Noob School - Episode 68: Reunited with an All-Time Winner: Jennie Shaw

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, John catches up with a long time friend and fantastic sales person: Jennie Shaw. Watch now for great interview tips, and to hear about her time at DataStream, becoming the Vice President of Sales for TriMed, and even training surgeons on the implementation of their medical devices. I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got a long-time friend and one of the great all-time winners from Data Stream history, Jenny Shaw. Welcome, Jenny. Thank you, John. Welcome to board. Good to be here.

Good. Glad you're here. Finally we got you here. Yeah. I know. It took a while. All the way from Atlanta. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're here. Jenny, we'll start at the end and we'll go back to the beginning. work through it, but Jenny, you have a job as VP of sales for Trimed, which is selling medical devices. Yes. For what joints? Extremities.

What is that? Breaking your wrist, your elbow, your ankle. We sell the implants that they put in, something that you don't want. Yeah. But you necessarily need. Yeah. Yeah. So you have a team that sell.

those, what's your territory, your area? My territory is the East Coast. I was on the West Coast for a while and I came back to the East and I'm all the way, Maine, all the way down to Florida. Okay. And how many reps do you manage? So we work with distributors for the most part. And I've got two direct managers that work for TriMed underneath me, an associate regional manager also that's in the southeast. And then probably I'd say, I'd say, say there's about 25, 30 distributors who have their own groups. Some may be a one-man show. Others have, you know, four or five people. Right. And so your, your, your, your parent company is in Sweden, right? It's actually in California. Oh, is California? I'm sorry. Yeah. One of your

owners is in Sweden. It's Santa Clarita. Yes, we have three owners. Okay. And one of the owners is from Sweden. Okay. Lars. Yeah. And then we've got two brothers, one who's, uh, the, the hand surgeon, that helped, they all three founded the company together and then his brother, who kind of runs the office and the CEO of that. In California. Yes. Okay. Okay.

Santa Clarita. Okay. So they design and manufacture these devices and you and your team on the East Coast, sell them through distributors to hand surgeons and shoulder surgeons and whoever. Orthopedic. Yeah. And so I remember when you, you know, just got out of Furman.

And I remember you telling me, when you got your job as an inside sales rep that you wanted to be a head of sales one day, and you wanted to work with an international company and get international travel. I didn't say I wanted to. I said I was going to. I didn't get quite that international,

but I do travel quite a bit. Well, plus you might do more of it later. But anyway, for the most part, you've done exactly what you said you were going to do. So congratulations. Thank you. Yeah. You helped me get there.

Well, I, maybe at the beginning I did, but you, you, you've done the rest of it yourself, for sure. So anyway, it makes me feel great that you've done what you wanted. And did you feel like you had to get out of the software field to do that, that medical would be easier for you? You know, I mean, it was an interesting road. I knew that I wanted to make money. Yeah. And I actually started, I was a political science major, so my first job was working for a politician, a well-known politician up in Washington, D.C. And I spent a few years up there and came back to Columbia, South Carolina, working for him and then said, okay, I need to.

I've been selling a, he was old at the time, 96 years old when he got reelected. Yeah. I said, I've been selling this person the whole time. I know I can sell some software or anything, basically. that you give me, you know. And that was my first opportunity. It was coming to data stream and selling software. Okay.

So backing up even further, as I recall, you're from Aiken? Aiken, South Carolina. Yes. And what high school did you go to? Aiken High. And who was the principal? Who was the principal? My father.

Your father. So how did that go? Well, it went well because I knew how to be discreet with, some things. I may have gotten biggest party animal, but I was also most athletic. Okay. You know. You did it all. It went well, yes. My brother, not so much that came after me. He got caught more. He got caught a little bit more. Yeah. I was smart about things. Yeah. And then you were obviously a great athlete, particularly volleyball. Did you look at any other schools besides Furman? I did. I did. And I wanted to play Division I, which Furman's Division I. Which, Furman's Division

one. At the time, I guess it didn't realize Title IX also happened that year. So it was an expensive school and I had a little bit of an academic scholarship on the side too to go there. I was looking at smaller schools in South Carolina and my parents also gave me, you know, the option to go to Carolina Clemson if I didn't want to play. But I was determined to play. I was determined to get a scholarship and do Division I. Thanks to Title IX. I didn't know. I didn't realize that. until 10 years later that that was what gave us the extra money to pay for my scholarship. Additional scholarship money. Pretty much a full ride.

Yeah. And how was the, how was Furman? Furman was wonderful. Okay. I never saw myself going to a small school. Yeah. You know, I imagined something bigger, but I'm grateful for that and the friendships that I still have and the opportunity, you know, the education. I don't know if I could get in now.

Yeah. But, I mean, it was hard back then, and it was just a great opportunity to play sports and get paid to do it and go to a, at the time. I mean, my education ended up being $100,000 by the end of it all. So it felt like I accomplished something with that. Absolutely. Yeah. And how was your team? We were good.

We won the Southeastern Conference. Nice. My sophomore or junior year. Yeah? Yeah. We were good. We're decent. That's still good.

That's awesome. And what did you do with your summers? Well, my summers, I did various things. I usually went back to Aiken. And I worked for Strom. I worked for Strom Thurman, the senator. I mean, pretty much if you know he is, when I said, 96 reelected. But I worked for Strom Thurman for a couple of summers, just trying to get, you know, something on something going.

I had to actually, you know, we were required to train during the summer. Yeah, right. We didn't have a coach there to train us, and I never had to work out on my own. I joined a gym, and they gave us, like, a routine of what we were supposed to do. So that was really, I think, it was a job in itself playing volleyball. And my parents didn't tell me I had to get a job during the summer because they knew I was working hard throughout the year that I liked money, and I wanted to make more money. Yeah.

And I may have bartended one summer, too, and a little dive place. during the day. So you would go back to Aiken, train, and work somewhere. Yes, yes. Okay. And then after college, with your political science, you went to Washington for a couple years. How did you hear about the data stream opportunity?

I came back to work for the senator in South Carolina. And at that time, you know, I was making $18, $20,000 a year, which sounded great when they offered it to me until I realized what taxes were and all that good stuff, you know, that you have to pay out of your paycheck. I still have my first paycheck saved, framed. And I got back to Columbia, and that's when I started looking around,

and I met, I knew Brian Eden's from Furman. He went to Furman. And he told me about it. I was trying to get back to Greenville where all my friends were. I just love Greenville. And he said, you should go interview with this company data stream.

I mean, people are doing really well there. I work there. So I went there and got an inner, he helped me get the interview. And the rest was history. Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. It's a good point for, you know, business owners is, you know, I probably never would have found you or it not from the other people we'd already gotten that were a little bit older than you, that were really good people that would bring their good friends in. You know, that's just kind of happening.

It becomes a magnet almost. And HR doesn't have to do a whole lot of work if you're pulling in saying, hey, you need to come check this out. This is a good place. So that happened a lot after a couple years of getting good people. And it actually happens in my industry too. Does it? To a degree when we look for people or hire people. A lot of people ask me how to get into the medical device industry and I say network.

You're starting at the right place right here right now asking me that question. Yeah. and you just got to be aggressive about meeting as many people as you can. And so that's, I mean, that's how we find people, good people. That's a good point. We talk about that a lot. We'll get more into interviewing later. But, you know, so many people will, like, have an interview, let's say, with TriMAD,

and then just say, well, we'll just see what happens, where they could be completely surrounding you with, you know, trying to talk to other people with the company and finding people that, know you to put a good word in for them and all the things they can do that will help them sell themselves and get a job right it doesn't happen by the book no no it's messy really about how who you know you know at the right time right place and that's a lot of the way sales works yes yes so all right and so you were working at data stream you started inside sales what was your first territory. Do you remember? Canada. Canada. I had Toronto all the way to Vancouver. Yeah.

That's a big, big swap. So I could come in a little later. That's good. That's good for you. Okay, so you had Canada. And who was your manager? My manager, Alan. Alan Gantt. Yeah. I feel like I had two managers. Chris. Beard. Chris Beard was my first manager. Okay. And then Alan Gant. Okay. Oh gosh, I don't have Chris, forgive me for that. I forgot it the first. Yeah, Chris Beard.

Alan Gant was the second manager, yes. That's awesome. That's awesome. Chris Beard was wonderful, too. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He's great. Still a good friend, yes. And what did you learn about selling in those first couple of years? Well, I think you guys did a great job with, you know, coaching us on asking the right questions, knowing your audience, who you're talking to, because I enjoyed just talking to these

Canadians, you know, and they were, they were all different and I was very interested in what it was like up there. I mean, I had the travel bug back then, and so that was, that was, that was a fun thing for me, and, but having the set of questions that you needed to ask and, and the product knowledge that you had to have, I mean, that's one of the most important things, the training that goes behind it all and making sure that you know where you're going with your conversations, which you help me with that. You attempted to help me with that. But, I mean, I learned how to ask for a sale and close the sale.

Yeah, yeah. It was a new world. And then what happened? Did you leave after a couple years? It was a great experience, and I feel like I had a few stepping stones. I look at every opportunity I had. had throughout my early career or stepping stones to the next thing. And obviously I wanted to travel and go big.

But I knew I had to put in the hard work and the time to get to that place. And so I really wanted to be outside. And telecom was big back then. And that was the thing, you know. And I ended up, I knew a few people that were in telecom that owned some telecom companies and so I ended up getting a job in telecom doing outside sales which led me to a different telecom company from there and at that point I really pharmaceuticals that's what a lot of people were doing and it was the the cool job yeah you know and you had a car and all these benefits yeah and so

I went after that through through networking again and I actually got in I got an offer I was going to have to move to Greensboro to do this, take this job. But at the same time, I ran into a good friend in the grocery store who was doing independent. He was in orthopedic sales. And he said, hey, hey, wait, no, you need to get into this instead. And he's like, unless you really want to just do lunches and get signatures, I mean, we actually sell and we close deals and not that pharmaceutical sales reps don't sell. But I wasn't going to make as much money. I wasn't getting the benefits. I was a 1099. working for three different distributors. But I went and tested it out.

I didn't know if I could handle being in the OR. And at first it was a little different. Yeah. But it was tangible. The sales were tangible. And I liked that. And so I ended up taking that job. And I lived paycheck to paycheck without a doubt for a while.

And then one of the lines that we carried gave me an opportunity. I was hoping to get it on the East Coast, but it turned out to be on. the west. So I sold my house and moved. Yeah. 34 years old. Wow. That's awesome. And so you had your chance to, I mean, we always knew you should be outside. I mean, you need to be outside moving around talking to people.

I'm not an office cubicle person. Right. You're not a cube person. So we got that done. And you had a great next move out west. And then you eventually got to come back east and you're running the east coast now. what's it like or what have you learned about managing salespeople? I think it's fun. Okay. You know, it's, well, I try to make it fun.

I love, I love meeting people. I love building relationships. You know, they're all different. Everyone's different. And I don't, and I can't, you know, you may have someone that comes in and strikes you as being that person. And they may not turn out to be that person. And, you know, it's kind of a risk with whomever you hire.

Right. And sometimes people surprise you. And that's the fun part. Yeah. But that everyone's got different personalities. And you have to be able to gauge how to respond and react and to train and mentor those personalities. Yeah. And so that's constantly something that I work on improving and learning from and taking that to the next.

Yeah. But I think you have to learn how to treat people differently based on their strengths and their weaknesses. Awesome. And so when you're interviewing somebody, what are some of the things you look for that you have to have in order to consider hiring them? When I'm interviewing someone, I think that you have to be punctual. You need to show up on time. Yeah. And I think appearance is important.

the way you put yourself together, the way you carry yourself. Confidence. Confidence is great. I love someone that's played sports, the competitive side in there. I like to see a little bit of that. And I think they, someone who's memorable. Yeah. You know, you want someone that you're going to,

someone that's going to strike you with some things that aren't necessarily related to how they're going to sell and do well and their work. ethic and all those things. But you want someone who was able to carry a conversation and tell you interesting things about themselves and ask those questions. Yeah. Because I want to get to know you and I want to remember you. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, someone, somewhat interesting you like to have on the team. And driven. Right. I've been surprised sometimes on the upside by introverted people, people that aren't, don't seem to be that interesting or not that gregarious. but they just keep getting through all the hoops

and they pass the Colby and they can be really productive, just not a whole lot of fun. You know, they're just kind of doing their job. So like you said, it takes all types. They do it different ways. Yes. Huh, okay. Is there anything you noticed like right off the bat

when someone walks in that might just turn you off and say, I couldn't hire this person? I mean, certainly being late would be one. Maybe someone that can't lick you in the eyes. Can't look in the eye. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Someone that may be disheveled to a degree. Yeah. Question their abilities. Right. You know, lacking that confidence. Those sort of things. Yeah. Yeah.

Or just overly confident. That's another problem. You've got to be just right in the middle. there. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of the things are things that are absolutely in the control of the person, being on time, looking nice, look at someone in the eye. I mean, they're all things they can just do. So if you don't do that, then I guess what we're saying is we're pretty sure you're not going to do anything worth a darn. And I think that, I think, too, there's some people that talk too much. and that's a problem in sales

because your customer doesn't want to hear about your daily life and your weekends necessarily unless they know you unless you've already established that relationship I like it when someone asks me a lot of questions when they're prepared and they've got questions and they want to know what I do

what we do on a daily basis what's it like what's it like that's important Yeah. I think that's a good one too. That's a good one too. People have done their homework, done some research, talked to some other people, maybe talk to some competitors, just anything that shows. You need to know what you're selling. Yeah, you need to have somebody. And if they don't need to know it inside and out, but that's where they should ask questions about it. They need to know the products. And you typically are in the, how often like in a typical month, how many times are you in the operating room? Not so much anymore in this role.

I spend a lot of time in labs. We do a lot of cadaver labs for training for academic programs. You know, I still cover cases here and there. You know, as a sales rep, that's all you do. And in management, I think you do, you know, it's good to. I mean, I think it's, you hurt yourself if you don't get in the treads. and do the daily grind and you still learn there's there's never time that you don't that there's not something new to learn yeah in our in our roles so but not as much in the actual OR.

Well that's good you kind of worked your way out of that. Well, I mean that I don't know if that's a good thing necessarily. It's just I'm busy doing other things when we're traveling and we do a lot of meetings in the labs. I mean I'm spending a lot of time in hospital. but it's more on the training side with the surgeons. Right. The young surgeons.

Isn't that's amazing that you're in a lab training a surgeon on how to use your product? That's pretty crazy. Well, they're in training too. I mean, but you're training them, right? Yeah. And it's not so much how to do the procedure as it is how to use your equipment and your devices to implant for the procedure. Okay. But there are tips and pearls and certain things.

And we bring in, I mean, when I say we're training, we have a surgeon that we usually, a guest surgeon, that comes in and teaches. Okay. And one of our owners of our company, that's part of his role. Right. So they're learning from someone else, and we're just making sure that, you know,

everything goes smoothly. Yeah. You know, because we know how to use the devices. But I wouldn't be able to tell you how to, I couldn't, with my hands, go in and do the whole operation. Right. Well, you probably could if you, you know, put your mind to it. Parts of it, yes.

So I remember, you know, again, back when you just started and you said you wanted to run a sales team and you wanted to be an international traveler, tell us about some of the places you've gone overseas you really like and maybe some of the places that you want to go to. With work? With work without work, doesn't matter. So I think I mean, with, I do spend a lot. lot of my free time, my vacation time, I like to go overseas because I really think that's the only true vacation you can take because we're on call 24-7. I mean, our phones don't stop. I mean,

surgery doesn't stop. There's, there's, even on a holiday, you know, so when you go overseas and you can really disconnect with just vacation, I try to, I try to do that as much as I can with that time. But with work, I've gotten to go to one of a great trip that I took pre-COVID was China. Yeah. We started a distributorship. We brought on one in China, and I got to go trade them. And they don't know any English.

I don't know any Chinese. We had an interpreter. But it was great. And I made so many friends. And they're still working with us that particular group. That was a wonderful experience. I've covered some meetings. that we've sponsored or helped sponsor in Bermuda.

I've won in Italy. That was a great trip. And I've got one in Greece this summer. So I'm getting to do some international tooth through my job. That's great. Yes. That's great. Well, I'm proud of you because you're doing exactly what you set out to do.

That's wonderful. So tell us, Jenny, what's your favorite word? Well, I think I might have. have a few. If it pertains to sales, I probably like the word sold. Sold. That's a good word. You know?

Whether you're on the selling side or the side getting sold, you want to hear sold. Yeah. That means you've reached an agreement. I love the word serendipity. Mm. Okay. I just, I like saying, serendipity, the way it rolls off your tongue, but I like the feeling of serendipity. And I think

that life, there's a lot of serendipitous moments that we don't embrace or realize, you know, everyone that you meet, every situation you're in is, there's a reason behind it. It's meant to be. Whether it's good or bad, it's meant to be to take you to that next place. So I think that's another favorite word of mine. I love it. I love it also. And I think you're examines. I think you're of the person in the grocery store that led you to Trimed, you know, that was a serendipitous moment. Yes. And the difference is, I think a lot of people, they show up in front of them and were

in such a hurry that we just scurry right by it. I think you just have to slow down and when you engage with somebody, just stop and talk to them for a second, you know, and listen to what they're saying. There might be something there. I mean, and I think it's even like that when you're in the sales side too. I mean, you might see someone who you don't think it's an influential person that has anything to do with what you're trying to sell or what you're trying to accomplish. And it can turn out that person is actually the decision maker. One of the owners of our company, you would never know that he was the owner of TriMet if he ran into him hanging out at a meeting necessarily until you talk to him.

You know, and like, oh, okay, you know, the way. So I think everyone's important. Yeah. Whether it's for your own personal gain or benefit, but in general, someone's got something to offer you or they needs to hear something that maybe you have to say. Yeah. What do you think, what's your favorite word?

Absolutely. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I love absolutely because I like to be able to, you know, I want to hear commitment that we are going to do this. We're not going to try to do it. Maybe it's like, absolutely, we're going to do this. That's awesome.

Yeah. What do you think, what's the most powerful word you can use? I think, you know, determination is a really powerful word. I think with determination, people can accomplish, you know, wonderful things. And, you know, our old leader Larry Blackwell, you know, he, that he, his word is determination. I don't think I'll ever get him on the podcast, but his word would be determination. He was just so determined to make data stream a successful company. We all just kind of like, all right, if you say so, I guess we'll do it.

You know, we kind of followed right along with him. So, yeah, that's my word for Larry. You know what I think is a powerful word? Tell me. John. John, that's a good word. I mean, you're talking to somebody. Uh-huh.

I think knowing their name. Yeah. Using their name. I think that's one of the most powerful words. And I think that pertains a lot to sales and knowing your clients and knowing their families, you know, their children's name, you know, learning, learning those things and using their name. Yeah. Is strong. Yeah.

I agree. Yeah. And I think people, knowing even in the smaller scale of things, you know, when you're working in a hospital, you know, when you're working in a hospital. It's the people along the way, like you mentioned, you know, the janitor that may work in the hall or the woman that runs the OR and knowing a little bit about them and taking the notes to be engaged and to really pay attention to those things because that's building the relationship. Right. I agree. I think that, you know, looking eye to eye using the other person's name, you know, all with the intention of getting them to get over that. that line where we're going to be on the same side and we're both trying to accomplish something together. I'm not trying to, you know, trick you into buying something. I'm trying to help you solve a problem. You've got to believe that. Now we can do something. So that's great, Janney. What other

questions do you have for me? I've been interviewed before. What's your least favorite word? Oh, can't is my least favorite word. Or no. Yeah, that was the only word we didn't allow our children to say was that they can't do something. Yeah. Can't allow that. That's true. That's a good word. You certainly don't have to do something, but you could do it. It's possible.

Yeah. Never say can't. Say can. Can. I think I can. Is there anything you want to promote? Maybe some hiring or something you're doing? Well, we're always looking for new sales reps along the way.

Okay. know, you're never too young or too old to get into this industry. So if anybody wants to come work for TriMed, you can email me at Jenny Shaw. Jenny Shaw at TrimedOrtho.com. Yeah, we'll put it on the screen too. And what kind of person would that be? What's your ideal hire? My ideal hire is somebody who is willing to, that doesn't expect to make,

you know, $100,000 right off the bat, but know that within time that you can build up to a good, decent level of whatever you really want to do with it. And you've got to be willing to put in the work and the studying and all that goes behind it and the time. You know, it's like playing a sport that you've got to be putting in the time on it, on the field and also off the field. Yeah. You know. To be ready.

And pay your dues. Yeah. But someone who's memorable. Yeah, memorable. Well, you're memorable, Jenny. And I want thank you for making time for us today. We finally got you on the podcast. We'd like you to come back.

Absolutely. Another time, and maybe we'll do some more. You interview me next time. Okay. I love that. Thanks, Jenny. Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

Good job. Thank you. All right.