Um, really just the, my love for helping people grow personally and professionally
and why I'm a coach, right?
It's really that how can I help people become the best version of themselves and
ultimately taking their career to the next level?
I love it.
I think a lot of people forget to ask that when they're choosing coaches, um,
you know, whether they interview or just skip straight to a contract for some
reason, like why are you a coach?
You know, figuring that out, it seems like something that somebody could blanket
over easily, but, um, what are these secrets that we're going to talk about
for sales success?
What are some of your top ingredients for that?
Revealing the secrets.
So really the biggest secret is how do I find my happiness?
How do I find that place where my glass is full and diving into how I help sales
leaders, salespeople and executives get to that place?
And there's always this sort of, you know, idea of, I need a job where I'm happy.
Well, certainly, you know, we can't all just bounce into a role where we're
happy, but we're doing, as we're doing our job, we find happiness in our lives.
We find happiness.
And once we feel the happiness and we acknowledge that happiness, then
we want to do more of it.
And so I encourage people to go there.
How do I encourage people to go there?
What's that?
What's one of those big takeaways for how to drive happiness?
I feel strongly about values and so digging in.
All right.
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame.
I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are
building fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up and welcome into Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO of First Class Business.
And I'm excited to have Megan Dimmer on today.
Megan is an executive coach, fantastic at helping sales organizations and making
sure to help you as well with your growth and achievements in sales.
That's what great leaders do is they build you up and help you with what you need.
So we're going to talk about some of the secrets of sales success that she's
experienced and we'll also dive into the methodologies.
We'll get really clear too about what types of entities that she serves.
Before we dive into that, I always like to, of course, give a shout out recognition
to some of my favorite companies.
So these right now, these are not paid sponsors.
We've had a few, but these are people who I also really appreciate because
they provide services to us.
And so what better thing can I do for the audience and help you see some of
the secrets that go behind the scenes of what we do at Vision Pros and First Class
Business.
So ColdClick, ColdClick is run by Art Hoffman, good friend of mine.
I like to mention too, he's a former D1 football player.
One thing I've learned about athletes is that they're super dedicated to their
craft and what they do.
So beyond the field, they often carry that into their work environments and they have
this discipline about driving towards champions, championships that bodes well
for those of us who are striving to build championship level organizations.
So ColdClick helps us maintain our LinkedIn automation, make sure that both
we optimize the amount of people we can reach as well as abiding by the rules of
the algorithms so that our accounts don't get shut down.
Of course, any account, any time is at risk of getting shut down for any number
of reasons, by the way.
It's not just automation that can lead to that.
But what we want to do is make sure we reach as many people as possible who are
aligned with what our vision's like so that more of the right people come into
place, perhaps with the opportunity to say, wow, I really need to be on a show
like this or I really need the support of a company like this.
That's really what the automation factor is about.
It's up to you and me to design messaging that's attractive, intriguing and it
respects the space of somebody who's perhaps a stranger and doesn't know how to
trust us yet.
It just makes sense to build it up holistically.
But that's a tool we use.
Tap Mental is run by Dave Goodall.
He's a client of ours and very good at executive level coaching for
entrepreneurs specifically and the blue collar space.
So if you have a construction company, a general contracting company, anything
where you're out in the sun a lot or your workers are and that's the type of
environment you have, you have systems that you need to maintain and operate.
You probably don't care too much about the technology or really probably don't
have a passion for it.
Dave does as well as the finances, as well as more importantly, in my opinion,
what's going on in your head and heart that maybe somebody is touchy and
feely like me.
Maybe you don't want to talk about that with me, but he's a good old boy that
can get inside what's going on in here so they can help you translate that into
creating systems that make sense to your operations.
It's amazing how much the mind trash that we have can hold us back from being
able to operate a company that is successful.
So I've been very impressed with Dave, what he does so much so that I put him on
the sponsorship and said, hey, you guys should go look at these case studies
that he has, put him to the test and see what he can do for you.
I hope that helps at least one person out there.
If it does, my job's done.
The water project, the water project is a phenomenal opportunity to give back.
We are all so blessed.
Anybody listening right now, you're blessed beyond measure.
I usually have my water bottle right next to me.
I can go to the next room and get water and it's great water.
I don't have to worry about it.
We have billions of people in the world who don't have access to that.
This is an opportunity to give a dollar to $10,000, $100,000, whatever you have.
But what's cool is when you give it to these communities, you get to see the
impact on the community itself.
You get to see that they actually utilize it to build the sand dam or the borehole well.
Could they be more effective?
Probably, but so could you.
So let's stop judging.
Let's start giving and building.
If you have a charity or a cause that you would love to see us promote because you
know that they would benefit, by all means, send it my way and give me the chance.
Just drop it in the comments.
We're happy to give to more entities, raise awareness for great causes at the
end of the day.
For me, that's what life's all about.
So without further ado, again, I'm going to bring Megan Demmer on board.
We're going to talk secrets of success and sales.
We'll talk about her vision as well as a coach and we'll keep going.
So Megan, thank you so much for joining me on Vision Pros Life.
Thanks, Jackson.
I'm excited to be here.
Absolutely.
So let's quantify for the audience a little bit.
I did my best, but I think you're going to do an even better job.
Who should be listening and why do you feel they should be listening to you?
I think the key people that should be listening are salespeople, sales leaders, and executives
within organizations that have sales teams, right?
So as well as I coach CEOs and founders.
A lot of what we have to do as founders and CEOs is sales.
When we look at the term of sales as a form of service, and I've seen you recognize that
ability to have happiness, the ability to care about others.
So I'm glad you include them in the reality and recognize that.
I hope more of them recognize too how much.
And let's talk about that a little bit.
So CEOs and founders, what are they selling?
Why do they need to know about sales?
Oftentimes they're selling their business, they're selling their product or their service.
They're selling the business not only externally, but internally.
And so the ability to articulate what they're selling and get it across in a way that's
concise, that makes sense, and ultimately that makes customers or clients and employees
want to jump on board and stay on board.
Absolutely.
And so you digital marketers out there who have teams that you need to convince to get
things done, an analogy you may not think about often is how do you sell somebody on
the idea of keeping the bathrooms clean?
But when you're working at a fast food restaurant or an environment where a lot of people use
the bathroom, you got to inspire people to help out with those things.
Even if it's the people who are hired to do the job or it's the type of team members who
say, well, that's not my job.
I don't want to do that.
It's an environment where it's very good to have diplomatic skills and know what to do
with sales.
But let's dive a little bit more into your vision for those you serve, perhaps outside
of the bathroom.
So what's your vision for those that you serve?
What do you want to see them accomplish?
Happiness, really at the core of it.
Jackson, I love human beings.
I think I told you this in previous conversations.
But I am here to serve and the reason that I do what I do and I've always done what I
do in terms of coaching people and bringing people along is I want them to achieve happiness
and to achieve the happiness that I've achieved.
And so my vision is for people to become a better version of themselves professionally
and personally.
And that starts with do I think I need to be a better version of myself?
So how do I become that best version of myself?
And then as a result of that, taking their career to the next level, you talk about CEOs
and business owners, founders, and you know, well, maybe their career is at the next level.
But really, when we go back to clients and customers and employees, are we serving them?
And answering that question in have I actually taken my career to the level where I'm surrounding
myself by people who are happy working with me and working in my organization?
Absolutely.
Now, you've you've also been a CEO at a pretty high level.
And that's one of the things I want to talk about.
I'd like you to define that role a little bit better, though, in terms of how long we
there what what did you gain in terms of experience in that role?
And and what did it why did it lead you to eventually become a coach?
So I'm you know, currently the CEO of my own smaller company.
But I was at an organization, an architectural firm based in Dallas.
I moved my way up through business development, right to the sales organization and the strategy
and then into the CEO role.
And my career dream was in my leadership development plan was to become a CEO.
And so I pivoted from technology.
I was in the same technology company, spin off of IBM Lexmark for 15 years.
I worked my way up through business development.
And I saw that kind of the story of how I got there, right.
But it kind of helps to answer the question.
So I saw that I could not get to that next level to where I would become a CEO within
the tech space.
Right.
Two things wasn't an engineer.
And I'm not a man.
So two things that really I could see writing on the wall that in that time and that place,
that was what I needed to be to get there.
I was crushing it.
I was at the top of my game like a lot of my clients.
Right.
So a lot of my clients, most of them are high performers at the top of their game and trying
to figure out how am I going to get to that next level.
And I saw I wasn't going to.
I saw an opportunity in a different industry.
And I said, I got to navigate this thing.
And so that's when I pivoted into the architecture firm.
And it was 450 employees.
It was around 100 million in revenue.
And it was a big job.
And it was a big job where I was surrounded by a lot of people who were wildly talented,
who needed what I had to give.
And when I say that needed the love, needed the support, needed to know, needed to hear
that they were important and what they were doing was important.
And knowing how what they were doing was impacting each other from an accountability perspective.
Right.
So I really, truly brought it all brought it all to that role.
Absolutely.
That's awesome.
And so, yeah, there's a there's a huge depth in terms of experience that comes from being
at an organization that large and also running an organization that large.
Very, very different perspectives and paradigms that are helpful for scale oriented companies.
So tell me about your vision for you, Megan.
What is your vision look like?
What you can do five years, 50 years, 500 years.
Don't me box you in here.
What what do you see for yourself on the horizon?
Exactly what I'm doing, Jackson.
My vision for me was I wanted to retire at 50.
And I'm not quite 50.
Pretty close, closer to 50 than 40.
But I wanted to in my mind retirement, I didn't really know what it was.
Right.
So what does that look like?
How does it all kind of go into this long term goal?
What does retirement look like?
From my perspective, what I can do for the rest of my time on this planet is help others
achieve success.
And definitionally, success is what people believe it is themselves.
It's not how I define it or how you define it or how whomever else defines it.
So yeah, vision for myself.
And you know, we've talked about keeping my glass full.
Right.
So my glass is full when I'm helping other people accomplish their goals.
And I'm doing it.
And I'm going to continue to do it.
So that's if that's five years, that's 10 years.
It's something that I think I can carry on forever.
So yeah, absolutely.
I love that.
Okay.
And let's dive into a darker area.
So we're going to talk about your worst business experience ever.
The deeper you dive, I think the more it will help more people in the audience.
But at the same time, I know it's a lot to ask.
So what would tell us what's your worst business experience ever look like?
Wow, I've been thinking a lot about the best and the worst.
Right.
Because when you go to the space of like, what makes me happy and what doesn't, there's
a theme.
And the worst business experience actually has happened more than once.
So I don't know if you were expecting that answer.
But I think that my clients can also learn from me.
And I bring this into my coaching.
Right.
So I talked about values.
And it's truly important to me to have an understanding of what our values are and what
my values are and to really be intentional about knowing that and reflecting on that
when I've compromised my values.
So when I've entered organizations that don't hold themselves and others accountable, when
I've entered organizations where transparency is not a thing, two of my really core values
from an accountability and transparency perspective is when my business experience goes off the
rails.
And I have experienced it more than once.
And I'll tell you that this recent pivot back into just focusing on coaching is because
I want to help other people stay true to their values, not compromise their values and achieve
what I know now.
Right.
And I can do in my single business where I can help others.
So those are dark experiences and you feel stuck.
I have felt stuck.
And like I look around and say, oh, this is not where I want to be.
You know, these people don't represent me.
This brand is no longer representing me.
And those are big things for me.
Right.
Reputation and brand.
And so.
Absolutely.
That's it.
Well, I think a huge part of that, too, is recognizing that, you know, as you're alluding
to it, everybody has values.
Right.
No, I don't think there's anybody in the world you can say like, you don't have any values
and they're going to go, you're right.
I don't.
You know, but we have different values and we have different levels of caring about those
values.
You know, some people want more TV time.
You know, some people don't want a TV in their home.
And that's an extreme difference, but it doesn't make anybody lesser than but it would make
those two individuals lives very hard if they try to work together.
You know, if one wants TV all the time and one doesn't want it, like that's going to
create a disaster of an experience in most cases.
So I think that's very helpful to have your values defined.
Accountability.
I am a pain in every way, shape or form for people who who don't like accountability.
My right hand man said, Jackson, sometimes when you speak to people, it's kind of like
you hit them with a steel bat.
And I was like, I know.
I was like, oh, I was like, I don't want that to be the case.
But like, why?
He's like, I get it.
So that was years ago.
I just got through my first divorce and I was learning a lot about relationships and
a lot about the reality that some people don't want feedback very much or want good feedback
at all times.
And that's OK.
But we got to recognize where we are on the spectrum of that and do you know what types
of people do we gravitate towards?
Sometimes we overlook that we need somebody to coach.
We need somebody to help us open our eyes to that.
You also mentioned transparency, right?
Some people would say a privately held company is not transparent.
But other people would say, you know, the relevancy of my pro forma is not important
to the conversation at hand.
Right.
So they're both great values.
If you're listening in, I think it's a very wise concept.
Make sure that you define your values and what that level of value looks like to you.
So thank you for sharing that, Megan.
Before we go into your best experience in business, actually, you want to double down
on anything?
I love what you said.
I kind of took the mic from you.
So, um, fundamentally, when we compromise those values, we as human beings know that
it's either not going to feel good, it's not going to look good, there's going to be something
that smells not kind of funky.
Right.
But sometimes we let the dollars or the people, you know, you've got a relationship internally,
we let those things cloud our vision to that important value, the important thing.
And so what I try to help people do is go back to those values.
And if you make a decision personally and professionally outside of that, you know,
you're going to compromise it.
Right.
You know that you've said these things are important and it's okay.
We all are human beings.
We are going to stumble, but to look at it and say, was the money more important than
the values was that thing that whatever the target was more important.
And my job as a coach is to help people work through that.
So sure, certainly we're going to make mistakes.
We are human, but how do we get there?
How do we get back to that?
And so I think doubling down there is important.
And I double down on that consistently as a coach.
Again, I can't, that's something that I'm going to make a little side note on because
while I've made the, I would say I've made a little bit of a self-awareness discovery
for our brand for that.
Over the last couple of months, there's nothing more important to me right now than securing
that I keep doing that.
Right.
And it's, it's been a huge breath of fresh air.
So we, our values are love, patience, persistence, reliability and consistency.
Right.
So we've got our five and we do most of what we do in relation to those principles or values,
but we don't do everything that we do in relation to those.
Because we've shifted that realization more to saying, you know what?
No, we're not making concessions.
You know, these, these are the cores.
And yes, some people have weaknesses related to one of those, those five, but that's what
we need to hone in on.
Not, not say, Hey, you're, you're bad at this, but there's an opportunity there to make sure
that are we aligned?
You know, do we really want to grow the same way and making space for that?
And when you're thinking that way, it helps everything.
It helps the whole operation move forward and more fluidity.
So we can definitely be better on that.
So let's switch gears a little bit though.
What's your best experience in business?
What does that look like?
Yeah.
My best experience in business.
It looks like a huge hug.
Yeah.
It looks like a really big hug.
High five languages, physical touches up there for you.
Got it.
It looks like a big high five.
During COVID it was hard for me to not be able to high five.
I high five.
I'm doing them all the time.
Right.
So I was an athlete, kind of still an athlete.
That Peloton is still athletic.
What sports?
Year round volleyball.
And I threw the discus little secret.
I set the high school record as a freshman throwing the discus.
And then I dropped the mic.
I was like, no more of this.
I got to get back to volleyball.
Set the record.
I'm done.
So I am a teamwork person.
And so my best work experience, I'll tell you what it was.
It just came to me.
So when I was in that CEO role, it wasn't all paths.
Certainly.
There was a lot of fun.
I had the opportunity to build my executive team.
And there were legacy people there that brought tremendous amount of value.
And they were on the team.
We had some gaps, right?
From a financial perspective brought in a CFO that I was able to hire.
I was able to bring in a COO who was actually my sorority sister.
You know you've arrived when you have been tracking.
We were leadership roles together in the sorority.
We both went and did our own thing and accomplished a lot in business.
We came back together.
I brought her in to be my right hand at the architecture firm.
And I had the most collaborative team of professionals.
And it was a lot of high fives and it was a lot of fun.
So that was my best business experience.
That's awesome.
That incorporates past relationships as well as the opportunity to put the A team together.
How many people have the opportunity to do that especially with a multi-million dollar
company?
So, yeah, I can see why that feather in the cap stands out as special.
You're welcome to hang on to that thread.
You're welcome to move us in another direction as we go into the powerful lesson that other
visionaries can learn from your experience.
So what powerful lesson would you like to share that will help other visionaries on
their path of building out their own visions?
Oh, being a visionary, right?
So there's the good, the bad, the sometimes ugly.
And because I've coached so many founder CEOs and hired gun CEOs, a lot more founder CEOs,
right, who I've worked with.
And I've been a hired gun and I've been a founder.
So I'm going to pull all this together into one little bucket and say, as a visionary,
it's our job to come up with the thing, the vision of the company, right?
Yeah.
And to iterate on that and come up with a lot of spitball, whatever it is you call it
on that vision and to get people on board with that vision.
But when you bring people on board to accomplish that vision and they are subject matter experts,
you better damn let them do what they're great at.
Get out of the way.
Like all of these games are playing like the contest of who has the biggest whatever in
the room.
Oh, geez.
Yo, no more time for that.
Like you brought, you brought everybody to the table, right?
You selected those people because they're bomb ass at their job.
And now let them do their job for right.
Otherwise the risk.
We second guess ourselves as leaders on our team, right?
On that team, the visionary put together the leaders and now the leaders are like, am I
not good at this?
Because I feel like every time I'm asked to bring my idea to the table, it's like great
idea, but you should probably do it this way does not work.
And all it does is create the opposite of that big hug in the room.
So the powerful lesson is you create a team and you have your quarterback and you have
your, you know, whatever sport it is that you're down with, let the people do the job.
You just, you just set the failure house on fire.
Megan, you just set it on fire.
Thank goodness you talk about people who, you know, who want to compare the size.
You know, we know the P word, uh, the purses that everybody's carrying around in that room.
All right.
It doesn't matter what the size of your purses.
What matters is are we, are we allowing people who are awesome at what they do to do what
they're awesome at?
Or are we trying to control it or micromanage it?
And you, you know, I'll hit some of those head on, right?
You bring in that awesome chief marketing executive and they're supposed to be the chief.
The next thing you know, instead of having them be the marketing director, the chief,
you're telling them, I want you to do this.
Just shut up.
You just screwed it up.
I want you to run this.
No, get out of the way.
Let that chief marketing officer come up with the plan that makes sense.
Why the heck did you hire them otherwise?
If you just want to control them and make them your little robot.
Am I right?
Totally right.
I'm wrong.
Tell me you haven't sat in that seat, right?
Where you're like, and then.
That's the only seat that exists for chief marketing officers by the way.
There's a great cartoon on that and it has a desk for the CEO, a desk for the COO and
a revolving door for the CMO.
I was like, that's awesome.
That's hilarious.
Now, and that's, that's, that's okay.
You know, it's part of the process.
You have to, as a CMO, you have to be willing to deal with the heat of that and inspire
that office to not behave like that.
And if you become the yes man, which most CMOs do, most marketers do is, and yes, you
have a slide to be a yes man.
You can't just be obvious about it.
You know, you got to like, oh yeah, you're, you know, you're probably right on that.
You know, I can, I can make that concession, but you know, when you look at this too, but
if you go along with the game plan, you sacrifice your values and your quality, there's a reason
there's a revolving door there.
So it's, it's, it's a problem of both sides, but we got to fix it.
And the entrepreneur side of that is find somebody that you can actually trust.
And if that means you have to stop saying, oh, I don't really know enough about this
marketing stuff, then figure it out.
Then learn it.
You know, like you don't stop acting like a victim.
Go learn it.
Sorry.
I don't get, I'm not coaching anybody so I can, I can scream at the mic a little bit,
but I just feel bad because if entrepreneurs don't figure that out, you know, they don't
start listening to you on that, then you know, they're, they're kind of destined for, for
failing in that department, at least.
Not kind of, not kind of.
Well said.
I'm trying to cushion it a little bit, Megan.
There's no cushion.
Good for you.
Absolutely.
All right.
So you know, you know, Jackson, that's right.
And so you know, the organization size that you had to, I'm curious, did the sales department
all within the marketing department?
Or were they more in the operations department or did you guys not think about it?
Like, you're not really care from an org board standpoint.
So are you referring to when I was 750 employees?
Oh, so 450, right?
And we had sales and marketing.
I actually ended up leading sales and marketing together.
And although there were leaders in both, and I'll tell you that the reason that from a
fractional and I'm jumping on this because I feel pretty passionate about it.
I've got a big one of these about how do you get become most successful.
I believe that the chief revenue officer role when you have sales and marketing together
under one roof works the best because collaboration is key.
And when you have, if you have, for example, a founder who's telling marketing that they
want to do this and then sales, they want to do this and it's not all together, then
you're running in separate directions and you're not accomplishing the same goal.
So it's like, how do we row the boat together to get to that revenue goal to get to those
targets to hit those KPIs?
So they were one separate in that organization.
And then there, you know, became under one sort of department.
Team, right?
So teams playing together and there's lots of analogies.
There's lots of ways to look at it.
The reason why I ask is in my experience, I've seen that, well, one, no organization
and industry is the same.
Right?
And so if you have a marketing company or a company that's built more on digital marketing,
for instance, your sales department is likely best incubated within your marketing department
because they should be learning from your marketing team.
They're a damn marketing team.
Like that's what you're great at.
So the sales department should not be superior to the knowledge of the marketing that in
that situation.
But if you were, if your company is more built around selling operations or the fulfillment
of a physical structure, like a solar system, for instance, for solar roofing or whatever,
then it might make more sense for your sales department to be managed underneath the operations
and fulfillment, the COO's role and have a COO who's strong in sales while the marketing
is a smaller division that is still a division and department.
And they still should work together.
I love that.
Like, absolutely.
They should be working together and learn to harmonize for the sake of both winning
to greater capacities.
But that's one of the reasons I asked is because I've seen how flexible that needs to be based
on the different types of company.
So I was just curious how you guys did it and you solved that.
They're almost both not apples and bananas, or apples and oranges, but two different teams
working in harmony on the same plane underneath the direction of yourself, correct?
Right.
So from my perspective and my experience, the strategy is set, right?
So you set that strategy and then the planning part comes together with sales and marketing
and so the only way that you can really accomplish whatever that strategy is to make sure that
the plan is, like you're saying, is harmonized.
And when you're trying to, you know, what I've found is when you're not doing that,
you miss a lot.
You absolutely there's opportunity.
And frankly, in a startup scenario, which that was not, but I've been in a lot of that
in a lot, you don't have time.
You don't have time to mess up.
Certainly you're going to, but in order for you to scale, right, and to put the things
in place to get there, you got to work fast.
And the only way you can work fast is and be efficient is to not be working in separate
silos.
Right.
You got to have great communications between those team members.
So were you the, was there in chain of command terms, was there somebody in between you and
the sales and marketing departments or were you the direct leader for both departments?
So when I was a CEO, right, when I rolled into that space, they rolled up to COO, like
we were talking about.
Okay.
You were talking about.
Yeah.
So sales and marketing reported directly to COO.
Right.
Interesting.
That's awesome.
And that's, that's a curious.
It makes me curious because again, all those startups that are out there that are trying
to pigeonhole themselves into a specific structure, I'm ultimately just trying to expose the fact
that it's successful companies that are out there.
It's not a cookie cutter.
Um, you know, and, and if you can get to a hundred million dollars, um, without that
cookie cutter process, it should make us stop and think, well, wait a second, you know,
is this cookie cutter necessary?
You know, are there other things that we should be focused on and concerned about?
So I think from a, uh, unveiling sales secret standpoint, I feel like you've unveiled a
very massive secret because you're talking about the leadership that exists and the confidence
of having that leadership in place so that you can operate, which, which gives people
a strong foundation to firm foundation to, to, to stand on rather than shaky ground where
they're like, Oh, shouldn't we be doing this with an organization?
Like shouldn't we, we do that?
So that's my next question for you.
Um, considering you didn't have a chief marketing officer in that role, um, how do you, how
do you instill confidence in that team that from an organizational structural standpoint,
you guys knew what you're doing.
Um, so that they focused on selling and marketing, doing the jobs at hand.
So without a chief marketing officer, so I understand your question.
How did, did I build the confidence or, um, create an environment where people thought
we knew what was going on?
Yeah.
Where they, where they felt that exactly.
Exactly.
Um, because the people that I brought into the organization came from big places with
big jobs that had been in marketing, that had been in, you know, sales leadership and
that sort of thing.
Um, that was what instilled the confidence.
When I say big companies, right, it was fortune 500 companies.
And so when you've had, um, the roles in those sized organizations and you, you know, for
example, when you bring in somebody who has a marketing degree, right.
So it just so happened that there, my COO background was business and marketing.
And so that really can't be challenged, right, when there's been success and proven success,
it is, it is what it is.
And so I didn't need to have a chief marketing officer to prove to the business that we knew
what we were doing.
Right.
It was the success and experience and proven track record that said, all right, they know
what's going on.
I'm so happy that you exposed that.
Um, it's a, it's a hard and painful truth for those of us who don't have a degree, but
it's also an important reality, uh, that you, you can't, and that's why I don't work with
corporate.
It's the exact reason it's changing now that I've got gray hair coming in.
Um, and I've got four kids and the experience of life, but as a young, um, chief level
officer, um, I could go into those environments and within a matter of weeks, the team would
have shredded me, um, by planting seeds of doubt with the, with the owners of, well,
what does he know?
You know, he's only 22, you know, or 24, what he doesn't even have a degree.
Um, you know, and, and they would utilize that to counter anything I tried to do.
And so I share that because anybody who, uh, you know, is still at the phase, the young
phase, anybody that's listening in and thinking about the value of a degree, there is a massive
value and I think it's bull crap by the way.
Um, but at the same time it's from a, because people can piss away their education and,
and get that piece of paper on their wall and not mean a dang thing.
However, on the flip side, the harmonic side of it, if they did use their time responsibly
and they have that, when you're growing a company that has to make quick public impressions,
like for the organization of a hundred people, you need a mic drop.
You need something to stand by.
It wasn't until working with video power, um, you know, and saying, Hey, we're with
the YouTube ad experts of the world.
We took on campaigns of less than, or nobody could work with us that had less than $10,000
per month on YouTube ads.
Right.
We did some of the top YouTube ad campaigns in the decade.
One of ours won the number one YouTube ad of the decade with Kobe Bryant, Lino Messi.
You know, it's like, okay, now I get it.
Right.
And that's a lot longer than just saying, Oh, I went to Stanford.
Um, and here's my marketing degree.
I mean, I'm with you, Jackson.
I don't have an MBA.
Like I didn't go to grad school.
I went to Michigan state Spartan, right?
I'm a state school girl who worked hard like you, right.
Brought the grit and figured it out.
And so I, I've had a lot of that in my career.
Like, wait, you don't have an MBA.
And I'm like, right.
But I had to earn that.
I unfortunately had to prove to whomever a lot of whomevers that I can crush it.
Or you had to prove that, yes, I am a woman, which you shouldn't have to, um, you know,
but you've mentioned having to face that.
Um, and knowing how to go about that, overcome that reality.
That's just something that I can't relate to.
Um, right.
So it's very important to know our strengths, know our weaknesses, but also know our perceived
strengths and how those inhibit us and our perceived weaknesses.
And from the market standpoint, what they, what they think about us, um, knowing how
to communicate through that is important.
So let's dive a little bit deeper into some of those secrets of success that maybe, maybe
the audience was anticipating.
Um, you know, maybe, you know, that you also would love to talk about.
We've got a couple of minutes left.
So what are, what are some of the sell secrets that, um, we can, we can blow people's socks
off with right now.
What do you got?
Well, um, the number one secret by the way, in selling is listening and knowing your customer.
Yeah.
If you don't know your audience, you might as well not show up.
And I have coached salespeople and sales teams in lots of different industries, right?
Where I sat in-house or I was an outsource consultant and not knowing your ideal customer
profile is a bad place to be.
And so A, understanding like my ideal customer profile is this.
Demographically they look like this.
So that's who I should be targeting.
That's my target audience.
And then taking it a step further and saying, what do I know about this organization that
I can prove that whatever I'm selling is going to solve a problem.
And if I don't know that, I have to ask the questions and I have to listen and I have
to be able to bring it back to that.
Otherwise it is game over.
And really, truly it is crazy to me that there are salespeople out there that don't listen,
right?
And you can tell they're not listening and oh, by the way, the customer and the prospect
knows you're not listening.
And you walk in and you don't know anything about that company.
You don't know anything about their business and you don't know anything about how what
you sell can solve their problem.
You're not a salesperson.
If you didn't turn up your mic, turn up your volume a little bit if you didn't hear that.
You're not.
It's one thing to hear it.
It's one thing to hear it though.
It's another to understand it.
And that's one of the key differences in this listening skills that Megan's talking about.
Three levels.
You can react to what you're taught.
And like an animal, we can respond to what we're told.
Or we can take a step back and listen further.
Megan, what do you mean by that?
Right, Megan, how do I apply that to my current situation?
Asking questions is a good indicator.
If you don't ask a lot of questions, it's actually a pretty good indicator that you
don't listen or know how to listen.
Well said, Megan.
I love that.
We are out of time for our show.
I would love to just continue for another hour.
I really would.
We do.
I would love to continue to gain insight into more self-success secrets.
And if you want that, then of course you can reach out to Megan.
You can find her on LinkedIn.
Right, you're on LinkedIn?
I am on LinkedIn.
I'm going to make sure that's how we connect.
Oh yeah.
There's other...
That'll be on LinkedIn.
By the way, another real quick.
Yeah, hit it.
If you are not connected with a lot of people on LinkedIn and you are not out there and
you don't have a presence, it's going to be hard for you to resonate as a true sales leader.
So, work on it.
Well said, Thority Credibility.
It is another portion of that paper on the wall, so to speak.
And if you have the opportunity to have the asset, then don't make this excuse, make it
happen.
Get the asset.
So, Megan, thanks for dropping all the value that you did.
It's obvious to see that you're ready to give as much as possible.
So anybody who's listening in, feel free to drop in the comments.
Any questions that you have for Megan, we'll be happy to distribute those back to her.
And if you want to be on the show, if you want to share your vision, don't hesitate
to apply as well.
We're looking for great visionary entrepreneurs and visionary leaders to come in and do just
that.
But Megan, this was an absolute privilege.
I hope to have you back on the show or we can dive in even deeper now that we've laid
such a great foundation and hope you have a fantastic day.
Anything else you need from us before we go?
I'd love to come back and I highly recommend engaging with Jackson.
You've made me think critically and deeply about what I do.
And so, I'll come back anytime.
The feeling is mutual on that Megan.
Vision Pros, you guys have a great day.
In fact, we have another episode coming up in a few minutes.
We will see you all soon.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving