Noob School - Episode 46: Selling To Save Lives with Bill Haun

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

In this episode of the Noob School podcast, our host John Sterling talks to Bill Haun, a Channel Partner Manager for ZOLL Medical Corporation. Bill, who has been selling the company’s defibrillators, trauma kits, and more for almost 30 years now talks about finding something to be passionate about in what you do, and how a life threatening and career-ending sports injury led him to medical sales.  HIGHLIGHTSWhat it's like to sell for the same company for 27 years We need to have more defibrillators around How a football injury led to a career in medical sales Just be the best version of yourself Don't leave an email or text after 5 PM People leave bosses, not jobs You need to be passionate about the product that you're selling Get rid of your head trash  QUOTESBill looks back at almost three decades of selling: "Being in a company as long as I have, it's been a curse and a blessing. Blessing that we do awesome things, [we] save lives everyday. A curse being, I see more death than I see loves saved."Bill talks about his passion for the work that he does: "I'm very passionate about what we do. At the end of the day, if you're not passionate about saving lives, then I don't know how you get up in the morning. I've been offered other jobs in other industries and what not, and a lot more money here and there, but I wake up every day knowing that I'm doing something for somebody else that may not see me." Connect to Bill in the link below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-haun-05309725/ Connect with Noob School and John by visiting the following links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnsterling1/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnsterlingsalesInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/johnsterling_/Twitter: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_TikTok: https://twitter.com/johnsterling_Website: http://salestrainingfornoobs.com/

We had 7% market share at the time. We were competing against the giant, and, you know, we followed them and branched off and become a little bit better. And then they would catch up, and then we'd branch off and become a little bit better. And over the last 28 years, we've added over 20 companies since I've been there. So they've moved me around about five or six times. And kind of like a Lewis and Clark sort of guy, you know, here grab the axe and start chopping it down. You're ready to go. And then they put me somewhere else.

But I've been blessed to be there 28 years. It's kind of a curse and a blessing. in the same place for a long time. There's a lot of HR manuals out there that I can say, I knew about that. But anyway, it's a great company. We started like just under $30 million, and we did $2.7 billion last year.

Welcome back to Noob School. This is where we interview successful business owners, and we dial it back to the beginning and figure out what they did to make their revenue grow. All right, well, welcome back to Noob School. This week we have... Bill Hahn. Bill is with Zol Medical and Zol makes a very important product I would say. Won't you tell us about it? Well, this starts my 28th year with Zol. I feel like I started when I was,

I was 24 years old and you know two years out of the Citil selling surgical equipment in Alabama and came to Zole in 95. Dr. Paul Zoll is the first man ever externally paced the heart paste the heart in 1957 and externally defibrillate the heart as well. He won the equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize for medicine and kind of a shorter meek man and didn't want it to be called Zol Medical. It was ZMI Technologies at the time. In the late 80s started at Cambridge, Massachusetts with four guys at a cocktail party, raised about 800 grand. And then I started in 95 and we'd go around pacing ourselves and, you know, saying it was tolerable to do it externally. And then we added a a defibrillator with it and then you know we did away with paddles and just went pads and just

kind of we had 7% market share at the time we were competing against the giant and you know we followed them and branched off and become a little bit better and then they would catch up and then we'd branch off and become a little bit better and over the last 28 years we've added over 20 companies since i've been there so they've moved me around about five or six times and kind of like a lewis and clark sort of guy you know here grab the axe and start chopping it down you're ready to go and then and they put me somewhere else. Yeah. But I've been blessed to be there 28 years.

It's kind of a curse and a blessing being in the same place for a long time. There's a lot of HR manuals out there that I can say, I knew about that. But anyway, it's a great company. We started like just under $30 million, and we did $2.7 billion last year. Billion. Billion, yeah. So these things, to break it down, I mean, these are the things we see on the wall that say AED on them, And people use them to defibrillate people that are in cardiac arrests or something like that, right?

Correct. You know, it's apples and oranges where you're talking about sudden cardiac arrest versus a heart attack. Yeah. Right. Sudden death is 387,000 people a year. You know, Hank gathers, limb bias. They need to be defibrillated in good CPR. And those two guys weren't.

Is that right? They were in sudden death, so they were dead. And then no one got to them in time to zap them. or do good CPR, correct. Okay. And so a heart attack is your conscious is plumbing. You go to the cath lab, you get a balloon in, a stint, or scaffolding, and we re-vascularize the heart. But you're conscious the whole time.

Sudden death, you're really dead. You need good CPR and to shock them. So we also make them for ambulances, helicopters, and crash carts and hospitals as well. So I've been on that side, EMS side, and now I sell through what we call it. force multiplier to I sell through distribution. So I have about 68 distributors within two states that sell for me. So, you know, the better I train them and the better understanding they have it, you know, I can sell rubber dog shit if I have enough people selling it. So you now, your current job, this is a very cool thing, you're very important thing you're

selling, and you've got 68 different distribution companies that you work for you, basically selling these products. Correct. So they have other products and my goal is to get them to focus on mine as much as they can. And I'll give them bluebirds every now and again. So I'll run across a Citrograd. They'll have a company and they'll buy 30 here, 30 there. And I just assign it to a distributor. And they just all of a sudden just get a nice sale.

Just to make sure everyone knows what a bluebird is. I bet a lot of people don't. A bluebird is when the rep, sales rep, in this case, Bill, someone says, hey, I want to place an order for a bunch of these units. And Bill doesn't want to sell it direct. He wants to sell it through his channel. So he decides who I'm going to give it to. And usually that's going to be someone who's been working hard for you, I imagine.

Or maybe a Citadel person. Right. Or somebody I want to get started, right? And, you know, I hate to keep a favor file, but those are good to keep. And I say, why didn't you give me this? I was like, well, wait a second. I gave you this one and this one. So you got to, you know, I don't care of my kids fight as long as they're fighting for my product for the same deal.

Right. So, okay, so you sell these devices. And like, just, I'm just curious, when does a company or a business have to have one on premises? Well, the AHA says that, you know, they should be in every public building, right? And we're starting to put them a lot in police cars. So in the last three fiscal years, you know, last year I sold 1,800 to North Carolina Highway Patrol through a distributor. So every day, every day. North Carolina Highway Patrol car will have one. 18 months ago, we sold Georgia. We did Florida and Alabama. So, you know, my philosophy is where you live shouldn't determine whether you live. So, you know, if we get them in police cars and things like that, because sudden cardiac arrest doesn't discriminate, whether it's a new friend, mother, father, brother, sister,

you know, we want to get them back into taxpaying status, right? But so as far as government recommend them, it depends on the state. Like in California, any job site over $50,000 has to have an AED on place. But that's California. So currently, just to understand kind of level set where you are today, you've been with the rise of this company from relatively startup to almost $3 billion a year. You're selling something really important. And it's probably just growing, right?

I mean, eventually they'll be in most homes, I would think. Yeah, 70% of sudden deaths happen at home. But they're unwitnessed typically early in the morning when you're supine or laying flat in the bed and you get up and blood rushes. That's typically when it happens and they're not around at home. There is a market for it. But again, if it's unwitness, nobody's there to use it. So it's not going to be, you know, if you don't have a spouse there or somebody to witness it, it doesn't matter. So I'm asking for a friend, but if there was an older gentleman getting up in the morning,

Should they kind of creep up out of bed? Yeah. I mean, hey, when it's your time, it's your time. Hopefully there's a defibrillator there, you know. I mean, why don't more people have that? What do they cost? Like the entry-level home version, what does that cost? You're looking at a state contract level, about $13.50, $1,400.

So for that much money, you can have something at home that could save your life or your spouse's life. Why don't more people have them? Well, we actually make a wearable defibrillator. Okay. one that you wear and monitors you all the time. And it was shocking within 40 seconds. And that's typically post-cardiac arrest. And I was fortunate to be on that team.

And we started that team. We added Life Corps in 2007. We bought them, I think, for $7 million. And it was me and two other guys. And now there's 65 regional managers, 475 reps, and does about $800 million a year. Right. And so you wear a defibrillator when you have an MI or a heart attack, and your heart has a chance to remodel.

Think of it like a cast on your leg or your arm. As your heart remodels, you know, you have a chance to have that ejection fraction pushed up. So like a woman that has a baby, sometimes their ejection fraction falls down. Back in the day, they would put an ICD in them, a $90,000 box. And two weeks later, her ejection fraction would be 70,

and she didn't need the box. So it's kind of a bridge to an ICD, and you rent it from us. So $3,000 a month, and you give it back and we rent it again. So it's a great model, about a little over 70% margin. Well, it's a fascinating subject. But it saves three lives a day. Yeah, it's fascinating.

I'm glad you're in it. But for the sake of the noobs and for the sake of selling, let's back up to when you got started. Of course, we all know from your shirt you went to the Citadel. Yes, sir. Great choice. How did you choose the Citadel? I'd still be a junior if I went to,

Clemson with like three masters and two PhDs and my younger brother's a PhD and a lawyer and but no I chose to sit will play football and but that ended real quick I ruptured my spleen after the fourth game okay steak night trying to block a field goal got speared and cracked two ribs collapsed my lung ruptured my spleen a little bit off my pancreas and I was in hospital 31 days And this goes back to why I chose sales is the surgeon I became really close, Dr. Bobby Cathcart. And he was our team doctor at Citadel. And I want to go to medical school. He goes, no, Billy.

He goes, do you like to fish and you like to play golf? You're going to go into medical sales. And I'm like, oh, okay. And as luck would have it, a medical sales company did come through the Citadel recruiting. Yeah. They're only going to hire two people. And they hired the two people and they didn't hire me. And I went down to University of Georgia and I was going to enroll in their MBA program.

and mom calls me and says, hey, you got a FedEx package. You got the job. And so I started with American Hydro Surgical May 13th with three Siddal grads, 14 of us, 14 from West Point, six from Monapolis that had just got out of the Gulf War, and then four experienced medical sales reps. And we were there seven weeks, took a test every day, maybe below 90 on the test. You had to take it again. If you failed it, you got sent home.

And then they said, you're going to Houston, you're going to Dallas, you're going to San Francisco, you're going to Chicago, they sent me to Mobile, Alabama. And that was, I'll never forget it. I moved to Mobile, get in my apartment. I go to Walmart, I buy a 27-inch TV, a blow-up mattress, and two plastic chairs, right? And I don't know if you know about the weather in Mobile, but it rains. The drops are about this big. I turn on that TV and, you know, no cable work.

You know, I lean back of the chair, both legs break. I sit there like this and tears just rolled down my eyes like, I what have I done? eight hours away from home, but it was quite the experience. And we were selling laparoscopic instrumentation in the OR. And we went from 500,000 to 13 million, and we're bought for 51 million. Nice. And I got wind of it about two months before the sale and came to Zol. Okay.

So, and then I started with Zol in 95. Okay, so just backing up a little bit for the sake of the news, you had an event happened in college, a physical event in the football field. to kind of expose you to a doctor and kind of he exposed you to medical sales and what could be possible. And you got interested in that. Which, again, I talk about this almost every episode, but that's very important. The people that I see that are the most successful and happy, happy being part of success, they have some reason to be where they are. Right.

You know, they didn't just kind of, well, I got a job, you know, selling yarn or something. I mean, they have a reason to be there. So you had a reason to be there, you got there. Did that company just hire people from military schools? The first company did, right? It's Cameron Brooks is a military placement top 2%. And, you know, they kind of did a crapshoot with the Citil guys. And they put us in Tallahassee, New Orleans, and Mobile.

And subsequently, one of those went on to go into Buds for Navy Seals. And the other one went into Secret Service after they got bought. But I went on to Zolt. Okay. So how did you, so, you? You had a good experience, even though Mobile was tough getting started. You learned kind of how to sell an emergency room or the OR. O-R.

And you liked medical sales. Yes, sir. And so how did you get this old job? So a recruiter called, and I wanted to know who the best reps were in the country. And so she gave me those names, and I called them. And they asked who I was interviewing with, and they told me exactly how to talk to him and what was important to him. And I remember what that guy told me. I said, what did you make last year?

And he told me. And I'm like, heck, yeah, I can do this. And he actually was in the territory where the manager was the rep. And so the manager came and I missed the first interview by an hour because I was on Alabama time and not Georgia time. So that was – and I called every Greg Williams in the book and wrote thank you letters to every Greg Williams in the book. But I got another round to come back in about – two weeks I walk in to Columbia airport for an interview and and I just start laughing. I'm like, I am so sorry. He goes, sell me this pen. You know, that was back in 95. And I looked at him and I was

like, well, what are you like in a pen? And he's like, holy cow, like I answered the question that nobody seems to get right the first time. He goes, come with me. And we don't even sit down for an interview and we go on a call. And it was this Calhoun County EMS. And there was, when his Zol sold in this whole state, and he did this most impeccable demo, and they're like, oh, you know, really hot and ready to buy it. And right at the end of the meeting, I said, do you know anybody else like-minded, like y'all that would be interested in this? And he gave me three more EMS director right there, and that just sealed it for him. But two weeks later, he's like, I can't believe I hired you. But God bless him. He passed away at ALS, too. So the surgeon that got me

into medical sales.ALS. So he saved my life. The guy that gave me life to save lives. Dot ails. So it's just a horrible disease. But Greg Williams, you know, thinking about that yesterday, the 28 years, it's a tribute to him. Wow. So, and those guys that I told you about I hired, they were hired by him as well. So I've hired 11 people and nine are still there. And they all live in Greenville. So it's pretty cool. It's cool. There's something about that story that I've seen, you know, happen before is you obviously, when you showed up to talk to him and he said something about selling the pen, you weren't nervous, you just kind of, you just you were yourself.

Right. And then when you went on that call with him, you had the guts at the end to ask for some references, which he didn't tell you to do. And I always tell people when you're on these interviews to be the best version of yourself and don't worry about it. Because if you don't get this one, you're going to get the next one. I mean, there's so much opportunity, particularly to be an employee these days, that you should be yourself. And that way you'll find that Greg Williams connection.

Right. Right. We're not just looking for just a job. You want that connection where they're going to get you in kind of your quirky sense of humor or your gutsiness or whatever and want that on the team. Yeah, he did. He was probably our much trusted guy and just an awesome. individual. Yeah. Well, your man, Rob Greer, you know, was one of the first Citadel cadets we recruited. And one reason I liked him was he was coordinating with me to come recruit on campus.

Right. So he was my contact. And then I get down there and he's the first guy who signed up for an interview. And I'm like, aren't you the same? He goes, yes, sir. And he'd asked me all this questions about the company and our future and what I was looking for in a cadet. So he already knew the answers to the test. And so I was just like, well, you don't need to interview. Here's your offer. We'll take you. Because I knew he was our kind of people. He's awesome. I love Rob Greer. I always thought the world of him. Yeah. I've known him since the little summer camp. So I love Rob. Was that before school? Oh, yes, sir. You know, like six, seventh, eighth grade. Yeah. We go down there for three weeks. and I think we all vowed that we wouldn't go there,

and then we all ended up there. That is the weirdest place, man. It's crazy, crazy place. Well, tell us some of the mistakes you made as a salesperson when you were starting out. Some of the things that you would say, don't do this. Don't leave an email or text after 5 p.m.

Okay. And, you know, I say that and chuckle. And that's why, you know, being at a company as long as I have, it's been a curse and a blessing, you know, blessing being that, you know, we do awesome things, save lives every day. But a curse being I see more deaths than I see lives saved, you know. I've seen great people leave bosses and not jobs. And, you know, those are the things that really haunt me is I hate losing great people. And, you know, my CEO would say, why do they leave Bill and then want to come back? And I was like, well, Rick, they leave people.

They don't leave jobs. And so, you know, leaving emails and text is kind of after 5 o'clock has not boded well for me. What does that mean? Give me an example. I'd be present in one of our divisions if I didn't leave text in emails after 5 o'clock. Because you're what? Angry. Well, yeah, emails terse.

You know, it's emotional first, rational second. You know, I recommend if you write an email, read it first, read it to your spouse, read it to your best friend before hitting. send. I would recommend don't CC everybody and their grandmother. And I've been known to do both. So now I barely turn on my computer. So I'm an old school guy. And my new manager came on board. He goes, how can I help you? And I was like, give me a secretary because I don't do this, this, this, that well. He goes, hey, man, I need you to enter the calls. I think I said, I was crystal clear when you ask me what I did. But anyway. I like peer-to-peer selling is I think it's the best way to sell as far as, you know,

mistakes I've made in the past, you know, selling capital equipment, the common mistake is, is not trusting what you've done and what you said to make an impact, right? Because when people buy capital equipment, they don't buy it every other month. They buy it every seven, eight years, right? So they only meet about it maybe twice or three times a year. So you've got to hope that what you did made an impact. And being a complex sell, it just don't really rely on one person. you've got to rely on several people that are making the decision.

So you've hired a pretty good amount of people in your time and you'll hire more. What are you looking for when you get contact or do you get a resume? How do you hire people? I think the old cliche is, you know, the best predictor of future performance is past performance, right? You know, I like hiring people that I know from somebody else. It's hard finding somebody that you don't know about. I think that's a southern thing that I tend to lean on. I tend to go with people that are recommended by other people.

And I'm very selective in that regard. So I'm not in a hiring position now, thank goodness. They asked me if I wanted to go for a role. And, you know, when you're managing people, you're managing their problems and their business problems and their personal problems. So I got enough on my plate. So is it – what would you like to hear from them when they interview for the first time? What are you looking for? You know, the big thing with me, and it's kind of an overused word with me, I think, is passion.

I'm very passionate about what we do. And at the end of the day, if you're not passionate about saving lives, then, you know, I don't know how you get up in the morning. And that's, you know, I've been offered other jobs and other industries and whatnot and a lot more money here and there. But, you know, I wake up every day knowing that I'm doing something for somebody else that may not see me. So just to paraphrase that, you want to hear that someone's got some passion about what it is. that y'all are selling. Correct. Right.

And we talk about that because, I mean, you had the passion because of your experience in college, other people might have the passion because they like hunting and fishing or they like, you know, computers or they like whatever they like. But they want to get into something that's of interest to them that they can then sell. Right. And be in business. Right. And, you know, if you can sell, you can sell our stuff.

I mean, it's, you know, it's all about hustle and, you know, but sales is not. natural. I mean, I think it's something that you have to work on all the time. One thing I learned in the Citadel is you showed me a satisfied person. I'll show you a failure, right? And that haunted me too. But at the same time, there's a lot of fact in that statement. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think every day you're either moving, you're either inching forward or you're slipping backward. Right. You know, and if you, if you've quote unquote made it, that's discussed one of your most dangerous times, right? Because then you start slipping backward. Right.

Because you think you're already there, and there's no there. Yeah. Euphoria is what we call that. So I love to talk about head trash. Do you know when I say head trash, what I mean? You know, things self-doubt. Yeah, self-doubt. Yeah, self-doubt.

I mean, things like, you know, I'm too old to start this business, or I'm too young to start this business, or I've got too much education to do this, or I don't have enough education. Right. And I just find it fascinating. how we all have this head trash that's been given to us by the people we grew up with, maybe our parents, maybe the church we went to, maybe our school, maybe what we watched on

television. Who knows where we hear these things, but we start to believe them. And I wonder if you had any head trash that you had recognized so far that you said, no, no, I used to believe this, but it's not true. Well, you know, a lot of times, you know, grass looks greener. And, you know, maybe I've had people say, you need to go into software sales and, you know, you could kill it, Bill. And the thing about that with me is I would always be looking over my shoulder for a better widget, right? Or somebody that put, you know, semicolon, smiley face, semicolon, and leapfrog my technology.

As far as head trash for me is, is, again, trusting what you've done. And that because the universe is so big out there, what you can capture is I would rather fill the funnel with as much stuff as I have. And, you know, we use this, Marcus used this word all the time with the band, organic. But the best, you know, to me, the clothes is kind of anticlimactic to, you know, what I did at the beginning. When I get that beginning, I enter them in the funnel. I know the clothes is inevitable. And the more people I put it to the funnel, these things would just trickle out and eventually. start flowing out.

And so I think the head trash is, you know, sitting on your hands and not, you know, like, you know, I write thank you notes a lot. Yeah. You know, and little things like that that make you different in the capital world. So, because you're not there every day. And the ones that are every day are, you know, air, you know, they just, they bug them to death and they don't want them there. Right.

That's a great head trash. That's a great. Again, I see that a lot where people, they're looking for some magic potion or some magic thing that they can think of or do to make the sales easier. And really what they've got to do is find the prospects that are interested, stick them in the pipeline, start the process. Just do that every day. Right. You'll be a great salesperson. Okay.

What's your favorite word? Faith. Faith. Yeah. Wonderful. Primarily because it's been redefined. this belief in something that has no proof. And my faith is evidence-based in what I sell or what I believe. And I'm willing to debate that with anybody. Great. Well, you've done so well since the

Citadel Days in 19, graduated 93. Yes, sir. If I would have met you, you know, we know each other a lot better. Oh, yeah. Because I would have hired you to say any of Greer's friends. But you've done great. And what you're selling is, in fact, saving lives. And I think that's wonderful and I hope you keep doing it for a long time. It's been fun. It's you know having my my friends that have that have come in and done so well as you know my my my best friend just got to be president of our division. I mean this guy, you know, I call him a ditch kid done good. He started to you know, grew up in a trailer, you know, didn't go to college. Ran a Hardy's when he was 18 years old and my senior V. Preach said, bring me great people. And man, this guy is just shot to the moon.

I just couldn't be more proud. And those are the things that make me proud is seeing other people succeed that you had a part of. Good. Well, we're here at the Noob School. Appreciate you. Glad you came today. I appreciate it.

Maybe you come back sometime. Yes, sir. So maybe see us again. We'd love to. All right. Now, how did you know Archie? How did you meet Archie? Of course, he's a Citadel grad.

He's been on the podcast. Okay. And he, Sunlon, was a customer of our Foxfire company. Okay. The Fox Fire Company makes software for warehousing. Oh, yeah. And Arch was a great customer, and that's how I got to know him. Okay.

He's done really well. And his wife, Sarah, used to work for Datastream back in the day. Oh, wow. She was one of our inside salespeople. Now, you know her father-in-law was. Yeah, Pappas. I like Pappas. Yeah, I love Alex, her brother, too.

Yeah, I don't know him. But I remember watching some footage of Ike Pappas, who was on the CBS Evening News, I guess. He was on 60 Minutes. I mean, when they perp walked Oswald before Ruby shot him, he said, did you shoot the president? He was the guy? He was the guy? Oh, yeah.

That's pretty cool. Well, it's a small world. Sure. Thanks for coming, and we'd like to have you back sometime. And we'd again, appreciate what you do. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Yes, sir.

All right.