Noob School - Episode 32: Why your Career Path shouldn't be a Straight Line with Ted Hassold

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

Ted Hassold and John go way back. As one of the trailblazers in the telecom sphere, Ted first got into sales on a whim, really—he didn't have many prospects, and a close friend told him sales may be a good career path. He jumped in head first, learning on the fly how to really grow a strong client base. He shares plenty of lessons, including why there's no such thing as a career "downgrade" if it's helping you increase your value. Check it out! 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. John Sterling here. Hey, you know, Noob School is where we're bringing on super successful, hyper-successful salespeople and now business people that are willing to share kind of how they got started. What was it like for them when they started in sales? Most of them have also hired a bunch of salespeople and trained them. So trying to get that knowledge out of them for you. And today, I know I say this a lot, but I really mean at this time, Ted Hassel, one of my all-time favorites. I'm sure Ted is a great guy because I've been watching him closely for almost 50 years. Correct.

That's crazy, isn't it? Yeah, since I was 10. Yeah, 10 years old. Gosh, you're old. Anyway, we're 62. We're delighted Ted's here. And just a couple of quick things about Ted that I can tell you before we get started. So in high school, I was in high school with Ted, he was, you know, life of the party.

probably someone you would say would be good at sales. Also a great soccer player. And Ted went on South Carolina. It was a Gamecock. And he went to work for Tellman as the first company. So Tellman was a reseller or a reseller of AT&T. Right. His right went to vestiture of AT&T in 1984.

So they were forced to break up AT&T. Correct. And you guys started. It's like cryptocurrency now. Yes, it was to crypto. It was like, what are they doing? They're selling long distance. Yeah, and looking backwards, it was like a sure thing, right?

Right. But the moment, it wasn't at the moment, was it? It was not at all. It was like, what are y'all doing? So, Ted, believe it or not, we'll get into the story, but Ted started with this company, Tellman, which then got merged into another company and then bought by another company. He's gone through seven or eight different, you know,

transmorgifications of companies, but it all is the same company. And you'll see over this series of the next seven or eight podcast is going to be a lot of people from that CTG tellman background. But none more important than Ted. So welcome aboard, Ted. It's great to be with you, John. It's awesome.

Yeah, man. Just love what your book, just what it represents and what you're trying to achieve. You did read the book. Absolutely, man. You weren't a big reader in high school. No, it was not. I wasn't either.

It was fun. It was a trip. down memory lane. Yeah. And I love how you just, you talk about what not to do. Yeah. As much as what you've learned. Yeah.

Some of the mistakes can be avoided. I agree. I'm a reflection of some of those early mistakes and that's why I loved reading it. So it's awesome. Well, thank you, me too. I mean, that's kind of why I wrote it is just because somebody like me or you ends up, you know, doing pretty well in the business game, you know, boy, it could have been easier. Yeah.

You know, it could have been so much easier. So this hopefully will help them, as will yourself. So why don't we start with the traditional first question of, you know, you went South Carolina. How did you end up getting into sales? And why did you pick Tellman as a first company? Yeah, I had no idea what I was really going to do when it came to it. I ended up talking to a gentleman who I respected and he was going on to law school. And we're having, we're just having a beer.

And he was, Hassel, you would be awesome. sales because I was talking about law school and I know you kind of worked around that same thing that same path but that that wasn't going to be for me and he says man you have so many friends and you know everybody and you're easy to talk to and you've got it you know you get up and go and get after it so he could be great in sales and that was really the first time somebody that everybody said of a career You know, the first time I got taken back and went, you know, John, you're right. I mean, this John Scarborough.

Yeah. But I said, you know, I hadn't thought about that. Thank you. Yeah. So that's what kind of put the seed in my head. And then later that year graduating, you know, there was a young company. My next-door neighbor happened to be worth BMA, Builder Marts of America, and they had just started this tailman. and that's who I knew and so I went an interview.

And so who was that, the neighbor? It's a Bud Stoner. Stoner, okay. Yeah, okay. Was that on Fairview? We were living on Hathaway Circle in Green Valley. So here's a neighbor out there in Green Valley. Okay, okay.

Cool. Well, it is amazing. And again, part of the reason for the podcast in the book is that worked out for you. But what if you weren't living over there at Havilley? I don't know. I mean, you know, and I've seen more young people, you know, very qualified, hard work and squared away young people. And they're like, my next-door neighbor, you know, did, you know, worked the textile mill. And so I ended up getting a job at a textile place. Right.

And it hadn't been so good. Right. It wasn't quite the hot industry you got into where I got into. So I just think the more they can do at the beginning. And again, I wasn't a good homework person to begin with. So I'm adding homework to these poor people. but what can they do to do more homework on what is available? What are they good at?

What are they like? You know, and try to figure that out. Well, early on, I showed you these strengths and weaknesses. And maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that. But,

you know, I think you've got to look at a couple things. When I just recently made a career change, and I looked at the, what kind of culture did I, of a company did I want to get into? Yeah. Was the timing right for that end?

industry where we are right now? Did that company have a great net promoter score? Because maybe my last experience, they weren't good at service delivery and customer service. So I didn't want to go through that again. And then is the leadership. You know, that goes around culture. But that's how you want to hang around.

You want to hang around winters. And I was thinking about coming in this morning. You know, do you, is it, what's better to not. have the Super Bowl ring or to have the Super Bowl ring and maybe play on the winner. Maybe you didn't play first ring. And I would say playing on a first ring team is going to get you a lot further in life. And so picking that right company that matches up to your strengths and get after it.

Don't be afraid of making an error. Go for it. You'll learn something along. the way, you'll learn either what not to do or maybe you'll get a mentor that can mentor you for life. And that's basically what I got in many ways. Well, I think that's great. So Ted wasn't sure what he wanted to do when he kind of explored the sales thing. He's like, that's what I should do. I don't want to go be a lawyer. And then you found a very good company with this neighbor of yours who you trusted and you got into what turns out.

to be a wonderful opportunity. So that's kind of how you did it to get in the first place. Exactly. And one of the first people I met after I got into Tell Man was David Hudson. He goes, what are you doing here? How's? I said, what are you doing here? Well, he'll be on the pod before long. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. Don't you worry. And so, let's walk through for the nubes kind of what it was like when you started, what kind of work you had to do, and maybe even that three-month review you were talking about or four-month review when you almost had to get a new career. Correct.

Correct. Correct. And then how your role changed over the years? Because I think one of the drawbacks, not drawbacks, one of the head trashes people have about sales is I don't want to just be a salesperson my whole life. And you've been manager, vice president, president, you know, you've been all these different things, but I bet you've always been a salesperson. Yes.

So walk us through that. Well, I mean, my role was in telecom sales. we were selling long-distance services and I had to go out and cold call get in your car go knock on some doors see if I could find out who the decision-maker was to change from AT&T to our services and and presents some prevailing some evidence as to why they should do that and and close and so we had this need satisfaction process to which we were taught which is lasted forever for me and it was great

It was fantastic. What I lacked was the daily discipline. And when I didn't have the greatest first manager per se that was coaching towards the daily discipline. And once I got the daily discipline, that's where things really, really happened for me. I showed up. I thought you could read the paper like my boss was doing. And then go out, make a couple calls before lunch. and then have a lunch and then a couple calls after lunch and then that was your day.

Yeah. That's not the day. Yeah. Your lunch, your day starts early and prepping. And making sure you know who your accounts are. You create a list, a hit list, of who you want to have as your customer or what you think may fit. And then you charge after it. And you may take, you may be making 20 cold calls, not four. That's a big difference. Four and 20. Yeah. But you had to have some. somebody in your life to point that out.

And so when I was, my first two months, I had a whopping two sales. And my, my leader, Layton Cup, but she came down and said, hey, you're getting ready to get fired. You know, we all like you and everything. But this is not working out. This is not college anymore. It's not your girlfriend. I like your chapter in the book about, you know, the timing on things to happen in your life, you know. And so he goes, you got to get together.

Here's what you have to do. Here's your strengths. Here's your weaknesses. The weaknesses are great. They're still my same weaknesses that they are today are from 1984. But it gave me a path to work on something. Read more. Learn more about closing.

Learn more about sales, et cetera. And so it changed my life. It set me up on goal setting. And you're the wagon wheel of goals around financial, spiritual business. personal, athlete. You know, being in shape,

physical shape. And that's to stay with me in my whole life. Now, I'd say on to your latter question about the roles that that played

in my success, I love sales. It's sort of what I naturally do. But one part of my career was going into operations.

And I thought sometimes at looks like, hey, he went backwards. And financially, maybe it was a backwards move. But it positioned me better than anybody else out there who had not had operations background. So I spent four years in operations, service delivery and customer service. And I did great things. We developed account management strategies.

We created a churn predictor tool. It really changed the way we did business. and thought about business and account management existing customers. But I was the only, we talked about the disc models and some of these other models, I was the only eye in the room, full of Cs. But I used that and it became, hey, he had wild success there as well as its sales. And so when the opportunity came up to become a president of a region, I had this knowledge, I had the internal, I knew what down the line sales,

meant after the process. And it elevated me in the company and it served me extremely well. Great point. So the point is, if you're kicking butt in sales and rolling along and you get a chance to go sideways and do something a little bit different,

it might be what elevates you over the other sales. Yeah, I mean, you talk about the long-term view. You'll talk about your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, your 50s. And I would argue that anybody who you talk about them starting off in sales, maybe that's not where they end up, right? Yeah. But if you do start in sales, you will learn the company.

They'll learn the ins and outs. You'll have to deal with customers. You have to deal with people. The operations experience was interdepartmental. So I created a wealth of influence in the entire company, not only on the sales, because they all knew me, but so did the operations people. When if something they had to get done, I was that bridge between operations and sales to get that done. But that serves you well.

I think if you want to become a CEO, sales gives you that experience to touch on all those different divisions within the company to be able to do that. Yeah, I agree. A lot of CEOs that were salespeople, that's for sure. A lot of them. A lot of them. That's a good point. Let's talk about the Colby for a minute. Sure.

Everyone here knows about the Colby test, colby.com. You can go take it and it'll show you your natural strengths. Right. And I'm sure there's other ones out there, but that's just the one I've always used going back from Bill Lee days. Got me using it. But Ted took it and it was 635 something, 635 something, 6 3, 5 something. something, 6354 maybe. Yeah.

6354. So the three on the follow through is the interesting number. It's the same number I have. It just means that we are naturally not gifted at like doing the homework. You know, doing the tasks,

getting the proposal finished, getting the paperwork done. I mean, I'm telling you, I told you earlier, Ted. I mean, I used to like get everyone, get all these people that are interested in like, okay, I need to do this proposal later. Then I'll get another one. There's another one I got to do.

And it was really bad. It was so bad that my partner, instead of firing me, he hired an assistant. Exactly. He did. And he fooled me. He was like, I think we need her to help organize the office. But she's going to help you, too, John. He's going to help you too.

So I think he knew I could sell. Right. And then I needed help. Yeah, and who doesn't, man? I mean, I think salespeople are naturally gifted at getting stuff off the ground. Right, right. That 80% of the energy and the fuel to get a rocket off. Yeah.

But that last 20% you can't get the rocket still won't launch, right? Get to assassination without the other 20%. So to me, the beauty of the Colby is instead of, I used to beat myself up about it. Right. Instead of doing that, I recognize that's just the way it is. It is. And I'm just going to need help. Right.

Period. Right. Let's get it done some other way. Right. And that's one of those weaknesses that you work on, either or you get more help. You get people who are great at it. Hey, I can get this going, but I need to delegate this. And I think one of those great skill sets that you can learn over time is when you have an opportunity to delegate. A lot of people want to do it all. But having this skill set to be able to say, hey, I'm not the greatest of this. And here's your opportunity to prove yourself, young man, young lady.

I need this to be delivered by X time frame and delegate it. And then you can now, now you're starting to see some of the strengths of your team and maybe where they may fit down the line for a future opportunity. So that skill set of being able to see what your weaknesses is and maybe delegated to somebody, a younger person as you get some experience and management role. It's a great opportunity to help. I agree. Colby's a good, there's like 10 pages worth of advice on the Colby results, so I suggest everyone gets it. It was fun to take. I'm glad you took it. It was different from me.

Thank you for the leap of faith there. Tell us about some of the good decisions that you made along the way so far, just the good ones in terms of making you more successful in the world of business and sales. Right. Well, I mean, I think it all starts with mentors. I mean, for me, I had the blessing. of having two great people, Layton Coverage and Charlie Houser in my life, that cared about me. Yeah. And they did those strengths and weaknesses. They kept me accountable to those goals. They may have even provided me with other outside of work influences that have a positive impact on my life, either physical or spiritual and been helpful in wanting for me to do that, right?

But having a leap of faith sometimes is a difficult thing to do. You mentioned your book, Traveling Early in Someone's Career. I thought that was awesome. I mean, I was young. I opened up a market every six months throughout the Southeast. Got on airplanes. I was in charge of the Northeast and Midwest. And then at one point in my career was asked to go, you know, leave the familiar and go,

let's go live out west. in Denver for 10 years. And be a president of a region and be a leader. And be the only person that you know in that space. And sometimes you just got to say, let's go for it. What's the worst thing that can happen? Yeah, I may make a little bit more money. But if it's not about the money, what will I learn?

Who will I meet that could impact my life in a positive way? And I think that speaks well. I think early in your career, it's a great opportunity to do that. But I think late in your career, take a chance. Let's see what may happen and see how it shapes your life. Yeah. And it was a positive experience for me. Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's, most of those stories where people are like, I had a chance to do something that was, I wasn't sure when they took the chance, it usually worked out. One way or another. Always. It shapes you. It shapes your life. And it shapes.

Again, I think networking is such a key component about success. Yeah. And people always say, hey, always be closing or whatever it is. I think always be networking. Networking. I think connecting the dots, especially later in life to help people. You can only do that if you continue to network or get to know somebody new. Yeah.

And in Denver, for example, when COVID hit, I was having a coffee every week with somebody. Somebody I never knew. After that coffee, I'd ask him, you know, who else would I meet? because I don't know people in the landscape of Denver. He goes, Ted, you love talking to so forth and so on. And I'd go get a coffee. Wow. Well, and COVID, well, I kept those coffees going virtually.

And it was great. You know, it was just amazing what network I started to develop out there that I continued to have. Yeah. But networking, I think, connecting the dots, helping people bring them up. Yeah. And knowing what their skill sets are to position them to put them in front of a John Sterling for a high Yeah. That's awesome.

That's great. That's a good point. Networking, huge. And I would say networking on a schedule like you, like you said, once a week versus just networking. I think you're having a process in place, you know, one a week, two a week, one a month, but something other than just networking. Right, right.

Now, I don't want to go negative, but are there any things that you did that they shouldn't do? Like you need mistakes early on that kind of... Yeah, when I was reading your book and I just make large notes on a page, you know. And something I've learned again for the first time here recently, it's not about you. It's just not. Yeah. Right.

Any conversation is not about you. It's how can you bring value to the person you're meeting with? Yeah. in business, in life, or whatever it may be, it's not because when I went through a career change or not too long ago and was doing networking, finding out what's my next season of life looked like. Well, they didn't know the tell man story,

the CTG story, all that, New Vox and all that stuff. They didn't care about that. They cared about can this person in front of me, help me get my company where it's going. And so I think if news knew what their strengths are and listened a lot more to what that person's needs are, which is all what selling's all about, is just can I help them with this problem, right? Can we find a solution?

But can we figure out a way where this person adds value to my organization and where does he fit or where does she fit? And if you know what your strengths are and you're listening to the person and say, here's where the gaps are in my business, here's where I'm having a difficult time. And then finally you can say, you know, I've got a good skill set with that. Here's an example of how I helped in that organization to get them from A to B. Then you can say something. I've got an opportunity I think I can help you.

Yeah. You can use a third-party example. When I saw this here, this is the same. same thing maybe could help you. Exactly. I mean, my current, for example, my current roll I'm in, I took a coffee. Scott Millwood called me up. So can you take a coffee with this guy?

I met him playing golf. Well, he got halfway through. I knew the playbook. I said, I'm not giving you any more names. I think I'm your guy. And so, and here's the reasons why. And so that's why I'm happily in the position and rolling up. Cool.

I didn't know that. So it's awesome. Well, I'll give you an example, Ted, of what you just. Ted just said, basically don't talk about yourself. If you're in a sales game, don't talk about yourself. And, you know, if you have some grand accomplishments in your past like I do and like Ted does, these wonderful things, state champion, 1978. I mean, he's got some great.

But as soon as you say them, just next time you say it, look at the person you're talking to and they'll be going, you can say anything. You can say, I won the Super Bowl. He said I won the Super Bowl just two years ago. And I tell you when I hear it, it occasionally I'll watch NFL football. Not that much, but occasionally. And about once or twice per game, the announcer, the color guy, he'll be given to so-and-so.

He's dropping back for a pass, whatever, third and two. And the guy will say, that reminds me back in 1984 when I was playing for San Francisco. And to him, that's really important. But everyone who's listening is like, shut your pile. Right. We don't care. I think we live in a world can I cap you?

Yeah. You're not listening to the individual sometimes when you're talking and just have a casual copy because you're waiting to jump on them and say, I can beat that story. Right. Wait till top.

And you've already stopped listening because you're ready to engage. But I think some of the secret sauce to sales is to throttle back and listen. And I think listening was part of the things I had to learn to do early on as I came in with, you came in with a game plan. You told him wouldn't the game.

plan was going to be. You knew there was a period of time where you were just going to be asking questions and listening and taking notes and asking the question, not answering the question right then, just taking the notes, going to the next question. Because you only had a certain period of time. And that time management was a big component of being learning about success. You only had one hour. We can go in there and we talk about football all day long and you got five minutes left in the appointment. What happened? Nothing. You have to manage your time through the process and make sure to get through all your points, listen to what the customer's saying, recap, see if you have a solution, and move forward.

Well, do you have any examples of head trash, things that you at one time believed, but it's a certain point realized was completely false? Yeah, right. Well, I mean, I think early on, again, pointing towards early in your career, you're coming out of college, you've got a great GPA like I've got. a full of confidence, you know. But you're out of school, right? And you're ready to get your new job.

And sometimes you just don't know if you were worthy enough. You know, here you're sitting in front of a person who may have been in a role for a long period of time. Yeah. You are not a subject matter expert at that time. And now you're putting a position to say, hey, you need to have our services or, you know, how can we fit, you know, your needs? And you're not sure whether you have the right solution or the right product or what the competitors look like. So you don't know where you stack up. So your confidence is a little shaky coming in.

You get more confidence, you know, the more you're out there, sometimes you just need one win, right? I mean, the value of having some success leads to success. But I think that's shakiness and uneasiness. confidence in oneself early in the process. You have to earn that over time. But the faster you can do that, the faster you can have some success in whatever you do. That makes sense? Yeah, it makes sense. Makes perfect sense. I have one last question. What's your favorite word? Super duper. Super duper. That's what I thought. Super duper. Well, Chad, Super duper and joy. Those are my two-fait. So thank you for being on today. We,

I and the Noobes, we both appreciate it. Well, I hope I've helped, and it's always a pleasure, John. Thank you, buddy. Awesome. Take care. Thank you. All right. Hey, is 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.