, so very exciting there.

We expanded into the e-sports space with NBA 2K. We’ll have our own franchise that’ll play in an e-sports platform, so very unique, very interesting. That’s the space that’s ever-expanding and growing at just a tremendously rapid rate—a different demographic there too, which is exciting. Our out-of-home business has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, so that’s something we’re continuing to grow. That’s just a little bit more transactional in nature, where you’re looking at eyeballs and what that’s generating—a little bit different than what we do on the sports-properties side.

And then, another area that we’ve grown on the media space is our Monumental Sports Network. We’re the first team in sports to launch into an OTT platform from a regional perspective. It’s been tremendously successful, and we’re really trying to drive a lot of partners through that space. We are focusing on our Caps, Wizards, Mystics arena football products but also youth sports and high school space, so really growing that reach and hitting another level there as well. The way that we’ve tried to stay out in front of things is “What’s that next step?” We’re not risk-averse, and we want to get involved in things and be out in front of the curve.

Fred Diamond: Patrick, sales is hard. People don’t return your calls or your emails. They have a lot of options. Why have you continued? What is it about sales as a career that keeps you going?

Patrick Duffy: I look at sales and the space that we’re in, every day is a new day. You’re working on a million things. You don’t know the next door that’s going to open for you. That’s exciting. It’s exciting to see partnerships that you launch, to see the things come to fruition that you hoped would, so really working hard to make sure that that’s accomplished is exciting. What I really love about this space is it’s not stagnant. It’s not doing the same thing every day. It’s a new thing every day, and there’s always room for growth which is exciting.

Fred Diamond: Give us one final thought to share with the sales game changers listening in to help them take their career to next level.

Patrick Duffy: Something I truly believe in is if you can align your passion with your profession, that will truly set you out for success. I have been fortunate enough that I’ve been able to do that. But no matter what industry you’re in, if you can really home in on something you’re personally engaged with, I think that’s something that can really add that extra twist to make it even more exciting and probably up a level and percentage of success. It’s something that I certainly keep focused on, and I’m fortunate to be in the space that I’m in.

Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 027: Monumental’s Patrick Duffy Is a Wizard at Helping Companies Maximize Their Sports Marketing Investment first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.