Merchants of Change

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Speaker 1
Today on Merchants of Change, we are joined by Dwight Henderson, former Dickinson College Long Ball, a former teammate of mine at Turbo Nomics and the current commercial sales manager at. We're kind of excited to hear from Dwight today.

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Speaker 1
I'm J.R. Butler, co-founder of the Shift Crew. And you're listening to Merchants of Change. Oh, this is a.

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Speaker 2
Podcast about transferring the skills and behaviors we acquire as.

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Speaker 1
Athletes into being a professional technology.

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Speaker 2
Salesperson. Each week, we'll.

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Speaker 1
Introduce you to a top performer who will help us understand how they became professional merchants of change.

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Speaker 1
What's up, Kit? How are we doing? What's happening? Good, good. How are you? Really good. Excited to. Excited to talk catch up. Actually catch up with an old friend and colleague, Dwight Anderson. Dwight, thanks for joining us today, my man.

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Speaker 3
Now what's going on, guys? Good to see you again, J.R..

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Speaker 1
It's good to see you. It's good to see you. John, as I mentioned, me and Dwight had the pleasure of working together at a at a rocket ship out of Boston Turbo, nomadic. And he's been he's been on his own personal rockets, that rocket ship, ever since. So pumped to hear about. And I've never really talked to him about, you know, coming from athletics into tech sales.

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Speaker 1
So I'm excited to have that conversation. So I guess, Dwight, usually what we do is we kind of start on the athletic side, you know, I've, I've both John and I have been fortunate enough to hang out with a lot of actors. So for better or yeah, I love to hear like some, some of the fondest memories you have of playing lacrosse.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. So, I mean, thanks again for having me. I'm excited to to chat today. I think for me, you know, I was a late starter in lacrosse. You know, I grew up in the Northeast where kids are handed a stick, you know, when they're five, six years old. I'm sure we all know those guys. But I was a baseball kid.

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Speaker 3
You know, my dad played baseball. He wanted me to try it out, but I just could not stand it. All I did was get hit by pitches. So I switched over to lacrosse in seventh grade. And, you know, they told me you can have a six foot metal stick and you can get physical and play there. And I just had a blast doing it.

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Speaker 3
And so, you know, I was a late bloomer but ended up, you know, finding it and doing well, playing and was able to play in college. And I think my fondest memories set, you know, I think of it in two phases like pre college and then during and the pre college in high school. And you know, my school was we were a okay lacrosse.

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Speaker 1
School.

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Speaker 3
But we were nothing special. So it allowed me to kind of just run around with three of my buddies. We all three played long ball, you know, just kind of causing chaos and going up and down the field. And I just have a lot of fond memories of I just just really, like I said, causing chaos on the field.

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Speaker 3
And then, you know, you flip to college when it's all serious, right? You have a lot of fun, but it's it's you know, it's part of you're the reason why you're there. And I had an amazing coach and mentor during my time there. And so I think, you know, my fondest memories there. I think, one, when, you know, your first get your college experience, which for me was I think maybe the fourth or the fifth game of my freshman year.

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Speaker 3
He called me into his office Friday before the Saturday game and said, Hey, you're going to play tomorrow, but you're changing positions, so go get a short stick strung up because we're going to put you a demerit on Saturday. So it was it was one of those things where, you know, it's it's almost in a movie, right, where you don't expect it to come to you.

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Speaker 3
But, you know, just things like that and small little memories. You know, we had a lot of success as a team as well early on. And so winning some some conference titles, going undefeated for four, two years was was fun. So it was overall just an awesome experience for me.

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Speaker 1
Did you go undefeated at Dickinson or in High.

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Speaker 3
School at Dickinson? We went, well, I should say not undefeated. We went in 18 and won. We lost in the conference semifinals in those 3 USD three semifinal was it was always Salisbury. They were the ones who always had our number. I mean, they're an unbelievable lacrosse school, but we just couldn't get over the hump there. But yeah, just being able to be a part of a team that is so successful and kind of has everything, all that momentum going for them, which was really fun.

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Speaker 1
Let's get you mentioned the teammates. You know, J.R. and I played sports growing up as well. And I always my fondest memories of hanging out with my buddies, you know, playing baseball and football and basketball in high school and, you know, kind of going from town to town. So. QUESTION We kind of asked a lot of our guests, but how did your teammates describe you?

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Speaker 1
How would your Dickinson image describe you?

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Speaker 3
Yeah, I mean, I think I can tell from my girlfriend's perspective in that she's like, how do you have so many friends? Right. Is she played on a volleyball team, which is it was 15 girls or 13 girls. And she's like, How are we going to so many weddings, you know? So it's been amazing to keep those relationships with my lacrosse buddies throughout these years, you know?

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Speaker 3
But I think I would hope if they were asked seriously to describe me, that they would describe me as someone who is.

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Speaker 1
You know.

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Speaker 3
Super driven, kind of tried to keep the ship straight as much as possible, you know, and an overall hard worker on the on the field, you know, I wasn't the the show is player. I was kind of the dirt dog who just, you know, rolled my sleeves up and got after it. So I'd hope that they would even describe me as something like that.

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Speaker 1
Dude, as a as a couple of things. As a former Patriots fan, the record of 18 and one gives me like first I didn't want to make yeah yeah it's tough also me me and John have a really a a personal friend tapping into who played at Salisbury they were a wagon. So wagon that's a tough one to run into without a doubt.

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Speaker 3
Oh, yeah, it's brutal every time.

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Speaker 1
Try it out, Patty. Both, Patty. Both. So. So they actually called me last night. So. So Dwight did that work ethic and that grit that it didn't translate into the classroom. What kind of student were you?

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Speaker 3
You know, I wish I could say it translated directly to the classroom, and I don't want to paint the picture of I was a struggling, horrible student. I was someone who.

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Speaker 1
Got by.

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Speaker 3
On.

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Speaker 1
The.

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Speaker 3
Effort and be average, you know, and shout out to my mother, God bless her. She would always say, you know, look what you can do and you put some effort in here, look at what you can do. And you really, you know, put your mind to things you got yourself, you know, into lacrosse in college. You're able to do this like you could do it in your life or your academics as well.

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Speaker 3
And I think it's one thing that I constantly look back on and again, I'm very fortunate to have the career that I've had thus far and I'm happy where I ended up. But it's always one thing I wish I might have done or spent a little more time focusing on and prioritizing because I've seen, you know, how important it is.

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Speaker 3
Looking back, it's a lot it's a lot easier to see how important that time was.

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Speaker 1
I think, Dwight, you can you can rest assured that anybody that's listening to this, that went to college with John and I would not be described as academic stalwart job is that I would I would kill for a B at Holy Cross. Oh, I love it. What do you think, Dwight? And it's so funny because, like, we talked to a lot of people who, like, the student stuff didn't come as natural, like it wasn't as exciting as, you know, the sports.

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Speaker 1
But when you look at someone's athletic career, what they accomplished, they have all these, like, unbelievable habits, lessons, behaviors. What do you think were like the top ones that were ingrained in you from playing sports specifically?

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Speaker 3
Yeah, it's a great question. I think for me and I mentioned my college coach before, Dave Webster, who awesome guy, you know, just I've learned so many different things from him. But I think one thing that always sticks with me is, is starting what you finish right? Really, if you're going to do something, put that effort in and put your name on it.

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Speaker 3
Right. And he would equate that to, you know, the larger goals of, hey, the season a game, etc.. But even, hey, we have our running test. You didn't touch the line here like we're doing it again. You know, we're we're going to start you're going to finish it. So that's one for me that it's just stuck with me.

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Speaker 3
Like, if you're going to do something, make sure you're doing it to your best ability there.

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Speaker 1
Yeah, like that. It's like discipline and doing your best. I mean, it sounds kind of cheesy when you say it a lot, but you're like, if you're going to be out there, you might as well reach down and touch the line.

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Speaker 3
So yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1
Transition question. Transition question for you, Dwight. So you're you're out there with the long stick, the short sticks. I don't know. I love lacrosse.

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Speaker 3
You know, it's a football guy.

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Speaker 1
You're out there playing down in Pennsylvania, running around, just dreaming of the day you step into a sales role. Right. But can you talk a little bit about when you made that decision and how you kind of started to think about sales?

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Speaker 3
Yeah. So like I said, you know, academics weren't always my first priority. And I think that translated to getting a job. Not that it wasn't a priority for me, but I wasn't a guy who came in freshman year and said, I want to be a doctor, I want to do what my father does or whatever that might be, right.

00:10:09:03 - 00:10:33:06
Speaker 3
I was kind of an open book just trying to get through it. And so for me, you know, I had a lot of brainstorming sessions about, you know, where could I use some of these skills and some of the things I guess I liked that could translate in the workplace. And so I think the things that were important to me were, you know, somewhere where I could work with, you know, closely with people, right?

00:10:33:10 - 00:11:00:20
Speaker 3
Somewhere where I could work as part of a team and, you know, hopefully sit in a cubicle and just push pencil all day. And so that that can kind of limit some things down for me. So as I started looking, I actually had a conversation with someone. It was a father of a kid in my grade in high school and he is he was a VP of sales and he gave me an opportunity to do an internship in his company's sales department.

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Speaker 3
So I was more or less a their first DDR for a summer going into senior year. And again, I had no idea what to do. They were like, Hey, you're going to go on LinkedIn, go find 150 names of lawyers, put them into this spreadsheet, and then when you're done with that, call all of them. And so I was like, okay.

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Speaker 3
And again, that's not the most glorious job or process there, but, you know, you start to understand, hey, I can see why this is exciting. I can see that if this was developed or if I was taught a little bit more, you know, I could be good at this because then you'll never forget the feeling of, you know, scheduling your first meeting.

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Speaker 3
Right. And how big of a deal that is as a R in my case, as an intern there. So that's kind of where it started. And then transition there from, you know, really just using my school network, my my personal network and reaching out and, you know, finding a job at the best company possible.

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Speaker 1
Yeah. What do you think was the toughest part of that transition period from going from student athlete to working as a BTR at Turbo It?

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Speaker 3
Yeah, I, I mean, I think the first part is that transition into real life, you know, is, is awakening, I suppose you can call it, you know, you're used to as I mentioned, the school wasn't always top priority. You're playing sports, you're living with a bunch of your buddies. It's kind of what I look back now and call fake life, right, to some extent in that you you can do that sometimes, but then you're tossed in, you know, getting up dressed in business casual, getting on the tee every morning, commuting in and doing your work.

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Speaker 3
So I think for me, the biggest transition initially was just the upping of responsibility and kind of the release of the experience in that, you know, you had these past four years to really figure out what you wanted to do and now it's time to do it. So it was kind of just getting my mindset in that or getting myself in that new mindset to say like, okay, this is really where you have to go to use these skills and use all this talk that you have and continue to drive forward.

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Speaker 3
So that was definitely a big one. And then I think just, you know, again, I was used to high expectations for being an athlete throughout school for my parents, etc.. But, you know, when you finally kind of learn the high expectations of your first boss or your first mentor or whoever it may be, you know, it puts that realness back in it that it's not just a, hey, if you mess up, get them next time.

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Speaker 3
Champions. You know, I'm depending on you. Your other leaders are depending on you. The company is there's a lot a lot bigger than than what you were used to there. So those two things were definitely difficult transitions for me or harsh realities. I suppose.

00:14:01:04 - 00:14:23:21
Speaker 1
So. Dwight, I got to two questions, the two for one here. And so you talked about brainstorming. When you're playing sports, you know, you're kind of brainstorming where you're going to do next thing you talked about, you know, kind of upping the responsibility. Can you talk a little bit about that brainstorming session you had and then provide some guidance to some of our listeners because a lot of our listeners are in the same boat.

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Speaker 1
You're in there, they're finishing up their final year in college. They may not be, you know, valedictorian or something like that. And they're trying to think, okay, what do I do next? How do I how do I figure out my life?

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Speaker 3
You know, J.R. and I were in that position.

00:14:37:16 - 00:14:46:00
Speaker 1
A lot of our listeners are. So talk a little bit about the brainstorming, how you came up with the idea to brainstorm and then just offer some general guidance to some of these listeners.

00:14:46:18 - 00:15:09:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I will again give a shout out to my college coach, Dave Webster. One of his pillars when he pitches prospective students and parents is, you know, yes, your son is going to be a lacrosse player, but I want him to be a good and successful person. So that transition from college to the professional world is something that he really focused on.

00:15:09:18 - 00:15:34:04
Speaker 3
So a lot of those concepts were introduced to us, you know, through he would have speakers come in and seminars and kind of this idea of career progression and how you think about it. So those ideas really came from him and were sparked through that program. And then I guess the concept of in the advice I can give around it is start early, but keep your options very broad, right?

00:15:34:06 - 00:16:07:01
Speaker 3
Use what you could really use, what you see as yourself. Strengths are you've self identified as your strengths. Use those things as the top layer, right? Hey, what do you think I could be good at? And then from there find professions that can kind of fit into that. And I think again, it's important to start early in it and start broadly because that gives you the opportunity to, you know, use if you do have a network, use that to to maybe have some informational conversations with people, you know, use your teammates, parents, if any of them are in those situations.

00:16:07:01 - 00:16:29:09
Speaker 3
So just ask a few questions. Right. Nothing has to be formal. But I guess the second piece of advice there is do as much research as possible, because I think when I really learned not that I wanted to do things necessarily, but I didn't want to do things, was having those quick conversations as far as like what are some of the, you know, responsibility of an entry level position in this field and things like that.

00:16:29:13 - 00:16:48:18
Speaker 3
So that really helped weed it out. And I think third, don't closed something off until you give it an opportunity to talk through it. And if you don't have that opportunity, it's tough to to say that. But, you know, for me, I almost initially wanted to rule technology sales out because I was like, that does not sound great.

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Speaker 3
You know, I don't know anything about technology, so don't rule it out until you at least have an initial conversation or a larger understanding of it.

00:16:59:05 - 00:17:10:16
Speaker 1
That's great. That's great advice. Right now, I think you two could probably talk about an entire podcast on this, but curious how you ended up at Turbo. Can you guys talk about that? Did J.R. give you a call or something?

00:17:11:00 - 00:17:15:06
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, I was I was I was personally recruited by Jack Now Case. Yeah.

00:17:16:04 - 00:17:18:13
Speaker 1
I.

00:17:18:13 - 00:17:40:10
Speaker 3
I know. I so. Yeah, as I said, it was the summer of 2015. I started at Turbo as a, as a BTR and I was, as I mentioned, I kind of cast in that wide, you know, I was interviewing with maybe at one point, you know, six or seven technology companies in the Boston area that I'm sure people are quite familiar with.

00:17:40:10 - 00:18:01:09
Speaker 3
You know, all the ways from your emcees and your oracles, your large companies, all the way down to, you know, more companies like Turbo that were growing fast and seemingly doing well and I think for me, I wish I could tell you I had this amazing vision and this lightbulb moment that was like, wow, this company is going to be quite successful.

00:18:01:09 - 00:18:19:17
Speaker 3
I'm going to learn a lot. But really what it was, it was interviewing through with, you know, my hiring manager and the other managers there and kind of just how they spoke about the company, how they spoke about what they were doing in this job and what their goals are. It was something that was it aligned with me quite well.

00:18:20:12 - 00:18:24:20
Speaker 3
And so that's how I initially ended up there. Yeah, in 2015.

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Speaker 1
2015 was an exciting year. Who was the PR manager then? Was it Wardell or or who was?

00:18:34:06 - 00:18:45:20
Speaker 3
No, it was Mike Shaw who has done a lot of great things. He's actually in enablement now. Yeah, he's a name a guy. But I mean, Mike. Sure. I think your first Boston.

00:18:46:03 - 00:18:46:06
Speaker 1
I.

00:18:46:06 - 00:19:08:08
Speaker 3
Don't want to say make or break. I think that's dramatic. But they can pretty they can influence, you know, your career if you stay in that that segment of that vertical. And Mike did an amazing job of really just breaking down why things were important, which I think is really key early on in your career, hey, you know, you have to make X amount of emails and calls and set this many meetings.

00:19:08:14 - 00:19:18:00
Speaker 3
Here's why we're asking that for you, and here's how we're going to help you get there. It wasn't just do, do, do so I always will remember that and appreciate that for whom.

00:19:19:09 - 00:19:48:13
Speaker 1
That is so good. And actually funny enough, Mike has actually helped us build out a lot of a large chunk of our training, do I believe it or not? So I still keep in close touch with that amazing leader. And then and obviously out of passion with helping young sellers kind of find their way. It's actually it's it's a really cool story that you talk about how you had all these different companies going.

00:19:49:09 - 00:20:27:17
Speaker 1
We get that a lot. We get we get the highlights of May 2018. You know, really good candidates. They really have the characteristics that are going to be successful. So when we get them in front of like our hiring partners, you know, we were there's a lot of them that are measuring competing offers, right? They're looking at things like base salary, on track earnings, the benefits are a big one right now is do I want to go in for an office or do I want to work remote?

00:20:27:17 - 00:20:52:19
Speaker 1
What do you think is and I think you already kind of set it in terms of the leader that you're going to work for. But what else do you think is missing from this list? And like, how would you advise these these these young athletes it's that are coming into the work force with multiple offers. What other things should they be evaluating their potential employers against?

00:20:54:01 - 00:21:19:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, no, it's it's a great question. And honestly, I think my answer has has drastically changed as I've learned, you know, good, bad, great throughout my career thus far. But I again, I mentioned the leaders. I think there's nothing more important. Right. Someone who you are directly reporting to who. Yes, you are you are responsible for your own success.

00:21:19:08 - 00:21:35:08
Speaker 3
But who is also, you know, responsible for your success is going to be your coach and teacher throughout. So that's something I always tell people like could you see yourself sitting in a room with this person for, you know, 10 hours straight just working because to some extent that's what you're doing and you want them to have their best interest.

00:21:35:09 - 00:22:06:06
Speaker 3
So that's definitely a big thing for me. The second piece I like to look at is the product, right? When you're coming in fresh out of college into the real world, you know, I'd say unless you are doing something different than I was, you're not necessarily super familiar with a lot of these specific products. And that could be, you know, because they're very technical, because they just don't fall into the idea of like, you know, heavily traded stocks that you see kind of on the ticker or whatever it may be.

00:22:06:06 - 00:22:28:14
Speaker 3
But look at the product, understand why customers and why consumers are purchasing this and put yourself in their shoes to say, like, can I understand this? And then therefore, could I then sell it? That was something for me. When I moved away from Turbo, I was able to do and it really helped in my decision making and narrowed it down.

00:22:29:15 - 00:22:50:19
Speaker 3
And then the third piece of it I think is and this is the really, really hard one because again, you're going to college into your first job. You don't necessarily have to know where you want to go. But if you can think about trajectory and hey, how is this company team opportunity going to help me get to what my next goal might be?

00:22:51:11 - 00:22:56:17
Speaker 3
If you can line that up and start to understand it, you're going to be set up for for a lot of success.

00:22:57:12 - 00:23:13:08
Speaker 1
You should like the product thing is interesting because we haven't had that answer too often on the show, but that's it is it is true. Can you sell it? You know, I like to think I can sell anything. But you're right. Like, you got to be in this spot where that product kind of speaks for itself in some cases.

00:23:13:08 - 00:23:30:21
Speaker 1
Can you talk a little bit about trajectory, a lot of these former athletes who come in sales as a VTR and they want to get promoted quickly, how do you approach to be VTR role with the career path and the progression towards in a role in how would you advise somebody to do that?

00:23:31:17 - 00:23:57:06
Speaker 3
So I'm going to give you advice that if someone gave to me when I was in VTR, I would tell them, Please shut up. Like this is bad advice, but I think it's really good. Now, is take your time, like take your time and learn what it takes. Because, you know, I had Turbo, I was a BD, I think for about ten months and I hopped into the ATC, my first closing role.

00:23:57:19 - 00:24:16:09
Speaker 3
And for the first quarter I didn't know which way was up because I thought I knew everything, but I really didn't. And I think, you know, this can differ from company to company and what exposure you're getting and what you're really doing that VTR But I'd say for the majority of them, you're not going through full cycle. You're not, you know, closing C-suite executives.

00:24:16:09 - 00:24:43:04
Speaker 3
You know, you're not presenting ROI. DAK'S Right. Things like that. And so take your time, understand what are the gaps there and get as much exposure as you can before you're asked to do that. As you know, your full time job. So that would be my best advice there. But but I also would say use that time as you're your are not to learn the things you don't know but to continue to be the best in the things that you do know.

00:24:43:07 - 00:25:04:15
Speaker 3
Prospecting, discovery, just overall pipeline generation, whatever it may be. So when you do transition, hey, maybe I might not be the best in closing deals that are speaking to executives, but I'm going to have the most pipeline on the team. I want to make an impact directly. So if you can do those things and really work on that, I think that transition is going to be a lot more smooth.

00:25:04:15 - 00:25:10:03
Speaker 3
But but again, take your time on it and do it when you feel ready as well.

00:25:10:03 - 00:25:39:10
Speaker 1
That's a that's unbelievable advice. Like I'm I'm like so excited for our our athletes to listen to that because I think you hit the nail on the head right. You know, one one of those things when you're you're BTR is you're really partnering with an account executive, right. Or multiple account executives in some cases. In your career, how do you think the best builders work with the A's they support it.

00:25:39:23 - 00:25:48:02
Speaker 1
And now that you're in leadership, which we'll get into, how can a EES be most helpful to their BTR as well?

00:25:48:03 - 00:26:12:14
Speaker 3
Let's talk from a BTR to a E support perspective first. Right. I think the biggest thing you can do again is see yourself as a partner, right? Like, you know, the hierarchy within any company, right? Is it being, you know, the buyers or the entry level? The first kind of the first line of defense, call them. But as much as you can see yourself as a partner, that is going to value you that much more.

00:26:12:14 - 00:26:36:08
Speaker 3
Right? So you're asking questions that they care about and therefore they will care back about, you know, your outcomes, right? So like, hey, what kind of people do you really like talking to? Hey, these are your top ten accounts we're working on. How can I assist in their putting the value to the the key drivers that the A's look for is a massive thing that you can do to differentiate and separate yourself as a PDR.

00:26:36:18 - 00:26:55:12
Speaker 3
And then if you kind of flipped out from the East Side is first and foremost, remember when you were a VTR and how much it sucked at times, how hard it was, you know, how how many times you get kicked around for a day. Remember, it's a hard job. So so how have some some sympathy and some empathy for those those people.

00:26:55:12 - 00:27:18:23
Speaker 3
But second is I flip it over and say, hey, what are you getting gold on? What are your goals? So one, work on them. Work on the soft skills that we talked about previously, right? The things like speaking to higher level people or whatever it may be, the things that they don't have exposure to take the time to work with them and then ask them what are their goals, how are they getting measured as an SDR?

00:27:18:23 - 00:27:38:16
Speaker 3
VTR Because what I've always found is, and again, it might be a bit selfish, but the more you can put into your SDR, VTR, the more willing they are going to be to, you know, go out and prospect and find those meetings for you. So really do the best job possible to see it as a mutual to a relationship on an even playing field.

00:27:39:01 - 00:27:43:06
Speaker 3
And I think that's going to increase productivity and output from both sides.

00:27:43:11 - 00:27:57:07
Speaker 1
Is funny because this is if it correlates so well, it's the sports, right? Like you're saying, be a good partner. You could change that to be a good teammate. Right. We talked about teammates earlier and then you talk about investing in kind of the use and the people.

00:27:57:07 - 00:27:58:01
Speaker 3
Under you when you're an.

00:27:58:01 - 00:28:17:19
Speaker 1
Elite like your coach. Dave Webster, I think is his name, you know, investing in the youth. Right. So it is it is very strongly correlated to athletics. So, you know, a lot of the athletes that listen to this show are kind of looking for their first sales job and they're thinking, okay, how do I how do I gain an edge?

00:28:18:02 - 00:28:39:20
Speaker 1
You know, how do I take my college career and transition that or shift that into a sales role? So if you're, you know, talking to the listeners out there and somebody is playing college soccer and they want to know how can they have that edge going into their BTR interview? You know what? Look, guidance need to give them whether it's like a podcast, a book or what we'll continue doing while they're playing.

00:28:40:16 - 00:29:04:01
Speaker 3
Yeah, good question. I think it's so the obvious thing everyone thinks about when you think of an athlete transitioning into sales is the competitive nature. They've worked in a team, right? Those are I see. Those are fairly obvious. And that popped to the top of my mind. But really think about what are the other intangibles, right? The questions you guys asked me about, what would my teammates say about me, you know, as an athlete.

00:29:04:01 - 00:29:40:02
Speaker 3
Right. Look back at what are your other intangibles and then translate that to, hey, how am I going to show that in an interview? And whether that's, you know, a quick story or whether that's, you know, a little, I don't know, a proof point of like, hey, here's an example, like come prepared with those things because, you know, not that non athletes don't have those stories, but you as an athlete have so much more exposure to different situations, whether it's a practice locker room, a bus, a game, whatever, where you can use and find these examples that if you come with that, you have a real ability to differentiate yourself and put yourself above some

00:29:40:02 - 00:29:40:19
Speaker 3
other candidates.

00:29:41:07 - 00:30:03:13
Speaker 1
This is like John, this is another episode that's going to be required listening for our candidates. Yeah, I love you. Great advice. Yeah, we have a whole we have a whole course in our in our training called like why you and we talk about this idea of like it's one thing to say you're resilient. It's a whole different ballgame when you start giving examples, right?

00:30:03:14 - 00:30:27:12
Speaker 1
And then it's a whole nother ballgame when you can apply that to the job you're going for. Right? You just hit the nail on the head. I love hearing about Coach Webster. It's so awesome to hear how those guys like that out there for young athletes like like we all were. But I also, you know, one of the things I love about sales is you don't lose that mentorship relationship, right?

00:30:27:12 - 00:30:44:19
Speaker 1
Like you find people in your career that become valuable mentors to you in this in this new world. Any any colleagues or peers or leaders that have been valuable mentors to you and like, what do you think the most important lesson was that you learned from them?

00:30:45:04 - 00:31:03:21
Speaker 3
Yeah, I think for me, you know, I think the the concept of a mentor professionally has always been intimidating to me. And I think it's something that at one point in my career I was like, oh, I need to go find this person. I need to find them. But if you take a step back and realize a real mentor, you don't go out and find it naturally occurs.

00:31:03:21 - 00:31:29:19
Speaker 3
And you just you look back, you're like, Oh, wow, I've been relying on this person's counsel for a while now. But I honestly think for me, the person who is most closely aligned with the mentor was my first boss at Data Dogs in my company after Turbo, Jake Parsons. So he was a commercial sales manager, then moved up to director and now he's a senior director there helping run the West Coast commercial team.

00:31:30:04 - 00:31:54:12
Speaker 3
And, you know, for me and him, you know, we are extremely close friends. We developed, you know, a friendship. We go golfing, we go out to dinner with our significant others, things like that. But it's always comforting to just have no fear in asking like, hey, man, here's the situation I'm in. I don't know what to do. And having someone who's gone through a lot of the same experiences just say, Well, here are the four things I thought of.

00:31:54:12 - 00:32:19:22
Speaker 3
Have you thought of those? And so I don't know if it's necessarily a single piece of advice that he's given me, but it's just kind of the concept of coming to that person for you with open ended questions and having them just say, Well, here's what I might think of. Have you thought of those? I think that's something that's just been so helpful and eye opening for me because yeah, maybe I've thought of three, but the fourth is the one that's going to be the right one to think of, you know.

00:32:19:22 - 00:32:25:22
Speaker 3
So I'd say that's probably the best types of conversations that that we have there.

00:32:27:08 - 00:32:54:23
Speaker 1
So it doesn't have to be official. Hey, dear Joe, would you like to be my mentor? Yeah. I haven't done it just the same way when I was young. It just kind of happens. You two, you talked a little bit about the progression of your career, the leadership position that you're in. Can you talk a little bit about how your approach to work has changed from VTR to E to your sales management position now?

00:32:55:09 - 00:33:24:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, so I'm contradicting myself a tad here before and talking about the partnership and team aspect of an interview. But you know, at the end of the day, as a leader, you are it's an individual contributor role, right? You are responsible for your own outputs, your own effort, your own outcome. There is a team aspect to it. But at the end of the day, if you're hitting 100% like you're getting a pat on the back and saying keep going, right?

00:33:24:20 - 00:33:55:20
Speaker 3
So it's nice to be able to show up, know what you have to get done and be able to hold yourself accountable to execute to that. As you transition to a leadership role, it really it changes your whole perspective because the way I think about it is, yeah, I'm managing, you know, ten salespeople, but I'm really just managing ten individuals who have families, lives, things going on, good, bad, ugly that I can't control.

00:33:55:20 - 00:34:18:08
Speaker 3
They can't control. So you have to really take a completely different mindset as to I'm not just responsible for me and what I do, but I'm responsible for these ten other people and how they're act or how they are, I guess, how they are just living their lives. Right, and the different things that impact that. So it's a really different mindset as far as how you kind of have to approach each day.

00:34:18:08 - 00:34:26:18
Speaker 3
And really each day is so different than the next, just based off of all of that. So it keeps you on your toes a lot more unreal.

00:34:26:18 - 00:34:47:22
Speaker 1
I like first off, I have I have two final questions, but I just want to say, dude, I am like, I'm like feeling like this sense of pride because I haven't seen you since the turbo days, man. It's just so cool to see, like, how you how you evolved and the type of person and leader you are. So, so thank you, man.

00:34:47:22 - 00:35:10:06
Speaker 1
Like, it's just really exciting to see. It's one of the reasons I started this company is because I know that people like you, how you are in college will be phenomenal. Phenomenal sales people and sales leader. So dude, awesome. I'm John. I have two more questions, but anything final that you want to ask Dwight before I get into him now?

00:35:10:06 - 00:35:25:01
Speaker 1
Go. Go for it. All right. So first one, Dwight, and I'm excited to hear your answer on both of these. We always ask our guests on the show to highlight one skill that you've developed that makes you elite. What's what's your skill? What's your elite sales skill.

00:35:25:15 - 00:35:34:08
Speaker 3
So when I first spoke with Tom, who I don't know if you folks know Tom for if he's in the background. But when I first spoke with Tommy Slash.

00:35:34:09 - 00:35:35:03
Speaker 1
And producer.

00:35:35:18 - 00:35:56:03
Speaker 3
Producer Tom, he asked me this question and I think I gave him one of the worst answers I could've thought of. It was like eating away at me at night. And so I've been thinking about this. I and Tom. Yeah, I've been thinking about this for a little bit now as far as like what I've become really good at.

00:35:56:03 - 00:36:17:06
Speaker 3
And I think it goes back to our last question. There's something that I think one of my best strengths is being able to relate to people at a personal level. And, you know, I think this skill is really important in management, but I think you can take it again from A, B, R to an E to a leader, VP, whatever it is.

00:36:17:16 - 00:36:48:00
Speaker 3
If you can develop this skill of relating to people, you can make that personal connection, which can then you can learn from them for teammates and leaders. With customers, you can build trust, build champions, you know, build connections that you might not otherwise have. So I think for me, the thing that I would like to say I am best at and I have a really, really honed in on is exactly is building relationships, building partnerships and using those in different ways.

00:36:48:02 - 00:37:10:05
Speaker 1
That's great. And it's so important because it is a it's a relationship business. At the end of the day, people buy from people. People work for people. Well said, dude. So last piece, this kind of comes my I think you know this my my father was a high school hockey coach for many, many decades. And, you know, me and my brothers all played hockey and other sports growing up.

00:37:10:05 - 00:37:36:18
Speaker 1
But my dad used to tell us when we were little jarred. There's a lot of there's a lot of people out there that play hockey, but there's not a lot of hockey players. So we were kind of like, you know, embedded with this idea of like being a pro and being professional. And we think, you know, when I talk about great salespeople like you, like some of the folks we worked with at Turbo, I, you know, I would describe like that, you know, that guy, that girl, you know, they're a pro.

00:37:37:03 - 00:37:41:07
Speaker 1
What do you what is being a pro in this industry? What does that mean to you?

00:37:41:21 - 00:38:06:02
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's an awesome question. And it's funny you think of Sales Pro because I think the first sales pro that I actually interacted with, I think of Jimmy Mac like that. He's like the first sales I think of. But, but really to me a sales pro is someone who has process and meaning behind all of their actions, customer facing or internal.

00:38:06:07 - 00:38:28:13
Speaker 3
And what I mean by that is they don't need to explain why they're doing something or how they thought of it is natural to them at that point that they know what it's going to take to execute. And I think it's something that, you know, you have to have inherently as far as that, just that drive and that ability to get there.

00:38:28:19 - 00:38:49:11
Speaker 3
But it's a learned skill set that you get from just picking up little pieces from each person that you interact with, right? So it's just to me that ability to execute in different situations at different times, but constantly execute at a high level. So so when I think sales pro that those are the couple of things that pop up to me.

00:38:49:16 - 00:39:14:21
Speaker 1
I love that I love that because because a true sales pro does they pick up little things from everybody but they also recognize bad habits and people and recognize that that's not something they want to develop. Right. Like, dude, that is a great answer. Why this combo is awesome. Like I said, this is now officially required required listening for all share through community.

00:39:16:00 - 00:39:21:10
Speaker 1
So thank you. Thank you. It's great to catch up with you. Great to see you. Thank you for giving us some time.

00:39:21:10 - 00:39:51:10
Speaker 2
But this wraps up this episode of Making Some Change. If you enjoyed this episode, the most meaningful way to say thanks is to submit a review wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're interested in working with us, please come find us at WW Dot Chef Group Dot I.