Noob School - Episode 69: Nate Manning of Life Sciences

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, John is joined by a "relatively new friend" in Nate Manning. They discuss his start in the sales world, and the transitions throughout his career, providing some excellent advice along the way. From how his opportunity to study abroad at a young age impacted him, to the differences between selling tangibles and intangibles, such as software, you won't want to miss this one! 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. Welcome back to Noob School. Nate Manning is here today. Nate is a relatively new friend. I know most of these people are my old friends, but we're relatively new friends, and there's a story behind that. We should have been, we should be old friends by now. Hindsight's 2020, but from my perspective, absolutely.

I know, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Nate is a professional enterprise software salesperson, and he's been with just a a couple of companies. I know you were with N4 slash data stream for a while slash what did it turn into? Hexagon. I think it's hexagon now.

And then was with JDA, which is a supply chain company. Retail and manufacturing, NCR, another retail company. And then did about three and a half years at Salesforce. People've probably heard of that. Some of the nubes

heard of that, I'm sure. And then off on my next adventure as of about a week ago, a company called Model N that does revenue management for life sciences companies. Okay. Well, that'll be good. I assume that's smaller than Salesforce. It's a little bit smaller than Salesforce. Yeah.

When does Salesforce get started? Do you remember? Yes, it's about, I think it's 21 or 22 years old, so late 99, probably. A lot of them came from Oracle and they had this, you know, kind of, there's an apartment in San Francisco, you can go see it that kind of started in the backbedroom of what CRM could be and also what could be done in the cloud. Right. Yeah.

Which, hey, look, Datastream was doing that a long time ago too. That's true. That's true. I just think it's amazing. I mean, and again, this is partly for the noob schoolers out there. You can look at an industry like software, and by 1999 or 2000, there was plenty of really, established CRM packages out there. Microsoft had a very popular one,

and Oracle had one. Onyx. Onyx, yeah. Onyx, yeah. And damned if they didn't just start a brand new company, and it comes bigger than all that stuff put together. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, and I think a lot of it, they had a relentless focus on the customer, both not only their customers, but the end customer, you know, it's a B to B to B sales model. And so the B to B to C, the C part of it, they never lost sight of that too. So as they grew and as they kind of went to market, and even to this day, you know, the customer's really at the center of everything they do. I think that has a lot to do with the success.

And then, you know, from a technology standpoint, they definitely hit the cloud at the right time. They did. If you remember, I think back when they don't do it anymore, but it was, I think their number was like 1-800 no software. And their logo was a cloud. Yeah. Yeah. They were going to eat.

They were going to eat all the software. They pretty much did. I mean, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Well, what a great, I mean, what a great experience to be with that company and some of the others already. But backing up to the beginning, did you grow up in Greenville? I grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. Wilmington.

And I came to Clemson in the fall of 1990. and I've never really left. So you came specifically to go to Clemson, and how did you pick Clemson? Well, the funny answer that I tell everybody is that I got in. I applied to a few schools, and Clemson was the one that accepted me.

I had a couple of friends from back home that had been in Clemson. Look, it was Southern school, good football team, great weather, great area of the country. Yeah. So my parents literally put me on a plane in August of 1990, and here I am today. Yeah. And you had a good experience.

Had a phenomenal experience. It didn't start. It started out a little rough just because I guess, you know, I was on my own and, you know, I had some friends here, but not many. And getting used to a little bit of a difference in terms of, you know, culturally and different part of the country and all that. But, yeah, about, you know, after a month or two. quickly realized that I could see myself spending the rest of my life in this area. In this general area, yeah.

Wow. I spent some time in Atlanta, but it's only two hours away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Cambodiccant, and what did you study there? Marketing. Marketing.

Yeah. Measured in marketing. Majored in marketing. Okay. And I spent one extra semester, so I had an extra football season. That's nice. for a little tip for all you noobs out there, maybe stretch it out once in a year. Yeah.

If you can. I would add to that, take a gap year up front and then take a year abroad or at least a semester. So I did, I was very fortunate. My parents, in between my spring semester and my last fall semester, my parents sent me to Europe for about 12 weeks with a year or I'll pass. And I just had a backpack and bounced around. I had an aunt and uncle that lived in Paris at the time. That was kind of my home base.

But yeah, now that was, I mean, to this day, I mean, just unbelievable opportunity. But I did an internship. So that's another thing that would highly encourage. And that was in, there's a company out of Clemson that owns, at the time, it was like 30 or 31. Now it's probably in the 50s or maybe even more Wendy's restaurants. So Wendy's franchisee. So I interned there in their marketing department. And so got some real world experience there and graduated, spent a couple months waiting tables,

and then got my first real job in Greenville, working for a staffing company downtown Greenville. Okay. Godshaw. Still around today. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you were helping place people.

Mm-hmm. Okay. Where's their office? At the time, it was directly across from the Chamber of Commerce Building downtown. Now they moved up the hill to right across from University Square where all the city county offices are. Yeah. I thought that's where it was. Yeah.

I thought that's where it was. Okay. And what did you, well, back up to Clemson for a second. You were in a fraternity there? I was. I was a pike. I knew it. I knew it.

I thought you must have been. There are, I'm not the first one to sit in this chair. That's right. That's right. Some similarities to a few others. Yes. Yes. Yes. But that, another recommendation for people is, and maybe it's not a fraternity or sorority,

but getting involved in campus early on really establishes the foundation of your professional network. And that, you know, 30 years ago, I'm still, and even outside of my fraternity, there are still people that I met in different organizations at Clemson that I'm still close to today and rely on. for advice or opportunities or whatever and vice versa. Yeah. You never, you know, I have a son that's a freshman of Clemson right now. And above all the other pieces of advice that he gets stuck with from me is, you know, you're starting your network right now.

Yeah. It's great. You're a fraternity. You've got your friends from Greenville. That's awesome. But, you know, take opportunities to meet people outside of your current circle. Yeah. and really begin to expand your current circle because you never know.

You never know. I so totally agree. I don't think we ever talked about that before, but I did a horrible job of it at my school. I went to Citadel. And, you know, they say you had this great network from the Citadel in some cases you do, but not if you don't know anybody. I played basketball down there. So I kind of, my mindset was kind of like, well, I'm just going to try to get through here, play my basketball.

and I didn't take the time to go join the other clubs or do the debate club or some of the things that I would definitely do now. Yeah. But the more interested brain that I had then. But I think, you know, you don't have to be the president of the French club, but you can just be in the club and go up to every other meeting. And who knows you might meet? Absolutely. And to your point, it's a good balance, or it is good to balance it between, you know, athletics or social, academics. charitable organizations, things that give back, or an FCA, you know, religious-based or faith-based, mix it up as well. And, you know, you're never, I don't see how you could ever regret expanding your network,

meeting new people from different backgrounds, and really, you know, building relationships like that, because it's very easy to do in college, let me tell you. But when you're out into the real world and the working world, you know, you've got a bunch of barriers and whether distance or, you know, different companies or whatever that may prevent you from easily going up and creating a relationship or starting a conversation. In college, you're all in the same boat. You know, you're all, you're all newly kind of left the nest and you're kind of apprehensive about what the future holds. And everybody's kind of feeling that. So help each other out and start, you know, start building your relationships that are going to last, really, for the rest of your life. Yeah.

People you can count on. Or not even, you know, people that you may only talk to them, as we were saying earlier, once a year. Yeah. But you could call them if you need them. Yeah, I know. You know, like I said, you know, Jefferson, I call Jefferson right now if I need something. Right. He would answer the phone.

Right. But there's some of those people we see once a year at the parties. those relationships were established, you know, back early on my time in inflor. But even beyond that, you can go back, and especially in college, it's a great opportunity to do it. Don't miss the opportunity because it's really when it's going to be easiest. It's going to be easiest. It's not coming again, that's for sure.

And, you know, you never know who you might be able to help. I mean, I'm sure you were a very popular guy on campus and you're very gregarious and nice guy, but some of these people don't know how to do that. So if you can be kind to everybody, you know, you never know how that might help somebody. Yep, I totally agree. And even to this day, you know, I had an opportunity at Salesforce to be in the Salesforce mentorship program. Yeah. And so that was about two years ago.

I'm still in regular touch with my, they call it a mentee, but really, it's now my friend. And then I'm also involved now. Clemson has started a sales. innovation. They call it the SIPS sales innovation program. And so it's essentially an academic track for people that are interested in sales. They do things like go to competitions and they go and they do internships and job shadowing and things like that. So I just signed on to be a mentor. Good. So I got this will be my first semester doing that. Yeah. I mean, I think a little bit clichéist, but going out and whatever you do to help somebody else out, I firmly believe that

comes back to you twofold or more in some way. Maybe it's not that person that's going to do it. But put that out there in the world. I would put that out there in the world. Yeah. And I would add, again, this is just what I see with my own eyes, but the people who take advantage of that, let's say in college and they join these groups and they have a good network on campus, when they graduate, that just continues with the rest of their life.

They've already learned how to do it. They've built that muscle. And it's very normal for them to say, I'm going to join Toastmasters now. Yeah. Or I'm going to join this or Rotary Club or whatever. Whereas the people who are more timid, they're a little bit like, that's kind of a big deal. I'm not sure I want to do that. Who's going to be there?

They kind of talk themselves out of it. So I think another reason it's a good idea. I totally agree. And I think, believe it or not, so I would have considered myself, especially when I started college more of an introvert. And I think that you can do some kind of self-help. Not that everybody has to be an extrovert at all, but if that is something that, you know, you kind of see yourself trying to push yourself to be a little bit more outgoing, clubs, you know, groups, these, these opportunities in college are a great opportunity to do that. And by getting involved and by kind

you know, working towards a common goal with other people, you're just naturally going to kind of come out of your shell a little bit. Yeah. And so not only you're helping somebody else out or, you know, you're putting your efforts towards a positive outcome, you're also helping yourself become, you know, more extroverted, more confident. Right.

And so I'm just can't say enough about starting a network early, building it and really kind of putting yourself into it. Well, last thing on the subject for me, for me anyway, But when I graduated with the Citadel, this guy won the contest for most well-rounded cadet or something like that. And he'd played a sport, played baseball, I think, and he was involved in the military. And he did this. He did four or five things. And I was really kind of disappointing myself.

And all he did was just show up. He wasn't the best in anything. He just literally was involved with four, five, six things. It was a good guy. And I could have done that. But I think I was just, I let my head trash make me lazy. Yeah. You know?

Yeah. I love your term head trash. I used it. I've heard it a couple of times. You know, don't let, don't let yourself be the only person stopping you from doing something. You know? I mean, why would you, you know, it's tough. I mean, a lot of people are naturally reluctant around certain things like that.

But you make such. great point. Like why, you may be the only person stopping you from achieving something. Right. So you take that out of the way because you're in control of it. So go do it. Go get it. Yeah, go try it. Yeah. Go try it. Well, okay, so after Clemson, you waited tables. Where's your wait tables? I waited tables at Farmers Hall in Pendleton, South Carolina. Okay. It's that place right on the square in Pendleton. Okay. Awesome restaurant. It was another great life experience because it was a husband and wife owned it. And the husband was the chef and just an amazing cook.

And I really kind of developed a greater love for food out of being there too. Yeah. It was a good experience. Yeah. I mean, I've never waited tables. Yeah. But I hear from people that it's a great sales teacher. I think everybody should weigh tables at least once in their life.

It teaches you so many different things. Definitely sales. but it also teaches you humility. It teaches you how to deal with difficult people. It teaches you how to, you kind of got to bring your A game no matter what. If you're having a bad day, you can't really let that kind of come out through your service

or else you're not going to get a good tip. So another big thing I always encourage people to do is go wait tables for a couple months. I would tell that, again, the noob schoolers, you know, if they're having a hard time, you know, getting the job of their dreams, maybe they could work, you know, wait tables somewhere that's near the job of their dreams. You know, if the job of their dreams is headquarters at Apple, for example, and you wait tables there in Cupertino.

Yeah. And just do a great job. Yeah. You're going to be serving those people who are going to be hiring you, and you won't have to go through the website. No. Right? Absolutely.

You meet the right person. They'll say, come see me on Tuesday. Absolutely. So, you know, there's more than one way to skin the cat. But I do think it's a good idea. If you got, you know, if you have the time, you don't have the job of your dreams, waiting tables ain't a bad thing. So quick story on that.

A couple years into my experience at Infor, they started the program called, they called it Green Beans. And so it was new college grads coming in and going through some sort of sales training. or a lot of it was just kind of grunt work looking up contracts and things like that. But one of the first, maybe the first, Green Bean, still lives in Greenville and still is actually in the N4 ecosystems named Allen Howe. He was a waiter somewhere in Pauley's or somewhere where the CEO at a house. And he learned how to make his martini. And he would start bringing him as martinis without being asked and just provide a great

service. and they started a conversation, hey, well, I just graduated from college, and I'm looking to do that, gave him his card, and two weeks later he was working at him for. Yeah. Yeah. Well, sometimes that's the way it works.

Absolutely. If you can get to the boss, you know, things can happen. Things can happen. They can make decisions. So you learned there, but you were looking for a better job. You got something at Godshaw. How long were you there? I was at Godchall for about five years, so like 2000.

And then had a great time there. It's a great company, great local. local company in the market. But I was looking for something a little more fast-paced a little bit, so I moved to Atlanta, and I got a job at what was then, Bell South in the IT group. I'd been placing technical staff at Godshaw for a little while and said, all right, well, I'm going to try this out. I wasn't a code or anything, but I went in to be a project manager and gradually kind of

worked my way up there and wound up working on the teams that in-eastern. If you remember way back then, there was a company called Singular Wireless that with the Bell South and Southwestern Bell SBC turned into and then ultimately came back to AT&T again, which it is today. But I was on the team that did the integrations of those companies. So I got to see a lot of cool stuff. I would go into markets and we would launch new retail stores or we would launch new call centers. And these are the combined call centers of all these different legacy companies, all their customers into one. So there was, you know, billing system conversions and point of sale and inventory conversions. And all of these really software platforms I was dealing a lot with.

And we would, you know, I was in my early 30s and I was doing fine. But, you know, vendors would come in and take us out to lunch or, you know, takes to play golf or whatever. And the vendor would come and, you know, pick me up in a Porsche or Mercedes or. or, and I was kind of thinking, you know, what's this guy? What's this woman doing that I'm not doing? And so my head started, you know, probably 2004 or five started, you know, I've been there four or five years and thinking,

you know, I may want to change this up. And you pair that with the people that I knew from the beginning at data stream and the success that they had had. And really the only difference is I was starting, you know, 10 years later than they were. But you're never too old to be a noob. Yeah, that's right. I think that having the desire and, you know,

the light switch gets flipped and, you know, you see something else you want to go do, especially if it's sales, go do it. You can be, if you're successful doing XYZ, I'm pretty sure you're going to be successful in sales because really more than anything else, it just takes the desire to go and to go and win. Right.

Well, you know, I'll add to that. I mean, you connected things also. You connected your, you know, you'd been in and around IT as a placement person, staffing person, project manager. You've been all around it. So when you switched over to sales, you had this specific knowledge that was really helpful.

Yep. The people like Bubba and David, they didn't have that when they started with it. That's fair. They didn't know anything. No, that's a great point. And that may even give you a leg up and make it an easy as an older nob that you're exactly right. I mean, that's just life experiences, but also the specific disciplines, whether it's IT or whatever, to go into sales in that. Yeah.

Absolutely. It makes it an easier transition. It does. It does. And by the way, just for the record, I think we would be best friends right now. if you'd have started when David and Bubba and those guys started. Because we'd have known each other all that time. Yeah.

And I kind of felt that way when I first met you. Yeah, and I'd heard a lot of Sterling stories. I was pre-qualified. I was pre-qualified. Yeah. So, yeah, you started, you started like right after we sold the company. Yeah, there was still, you had gone, I think there were still some, I think Dustin was still there.

There were still a few people that were still there. But for the most part, it was. It was in for, but we still would answer the phone. This is in for formerly data stream. Well, I'll tell you what, those people did a good job with the company, I think, just overall. It's amazing. You know, if you look at the roster of people that have been on this podcast and people that are in that kind of universe that have ties back to data stream, just the talent level and just overall success of. you know, that group of, I don't know how many hundred people.

Yeah. It's really incredible. And, I mean, you know, you take Microsoft or Apple or Salesforce or Google or whatever. I mean, you put that group against any of them. I agree. And they would be incredibly successful and hold their own for sure. I totally agree. Right here in a little old Greenville, South Carolina.

Well, we make some great people. Yeah. Clemson put out some great people, Wofford, Furman, and Citadel. Citadel. Those four schools are where we got most of the talent. Yep. But they had to be a little crazy. That's why you fit right in.

There are a few. So you switched over to sales, straight sales, with a software company specifically for a better opportunity. Yeah. And you found it here in Greenville and you had some friends there. Yep. Let's talk for a second before we get into that experience about just interviewing in general. The new school folks are always interested in what people can pass along about what they learned about how to interview better, how to get the job, what not to do, what you've seen

good and bad in the process. Yeah. I think a couple of things. I mean, number one is you may have five different interviews lined up. You're not going to be a perfect fit for all five of those companies. And so understand that from the beginning. And I think the next step of that is to those five companies, of those five, there's going to be a couple that want you.

So have confidence in that. And make sure that you go into an interview, be yourself. You know, don't try and be someone you're not. Like, don't try and put up, you know, I'm Mr. Superstar Sales. Just go in and be yourself. Maybe you are a superstar sales eye, but go be yourself and sell yourself. I mean, that's really what you're there to do. So, you know, the first deal you're trying to close is that interview.

Yeah. But be confident. Definitely do your research. I think one of the biggest and one of the easiest mistakes and easiest to correct mistakes is going into an interview and not really having a full idea of the company. You know, go read the 10K, the annual report. Just Google them and don't Google them. Google them for the news stories.

Google them for their competitors. Get a good picture of the company before you go in and it's really easy to do. You don't have to do it for two. Just take an hour and do it. Yeah. Yeah, have confidence in yourself and know your stuff and go in there and understand going in. If it doesn't work out, it's not the end of the end of the world. Totally agree.

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like it's a lottery ticket. It's like you scratch it off and either it's there or it's not. You know, it's like as long as you're yourself. And I also would say have some, be prepared to talk about yourself in a way that shows some sort of, value or some sort of result. You know, if you're coming out of college, we were talking earlier about the different clubs and organizations and activities, coming out of college, if you had a leadership role, or even if you didn't, even if you were, you were just a helper, not a leader,

talk about some of the successful projects or some of the successful events that you put on, talk about how much money you raise for charity. Again, very easy to talk about because you live through it, but being able to articulate that and the value or the result that you helped drive, very impactful, and it'll help you stand out. And then when they ask you toward the end, when they say, well, Nate, do you have any questions for me? How many questions is the right amount? I think probably three.

That's what I think. Yeah. I think it's three. Because you don't want to stay there all day. Yeah. And, you know, maybe you have five in your head. and something during that hour of interviewing will tell you what three to ask or what three might be the most popular or most relevant.

So yeah, don't overdo that. But definitely have a couple ready. I mean, I always, having gone through an interview process very recently, I think one of the easiest ones to ask is what do you think makes, what makes a successful salesperson at this company in your mind? You know, Mr. Sales Manager, Mr. RVP, Mr. RVP, what makes a successful salesperson? You know, can you tell me if there are certain traits that you like to see or certain habits? Yeah. And it, you know, it really opens them up because they're responsible for delivering successful salespeople, ultimately.

Yeah. And so, you know, get them talking and you'll be surprised with that question. Right, right. Yeah, and if they have no idea, then you might not want to work there. You know, they're just like, well, we just kind of, who knows. That's another great point is kind of as I was mentioned earlier, you know, you're not going to get every job and not every job is for you. But that's a red flag right there. If the manager that's interviewed, if you're, if you're not comfortable and they don't inspire confidence during the interview, I don't know what they're, you know, if you were to get hired there, I don't know how they're going to, in fact, inspire confidence in the job. I know.

Maybe you can take their job. Never and that's true. And so when you switched over to software, you didn't switch, you're already a salesperson, but you switched to software. What did you learn, what are some of the things you learned about the software business

when you ramped up there? Well, so unlike selling, you know, a car or selling widgets, you know, selling chemicals, selling whatever. Software takes a lot of hands to make it successful, literally and figuratively. I mean, you've got the developers that write it. You know, you've got the business analysts that kind of conceptualize it. You got the developers that write it. You got the quality control people to test it.

And then more importantly than all of that, maybe to the country. customer anyway is you have the implementation, you know, you have the project that actually implements it. Yeah. You know, it's not like where, you know, you turn on Microsoft Word and you go to type and you know what you're going to get and you click print and all that stuff, right? Software is a little bit of an open book, a clean palette, whatever you want to say. And so you have to kind of look at a sales opportunity holistically, not necessarily can,

or beyond just can the software meet the need of the customer? You really have to probe for what that actual need is and how it's going to fit and how you can make it fit and who do you need to involve to make it fit. You know, what kind of partner do you need? What kind of are they going to require customizations and integrations and all that stuff without getting too much into the weed? But all that involves a lot of different people and a lot of different hands-on. And so make sure that you go into an opportunity without understanding.

You know, you're not just... So you've learned in software since it's complex that you need to organize a larger team of people. Organize a larger team and leverage them. Absolutely. Partners, different people in the company. Yep. Interesting. Yeah, your internal network is as important as your external network, meaning your internal

people that work in the same company for you, but, you know, perform different roles. They are just as important as the people that are going to pay you. And you would think, you would think the noobs would think, you say, oh, well, I need this resource, I'll just hit this button. They're all people and they're all busy and they already all have something to do. So Nate's got to call them up and say, hey, you know, Frank, do me a favor. You did you to go to Philadelphia next week, you know, right? Yep.

And not only that, but, you know, you're asking them and there's five other people that might be asking the same question. So you better make sure you're good to Frank and that you're nice to him and you get him the information he needs when he needs it, how he needs it. Make it easy for him. Make it easy for him and he'll make things easy for you. And then when you get the deal, you've got to go to legal. You've got to be nice to him. Everything approved.

Listen, I didn't go to law school or sleep at a Holiday and Express last night, but I could, I can negotiate a software contract after years and years and years of legal because they are, an incredibly helpful resource and the more that you learn and the more that you can make things easy on them. You know, when a customer comes to you and says, well, we want you to completely waive the limitation of liability, you know, just don't even entertain it because you know it's not going to happen, so don't even go ask the lawyer. They can't do it.

Right. Yeah, they can do it. And so what were some of the differences between like Enfor is a big, strong software? company and Salesforce is too, bigger, even bigger. Or some of the differences between those two different companies. I think one thing that Salesforce does in particular really, really well, is, well, as we were just saying, the team that supports you, there are a lot more resources there.

And we expect that because of its size, but a lot more resources there. I think if you look at like a Salesforce or Microsoft Oracle SAP, some of the just the general, we'll call it name brand, name recognition, opens doors in and of itself. So that's one of the differences. On the other hand, I think one of the things that is the same is a sales process is very similar. among all of all of these large, even small vendors. You're still ultimately going after a prospect or an opportunity.

You still need to learn who they are and what they do. You need to not only match whatever your product is to their need, but more importantly, you need to match it to value. You know, you need to show them, yeah, it might save you time, but it's also, you know, it's going to save you, you know, an hour, a day per person times, you know, 200 people on your team multiplied by the, I mean, and you come out with a big number at the end, that's something they can get their head around.

Yeah. So the sales process and the sales steps and sales cycles are pretty similar. But I think the biggest difference among, especially the bigger companies, is just the sheer number of resources. Yeah, you have more help. What's behind you? Well, here's a question I've gotten from the, from the Noob Schoolers. We've talked to some reps in the past that talk.

talked about really big deals, $25 million deal, $100 million deal, $200 million deal. The question I get, the obvious question is, what do they get paid on that? And so obviously, let's just say you are the manager of the southeastern team, and you guys are selling a $200 million deal to a, obviously, monster global company. Yeah. And there's a big team involved. But you're the manager. they'll go sell it. How would the commission, first of all, what's the gross commission on $200 million

and how does it get broken out to people? So I just about all of these companies that we've just mentioned, they'll tell you, you know, they're uncapped commissions, meaning the more you sell, the more you make, there's no limit. Most of them, somewhere in the comp plan is a concept of a major deal a strategic deal where they will going into it. If they know it's a $200 million deal, they're going to structure, you know, let's say it was a 10% comp rate.

You're not going to get $20 million if you sell a $200 million deal. They kind of structure it during the opportunity and when you're getting to that point where, hey, this might really happen. Typically, they'll go through a process and they'll kind of dole out who's going to get what. Now, it's still going to be a significant amount of seven figures plus in a single check. So those kind of numbers are definitely out there, especially at some of the companies that I mentioned. And it's life-changing. I mean, it really is.

It could be, you know, if you're a 35, 40-year-old sales account executive and you close a $200 million, or a $50 million, you know, $50 million. dollar deal. A $50 million deal may net you, maybe a million, two million a commission. Your kids' education paid for. Your house paid for. Your life is drastically changed by doing that. And it's an incredible amount of work that goes into it. And there's also a lot more hands than the cookie jar.

But I would say at a deal like that, you typically are going to have a pretty good idea going into it and don't expect to make 10% of it, but expect to make a nice check. So roughly speaking, say 100 million, 10% is a nice normal percent rate for SaaS and software salespeople. Yep. So that's 10 million. Yeah. But if it's going to be a big deal, and I own the company, I'd say, hey, Nate, listen,

this is going to involve lots of people so we can't pay 10%. But we can pay 3%. Yeah. And we're going to pay 7% to somebody, the rest of the team. Yeah. So, okay. All right, fair enough. If you're going to give me all this help, yeah, because I probably can't win it by myself.

Right, right. And so you get $3 million. So I think that's a pretty good answer for the noob schoolers is, you know, 10% is the normal rate. If it's a monster deal, let's say over $10 million or so. Yeah. That normal number maybe $10 million? Yeah, $5 to $10 million probably depending on the company. We used to call it the Wopper Clause.

Yeah, Wopper Clause, you know, big deal clause, whatever. Most of these companies have it in there. And I don't think at all, I mean, nobs that are listening, do not look at that as a negative. Because you have to look at that as you just said, look at these people are going to help me get a $100 million deal. And they're going to put $3 million in my pocket. I could not make that $3 million if I were, you know, a chemist or whatever. Well, we had one before your time, but I'm sure it was still going on when you were there with the Miami-Dade people. And we spent, as business owners, we spent about a million dollars before we won that deal.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, literally, 500,000 was hard cost on legal, outside legal in Miami. Yep. And so, you know, the rep, who was Harrison, he never questioned a bit. Yeah. Because he's like, I see what's going on here, but let's, you know. But that's pretty cool. That's still a pretty good way to do it.

And, you know, you have to be in that business to get those kind of numbers, right? you have to be in the SaaS business. That's why you got into it. That's why I got into it. Right. And I had seen my friends, my acquaintances. I had seen, you know, David Poe, you know, had, I don't know if he ever closed a Whopper deal, but I know he owned his own house at about 26 years old when we were all, you know,

scraping $250 for rent in some crappy apartment. David owned his own house. Yeah. You know. And so. And then there were others that, you know, had significantly higher returns on, you know, closed big deals and stock and all this stuff that you get as you're successful. You can do it when you're 30 years.

I mean, there's nothing. Sales is great because as long as you can, as long as you come across as, not come across, as long as you are, as long as you are genuine, as long as you are genuine, as long as you are somebody who really inspires confidence and credibility. It doesn't matter if you're 30 years old. You can go and sell $10 million, $20 million, $50 million deal. You can't. And you can bring others with you.

If you bring your CEO or some significant executive with you, then they're your mouthpiece there for a while. But the other thing I'll tell the noobs is, you know, the better you get at this, the more likely you're going to get the shot at these bigger deals. Because the bigger opportunities are kind of given to the people that are hustling more or people that have a better chance to close them. So the longer you're in the game and the better you do, the more chance you have to win those. 100% agree.

Yeah. Man, I need to get a territory again. Sounds like fun. I remember you talking about the CEO. I remember a deal with an info that there was closed. with a large global pharmaceutical company. And it was a, it was probably a million and a half, two million dollars, I think. Last day of the quarter, deal closed.

I believe it was on a Saturday, actually. And then either that Monday or Tuesday, we had an event that was already planned for the sales team. The CEO flew in to present an award to the guy. who sold that deal. Because it was a high visibility transaction. He refused to not let it get done in the quarter. And so, yeah, CEO hopped on a... Was that a shaper?

Yeah. He's good, good dude. He flew up. Well, that's cool. Bam, I got me all fired up about these big deals. Do you have any advice for a brand new salesperson? Any more advice, I should say? I think the easiest thing to do when you're starting out, and you've got to do it a little tactfully because everybody's busy, but seek input from those around you at the company.

Seek input from a very successful sales rep. Seek input from a solution, if we're talking software, seek input from a solution engineer. Their feedback and their kind of lessons learned or best practices really give you a quick, kind of blueprint of or map of what to do in your early days. Also, when you're starting out with a new company, there's all this administrative stuff that goes with it, you know, getting a laptop, getting certified on the policies and expense policies and all the HR stuff and get through that as fast as you can. Don't let that hang you up.

Right. So, you know, get all those boxes checked. And then really, don't worry so much about, don't focus so much on the product as you would focus on, or focus more on the problem or what's out there in the market today that people may be coming to you for your product. So understand what those pain points are going to be. You know, dig into the industry, dig into the specific, you know, Inreel, Port, or 10K. Because listen, that's another blueprint. You know, you read a 10K and it says, you know, here's some of the headwinds that we're facing. Dig into those headwinds, understand them, and then, you know, talk to your SE or talk to, you know, keywords will pop out.

And, I mean, even if you just control F through the 10K, you know, looking for assets or maintenance, you know, to use a data stream. The product will take care of itself and you're going to have help with the product. But what you're going to be expected to do is tie that product to a pain point and tie that product to value. So I wouldn't spend as much time on that as I would your customers in the industry and really learning what they're facing in today's world. Right. That's great advice. And I'll add to that just a warning that if you go to the wrong people, if you go to the people that are not happy, not making their number, they're going to tell you a completely different game plan.

Yeah. Like comp plan's no good, products no good. They're going to tell you all the reasons you can't do it because they can't do it. So stay away from the losers party. And if a conversation starts going that way, just veer off and go ask somebody else because, look, not every person at a company is going to be successful. You know, not everybody's going to close a $50 million deal. Right.

And so recognize that for what it is and move on. Don't get bogged down and all that stuff. You know, you're there for a reason and it's to go sell. So if somebody says it's hard to sell here, go find somebody that says, yeah, it's hard to sell here, but here's how I do it. Here's how we do it anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Nate, what's your favorite word?

My favorite word, the one I use, I'm not going to, the most, I won't say. The word I think that kind of covers everything is accountability. You need to be, and you have control over it. That's the best part of it. You need to be accountable to, you know, if you're a faith-based person, you need to be accountable to God. You certainly need to be accountable to your family, your friends, your relationships. And then you're also going to be accountable and you need to be accountable to whoever's right and you're a check. be that the company you work for or the original check, your customer, who's going to write your

company a check. And like I said, the best thing about being accountable is that you have total control over it. And so if you make that part of your kind of sales mentality, it will ultimately wind up in you being successful. I firmly believe. I think that's the biggest one. Accountable. I love that. I love that. And again, some of the people I've seen that weren't as successful who didn't have accountability, he would say things like, say, hey, have we talked to the customer this week? He said, can't get them on the phone this week. We would send him an email that hadn't responded. I mean, that's not accountable. No. Right? You've got to find a way. It's not that difficult. So I love that. And then in terms of promoting things, would you like to promote anything in your world right now?

I'm just, I'm excited to be at Model N, the company I started with last week. Very excited to be there, a great group of people. I have a real impact in the life sciences industry. And then beyond that, I would just say, in wherever you live, you know, whatever you're doing, kind of back to where I was talking about at the beginning is get involved, you know? Yeah. There's always, you know, whether it's meals on wheels and you're going to go deliver a meal each week or once a month to a homebound person or habitat or maybe it's something through your church

or through your community neighborhood, whatever it might be, take a little extra step and get involved and you'll not only get personal rewards out of it, but it comes back to you twofold and then some, I really believe. That's great. Well, thank you for being here today. It's been an honor. I I really appreciate that. That was delightful. Some great stuff. And you're no noob, man. You're getting it done.

You're getting it done. And I only wish we'd known each other when we should have right out of school. But we'll make up for a lost time. Absolutely. All right. Thank you, man. Thank you, John. Appreciate it.

All right.