Autistic Introvert Who Outsold Everyone

00;00;00;01 - 00;00;24;02

Unknown

Most business owners think you need a charismatic, extroverted you. Neil. Smooth talking. You know Jordan Belfort minus the fraud charges type person to to help you close more deals. You know I was none of those things. I actually, I bombed my first sales interview. I bombed it. It was terrible. And that moment changed how I think about hiring in sales specifically, but hiring in general.

00;00;24;03 - 00;00;44;06

Unknown

So in my early 20s, I wanted to be a lobbyist. That's dubious about it now was not my best ambition, but I was I was really focused on it. And what a sales job opened up at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is the largest lobbying organization in the world. I jumped on it. I didn't want to do sales, but that was like that was my end.

00;00;44;08 - 00;00;59;42

Unknown

I know how to sell. And I was like, hey, that seems to be the way that I'm going to get into doing what I want to do, because I didn't have even a degree at the time, I didn't have any political connections. I didn't have any political experience. I just had a passion. So job opens up, I apply, I go in for the interview.

00;00;59;43 - 00;01;18;51

Unknown

The only experience I have in sales up to this point is actually selling knock off perfume in California parking lots. I worked there for less than two weeks and I showed up to get my paycheck and the building was empty so they could completely disappeared. Interesting experience. So that's my only sales experience going into this. You know, the chamber is the path to the thing that I want.

00;01;18;51 - 00;01;41;40

Unknown

And by the way, it's got a salary, it's got benefits. It's got a pension. Like it's a real job. My thinking was, you know, I'll just get this job. I'll hold my nose while I while I sell and pivot into what I really want to do, which is lobbying later. So that was the plan. So I go in for the interview, and I absolutely bomb the interview because I'm introverted, like extremely introverted.

00;01;41;45 - 00;01;59;56

Unknown

I, I struggle with small talk like I'm not, you know, like, I don't just like, hop into the into the networking event and just, like, bounce around and, you know, get energy of talking other people like it's it's it's tougher for me. I have a high functioning autism and I didn't like fit the mold of what you would necessarily expect from a salesperson when they said, sell me this.

00;02;00;09 - 00;02;12;34

Unknown

And they did sell me this pin. I don't know how to sell the pin, but you know, I can. Oh God, I wish I knew exactly what I said, but I can tell you it wasn't good. I know that, and I'm getting walked out the door now as we're walking towards the door. Felt like a really long walk.

00;02;12;34 - 00;02;36;26

Unknown

But the BP Larry so said something about politics right? And I lit up like I just immediately started talking about stats. I was talking about figures. I was talking about, you know, different players. I was talking about the upcoming elections, different strategies. And he stops and he says, do you think you could do that on the phone? And I said, yeah, well, no, I mean, I was really thinking, I don't know, I hope so, what am I doing?

00;02;36;28 - 00;02;51;28

Unknown

And next thing you know, I have a job. Okay. Now I started the chamber. It wasn't overnight like it, you know, it took me some, some time to ramp up because I. I really didn't know sales. I knew a lot about politics, though. I actually picked the cubicle way back in the corner where no one could hear me.

00;02;51;33 - 00;03;09;25

Unknown

Right? Because I was embarrassed. I didn't. I didn't know if I was doing it the right way, the wrong way, and I was. And I would talk quietly like I'm the only other person that could hear me was on the other side of the phone. But they trained me, right. Like they had some some decent training. And the number one guy, Charles there, gave me a scripts.

00;03;09;34 - 00;03;28;37

Unknown

Like, he was like, very generous as a top performer. Let me shadow him. Like, was willing to to share stuff. We had a new VP come in shortly after that. He was really big on sales training. So I benefited from some of this right. Like that in a short period of time, I got like a compressed crash course on on sales because of introversion autism.

00;03;28;42 - 00;03;50;46

Unknown

I'm also very systematic. I'm very process oriented. And so I'm just like taking in all this information and I'm like putting it together into pieces, like, okay, I can execute this. This is how I learn sales. I did ramp up fairly quickly right after consuming a lot of this information. I was Presidents Club Award winner multiple times. I was one of only two people to hit the monthly quota.

00;03;50;50 - 00;04;11;42

Unknown

Every single month for three years in a row. I had the highest revenue per call average on the national sales team. And then I moved into sales management. I moved into executive management. I was eventually managing director of the entire national small mid-sized business unit at the US chamber. And collectively, myself and my teams raised over $100 million for the chamber.

00;04;11;46 - 00;04;37;09

Unknown

So what gives? You know, I didn't have the degree. I didn't have the sales background. I, I was terrible in the interview that VP saw something that wasn't on the resume, that wasn't in the traditional profile for hiring your standard sales person. And I'm grateful that that he was able to identify it, because there's some very textbook, based recruiters that miss some of these opportunities.

00;04;37;09 - 00;04;56;42

Unknown

So I'm, I'm very grateful, looking back and fortunate to, to have had that. But when I look at it, I think it came down to to three big things, right? If I chunk it up into three core things that I think helped me and that I use in my own recruiting. Okay. The first one is conviction beats experience all day.

00;04;56;47 - 00;05;26;11

Unknown

If you hire somebody that gives a shit about what you're selling, that actually cares, they will outsell somebody who has a ton of experience, but is kind of just like coasting through. And the reason is somebody with conviction, somebody with belief delivers a message differently. Right? Sales is a lot about body language. It's a lot about tonality. It's a lot about projecting a sense of confidence so that you as a customer, as a potential customer, are confident yourself.

00;05;26;11 - 00;05;41;34

Unknown

And the more confident I am as a salesperson, the more likely you are to say, well, this person really does believe like they they sound really, really sincere about this. And so your trust factor goes up and there's no way around it. If you don't care about what you're selling, you can follow all the processes you can like you can.

00;05;41;36 - 00;06;11;00

Unknown

I mean, mercenaries are plenty good, right? Like nothing against that. But you can't compete with somebody in delivery who gives a shit. And the other thing that somebody with conviction will do is they will challenge people and overcome objections naturally, because they just disagree. And it doesn't have to be about politics, right? This is about anybody who brings a level of passion or care or concern or any degree of give a shit to the role, to something that I look for.

00;06;11;00 - 00;06;28;28

Unknown

And, you know, if you're selling IT services, you may say, well, what am I gonna do? Like look for selling roles that are bad. They're like, hey, like, I'm let's go talk socks and knocks. Right? Like, no, not necessarily. But that person may genuinely care about sales in general. They may care about your mission. They may care about your vision.

00;06;28;28 - 00;06;48;37

Unknown

They may care about the team. They may care about it. There are people that really actually care and get into this. And when they start talking about what you need to do and some of the challenges and why that doesn't work, you know, damn like they're they're lit up. The second thing that I look for is coach ability, because coach ability beats being polished.

00;06;48;42 - 00;07;03;46

Unknown

And in this case, like I showed up, I was not polished at all like I was even. I mean, just even physically, I think I bought a Kohl's, you know, shirt the day before, but it was like just my presentation of it. I didn't even pretend to be slick. I didn't pretend to know the things that I didn't really know.

00;07;03;51 - 00;07;28;09

Unknown

What I projected was I'm willing to learn, and I suspect that Larry inferred that because who else and at 21 years old, comes in and just can't stop talking about politics and knows the headline of virtually everything that's happening in the Senate makeup and what's going on here, what's going on there. Like, you don't do that without a willingness to learn.

00;07;28;09 - 00;07;51;15

Unknown

And he knew what I really wanted to do was work at the organization, like going back to the going back to the conviction. So he knew and I said it. I'm willing to learn this. I know I can do this. That goes a long way. So when I'm hiring and I'm looking at people, I'm saying, hey, has this person shown that they're willing to put in the work to learn a skill or learn a thing and ramp up?

00;07;51;15 - 00;08;06;47

Unknown

That goes a long way. There are a lot of things that I can teach you, but I can't teach you if you're not willing to learn. I can't teach you if you're area. I can't teach you if you think you already know it all. I can't teach you. Even if you don't think you know at all. If you're just the kind of person that doesn't take advice and implement it.

00;08;06;47 - 00;08;25;49

Unknown

So I'm looking for that. Now. One of the things I actually do in an interview is a lot of times I will point out something that they've done and see how they take the criticism, see how they take the critique, right? How do they respond to that? And a lot of times, like small little tests like that in in the process will give you some insight into what you can expect later.

00;08;25;49 - 00;08;47;54

Unknown

So coach ability over polish every time. And I have I have hired some really Polish people. Stan, the resume is awesome. And you know they've got the experience they should. They said all the right things and those people bomb more than anybody I've hired. The third thing was competitiveness is a trait that I'm always looking for, like competitiveness beats motivation, right?

00;08;47;54 - 00;09;07;40

Unknown

Because if somebody is internally competitive, like if they're just driven to to win and they're driven to succeed and they're driven to achieve, it's tough to replace then I think some people bring that to the table and some people don't. And maybe it's through different seasons of life. I have no idea. But I can tell you this I would rather hold somebody back.

00;09;07;45 - 00;09;20;21

Unknown

Right? Like somebody that is like, hey, I, I'm, I'm will you do this? I'm gonna do this like, I'm, you know, they're they're just like, they're hungry. They show up, they want and they want. I'm like, I want to learn at all. I want to do it all. Can I get on the phone? Can I do this? I'd rather hold somebody back.

00;09;20;26 - 00;09;36;50

Unknown

Then try to push them forward. Right. Like that is just been a rule of thumb for me. I look back on my own interview and I think, you know, what signs of competitiveness. Well, you know, somebody that shows up, first of all, politics, like it's whether you like it or not, there's a lot, a whole lot of win and lose, right.

00;09;36;50 - 00;09;54;14

Unknown

Like it's it's I know it's not supposed to be a game, but it's very competitive. But weed also talks other things like we talked you know, sports that I played, we talked martial arts that I'd done. And so you can put these things together and you can say, well, you know, listen, I've got a guy that loves what we're doing, you know, seems like to really, really want us to win.

00;09;54;14 - 00;10;13;51

Unknown

Like, he's he's driven, seems like he's put in a ton of work to learn everything that he's learned now because it hasn't come through formal education, has a history of competitive sports. I think this guy has some fire. So you combine those things and you say he really gives a shit. He's coachable and he brings some fire to this.

00;10;13;56 - 00;10;34;09

Unknown

Oh why not? Right. Like the resume may stink, the interview may stink, but the characteristics are what you're actually hiring. The person is who you're hiring. So if you can spot those things, those patterns and put them together, kind of like the BP did with me, that may be the road to your next top performer. I just look back on that and I think I'm so grateful like that.

00;10;34;09 - 00;10;55;19

Unknown

That played out the way that I did because it changed the trajectory for everything to me, because ironically, you know, 15 years at the chamber, love the organization, by the way. But I kind of lost that the thing with with politics. But I loved sales at that point. Right. I got absolutely love sales. And Larry, the VP at the time, making the decision that he did was $100 million decision.

00;10;55;21 - 00;11;09;52

Unknown

I hope this has been helpful in like reframing how you're looking at candidates and, you know, opening up your mind or maybe looking at things slightly differently, because I do, and it's how I was screened a little bit differently, it would have been helpful. Go ahead and, you know, subscribe to the channel. We've also got the Mssp sales toolbox.

00;11;09;57 - 00;11;28;17

Unknown

Below there's a link, if you are an MSP, that's a toolbox where I put in templates, playbooks, scripts, you know, forecasting models, things like that. So I drop stuff in every single month. You have lifetime access. So go ahead. If you drop in your email, want access to that or you can sign up for my email newsletter.

00;11;28;17 - 00;11;41;00

Unknown

I think the link for that is below. To what are we sorry, I send out more sales tips. So, I hope to engage more and, look forward to see you in the next video. I hope.

00;11;41;05 - 00;11;41;27

Unknown

You.