Noob School - Episode 26: How to connect with your prospect with Mark Childress

Episode Date: December 3, 2021

Some folks may recognize Mark Childress's voice from his work as a play-by-play commenter for all kinds of collegiate athletics here in the Carolinas. When he's not behind the mic, Mark is an exceptional salesman with a proven track record in various software and technology companies. Like all great salespeople, Mark is an expert at connecting with his prospects, often leaning on his love for sports to get a foot in the door. You've gotta hear his advice for Sales Noobs—it'll help you crush your own quota in your first few years! Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

Hey, welcome back to Noob School. This is where we interview great salespeople, business folks, successful business folks, and we kind of appeal back to when they started like you're going to start as a first-year salesperson. Today I have Mark Childress. Mark's been a friend for several years. Mark does a lot of things very well. Mark went to Furman, measured in communication. Mark is a very good announcer.

He does a lot of play-by-play and color work. for various entities around town. Clemson's one of them. He's also got a day job, very good day job. And he'll tell you he started with Bell South back in the day. And right now he's with Microsoft. So I'd say Mark's pretty good at picking his spots. But anyway, Mark, well, thank you very much for being here today.

Yeah, John, thank you, man. It's an honor to be here. We've been talking about this forever, so I'm glad it finally worked out. Here we are. Yes. Well, tell us, if you would. So when you left Furman with your communications degree, tell us about getting that first job at what was then a marquee sales job. Yeah, I kind of took a weird path to get there, right?

When I was at Furman, I wanted to be a broadcaster. I wanted to be on ESPN, a sports broadcaster. And I did communications. I interned all over town in the upstate of South Carolina. I actually started working in radio when I was still at Furman. I was on the, I would get up for the morning show and have my sports cast ready at 5 a.m. as a college student and then work until noon and take classes in the afternoon. I went into TV after that. And after about 18 months or so, it was something that was a really good hobby,

but not a great career path for me. And I remember calling my dad living down in Atlanta. I'm up here in the upstate and I'm like, hey, I think it's time for a career change. And he was immediately like, well, he was working at Bell South, you know, Southern Bell before that. He worked there his whole career. And he's like, I know a guy who knows a guy kind of thing. And ended up interviewing for a sales path at Bell South and was lucky enough to get hired and something that I figured out pretty quickly that I was really good at. Yeah. And so what was that interview process like with the Bell South guy? It was, you know, it was just one guy. And they had a little sales breakout team that I would call it at Bell South that was almost like a one year paid. And, you know, it was a

internship, to be honest with you. So it was just me having an interview with him. And I felt like I had good communication skills, right? I'd been talking to a television camera like we're doing today for so many years. And I'd learn how to write, I guess, at Furman as well. And that helped me. So I just kind of leaned into that, even though I didn't have any sales experience. And, you know, the first 12 months I was there, the first six weeks was a sales, like, deep dive. Bell South had like a local hotel right at North Druid Hills and in Atlanta. And I went and lived there for six weeks. And it was sales training and product training for six weeks before I even walked into the building in the South. And then to complete the

year, they kind of did round two of the sales training and technical training. So after 12 months, I was like this weaponized machine that was ready to go and start selling. So I had a lot of advantages, I think very early in my career that I don't think you see a lot of people get today. And one of the things we talk about in the Noob School is trying to figure out where you want to be. And I doubt, you know, telecom was really where you wanted to be. You didn't love like phone communications, but that was a place for you to learn sales. Yes. Okay.

I got it. Because that's a possibility. I kind of preach on people to find your industry and go in there, then start selling. But in this case, you had a great company, good pay, a year's worth of training. Yes. That's pretty cool. No, it was very nice. And I knew I knew that I wanted to sell and I was good at it.

Like if my mom was here right now, when I was in the second grade, I would go to the flea market. I lived in New Jersey in the second grade. I would go to the flea market and I would buy these packs of pencils. They were like NFL pencils. And it was all of the NFL teams. And I would buy this pack for like a dollar. And then I would go to school because I knew who all my friends liked. I've always been a sports fan.

I would sell them pencils for like, totally. $0.25.50 each. I'd take that money and next week I'd go buy two packs. And then I was buying so many pencils and selling them that the principal at school shut me down. So I knew I could sell. So when I made that call to my dad kind of originally and initially there, he was like, well, we know you can sell. Why don't we push you in that direction? That's kind of how I ended up there. Good, good. That's excellent. That's a good story. And a lot of times people know we'll try to peel them back to their childhood. So what did you like to do?

What did people say you were good at? You know, those kinds of things when they're struggling with what to do. Yeah. They're trying to figure that out. So, and I think, you know, in terms of building linking skills together, you know, you've got your communication skills, you know, radio, television, professional selling, you know, it's got to be an advantage for you when you call on people, or particularly around here to have the, you know, the broadcasting stuff on top of what you do.

It's cool hobby, I should say. Yeah, no, it's a really good hobby. And it's one of those things. I mean, you do such great content around how to have conversations with executives and do things that you might not be comfortable with doing. You know, being a big sports fan's always been helpful for me because especially in this environment where we're in today where you're ending up on, I'm not going to say Zoom calls because I work for Microsoft. So I'm going to say Microsoft Teams calls. I use Teams. Yeah, okay, good. So you're on a Teams call and you're talking to somebody and you're looking at the bookcase behind them. And I was talking to somebody the other day, hey, there's a Texas A&N. helmet up behind him. And I'm like, did you go to Texas A&M? Oh, my husband went there. I went down there for a game. And before we've even started talking about selling, we're already doing that. So that, the love of sports is a real easy way for me to get in, but also the broadcasting. When people find out a lot of the people at Microsoft know that this is my hobby and things like that, so we'll be on a call and they're like, oh, hey, this is Mark. And you got to talk to him

because he just did two hours of radio for Clemson football this weekend. That's a real easy icebreaker as well. So that's a really easy icebreaker as well. So that's a helps a lot. A little similar but a little off topic. Do you ever use any technology like LUM or anything to send video messages to your customers? I've done that in the past. I don't do any of that now, but I've been thinking about doing it again. I mean, we've got this incredible studio, Cronk Studios that we're sitting in today. And I've thought about there's got to be some ways that I could do something here that would be interesting and different. Never done the video messaging thing in the past except, you know, an occasional sales contest or, hey, put your pitch together

for this product and send it in and the winner gets a surface headphones or something like that. But video messaging, I think, could be really compelling, especially if you tailored it specifically to a target and found them through LinkedIn, sales navigator, something like that. I think that'd be a really easy and compelling way to differentiate yourself. Well, you'd be so good at it because of your, you know, your training. Yeah. I've had it done to me a couple of times. and it is really effective.

Interesting. After the discovery call, I've talked to you for 45 minutes, you know, two days from now, you get a video message from me saying with the whiteboard, this is what I heard, is what we're proposed, you know, and it's got this whole thing. And I'm just, instead of reading my email, you're watching it. And we all like to watch the video versus reading something. I agree. So, anyway, just thought you might be interested in that.

File that one away. File it away. That's all included. There we go. It's all included. Tell us something about sales. I mean, you got off to a really good start. You went to Furman, communication, you've already done a lot of broadcast work,

Bell South, years worth of training. What's some of the stuff you've learned since then that you were wrong about, about sales? That I'm wrong about? But that you were, like you thought this was going to be the way sales was, and it's actually like this. I think one of the biggest lessons that I learned in my first few years, and you're eager, you're new in the industry, and you want to be everything to everybody and you're given a set of accounts, probably a couple

accounts too many to keep up with everything. In my early years especially, it was, hey, I'm going to try to be everything to everybody instead of trying to figure out where the real sales opportunities were. I burned a lot of time, I think early in my career, again, trying to be the guy that's spinning all the plates or keeping all the balls in the air and calling on people that had no ability to buy for me this year. It doesn't mean I cut them off at all. And again, you end up with account executive titles and things like this where you're the quarterback.

You're a salesperson, but also, oh, they've got a problem. Well, let me introduce you to my problem guy. And things like that. I spent so much time just working the extra hours and trying to be everything to everybody early in my career. And that's probably what I've learned the most, is to be able to look at my set of accounts, realize where the sales opportunities are

and gravitate towards those instead of just trying to do everything for everyone. That's a great message. And new people fall for that all the time. I feel for it. I mean, I didn't know the difference between Exxon and Joe's filling station. Yeah. There was just another record.

You'll call them and see if they want something. You know what I mean? It was so dumb. But anyway, listening to people like Mark would help these news. No, I think that it would. I mean, that to me is one of the things that sticks out the most is try to figure out very quickly were to spend your time because your time's your most valuable asset as a salesperson. It is. And do a better job for the ones you're working on versus just rushing through them

to get to another one. Yes. So take us through. I've spent a lot of time on Bell South, Bell South and just what of the other major stops along the way before Microsoft? Yeah, you know, I don't want to say I job hopped because that's not fair. But I did leave Bell South after a couple of successful years there and kind of rode the dot-com wave before the burst at a company that doesn't exist anymore called NetRail. And as you'll find earlier in your sales career, you'll gravitate towards mentors or senior salespeople in your organization. And if they go somewhere else, a lot of times you'll end up following that. Yeah. And that's what I did a couple of steps in my career. So I did that until the bubble burst, if you will, and learned

a lot and got some management opportunities. And then probably my next biggest stop after that was a company called Level 3 Communications, which is now rolled all the way up in a Century Link and now Lumen. And I stuck there, you know, a good seven, eight years where really I consider, you know, kind of started my, you know, I guess gravitation North in my sales career, where I learned a lot and started having a lot of success and calling on larger and larger customers. And then before Microsoft, I was at a company called PGI. And it was one of those things again, where someone that I knew from level three had gone to a company called PGI, which was audio and video conferencing. And I spent a year there calling on like two or their four largest accounts

for them and then moved over into vice president of sales role. And that's kind of what opened the door for me at Microsoft. We were competing against Microsoft a lot. I was learning a lot about what their Skype product was back then. One of my good friends at PGI went over to Microsoft and PGI got acquired by and if you went down my resume or you searched me on LinkedIn, you would see, well, hey, when you moved, every single time I moved pretty much, it was because the company I was with had gotten acquired by someone. And I was like, all right, I want to make a jump. I've been doing this a long time. I'm tired of working somewhere three to five years. And at this point, it was private equity, getting PGI. I knew what that meant.

Yeah. It meant PGI can be around a whole lot longer. And I was like, I want to be. to work somewhere now that's never going to be acquired. So I literally made out a very short list. And that list was Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. And I'm like, these are the three companies that I'd like to work at. I knew people that worked at all three. And I started that process. And, you know, probably about five months later ended up over at Microsoft. And I've been there almost five years now. Well, before we go into Microsoft, back up and tell the noobs what it's like to spend your day, I mean, all your time working on two accounts. It's, uh, it's, and, It's something that I like a lot.

Yeah. And salespeople are different, right? You've got some salespeople. I can only take 20 accounts. So why don't you give me 50? And then we'll do what I told you I was good at earlier, right? I'll figure out out of those 50, the 10 I can sell to and make my number on this year. I really enjoy talking to executives.

I really enjoy like the overall strategy. And I don't want to just run in and sell you a product and then run away. I want to get to know you. I want to find out where your business problems are. and I want my products to be able to come in and help you solve them. So I have liked doing that. I haven't had a chance to do that at Microsoft yet, but I've wanted to. And as my next career step at Microsoft, it would be, hey, I'd like to be on one or two really large accounts where I spend my day on.

That's just something that I like a whole lot. Drill down just a little bit on that. Let's just say it's one account. You've got one big account, one big Fortune 50 account, Michelin or whoever it is. I mean, are you over there at the headquarters like once a week, twice a week, you're looking at the field offices? How big is the network of people within the organization you're trying to stay in touch with? Okay. So I would say essentially all of it.

Now, you know, things are different now with COVID. But, you know, in my early days, I guess at level three that I told you about, I called on Earthlink, an Internet service provider. And I grew them to the fourth largest account that we supported. at level three. And I did that in a couple of ways. One was getting into the executive team. And I did that because I was over at Earthlink probably two full days a week. I was over there at 9 o'clock in the morning. I would find reasons to, you know, have meetings with people and walk the halls. I would eat lunch at the little diner they had downstairs where everybody ate. I had done my research. So when the CFO walked in, I knew what he looked like. I probably met half the executives at Earthlink just by

them sitting there eating a sandwich by themselves really quick and saying, hey, are you so-and-so? Well, I'm, you know, I'm Mark from level three. Can I grab 15 minutes with you next week? I did that a lot. And then, you know... Just interrupt you a second. Yeah. They didn't understand if Mark Wooder just emailed those executives or called them or sent them a postcard,

they would have thrown in the trash can because those people are really busy. And they're trained to get rid of all distractions because they got really important. But if they meet Mark or are you in the break room, they're like, yeah, 15 minutes, yeah. Can do it. Sometimes they would say, well, hey, I got 10 minutes. I'm not doing anything. That's the funny thing. It's half the time they're not doing anything.

Right. That's exactly it. You know, they're just like, yeah, sure. Come on. If you've got one or two accounts, you can prep it, right? I mean, you're reading the news reports. You're following their stock. You know when their earnings are coming out and what happens.

So if it's the CFO, it can be like, oh, man, you guys' earnings came out. And if you've spent 15 minutes going over it, you can have an educated conversation with them. And you can turn that into, well, our earnings have been, you know, interesting recently. You guys are spending 30 million a year with us. I'd love to get you together with our CFO and have a chat, you know. And a lot of times I would just be the bridge builder to, hey, here's someone senior in my organization that I want you to grow a relationship with. So over time, I'm plugging all these executives together. I've got an extended account team of support people, people that are putting in orders,

and I'm having all of them look at all times, right? Just ask the open-ended business questions when you're on the phone. I uncovered business because someone on my team that was responsible for putting in orders just asked, hey, are you guys super busy? Like, have you heard about any big orders coming? Oh, yeah, I heard that we're about to do this really big project in California. Yeah. Well, she's bringing that back to me.

I can go to my contacts. Okay, I'm here in California's on the, how did you hear that? Well, yeah, it is. You know, could you put in a bid? So that was kind of the two. I called it dark in the skies. It was kind of a joke. But, you know, try to be, it's almost the opposite of what I told you earlier. Don't try to be everything to everybody when you have 50 accounts. But when you have one account, you can be everything to everybody. Get into the line of businesses. Talk to the chief, you know, legal counsel. Talk to the executives. Talk to the people that are. placing the orders everywhere, try to just get your tentacles out wherever you can. Yeah, and so just to wrap that up, but when you're a noob, I encourage them, even if they're not going to be, certainly at your level, you know, after a year or two, they need to at least start thinking that way. If they're selling something to Earthlink or whoever it is,

think about instead of this person you're trying to sell 100 of these things to, what is the CEO and the board looking at? Right. What if they told their shareholders they're going to deliver on? Right? How are they doing? Is there something we can do to help them with that? I mean, when are you creating your budget?

That's a question that I ask all the time. When do you start? You know, when does your fiscal year in? Because it's not always like at Microsoft where we end at the end of June. When's your fiscal year end? And then when are you doing your budget? Yeah. Because if you can have the sales conversations while those budget conversations are going on,

that's a heck of a lot easier to sell them something that next year. Right. Put the money in there. Yeah. Well, that gets us to Microsoft, which, you know, it's just so amazing. so cool that you're working for this great company. And they're just, I mean, are they the most valuable company in the world right now? That we are right now.

It's bounced back and forth between Apple and Microsoft. But Microsoft is right now. Yeah, that's correct. Isn't it wild? I mean, the news just won't mean anything to them unless they read old books. But those two companies kind of started together and used to fight each other and try to kill each other. And then Apple was almost out of business and Microsoft loaned them some money.

They didn't want their little buddy to go away. I mean, it's crazy. And now the two most viable companies in the world. It really, I'm very fortunate. Microsoft's an amazing company and the benefits and perks and the way they treat their employees. You know, one of the interesting things that Microsoft did this past year is when the pandemic started. We've got all kinds of analytic tools that we now sell to our customers under something we call our Viva platform. But they basically went in and looked at all the employees like, how are you working differently now that you

are at home instead of in the office. And it set off alarm bells and went all the way to the top of the company because people were working a lot more, having a lot less interaction, believe it or not, with their managers. There were all kinds of things. And Microsoft immediately, like literally within about a month, took the company, which is a giant company and went, okay, guys, extra mental health days, you know, Friday afternoons, no customer meetings. You're going to take that time and do the training, you know, the expense reports and do all of that. And we're almost Nazi level about enforcing all of that and trying to give us more time to have a good work-life balance when we went home to the, you know, when the pandemic started.

And even though we're coming out of it now, all of that stayed in place. I just think things like that, especially for a company that size, are really amazing. Well, your leader, Sacha. Sacha. Sacha. Sacha. Sacha. when I read that he's, you know, he's so quiet, you know, but he's done such a good job

before that of the pricing change. Yes. And, you know, you had all these different units that, you know, guys ran it or gals ran it that it was a billion dollar units and trying to get them all to come together at a one subscription-based thing. And a lot of people weren't having it. He just got rid of them. Yeah.

In a very nice, quiet way, I'm sure. But, I mean, he's like, we're going, this is what we're going to do. And boy, does it. because I'm a customer, and I went from all these people billing me in different times. From my business now, I just got one bill a month. Yeah. Combines everything. It all works together.

So it's, you all doing pretty good. Thank you. I have a very, very, very small part to do with that, but I am excited about what I get to do for them. Well, what, what's one thing you wish you'd have known when you started out your career in sales? You know, I think I've touched on some of those here, but, you know, for me, I think figuring out who you are, I guess, as a person and being confident are very important in sales, if that makes sense. You know, there's so many different ways to be a great salesperson, right? Some people do it by having those relationships with the executive. Some people do it by being

product experts that can answer every question. You know, be true to who you are and don't try to be, oh, the number one sales guy. This is how he does it. Right. That doesn't mean that's the way you should do it. You need to figure out what works for you. If you're not good time, Charlie, don't pretend to be good time, Charlie. Exactly. And that's not really my, that's probably not going to surprise you. It's probably not, it's not really my stick. Yeah. But early on, there were a lot of people like that and trying to find your path. So, so being true to yourself, I don't think it really hurt me. I was always a successful salesperson, even out of the gate. But it took me a while to figure all that out and also to be competent,

especially being young. I mean, I was 27, 28, and I've been, selling now at a high level for four or five years and I still wasn't confident if that makes sense. And I don't know if that was just a personality flaw or something along those lines, but just because you might be on the newer side, you know, if you've got the foundation in there and listen, man, sales is all about meeting your number. If you're knocking down your number all the time, even if you're 26 years old, you can, you might be able to take on jobs that you might not think that you're ready for in an early age. And I wouldn't change anything about my path. But I think I could have reached for things very early in my career that I was telling myself in my head that I wasn't ready for.

But I was. That's a great point. It's the head trash. Yes. And we all have it. And I've had it myself. I have salespeople that have it. But you think, well, I'm 24.

I'm 25. You know, I'm doing pretty good for that. I'm doing pretty good for that. And, you know, I'm not going to, I don't need to think about what the board of directors is just thinking about. That'll come later when I'm older. I've also had young salespeople just be so, have such bravado. Yes. They're like, John, I have found my way to the CIO of Miami-Dade County.

75, you know, just like, I'm like, you added up, what kind of deal will be talking to? He goes, 25 million, you know, about half the size of our company. Yeah. And he was 25 or 26. And I went to my partner. I'm like, and he's like, he found it. it. Yeah.

Let him run with it. And he did, and he got it. Smart. You know, in 26 years old, but he, you know, you don't have to wait. No, you do not. You can get help from your company. You absolutely can, especially if you've got good management like you that, that let people be able to do that.

That's right. They like the ponytail in Miami. There we go. So, Mark, what's your favorite word? Vanessa's before, and I always say rhythm is my favorite word. Okay. So it's a weird word because it doesn't technically have a vowel. It has that the why gets to be a vowel, which is kind of a one-off.

But, you know, rhythm to me is two things, right? And if you want to just directly apply it to sales, rhythm is the guy backing you up on the drums while you're playing your saxophone and just keeping the drum beat. I think that's a big part of being successful in sales, right? It's showing up on time. It's, you know, getting the customer calls in. It's following up on the things that you need to do. It's making sure you turn in your expense reports and sales funnels. and there's all of that.

And then also when I think about rhythm, it's the person that is listening to you play your saxophone that might be a great dancer, right? And it's doing things that are true to their personality and taking fundamental dance moves and doing incredible things with them. When you say someone who's got rhythm, I think that's kind of what I think about

is a really good dancer. And I think that kind of takes both ends of the spectrum for me and has always made it pretty interesting. Yeah. And having a, you know, your life is in rhythm. Yes. You know? I feel like you've got a good, a good rhythm. Yes, that's important.

So this is to promote yourself a little bit, section. Sure. You can promote. We've already kind of promoted Microsoft, and I'm sure there'll be a jump in the stock price tomorrow. But you might get to promote two things, because you might start with the Pops for Pups. Yeah, I can do that. Do that. And then if you want to talk about prong or whatever you want to talk about.

No, no, let's start with Pops for Pups. My daughter McCain Childress is 15. She's at Southside Christian School here in the upstate of South Carolina. And if you want to find the whole story, I'll do literally the 30-second version. But you can go to Pops for Pups.com and it has it all. But basically, McCain, a couple of years ago, decided that she wanted to try and raise money for the facility dogs at the local Prisma Health Children's Hospital. These are amazing dogs that comfort children and their families when they're in the hospital. And McCain at 13 committed to raising $100,000 for the endowment for one of these dogs because you've got to constantly groom and clean these dogs. They've got to go to the vets all the time because they're around sick children and things like that.

So there's all these costs. So she started as a 13-year-old trying to raise $100,000 and she is almost at $100K already. It was her goal by the time she graduated. Now as a sophomore, she's about to reach it. So you can learn and even donate there if you would like. And then we're sitting in Prong Studios, John. This is how you and I got to know each other. Will Stewart and I, you know, I guess had a vision for this place to provide, you know, a location in the upstate of South Carolina where you can do really high quality television level, you know, content for social media at a really low price.

And it's something that's taken off. So you talk about, I've got a day job of Microsoft. I do all this broadcasting for Clemson and Furman and other places. And this is one of my big passions as well is. trying to reach out and find clients that would be a good fit. And, you know, you and I stumbled across one another and kind of, you know, got that relationship going and ended up here. And you go to prong.com.

If you want to learn more about that. Yeah. And I'll vouch for it. I've had a great relationship so far. Yeah, we love having you here. Well, it's great to be here. And thank you for being here today. I appreciate it very much.

And the nubes also appreciate your story and what they can learn from it. So thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's been an honor, John. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. All right. Thank you.

Hey, it's John here. Thanks for listening today. Please check out noobschool.org. That's my website. That's where we have other videos and content that can help you get started in sales.