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EPISODE 160: Verizon Federal’s Andrea Cohen Says Doing These Other Jobs First Led to Her Sales Leadership Success

ANDREA’S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Engage. You have to play to win and you have to really be focused on what you do and how it impacts everyone else, your customer and their customer. If you can get that level of understanding, you’ll be very successful.”

Andrea Cohen is the VP of Civilian Sales for Verizon Federal.

Prior to coming over to Verizon, she worked for Winstar and AT&T.

We also interviewed Verizon Public Sector Chief Mike Maiorana on Episode 100.

Find Andrea on LinkedIn!

Andrea Cohen: While I’ve had a long sales career, I think the biggest thing that helped me through the years is I did a lot of other roles. I did offer management, product management, business development and I ran AT&T’s capture team for a number of years. That’s the group of people that goes after big bids and big business and creates the strategy to win them. I also ran a program and had over 150 people reporting to me, so all of those things have really helped me in my sales career.

Fred Diamond: When did you move into sales as a career?

Andrea Cohen: I actually started in sales and a lot of the other roles I did were later, then I came back into sales in 2008. I was asked to do it because there were some very specific requirements for a contact center for the social security administration and I have a lot of contact center expertise so I came back into sales then.

Fred Diamond: I look forward to hearing your story and look forward to hearing how your background has helped you evolve as a sales leader. Why don’t you tell us what you sell today? Tell us what excites you about that.

Andrea Cohen: I think the most important thing for me today is we sell everything from security services to contact center services to infrastructure to networks and the technology has changed so dramatically. To be able to take all of these different capabilities and truly build a customer specific solution is what I’m passionate about. We serve the government, it’s a higher calling and we really are very focused on delivering capabilities to the government so they can deliver capabilities to our citizens.

Fred Diamond: We have a lot of Sales Game Changers listening around the globe, they may not know what it means to sell to the federal government, specifically the civilian side. Can you tell us what that means? What are some of the agencies that you might sell to?

Andrea Cohen: The way that we have organized the civilian side of the house, it is every cabinet level agency, all of the tribal agencies and a number of our key customers are people like HHS, Social Security Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration. When people talk mission, a lot of times they think DOD and that’s really not the case. Civilian agencies have critical missions that they have to deliver on to protect our health, to protect our safety, to ensure that we’re not ingesting bad food or drugs and you see it in the news all the time. Our civilian agencies have very unique requirements that they have to deliver on to protect the public.

Fred Diamond: Again, we mentioned that you’ve been in sales a couple times in your career so when you made that last shift, how did you get into sales? What were the circumstances that brought you into the sales side?

Andrea Cohen: Originally I started in sales and I started on a management development program and I really never thought of myself as being a salesperson. I actually was going to college for law school and I thought maybe I’d do a career in politics eventually. I found out I was really good at translating what people needed into a solution and so I ended up with a very small account years ago and then I kept parlaying it into bigger and bigger modules and capabilities. I had some of the largest accounts at both AT&T and Verizon hub and it was fun, and it kept being fun.

Fred Diamond: What were some of the key lessons that you learned from some of those first few sales jobs?

Andrea Cohen: I’ll talk a little bit about my mentor later but one of the key lessons I learned is you are the CEO of your module. You need to know that customer inside and out, you need to know what their pain points are, what their budget is, what their mission is. You can’t create a solution that’s effective if you don’t truly understand them. When I had the postal service, for example, I actually followed the mail for a 24 hour period to watch how mail was processed and it’s critical that you have that level of knowledge and that you remain very customer focused. That lets you make much better sales for both you and for the customer, more importantly.

Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about that for a little bit. That’s come up a couple times that you own your business and for you to truly excel in sales you truly do need to own your business. What are some of the things that the Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast can be doing? Again, you said that you followed a postal carrier, I guess, for 24 hours?

Andrea Cohen: The whole 9 yards, from the time it was picked up to the time it was processed so I understood what the problems were in the sorting facilities and then through to final delivery.

Fred Diamond: What are things you would recommend for some of the people to really truly understand their customer?

Andrea Cohen: A lot of it. First of all, read. When you’re dealing with federal agencies, there’s so much transparency, there’s so many things online. Don’t go in and start asking questions till you’ve actually done some thorough research on those customers. Talk to other accounts and talk to people that have other federal modules and learn what the common problems are because there are a number of common problems. Aging infrastructure, ability to recruit new people, do the baby boomer situation, there are a number of things that are common, licencing issues. The other thing I would say is really sit down and have coffee and go meet with your customers not to try to sell them something but literally to really understand their business and what drives them. You don’t get that unless you’re talking to them and you’re not trying to push a product.

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

Andrea Cohen: You always don’t want to say what you’re an expert in because you want other people to say that but fundamentally for me, I have a photographic memory and I am extremely passionately customer focused. I’m really able to figure out what a solution is that hits a key business problem and I’m able to put together a package for that customer to make the pricing right, to make the technical solution right, I’m really an expert at that. I ran a lot of big bids and big capture so I know what the pain points are and what the drivers are, and I also really understand the federal budget.

Actually, one of my summer jobs was I was a budget officer for the veterans administration, so I learned exactly how the budgets got put together, what you had to do internally from an agency perspective. That’s really my true area of brilliance.

Fred Diamond: I have a question, I want to go back to the comment you made before, “Spend time with your customer talking to them, not selling to them per se, but talking to them.” It’s harder than it has ever been before to get to customers for a whole bunch of reason. Their time is less, they can get access to information on the internet of course, because of security some cases you can’t even get into buildings anymore. What might be some of your advice to some of the people listening to the podcast about how to get those types of meetings? “I just want to talk to you about your mission.” Of course, you’re with Verizon so you get tremendous access but how would someone who maybe doesn’t have the huge brand behind them with multi-billions of dollars being spent on the solutions?

Andrea Cohen: I think there are two ways. One is if you know what a problem is and you think you have a potential solution, you really want to give value. People aren’t going to meet with you unless you come across as giving value to them, that’s the first thing. I think the second thing too is the government is even more so than usual really interested in what corporations are doing to automate, to get rid of Asian technology, to recruit personnel, to collaborate.

A lot of times what we actually do is we have a variety of CIO’s and people that we bring in to say what are we doing internally and then agencies tend to really be fascinated by that and they want to take those lessons learned from our experience and apply them to their agency.

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

Andrea Cohen: I did have a lot of great mentors and I would always tell young salespeople that’s the first thing you really need to do. My very first mentor was Bob Gradle at AT&T, Bob ran all of the federal organization and Bob said something that has stuck with me as I mentioned earlier which is you’re the CEO of your module. You need to know it better than anybody, you need to understand that customer better than anybody and you need to make sure you’re adding value every day. Bob was the kind of guy that didn’t care about your level or who you were, he would literally walk the floors. If he got a question or a call from somebody, he would come down and get it from the horse’s mouth, that was a really good lesson there.

The next great mentor I had was Catherine Dunn, and Catherine was all about building great solutions to real problems that were impacting everybody every day. As a matter of fact, with Catherine we built the first 311 service in Baltimore and that was to offload the 911 service and to get people help but not flood the emergency lines. If you truly have someone who understands what the needs are ahead of anybody else understanding what the need is, that’s a great mentor. Grab them and stick with them because you’ll learn a lot.

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

Andrea Cohen: I would say recruiting. I think that there is a really big difference between how we grew up in sales and how the younger generation is coming in now because they have a lot of great collaboration skills and they bring some really great energy and support that I think we can start using more effectively. Getting the right people making sure that they mesh with the account and the people in the account and allowing them to grow and to be promoted instead of going out and searching for new roles.

Then the other big challenge is we are in the cusp of probably the largest technology change we’ve had in my entire career which is 35 years. I think being able to deal with that rate of change and helping customers who have very old legacy systems who have very prescribed budget processes being able to take advantage of that rate of change. The problem is a lot of the solutions they have now are risky and they don’t understand they’re risky. They’re risky because you don’t have people to support them, they’re risky because you can’t get parts to repair them. I think it’s being able to articulate that and then give them a path forward that they can do.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned recruiting and that comes up not infrequently during the Sales Game Changers podcast. We have Sales Game Changers listening around the globe, what might the ideal characteristics look like for someone who would come on to one of the Verizon sales teams?

Andrea Cohen: A couple of things. You want somebody who is very collaborative, we have too many people who have to weigh in on everything that we do. You want somebody who can build those bridges and create a win-win environment. Communication, communication is critical and not just written, there’s oral communication, there’s written communication, it’s the ability to grab mind share. That’s a critical thing that I look for, and then the final thing – we used to joke on my team, I used to have this motto, “Dog with a bone.” A lot of times it doesn’t go right the first time, it doesn’t go right the fourteenth time but you have to have that persistence. You have to have that ability to understand that it may not happen now but it could happen a year from now and how are you going to make it happen?

Fred Diamond: In the beginning of our conversation you mentioned the federal marketplace and why you serve the federal marketplace. Is that a market that you would encourage people who want to move into sales to come into?

Andrea Cohen: Yes, I definitely would, I think that it teaches you great lessons. What’s so unique about the federal marketplace is that while commercial industries have many of the same processes, the outcomes that they’re looking for are life and death outcomes. It dramatically ups your game, you may not want to stay, you may want to move onto commercial accounts but this is a great training round. That’s why I really encourage people to come in and quite frankly it’s a higher calling, it’s a way to give back. For me, that’s incredibly important and I think it is for a lot of people.

Fred Diamond: You’ve had a great career here at Verizon, you were also at Winstar and AT&T, you must have had some great successes along the way. Why don’t you tell us about the #1 specific sales success or win from your career you’re most proud of?

Andrea Cohen: Healthcare.gov. Our team was heavily involved in both the compute and the contract center for healthcare.gov and it was something that had to be rolled out quickly, it didn’t have the smoothest roll out, it had to be fixed quickly and I think that it was incredibly impactful. I have a daughter who has a chronic condition, so for me the ability to give affordable care and let people sign up, let people have the information and the knowledge was very important.

Fred Diamond: Before we take a short break, we’re going to ask you one final question. You moved into sales, you’ve had various other roles, you were in business management, you worked in capture side, I believe you said as well. Did you ever question being in sales? You’ve been in sales a couple times in your career and of course now you’re VP of Civilian Sales for Verizon Federal. Did you ever think to yourself, “It’s just too hard, it’s just not for me”?

Andrea Cohen: Everything is sales, no matter what role you have. You either selling to internal customers or you’re selling externally so no, not really, I love sales. It energizes me, it gives me something to be passionate about every day.

Fred Diamond: We tell people if you have a spouse or a child, you’re in sales. I want to ask you one last question before we take a break. Again, you’re working for Verizon, it’s a huge brand, well-known brand, hugely established brand. We’re doing today’s podcast recording in the executive briefing center of Verizon’s headquarters here in Ashburn, Virginia and there’s pictures and there’s technology. It has a great feeling, I know there’s some other briefings going on. What is it like, for the Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast around the globe, to work for such an established and huge brand?

Andrea Cohen: We bring tremendous technology to the market and that is really important. When I worked at Winstar, for example we had many layers of approval, it was a smaller business but I think the size and the scale of Verizon and what we’re doing now with 5D and with our other networking capabilities is going to have a significant impact. We are, in essence, the information highway for everybody and it’s critical that that highway be in place because nothing works without it.

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

Andrea Cohen: Three things. Get a really good mentor, that’s the first thing you really need to do. Model the behaviors you want and you’ll learn a lot more quickly, that’s the first thing.

The second thing is inspect what you expect, that’s a lesson you need all the way through. You need to understand that you are doing what you need to do from a funnel perspective, from any perspective, from a deal perspective and you need to make sure that what you’re seeing is actually what you wanted to have happen.

The third thing for me is know that customer really well, you have to balance the corporation with the customer but if you lean on any side, lean on the side of the customer. Your knowledge of them will make you more successful.

Fred Diamond: I want to talk to you about mentor for a second, you gave us some great examples of your mentors before. How should the Sales Game Changers use their mentors? For example, I’m sure you’ve mentored many people along the way in your career as well. What do you expect when someone asks you to be a mentor? How do you optimize that relationship from the mentee perspective?

Andrea Cohen: I think that is a great question. There are a number of ways that you can be a good mentor/mentee. I think it’s not about expecting favoritism or wasting people’s time, it fundamentally is about learning and modeling and watching those behaviors, and then listening to constructive criticism. That is one thing that’s critical for a mentor to give, and I also think that a lot of times it’s literally about what it is that you need to grow into the next position. A lot of people are really good at what they do, they may not be really good at the next level, they have to take certain techniques they have and change them, how you supervise people, how you interact with people. I think that that is a really great thing you can get from a mentor, you can understand not just your role but the next role and then the next role. How do you rise in the corporation and what do you need to do and focus on.

Fred Diamond: Again, one theme that we’ve had throughout today’s Sales Game Changers podcast, you are the CEO of your module and if you’re the CEO of your module you need to understand resources, you need to understand how to get things done, etcetera. What are some of the habits you’ve developed along the way to help you sustain yourself as a sales leader?

Andrea Cohen: Two things really critical to me – three things, actually. The first is always learning. Everything changes, love change, embrace change and continue to learn, that’s the first thing.

The second thing is really understand your business and your constraints, each corporation has a set of rules either written or unwritten that you have to follow and to be successful not only do you have to sell for the customer issue but you have to solve for the corporate issues. You have to know the billing system won’t do this or you have to understand that the network won’t deliver that. Being able to do that balance takes understanding on both sides and that to me is really critical.

The final thing is learning – I’m very passionate about everything, but learning when not to be passionate. I hate losing, I’m a horrible loser [Laughs] so learning that balance is critical, there are some things that you shouldn’t win, but you have to learn that, it’s not something you have right away.

Fred Diamond: We’ve gotten a lot of great insights into your business and why you’re a Sales Game Changer. Just curiously, what else are you passionate about? You said you were a passionate person, anything else that you’re passionate about that would be interesting for our listeners?

Andrea Cohen: I’m very interested in art and architecture and reading. I read 13 books a week, it’s the photographic memory thing. I’m doing good and doing more, I had an upbringing where we did a lot of work for the disadvantaged. My grandfather was a political appointee and we did a lot of organizations that we supported like lung cancer and I worked with battered women, so I’ve had a very wide range of experiences helping other people. One thing my grandfather, who was a wonderful man, always said is everybody puts their pants on the same way, one leg at a time. Going out there and helping in various situations, I’m all on board.

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

Andrea Cohen: We have a major set of recompetes right now for all of our business, we’re literally recompeting all of our business. I have some big bets on top of that for large procurements that are coming out that happen once every 15 years, so a lot of what I’m doing is making sure that we have full customer understanding, we have an architecture that well may forward into the next 15 years and that our pricing is correct.

Fred Diamond: Why have you continued in sales? What is it about sales as a career that has kept you going?

Andrea Cohen: Because I get to do something different every day. I am not someone who wants to do the same thing every day and sales lets me have a very broad perspective on a number of issues and solutions and situations.

Fred Diamond: You answered this question very nicely before with the nature of your customer, the civilian government agencies. They each have different missions, they each have different programs, of course there’s always things going on in the world that civilian agencies are responsible for so being able to serve them and help them achieve their mission has got to be pretty gratifying.

Andrea Cohen: It really is. Everybody needs to understand it’s things like making sure your grandparents get social security on time and have Medicare benefits and are able to live long, productive lives. It’s food safety, I actually worked at USDA on their food safety hotline when I was in grad school and baby formula. Fundamentally it touches every aspect of our lives and I don’t think people have enough of an understanding of that. All of those safety checks that are in place are critical, and making sure that people can deal, one of my major customers for years has been HHS and CDC is now reporting on the outbreak of measles. CDC uses CDC info to track that, where those outbreaks are coming and what people are calling in about. I think that it’s really important and it also is very predictive about what the issues are going to be in the next 5 to 10 years and that’s always good, too.

Fred Diamond: You mentioned before, this is a customer that’s very transparent and you know what their initiatives are, it’s published. You could easily find them and there’s no shortage of testimony out there and documents which describe the strategic plans for the agencies that you serve. Again, today’s Sales Game Changers podcast we talked to Andrea Cohen, she’s the VP of Civilian Sales at Verizon Federal. Andrea, you’ve given us a lot of great insights. Why don’t you give us one final thought to inspire the Sales Game Changers listening around the globe today?

Andrea Cohen: My final thought to you is engage. You have to play to win and you have to engage, and you have to really be focused on what you do and how it impacts everyone else, your customer and their customer. If you can get that level of understanding, I think you’ll be very successful.

Fred Diamond: Along those lines, have you found along the way that customers do want to talk to you if you’re bringing them solutions?

Andrea Cohen: Yes.

Fred Diamond: How often does someone who’s one of the customer of the kinds of things that you sell, do they go home and speak to their spouse about their challenges? Pretty much never, so the opportunity to speak about how they could solve these big problems has got to be pretty gratifying and there’s got to be a lot of openings for those types of conversations.

Andrea Cohen: There really are, I’ve never had that problem even when I was a salesperson. As long as you bring a valuable insight or something that will truly support them. Another big thing today is experience mapping, a lot of insight can be got from journey mapping and experience mapping particularly when you’re talking about public outreach. That is something that everybody can learn about and be able to do because they have experiences from everyone around them.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 160: Verizon Federal’s Andrea Cohen Says Doing These Other Jobs First Led to Her Sales Leadership Success first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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KEY MOMENTS
Key lessons from your first few sales jobs: 08:54
Name an impactful sales mentor: 16:01
Two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader: 17:12
Most important tip: 28:15
How do you sharpen your saw and stay fresh: 30:53
Inspiring thought: 32:32

EPISODE 134: Equinix Government Solutions Sales Leader David Peed Tells How His Expertise in Evaluating Thoroughbreds Led to His Rise from Technician to Business Leader

DAVID’S FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Take every opportunity to build your network and nurture it. One of the things that’s really helped me in my career is the network of people that you meet in government and befriending them. Every job I’ve had has come through a friendship that I have made in either government or industry. Take every moment, breakfast, lunch, dinner, any available moment you have, make sure you occupy it spending time with somebody that you want to get to know or that you know and you want to get to know better.”

David Peed is the VP and General Manager at Equinix Government Solutions, an interconnect activity and hosting provider.

Prior to coming to Equinix, he held leadership positions at Verizon, Qwest and Ciena.

He was introduced to the Sales Game Changers Podcast by past guest Mike Maiorana at Verizon.

Find David on LinkedIn!

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

David Peed: Equinix is an interconnect hosting company and I led with interconnect because truth be told, that’s the true value of the story of Equinix. We’re not data center providers and corn fields, we actually look for where dense fiber plant is in most metropolitan cities, NFL cities in the continental United States. We have 200 data centers worldwide, so we’re by far the largest data center hosting company, but the true value of the company is the interconnection piece. The company started in the late 90’s as a neutral spot for the carriers to do interconnection to share their customer bases and from that it spawn from, you may imagine, going from just the tier 1 carriers to the cloud providers to enterprise. I came on board in September of 2017 to execute the mission on the government side.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Tell us what you run, you run all federal and state and local, or just federal?

David Peed: Right now, federal. We’re really focused on getting the fed government piece up and running and as you may know, in May of 2017 Equinix acquired Verizon’s data center assets so 29 data centers globally that Equinix bought. At that time, the federal piece of it which many will remember as Terremark Federal Group was a subsidiary at Verizon, did not transition over. That didn’t transition over until July of this year, so I’ve got 36 new employees that were contractors to me from the time I came here in September until July, but now we actually own all those 36 employees and the assets for Verizon, most noticeably Miami and Culpeper, Virginia for the federal piece of the Verizon data centers. The true value of the acquisition for me was the people because I obtained 36 people who most of them are ex-military and many of them are just wed to the mission of the government.

Fred Diamond: Before I ask you about your sales career, we have a lot of Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast from around the globe. What might some of the things be that the government would be using Equinix for? Is it the government cloud? Explain a little bit about what they’re actually purchasing from you.

David Peed: It’s a great question. I think in essence, what we’re seeing a lot is a hybrid cloud approach to where the government will put some other applications into the could, but some of it they want to retain some control over and that’s what we allow them. They’re actually moving the demarcation point of the agency to an Equinix data center, that allows them to interconnect with any cloud provider they want and through our cloud exchange fabric which interconnects our data centers globally.

They in essence can not only access cloud providers in the data centers that they exist, they can access cloud providers in other data centers we have. It really gives them a tremendous amount of flexibility, also because most of the cloud providers have space in our centers, they give big discounts to interconnect through Equinix because it’s actually cheaper for the cloud providers to do the interconnect at Equinix. It is actually most of the time at their own location.

Fred Diamond: Tell us about your sales career, let’s talk about that a little bit. How did you first get into sales as a career? 

David Peed: That’s a great question. My first job out of college was as a telecom technician, I was in essence climbing telephone poles at C&P Telephone Company. My second job, I was a receptionist at the US House of Representatives for the clerk of the House and they actually put me in the office equipment service, so I was answering the phone for the office. It was buying office equipment for members of congress.

At that time, all the sales reps were coming in to sell office equipment to the members and we were the place where they came and made their pitch. I would see all the sales folks come in snappy dressed and whip the Rolex watches and I thought, “When I grow up, that’s what I really want to do.” I actually tried to start my career going into sales at the house, but I quickly learned that that job was coveted in many of the companies that the sales reps had long tenures at their companies before getting that type of assignment, but that’s what really inspired me to get into sales.

Fred Diamond: Where was your first sales job, what company was that with?

David Peed: My first sales job was with Bell Atlantic, so my follow was a C&P retiree and I always had in my mind that I wanted to work for the phone company and actually part of my US house representative jobs after being promoted out of a receptionist role, I actually ran the pager system that the members carried for their house votes. As part of that, I learned to pager so my first job as I was trying to get into sales, everybody was like, “You don’t have sales experience” but I knew pagers so I got an interview at Bell Atlantic Paging. My first sales job was at Bell Atlantic Paging on a wireless sign selling in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Fred Diamond: You’ve been through the whole telecom space, you’ve probably sold many things over the years.

David Peed: Yes, I went from the wireless side in Bell Atlantic Paging over into landline side in the early 90’s.

Fred Diamond: Was this a natural evolution for you to get to Equinix?

David Peed: It was like coming home for me, because it’s like a hybrid telco/hosting with the interconnecting looking more like the telco piece and the hosting on the classic hosting side. Yes, it is and my boss, Karl Strohmeyer came from level 3 and now our CEO, Charles Meyers is also a graduate of level 3. It was a sort of homecoming in the telecom space for me.

Fred Diamond: What were some of the key lessons you learned when you were able to make that move into sales at Bell Atlantic?

David Peed: One of the key lessons I learned, especially in government sales was really understanding the mission in an agency. In the first job I had, I was assigned a central intelligence agency and I put in for my clearance and then I had three smaller civilian agencies that I was responsible for. The first thing I did – this was before the internet was a big thing – is I went to the library and I studied all the agencies. I had the National Academy of Science, the Peace Choir and National Archives along with the Central Intelligence Agency.

I literally went to the library and started studying the agencies so I could really understand what they did, how many employees they have, what locations they were at. I think fundamentally, that’s what really helped separate me because I could go in and talk to the end user and have a pretty good understanding about what they did.

Fred Diamond: That’s even more important today, there’s so much competition and the customer can get a lot of information on the internet and from social media, peer groups, if you will. The sales leaders need to clearly distinguish themselves and one way that we have learned over the Sales Game Changers podcast is by truly understanding the mission of the customer.

David Peed: It’s so fundamental in government and in all roles up, the Department of Defense collectively execute a mission and then as you go into army, navy, air force, marines, obviously each one of those has a different mission as well. Then the buying center is underneath the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. Everything ticks and ties but understanding fundamentally the mission is, I think, the key to success in the government sales side of it because if you can help them execute their mission, that’s what they’re in need of.

Fred Diamond: I’ve got a quick question on that. We’ve interviewed a bunch of people who have devoted their sales career to the public sector, federal, you have as well, evidently. What is it about that marketplace? Again, we have listeners around the globe who may not understand the government marketplace but why have you devoted your career to selling telecom related solutions, data solutions to the government marketplace?

David Peed: The first is unselfish and the second is selfish. Unselfishly, you’re really helping, we’re saving lives and literally missions that we’re helping with the agencies. I feel like on a daily basis, some of the stuff that my team does will save somebody’s life. Selfishly, as I like to tell my friends, the economy’s good, the government spends money. The economy’s bad, they spend more money so it’s really a customer that you know fiscally is not going to go anywhere and depending on the climate and how the economy is doing, they may influx even more money. I found that it’s a fairly stable market. In fact, if I wish anything for my two sons, I would love to see them follow in my footsteps and get into the government sales just because I think it is very rewarding what you’re doing and it can also be very financially rewarding.

Fred Diamond: Even when it’s tough, it’s still Fortune 1 so it’s still the biggest buyer of almost anything on the planet. Tell us what you’re an expert in, tell us a little more about your specific area of brilliance.

David Peed: I’m going to tell you one professional and one personal. Professionally, I would say I don’t have one area of expertise and I think what’s really helped me in the last 15 years in my general manager role is I do understand every role fairly well, my passion is in sales and that passion is driven by every day is different. I learned over the last 4, 5 years not from a medical diagnosis but I’m fairly ADD and for me, the challenge of waking up every day knowing that every customer is going to be different, every mission is different, it’s challenging and that keeps me invigorated.

Personally, I’m an avid horse racing fan and I would say that I’ve qualified for the national tournaments several times where I’m up against the top 200 handicappers in the world. I feel like if there’s one thing I can clearly claim stake to for expertise, it’s in handicapping horses.

Fred Diamond: Did you grow up at Pimlico, I guess?

David Peed: Pimlico, Laurel, Bowie, wherever they were running every Saturday with my dad. It’s a fun memory of my father, something I love because it’s analytical, I like to read and understand and learn about reading and certainly handicapping. I find it very stimulating, it’s more than just, “I’m going to pick a number out a hat.” Whether it helps me or not, I do enjoy studying it.

Fred Diamond: I’d love to talk to you for the next hour about Beyer speed ratings and all these things. For the people listening to the Sales Game Changers, I grew up in Philadelphia and went to Philadelphia Park with my dad, it was called Keystone at the time and he was a pari mutual clerk at Liberty Bell race track a long time ago which is now a shopping mall.

David Peed: Folks like us, Fred are few and far between. It seems like horse racing is somewhat of a dying industry and it’s great to meet somebody who understands it.

Fred Diamond: When we’re done recording this show, we could chat for a little bit. The last thing is I actually once saw Spectacular Bid run, he raced at Keystone Park. Interesting to know and I’d love to share some stories off the course. Just curiously, the passion being horse racing, is there anything that you’ve taken from that in your sales career? Any skills or things that you’ve been able to apply? Obviously to get good, one of the top 200, you’ve got to look at numbers, you’ve got to analyze, you’ve got to think. Again, one of the challenges, for the people listening, with horse racing is that you can’t ask the horse afterwards, “What went wrong, buddy?” Is there anything you take from that that has led you to be a sales leader?

David Peed: I think it’s very similar to doing your homework. I’m convinced that if you do your homework whether it’s in your hobby or in this case in sales, it’s going to benefit you. Are you always going to win? No, but will you put your best foot forward? Absolutely. I think for me, the mental stimulation of the sport is what also keeps me sharp professionally.

Fred Diamond: Do you ever go up to Saratoga during the summer?

David Peed: I absolutely do, there’s a tournament that they have in August right around my birthday. I hadn’t been for 30 years and I went back 4 or 5 years ago and don’t plan on missing another meet if I can help it.

Fred Diamond: That’s an amazing place, Saratoga. Back to talking about your sales career, you’ve worked for some great brands: Verizon, Quest, Ciena, of course now you’re at Equinix. Tell us about an impactful sales career mentor and how they impacted your career.

David Peed: In the beginning of my career, I think the two most notable were my first two so a guy named Rob DiRocco and one of my best friends, Ken Folderauer, the first two out of the shoot for me. Rob really taught me, not the art of the deal and not exaggerating, but just the chess match of sales, how to triangulate things into your advantage. Ken is the one I credit for “doing your homework.” No matter what he does, he does all this homework. If I’m going to buy a car or I’m going to buy a TV or anything, if I need an opinion I can call him and I can guarantee he’s done his homework.

Fred Diamond: We actually interviewed him for the Sales Game Changers podcast, Rob is actually a great guest and we’ll put a note to Rob’s show also on the list here as well. Why don’t you tell us about the two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader?

David Peed: I think the biggest challenge everybody has is keeping top talent. When you get really good people and especially when you get into the cleared world where people are holding clearances or accesses, that makes them even harder to hold on to. I do think the political and fiscal climate in the fed space can really be challenging. There was a period of time at Ciena where to no fault of myself or my team, we struggled for a full year and it was really because of the fiscal challenges that the government was in. The budget can be your friend as we talked about when we started and how I enjoyed the fact that it is the #1 customer in the world, globally but if there’s challenges it can be extremely impactful. As a sales leader, getting and retaining the top talent can be difficult.

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

David Peed: If it’s okay with you, I’m going to highlight two quickly. The first, when I talked about those three smaller civilian agencies. One was the National Archives and they had a location in College Park, Maryland, they had a location in DC. I actually studied the fact that they were running shuttle buses between those two sites four or five times a day, and at that time at Bell Atlantic they were on the WITS contract and with ISDN you could do data calls without paying any usage fees. I studied how many buses were going back and forth and how many people were on the buses, and I made a case to the facility’s management team to say, “You can do 24/7 video conferencing for the cost of the video conferencing gear and four ISDM lines on each side.” They bought it, and for me I was really proud because it went back to the roots of fundamentally analyzing a problem and then providing a solution that was really a no-brainer at that time.

Fred Diamond: I want to pursue that for a second or two. Were they a customer of yours at that point?

David Peed: They were, but they were not video conferencing customers and they weren’t ISDN customers so both the video conferencing room and concept was new, and that was a new installation for us for ISDN.

Fred Diamond: What prompted you, did you get some direction from the company saying “We really need to get into video conferencing, now’s the time”?

David Peed: No, I just looked and as I would go and visit my customer just trying to get to know them better, I kept seeing these vans pull out and it just triggered something for me saying, “Where are they going? They’re going from here in Adelphi, Maryland down to DC and back and forth.” I’m like, “If they have that much need to be between the two sites, wouldn’t it be efficient if they could do some video conferencing?” and the fact that we exploited the WITS contract which at that time you could do ISDN, BRI, PRI circuits with no data usage if you were within WITS to WITS customer, it really became a no-brainer and something I’m really proud of.

Fred Diamond: For the people listening, what is the WITS contract? What does that mean?

David Peed: That was the Washington Inter-agency Telecommunication Service and it was a GSA administered contract that fed agencies and DC metropolitan areas acquired off of.

Fred Diamond: For the people listening to the Sales Game Changers podcast, one of the unique things about the federal government space is that you need to have contract vehicles from which the government customer can purchase. They had a mechanism to buy the solution because of that contract.

David Peed: Absolutely, and in the government space if you don’t have any answer going then you want to make sure you have it fairly quickly after because the first question is going to come up after they say, “That is something I really want to do, how can we buy it?”

Fred Diamond: I want to ask one or two more questions about this particular incident because one of the themes that we hear from the Sales Game Changers podcast is that you need to bring value to your customer that they don’t see. It’s probably one of the biggest trends that has to happen today to continue sales excellence. You notice these shuttles going back and forth, you knew you had the solution that the company was looking to bring, the video conferencing over the ISDN. How did that work? You went back to the office and said, “Boss, I have an idea for our customer” or did you put together a business plan or just go into a meeting one day with some slides? Tell us a little bit about what went from the inclination to actually getting the customer to purchase.

David Peed: I went back and did the pricing of the equipment and actually the lines of what the monthly recurring rate would be and I did an unsolicited proposal to the customer, wound up turning around to an RFP that we eventually won. It worked out great, it went fairly quickly once I got to the point where I figured out the cost of the equipment and what the lines were going to be and putting it on paper and submitting it, it was shortly thereafter. We had the vehicle ready to go, so it went pretty quick.

Fred Diamond: Last question from the customer’s side, were they looking for a video conferencing solution?

David Peed: No, it was just a new concept for them. In fact, I think it cost them more money to redo the room that they put the video conference equipment in than it did for the video conferencing equipment. I didn’t feel guilty because they were spending too much money, but for me I recollect that that was not a thought in their mind. Once they went for it, they went hook line and sinker.

Fred Diamond: Good for you. You said you had a second example as well.

David Peed: Second example was in the classified world where my friend I spoke of, Ken Folderauer, there was a time where a particular customer was doing a trilogy, several different procurements one after another. We bid on one and we lost it, I’ll leave the details out because it was classified. Second one, I really thought we had a chance to win and nobody in the company thought we could win. Actually, out of 30 executives the only one supporting me was my buddy Ken Folderauer and sure enough, we wound up bidding that and winning that. That wound up being an anchor of what wound up being a big business for Bell Atlantic/Verizon in that space for them.

Fred Diamond: David, before we take a short break I want to ask you one quick question. Did you ever question being in sales? Did you ever think to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me”?

David Peed: No. In fact, it’s probably exactly the opposite. I actually think to myself, “I don’t know what I’d be doing if I wasn’t doing the sales.” I feel like a fish in water, the challenge and the aspect of looking at something and trying to figure out a way that you can help and when you’re helping the government in a way that you know that in some instances you’re saving lives and other instances you’re saving money, you’re helping them be efficient, there’s a lot of reward that comes from that. I actually think the opposite, I’ve never questioned it and actually often think that I don’t know what I would be doing if I wasn’t doing this.

Fred Diamond: We’ve interviewed so many people in the Sales Game Changers podcast and a lot of them do focus on the federal space because most of the people we’re interviewing are in the mid-Atlantic DC region. The ones who have served the federal government for 20, 30 years have all said the same thing. They know they’re doing some good helping citizens, helping people around the world because most government customers, that is their mission. They are mission-driven, they don’t make a whole lot of money in some of the jobs but they show up day after day. The process is a little bit inefficient of course, as we know but the mission is always one that’s excellent.

David Peed: One comment on that, because I think you touched on it and I think one of the keys in government sales is finding those game changers in the government. Through my career, there’s been some folks who I think have been extremely impactful in government. You had a long time ago Kevin Carroll, army PEO-EIS who did great things for the army. You had Johnny Johnson and all of the things that he accomplished at general services administration, he also started his career at DISA. You have Cindy Moran who’s become a dear friend, who was a game changer at DISA. I think you have folks like that that really want to do something great for the world, finding those folks and befriending them is important.

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

David Peed: That’s a great question. I think the best I could tell them is take every opportunity to build your network and nurture it. I think one of the things that’s really helped me in my career is the network of people and you spoke about this in the last segment, about the folks that you meet in government and befriending them, and they go to different agencies and they go to industry and you wound up knowing these folks for years. Out of all the jobs I’ve ever had, I’ve been recruited for a zillion and every job I’ve had has come through a friendship that I have made in either government or industry.

The biggest advice I can give these young folks is to build and nurture your network, take every moment, breakfast, lunch, dinner, any available moment you have, make sure you occupy it spending time with somebody that you want to get to know or that you know and you want to get to know better.

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

David Peed: Great question again. I think this is going to be on the personal side, I work out four or five days a week. I get up really early in the morning and I find myself on the elliptical for 45 minutes to an hour, and I think that physical aspect to that keeps the mental side fresh. I use that hour as a time to reflect on the day and analyze and think through what I’m going to do that day, what I’m going to do that week, what I’m going to do that month. I think between the goodness that it helps me on the physical side as well as that time alone and time for me to think about what I’m doing has really helped me stay sharp.

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

David Peed: Still just working and growing that network of folks. Right now, I think most of that’s demonstrated on some board work that I’m doing. I’m on an advisory board for BlackRidge Technology, I was on the advisory board for Ciena Government Solutions. When I resigned, that was one of the things that my boss asked me to stay on and work as an adviser. Looking at it from that aspect has really helped me and sharpened my skills as well.

Fred Diamond: David, sales is hard. You’ve had a great career, you’ve told us about some great successes but you’re in a very competitive space right now, not everybody necessarily knows all the value that your company brings. People don’t return your calls, government has challenges, you mentioned a couple budgetary things that come up every once in a while. Why have you continued? What is it about a career in sales that has kept you going?

David Peed: Again, it’s that challenge that every day is going to be different. You have to really believe in the products that you’re selling. When I got the call from my now boss Karl Strohmeyer – I’m actually in an internal management role but I would but him up there with the best that I’ve dealt with in my career as far as a manager. I think that’s a way he approaches things very collaboratively as we discuss issues and topics, he’s a very bright guy. I went through a period of time where I started my business and I found it fulfilling but not as fulfilling as I do on the industry side and corporate side.

Equinix just has a very unique culture and a very unique offering, and I think I’m hitting it right at the right time. When you combine the assets that we acquired from Verizon, most specifically the 36 individuals that I spoke of, I have a team of 50 folks addressing in federal space. It’s something new every day, it’s a great team of folks that I inherited and I’ve got a great team underneath me.

Fred Diamond: Thanks again for all the great content today, I loved some of the stories, particularly I loved the story about the video conferencing and how you saw a need for the customer that they didn’t see, and how you were able to bring them something that obviously saved them millions of dollars over the course of time. Why don’t you give us one final thought to inspire the Sales Game Changers listening to today’s podcast around the globe?

David Peed: If anything, my first job out of college was for $13,000 a year climbing telephone poles so if I can say anything inspirational it’s that it can happen to you. I think going to graduate school is a big step forward and the right direction for me, it took me 7 years but it was a big sense of accomplishment and I think that, not to be corny, but it can happen to you. If you can find yourself in a position if you’re selling to the government or even commercially to advance your agency’s or your company’s mission, you’re going to do well. The thing that’s also been a measure of success as an individual contributor or sales leader is focusing on a good strategy. If you’re trying to pay the electric bill and that’s all you’re focused on, I think you’re going to fail. If you map yourself out a strategy and execute off the strategy, you’ll pay the electric bill. That’s one of the things that’s really helped me as an individual contributor and a sales leader be successful is mapping out a solid strategy.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 134: Equinix Government Solutions Sales Leader David Peed Tells How His Expertise in Evaluating Thoroughbreds Led to His Rise from Technician to Business Leader first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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KEY MOMENTS
Key lessons from your first few sales jobs: 07:29
Name an impactful sales mentor: 10:41
Two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader: 12:52
Most important tip: 18:25
How do you sharpen your saw and stay fresh: 24:13
Inspiring thought: 25:12

EPISODE 113: The Fearless Leader Author and Former Verizon Executive Chris Baron Offers Sensible Guidance for Your Sales Leadership Growth and Impact

CHRIS’ FINAL TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “What I would leave you with is just remember all you all have to offer. We’ve all got so much to offer in the world and when you find your passion, you stay true to who you are and you continue down your journey. Remember, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks about your journey because it’s your journey. Stay super passionate, stay true, stay authentic, stay real and keep going..”

Chris Baron is the author of the Amazon best-seller The Fearless Leader: A Sensible Guide to Practicing Authentic Leadership.

She’s a retired Verizon Executive with over 25 years’ experience.

If you listen to Sales Game Changers Podcast Episode Number 100 with Verizon Exec Mike Maiorana, you might have heard that Mike mentioned Chris as his mentor.

Find Chris on LinkedIn!

Chris Baron: Fred, thanks so much for having me on the show this morning. I’m very happy to be here and honored to be asked to join you. You just talked about the 25 years’ experience with Verizon, it’s been a really good, long, rich history with the company. I started as an entry level sales rep in 1993 and worked my way up to the executive roles that I carried throughout the organization. I had a really rich career with Verizon, it was awesome and I retired just about a year ago – actually, a year ago this month and decided to go out on my own and focused on some of the things that I was super passionate about, specifically leadership, writing my first book so that I could share my leadership lessons with the world as well as start my health and wellness company.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you tell us what you sell today and tell us what excites you about that? Of course, you’re the author of The Fearless Leader, so we’d love to know more about that and what prompted you to write that.

Chris Baron: The Fearless Leader: A Sensible Guide to Practicing Authentic Leadership is all around practicing authentic leadership, being true to yourself, being true to your style and being true to your people. That’s a real passion of mine, it’s always been a passion of mine. Leadership and developing others in their sales and operation roles and helping them grow throughout the organization has been a very big passion of mine.

Very early in my retirement, literally the first 30 days in retirement I decided to put a pen to paper and take the lessons that I’ve learned along my journey, put them into the book and try to get that out as quickly as possible while it was still fresh because I spent quite a bit of time reflecting on the 25 year experience and hopefully I’ve got some good lessons for the world here. That coupled with my leadership coaching which is the Achieve Institute methodology and technology – or techniques, I should say – gives me the opportunity to stay present in the leadership space and gives me the opportunity to continue to coach and develop people along their journey.

Fred Diamond: We have Sales Game Changers listening around the globe to the podcast. You mentioned the word authentic. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what that means and how that can apply to the sales profession?

Chris Baron: What authentic means to me is continuing to stay true to who you are. Take sales call, for example. Your prospective customers, your employees, your existing clients will smoke out if you’re not authentic and what I mean by that specifically is be real, be super passionate about what you do, be super passionate about learning your products and services in their entirety so that you’re prepared to answer all the questions properly. You want to make sure that you do this in your style and not in somebody else’s.

Fred Diamond: Interesting. Tell us about the beginning of your sales career, how did you first get into sales as a career?

Chris Baron: That’s a really interesting question. I opened the book answering this question and I didn’t realize it until I started to write the book that my sales journey really started when I was a kid. It started in the summers and in the winters. I should back up by saying I was raised by a single mom who taught us to work super hard, she worked three jobs to raise us. What I learned from her work ethic was there’s always a way, you’ve just got to figure out your path. I started my sales journey selling lemonade when I was probably around 10 years old, but you can’t sell lemonade in the winter so I shoveled sidewalks in the winter.

You might think, “How could this skinny 11 year old kid shovel sidewalks?” And you’d go back to there’s a way. I got my shovel and I went out and I started ringing doorbells and I started to get customers. What I learned quickly was the person out when the snow first stopped was the one to get the jobs, so I would literally sit on the front porch and wait for the snow to stop, I’d grab my snow shovel, I’d start to ring doorbells and I would get clients.

Then I realized there was a productivity element to this, so I started to book my clients. I would ring the doorbells and I would tell them what time I would think I would get back to their house. This is an 11 year old kid trying to figure out who needed to get out when so that I could schedule that accordingly. After probably my first or second snowfall I realized that that wasn’t going to last very long. I needed to get their home phone numbers so I could call them up the night before so that I didn’t have to sit on my front porch and book my appointments by walking door to door, I could call them up on the phone and tell them, “This is Chris Baron, I shoveled your snow last time. You’re happy with my services, I assume. I’d love to come back and help you out again after this storm ends.” I would literally start to book my appointments on the phone.

Fred Diamond: It’s great. Again, you’re episode #113 of the Sales Game Changers podcast. A lot of the people fell into sales as an accident, maybe they were a consultant or someone in finance and then they realized they had a passion for what they were offering and they were good with people. The other half of the people were selling lemonade at the age of 10 so I’m glad to hear that you started off that, of course which led you onto your great career of Verizon. What are some of the key lessons you learned from those first few sales jobs?

Chris Baron: To be super organized the way I just described about booking the appointments. I think really effective salespeople are organized. They’re organized in their day, they’re organized with their prospects, they’re organized with their existing customers. I’m often heard saying, “If you don’t have a list, you don’t have a business.” Your prospects need to be super organized in some sort of file, whether it’s automated or manual old school, the organizational skills that you develop early should carry with you throughout your career.

Disorganized sales leaders have a very hard time staying productive.

Fred Diamond: “If you don’t have a list, you don’t have a business.” That makes a lot of sense. Of course, you just wrote a book called The Fearless Leader. Tell us what you’re an expert in, tell us about your specific area of brilliance.

Chris Baron: Developing leaders whether they’re sales leaders or operations leaders or individual contributor leaders, I often like to remind people that leadership is not a title – that’s not my saying, I can’t recall who said it – but it’s not a title. It’s really how you show up every day so my strength has always been around bringing the best out of people and getting them to believe in themselves enough so that they can deliver maximum productivity.

I also make sure that I’m very focused on relationships, relationships inside your organization, relationships outside your organization, relationships with your customers, with your prospects, with your peers, with your bosses. These relationships are so important in order to deliver the things that you’re trying to deliver because none of us can get there on our own. We all need support, we all need guidance, we all need customers and this is all in my mind fundamental to the relationship building skills.

Fred Diamond: Chris, we have a lot of Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast around the globe. A lot of them are early in their sales career, they want to become sales leaders. Relationships are something that they know they need to do but it’s a different way, they’re not quite used to making the type of relationships that you say are essential. Can you give a tip or two to the young sales leaders listening about how they should be thinking about building these types of relationships?

Chris Baron: That’ll go back to authenticity, it goes back to being super real and know your own style. Know yourself, I’ve often seen young professionals, young sales leaders try so hard to adopt someone else’s style and it just simply doesn’t work. Get real comfortable with yourself, confidence is super important. Not over confident, there’s a fine line but you certainly need to be confident in your style, in your approach, in your delivery. I think that’s a key element to success.

Fred Diamond: Again, on our episode #100 where we interviewed Mike Maiorana, he’s the VP of federal sales public sector over at Verizon, he mentioned that you were his mentor and this led us to the interview which I’m thrilled about. Why don’t you tell us about an impactful sales career mentor and how they impacted your career?

Chris Baron: I get this question a lot and I take it in three different steps. The first mentor for me, obviously, is my mother. Hardest working woman I’ve ever met in my life who always maintained a positive, genuine, authentic way about her so that’s really how I started. If I think about mentors and I think about sponsors, there’s an equation that I use often and it’s mentors + results = sponsors. There is a difference in my opinion between a mentor and a sponsor.

A mentor is someone inside your organization or outside your organization that cares about you, that takes a genuine interest in your approach, in your success, in your succession plan and I’ve been so blessed inside my 25 year career with Verizon to have many mentors, probably too many to name. The mentors plus my results got me a sponsor and that’s who I’d like to talk about. I’ve been blessed with a few sponsors, but Lowell McAdam, the outgoing chairman or Verizon was the chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless when I was starting out in my first senior leader role. He was a mentor to me but then he grew into a sponsor.

What I mean by that specifically is he would make sure he wasn’t afraid to have the tough conversations with me. If I needed to grow in a certain area, he wasn’t afraid to pick up the phone and give me the lesson and have the straight talk and give the tough love. Then he’d go back to his very busy day and my mentors would pick it up from there but my sponsor was the one that behind the scenes was bringing up my name when I didn’t know it because I wasn’t in the room.

Fred Diamond: Chris, what were the two biggest sales challenges you faced as a sales leader?

Chris Baron: I’ll give you the biggest one because it probably leads into the next 20 and that’s getting out of your own head. It’s a mindset issue and I’m often heard saying something like this: be careful of what you’re telling yourself, because you’re listening. Your day will go exactly how you decide it’s going to go, it’s a choice. Sometimes in sales when you get a no, you don’t realize that that no probably just means not now. It probably doesn’t mean no. If you keep the relationship strong and you keep your follow-up skills sharp, those no’s can turn into yes’s if you continue to build on the relationships that you’re starting.

This all comes back to your frame of mind, the way you’re thinking about things and where your mindset sits for the day.

Fred Diamond: Again, you were at Verizon for 25 somewhat years. Why don’t you take us back to the one sale success that you’re most proud of? Take us back to that moment.

Chris Baron: Fred, the success that I’m the most proud of is actually a recent one and it’s the book, it’s The Fearless Leader: A Sensible Guide to Practicing Authentic Leadership. It came out of the gates stronger than I expected, it made the Amazon best-seller list for three months out, the new release best seller list, I should say. What I’m getting in terms of feedback from the book, how it’s impacting people, I’ve had a couple of people say it changed my life in terms of some of the lessons that I’m learning from the guidance that I’m getting in the book. That just warms my heart, it makes me feel really good that I’m able to take the lessons along my journey and pass them onto the next generation, so to speak.

Fred Diamond: We talked about authenticity and being yourself, but why don’t you tell us one or two of the major lessons from the book that you’re trying to get across to the audience out there? 

Chris Baron: Some of them I talked about. One of them that I didn’t speak of yet is continue to stay relentlessly curious. I think that curiosity will keep you inspired to stay down the path of greatness. Often we feel like we’ve mastered something and when you take a moment and step back and realize how much more there is to learn and you let your curiosity kick in, you realize that mastery takes time. Stay curious, stay focused, keep working hard. Bigger things are to come.

Fred Diamond: I’ve never asked this question before but since we’re going down this path, I’m going to throw it out there. Do you think leaders are made or born? Can someone become a great leader, you could teach them to become a leader?

Chris Baron: I think you can. I don’t think that I can make you a great leader. I can’t motivate you, I can inspire you. We can teach people different leadership skills, I think training and skill set is critically important but there is an inspiration piece to leadership. I do believe there’s a very big difference between motivation and inspiration. For example, if someone doesn’t wake up motivated in the morning to do what it is that they’re set out to do for that day, I don’t believe I can help motivate them. If they come to me already motivated, I can inspire them to do more. I can inspire them to be greater, I can inspire them to stay focused but motivation, I believe, is self-inflicted.

Fred Diamond: That leads to the last question we’re going to ask before we take a break. Did you ever question being in sales? Speaking about motivation versus inspiration, was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “Chris, it’s too hard, it’s just not for me”?

Chris Baron: I didn’t, and here’s why – I never think of it as sales. It’s sales, we’re all selling something no matter what you’re in. You’re either selling internally or externally but I never thought about it that way, Fred, because for me it’s all about solutions, it’s all about my passion, it’s all about talking about the things that I fundamentally believe in, that I put my heart and soul in. I look at sales as sharing, as literally just sharing the things that you’re super passionate about, helping people find solutions to problems and helping them grow.

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

Chris Baron: I would say patience. We all tend to get super aggressive and super excited about the win, about the close and if you are sharp in your product knowledge, understand your solutions, understand your services that you have to offer, understand the hard work ethic that it takes to be a successful anything, especially sales leader, you’re going to have to display a certain level of patience through the process. Know your sale cycle, understand how long that sale cycle ought to take, exercise patience and finally make sure that you’re listening. We often like to talk a lot when we’re passionate about something, and we can miss a solution that’s really important to that person if our listening skills aren’t laser sharp.

Fred Diamond: I want to ask you about that, that comes up not infrequently, the whole concept from a lot of the sales leaders we interview on the Sales Game Changers podcast about being a better listener. Can you give us one skill for the Sales Game Changers listening, one way that they can improve their ability to listen?

Chris Baron: Pause. Literally force yourself to pause. Ask a question, take a breath, wait for the whole answer, the answer in its entirety. Sometimes I say, “Tell me more.” A prospect, a customer, a friend, a subordinate might start to tell me something and as I’m listening, I feel like I don’t have all of the information so I purposely pause and say, “Tell me more.” As they start to tell me more, I’m going in a different direction that I thought I was going because it’s not what I thought we were going to talk about.

When your listening skills are sharp, you’ll really be able to uncover the true needs of your customers.

Fred Diamond: That’s a great point. One thing we keep hearing as a trend, obviously, is that it’s about the customer more than ever. You need to be able to listen. Your answer actually couples very nicely with your answer before about being curious, about really wanting to help your customer achieve what their missions are. Chris, what are some things you do to sharpen your saw and stay fresh?

Chris Baron: Self-development. I work on myself every day. I try to dedicate one hour every morning to either a podcast or an audio or reading a book, something that’s going to continue to keep me inspired, keep me focused, keep me sharp. There are masters out there that have such great content to share with us. I certainly don’t know it all, I’m always a work in progress, I operate from that perspective so continuously learning and continuing to inspire myself.

Fred Diamond: I’m also going to ask you another question, you mentioned also that a big part of your career now is health and wellness. Do you want to talk about that for a second and how that plays into what you’re doing?

Chris Baron: I believe it’s all connected. The most successful people in the world understand that to be your best you have to feel your best. I believe in that with every fiber in my being, so one of the things I do beside my leadership book and my leadership coaching and speaking engagements is around coaching people in a very specific health and wellness program that’s designed to target a certain number of areas. It’s weight loss, better energy, better sleep, healthy aging, etcetera. That coupled with our coaching system through the process is really helping people feel their best.

Fred Diamond: Very good. Obviously you have a lot of things going on now, you’ve been retired from Verizon for about a year, you have the book which has been a huge hit, you’re doing a lot of coaching. We just talked about your health and wellness, but is there another major initiative or anything you’re working on today to ensure your continued success?

Chris Baron: I’m spending a lot of time now booking speaking engagements. What I’m learning is these fire side chats that I started to do are resonating. We’re making it based on the book, it’s moderated by an executive, typically director level or above. They start the dialogue, they get the conversation going and then we open it up to an ask me anything.

Literally, ask me anything, and we get some very good leadership dialogue going. Remember my definition of leadership, it doesn’t have to be a leader by title. It’s someone in the audience that’s a self-defined leader or the organization believes that based on their individual contributions they’re leading by example. The audience then engages in a meaningful dialogue with me around leadership and around the questions that they still have.

Fred Diamond: Curiously, when you do these fireside chats, what’s the most common question you get? What is the biggest concern from the audiences?

Chris Baron: I actually answered that question, I get a lot around mentors and sponsors. Especially in a corporate structure when I’m talking to entrepreneurs it’s a little bit different but in a corporate structure it’s, “What’s a mentor, what’s a sponsor, what’s the difference and do I need them both?”

Fred Diamond: Things have gotten harder, people don’t return your phone calls, they don’t return your emails. You mentioned, patience, not everybody has a lot of time to turn things into success. Why have you continued? What is it about sales as a career that has kept you going?

Chris Baron: It’s my passion for the solutions that I provide. Today, it’s my passion around leadership, it’s my passion around engaging audiences around that dialogue, it’s my passion around health and wellness, it’s my passion about it all being connected, it’s my passion about the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Like I said earlier, Fred, it doesn’t feel like sales when you’re passionate. It feels like sharing solutions for others.

Fred Diamond: Today we talked with Chris Baron. Again, we first met Chris via episode #100, our interview with Mike Maiorana, senior VP of sales at Verizon public sector. Chris, this has been a great interview, I thank you so much for all your insights. A lot of them are brand new to the Sales Game Changers podcast. I look forward to reading your book, The Fearless Leader. You said it was one of the best-sellers on Amazon as well?

Chris Baron: New released best-seller, yes. First three months out.

Fred Diamond: Good for you. Why don’t you give us a final thought? Again, we have Sales Game Changers listening around the globe. Why don’t you give us a final thought to inspire them today?

Chris Baron: What I would leave you with is just remember all much you all have to offer. We’ve all got so much to offer in the world and when you find your passion and you stay true to who you are and you continue down your journey. Remember, it doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks about your journey because it’s your journey. Stay super passionate, stay true, stay authentic, stay real and keep going.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 113: The Fearless Leader Author and Former Verizon Executive Chris Baron Offers Sensible Guidance for Your Sales Leadership Growth and Impact first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.

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KEY MOMENTS
Key lessons from your first few sales jobs: 07:56
Name an impactful sales mentor: 14:10
Two biggest challenges you face today as a sales leader: 15:46
Most important tip: 23:48
How do you sharpen your saw and stay fresh: 29:48
Inspiring thought: 32:18

EPISODE 100: Verizon Public Sector Sales Leader Mike Maiorana Teaches this Key Strategy to Continually Generate a Win-Win with Customers

MIKE’S CLOSING TIP TO EMERGING SALES LEADERS: “Keep customers first. Establish long term trusted relationships with your customers both internally and externally. Be that team player, develop those relationships, be the go-to person for the industry that you serve at the company you serve and have fun.”

Mike Maiorana is the Senior Vice President for Public Sector at Verizon.

He leads Verizon’s business for the Federal, State and Local government, and Education segments across wireline, wireless, cloud, security and managed services.

He’s been at Verizon for 27+ years after he started out as an account rep in 1990.

Find Mike on LinkedIn!

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you sell today and tell us what excites you about?

Mike Maiorana: I lead the Verizon public sector organization and basically Verizon enables all of the capabilities of our company for the government space. We’re a leading provider of communication services and as a result of our integrated portfolio specifically understanding agency requirements, having a very experienced team with extreme domain knowledge that is ultimately here to deliver on customer and outcomes and in many cases in our space, mission critical outcome.

We take the job very seriously, not only selling the work but implementing and supporting the work. Our portfolio of services is really tailored to meet our government customer’s requirements and includes things such as intelligent networking, managed services, unified communications, professional services, wireless and security.

Fred Diamond: Mike, I want to ask you a quick question before we get into your career. We have a lot of Sales Game Changers listening to the podcast from around the globe, they may not know about the federal marketplace and why it’s such an important market and why we’ve interviewed so many Sales Game Changers who service that market. What is it about the federal customer that has interested you so much to devote your career to it?

Mike Maiorana: We have a passion here at Verizon to serve those that serve. By delivering and implementing and supporting the solutions that we put forth in the marketplace we are helping our government customers serve their constituency, we’re helping the war fighter fight the war on terror, we’re helping secure the border and so on from a public safety officer and a local community to the highest level of federal law enforcement we know that communications are very powerful and serving the people that are in the communities.

Fred Diamond: Very good. You mentioned that of course you sold flowers in high school but tell us a little more about how you professionally got into sales as a career, some of the things that got you into this career.

Mike Maiorana: I was at Rutgers, I graduated in 1990 and we had the president of New Jersey Bell, actually, present at the college graduation. I had a marketing degree and I was faced with making a career decision. Thought I wanted to potentially get into advertisement but ultimately ran across an opportunity from someone that said, “I know people that work at Bell Atlantic Mobile and believe it or not someday car phones are going to be really big.” And guess what, they have obviously become very big.

I was intrigued by the telecom industry because it was a relatively new space, particularly wireless at the time. People that high wealth or business owners were the primary customers but I thought that getting in on the ground with a good company, with a good reputation, with a new service that had a lot of upside would give me an opportunity. When you’re 22 years old and you’re starting a sales career, you don’t think about how you’re going to be at your 28 years and have 11 different roles but I was pretty focused and motivated as a kid coming up through school around grades and working part time playing sports and what not and I took the opportunity to really get to know the products and services, become an expert.

You have to be an expert at the products and solutions that you’re selling. If you’re not, your customer doesn’t really even need you with the help. I have always been able to connect with people, I’ll just say I’ve been likeable or I am likeable and be able to create a relationship and a trusted relationship so people if they’re going to buy a product or a service they want to deal with people that they like and they certainly trust.

Fred Diamond: The 11 jobs that you held, have they all been in sales related positions?

Mike Maiorana: Sales general manager type roles and I’ve been in both retail as well as corporate as well as government and the beauty of it is you really can bring forth the same motions, if you would, the same core competencies. Certainly the different cycles, different solutions, different means to go to market but there’s some basic key things that I still leverage that I think I learned from Tom Hopkins when I was listening to his tapes 27, 28 years ago.

Fred Diamond: And now people listen to podcasts such as the Sales Game Changer.

Mike Maiorana: [Laughs] I didn’t mean to advertise the competitor for you there, Fred.

Fred Diamond: Well, if I become Tom Hopkins after this particular podcast, I’ll be very happy. Mike, what are some of the key lessons you learned?

Mike Maiorana: You’ve got to connect with people, you’ve got to be personable, you’ve got to take the time to listen. Too often sales professionals want to talk and talk about all that they know about a product or a service or a solution without really connecting. I call it earning the right, you’ve got to earn the right to talk about your products and services, only after you’ve established a relationship and fully understand the customer and the customer’s situation.

I think I’ve already said you’ve got to be a solutions or a product expert, you have to understand how your product or solution will be utilized, how the customer will utilize that product or service and ultimately be in a position to advise the customer. I also learned that sales is not a nine to five job. You have to be dedicated and treat it like it was your own business, very entrepreneurial. That means taking customer calls whenever they call, because if you don’t answer, they’re going to call somebody else but a dedication and a commitment around putting the time in to learn your territory, learn your products, learn your services but also dedication around cold calling and prospecting and following up.

Following up is critical, you get a call from a customer with a question, you better call them back. I also say being a team player is important. You don’t want to be a lone wolf. Most of us work in a sales office where there’s multiple sales people, you want to be in a position where your team wants to help you, that means you want to help them as well.

Fred Diamond: I have a question. You brought up the word listening and there’s a couple key themes that have come through on a bunch of the Sales Game Changers podcast. Mike, I want to talk about listening for a second before we talk about your area of brilliance. You’re absolutely correct, that comes up all the time. We heard previous guests talking about the 66% solution, you have two ears and one mouth, use them in that order if you will. Give us an idea or two or a tip or technique or something you’ve learned along the way to become a better listener.

Mike Maiorana: When you listen and you give eye contact, you are showing to the person you’re working with that you care and that you’re taking the time to really understand their situation so that immediately elevates the trust factor. That gives the prospect confidence that you’re going to recommend a product or a solution that is purpose built or purpose fit for their specific needs, not because you have a quota for it, not because your company is giving you spiff to sell it. You are really endearing to the customer and over the long haul if you endear yourself to a customer and you do right by them that just creates tons of opportunity.

At the end of the day, our best sales people are those that get repeat business from customers and those that get references and referrals from customers to other customers but it really starts with, I’ll say establishing trust and being likeable but that starts with listening, not pretending to know exactly what the customer is going through or what their needs are. Certainly there’s a ton of opportunity to do research in our space. Our people know what is happening at XYZ agency, but they don’t necessarily know what’s happening from the perspective of the person they’re working with and to show the right level of respect for that person I think is critical.

Fred Diamond: Let’s talk about you for a second, here. Tell us specifically, Mike Maiorana, what are you specifically an expert in. Tell us a little more about your specific area of brilliance.

Mike Maiorana: I think I’m a very good sales leader around collaboration and trust building. I think that a sales professional has to have the right level of technique to be able to effectively build trust and collaborate with two sets of people: external customers, getting to understand the customer’s business – in my case, they’re a government agency’s business – and really be in a position to advise and propose solutions that deliver on the desired business outcome but also collaboration and trust building internally. What do you mean internally?

I’ve always found it wise to have strong internal relationships with the different support organizations that a sales person depends on to get things done. The people that put out the proposals, the people in finance that approve the deals, the people in legal that write the contracts, the people in IT that help develop the software, the people in customer service that ultimately support the customer. I believe our best salespeople have a terrific ability to create internal teams that they can rely on. The product team, the marketing team, even HR to a point where the company is supporting their initiative to make a sale with a client. It’s a team sport, it’s not an individual sport is what I’m getting at.

Fred Diamond: You’ve been at Verizon for 27+ years, nearly 28 years. Again, you’re heading a public sector right now. I’m sure there’s some people along the way that have helped you reach this level, that have mentored you along the way. Could you tell us about one or two impactful sales career mentors and how they impacted your career?

Mike Maiorana: I have worked with a lot and I thought about this question. There’s a woman that I work with probably in five different roles either as a peer or I worked for her in her organization, her name was Christine Baron and she had an uncanny ability to create great external, meeting customer relationships, become part of the customer and act on behalf of the customer, be an advocate for the customer, understand their business and really be in a position to propose wonderful solutions. She also had a great uncanny ability to create those internal relationships that I talked about.

At a large company like Verizon, you need an internal team behind you to support you to be successful and I cannot stress enough to this audience how important it is to establish trusted personal relationships with the internal teams and that doesn’t mean sending them an email, that doesn’t mean getting them on a conference call with 25, 30 other people. It means having one on one personal dialogue. It means getting to know what their priorities are and how you and your role can help them succeed in their role. When you’re in a position to help others succeed in their roles, they are more likely to help you when you need the help.

Fred Diamond: I want to now talk about some of the challenges. What are two of the biggest challenges you face as a sales leader today?

Mike Maiorana: I have a big business with a lot of responsibility. I’ve got to deliver on short term, tactical objectives, plus monthly sales quota, monthly bookings targets. I also have to plan to achieve long term strategic initiatives so having my team aligned and my actions and initiatives aligned to be able to achieve the short term, monthly, quarterly targets but also be looking over the horizon to know what I’m going to deliver in first quarter of 2019. That’s something that doesn’t happen overnight, doesn’t come overnight.

I think also achieving 100% cross functional organizational collaboration and commitment, I call it a team 1 approach meaning the team that you manage has one responsibility, they have responsibility to each other to deliver on the unit’s objectives. Even if they manage another team, their #1 responsibility resides in helping each other, having that trusted internal relationship, being able to lean on each other, to work with each other to solve problems and also to strategize. We do a good amount at Verizon, we do a good amount of talking about what is the next move, how are we going to approach this problem that we’re going to see in six months and in a year.

With the large federal procurements you have to be involved in those 2, 3 years out in many cases. I think balancing short term tactical with long term strategic initiatives and achieving 100% cross functional organizational commitment are two of the things I work on real hard.

Fred Diamond: Mike, you’ve been with Verizon for 27+ years. Obviously, it’s one of the leading companies in the world especially in the public sector space. Why don’t you take us back to one specific sale success or win from your career that you’re most proud of?

Mike Maiorana: I was moved down to Washington DC from the Philadelphia market to create the Verizon wireless national government team and secured our first GSA schedule 70 wireless contract. Believe it or not, 15 years ago Verizon wireless did not have a wireless contract. My biggest success was securing that agreement with the GSA, what I’m most proud of. The team that we put together to do that and now seeing how that has blossomed over what is now 15 years, seeing the customers that we’ve been able to help and assist, having those decade plus relationships with those customers, seeing how the technology has evolved that ultimately has improved on how those customers do business and their mission outcomes but then also seeing the people that were involved then, many of them still with us.

A very important factor of succeeding in a segment like government is having people with extreme domain knowledge and experience and what we do at Verizon in a segment like government, we’ll move people into different roles but keep them within the segment to give them the background and experience they need to be able to execute effectively.
Fred Diamond: Your customer is demanding more value now, it’s one of the key trends that we hear in the Sales Game Changers podcast as well as that the customer demands value and you need to provide. You’ve always had to provide value as a sales professional but now even more so, you now need to intimately understand their mission and they’re looking for you to bring them some ideas that are going to help them solve their problems and deeper achieve their mission.

Mike Maiorana: We’ve got decades of experience here, but the good news is we’re also bringing in new talent every day. We’re growing our business, we’re bringing people in from other technology companies, we’re bringing in people from the military, Verizon is very supportive of military hiring, veterans hiring initiatives, people that again have extreme domain knowledge and are connected to the mission. Again, we are very proud of all the customer segments that we serve here at Verizon but our government customers have a higher calling and they depend on our services to do very important work for our country and for our communities.

Fred Diamond: Was there ever a moment where you thought to yourself, “It’s too hard, it’s just not for me?”

Mike Maiorana: I can honestly say no. Certainly when you’re starting new, you’ve building your book of business, it is hard. Your phone doesn’t ring, I need this, I need that, you own your business, you’ve got to build up your book of business so out of the gate I think any first year sales professional really has to hustle. They’ve got to prospect, they’ve got to network, they’ve got to be working morning, noon and nights to generate a customer base but once you generate a customer base and you have that referral business coming in and that add on business, you actually make good money.

I bought my first house as a 23 year old because I make good money because I was really selling a lot of services and that and the thrill of victory, the close, it’s a natural high so that has driven me to stay in sales.

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

Mike Maiorana: I’ll frame it up in two different categories. You’ve got to know your products and your solutions and how they apply to the customer you’re selling to, what business outcome will that customer be able to achieve by using your products or solution.

You’ve got to know your customer, you’ve got to know your customer’s business – in my case, the federal business, the mission, the specific outcome they’re trying to achieve. You have to invest time to do both, but let me just flip it a little bit. I already mentioned you’ve got to be likeable and you’ve got to be trustworthy. I always say this, you want to be able to be in the supermarket on a Saturday and see your customer and walk up to them, shake their hand and look them in the eye versus hiding in the other aisle because you have a reputation.

When you’re selling you’re not only representing the company you’re selling, you’re representing your own personal brand and your own personal brand can have a lot of power over time as you build up your book of business. That means you’ve got to stay to your word, you can’t over promise and under deliver, you’ve got to follow through on your commitments, you’ve got to be there when the customer has issues and help them shepherd through and solve those issues.

I mentioned earlier that you got to be a team player, you’ve got to be able to have the support of your support teams backing you to get you to where you need to be. Above all else, you’ve got to have integrity. You’ve got to sell with ethics. If you want a sales career, it’s not a hit and run type of business. You have to recognize to advance your career in sales you’ve got to develop a universe of trusted customers, trusted internal partners as well as trusted external partners. As you would expect here at Verizon, we work with a host of other technology providers to complement our solutions to bring forth our programs to the government. All through that you’ve got to stay to your word.

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

Mike Maiorana: A great day for me at Verizon is when I do one if not all three of these things: I meet with customers, I meet with senior level customers to ensure that I understand what they’re trying to accomplish and to also establish that trusted relationship that we need to be a long term partner. I meet with industry partners, I work closely with other technology companies with large integrators and small businesses to be able to better understand how by partnering, Verizon can grow our business. Then certainly I meet with my people.

Today, I’ve had at least three meetings not only with my direct team but with my frontline team. When you meet with your frontline team, you get an unfiltered version of what really is happening. You get to understand the details about the opportunities and specifically where you can provide help to get them to where they need to be, including removing obstacles. So meeting with customers, meeting with business partners and meeting with my people help me stay sharp.

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

Mike Maiorana: Talent development and succession planning. We are continually bringing in new, hard charging, intelligent, diverse people into our organization to put us, Verizon, in a position for long term continued success. Just last December, one of my senior VP’s retired. I had to find somebody else. We already had a succession plan in place and we chose the person to replace him, obvious choice. You have to, in a leadership role that I have, to ensure continued success of the business and I correlate continued success of my business to continued success for me because I’m paid to get results, is to have the right discipline and activity around succession planning and talent development.

Fred Diamond: Very good. One of the themes that’s come across for the Sales Game Changers podcast has been the #1 challenge is hiring, retaining and motivating top tier talent. That’s one that comes up frequently and we’re doing some things to help. Mike, you’ve given us some great insights here.

Mike Maiorana: Government’s a challenging segment, but it’s a higher calling so when you’re supporting the customers that we support, there’s a lot of pride in that. We also like to develop people here at Verizon to take on other roles at Verizon. I’d rather see one of my people get promoted into a new role or move into a lateral role in Verizon than have to do that outside of Verizon and that’s how I keep people long term develop that domain knowledge, keep those customer relationships.

Fred Diamond: What is it about sales as a career – 27 + years at Verizon – that has kept you going?

Mike Maiorana: It’s really the positive emotional energy that is generated from a win-win situation. Customers procuring service from us are able to do things now, to improve their workforce productivity, provide better citizen services to be more effective at the role that they have. I like to say that our job at Verizon is to get our customers promoted. When they make a buying decision with Verizon, they’re acting not only for their agency or their company in the enterprise space but the decision is personal so how do we help generate that win-win?

And when a customer wins and a customer buys, clearly we win also. We generate the revenue as associated but you develop that now cycle where they bought, we delivered, we supported, we developed that trust, now when they want to buy again, guess what? They’re going to come to us first. When we want to be introduced to another client in a similar situated role at another agency, we’ll have a reference so that win-win knowing that not only are you delivering for the customer at the agency or enterprise level, you’re delivering for them personally and certainly the win for us, that thrill of victory, that risk almost versus reward type of a mentality certainly has kept us going.

When it comes to federal, we don’t moonlight in government. We are trained professional experts in navigating the waters. I don’t let my team tell me that we have budget cycles and their sequestration – federal government spends a lot of money. It’s up to us to position Verizon’s strengths and value add to get at that money but you’ve got such extreme domain knowledge here, people are in the federal marketplace for a long haul that are successful really know how to navigate those waters.

Fred Diamond: Why don’t you give us one final thought to inspire our listeners around the globe?

Mike Maiorana: Keep customers first. Establish long term trusted relationships with your customers both internally and externally. Be at that team player, develop those relationships, be the go to person for the industry that you serve at the company you serve and have fun. This is a hard career, it takes a lot of dedication, a lot of hours, a lot of intense workload in many cases, enjoy it and if you enjoy it, that emotion is contagious with your customers.

Customers want to buy people that are positive, that have a great outlook on things, that understand what it takes to deliver for that important mission outcome and I really respect the sales profession and we’re looking forward to continuing to do great things in the government and our great salesforce is right behind it.

Transcribed by Mariana Badillo
Produced by Rosario Suarez

The post EPISODE 100: Verizon Public Sector Sales Leader Mike Maiorana Teaches this Key Strategy to Continually Generate a Win-Win with Customers first appeared on Sales Game Changers Podcast.