Noob School - Episode 29: Soft Skills in Selling with Scott Townes

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

His initial dream of becoming a rockstar didn't pan out, but Scott Townes still turned out alright. Through life lessons and learning on-the-fly, he gained a wealth of sales knowledge and helped grow his family's travel agency into the largest in the Southeast. Now, he's selling high-speed camera systems—proof that he can really sell anything! He talks through many of his wisdoms with John, including the importance of soft skills and confidence in selling. Follow John on social media: Instagram: instagram.com/johnsterling_ Facebook: facebook.com/johnsterlingsales Twitter: twitter.com/johnsterling_ TikTok: tiktok.com/@johnsterling_

All right, well, welcome back to Noob School. This is where we find great salespeople and business folks that started in sales, and we back them back to when they started. So they can help you as you start your career in sales. Today, I've got a really good friend of mine, Scott Towns. Scott, he's done a number of things in his career. But after school, the big thing he did was he and his brother and his father built the big, biggest travel company in the southeast, Piedmont Travel. They built it up over a number of years. Scott was eventually CEO, but I think he'll tell you he was primarily their sales driver along the way. And they eventually sold it to the largest travel company in the world. And since then, Scott has been involved in a number of projects, a number of businesses around town. And, you know, when I was talking to him, he watches the podcast and he said that he had a lot of

ideas from his days, particularly at Piedmont, that he wanted to pass along, which is great. So, Scott, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, John. Good to be here. Yeah, man. So before we get into sales, I know the first job you were thinking about was rock star. Yeah. Yeah, I was my first true love, and I thought how easy and fun that could be. And after trying to play one to two or three different instruments and hearing myself sing, I knew that that was not going to be an option. So, Hey, but I tried. Well, I think you got the personality for it. The front of the stage.

Yeah, sure, sure. I always have the greatest wannabe rock star out there. It can't be anybody who wanted it more than me. I hear it's not as good as it's cracked up to be, all the getting from one place to the next, all that stuff. Yeah, the travel end of it. Nah, I don't think I had handled that. Yeah.

Well, anyway, so you, after after your school days were finished, you started at Piedmont, and I imagine. and I imagine that was your first official sales experience, or did you have some before? That was actually my first official sales experience. And other than as a childhood, in my childhood, the way I kind of got into sales was back in the 60s when I was growing up in our neighborhood, I would actually dumpster dive into the apartment dumpsters and find treasures. Yeah. And I would go over and sell them around the neighbors to the kids. Yeah.

And, you know, I was like, hey, this is going pretty well. And then years later, when I started to work for my father, I went in doing just the normal things. And he said, we were going to have to start a sales department. And he said, I've always known you were groomed for sales when I watch you dumpster dive and sell all the goods to the neighborhood kids. Wow. So, you know, that's how it all started.

So you basically invented eBay. Yeah. Yeah. At least neighborhood eBay, yes. Neighborhood eBay, yeah. Interesting. So, yeah, I hear that not all the time, but very often with people that became outstanding at sales that they'd go back to their childhood and they were like great at selling cookies or car washes or dumpster diving or it was just something that they kind of liked about doing it. And that's usually a pretty good trigger for a noob to say, if you did that kind of thing, you're probably going to be pretty good at sales. I would think so. Okay.

And so were you locked into sales from the beginning or did you have other things? you were considering? No, pretty much, you know, again, I got out of college. I only went to two years of college, and I got out of college and started working for my father. And really, we didn't even have a sales department at that point. I was out selling travel. Selling travel, people would walk through the door or call on the phone, and I would sell them travel. Then we morphed more into a travel management company doing more corporate travel. And at that point, around 85, five years later, my father said, okay, it's time to turn on that charm and that sales experience that you had back in their younger days and started as a cell department going out and talking to corporate travel.

Yeah, yeah, managing their travel for them. Managing it for them. Yep. Excellent. And so tell us about some of the things you learned. And again, it sounds like you got thrown into it without a whole bunch of training. and all that kind of stuff. So what did you learn for yourself while you were building that? Well, I think the biggest thing is that I learned is that sales is actually, to me, it's a passion. To me, it is being confident to be able to go out and get in front of people, talk to people,

and I knew I enjoyed that. I love that, you know, from a child on to even today. Sure. I love to go out. And to me, the biggest thing that gave me the confidence to go, into sales was knowing that I can walk up to a stranger on the street and just start talking to them about anything that comes to mind. Right.

And the comfort of being in front of somebody talking to them about whatever we were talking about. Yeah. And I would say, you tell me what you think about this, but I say, you know, sometimes people think that's natural. Like, you know, Scott's never met a stranger and they say things like that. But I think a big part of it is repetition that, you know, maybe it's natural, maybe it's not. but if you've done that a thousand times, the next time's not going to be that difficult.

But if you've never done it, whether you're natural or not, it's a little uncomfortable. Sure it is. Sure it is. It's a little uncomfortable. But again, it's the premise. The biggest thing you get over is being able to get in front of somebody and feeling comfortable talking with them.

And, you know, it's just a great experience to be able to get out there, meet people. And if you enjoy that type of thing, to me, you're a natural, you're already, you know, we keep using the word natural itself, but I just found it natural. And I, you know, people always try to say, teach me how you do that. And I kind of went, you know, I really baptism was by fire and was thrown into it. But I hired five to six to seven to eight salespeople. And it was hard for me to teach what I considered that natural piece of it. And I don't know if very few people that aren't confident in themselves will, you know, succeed in sales. And to me, that's the first thing you've got to have.

Yeah, you do. You've got to be willing to show up. Absolutely. Exactly. Will you have any other thoughts or ideas of stuff we should pass along to the nubes that worked for you? Well, I think the biggest thing is, whatever you're selling, I was selling a service, whether you're, selling a service or a product, whatever it is, is know your product, know, I urge you to go at, like talking about starting from my father, I started from answering the telephone,

booking cruises, booking tours, to learning more about corporate and the corporate end of the travel before I even did all that. So I knew what, again, being in the service industry, our product was our people and our service. So I sort of knew what they were doing. And if you're going to go into sales, in my opinion, any company, whether your sales or service, or, excuse me, product or service, that you immerse yourself into what your company does and each individual in that company. Spend time, not just on the product itself, but how it's done in the background of your company.

Yeah, so I would follow on there and say, you know, when you started first year or two with Meadmont, you couldn't, even if that had to major the CEO, you wouldn't know how to do it. Absolutely. But how long were you there before you got that? About five years. I started in 80, and about 85 is when we saw that was the piece of the company the way we wanted to go. Yeah. And, you know, it just became, my father came to me and said, let's start a sales department.

And I was like, okay, I'm confident enough to go out there and do that. I know the background work. Now I just got to find out how it works for each individual client. Yeah. I think a prospect, they want to know they're dealing with someone who's not going to say, well, I'm not sure about that. You knew everything about it. Absolutely.

I always say that try to know more, at least about your product, definitely more about your product, but try to know more than your audience. Yeah. And I always tell people, one of the biggest things I learned is know your audience. And I don't mean if you're selling to IBM, know the software. I'm saying when you're speaking to that one person, if it's a one-on-one conversation, before you, you know, as you prospect the client themselves, prospect the actual person you're talking to.

What is their key position in the company and how does it pertain to your product and how does it make them look good? Yeah. You know, because, again, they're only focused to me. They're only focused mostly on what your product can do. or your service can do for them to make them look good and in turn makes the whole company look good. Right. That's not, when I was a noob, that's not what I would have thought people would be doing.

I would think that they work for a company that were representing the interest of the company. And to some degree they are. But it is coming from them. Like, this might get me fired or this might get me promoted or whatever. Correct. And how does that service or product make them look good to their boss? Because at the end of the day, that's one of the most important. things to the people that you're talking to.

So I always say no, not only your client, a little bit of history about your client, what they do, but what that person you're presenting to, what their position is and how it can make them look good. That's great. And then during this run you had, what were some of the things that you did that slowed you down that you'd recommend people not do? Well, excuse me, I think the biggest thing is to be prepared, not only daily, but weekly and monthly, and have the processes in place to make sure you don't get bogged down.

Your focus is on sales. And that there is a process where you can do yourselves. And I always urge people to try their best to be able to push off the small stuff to someone else so they can stay focused on that cell or that service of that client. Yeah. Yeah. So not getting bogged down in details. Not getting bogged down into it, into the deep weeds of it.

And if you do, make sure you do that before work or after work so you can focus your nine to five on that client and or prospecting. Scott, that's a wonderful point. And I've heard people say, for a noob or any sales rep to get too involved in the admin stuff, that is a type of procrastination. So if I'm really supposed to meet five new people today in Greenville that might buy Piedmont Travel, but I get so bogged down looking up details on this account that I don't get to it, it's because I really didn't want to go do the hard part. Absolutely. So I agree. You know, doing first things first, right? Absolutely. They focused on

the end game, which is sales. Yep. And if your company doesn't understand it, try to get them to understand, to have somebody help you out. So you can stay focused on what they hired you for. Right. Right. Yeah. It's kind of an important role in a company is the one who brings the money in. Anybody can send it out.

Absolutely. I always tell people, you know, people come to me about sales and says, name me one company that wasn't built on successful salespeople. Yeah. And there's not. You know, whether it's service or a product, that company made a break from sells people. Yeah. I would certainly agree with you. I would certainly agree with you. So what's your favorite word? I knew you're going to ask that. My favorite word I think would have

to be passion. Passion. And you've got to have passion when you're selling. And that comes through. Whether you're selling services or a product, it comes through big if you are passionate about your product and feel confident about your product. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's a great word. And it's a great word for the noobs because, you know, if they're not, let's say

they get a job with IBM, which would be a great company to start working with to learn sales, and they're selling the terminal XYZ or something like that. Like, are they really passionate about that terminal? Maybe not naturally, but they should be passionate about it. Absolutely. And it's going to show through it. Yeah. Passion shows through.

Yeah. And if you're more passionate than the person before you or the person after you, that is going to ring true. So you've got to love the one you're with. You've got to love the one you're with and you've got to love what you're selling and embrace it, that it is the best solution for their problem. Nice. Well, is there anything else you want to add to the noobs for the noobs?

No, other than, again, preparedness, preparedness of before you're, meeting, who you're meeting with if it's and actually tailor make your presentation to that person. Right. Because again, like in the travel industry, you know, we would meet, sometimes I would meet a secretary that was making all the reservations for the old company or for the head person. Or I'd meet with the CFO who's counting the dollars and penny of every nickel of the travel that the spend in it. So know your audience and know how it pertains to the person that you're doing.

talking to. And if you're talking to both of them, then you've got to tailor-make your presentation for it that's going to interest both of them. And there's no excuse now not to do that homework. Absolutely. It's not. I didn't have back then. There was nothing to do other than they call friends and family or anybody else that might know them or find some else in the industry. I know. But now there's so much at your fingers. I'm afraid I was just lazy back then. I think I would just say, well, what do I know? Just you just show up in Atlanta and go up to the eighth floor and John. And do your thing.

Yeah. I mean, you eventually get to know them, but it took so much longer. And that's another thing when I always tell people is that once you're in, try to find the person at the top. And travel was easy because travel, everybody was passionate. You use the word passion. Everybody was passionate about travel. And the CEO had to travel all the time.

And if you can make their life easier, get to know them, throw them a bonus. My business was easy. I could give them an upgrade here and there, slip an upgrade. But if you get to know those people, those are the ones that will help you out throughout the company. I remember that about Piedmont. I remember that that was one of the things that if they're helping you, then, you know, the people at the top, they're going to get taken care of and they can pull some string. You had some power back then with the airlines.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I was fortunate enough to get to know the people, the higher ups. And that's usually who they wanted you to take care of the most. And so I would get up close and personal with a lot of CEOs and presidents of the company just by making sure they're taking care of. Another thing that I did that I think is important in today's technology world, but to me, back when I was coming through and it's still, to me, the phone and phone etiquette's. And I'm a stickler even today as I was back then that voicemail and a phone. is two of the best things that were invented since Alexander Graham Bell.

And we had a client that was huge, huge, huge on best of service, best of service, best of service. And they hated voicemail. And I kept saying, why do you hate voicemail? I said, voicemail done well on both sides. Updated daily. And again, I would tell, when you called our company, if you were out that day, you got on the phone said, hey, I'm out that day, here's who you talk to. Or I'm going to be in meetings all day. You know, don't expect to call back until after, to the end of the day or towards the end of

day or the next day. It's just processes like that on the phone to me. We, we back then were made and broken by our phone system. But, you know, be there. When you call somebody, you know, you never want to hear, hi, this is Scott. Leave me a message. I'll call you back later. No, you know, hey, this is Scott. I'm in a meeting today. I know your call is important. If you need a media assistant, talk to this person. If not, I'll call you back at my earliest convenience. So, you know, personalize.

Personalize that they know you're on top. Right. And that goes back to the customer service piece of it. You don't want that one that says, like, that I'm going on vacation and it's like two months old. Yeah. That's right. I mean, I would do it. I literally would update my voicemail daily, daily.

And then a lot of times if something happened, I would update it again. Yeah. But the worst thing you can do is, you know, I've called people and they say, hey, this is Scott. I can't talk right now. Leave me a message. A week later, you're wondering why they didn't call back. Oh, I was on vacation. Well, everybody deserves a vacation.

But they know, let that person know. And they work both ways when they're leaving you a message. You know, you just say, hey, look, I need the confirmation number for the Hertz car you booked for me yesterday. Not just, hey, call me back. Yeah. You know, so it worked. Well, I hope those people, you know. use Piedmont Travel anyway for your vacation.

Absolutely they did. Do you have any, you know, you've got multiple projects right now. Do you have anything you want to promote or talk about? Other than my, when I left Piedmont Travel back in 2008, I bought a small software company called Flashback Vision Solutions. It's a pretty specialized niche camera system. So, mostly doing high speed monitoring line systems or anything that moves too far. fast for the eye to see. So if you need any help in that or any of your audience members,

need any help in high-speed cameras. High-speed cameras. High-speed cameras, I'm your go-to guy. Into the year's special. Into the year specials, all the way. Well, Scott, thank you so much for being here with us today. We've got a lot of great ideas for the noobs, and it's always great to see you as well. And congratulations on your huge victory, you and your whole family with that Piedmont Travel. Thank you, John. Thank you, man. Take care. Take care. All right. Hey, is John here.

Thanks for listening today. Please check out noob school.org. That's my website. That's where we have other videos and content that can help you get started in sales.