Rick Herrmann has worked in sales leadership roles at Intel for over 30 years. In this episode, Rick talks about how he started at Intel, and some of the important lessons learned about selling for large organizations. He also talks about selling as part of a team and shares some observations about the evolution of AI-related technologies. Finally, Rick offers some advice for those just getting started in sales.
You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Rick here:
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This is the transcript for this episode:
Mark Shriner [0:01]
Welcome to the grow fast podcast, where we talk with leading sales, marketing and personal growth experts about how companies can accelerate sales, optimize marketing, and grow their businesses fast. Let's go. Hey, Rick, how are you doing today?
Rick Herrmann [0:15]
Good. Mark, Nice to be here.
Mark Shriner [0:18]
And I really appreciate you taking the time to come on The Grow Fast Podcast. I am normally on our podcast. We talk to sales trainers and sales consultants. And you know, you're actually spent your whole career, you know, on the front line selling and leading sales teams inside of large organizations. I listened to your podcast on the or your episode on the sales game changers podcast with Fred diamond, really enjoyed it. I mean, there are a lot of people who sell. There's kind of a smaller subset of that, of people who really give a lot of thought to, you know, the methodology, the processes and in the value, the brain table. And I took a lot of that away from that episode. So, so thanks for coming on.
Rick Herrmann [1:01]
Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Mark Shriner [1:05]
What I want to talk to you about is, you know, you know what it's like to sell in large organizations and then selling individually, and then also as part of a team. I think some of your, a lot of your sales, has been in the government sector. And also want to talk a little about that, but before we jump into all that, maybe you could just give us a kind of a high level overview of your background.
Rick Herrmann [1:28]
Yeah, so I started in the tech industry in the early 90s. I was fortunate enough to do an internship at Intel in 1989. I was at Northeastern University as part of a Co Op program, and part of that is that you have one foot in industry and you have one foot in academia. And I was fortunate enough to be Intel's first intern from Northeastern University. And when I left university, I was hired by Intel, and I started in high performance computing with Intel, and that journey lasted 32 years. Wow. I retired from Intel and went over to Microsoft as the Vice President for Global Education for a couple of years, and most recently, returned to Intel. I have a very, very deep love for Intel, and it's for its mission and for its contribution to the world and so I'm very happy to be now back in Intel, leading our global si efforts.
Mark Shriner [2:35]
That's an amazing journey. And I mean, you were there when Intel, yeah, I would still say it's at the very, very top. But back in the Andy Grove days, when, you know, it was considered to be one of the best run companies in the world. And there's a lot of, a lot of legacy kind of management, you know, learning from that. And I think the whole OKRs originated from Intel, and there's, you know, that's had kind of a ripple carry on effect to so many different companies around the world as well.
Rick Herrmann [3:06]
Yeah, and OKRs are still table stakes inside of Intel. So Andy Grove was an extraordinary leader, and we're fortunate now. Pat Gelsinger, who is our current CEO, was one of Andy's proteges. And so you see that Grovean culture coming back to coming back to Intel, and, you know, it's good, and that that culture is loot, you know, really rooted in superb disciplines, pure superb executions per operational excellence, but also having a really strong strategic vision and understanding of, you know, where industry is going, and how we have to intercept where our customers are. And today, of course, that's all AI, you know, the momentum and the we're seeing in AI. It's fascinating. I was talking to my 12 year old son, and we're constantly having discussions about technology and industry. And I was saying that, you know, in the in the Internet era, we thought that, you know, speed, that we're moving as fast as we possibly could, and that speed was, you know, the most important factor, and in that, that level of speed is just accelerated with with AI to and it's disrupting everything. And so how do you navigate that strategically?
Mark Shriner [4:28]
And you're bringing us some interesting points that I hadn't, you know, kind of penciled in here. But let's, let's go with that. From where you sit. What are the, you know, the products or services AI related that are that you are going to market with, and you know, you're seeing that, that hockey stick kind of uptake.
Rick Herrmann [4:51]
Yeah, I think this is, it's interesting, because I'm spending a lot of time as a sales leader and leader in the company, just understanding, so I'm. Reading a lot right? Whether it's you know, things coming out of Stanford on you know, the direction of AI, or whether it's you know, studying what enterprises, and in particular the global 500 and fortune 2000 are doing. It's fascinating to me that if we look at the data right now that 80% of all AI projects are failing, but right, which is an astounding but it does tell you the level of innovation that is happening in this space, that people see that IT leaders and C suite leaders see the promise of AI, and they're willing to go out and experiment, and in many ways they have to go experiment, right, because everybody is moving in that direction. But also the, you know, the things that we see in terms of the progression of natural language processing and things like chat, GPT or or Bert, or any of the other AI llama as an example, all of those models that you know are almost becoming conversational with us, and the promise of these technologies and what they can do in healthcare and scientific research and our experience as consumers, I mean the promise and You know, I just think we're in the early stages of of this. I mean, clearly I had had four decades right before. You know, chat GPT kind of unleashed everybody's imagination about what was possible. But now it's just a fascinating area, and it's moving at an incredibly rapid pace. We see the infrastructure build out that's happening around AI. We see the level of innovation, the level of new models that, you know, every week there's new models that are coming out. It's just, it's just a, you know, it's very reminiscent of the enthusiasm that we saw, you know, as the internet.
Mark Shriner [7:01]
Right? And I was just gonna say there was that initial hype, and everybody said, like, well, what's our internet strategy? And many of them failed. But as you said, it unleashed so much innovation. And if we were to just cut things off right then and say, Wow, this internet thing's a failed experiment. I mean, we wouldn't have so many of the companies that are just, you know, the largest, fastest growing companies in the world wouldn't have appeared. But it is that, that innovation, you know, you had to kind of struggle through. But yeah!
Rick Herrmann [7:30]
We were, you know, referring back to Andy Grove and to Andy Grove's leadership. And Andy used to have this one chart that is seared in my mind, and it's this idea of a software spiral. That software spiral constantly creates new momentum for new opportunities for new innovation, and that software spiral creates an insatiable demand for silicon, right? Right. That was what it meant to us. Was this good, sensational demand for compute and networking and storage and and what, what AI and what all these new models have brought to us now, in my opinion, is this idea of, you know, you're going back to Grove and going back to that software spiral is, is the creation of these new models, in these new use cases around AI, right? Have really created a new spiral, that is, that is now creating momentum around the sensational appetite for all things computer, and all things storage, all things networking, and that's really good for our industry. But in all of that is this incredible level of innovation that's happening, yeah, around AI, and that's really, that's really exciting. You know, when I think about, you know, my 12 and 14 year old and and, you know, what will they, when they're entering college, when they enter their career? Kind of, what will things look like? Just tremendous optimism around, you know, the services and capabilities and how this might change education as an example, right? So..
Mark Shriner [9:17]
You mentioned healthcare. And I mean, if you think about the traditional method of just going to see your individual doctor, and you have, you know, maybe seven minutes with them, and, you know, and they're going to basically reflect on the information that they've pulled from your charts and then their personal experience. And if you plug that into the AI powered networked world, where instantaneously they can look at everybody with your similar profile and their health, health outcomes in that relevant universe, the decisions and the ability to match you up with the right treatments is going to be amazing. It's already moving in that direction.
Rick Herrmann [10:00]
Yeah. and you said one really important thing in healthcare and in other places, which is that humans are not out of the loop. Yeah, these are tools that will augment, right, totally, creativity and the intelligence and knowledge of a human, whether that's in, you know, an application of health or an application of education. And you think about education as an example, I spent 20 years in the field of education, and you think about all of the very low level things that teachers have to do and grading and those kind of things right, the ability and the opportunity to automate many of those things and enable teachers to really do the things that they do really well, which is that caring, that mentoring, right, that imparting of knowledge, and get away from maybe some of the more tactical things. That's an incredible promise and a future that I think we'll see develop over the next 10 years.
Mark Shriner [11:03]
Awesome. Well, let's go back to when you first started in sales. And let's talk about the changes throughout the years, both with, like, the tools and because, I mean, we were talking about AI, and there are a lot of AI tools for sales executives, but when you first started, what was it like? Was there a, you know, was there a training program said, Okay, you're a salesperson and this is what we expect. Or did they say, Here's your desk, go hit the phone and go hit it, or what?
Rick Herrmann [11:31]
Yeah, it's interesting for me. Personally, I was fortunate in the pathway that I traveled in my career, which is where I was really started in sales excellence and sales operations. And it was a role of of supporting what was at that time, field sales engineers that were selling the largest, most complex computers in the world, high performance computing, into national labs and DOD and things like NOAA and weather modeling and and, you know, at that point in time, I was able to learn the trade, right, the skills from very senior sales executives, because I was Supporting, you know, their their RFP responses right back in the boiler room, like, you know, with with the tools, you know, crafting these, you know, 200 page responses for high performance computers and, and, and so I was able to be mentored and learn from, You know, those folks that had spent, you know, decades crafting, you know, sales and what was really great, and what differentiated the the really great sales executives from, from, from, you know, those that were maybe not as good was just their interpersonal skills. Talk about, you know, selling today in a more technical way. But the one thing is those interpersonal skills that these sales executives had, you they really the ones that really excelled had these tremendous interpersonal communication skills. They were technical. They understood the markets. They understood the products really well. But what really differentiated them was the interpersonal skill set that they had.
Mark Shriner [13:32]
So a couple things are interesting. You started, actually from the sales enablement, or, I forget the exact word you use, but you know, you're helping to I would assume, kind of give them the information that they need, track activities, things like that, and then observe what these successful salespeople are doing. So that was actually a great way to learn, and that's probably, I would assume, atypical for a lot of organizations, where people start a sales role, and they would start, you know, as a sales development representative, and they're on the phone or, you know, doing email sequences and so on, and then maybe move into one of those kind of support or operational roles. So, I mean, you know, that's kind of a flipped learning opportunity. They're very good. You mentioned interpersonal skills? Did they use them, obviously, when they're talking with their customers and prospects, but did you find that they also had those same skills internally? Because some salespeople, they're just awesome in front of customers, but inside, they're like what's the word a bull in a china shop, because they're just so focused on getting the deal right and then. But I've worked with some that are amazing, both inside out. They never lose their cool. They're always just great communicators. What was your experience?
Rick Herrmann [14:48]
Yeah, we definitely had a few proverbial bulls in the china shop. What's interesting? You know, today we would. You know, we put customer advocacy kind of at the top of everything, no matter what organization you're in, right? We all say we all are here to kind of serve, serve, serve our customers. But it's interesting. I heard a great quote, I think it was from Muhammad Ali. I was listening to a podcast recently, but he said that impossible is an opinion, not a fact, which is great. And I think about some of those really legendary sales executives that we had because, you know, at that time where we were moving into super computers and we were competing against Cray, there were a lot of people that would say, well, it's impossible for us to be successful at XYZ account. And those folks that had that growth mindset, that impossible was not part of their language, those were the ones that were really successful. And yeah, sometimes they were bulls in a china shop, but that's because they didn't believe in the word impossible. They only believed in what was possible, and, and, and, and I think you have to if you're going to be successful in sales, right? You have to have that mindset of anything is possible if you're creating value for your customer, if you really understand your customer, if you understand what the possibilities are, and even potentially what the unrealized possibilities are, right? That will make you a really superb account executive. And because those that maybe don't you know, they're like, Oh, well, that's impossible. It's impossible for me to unseat my competition. It's impossible for me to get my customer to pay attention to what my offerings are. You know, today, because they've got too many other things, right? The ones that have been extraordinarily successful in the career that I've worked in are in and that I've seen, as well as, kind of my own thought processes, you always have to think about what the possibilities are versus what's impossible.
Mark Shriner 17:09
I think that's some great advice, and it kind of goes in parallel with, you know, believing in your product and believing in your company. And if you really have that deep seated belief, it makes it easier to go out and sell and find opportunities and and I think this that that kind of aligns with, I think it was, was it Motorola that they were developing a competitive product that was going to be sort of an existential threat to Intel, and you guys had, like, an all hands on deck, and were able to reverse course. I think it was in a matter of, like eight weeks, or something like that, for an organization the size of Intel, dealing with the types of products that you guys, which, you know, the development pipeline is years and it's not months, but you guys were able to change course. And I remember that some of the initial feedback was, there's no way we can get this done. And your leadership was like, There's no way possible, right?
Rick Herrmann [18:00]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I look at Intel, you know today, as Intel strives to build our foundry business, if you go back before, you know, Pat's arrival as an example, we weren't really thinking that way. And, and, and, you know, Pat is one of those, one of those leaders that inspires anything is possible, right? If you have the right strategy, right vision, if you can operationalize it, and if you can, most importantly, sell it.
Mark Shriner [18:27]
Uh, hmm.
Rick Herrmann [18:30]
And, yeah, he's a really extraordinary leader.
Mark Shriner [18:33]
So, you know, you started off sales operations. When did you, which, again, I think, was a great learning opportunity, and you're handling RFP, which means you are learning so many different aspects about the company, because you're completing those documents, right? Which is, it's a great learning opportunity there. When did you move into an actual front line, engaging with a prospect or customer role? Yeah,
Rick Herrmann [19:00 ]
I spent three, three, about three years, kind of learning the trade from the inside. And you know, today, if you think about individuals that are coming up, they're probably starting their career inside sales as an example, before moving to the Moving to the inside, it's almost a it's almost that apprenticeship or internship? Yeah, are you really yet to learn about value customer orientation? You know, how to probe with, you know, the right questions at the right time for your customers. And for me, it was about three years, you know, doing that before I moved into a frontline Field Sales Engineer position in that transition, when you realize all of a sudden you're, you're responsible for everything that goes on at a customer. Some of these were, you know, big customers. These are Wall Street customers that are running mission critical or their defense customers. Or they're, you know, civilian agencies, and you know they're really relying on you and on your company to deliver right. It is part of their mission, whether that's a private sector mission or a public sector mission. And you know you tend to, you feel the weight of that responsibility for those accounts and for everything that goes on when you're delivering those products and those types of mission critical solutions. But you know that that was a good transition, the fact that I had all of that experience under me to your to your point about when you have to sit down and you have to craft a full RFP, the depth and breadth of your understanding of the capabilities and the value that your company, you know, brings to a customer, is becomes very, very deep, and it really helps you build your your skills in terms of representing your company to ultimately to a customer.
Mark Shriner [20:56]
I was just over the last two years, been working on helping a company restructure their RFP response processes. And as part of that, we hired a RFP Manager who had project managed experience, but no experience with this particular company. And it was funny, because, literally, four or five months in, she knew more about the company than pretty much anybody, because it's just all those, like you said, the depth and the breadth and having to respond and verify, of course, she's not crafting the responses. She's working with subject matter experts, but she's, you know, aggregating or putting all that information together and reviewing it. And it's just like, you know, ask a question, if we, if we, if you don't know, ask Amy, she'll know so good stuff, you know, I worked with a Microsoft partner for about five, six years. And so, you know, we did a lot of, you know, joint selling, co selling, to Microsoft customers and and I was, I gained a massive amount of respect and appreciation for, you know, the difference of working as an individual salesperson or as a sales leader in a smaller organization, versus, you know, an organization like Intel, Microsoft, because Microsoft, you know, if you're dealing with a fortune 500 company, there is an account manager who runs the whole kind of strategy for the account, but then you have sales, sales leaders for the different products or services, right? And you all have to work together to, you know, to make sure that the overall strategy is being met. But individuals have their own quotas as well, right? So maybe you can talk a little bit about the dynamics of working in a large organization with that where sometimes you might even have competing interests internally, at the, your customers.
Rick Herrmann [22:50]
Yeah, sure. So maybe two points here, one around that orchestration, and maybe another around this idea of cooperation, which is probably, you know, a good idea, right? But on the complexity of selling today, I think if we and I don't know that this applies to all industries, but it certainly applies in the IT industry today that things have gotten very complicated for CIOs and for Chief Technology Officers. You know, they're dealing with AI, they're dealing with data, they're dealing with security issues. They're dealing with, you know, compliance issues around data, where that data sits. So they're dealing with, you know, the regulatory environment. It's become incredibly complicated and complex, and they need companies that can understand that complexity, and they need sales and account executives that understand that complexity. And I would say that no one individual can understand it all, which means that you have to be a phenomenal orchestrator, collaborator and networker to bring the full suite of solutions. And this is one of the things that you know from my time in Microsoft, that I think you know Microsoft does exceptionally well. They're able to orchestrate a vast array of capabilities, competencies, technical acumen, and bring that to their customers, to solve very, very complex problems with their product, with their product or offering. So, so that role of orchestration, where, you know, you were asking about early in my career, you know, it's, it's, you know, me with a with a with a briefcase, kind of, you know, traveling around from account to account, as you know, more of an individual solo, you know, contributor out there. And there was always, you know, factory resources, kind of, that you could reach back to. But if I compare, you know, where we were, as you know. That sole Field Sales Engineer by themselves on an island the 1990s and early 2000s versus today, you're orchestrating your if you're leading an account team, you are an orchestrator of many, many resources and many capabilities, and that's because of the enterprises. It enterprises have become so complicated, built in with, built within, that is going to be this idea that there are going to be friction points that you have to navigate, navigate around. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We see that in, in our industry, you could have a competitor one day and you could be partnering with them the next day on open source issues, right because you want overall growth. But when, when those friction points potentially come up, even within a company, the first principle is, do right by your customer, right? And, yeah, absolutely is, what is the problem, ultimately, that you're trying to solve? And, you know, this is what I this is what I saw from, you know, the really fantastic leaders, uh, Microsoft, and the account executives from Microsoft's is what I see from, you know, the really fantastic teams at Intel that, you know, handle these real these, you know, multi 100 billion dollar, you know, customers that we that we have, you're always going to have some friction points, but it's very simply, what is the right thing to do by your customer? And you know that that untangles, that untangles friction points pretty quickly.
Mark Shriner [26:40]
That a great, great advice as well, because a lot of organizations will have an agenda, and they say, well, we want to prioritize the sales of service a or product A. And they'll, they'll, they'll put pressure and or provide incentives to the sales team to go out and sell that, which is kind of the opposite of what you're talking about. You're talking about like, you know, the person who's orchestrating that account and everybody else who's involved has to have a deep understanding of what is the customer trying to achieve here, what? What are their challenges? And let's help them, and by helping them, will deepen that relationship and help ourselves. But I think that's great. Put the customer first.
Rick Herrmann 27:22
Just to kind of pull on that thread. The reason that we see those kinds of things is because you have these very complex enterprises that have different business units. Right within Intel, we have, you know, a data center using a client unit, a networking unit. Same thing in Microsoft, different business units, different different, different priorities and and, you know, part of the art of being an accountant executives is, how do you navigate all those priorities? There's, there's a term that's often used that, you know, sales, sales, sales. People are coin operated. You know, they do what they're, they do what they're. You know, the commission plan tells them first. You know, quite frankly, I really, I have disliked that terminology for a long time because I find that sales professionals, and I use the word professionals are not corn operated. In fact, sales professionals are trying to do the best thing for their customers. They're not always just trying to maximize their pay, right? And the truly, truly great ones, you know, put their customer interest first, and then on the back side of that, if we have the wrong incentive mechanics on the back end of that, then, go fix the go fix the problem within your company. Don't, totally don't, don't, you know, don't lead your customer down a pathway, the wrong pathway, because the incentive plan is wrong and and so, you know, the best sales professionals I have really lead with. How am I creating value for my customer? First and foremost.
Mark Shriner [29:05]
Well, it's also, it's also rewarding when you help a customer solve a problem, and then you see the successful deployment of that solution, and you know that deepens your relationship, and if you do a good job with them, because you know, if you're playing a short term game, and you're gonna get get that commission, and then you're done. Well, good luck, man. I mean, cuz you know a person like you've been in an organization for 31 years, you I'm sure you have a lot of repeat customers that you've been going back to for years and years and years, and you have to do what's right by them. But also, if you think about, I mean, my oldest son, he's he's in a sales role with with AWS, and we, before he moved into that role, he did an internship and then, but he'd done some sales before, and he always had this conversation about the benefits, pros and cons of being a sales role. And, you know, I say, like, look, basically sales people, you have a great deal of autonomy. You have. Have typically a higher ceiling on your earnings. Sometimes it's uncapped, okay, but there is pressure that comes with it, right? But this, but when you close a deal and you help a customer solve a problem, that's something that you know, it feels good, right? And so I think if you really enjoy sales, part of the enjoyment comes from solving problems, which means doing the right thing. When, when you're part of a team like that, you I feel like sometimes my job is not even selling. It's just getting the right people in front of the customer, even though I'm the one that's kind of driving the account, but it's like, I just need to figure out what their issues are, and then get the right subject matter expert in front of them. Is that? Is that part of what you're doing?
Rick Herrmann [30:54]
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, today, I know enough about AI to be a little bit dangerous, and a lot of that is, you know, a lot of that is through self through self learning. But at the end of the day, the job now is to get our data scientists in our data engineers, in front of customers, talking about the real problems that they're facing. And you know, you can learn those things as you can learn those things as an account manager, as a sales engineer. I think everybody should be studying very hard right now. You know, what are the AI models, where are these things going? What are the use cases to help their customers? But at the end of the day, you know, a data scientist pretty much wants to talk to a data scientist and part of the responsibility, from an orchestration perspective, is, how do I have data scientists talking to data scientists, but also other parts of the C suite, right? How do I have my controller talking to somebody else's controller, the way that finance folks look at this? And so that role of orchestration, you know, you have to bring yourself up to a level where you are fluent and conversational in the topics and really, really good at them. But at the end of the day, there's going to be a point where you kind of reach the limits of your own knowledge, and at that point, how do you orchestrate bringing in subject matter experts right to continue to forward the sales cycle and to really deepen the relationship? Because these relationships are really important.
Mark Shriner [32:37]
Totally agree, and I've had subject matter experts who have made us, made me just look, you know, really smart. You know, I the couple people in my career that have have won so much business for us, and I just love setting up a meeting with these people, because I know I mean, 90% chance of close once, once they're in there, because they're, they're solving their problems at the same time. Sometimes when you bring in a subject matter expert, it can be what's the word? There's a little bit of an unknown factor there, if you haven't worked with them in the past. And have you ever been in a situation where you brought somebody in and maybe they overstep their bounds in terms of their subject matter expert on this specific piece of technology, but they start talking about the business or the deal and and you have to kind of rein things in a bit. Have you ever experienced something like that?
Rick Herrmann [ 33:27]
Yeah, I think this, this gets back the way. If you're a very skilled account executive, how do you coach somebody beforehand? Now, I've, I've had, I've had situations where I have coached people beforehand and I said, Don't do this. And what's the first thing they do? They walk in and do that exact same thing they do that thing, right? And, and, and, and, you know, you end up having to, you know, pull your customer who hopefully you have a really great relationship with, pull your customers aside and say, I apologize for that, right? Yeah, but that's where your relationship is critical, right? So, yeah, to your point, you know, sometimes you'll bring these subject matter experts in, and they will do extraordinary things to move the sales cycle forward for you and in deep in that relationship. And occasionally, you know, occasionally, very rare, will you get a bit of a we'll use the term a loose cannon, right? That maybe will do exactly what you've asked them not to do. And, yeah, we probably all had that situation, or probably all had that experience. But that's where the depth of your own personal relationship really, really matters. And if you have a really deep relationship with an account, and you have an intimate relationship, deep understanding of their business, you know, I think they'll give you some grace, you know, on something like that, as long as it's infrequent, like if it you. Yeah, again, you're just the wrong person handling that account. But I think the most important thing is, if you do a really good job as an account executive in coaching people before you bring them into your accounts, what are the issues? What value are you trying to create? Where should you be spending the majority of your time, and what are their hot button issues, right? So that you don't necessarily go in and end up, you know, inadvertently, right? You know, hitting a sensitive spot for them, right? You know, as an example, you know, competition tends to be a sensitive spot. You know, if you're thinking about dealing with one global si versus another, global Si, you know, don't come in and talk, don't come in and say, Hey, I was just at such and such, you know, you and so just being sensitive to the politics, the culture, the hot button issues as an account executive, as a master orchestrator, because I like little of Account Executives today, especially when we're talking about these large enterprises, you know, they are really master orchestrators, and that is core to their skill set. You know, be a master orchestrator in terms of how you're coaching those people before you bring them into your accounts.
Mark Shriner [36:29]
I think it's some great advice and I have, I mean, that is part of my process. I've also had situations like you just said, where you said, I just do not mention this. Things were going really well. And, I mean, it just seared in my memory, because the guy, you know, the deal was going, going going, and I was like, yeah, yeah. And he goes, Oh, by the way, have you guys heard of and I was like, no, he's gonna say it. He's gonna say it. And he said it. But we were able to recover. Actually, had one subject matter expert that he had, he'd taken a sales course, I didn't know. And so he, towards the end of his, you know, his bit, he would ask, like, a discovery question, right? You know? And he, the question he would ask would be like, oh, yeah, I got asked, So are you the decision maker? And I was like, so we had, we had to have a conversation about that. He goes, but my course told me it's like, yeah, but it's great, great. But I got that part if, if somebody was joining your organization right now in a junior level, what are some tips you would give them in terms of one, developing that relationship with key accounts and then just general advice in terms of how to be successful. They're coming into a junior sales role. You know, it's year one for them at Intel or any other large tech organization. What should they do to be successful?
Rick Herrmann [37:56]
Yeah, I think number one, find good mentors. I had great mentors that I learned from when you ask somebody to mentor you. You know, nine out of 10 times, I think people will say yes, especially people that have been around most people are very gracious and kind with their time and energy. So I think mentoring is one. I read a lot. I still read a lot. I've read a lot throughout my career. I have a stack of AI books right now that I'm, you know, plowing my way through to learn everything I can about, you know, use cases around AI and you know, how enterprise it should be thinking about everything from data processing to deployment. So I tend to just do personal thing. I tend to read a lot, but I also tend to listen to podcasts, right? So you think about Fred diamond and ies, and you think about these things, one of the areas that I'm learning from AI and I listened to Lex Fridman a lot, you know, he has some great, great podcasts. So, you know, it used to be, if I was going out to exercise, you know, I'd have AC DC or something,
Mark Shriner [39:18]
You’re dating yourself.
Rick Herrmann [39:22]
You know, as I've gotten a little bit older, you know, I'm listening to, you know, really thoughtful people podcasts, and I think what that, what, what all of that tells you, whether it's your mentoring, reading, listening to podcast, is seek advice from others, right? And most folks will be incredibly gracious with with their time and with their advice and with their and with their experience. So So that's maybe one thing. The second thing is, learn the culture of the company that you're in really. Invest in learning. You know, we were talking about the RFP experience, right, and how much I learned about the company from that experience, but I think really learning the full capabilities of your company, because you're not just selling an offering or a solution. At the end of the day, you're really selling your company, and so really understanding that full capability of the company. You look at why big companies, I think, are getting bigger and stronger. It's because they have the broadest portfolio of capabilities to deal with a high degree of complexity that were operating in today. But as a young salesperson, you know, taking your first sales role, I think understanding that you know it's not just that you need to be a subject in subject expert in your offering or your solutions. You also have to be a deep subject matter expert in your company. Is it because? Because in many cases, if a company is buying from you, maybe they're not betting. In some cases, they're betting the cut their company on you, but they're certainly betting an organization or they're making a substantial investment in not just your product, but in your company, and you as a sales professional, believing right, you use the TED lasso right, believing right that you can help them to achieve what they're ultimately trying to achieve.
Mark Shriner [41:39]
That's some, some great advice. And you know, the mentors, sometimes people are afraid to reach out, but like you said, most people are very happy to help. And the reading, I feel like it's a lost art. I read a lot, and these days I'm doing a lot of audio books while I'm walking. The only time I do music is up. I get tired in the car and I put some music on to kind of wake me up on a longer road trip or something like that. I can say once in a while, you know, I need something to kind of pick me up, but, but, there's just so much out there, and I'm going to come back at the very end and ask you for a couple book recommendations, okay, but, but, but, I tell everybody read. It's like, there's, in fact, a great book. I wasn't expecting it to be that great was Tim Ferriss tools of the Titans. Yeah? Because what he does is he interviews all these super, super successful people across so many different domains, and just gets their advice. And I'm like, Oh, my God, there's gold in almost every interview on that in that book. And I took, I don't know, maybe 20 pages of notes, because when I'm listening, I will say, Hey, Siri, take a note, and then, and I gotta keep stopping, and then I go back and I rewrite my notes from my phone. But the point is, there's just so much out there. So I totally agree with you. And then the podcast that's a whole new I mean, we just didn't even have these when we were growing up, right? And you have so many of these people like Lex Fridman, who do the deep way. They call it a long format interview.
Rick Herrmann 43:09
Yeah, three hours. He does these three hour long format interviews, which I think are fascinating. I mean, if you want to know, you know, where AI is going today, you know, go listen to the three hour interview with Sam Altman, or go listen to, this past week I was listening to the person responsible at meta for the llama two Foundation, right? And and and and and. You know those folks are really sharing the trajectory that we're on and these kinds of things. So, the information is definitely out there, right? It's just finding. It's finding, you know, the things that you find that are interesting. I just have to be an incredibly intellectually curious person, right? And, and you just can't, I think, put enough weight on, you know, being curious about these things, especially if you're an account executive role where others are struggling with things. Your part of your job is to bring new knowledge to them.
Mark Shriner [44:11]
Absolutely, yeah, and just to kind of touch on that podcast thing again. I mean, it's amazing, because, like with the traditional media that we grew up with, somebody like Sam Altman might get a 32nd sound bite or one minute sound bite on the evening news, right and then, and then maybe seven minutes on a talk show or something like that. But you know, a three hour conversation with somebody who's intellectually, you know, at the same caliber level with them that can kind of spar with them back and forth is amazing. So just a couple more questions here. You know, you started off this conversation. We started off talking about AI and, you know, in all the different use cases that are that we're just starting to see, but it's obviously going to increase massively, one of the use cases in our. Profession is, you know, with sales, sales enablement prospecting, are you using any tools, or are you following any tools that you think are big productivity boosts?
Rick Herrmann [45:12]
Yeah, it's interesting whether or not we think of these things as productivity boosts, or in some cases productivity obstacles, right? So, you know today's CRM systems, I think what we'll see is much more automation in the sales process. So, if you look at the level of sophistication of somebody like Microsoft, right? Microsoft has, you know, hundreds of 1000s of customers. Somebody like Intel, realistically, we have, you know, millions of people that use our products. But at the end of the day, you know, we, we have, you know, big customers like a Dell or so, kind of very different, very different sales engines and sales rules, but at the heart of most of that is CRM tools, and I think We'll see in our seeing more automation of that sales prospecting, that that's that sales pipeline, right the prospecting side, the lead management, it'll, it'll be really interesting to see how you know chatbots as an example, which is really transforming Customer Service, how that might be transforming sales where you have things like co pilot that you know, our assistant in your their assistance in your sales effort, remind you when a customer is due for refresh when you're thinking about retention of your customers, when You're thinking about, you know, the time between your contacts with your customers, right? You begin to really begin to have a personalized profile of your customer. How do they like to be talked to? When do they like to be talked to? All that information, I think, is increasingly automated through AI as we move forward, but at the heart of everything today is basically that CRM system that we all use.
Mark Shriner [47:26]
Yeah, and I think that a great majority of salespeople kind of have a love hate relationship with whatever CRM tool they're using. And a lot of that comes down to the company's policies in terms of what they require and how you use it and so on. And if we can automate it and make it and make it easier, because really, you know, you want your salespeople out, meeting prospects, meeting customers, orchestrating these kinds of engagements, and not behind a desk, entering data. But it's interesting, because with the you mentioned copilot in, there are, you know, applications of copilot where you could be in a meeting, a teams meeting, and it's listening, and it's giving you notes based upon the topic. So you know, you might touch on the Well, the last time we met, and it would pull up the meeting notes from the last time you met as a simple example. And there are other applications, like, going AI that listens into the meeting and then creates summaries and pointers and actually scores the meeting. And I'm wondering how you feel about that, because it could be helpful, but it could also be perceived as a bit intrusive.
Rick Herrmann [48:33]
Yeah, this is interesting. I think, like many technologies when they're new. There's always, there's always a group that embraces it fully. There's a group that is kind of on the fence, and there's a group that, you know, resist these. I remember the first time that we started recording all meetings and and, you know, I'm like, This can't be good. You know, everything, everything that you're, everything that you're doing, is being recorded. And does that temper right? Maybe how open you will be, or will it change? You know, your behavior in a particular way, and those were kind of all the reasons why, you know, and you still have meetings where, like, we're not going to record this meeting, right? I mean, so I think there's, there's there's use cases, like the use cases you just gave is probably a pretty good one, right? But there's also this balance between, there's times when you know you want to have a more candid, direct conversation that you actually don't want recorded. And nice thing is that the tools are there to do to do both you don't want to if you don't use the tool, don't use the tool, but if you want to use. Tool in a really positive and constructive way, then it's a great tool, right? I know, when I go in with and I work with consultants in particular, they always ask, when we go into a big strategy meeting, they're like, can we record this so that we can come back to it and make sure that we didn't miss any points. And that's really, that's really valuable, right? Yeah, really valuable to have that artifact that you can go back to. But, you know the times when you're like, Hey, I just don't want this recorded, maybe for privacy reasons, or maybe, maybe, maybe you want to be a little bit salty because you're, you know, trying to get something done. And, you know, you feel like, you know, folks need a good, you know, a good, strong message. And you're like, hey, we're just not going to record this. There's a time and place for all of it, in my opinion, yeah,
Mark Shriner [50:54]
yeah, yeah. Makes, makes a lot of sense. Earlier, you talked about the interpersonal skills of some of those salespeople you worked with back in the early days. And I'm wondering, how does that translate those skills? How do they translate into this world that now I don't know about you, but it seems to be like that most meetings are done virtually, right? And I used to coach my team when I was leading teams in various markets. But get the meeting. Always get the meeting, because until you've met the person face to face, you're nobody, you're just a you're just a name, right? So got to get that meeting, and then that, you know that the first, you know, greeting, building rapport, asking questions, and, you know, having that connection there, do those same skills translate? Or are there any ways to kind of adapt it to this virtual world that we're living in?
Rick Herrmann [51:52]
Yeah, I, you know, I think my answer is, it depends, right? It depends on, in large part, like any interpersonal relationship, like, you know, how much time do you have? How are you going to use that meeting? Are you going to spend some time getting to know people at a personal level? Do they want to, you know, know, you know, do they want to go there as an example? Right? Probably, we've had this enormous kind of productivity boost in the fact that we can use collaboration platforms and video extensively. But there's just no replacement. I know, like I'm ramping into a new role, and it's really important for me to meet with those customers in person for the first time. You know, once you have that relationship, you know, we always say that at Microsoft, that you know relationships always the job may go away, but relationships endure, right? Totally, agree. So, to build those enduring relationships, I think does take some face time, but, but, boy, what a productivity booster. You know, these collaborations, like teams and zooms and and and all these platforms have created, and what an opportunity for us to change the way we work. But I think it's, I think a lot of part, a lot of it is the interpersonal skills. Is, you know, being open about yourself, being open about your family, being open about the things that you care about, and that really build that really build those relationships. In my opinion.
Mark Shriner [53:37]
Great observations and totally agree with you, last couple things here. Do you have any personal productivity tips or advice or things that you follow in terms of just making yourself much more productive?
Rick Herrmann [53:52]
I'm pretty disciplined with time management, and I think when you talk about productivity boosters, it's really to understand, you know, how you navigate time pressures and time management. So guys, I tend to read early in the morning and late at night, as in a Google right? The rest of the day kind of gets blocked out for time with my people, time with partners, operational things, and I structure around a pretty good what we used to call it Microsoft rhythm of business, so you're figuring out what your rhythm is and what works for you. So for me, when you know, I'm trying to learn new things, I want to do it in the morning. If I'm trying to learn something, you know, I kind of want to shut off at nine o'clock at night, and I want to watch, you know, the world news at 9:30 right? But I know in the morning, that's when I should do my training, right? That's when I'm the most energetic. That's when I'm the most, you know, alert. And so I think time management, from a productivity perspective, is probably the most important thing to be thinking about.
Mark Shriner [55:00]
Awesome.
Rick Herrmann [55:02]
I also use every device possible, right? You know, I have three computers in my office. I got my cell phone with me, so I had, you know, essentially a fourth computer. And, you know, in anything that's valuable I use, I use the different AI platforms today, and to be the productivity boosters, it's interesting you think of, you know, llama and chat, GPT and these things, they can be an if you're looking for information, right and or you want perspectives on something, there are these tools now that are just phenomenal, and I think everybody needs to learn how to use those tools and make it part of their daily workflow, just to practice every day. I get up and I ask one of these large language models, and I play on different ones. I asked, what happened in history today? Interesting question, right? Yeah, it'll give you 10 things that happen in history today, and it's just an interesting thing. One, you're on the tool, you're playing with it, you're kind of getting that interaction. You're seeing what it can do. But it's also a fun conversation starter, right?
Mark Shriner [56:20]
Hey, did you know that 200 years ago?
Rick Herrmann [56:23]
Did you know On this day, such and such happened, right? And so, you know, finding, finding, you know, neat little things like that, that, you know, make the day a little bit more fun. Can can be, can be good productivity boosters.
Mark Shriner [56:36]
That's awesome. What I like about that is, you start the day by investing in yourself. So no matter what happens throughout the rest of the rest of the day, you've already, you know anything, you've paid it forward to yourself already. So that's pretty cool. Last question. First off, I really appreciate you taking time out, and we're coming up in an hour, and I want to help you with that time management, but I've been looking at these books behind you during the whole conversation here. Yeah. And clearly, you read a lot. Can you make one book recommendation related to your work, whether that's AI related or sales related, and then something that's just not related to work that maybe you go back to from time to time for other values?
Rick Herrmann [57:14]
Yeah, I think I like Patrick Lencioni, is a really thoughtful leader around organizations and motivating people. It's somebody that I've followed throughout my career. So I think anything from, anything from, from Patrick, I'm currently reading a series from the AI Academy. Her name is I Almeda, and she's written three really good books on AI generative, AI transformation. They're pretty detailed. It's probably a good, you know, 800 pages of reading across the three books. So you got to, really, you got to, you know, there's six by eight inch books, so, you know, I can get through about 100 pages a day. And, you know, so it take you probably a week of time, but it but when you think about AI and what's happening and what will happen over the next 10 years, you know, spending 10 to 12 hours of time, you know, investing in understanding, you know, what's happening with you know, whether it's through her book or somebody else, I think, is really valuable. And then the book, Thinking fast, thinking slow. What do I, one of the books I come back to, quite frankly, and I keep on my desk, you know, and, and you know about, you know, how do we, how do we process information, and how do we think about problems, right? So I think thinking fast, thinking slow, is another, another really good book.
Mark Shriner [58:53]
Yeah, I've read that. I should go back to that, but that I did, I did enjoy it, and it's like just being aware of how our brain can solve problems in a different manner, and then just using that more. What's the word intense intentionally, I guess, but awesome. Well, hey, Rick, thank you so much again for being on the grow fast podcast. And if you're ever out in the Seattle Bellevue area, let me know, and hope to cross paths with you in person one day.
Rick Herrmann [59:20]
Super, Mark! Thanks, Yes, come to Washington, DC, we'll look forward to having lunch.
Mark Shriner [59:25]
Awesome! Take care. Cheers.
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