Noob School - Episode 14: Michael Elliott

Episode Date: September 10, 2021

Michael Elliot is a real jack of all trades, and he's got boat loads of knowledge for the Noobs out there! He and John discuss the best ways for Noobs to approach a new sales job and how to build client relationships. There are jokes, lots of wisdom, and tales of the glory days in this episode! Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

All right, welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got a special friend. Michael Elegate is here. Michael and I worked together a while ago. And a quick story on Michael, he's one of the few people that I can honestly say can do it all. When he started, we gave him a job that didn't exist. And he created a department third the size of our company. he became a fantastic salesperson, a great manager,

and then we said, hey, we want you to try something completely different. And he started selling a new product. So Michael is someone who can kind of do anything. He's very, very balanced and very entrepreneurial. And you'll hear that since his experience with us, he's done several other entrepreneurial journeys on his own. So anyway, Michael can do it all. And Michael, I'm glad you could join us today.

Well, thanks. flattered that you asked me to join you. Yeah, man. So why don't we start at the beginning and just tell us how you got into sales? Well, if you recall, I started at Datastream. We were around 32 people. And I joined what we called the time Applications Engineering Division, which essentially I did a lot of training.

So I traveled all over the country. But I wanted to do that. I wanted to get out and be with customers, see where they were. and learn more about, you know, the business. So I did that for almost three years. My aspiration coming in, and part of the attraction of the day stream is my father had always encouraged me to find a business that you could prepare yourself

to one day be a business owner. And so I felt like I'd had the field experience. I learned a lot. I was really trying to develop some expertise. But I also felt like if I really want to own a business, I need to get some sales experience. So that's what I did. I switched up, you know, I approached my boss together.

He and I went and talked to Larry. And, you know, it was, as you recall, it was so cool because you could just be very honest. I told Larry, Larry, I'd like to run a business like this someday. I know that sales experience is a big part of that. And he respected that. And collectively, he and Russ gave me the opportunity. And, of course, you had to say yes and came into work for you. So, and I got exactly what I hoped that I would get.

And I think one of the things that was really, in those days, it was smaller. So I recall when, you know, there was a rotation of people with staying in line with their tapes to spend their 15 minutes with you. I didn't go through that. I got a lot more of your time I felt like, and I really think I benefited from that in a number of ways. Good. And before that, you went to Clemson, right? No, I'm a game cock. I went to South Carolina.

And then got your MBA. Got my MBA. Also at South Carolina. Okay. So you got an MBA and you started in consulting. and then you switch to sales. Right. Okay.

Okay. And tell us about that journey from once you started in sales, how did that go and what different jobs did you have? I think the sales, you know, in those days the inside sales, I would characterize myself as doing okay. You know, that was a lot of calls. And in those days, most people kept our offices kind of dark. And I was okay at that. But I got an opportunity to run the services team, which I felt like specifically that age. That was a big opportunity.

But I really, I like that being out in the field more. So I leveraged, you know, I was at Daystream for, I think, 11 years. So I did a number of different things. But I got the opportunity to sell in what became corporate sales. So it was getting on an airplane, going and flying people having to make presentations and, you know, generally a bigger deal, longer sales cycle. And I think my investment in trying to become more of an expert in what we did and how it benefited businesses and how do they really operate what's important to them, that helped me immensely in all aspects of selling, whether I was selling the phone or when I was selling in person. And that I do think that led to that sales experience was instrumental in when I left Data Stream and joined Scott to found customer effective.

That was huge. That foundation, you know, kind of enabled us to kind of try to spread our wings and do our own thing and build it. Yeah, and I'll back up on that story for a second to make it clear for all the nobs listening is, you know, if you're diagramming your future, like if you want to be an entrepreneur one day, it makes a lot of sense to think about what you should do when you're in your 20s to best prepare. yourself and at some point you just got to do it right you don't want to prepare your whole life but you know an MBA to understand business and the accountant accountants and bookkeeping and all out all that stuff works you know field

work to understand what's actually going on the field as a consultant sales work I mean those are some big components so when you're starting a business you you understand the bulk of what's going on yeah another part I would add to that is it's not like I had people throwing offers at me, but I did, I was talking to a number of folks, and deciding which company might fit my long-term objectives was really important because my thought process was, what type of business could you realistically start? So if you think about that, if you were to go to work for a big, you know, a milican

or whatnot, that's not super likely. That takes a lot of capital investment. Elon Musk may call me a was, but I think realistically, that's much harder to start a business, a high capital business. Daystream was 30 people at the time. It was Larry Blackwell's second startup business. I had known you prior to Daystream. I knew that you were very entrepreneurial.

So I felt like that would get me into an environment where I would learn a lot about that kind of what it takes to be an entrepreneurial business. And I'm super glad I did that. I think that paid enormous dividends. Well, yeah, it worked out for us too. So we were seeing a theme here when we talk to people, Michael, is the people that, you know, took the time to more understand what was going on in the field

and what the customer really needed tend to do better over the long haul. So that's pretty good. Do you remember your Colby? What your Colby's supposed to do remember. I don't remember. I do remember it wasn't the typical. I don't have just a huge amount of quick start. I probably have more implementer than a typical profile that I remember from the time.

But and that very well could have contributed to the, you know, the phone sales. was not necessarily what I wanted to do. I think I did that a total about 10 months. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I remember that too, that it wasn't the exact profile we looked for for inside salespeople, but it was probably closer to what you became as an entrepreneur,

which worked out pretty well. What advice would you want us to send to the nobs of today, just a few things that you'd say, hey, make sure you do this and make sure you don't do this. I think all my best stuff is almost verbatim right out of your mouth. And it was the first, the willingness to be coachable. One of the things that stands out that you coached me on, you know, you brought in Billy, and Billy was instrumental in a lot of ways too.

Billy, I remember him saying telling is not selling. And I remember like in high school and whatnot, people would say, oh, you know, you're really good people, you're social, you should go into sales. Now, I think that's really not necessarily, now I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but it's not necessarily your ticket to being successful in sales. What I've learned is it's really much more about listening and helping customers solve their problems. And probably my gold star nugget from you

was when you said to me, Michael, do you know what's most important to most people? And the answer was themselves. And then your next comment was, the sooner you realize people don't care about you the more effective you'll become. So I went home and I cried myself to sleep that night. But I woke up a better person the next day.

And I really do, I joke about that. But I do think there's a level of cynicism to that that I just always kind of smirk when I think about it. But there's also a total element of truth. And if you think about, if you keep that in mind that you're talking to someone and you're trying to help them solve a problem. So what's most important to them is really the only thing that matters. So if you follow that guideline,

the, you know, talking about your college experience or whatever. That kind of stuff takes care for itself because it becomes blatantly obvious. If you believe they don't care about me, why would I begin to tell you about my college experience or any other experience for that matter? I kind of go into it with, if you ask me about me, great. But otherwise, I want to try to be all about you. Right. Right.

Well, I'm glad you remembered that and it had an impact. It's so true. But, I mean, if someone does ask you, sometimes it's just a trick to see if you'll take the bait. Yeah. You know, particularly a prospect, and you just want to deflect it as fast as possible. So, you know, I went to sit at all. You know, I was a troubled child, you know, and you push it right back to him, find out what's really going on. Another one of your good ones was, if you're in the middle of a conversation with a customer or prospect,

and you find yourself doing most of the talking, you're messing up. Yeah. And it was, again, just that focus on listening, and you're going to listen and learn, and you'll find out what their pain points are. and if you can help solve those problems, then you're really not selling them anything. You're helping them buy. You're helping them solve a problem,

and ultimately they win as you do. Yeah. I agree, man. Got to be that little radar in your head that you're talking, and it just goes off. It's like, oh, what am I doing? You know, talking. And let me ask you this.

What is your favorite word? You know, I've heard you ask other people that, and I can't. can't answer that without being left on the cutting room floor because my word is a, is a profane word, but it's also so versatile you can use it in a lot of different ways. But I don't have, I don't, you know, from a business, I don't have a serious favorite word. I really genuinely don't. You don't have to.

You're Michael Elliott. Any damn thing you please. And tell me, tell me about what you're doing now. I am in a startup business called Yesflow, and we are, we have built what we refer to as an enterprise digital assistant. So it is an overlay on top of dynamic CRM and think about your Alexa assistant or your Syria assistant or your Google assistant. Those have proliferated in the consumer world where people have their device and they're asking it whether and whatnot. We felt like, and I'm a business part with Scott Millwood, felt like if we could take that to

the corporate world and have your digital assistant that sits on top of your corporate systems, particularly when you're out remote and you have your phone, if I can engage and have a conversational dialogue, then I can capture information, I can retrieve information, and I can do that so much more seamlessly than if the traditional paradigm being tethered to my laptop and having to log in. So we're taking a different user experience approach

to making systems that people traditionally don't like quicker and easier. And this would be the salesperson doesn't like up there the CRM all the time with every little thing they do. Correct. And so can they talk on their watch? They can, we haven't gone to the watch yet. Okay. But it really is as simple as, let me add a quick note about the discussion that we have.

Boom, I'm off for the next thing. And I've fulfilled, not only do I do that because I need to kind of stay on my own game in terms of follow-up and I don't want to let many balls hit the ground, but also I've sort of fulfilled the obligation of keeping my manager informed about what's going on with that particular deal. Yeah. Well, in summary, again, this is. This is a great podcast for what we're doing here because Michael, you know, got an MBA to understand business better. He did his time in professional services in the field as a salesperson, as a sales manager.

He did a few other things. And then he started a company with someone he knew very well around a subject he knew very well. And he sold it. And now he's doing another thing that's kind of connected. So, you know, if you're new and you're saying, I want to be like Michael Elliott, first of all, understand you can't do it tomorrow. Okay, it doesn't just happen because you want to be like Michael Elliott. But there is a path you can follow of just continuous education

and doing things to learn more and come more aware of a certain industry and, in your case, software, technology. So here's the path, everybody. Do it, Michael. Be like Mike. Be like Mike. Mike. Michael. Thank you. having. Appreciate you. Always good to see you. Thank you.