This is transcribed by Otter.ai and there are typos.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, partner, organizations, sales, vince, linkedin, clients, deal, thinking, sellers, leaders, top performer, relationships, day, world, sam, sell, selling, person, important
SPEAKERS
Announcer, Samantha McKenna, Vince Menzione
Samantha McKenna 00:00
But so many of us in SAS are still green still new or have been in organizations that have had partner networks and just haven’t done them effectively. So now they’re in a new company. They know they need to do this, but they’re not quite sure how.
Announcer 00:13
Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to partnering in this podcast, Vince Menzione. a proven industry sales and partner executive brings together technology leaders to discuss transformational trends and to deconstruct successful strategies to thrive and survive in the rapid age of cloud transformation. And now, your host, Vince Menzione. Welcome to or Welcome back to The Ultimate Guide to partnering where technology leaders come to optimize results through successful partnering. I’m Vince Menzione, your host and my mission is to help leaders like you unlock the leadership principles and learnings of the best in the business to get partnerships right, optimize for success and deliver your greatest results. Getting great sales results is where the rubber meets the road for technology organizations successfully partnering, I find it’s also where many technology organizations fall short in their quest for high performance. It’s why I decided to invite one of the most effective sellers I know, to Ultimate Guide to partnering. My guest for this episode of the podcast is a woman entrepreneur and sales leader on a mission to enable organizations with the most modern and effective selling skills. Sam McKenna, the CEO of Sam sales consulting, Sam has built an amazing career in organization, raising the bar, and enabling countless organizations and leaders on their quest for high performance. I so enjoyed learning from this leader. And I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I enjoyed spending time with Sam McKenna. Sam, welcome to the podcast. Oh, Vince, thank you so much for having me. It’s such a pleasure to do this with you. I am so excited to finally welcome you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to porn. Just like we’ve been talking about this for ages, haven’t we? I feel like since the day we met, it’s been like years. So we’re here we finally got to the finish line. Well, and we’ve we’re going to talk about how we know each other. But you’re the founder of Sam sales consulting, and I’m so excited to have you share with our community of partner and park technology leaders had uplevel their game in this world of selling. So welcome. Thank you so much. So we met, you know, seems like 100 years ago, but it was only a few years ago, you and we met when you were leading sales at LinkedIn. And I’ve gotten to watch this amazing and meteoric rise since but for our listeners, can you tell us a little bit about Sam, and how you got to this spot in your amazing career?
Samantha McKenna 02:51
Sure. I think one Thank you so much. I’m too I think I got into sales just like everybody did, we fell into it. I’ve never heard a six year old say I can’t wait to be a saleswoman When I grow up, we all kind of fall into this. But I think the last 1515 years cash or so have been spent in enterprise sales, we spent about half of that. And I see land carrying a quota going after everything imaginable in my territory, and then eventually moved into the executive ranks at my old company on 24. And then eventually over to LinkedIn where I led net new enterprise sales for LinkedIn Sales Navigator. And after having spent so much time in the corporate world, I really realized that my true passion was making as much positive impact as I possibly could. And I thought, if I can do this well, for the companies that I work for, what can I do running my own company and participating in 10 companies initiatives, or 20, or 30. And right now, we’re just about to cross over our two year anniversary. We have 15 employees, we have almost 90 clients, which is surreal to say to your events. Yeah. But I guess maybe your work is right. I will take that compliment. Because I think you’re right, we’ve done we’ve done some really
Announcer 04:04
good things the last two years. I love how you’ve taken what I believe you were expert in and good really good at conveying and building teams around and now shared it with what 90 plus organizations and I think it’s just you have some process and we want to dive in here a little bit more about it. But the work you do with organizations to improve their business development and sales effectiveness. Can you tell us a little bit more about what that work looks like?
Samantha McKenna 04:29
Yeah, I think that really started with smaller organizations I had been around for three or four years had just gotten their seed funding or their series A we got here by luck, a little networking, some inbounds but we don’t really know how to do this correctly. We don’t know how to be process based with sales with hiring with our tech stack, even the down to the nitty gritty of what do we write for emails, how do we build territories, all of those things that great sales leaders are supposed to do or great operation leaders are supposed to do. So it’s started there with how do we impact change there. And then it grew to a sikinos keynote speaking for massive organizations like Morningstar TransUnion deltec, where we really came in to talk about the processes that their sales teams should be focusing on. And I think what will probably resonate with so many of your listeners events is that every conversation we have usually starts with an idea of what are the latest hacks? What can you teach us that we haven’t thought of to do? And when we take a step back, and we look at the foundations of their sales teams, we find that the traditional basic things are missing? Do we know how to prospect Do we know how to run a great discovery call? What do you do if an inbound lead comes in and they don’t respond after your first message, the basic basic things are things we just didn’t do well. So when I coach, I help most organizations with this, let’s figure out the cracks and those foundations of this house you’re building before we go and spend $100,000 to renovate your second storey master bathroom for a little a little visual effect there.
Announcer 06:04
I love what you have to say here about it coming down to the basics, or what I would call the principles. Do you think there’s fundamentally a set of principles that organizations don’t get? Right?
Samantha McKenna 06:13
Yeah, I think that the principles when you think about what we should be doing as sellers, it’s really thinking about the fact that the person we are courting is also a human being. And I think we miss that now. Because there’s so much ability to automate. So we think how do we automate outreach? How do we automate scheduling? How do we automate even the principle of what I talked about with show me, you know, me? How do we automate showing someone that we know them? You know, and I’m sure, Vince, you’ve probably gotten these emails that say, like, Vince, you know, I see you used to live in Charleston, I love Charleston, let’s get together. And you’re like, Oh, my gosh. But we think so much about scale. And the the efficiencies that we missed the principles of, are we doing things the right way? are we treating these prospects like humans, are we doing the work that’s necessary to earn their time. And I say this with a kind of a mid market enterprise spin, right? Because not every deal takes this amount of work. And not every deal is consultative, we’ve got a lot of transactional, it’s got a lot of SMB. But if you are, like many organizations that are focused on that mid market space, or the worst, the toughest the enterprise space, I think the principle that the missus relax with so many organizations, is how do we do this and the right way to make those people feel like they’re not just a number, and not just one of 1000 people who got spammed with content, but somebody that we truly made an effort to get their attention? And how do you do that?
Announcer 07:41
How do you do that today in our digitally automated world taught, I
Samantha McKenna 07:45
think, you know, I entered the line of show me, you know, me, and it is framed, you can’t see it on the podcast, but it’s framed on my wall behind me. And it is something that’s made its rounds on LinkedIn. So some of your listeners might have even heard of it, too. But it’s the idea of how do I just take the time to show you, Vince, if I’m trying to capture your attention that I know you and I think about like even your most recent role working for Blackbaud, right, you had a really important title, you had a lot of authority there. And for people trying to get your attention, they’re probably one of 30 or 40 people that were aiming to do that on a daily basis. So what if instead, we just took 567 minutes to look up a little bit about you on your LinkedIn profile? If you didn’t have anything there? Maybe we could find something about you in the press? Maybe we could find your podcast and pick up listen to it. Maybe we could you can just find something out about black bar that was interesting to us. And if we put that in our subject line, if we tied that to the reason that we’re reaching out, don’t you think we would stand out in the sea of the other 30 or 40 emails that you would get on a daily basis?
Announcer 08:50
Absolutely, absolutely. And I get so many of these LinkedIn requests, direct messages and emails every day.
Samantha McKenna 08:58
But just thinking about this, if we do the show me or know me, and if we say something along the lines of your fence, I see that you used to live in Charleston, I am in love with halls, chophouse, I can’t get enough of the atmosphere. Of course, I’m throwing back to where we had dinner but but even just saying something like that, or tying it to something I’ve listened to on your podcast, the things that I’m doing there by spending the time to do that is I’m telling you, I put some time in to try and get this meeting. And I really hope you put the time into at least responding. And if you’re not the right person to pointing me in the right direction. And I think that that’s what we miss. It’s quality over quantity. This is gone are the days of spray and pray 1000s of emails every day just saying hire my engineering team. We’re really back into a place where our buyers expect this and they expect you to do the work to earn their time because their time is not a commodity and it is not infinite.
Announcer 09:50
And I think we’ve all seen this during this time. Right? So let’s talk about that for a second. Like what you seen you seen in the last 18 months or so that you didn’t expect See,
Samantha McKenna 10:00
when our business really started to take off, I would say in March of last year, so in about the first six months, we probably had five or six clients. And then in March, it really started, the gas started to turn on. And I think one of the things that we saw was everybody came out of the woodwork saying, okay, we are in a, we’re in a pickle, we know that we’re not gonna be able to travel, we’re not gonna be able to do in person, we’re not able to go to our conferences. So what do we do to digitally sell? And what do we do to show up on zooms, and what do we do to connect with people since we can’t go in person? And I think that what surprised me the most was that last question, what do we do to connect when we can’t go in person? And I, again, Vince, I’ll tie it back to our relationship when you were Blackbaud. And I was a leader at LinkedIn. I saw you, I don’t know two times maybe, I think total two times in person. So what did you do before there’s the the idea of continuing to nurture continuing to add value to people’s lives? Right? me thinking, How do I stay top of mind for events when I can’t see him in person? And what surprised me was what have you been doing all along? This is now just occurring to you as a really important thing. What I tend to look at as a person is I always look at the silver linings of things like yes, we can focus on the negative and yes, we can focus on the drastic impact that this virus has had on our everything right in our worlds. But one of the silver linings I find for the sales culture is that number one, it proved how many people could do jobs effectively remote, and an encouraged organizations just like LinkedIn to say we’re going to go where the challenges instead of forcing them to be in person. And the other thing that I loved is it really forced us to get serious about modern selling, which is the idea of how do we do these nurture campaigns? How do we connect on LinkedIn? How do we use LinkedIn as a networking tool, but also a listening tool for what our clients are talking about? These are things that have been top of mind for many of us for I don’t know, a decade. And what I love, right is that this is really gotten people to say, crap, we really need to start focusing on this. So it’s interesting to see how it’s going to continue to evolve. But it did surprise me that a lot of this came out of the woodwork so quickly.
Announcer 12:13
Yeah, I would agree with you. I’ve worked remote, almost my entire career. And like you said, we met only a couple of times in person. But I feel like I had this intimate relationship because I see you and we connect and we have some dialogue going back and forth. Talk to us a little bit more about modern selling, you work quite a bit with SAS software companies as I do. But what are the challenges you believe they face?
Samantha McKenna 12:34
I think that it’s again, it goes back to that concept of what does good look like. So a leader might say to me, Sam, we know we need to be a modern seller, we know we need to get on LinkedIn, we know we need to use navigator. Where do we even begin? Right? And I think that that’s the most frustrating part for so many people is they don’t have the concept of what’s the first step to even take. So I think one of the things that’s important is that you have a community on LinkedIn of nearly 800 million members, and they show number one, that half of those members have login at least once for over five minutes on a weekly basis. The other really incredible stat to me there is that only about 1% of those posts on a weekly basis. And I think what’s amazing about that is you’ve got a mechanism for thought leadership for getting content out there, that doesn’t compete with a ton of traffic. And Vince, we probably one of the reasons right that contributes to our relationship is that you. And fortunately, I’m so sorry, see me on LinkedIn all the time. So it feels like we’re connected. And we’re talking even more than we actually are, because I can reach you that way. But I would say one thing is to think about the audience you have on LinkedIn, and how you can start to build these connective threads build a network by reaching out to people and connecting with them. One of the biggest questions I get is, what’s the appropriate way to do that? If we’re going to tell our sellers to start reaching out on LinkedIn? What do we do? How do we do that effectively? And what I would say is a couple of things. So one, if you’re going to reach out to connect with anybody, just make sure there’s context in that connection request. Sam, I heard you on Vince’s podcast, or I saw your comment here. I loved your post. Somebody mentioned you in another post. And I’d love to see what you talk about. Give context. And if you don’t have context for like, well, this is just a prospect that I want to connect with. So what do I do there? I would say make an effort to connect with them on the traditional way of email first, send a few emails, make sure they’re Show me your no mate, do your homework, do it correctly. And if they don’t respond, I think this is an awesome lever where you can go on LinkedIn, you can connect with a person and say something along the lines of Vince, my name might look familiar to you because I’ve sent you a few messages. I’d really love to talk to you about what Sam sales can do for your organization. If you’re ever at for a conversation Feel free to connect accept this connection request and I’d love to chat more. So what I’m doing is I’ve done my homework before. And I’m also calling attention to my name might look familiar, because by the way, I’ve sent you a few emails. But I’m also giving you the opportunity to say not interested and disconnect. The opposite that I see is that people don’t connect with context. And then when they do get the connection request accepted, I’m sure this happens to you all the time, then you get the immediate pitch and an error message and you’re like, and it builds, I felt a bad taste in your mouth, right?
Announcer 15:30
It really does. I have to tell you, I, I so don’t like to accept some of these requests. In fact, I’ll go out ahead, I’ll go out on the limb ahead of time and say, I’m not interested in in an another financial advisor, I’ve got one, you know, and, and it’s so many of them are reaching out this way today.
Samantha McKenna 15:46
Well, and the financial advisor piece cracks me up. So the the I got these, just like you’re constantly but here’s the thing. So if you’re a financial adviser, and you’re targeting high net worth individuals, what are the odds that you think that a spammy message Actually, we got one, a great one the other day, it was to a colleague of us on Sam sales, but it said, I don’t want to waste your time or mine. Help people invest? are you investing? Do you want to talk? Oh, great, wow, you seem like you really have my interests at heart. You don’t want to waste your your time or mine. But you know, you’ve got to think about it to prospecting, depending on the industry you’re in is a referral game as well. So if you’re a financial advisor, and if you are going after individuals that are high net worth, how about reaching out to some of your clients and saying, who could you recommend me to? Or I see you’re connected to these two people on LinkedIn? Would you be willing to make an introduction? I’d love to talk to him about what I can do. I know you were the same way then. So there’s no way in hell, I’m responding to a random financial advisor on LinkedIn. And I’m just not.
Announcer 16:49
Exactly. No, that’s so good. what you had to say here those Can you help with a warm introduction? Like that’s the way we always did it
Samantha McKenna 16:57
completely. And I think, you know, on the idea of modern selling, let’s talk about that referral as well. Vince, if you said, I love Sam sales, I, it’s so great being your client, and I would for you to anybody who will listen to me talk, there’s a couple things that I can do there. What I find most sales reps do is they get happier, right? Our little dog tails start wagging. And we’re like, that’s so great. You know, Vince, can you think of anybody right now that you can refer me too? And even as I asked you that question, that’s what you’re probably thinking is okay, who do I talk to the most often? and NBC? Okay, no, none of them. Who have I talked to this week or last week? No, none of them. You’re not thinking of anybody, because I’m kind of putting you on the spot. And you’re not probably thinking about your true the true depth of your network, right. So what you’re going to say back to me is to say no one right now, but I’m going to definitely keep you in mind. And then that’s a wrap, I’m going to get my little copiers, and it would be like, That’s amazing. This is going to keep in mind. Now, as much as I know, you and I are our best days by tomorrow, I’m probably going to be off of your mind. So instead, what I really want to do is I want to take that offer and say that’s so nice of you, thank you so much. Do you mind if I look at your LinkedIn connections and send you a few names that I’d love to meet that are in your network, what I’m doing there is one of taking the work off of your shoulders, because you’re going to be like, sure I don’t have to lift a finger. Fantastic. And second, I’m going to be able to be really methodical about who I asked you for introductions, right? I can go through your network, and I probably cheekily would come up with 10 people. And what I would also say is, Vince, we have all these connections on LinkedIn that we don’t really know. So I’m throwing 10 names at you to just hope I get two or three, do have good relationships with any of these people, would you be willing to help? And what might even happen, as you say, Yeah, I know, seven of them. And I’ll write those introductions for you seven meanings, even if I get two out of that, what, when
Announcer 18:51
such great advice, I love this, I hope our clients are listening in gonna apply this. And I’d like to apply a little bit of partnership here, because this is the ultimate guide to partnering. And well, here’s one of the things I think that people underestimate some of what you’re discussing in terms of the value of partnerships. And as partnerships aren’t always about you going and selling something for me as a partner. It’s also around, it’s about the seats around the table. Especially you mentioned enterprise and how hard enterprises there are several influencers in a buying strategy. And sometimes there’s five seats at the table. Sometimes there’s more that are making that decision. Some of these relationships also apply, like how do I get my partners to help sell for me or help influence or get me the right meetings with the right people? So that we can both go and carry forward that strategy and that value proposition to that customer?
Samantha McKenna 19:43
I think some couple of really important things about that and partner co selling in general. So I just spoke at one of the largest insurance companies in the world. And I just spoke at their sales summit, and we talked basically exactly about this. And one of the things that was interesting to me is This insurance company does what they work through brokers, and they work through agents who are selling their services. But those agents are also selling three or four or five other insurance policies from different vendors. So I think what I love about this is that the advice here is the same advice I would give the reps that are direct, figure out how to be different in the best ways when you engage with those agents, right with those partners, because at the end of the day, they are your clients. And if you make their life easy, if you are knowledgeable, if you are consultative, if you help them with tons of things, they’re going to not only have you Top of Mind more often than the other people are more often than the other vendors that are considering working with you, but that they’re considering hiring, but they’re going to start coming to you for more advice, more content, more questions. And frankly, they’re probably just going to turn to you because you’re great at your job. So I would think about that. Do you offer them advice? Do you offer to go the extra mile for them? Do you offer to help them even with their career or their goals? or connect them with the right people? What do you do to invest in them so that they invest in you? The other thing, one of my favorite pieces of advice that I never got from a mentor was, you’re going to be disappointed if you keep thinking that people are going to react to situations the same way you do. And I think that advice really hit me hard. And it hit me it’s really applicable to the partner selling and co selling as well. Because if you expect people to do the same things, that you’re doing a sales process to prepare the same way to lead a call the same way to drive a deal the same way, you weren’t going to be so disappointed. So I think what’s important to think about is are you having the right conversations before you start to co sell. And I’ll give you a good example, one of the companies I used to work with coast sold with one of the largest software companies in the world, which both you and I are very intimately familiar with. But what was interesting to me is that the reps that were employed there, at least the ones that we worked alongside of the great majority of them were pretty bad at their jobs, they jumped on calls, but no introductions, no agenda setting, no clear description of why we were there on calls. And I remember my team members being like what is happening. And it was a great lesson for them to make sure that we establish rules of engagement, what’s the flow of the call going to be who’s going to lead it? How are we going to give each other signals when you should be speaking versus me speaking without being obvious to the client. And it’s really important that you consider that everybody sells in a different way. And especially if you are a top performer, right, and your expectations are high or your top performing leader, super important that you’ve got those are way down. And that you’re just a little bit over the top about who’s gonna handle what parts of the deal and parts of the calls. So it goes according to plan.
Announcer 22:46
So insightful here, around setting the agenda and ensuring that we have a good flow going back and forth between us. I’ve seen this too, where people are stepping over each other on phone calls or trying to take the leap. There’s a lot of ego in the room with sellers, right, we can talk about that all day long, but a little bit of the control thing and who’s controlling, but I think he has some really great advice here on co selling. And I think we’re gonna make sure we point this out. Certainly for our listeners. Do you find that most organizations, we both work with SAS organizations, you find that SAS organizations struggle more often than others understanding how to partner?
Samantha McKenna 23:22
I think so you know, and I feel because we’re all so many of us in SAS are still so new to the playing field, right? So if you look at like industry Titans, like if we look at the DuPont of the world, and organizations that have done this and been here forever, the Microsoft’s of the world, right there really understand the partner ecosystem. They’ve been doing this forever. But so many of us in SAS are still green, still new or have been in organizations that have had partner networks and just haven’t done them effectively. So now they’re in a new company. They know they need to do this, but they’re not quite sure how. So I think it tends to be that we’ve got, you know, just a mix of still young, young guns, myself, yourself still included. And we’re still kind of figuring out how to do it.
Announcer 24:05
Before we started recording today, Sam, we were talking about this heroic sales culture and why it’s a failure point with partnerships. And so much of it is around we kind of have a little bit of a hero worship, if you will, in some organizations around getting the deal the bringing home, the big deals, and they go out and they get the fatted calf and they bring it home and we’d all lead and we would reward that behavior. And we do the same thing in sales. We do the same thing in sales cultures, right? And we allow bad behavior to enter the room. How do you work through that with your clients?
Samantha McKenna 24:37
Totally. So I think a couple of things back to the heroic piece. I find that a lot with individuals, one when their partner selling that they don’t want to let anybody else take credit for the deal. But the idea is you can show how hard you’ve worked on this deal, not by just taking credit by yourself at the end because you should give credit to everybody that participated but by asking Definitely communicating during the deal cycle with your leaders and with your cross functional partners about how the deals moving forward, what you’re doing, how you’re nurturing them how you’re contributing to that success. It’s not about holding the medal at the end, it’s about showing what you’ve done to actually get there. And I think with that in mind, too, we think about that from a lone wolf seller perspective. So I talked to a lot of reps who are like, I don’t want to ask for help, because and I used to be exactly the same way, I don’t want to ask for help, because I want to be the hero that comes in at the end of the quarter with a surprise deal that I didn’t need any help getting. And just, you know, brush the desktop, my shoulder and say how amazing I was. But the minute we let that go, not only are you significantly enhancing the odds of you winning the deal, because you’re allowing your leadership to come in, you’re allowing yourself to multithread and for them to also multi thread with your client. But frankly, then they also get to see how you run a deal firsthand. So with ups the odds to me of the visibility you get, and the opportunity for promotion. Now, on the flip side, that kind of negative culture, and you have definitely got some some good examples of that from the top performing reps that are have been really toxic. I love the this case study about the fact that a top performing rep can actually have a 5x financial negative impact, just because of the toxicity that they bring to a culture. And we’re so quick to take those top performers and bend to everything that they say because we’re like, oh my gosh, we’re never going to find someone like this again, they’re so good. But what you’ve got to also think about is what is the impact to your team, then bringing a toxic culture then being mean girls mean, guys, to people left and right, there’s just so much that they bring in a negative way, or just from silencing people in their room. I remember the early days of selling I had had a nemesis. And I remember that any and Vince, you know, I’m loud. I’m an extrovert, I’m full of bubbly energy. But when I was in a conference room with this top performer, she would just look at me from across the table if I started to speak, and it made me so nervous that I just stopped. And so I stopped contributing in meetings, because I didn’t want to be subject to her wrath. So you think about that, like what is the negative impact of those top performers. That’s why hiring for cultural fit is also so
Announcer 27:25
important. I love what you have to say here. And I’m going to go out on the limb. Many, I would guess this anyway, I’m going to guess this and may not be true, but I’m going to guess that many of your clients have not fully realized or leverage the power and potential of their technology ecosystems, right looking around, not just channel partners, but other complimentary software partners, these SaaS companies have tons of complimentary software potential. And you know, Accenture did a study and they said that 76% of CEOs in every industry believe their business models will soon be unrecognizable, due to ecosystems, and it’s this whole transformation The world is evolving, right? What steps do you believe these organizations could or should take to leverage or harness the potential there is,
Samantha McKenna 28:14
this is so funny, so a little bit to this point. And when we were trying to figure out the start of the pandemic in 2020, we’re starting to figure out, how do we sell in this new environment? Right? How do we be sensitive to what’s going on, but also say, okay, but we still have revenue targets to hit. So please sign my contract, how do we prospect in an effective way, and taking advantage of the ecosystems that we have in our partners was one of the first things that I turn to, to think about how to strategically sell. And a little bit of a twist on this, I actually looked at a few of my clients that all sold to the same person, they had the same buyer persona, but they sold technologies that were complimentary of each other, or that enhanced each other. And what I did is I went to the individuals that had relationships that each company and I said, I think you know, these four or five brand names, but do you know what they do? And just about every person I went to said, I know that I’ve got brand recognition, couldn’t tell you what they do. And I’m like, great. So what we basically did is I set up a pond for about, I guess it was five actual clients, and then a few people beyond that, and said, We’re gonna do a quick round robin, what do you sell? Who’s your target market? Why are you amazing at what you do? And what we built in the pandemic was basically a referral pod to leverage each other’s ecosystem, not only to say, Hey, we’re trying to get in the door with x, y, z client, does anybody have a relationship, but to say, I was just gonna call them they have a need for what you do? How can I get you in absolute magic? And you think about these enormous organizations, right? Well, we can use things like crossbeam to take advantage of our partner contacts and networks. I mean, there’s so much untapped that we can get into, it’s crazy. And also, one more thing here, and this is also advice that I give so many people specifically thinking about How to get more. So they’re like, oh, we’re going to go into new verticals. And we’re going to sell to new product. We’re selling new product types to new verticals. When I’m like, well hang on before you guys invest a million dollars and this initiative and pay per click campaigns and SEO, what are we doing with the data that we already have, and the relationships and the networks in our partner ecosystems that we already have? And most of them say, Oh, what? And you’re like, Oh, my gosh,
Announcer 30:25
I love what you have to say, because you get this comes down fundamentally to the seat at the table, right? You talked about those five partners. And they each had a seat at the table with the client with their solution set, maybe had trusted relationships, maybe some had varying levels of relationship, but they all could help each other, support each other’s value proposition to that client
Samantha McKenna 30:44
completely, just by thinking about the connectivity, the connective tissues that you have, either in your existing ecosystem, or just in the people that are in your network. I think it was just such a good lesson, like, Oh, my gosh, the power of just a few mines getting together and a few of our partners or our software providers getting together and saying how can we help each other win and grow through relationships versus spray and pray 1000 emails today and hope for
Announcer 31:10
the best. And you mentioned vertical solutions, how these partners by virtue of working with a partner that is more steeped in a vertical allows us to get entry into the market allows us to get they might have subject matter expertise in that market, they might have credibility in that market, then their solution might be better pointed at that market. And they can bring us along as a partner, rather than us trying to go it alone in that vertical market. Would you agree I
Samantha McKenna 31:38
couldn’t agree with you more. And I think too, as you think about bringing partners and make sure that the offer that you throw their way right is viable and worthy of the effort that not only are they going to make for you, but of their level of relationships that they’re going to bring in for the organization as well. So I think it’s such a smart strategy. We’re partners to several organizations, outreaches once and dosto is another one VR is another one all big SAS players. But they’ve really nailed it in terms of their partner ecosystem, not only in going after people that have the contacts, they want to get in front of them. But number two, making sure that partner plan is an economically viable one for the partner that they’re courting.
Announcer 32:21
I love the jab to say here, I love what Jeff does. And we could talk all day around partnerships and sales. But you know, I’d like to pivot for a bit you know, I am and you might know this, I’m fascinated by the journey. And I like to share with our listeners, like how did you get here, right? And so I want to know, is there a spark? Or was there a pivot or spark that got you to this point?
Samantha McKenna 32:46
One of the most impactful days in sales for me was a little bit of background. I am somebody who hates hates to inconvenience people. And it’s funny because I feel like that’s all we do in sales was like, Hello, get my contract. Have you read my proposal, we’re constantly inconveniencing you. And I think it was a tough thing for me to get over when I was in sales. But I remember this conversation that I had with someone who said, You’ve got to stop thinking that all we’re doing is basically being slimy salespeople and asking people for favors, like we’re not knocking door to door to sell cosmetic windows or whatever, we’re doing something not there’s nothing wrong with that. We’re doing something to have a conversation with somebody to solve a challenge that they have. They’re not talking to you because they’re for their health or their board the contrary, they’re talking to you because they’ve got something that they need to solve, and you’re there to help them do it. And I think for me, that was such a pivot to this isn’t me just hustling and grinding and trying to scam people into signing contracts with us. There’s a reason they’re talking to us. And they need help doing something which hopefully we can do. I think for me, I’m incredibly competitive, right? And I have been forever. My whole life. My mom tells me kind of that, how do I get to the top of the leaderboard has always bled through my veins, but also the idea of what I love about sales and what I what’s been, you know, true for my whole career is the harder and smarter I work, the more money I earn. So what I love about the sales career is that I’m not incredibly talented, sitting next to somebody who has the same title as me, but you know, brings 30% of what I do to the table and makes this much, but I can really take my skill set and set my financial career on fire, if you will. I think what got me here is constantly thinking about making sure I had my eyes set on the next goal, right like and that’s not to mean that I didn’t celebrate the wins when I got them. But when I spent probably about five years as an individual contributor, I knew that I wanted to be in leadership, I knew that the thing that drives me is creating opportunity for other people. And being able to scale what I did really effectively would help people create economic economic opportunity for them. And so the thing I had to think about What I would encourage anybody in any kind of sales role to think about is that if you want to get promoted, nobody will promote you, if you hit 80% of your quota, but you did the birthday club this year, or you created a mentorship program or whatever, you’ve got to think about doing what you were paid to do day in and day out exceptionally well. And then do more. That’s what it takes to get recognized, to get the visibility that you deserve. And to get promoted. So do your job, like you be able to do this in your sleep head 110% of your quota every year without even blinking, although we know it’s really hard work. But on top of that, what can you do? And when you think about the things of how you can go above and beyond the plus place to look is your executive team, what is their core mission? What are they focused on for the year because it’s not what you think the organization needs, it could be, but you really need to think about what your executive team names, because then if you’re making 110% of your number, and you’re creating something that has solved a problem for your executive team, you will set your career on fire. And I will just tell you, just one quick note there when I was at on 24. And he’s still hold, I guess my goal, this record because it can’t be touched. But anyway, I was the first woman and I in fact, first employee to make it from an individual contributor rank to an executive rank. And the way I did that was by exactly what I just told you guys,
Announcer 36:24
you touched on something that really struck me because a lot of sellers struggle with that transition, even top sellers struggle with that transition. It sounds like you had a just cause though, that really drove you and propelled you to leadership. Is that sort of articulated for you like is your just cause articulated?
Samantha McKenna 36:43
Yeah, I think it’s, it’s again, it’s just the idea of how I just I love to help, you know, I really do. And I think it’s part of what I love about running Sam sales to that we can help so many people and we can make such positive impact. But being an individual contributor for me, while I’m so financially driven, in case you can’t tell. And you know, while that was great, and printing money was great hitting quota and getting a club and all that was great. What I really wanted was they wanted the balance, I wanted the financial balance and the heart filling balance of knowing that you were impacting other people’s lives. And I do think that it’s a tough transition, just as you said, I think a lot of sellers just think that’s the next step is leadership. It’s kind of like, you know, we’ve been dating a while I guess the next step is marriage. Are you sure? Are you sure you want to do that? Same thing this is I just got married. But I think that the it’s important to think about what is motivating you to do that. Why leadership? Because I know also a lot of people who have gone into leadership and said, Nope, and then I’ve pivoted and I’m sure you have as well, Vince and just said I don’t I don’t want to deal with the psychology of it. I don’t want to deal with the temper tantrums, I don’t want to deal with the egos. You just want to focus on my own number, and manage my own schedule. So if the motivator has to be there, and it’s not just for the glory, because I promise you it’s not that glorious at the top.
Announcer 38:05
Yes, I love the heart filling piece. I love that I’m gonna remember the heart filling component. And you know, you’re mentioned being competitive by nature. Was there something that instilled that in you? At an early age?
Samantha McKenna 38:19
I’ve touched my mom and I talked to my mom about that before and I don’t I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what what it was. I don’t know if it’s like the first time I want to contest that. I was like, well, this feels nice. I said this forever, please. I don’t know what it is. Vince, are you pretty competitive? Do you have any insights from your side?
Announcer 38:35
I am and a lot of it comes back to sports. But I was not a competitive I didn’t play competitive sports. Believe it or not. I was I was the overweight kid in the room and I lost the weight through high school. I went out for the football team and didn’t make it because I couldn’t run the laps. But I think there was you know, there was certainly a burning desire to succeed. And that burning desire was, you know, invoked its way in different ways. Right? So
Samantha McKenna 39:00
yeah, I’m with you, too. I played sports all throughout college, in high school, and, but it wasn’t competitive. I was just like, well, this is this is lovely. But I wasn’t
Vince Menzione 39:09
that surprising. I would have expected you to just be out there like totally competitive.
Samantha McKenna 39:13
I don’t know. You know what, actually, I’m gonna close this thought out by saying it might actually come back to the thing that’s on my LinkedIn profile that says that I got my first exposure to sales when I raised money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. I won second place. I was in sixth grade, I raised the second highest amount of money on my level sector in Florida. And I think it was it really was winning second. That made me think like, I never want to be second again. I think that that’s kind of maybe where that sparked. This is a therapy session. Now. That’s I’m into it.
Announcer 39:46
No, I saw that on your LinkedIn profile. I was thinking the same thing. I didn’t like coming in second or last. And I think that was the spark. That’s probably the spark. You’re probably right now that Yeah, so Sam, we’re gonna have a little fun here today. You know I love asking this question, you are hosting a dinner party. And I’m just hoping we’re still coming out of this time like no other. So we’re going to be massless. And there’s not going to be. We don’t have to be social distance. But you’re hosting this amazing dinner party. And you can invite any three guests from the present, or the past to attend this party, this amazing party, who would you invite? And why?
Samantha McKenna 40:26
Well, I’m going to just go ahead and assume that my husband Ryan gets to be there. So that’s good. That’s going to be the given otherwise, I have to say him, right. I would say I’d want I lost my mom last year. So I bring my mom back she’s of Riot I would bring my best friend Kim, because she is such an intellectual. And then I would invite Adam Grant, I find him to be Adam Grant
Announcer 40:48
interesting.
Samantha McKenna 40:49
He’s so fascinating. And for those of you who don’t know him, accomplished author, youngest tenured professor at Wharton, just brilliant mind. And I think he’s about by age, 4041 years old is so smart. And I would basically dissect every organizational thing he writes about from work to time to mentorship, and there would be so much wine and it would be fantastic.
Announcer 41:14
I love that. I love that. And your mom, and your your best was your best friend. Again,
Samantha McKenna 41:18
my best friend is Kim, or who she’s a teacher, incredibly accomplished teacher, former analyst for a prestigious government agency here in Washington, DC, but she truly is one of the smartest and most well read people I know so and she’s extremely extroverted and chatty as well. So I think we would this dinner would go until the wee hours of the morning, my mom was a super successful entrepreneur, but has also just the wildest sense of humor of anybody you’ve ever met. So I think putting the four of us and Ryan at a dinner table would be quite the quite the experience.
Announcer 41:51
Well, I’d love to come along, you’re invited. I’d love to meet your mom. And Adam Grant, I read originals. And I was just wondering what what is your favorite of his books.
Samantha McKenna 41:59
So I went through think, again, which I adored, it’s his newest publication. But I will tell you, if you don’t add don’t have quite the stamina for a full book, I would encourage you to read a New York Times article, I think 2014 or 15 called madam CEO, please
Announcer 42:14
get me my coffee, something, something like that. Fascinating read it just really, really well done. So highly recommend either of those. Well, we’ll provide links in our show notes. That’s the benefit of doing this and recording it. So it’ll be in our show notes. And Sam, I just want to thank you, you are an amazing, bright light. And I was so excited to finally get you here to the Ultimate Guide to part three podcasts. And I just so happy you could join us today. So thank you.
Samantha McKenna 42:43
Thank you so much. Thanks for all the kind words and thanks for doing this with me events. What a what a total blast and great way to start my day.
Announcer 42:50
Well, great. I so enjoyed this. So thanks again. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please subscribe on your favorite platform, like comment, tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to partnering and where they can find us and i’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to partnering on our Facebook page, or drop me a line at Vince m at ultimate dash partnerships.com this episode of the podcast is sponsored by ultimate partnerships. Ultimate partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships, get partnerships right, optimize for success, deliver results. For more information, go to ultimate dash partnerships.com thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to partnering calm and facebook.com slash Ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to partnering