This episode of the Grow Fast Podcast featuring Scott Ingram, Account Director at Relationship One & Founder of Sales Success Media, primarily focused on the evolving dynamics of sales and the critical role that belief and hard work play in achieving top performance. Scott emphasized the importance of belief in the product, in oneself, and in the sales process as essential elements for success. He discussed how sales professionals today are navigating an increasingly complex landscape of channels and communication tools, from LinkedIn to video messaging, and the need for creativity and adaptability to stand out in the market. Scott also touched on the importance of quality over quantity in sales efforts, encouraging reps to focus on doing the real work rather than relying on "spray and pray" tactics.

Another key topic was the development of effective sales processes and the importance of finding a personalized approach. Scott explained that while traditional sales methodologies like Challenger, Sandler, and MEDDIC can provide a strong foundation, top performers often tweak and tailor these frameworks to suit their strengths. He also shared insights from his Sales Success Stories podcast, where he interviews top-performing sales professionals who consistently exceed quotas by focusing on their unique skills and maintaining a relentless work ethic. The discussion wrapped up with a preview of Scott’s annual Sales Success Summit, a premier event that brings together top sales contributors to learn from each other in a supportive, high-performance environment.

You can find the whole episode of the Grow Fast Podcast with Scott Ingram here:

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This is the transcript for this episode:

Mark Shriner [00:00]

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.  

Scott Ingram [00:15]

Hey, Scott, how are you?  

Scott Ingram [00:16]

Hey, Mark, I'm great. Thanks for having me.

Mark Shriner [00:17]

My pleasure. Hey, I looked at your LinkedIn profile. Says you're based in Austin. I am. I mean, that's supposed to be like, the cool place to be these days. I mean, you know, how long have you been there? And is it that cool?  

Scott Ingram [00:29]

Well, I think so. I have been here for 20 years. So, I saw I didn't I didn't see it as big as it was, but I saw its potential. We cashed out of Orange County, California in the early 2000s and came out here. And I'm pretty sure I'm watching the city double in size for the third time. I mean, the skyline is completely different. It's a totally different space. But at the same time, I think it's, it's me, it's managed to maintain a lot of the vibe. So, it's working.

Mark Shriner [01:02]

Well, I've heard that that's saying, keep Austin weird. Where does that come from?

Scott Ingram [01:06]

So, the, the actual origin story of that, it was like a chamber of commerce campaign. And it was, yeah, it was all about, like, supporting local small business and so people, you know, if you didn't know that beginning, you would take it in all sorts of different ways. But, you know, and in a lot of ways, it was kind of staying away from the big retail chains and the big brands and things like that. And then here we are. We've got Tesla's headquarters and Oracle's headquarters. And, you know, Google has a huge presence, and Apple has a huge presence. So, you know, I don't know that they managed to maintain that, but I do think again, kind of that that feeling is still there in some ways.  

Mark Shriner [01:48]

Yeah, and I'm a fan of Joe Rogan's, both podcast and stand-up comedy, and I know what he's done there with his comedy club is pretty amazing as well, because it's really helping to develop and try to provide a venue for up-and-coming talent as well. So that's pretty cool. It's funny, I am. I was born and raised in Seattle. Seattle used to be very much a blue-collar town. It was all about Boeing, everything, you know, up or down. It was all depending on how Boeing was doing at that time. And that changed with Microsoft, and then it changed accelerated with Amazon and Costco and blah, blah, blah, many other companies and all the different startups that they created in parallel that with that, though, in the in the early to mid 90s, Seattle was the cool place to be, because we had the grunge movement. We had all this, you know, the economy was transitioning. And along the way, though, I can say, for good or bad, Seattle did lose a bit of its original kind of, you know, fish, Sherman, lumberjack. Kind of blue-collar people working at Boeing, kind of flavor. And, you know, I mean, now it's a much more international place, much more the economy's much more diversified. But you kind of, you know, you gain something, you lose something. And I don't know if Austin, if you see some of that, he kind of alluded to that a bit, but yeah.

Scott Ingram [02:57]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I guess, thank goodness, Seattle isn't totally based on Boeing. That wouldn't be, especially these last five years.

Mark Shriner [03:03]

Oh my gosh, no. Kind of a rough stretch.  

Scott Ingram [03:07]

But it's been really interesting to watch Austin become like, it's a very connected space, right? It's very relational and friendly and all of those things. And I think that's why you've seen, you know, Rogan come here, you know, Tim Ferriss came here. So, you've got kind of this podcast center of the universe. You've got now this comedy center of the universe, certainly a a tech center. So, it's, it's really cool to see all of those different dynamics and that's what attracted me, right? I sort of saw, okay, it's the state capital. So, you have all this very large state government infrastructure. You have the University of Texas, you have a massive school and college town kind of a feel. There's a lot of kind of technology and entrepreneurship. And so, I think what makes it cool is it's the blend of all of those things that that really works, right? It's not just one thing. It's not just a college town, it's not just a tech town, it's not just a state capital.  

Mark Shriner [03:59]

Well, it sounds pretty awesome. And one of my sons is a big F1 fan, and so he was down there. Oh, my God, I got to go back every Wait, Scott. I mean, you, you have a tremendous amount of experience, both as a, you know, frontline contributor, selling, I think you still carrying your, you know, you a quota carrying out there. You also have, you know, developed sales success media, which includes a couple podcasts, books and a sales summit every year. And I want to talk to you about some of the lessons learned that you've gleaned from talking to hundreds of top performers across the country. And also want to talk to you about, you know, some of your ideas around you know, identifying hiring and developing sales talent, but before we do that, could you maybe take 60 seconds and, you know, just explain what sales success media is, and because there's a couple key themes that run through everything that you do, but I want to hear it from you.  

Scott Ingram [04:56]

Yeah, so, this all started for me about eight years ago, when I launched. The sales success stories podcast, and on that show, I only interview number one and top 1% active quota carrying individual contributors. And I did that because I've always been a student of sales. And I looked at the sales content that I was consuming, and I went, this is insane. All of this is coming from people who haven't carried a quote of themselves in on average, I don't know, probably decades. And I just I wanted to know of those who are performing at the highest levels right now, what are they doing? And what's cool is, over the years, I've been able to talk to people who are performing at the highest levels in the middle of a global pandemic, in the middle of a recession, in the middle of emergence of all of these different communication channels and distractions. And now AI so it's been a really, really incredible adventure. And then I started the opposite show in daily sales tips, because the two best things about sales success stories are the two worst things. My criteria is absolutely ridiculous. So, I don't get to talk to people like you, Mark, and it's just it's long. My favorite compliment is, I'm the Tim Ferriss of sales, right? So, the average interview is north of 75 minutes. So daily sales tips, anybody that's got anything relevant to share with B2B sales professionals. And we do it every day, and it's less than five minutes per episode. So literally the opposite. And then we do this big event every year where the only people I put on stage are the people who've been on the sales success stories podcast. So it really is an event for sales people, by sales professionals, and it's we're into our coming up on our seventh year of that event. It's absolutely incredible.  

Mark Shriner [06:43]

I love it. And, you know, you mentioned Tim Ferriss, one of my favorite books is tools of the Titans, which, you know, he has a similar approach. He talks to top performers, not just in sales, but across all different industries and, you know, areas that of our world, I guess. And he takes, you know, the best lessons learned from them, and compiles that down and seals it into a book so similar approach, but very much focused on sales. Let me ask you, because it's I think that there are some principles that are kind of timeless, like, you know, building rapport, and how you develop rapport with somebody, developing trust. Those things are kind of timeless, and they're always going to be important for selling. But, you know, you mentioned things like selling through a global pandemic, the, I guess the way we sell, when I first started selling, was always about, get the meeting, get the meeting, and then we started having, you know, emails, and then a social media and then you reach out there nobody. You can't spam people with emails anymore. And even on social media, it's getting really difficult. And then you have the pandemic come and say, how are you going to get a meeting when you can't? You're not even allowed to go out of your house, right? So, so you know, now we have AI in you know your view, what are the one or two biggest changes that you've seen over the last 1015, years in terms of how we sell?  

Scott Ingram [08:02]

Yeah, I think I mean having sold that entire period right, having kind of been through all of it, I think the biggest change right now, and I think the biggest change to come, where we're starting to see the impacts, is there's going to be lots of impact from Ai, but I think what's changed the most since the early days of my career. And like you, like I had a I had a local territory. I wasn't exactly knocking on doors, but, but pretty close, right? I think it's the proliferation of channels, right? When I started selling, we had the phone, we had email, you had what?

Mark Shriner [08:39]

There was a time we had faxes too.  

Scott Ingram [08:42]

I was just going to say fax, I am that old, and I'm like, that experienced, excuse me. And you seasoned, yeah, and you had face to face. I mean, that's, that's really all there was so and going through the emergence of social media and all of the additional capabilities. I mean, again, think about the first phones that we used when we sold on or if you're this experience where you had to pull over and put quarters in a pay phone to make calls. I mean, the world has changed so dramatically from that perspective. And I think what's been really difficult the last whatever that's been 10 or 15 years is, how do you break through the noise? There are so many distractions, and we as sales professionals are being bombarded by all of these things. So, we're being distracted at the same level that our prospects are and how anybody is paying any attention. I have no idea.

Mark Shriner [09:39]

It's interesting. I was a big cold caller. I don't or even just to follow up. You know, you could send messages. You try different ways, but I'd always pick up the phone and call somebody, and I felt very confident that if I could get somebody on the phone, I could have a meaningful conversation, which means that they would say yes, no, or maybe, and but I would have some kind of action from there. You know. And I felt that if I can get them on the phone, and if there's any kind of interest there at all, I can probably get the meeting. But these days, especially with the younger generation calling, people can be considered kind of aggressive, because it's all about texting and things like that. And I'm wondering if you have a, you know, if you have any stories related to that and or any workarounds.

Scott Ingram [10:19]

Yeah, you know, it's, I mean, I think the core theme is just the adaptability, right? And so, it's really, it's understanding, what are each of those challenges, those channels, not challenges, but they go together. What are those channels? How do they work? Which ones are relevant and used by my prospects and those that I'm selling to, right? So those of us that live in a B2B world tend to kind of live on LinkedIn. And so, understanding, how do you make LinkedIn work for you, for example, right? And for me and many others, I mean, I think LinkedIn is, by far and away, the most called out tool of top performers. Is probably the most called out tool of any type of sales professional. Again, that's, that's more in the B2B space. I think it's, it's mostly about, it's, it's the research and the way that you can use it for personalization, and the ability for you to find a path to that person that's maybe not so cold, right? So, if we can find, if I can find a mutual connection somebody that I know well and that you know, well, that is an incredible opportunity, right? And we didn't have that 20 years ago. You didn't have that in your Rolodex, to know, well, I've got this random person that I'm calling if only I knew that Mark went to college with them, right? That would have completely changed the game, because market then just introduced me. So ,I think you have those things even, even though we've all had email for a long time, I think it's, how do you, how do you get creative with each of these platforms, and how do you do little things to stand out? Right? For years, I mean, one of our sponsors for a long time was Vidyard, and, you know, being able to send video messages is such a huge differentiator, right? And an ability to make a more human connection and show I mean, the thing I always look at is, how can I tell, within a couple of seconds that you've actually done the work to kind of know who I am. Like, have you done your research? The thing that drives me crazy is I get podcasts like I'm sure you do. I get podcast pitches at probably half a dozen a day. If they had spent two minutes listening to my show, they would know they shouldn't even be reaching out to me in the first place. So, it's those little things just taking that. The beauty, though, is, I think regardless of the channel, the ability to put yourself in the top 10% of people who are reaching out takes so little effort. I mean, sadly, the bar is really, really low in sales today, there's a lot of spray and pray, and there's just not enough real work going into it. And when you do the real work, and you can demonstrate that, and people see that it works like at a way higher percentage.

Mark Shriner [13:11]

Yeah, I was going to say that's depressing and motivating all at the same time, right? So totally, just this mediocrity is just everywhere. But it doesn't take that much to rise above every all of that. So, let's, let's jump into, you know, some of the lessons that you've learned, because you're talking to some amazing people from, I'm assuming, from, you know, a wide variety of industries. And what are some I don't know, key lessons learned that you've learned over the last couple years?  

Scott Ingram [13:39]

Yeah, the first, I think, is the most important thing is belief. And it's, it's belief in in probably three dimensions, right? It's, it's believing in whatever it is that you're selling, because if you don't believe it, nobody else is going to believe that, right? I think that's that that gives sales a really negative connotation, right? If you're trying to sell somebody something that you don't even believe is going to help them, but it's also belief in yourself and your own skill set and belief in your process. And so, if you can put those three things together and believing that you can help somebody then, then that really tends to break through beyond that and beyond the I'm going to say hard work is table stakes. I thought, I thought, when I started the podcast, I would find some kind of tech wizard who had figured some sort of hack and was outperforming everybody and working three days a week, I kind of sort of found one guy who is borderline doing that means Matt Dupont. But except for Matt, it's and he's in order to do that, you have to work extraordinarily hard to figure out how. To do it, right? So, so the hard work is, is just table stakes. There is no silver bullet. I mean, if there was, I'm sure I would have found it by now. But the secret is, there is no secret, right? And, and people just don't like that answer. They don't like that. You just have to work really hard at this. What I, over time, have really come to understand is each of these people, I mean, the way that they're successful is so broad. And I would say, of those that I've interviewed, and I'm up to think I'm north of 180 at this point, it's pretty evenly split between introverts and extroverts. So, it's not that and what it really comes down to is they have found their way to be successful. So, it's kind of like they have figured out what their superpower is, and have just leaned into it super hard, and they do that thing that they do better than anybody else. That likely comes very, very naturally to them. They've really developed that and honed that, and over time, sort of built their system and their suit around that. And that's the way they're able to excel. It's, it's not, unfortunately, there's, there is no one size fits all. I mean, I have, I've trained for triathlons and marathons over time. And I wish there was the training program, you know, because I can pick up a triathlon plan, and in 12 weeks or 16 weeks, if I do everything it says to do every day, I'm going to, I'm going to have a good race that doesn't exist for sales. It's, it's too nuanced. It's too many moving parts.

Mark Shriner [16:42]

You’re dealing with the most complicated thing in the known universe, which is the human brain. But it's not just one human it's many people in organizations and macroeconomic and microeconomic factors that are just influencing everything. So, it's very fluid, but, but if you focus on the things that you can control, like your product, belief, your belief in yourself, and your belief in process, and start to build from there. That's what I'm hearing. That sets you in motion for the right for success, and then you've got to do that hard work. So, I want to kind of drill down on some of those for a second. So, belief in your product, by the way, I'm totally with you. I wrote a book on selling, and I think it was Chapter Two was, you know, it all starts with product knowledge and product belief. Because if you, if you, if you don't know the product, you can't feel that comfortable going out and selling it. You got to really kind of understand what it does, what the benefits are, and believe in it. So, let's take that off to the side for a second. But when you talk about believing in yourself and believe in your process, you could say, yeah, I got to have the belief. But how do you get the belief? You can't just flip and swish and say, I believe. So. So what are the some of the key steps to developing that belief in yourself and in the process?  

Scott Ingram [17:50]

Yeah at the end of the day, I think it's reps, you know, it's just repetition. It's, it's doing the work. I mean, one of the things that personally took me a long time to evolve. Early in my sales career, I overthought everything, like I had to have the perfect plan, the perfect approach, the perfect script, the perfect everything. And it took me years to realize the only way that you get to that level of perfection is you've tried it enough. It's like being a comedian. Yeah? You're not going to have the perfect set of jokes be writing in your in your basement. You're going to get it from getting in front of audiences again and again and again and figuring out what works. How do I tweak this? How do I mess with the timing? How do I change this word, all of those little things. That's the same thing in sales. So, it just comes down to the reps you have, you have to do this. And, you know, I talk with a lot of younger sellers about just they have to be patient. If you're going to get great at sales, it's, it's, there's no switch that's going to get flipped, like this is, it's a craft, right? And if you're going to master your craft, I mean, a master craftsman is not somebody that started their craft six months ago. It's not how it works. And the way you get there is by just call after call, conversation after conversation, deal after deal. It's the only way.

Mark Shriner [19:17]

I totally agree with you. And then if we, if we move on to process. One of the things that I like out of process is it takes some of the guesswork out of selling. Because if you don't really know what your first move is, your next move is that you can have some kind of anxiety about, like, I'm not sure what I should do, and I may, I'll just kind of shoot from the hip and make stuff up. But if you develop a process and then kind of practice that get the reps in on each element of the process. After time, you start getting better and figuring out what works. But why don't you talk a little bit about because I think there's so many books out there on different types of processes. But what are some of the key kind of elements that any successful sales process should have?  

Scott Ingram [19:59]

Yeah. It's a good question. So again, I've asked this of every person that I've interviewed, I asked kind of what their guiding sales philosophy or kind of process is. And the most common answers I get are, traditionally, Challenger Sandler, more recently, kind of med pick, you know, which? Which isn't exactly a process, you know? I think here's the thing you have to look at. I think you need to start with one of those things, right, like, begin with a fundamental sales approach that's going to have all of the pieces that you would expect. Right? How do we create opportunities? How do we qualify them? How do we get in the door? You know, what is the decision process, proposal? I mean, all the different kind of stages and things like that, on that, on that core process. And I think you actually articulated this pretty well. It's focusing on each piece, right, like and whether it's a strength and you want to lean into that a little bit harder because it's going to give you an additional edge, or you need to shore up the challenging pieces, it's breaking it down and getting intentional. I mean, it's if you go back to the 10,000 hours to be, to become great, or an expert at something that's not just practice in general. It's like specific practice. So really doing the work on, hey, I need to do a better job of converting, you know, an initial conversation, to a real opportunity, or whatever, whatever that thing is. The other thing that I have seen when I ask this question is, again, I get these core systems that are referenced a lot, but what most will say is, yeah, it's influenced largely by this or that or this combination. But I've really just consumed a lot of information over time, and I've tried a lot of different things, and I found the pieces that fit me, that I can incorporate into my process. So ordinarily, typically, what I what I advise people, is, again, start with an overarching process. Or if you're in an organization that already has the process, that's the best place to start, right, and then your job is to just hone and fine tune and work at it. The other analogy I use is, is music, right? You don't, you don't just start improvising, right? You have to learn the music. First. You have to learn it the way it was written, and then you can improve different sections and add your own kind of voice to it. Same dynamic, right?

Mark Shriner [22:41]

Yeah, no one of the best sales leaders I have ever had a chance to work with, I asked him, so you know, how long do I have to use this? You know, it was an incredibly rigid, well-defined process, including a 30 - 40-minute kind of canned presentation. It was somewhat interactive, but it was very much, you know, canned and scripted. And he's like, well, as soon as you have got this down, and you feel very comfortable and confident with it, and you can demonstrate that, then you can start to make it your own. And because when you make it your own, and then if you ever start to get feel a little bit lost, you can always go back. You always have that foundation there. But first you got to get this. That's the that's the foundation. I was like, all right, and it worked for me in that case. And I've used that many times when I've been training the teams that I'm working with, people sometimes push back, and I want to do it my way to that's fine. That's fine. Just learn it this way first, and then make it your own.  

Scott Ingram [23:34]

Well, let me, let me take that one step further, right? So what I often advise people in in that perspective is, and it very often early in the sales career, like this tends to be more SDR, like, my job is to create opportunities and to get meetings type of, type of a role where it's like, well, I'm given this playbook, and I don't like that playbook, and I don't think it's going to work. Nearly everybody that I've interviewed, when they look at their quota, they set their target at 200% plus the most common number is probably two to 300% so here's the thing, if you're given a system that you're expected to run like that, what I tell them is, do that for the expected number of repetitions, right? If you're expected to do 40 touches a day, or whatever that metric is do that, and then on top of that, ideally double it. And with that doubling, with that second half, do that your way. And now you can say to your leadership, hey, I'm doing everything you asked me to. And here's the results that I'm getting. And I've been experimenting with extra cycles, and here's how I'm doing that, and here's the results that I'm getting. And so, you build through that one because of the volume of activity that you're doing, you ought to be ahead of your numbers or ahead of the expectations, right? And you've got real data to build your case on and go and go to your leadership and say, Hey, here's what I've been doing. Here are the two things. I'm actually getting 50% better results my way. I'd like to do that all the time. Is that cool?

Mark Shriner [25:11]

That makes sense. So, you do your little AB test, but make sure you take care of that a part first, like whatever the company tells you how to get that done. And, yeah, let me ask you, what's the question or challenge that you get asked or, you know, face most often these days.

Scott Ingram [25:29]

It's always the same. It's always time, right? And it's the thing I get asked about the most too, which is, okay, Scott, how is it that you're carrying a three and a half million-dollar quota, and you're, you're running two podcasts and an annual event, and actually three podcasts, if you include my day job. I've got two kids, one now in college, so that burden has dropped a little bit. It's, it's just, it's a lot, right? And for me, when I think about process. I think way beyond sales process is a component of what I'm working on, but I think more broadly about my overarching productivity process, right? So how am I juggling not only my day job sales demands, but everything else in an efficient and effective way. And so, this, for me, this is actually one of my superpowers, right? I have spent years, you know, finding my own system, and it's a matter of like, understanding my own rhythms and what kind of routines work and what goes, where, when, And a lot of study around habits, and David Allen's getting things done, and all of these things over year, over the years, where I have built a system and a structure that works really well for me, and I think by and large, it all for all of us. It boils down to time. There's only so much time.

Mark Shriner [27:00]

There’s only so much time, and there's all also only so much energy. And I want to come back to the energy, because the energy is important as well. Yes, but give us, give us some hints, or give us some idea about, you know, how you manage your time? I mean, do you do you plan everything out on Sunday evening and write everything down for the week? Or do you have everything planned down by the hour, by the day. I mean, how does that work?

Scott Ingram [27:22]

Yeah, it's a very agile kind of structure. So, my day starts with essentially a giant triage. So, I'm an inbox zero guy, so I clear my inboxes, I'm looking at my calendar, I'm looking at yesterday, kind of review and make sure that I've got follow ups. I'm looking at today and tomorrow to understand what's coming up, and am I fully prepped and have everything, everything to go and I'm also looking at that to understand today how much white space do I have to work with, right, if I'm wall to wall, and it's nothing but meetings, what I'm doing in that triage is figuring out what absolutely has to get done today that can't wait till tomorrow, and I'm going to figure out a way to get that done. To get that done. And the other stuff probably not happening today, but on one of those days where, oh my gosh, I've got 234, hours of white space, how do I maximize that time? So, it's, it's pretty much a day-by-day process. I do kind of a larger weekly review process, but it all comes down to that daily structure. And ideally, what I'm doing is by spending that time and doing that triage and understanding how much time do I have to work with in that given day, I'm able to just absolutely nail what my action list is, and so I don't have to think about anything else, right? All I have to work through is that punch list and get down as far through it as I can. And it's ideally, this is always a struggle. Making that realistic is, is an amazing thing, right? And if, man, if you can clear the list, I mean, that's a day to celebrate.

Mark Shriner [28:54]

No, it feels, feels great. And I think a big part of selling is, you know, so many things are beyond our control, and that can, that can lead to anxiety. It can lead to just, you know, being demotivated because, you know, you get too many 10 no's in a row, and you know you got to get up and go try again. That can be hard. So, by taking a lot of the guesswork out of your day, by one following a process, having a plan, getting that to do, list and prioritization down. For me, when I'm doing all that, you know what? I can get those no's, and I can deal with it. But when I have kind of I lose track of my plan, and I forget to do some certain things, I'll send that anxiety. I can start filling I can start building up, right? So, it's just like, okay, get on the plan again, get the list going, and as soon as I write stuff down, immediately, I feel better, but yeah, you know that takes a little discipline. Let me drop over to the energy side, though, because you can have, you know, every, all the time management. And you can, you can optimize your time, but you also need to optimize your energy. You mentioned triathlons and marathons, and I. That's part of it. But tell us a little about your regimen.  

Scott Ingram [30:04]

Yeah, so, a life changing article for me. I mean, it's, gosh, this is probably 15, 20 years old at this point, but there was a Harvard Business Review article that talked about manage energy, not time. And so, because, and I love that you called this out. It's so counterintuitive, right? If you wake up thinking, okay, I only have so much energy today. I'm like a battery, then why would I exercise? Why would I Why would I waste time on something like that when I can be doing something more productive? But the reality is that like taking care of your body and doing getting that workout in gives you more energy over the course of the rest of the day. So I am, I'm a huge peloton guy. I actually used to teach indoor cycling, and when peloton came around, I was like, oh my gosh, this is everything I always wished I had in my classes, because it's, it's so metrics oriented. It has, it has all the numbers, and there's a stinking leaderboard, so I need to go win every workout. I actually thank goodness they did this. They have a type of class called Power Zone, where it's basically individualized training, because you do tests and it has you work out within certain ranges based on your own numbers. Thank God for those classes, because it keeps me sort of focused on the training and doing productive workouts that I need to do. Otherwise, I would just feel like I have to try and win every class which I can't possibly do.

Mark Shriner [31:33]

And I was just, I was looking at my phone because I was blanking on the name of the app was Strava. For the last three or four years, I've been doing a crazy amount of road cycling and mountain biking. I've taken the last seven months off because I did a really long ride, and then I got tracked, and now doing some other sports, but, but when I was doing Strava, one of the biggest challenges, I mean, I loved it. I come home and I check all the segments and everything like that. But I got to the point that I kind of got, you know, PR, addicted, King of the Hill addicted, you know? And it's just kind of like, and I was like, wait a minute, I'm out here to have fun. Not everything on a bike is competition. Oh, but there's a segment coming up. Oh, I don't know if you're on Strava.  

Scott Ingram [32:13]

Oh yeah, I'm not. I'm not outdoors as much, and that's actually become part of the challenge of Austin, right? Like, Austin was a great riding town. Now it's a scary riding town. Too much traffic and yeah, so Peloton keeps me very safe. Nobody's going to run me over in my garage.

Mark Shriner [32:29]

No, that's a huge thing. And I mentioned that I've kind of throttled down on the cycling. Is the last ride I did. A buddy and I we created our own fundraiser, and we rode there's just the two of us. Wasn't part of a larger group from Seattle to Portland. So, I got the route was, like, close to 200 miles, and we did in a day and a half. And it we, there was a couple close calls. In fact, my buddy crashed twice, one time right in front of me, so I crashed over him. It was, it was wet. We hit some stuff and but then there was stuff with trucks going by, and just, you know, I was like, I don't know if I'm being responsible doing this, you know.  

Scott Ingram [33:02]

That's the conclusion I came to. And I'd love to get back to it, but right now, I'm like, yeah, not, not right now.

Mark Shriner [33:09]

And not to take too much of a morbid turn here. But there was the two, the professional hockey player back East. I forget his name right now, but he, him and his brother are out, you know, these are professional athletes, and so they're alert and aware And, you know, and bad things happen. So anyway, back to your regiment. Stay, stay energized. You spend a lot of time on the peloton.  

Scott Ingram [33:29]

Yeah, so peloton. I'm in the gym, you know, doing weight training two, three times a week. And then recently, I had a little bit of a health scare earlier this, this summer, that, you know, I was like, oh, okay, my cholesterol is not where I need to be. And so, I've really gotten my diet dialed in of weight, and it's, it makes an amazing difference. I mean, it's just one of those things you don't, you don't think about enough. And it goes back to you called out, like, what, what you're focusing on controlling, what you can control, right? And what I realized was, because I hit a couple of plateaus, I'm trying to lose a little bit of weight and trying to, you know, get my blood work better in control, and until you look at the numbers and start controlling that. So, I had to, like, I've never tracked my calories in my life, yeah, but as soon as I did, like, oh my gosh, it's just absolutely eye opening. And so, when we think, let's put some of these themes together, right? Let's talk about the reps and controlling what you can control, and the psychology around some of this. One of the amazing insights I got from a friend of mine who went through some very serious psychological issues to get where he got a friend named Dave Schwartz. He thinks about, you know, my life is a bullseye, right? And that very center, like the true bullseye, that's what I can absolutely control, right? And then that next ring outside, like, yeah, I probably. Have some decent influence over that, but I can't control it. And the further out you get from that bullseye, the less control you have. And so, the recognition that it's about controlling the controllables, like, what can you control? And I think, you know, with a lot of with a lot of sales, in general, sales is kind of backwards in that we're given a quota. Well, the quota is an output. That's, that's a result. It's, there's only so much that you can control of what the outcome is going to be. What you can control is what the inputs are going to be. So, I think we have to focus a lot more on what are the inputs? And the more sales, I feel like it's a game of karma too, right? Like the more you do the right things, the more you get lucky, even though they might come completely out of left field. So, if, if what you're looking at me, one of the things I look at most closely is daily conversations. That's my most important metric, right? Because I can get there. I'm confident in my ability to get there, so I don't worry so much about how many calls am I doing, or anything like that. But if, if I am consistently achieving my daily conversations, amazingly, everything else tends to fall into place, right? So, I think the more that you can think about what are the inputs that really matter, and if you're managing a team, like, what am I coaching my team towards? To helping them hit their inputs. And your psychology is a lot better too, right? Like, I don't feel like a loser because nobody picked up the phone today. Well, no, I did all of the activities. I still feel good. This is a win of a day. The law of averages will catch up with me in the next few days.  

Mark Shriner [36:41]

Totally agree with you both in the previous point about energy and the importance of diet. I mean, for me, the diet thing is maybe a diet and sleep and exercise, they're all there somewhere, but I can if I don't eat healthy, don't eat right. It affects it affects everything, and it'll stay with me for a few days. But then the importance of focus on things you can control. It's funny, because when I've been managing teams, you know, everybody has a target, and a lot of the best way, in my opinion, is to kind of collaborate, collaboratively develop that target. You know, what are you thinking? And here's what the company's hoping you're getting achieve. What resources will you need to get that, you know what, so on and so forth. But I always say, especially for, you know, people who are going to just newly joined, I really don't want you to focus on that, that big number, whatever it is there. Want you to focus on, what do you need to do, as you were saying every day, to get it done. And if you're looking at that big number that you've got to hit three months, six months down the road, every day, especially in the beginning, it's going to feel overwhelming and it's going to be hard, but if you just focus on the smaller numbers that you would need to achieve today, whether that's conversations, phone calls, email, sent, whatever, and if you picked up the phone 25 times and did that, pat yourself on the back and say, good job. I did my job. Go home and forget about it, and then come back tomorrow and do it again, right? And like you said, the harder you work, the luckier you get. And just, you know, keep, keep doing that. But no, I think these are, I guess, when I earlier, I said there are some kind of, what's the word, timeless principles and sales, and one of them is, is just doing that, doing the doing the work.

Scott Ingram [38:20]

Yeah, I'm chuckling here because I'm having this flashback. The quality of those reps matters, though, right? Like, if you're going to have x number of conversations a day, or whatever your metric is, they have to be quality. There's this guy at the gym I go to, I call him, I mean, I go by myself. I don't, I don't. I'm kind of in my zone, so I don't interact with the other people. So, my name for him, he's the machine humper. And this guy gets in there and he'll, he'll get on, like, the bench press, and he'll load it up with a massive amount of weight and then, like, literally, hump the bar and move it two inches.

Mark Shriner [38:57]

Yeah, just really his elbow in and out, you know? Yeah!

Scott Ingram [39:01]

But no, it's not even, like, the range of motion is probably 10 to 15% of what the range of motion should be. And he'll do, I don't know, like, oh, I just, I did. I lifted 250 pounds, 40 times. I'm like, you didn't do one rep. And so, I think, you know, the trap is only thinking about the quantity, right? The quality has to be there as well. And so, you really need to be mindful of both of those things. Like, am I, in order to win? Did I hit that, that quantity metric, but did I do it with excellence? Like, did I do it well to it to my standard, and ideally, the highest standard you have is your own.

Mark Shriner [39:42]

Right. Totally, agree. I forget what the term is called, but it's, you know, it's not just doing the 10,000 hours. It's the deliberate learning. There's something where you progressively go a little bit higher, whether it's in music, sports or in sales, you do the task a little bit. To a higher level, a little bit more difficult, but that's how you get better, right? Because if you just kind of coast along, you're not going to make any progress. Let me ask you. You've met with all these top performers. You've talked with them. You've learned from them. What have you learned in terms of how to identify potential top performers and how to, you know, hire them and develop them?

Scott Ingram [40:21]

Yeah, well, I don't know that I have any great ideas on how to identify them, because I talk to them after they've done it or while they're doing it. So, I guess that's your that's your best test. Here's, here's what is interesting, though, is as I think about that question, I have had a good number of people who have come up to me personally, and this usually happens most often. This has happened at our sales success summit, but it's happened in other times, somebody who is a big fan of the podcast will come up to me and say, Scott, I'm going to be on your show. I would say in 90% of those cases, they have made that come true. So, I think what that tells me is the first thing you have to look for is real belief. Do you believe that you can be successful here? Right? And again, I don't know what the question is. You ask for that, because I'm getting it in an unprompted fashion, where somebody is just like, you know what come hell or high water, and it's like, Babe Ruth, like they're calling their shot, like, I'm going to hit it over that left field wall. So that, that I think is a is a really key thing. I mean, beyond that, it's, are they doing the work. Can you see that they're consistently putting in the reps it's really as simple as that, but the quality reps, like when, when I think about the quality versus quantity equation, I think in most cases, quality wins out.

Mark Shriner [41:59]

Makes a lot of sense. And again, you know you did say that earlier, that belief in your product or service, belief in your process, but probably underlying all that is belief in yourself. Because if you say, if you don't believe you can do it, why even try? Right? So exactly, hugely important. I agree with you. I'm trying to think of questions or a process of what allow me to identify somebody's self-confidence or belief in their self.  

Scott Ingram [42:21]

I think another thing you can ask about, again, given that propensity to set personal targets that are two or 300% I think you can ask an opening question around talk to me about your goal setting process, like, if I give you a million-dollar number for the year, what's your approach to achieving that. And so if you're if you're listening for if the first thing they say is, well, in the back of my head, I'm doubling it and working backwards to figure out what I need to do to get there, that's a recipe for somebody who, even in their own mind, might have failed their own process, or still doing 150% of your number.  

Mark Shriner [42:58]

Yeah. No, that makes sense. Hey, you know earlier you know, earlier, you mentioned that when you first got started in sales, that you'd probably spend a lot of time planning. I've coached or worked with salespeople. I actually had the opposite problem, where I would just kind of shoot for the hip and just let me go and then go in and say stuff and make a really bad first impression because I didn't prepare or plan enough. But you know, if you were coaching somebody that really wanted to spend all this time planning. Even I've seen people like would take a half a day to do planning before they'd even send an email. And I'm like, no man, you've got to have like 25 emails out in that same period of time. You can't do this. So how would you kind of coach them or move them along to because you want to have a balance. You don't want to go off like me, I'll have cocked but you don't want to spend all, all day doing the quote, unquote planning.  

Scott Ingram [43:44]

Yeah, I think balance is the right word, right? It's, it's okay if you're over 100% on planning, let's try and shift that to at least 5050, right? So, you know, in that example, it's like, let's think about this, but I need you to send one real email, right? Like, let's, let's not try and make this perfect. It's important that we get the repetitions in. So do a little bit of work, do a little bit of prep, and then, and then get that first email done, and then continue the iteration. I think it's, it's helpful to constrain yourself in that way too, like, especially if you are a researcher and a prepper, which I believe in, like, I really do think there is value in spending that time to be able to send very relevant messages, but you've got to cap the effort, right? You can't spend, I can't spend five hours trying to figure out, like, what is that button that I can push with Mark? I think it might be in Strava, somewhere. It is. But I just, I need to, I need to give myself, like, a five-minute limit, like, let me find what I can in that time frame. And the best thing that I find, that's what I'm going to use simple as that.

Mark Shriner [44:50]

Some great advice there. You know, you have the podcast that it's the Daily Success Story podcast. Say it again. I'm sorry.

Scott Ingram [44:57]

Yeah. So Sales Success Story and Daily Dales Tips.  

Mark Shriner [45:02]

Daily sales tips. Okay, share one of your more recent favorite tips that you've heard. I know that's a tough one to pick.

Scott Ingram [45:10]

O man, yeah. I mean there's so many, there's so many, and we, we cover so much ground. There's, there's been. I mean, some of the things I've been talking about recently, I don't mean to make this so much to make this so much about myself, but it's just what, what I'm remembering, because it's what I've been working on. I was talking a lot actually, here's, here's what I'm going to do. So, by the time this is out, this will be practiced for me. Okay, I'm going to put in a rep right now. I'm actually going to turn this into a real, a real tip. So, I think the title of the tip is, don't lock Superman in the phone booth. And the idea here is, I see way too many sales leaders trying to manage by the numbers, right? And so what's happening is we're creating a numerical box that we're trying to put all of our reps into. Okay, what Scott has discovered is that great sales professionals, they have superpowers, and a lot of times, by law, by putting them in that box, you're not allowing them to grow that superpower. So, if you had a rep on your team who could fly, wouldn't you give them a freaking cape? What if would you want to hone that ability? Help them go faster, help them leap buildings in a single bound, all of this stuff. But instead, I think what often happens is we constrain them, because we're trying to apply the same system and the same approach to everyone, and this is the hard part of leadership, is coaching and recognizing that each individual is different, and each of them needs something unique, right? So giving them that cape is about really knowing them, right, like really knowing their style, their approach, what works, what resonates, you know, what's ideally received well by those that they're selling to, that you can hone. And a lot of times they'll have an idea what it is, but sometimes it's like the curse of knowledge. Sometimes their superpower is a thing that they do so effortlessly that they don't think of it as it being something that's special. So sometimes it's calling out those things, like, Mark, you are amazing in the way that you do X or Y or Z.  

Mark Shriner [47:40]

That's funny, because one of the best salespeople I know is really good at events. I mean, he's like the Jerry McGuire just walks the floor and talks with everybody, everybody, even the competitors, love him, right? Yeah, and, but if the organization that he works with, most of their selling is not done in that context. But if I was running the organization, I'd be like, you know what? Don't put them in the booth. Send, you know, the phone booth. Send him to every single event that you participate in. Because this guy, you know, he's, he's going to hit some home runs, and I've seen him do it.  

Scott Ingram [48:16]

I love that example, because, because what, what's a normal organization going to do? I'm going to handcuff him to his desk and say, hey, make a lot of phone calls like, you're probably okay at that.

Mark Shriner [48:25]

He's already been to two events, and we need to be fair, and so we need to send everybody. I'm like, no, no, no. He's a pinch hitter, man. You're a designated hitter. You're going to put this guy. But hey, so Scott, you know, I've you talked to so many different people, but one of the things you also do is your sales success summit, okay, talk a little bit, because I think you've got one coming up in October.  

Scott Ingram [48:51]

October, it's coming up soon.  

Mark Shriner [48:53]

Talk a little bit about that. You know, who's it for? Who attends?  

Scott Ingram [48:56]

Absolutely. So, this is really an extension of the sales success stories podcast, and it comes from my own guilt, because what I recognized early on is this show is amazing for me, because I get to know each of these people right, like I'm building relationship. There are conversations that happen beyond the interview and mark as you know, the magic in podcast interviews happens before and after you press the record button. There's always the especially when they finish, they're like, okay, here's the thing I couldn't say on the record and there's just gold drops out of their mouth, right? I wanted to share that. I wanted to not only share it with my audience, I wanted them to be able to lean on each other, because being number one is a really lonely place, like there is nobody in your organization that you can strive to be better than. And so, I wanted to create that dynamic. So, the only people we put on the stage are folks who've been on the podcast. So, these, these are real sellers, education. Other resellers and two-day event, all about the experience. I'm a total event snob, so I try and fix all of the things that I hate about traditional events. And I hate many things, and that has led to we have this very special place. There's a there's a movie theater chain that got its start in Austin, because we like keep things weird, called the Alamo Drafthouse, and this is a full-service movie theater. They were, they were the very first ones that had this concept. So, our event doesn't happen in a hotel conference room. It happens in a movie theater auditorium. So, you've got a movie theater screen, you've got a very comfortable chair that, as of last year now reclines and a menu at your seat, and they will bring you whatever you want to eat or drink at any time over the course of the two days. Wow. But the real, the real magic, is it's a really intimate event. I try and keep it under about 150 people. For those that know the Dunbar number, that's why, and it's the first couple of years I had the event. It made me so nervous, because I had a huge misconception around what top sellers were. I thought there was just such a massive ego element. And what's, what's the reality is true top performers, there's a humility element, way more than there is an ego element. And so, what happened was I thought, oh my gosh, this is really scary. I'm bringing a dozen top performers together, and if they get into this game of trying to one up each other, this is going to be completely out of control. What instead happened was they walked in and said, hey, I know I'm pretty great in my organization, but I'm not at all convinced that I'm the best person in this room, and they're students of the craft. So, they gave their talk, and then they sat down and they took notes, probably more furiously than the average or the typical attendee. And that has just continued. And now, I mean, there's, there's a really nice core community group of people that have come for year after year after year. It's like, it's like a family reunion at this point, but just the level of supportiveness that's in that room, and it's different than you know, if you've been with an organization for a long time, and you always go to sales kickoff, and you're, you're a top performer, so you always go to President's Club. That dynamics, a little bit different, because, because of the competition, right? These people aren't like, I'll do anything to help you win. This group is there just no. I have nothing to prove here. We're all there to get better. And so that environment is amazing. So, it's really built for top individual contributors or aspiring individual contributors. Usually, about 80% of our audience is quota carriers, and then certainly we have their managers, their leaders. You know, some startup founders and others will be in the will be in the mix. But it's an absolute blast. And the question I ask at the end of it every year is, is this, was this the best sales event you've ever attended? That's my bar.  

Mark Shriner [53:07]

That's a pretty bold question. Yeah, you got to be, you got to be, feel confident.

Scott Ingram [53:13]

Yeah. And, and last year, now I don't remember exactly what it was, but I mean, I continue to improve that result. It's a very high bar right now. I think we were 92% said it's the best sales event they've ever been to.

Mark Shriner [53:23]

That's awesome, man, and I could figure out, how am I going to get down there? Man, hey, Scott, last question, what one sales or performance or personal development book have you read the most, or would highly recommend the audience to take a look at?  

Scott Ingram [53:47]

Yeah, gosh, there's a lot I'm going to I'm going to give you two, two completely different directions. So, if the, if the habit thing resonated in the productivity topic resonated, James Clear. I went on a an Uber Deep Dive. I must have read 10 books on productivity and habits and all of this stuff. James Clear, with atomic habits, basically put it all into one book. So, if you're going to read one book on the topic, he did a great job with it.  

Mark Shriner [54:18]

The book has changed, saying it some something changes your life sounds pretty big, but it has changed my life in terms of it's definitely changed some of my habits and my ability to adopt new habits. I just, I just follow some of his principles. And it just like, okay, it works. It’s great book.

Scott Ingram [54:38]

Yeah, absolutely. The other one that I think has probably impacted me the most personally is Jocko Willink, Extreme Ownership. I that that book is so good because at the end of the day, you own your success. It's not it's not on anybody else. You can't blame your leader for not. Giving you everything you need at the end of the day you have to own it in its entirety.

Mark Shriner [55:05]

Yeah, another great book. I think I've only gone through it once, but did the audiobook, but I remember the just the motivation and going and, yeah, amazing books. So, thank you for that. Hey, thank you so much for being on the grow fast podcast. If people want to reach out to you, what's the best way LinkedIn or through your sales success media, or what would you prefer?

Scott Ingram [55:29]

Yeah, LinkedIn is great. Or you can go to top1.fm and basically find everything from there. So top, the number one dot fm.

Mark Shriner [55:38]

Awesome. Scott, thank you so much and wish you a great remainder of the week.

Scott Ingram [55:44]

Yeah, the short week. Thanks. Mark. Great to have you. Great to be here.

Mark Shriner [55:46]

Cheers.