Welcome to SALES with ASLAN, a weekly podcast hosted by ASLAN Co-founders Tom Stanfill and Tab Norris, geared at helping sales professionals and sales leaders eliminate the hard sell. At the end of the day, we believe that selling is serving. ASLAN helps sellers make the shift from a ‘typical’ sales approach, to one that makes us more influential because we embrace the truth that the customer’s receptivity is more important than your value prop or message.
The goal of these interviews is to spotlight various experts in the world of sales and sales leadership – sharing informational stories, techniques, and expert interviews on the sales topics you care about.
The following are notes from Ep. 173 – How to Become a #1 Rep with Calder Justice
In this episode, Tom and Tab talk with the #1 rep at a growing tech company called Jitterbit, Calder Justice. Tune in to hear them discuss the best question to begin every meeting, Calder’s #1 key to success, and the keys to being strategic and focused. Calder also shares how NOT identifying as a seller led him to the #1 spot in his organization, as well as his passion for being a ministry entrepreneur.
Listen to the conversation here:
Or check out the full transcript:
00:14
Tom Stanfill
Welcome back to another episode of SALES with ASLAN. Good to see you, my friend. It’s been a while since were not only in the studio together, but that were actually hanging out. And I’ve missed you.
00:25
Tab Norris
I know I haven’t seen your face in too long. I’ve been running around doing our thing, but I did. I was just with a new client last earlier this week, and people have been listening to the podcast. We had people saying, hey, I’ve really been enjoying it. I love that.
00:43
Tom Stanfill
Gets me all excited. I was ordering a number two the other day at McDonald’s and somebody said, do you do a podcast? Because I think they recognize my voice.
00:51
Tab Norris
That the Quarter Pounder or is that the Big Mac?
00:54
Tom Stanfill
Quarter Pounder with cheese, Coke Zero and fries. Like, when I’m doing the help thing, that’s why it’s my go to.
01:03
Tab Norris
Yeah.
01:03
Tom Stanfill
I’ll remove the shake sometime. No shake.
01:06
Tab Norris
No shake and no ketchup. You got your ketchup?
01:09
Tom Stanfill
No ketchup.
01:11
Tab Norris
Ketchup and not a coke. And not a shake, not a Coke.
01:15
Tom Stanfill
A Coke Zero. Fries. I don’t do an extra large fry. I just do fries. And that’s what I’m doing. Like, a whole 30 or something.
01:24
Tab Norris
Yeah. What is good to see you. Good to be back in the saddle.
01:29
Tom Stanfill
You were in Australia?
01:30
Tab Norris
I was in Australia. I was down under. I love my friends in Australia. There’s some listening to the podcast.
01:37
Tom Stanfill
We’ll just do a shout out.
01:39
Tab Norris
Yeah, shout out to my friends in Australia and my friends in New Zealand. I didn’t get to New Zealand, but I had a bunch of friends in New Zealand, and I heard that was the biggest mistake I made, is that I didn’t pop hit New Zealand on the way.
01:54
Tom Stanfill
The Kiwis.
01:55
Tab Norris
The Kiwis. It’s only a three hour flight away, and I’ve heard it’s just fabulous that’s.
01:59
Tom Stanfill
Two countries I have not been to. Great culture, great people.
02:04
Tab Norris
Easy to hang out with, the kind of people you want to drink a beer with.
02:08
Tom Stanfill
I did have to somehow post the picture I got of you at a horse. You were dressed as a horse drinking a beer, I think. Yeah.
02:16
Tab Norris
A glass of wine, which would have looked a lot cooler if I was drinking a beer. But it was a glass of Pinot. Yeah. No, that was my welcome to Australia moment.
02:27
Tom Stanfill
Well, that’s what you get when you’re the world’s greatest co host of a podcast. You get to travel all over the world. So, Tap, as always, I’m excited about our guests today, and there’s a real personal connection with our guests today through a series of events. Not because I’m a great person, but through a series of events. I started serving at the Atlanta Mission, which is a mission for homeless people in Atlanta. I met this guy there who I was immediately impressed with, and I started getting to know him. Turns out he’s a very successful seller with a technology company. And so we became friends. I think we’re friends. He may not share that same sentiment or category, but he knows you.
03:20
Tab Norris
He actually knows you.
03:21
Tom Stanfill
I get to know him . I’m like, I love this guy. It turns out he started this ministry called Purpose on Tap. I go to that, and he’s got Jeff Foxworthy speaking. I’m like, who is this guy? I basically roped him into joining our podcast. We’re going to hear and meet Calder Justice, who’s super successful guy, but he’s doing more than selling. He’s giving back. Really wanted to have him the show excited for him. So, Calder, welcome to our podcast, my friend. Good to see you.
03:53
Calder Justice
Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Tad. Thanks for being here. It’s great to be here and excited about this conversation.
04:01
Tab Norris
Awesome. It’s great.
04:03
Tom Stanfill
Thanks for carving out. I know you’re busy, so probably a good place to start is just tell us about what you do in selling. Connect the dots for us. What do you do, who you work for? What do you sell? You kind of more of a hunter farmer. Give us some context.
04:20
Calder Justice
Yeah. I work for a company called Jitterbit. We’re an integration platform. I actually started the company almost seven years ago okay. And started in our product team. I’ll tell the story later of why I transitioned over into sales because it’s actually related to Foxworthy. Yeah, I’ll talk about that now.
04:47
Tom Stanfill
So you start off in product. You were a product guy. You were a technology guy.
04:51
Calder Justice
I’ve been in product my whole career at the time. Foxworthy had just spoken at Purpose on Tab for the first time. Now he’s done it twice. I had a meeting with my boss, who is the SVP of Engineering and product. Okay. I had to cancel the meeting with her at the last minute because we had a lunch with the next speaker of Purpose on Tap, who at the time was running for governor for the state of Georgia. When I told my boss, I said, hey, I’m sorry. I got to cancel. I can’t make this time today. She said, Well, I hope you’re having lunch with somebody important, because you’re canceling on me. I was like, oh, well, actually, yeah, he’s running for governor for the state of Georgia. And she said.
05:40
Tom Stanfill
Lunch with the governor?
05:42
Calder Justice
Yeah. And she was like, all right.
05:44
Tom Stanfill
I get a dime for every time I hear that.
05:49
Calder Justice
I told her that, she said, all right, that’s it. Why are you not in sales? She said, I don’t want to kick you off my team. I’m not trying to get rid of you, but I don’t understand why you’re not in sales. She said, you started to talk about these things that I’ve been doing in the past with purpose on Tap? She said, what’s your excuse or what’s your reason? I said, well, actually, I don’t have one. Maybe I’m scared of failure.
06:16
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
06:16
Calder Justice
And she was like, okay, no place.
06:19
Tom Stanfill
To hide in sales.
06:20
Calder Justice
Yeah. She said, well, then she was being sarcastic when she asked me this. She said, have you heard of this thing called Purpose on Tap? I was like, yes. She said, Were you scared of failure when you all launched it? And I said yes. She said, all right, then that’s a bullshit excuse. Come back to me when you have a better one.
06:39
Tom Stanfill
We got to back up. Purpose on Tap, describe that real quickly because our listeners may not understand what Purpose on Tap is. Go ahead, you explain it.
06:49
Calder Justice
Yeah, no, so actually it’s really exciting. How it spawned was starting in 2010, me and some buddies formed a small group. And it started very casual. At the time, one of our friends who was a teaching pastor at Peachy Pres said, hey, let’s have beers and maybe talk about our faith.
07:11
Tom Stanfill
So, beers and Bible boys. Beer, bible, boys, something like that.
07:15
Calder Justice
Yeah. It evolved and we got up to about ten guys and people kept wanting to join. We were all in our late 20s, early thirty s at the time. The weird thing is, we had to start telling guys no, because then it would no longer be a small group. If we kept saying yes, it’d have been 20 people. Now the guy that was getting ready to share about this thing he’s going through with his wife or his career, he’s no longer going to share that because there’s this new guy. Yeah, there’s 50 people. Right. We capped it and so a few guys started another one and we called ourselves we called it The Heathen Hour.
07:57
Tom Stanfill
Did you say the Heathen Hour?
07:59
Calder Justice
The Heathen Hour. Yeah. Okay, so until somebody said something, it’s pretty good.
08:06
Tom Stanfill
Only 1 hour tab.
08:08
Tab Norris
Yeah, I try to squeeze in an.
08:09
Tom Stanfill
Hour of that every yeah, kind of a Heathen day. Keep going. Sorry.
08:17
Calder Justice
Another group of guys started the same thing, and over after a few years, same thing happened. They were like, well, crap, if we add more people, it’s no longer a small group. One of the guys, a friend that I’ve known kind of my whole life, Clayton Edwards, he reached out and was like, hey, let’s talk about what can we do to scale this? How can we offer this type of environment to the masses without tainting what we have done? We explored that for about six months in my basement drinking homebrew, which is where all good ideas come home brew. That’s when we came up with Purpose on Tap and how we came up with what our structure was. We went to every single men’s group that we could find in the city of Atlanta and picked the best attributes out of all those from timing, location, communication, how you communicate, email reminders, calendar reminders, all that stuff.
09:26
Calder Justice
Text messages versus emails. And what was the real process. Yeah, no, were very methodical, like, hey, if this is going to be successful, we’re a bunch of Type A guys. We don’t want to start something that’s going to fail.
09:42
Tab Norris
Right.
09:44
Calder Justice
And so we put all that together. We were blessed with some funding to get us started. We’re all guys that have full time jobs. There’s no salaries involved. It’s just rental of the space and paying for the beer. We also don’t pay our speakers.
10:04
Tom Stanfill
Where you have this is at a brewery in Atlanta called Monday Night Brewery, which is why you call it Purpose on tap. You go to the brewery, which is a really cool brewery, got a really cool space, they’re serving beer, which I realized yeah, because you gave us a chip or something right. To be able to get the beer. And you guys pay for that?
10:25
Calder Justice
Yes. Each person gets two free beers.
10:28
Tab Norris
Nice.
10:29
Calder Justice
Yeah. What we did was we thought, well, what if we charge, like, $5 to get in? Well, $5 isn’t really much money to anybody that would be coming to this, but that’s an excuse. That’s a barrier of entry. Oh, I don’t have $5 cash, or I don’t want to go do that for our budget. What does $5 matter? Nothing. We said it will always be free.
10:56
Tom Stanfill
That’s cool.
10:57
Tab Norris
That’s great.
10:58
Calder Justice
Yeah.
10:59
Tom Stanfill
You got people that support it.
11:02
Calder Justice
Yes. We launched, actually the day after the Falcons lost the Super Bowl.
11:09
Tab Norris
That was a good time to launch, actually.
11:12
Tom Stanfill
We need a beer in prayer.
11:14
Calder Justice
It was funny because we’ve been talking all fall about that’s. The day after the Super Bowl. What if the Falcons go to the Super Bowl? All of us being from Atlanta, we’re like, well, we don’t really need to worry about that.
11:30
Tom Stanfill
We don’t need them here. I think that’s a stupid idea, but we are brainstorming. Okay. All right.
11:36
Calder Justice
It turns out went and everyone knows the outcome, but we had about 70 guys show up the first time, and that’s what we oh, that.
11:45
Tom Stanfill
Was the first one.
11:47
Calder Justice
First one. Steve Cesari spoke, and we called that our soft launch. What we realized afterwards was, like, 70 people isn’t really a soft launch, and it gained a lot of momentum. At the time so we’ve been around seven years now. Up until this winter, were meeting ten times a year, so once a month, except July and January. We’ve had over 65, something like that. Events at Monday Night Brewery.
12:21
Tom Stanfill
Also cool.
12:22
Calder Justice
Yeah, it’s been great. What we did was we had that base donation, but we’re like, we want guys bought in. Right? What we did was we came up with a term. We called it the Pot Club. If you donated $100 a month, we gave you a really slick golf shirt with our logo on the arm, and we joked that it was the one $200 golf shirt that everybody wants.
12:51
Tab Norris
I like that, because if it was only, like, $700 golf shirt, nobody would really care.
12:55
Calder Justice
But you’re right.
12:55
Tab Norris
A $1,200 golf shirt is worth something.
12:58
Calder Justice
Yeah, I love it.
12:59
Tom Stanfill
I want a golf shirt. I didn’t know about this.
13:02
Calder Justice
Well, Tom, give me $100 a month.
13:06
Tom Stanfill
I will give you $100. All right, sold. Now, bringing us all back so this is the backstory. You’ve developed this cool kind of an entrepreneur ministry. Entrepreneur started this ministry, got these people coming. You’ve got these well known speakers, because I’ve been to a couple of them, and not only Foxworthy, I forgot the guy that spoke from Chickfila, some executive from Chickfila spoke. I know you’ve got some governor to be a potential governor. I don’t think that guy I don’t remember who that was.
13:38
Calder Justice
He didn’t win.
13:42
Tom Stanfill
Anyway, Foxworth is world famous, right? So you’re getting these people. Your SPP, your boss says, why aren’t you in sales? So pick it up from there.
13:55
Calder Justice
Funny, because it was probably around the same time well, no, that would have been about eight months no, it would have been around the same time that I just met you, Tom, because it was a few months after Foxworthy had first spoke. When you had heard Foxworthy speak a month or two before, he spoke at purpose on tap, I believe it was at Buckhead Church, and he challenged the congregation. He said, hey, I go to the Atlanta Mission every morning for the past ten years. Every Tuesday morning for the past ten years, I bring Chickfila biscuits, and I challenge you to come.
14:31
Tom Stanfill
That’s exactly what I heard about it. I heard about it at North Point. And Andy Stanley was interviewing Foxworthy. It turned out I looked it up. That’s what happened. I looked it up online, and a friend of mine was on the board. I’m like, I’d just been in a small group with the guy that was on the board. I’m like, I’m calling that guy. That just led to me showing up and seeing you.
14:53
Calder Justice
And that was the same thing. He had said the same thing that he said with Andy Stanley. He said it a purpose on tap. Like, hey, I challenge you guys to do this. As a gift to him, when he spoke the first time, we’ve got him this life size check. That was for we got forget the specific numbers. It was like 800 pairs of socks and towels to donate to the Atlanta Mission, which I’m not a big Walmart guy, but Walmart gave it to me at their cost, because I told them what this was going for. That was because Foxworthy said that the items that they need the most are towels and socks.
15:36
Tab Norris
That is so cool.
15:40
Calder Justice
I took him up on his challenge, and I started to go at the beginning of the new year.
15:45
Tom Stanfill
That’s what brought you there, because he spoke in that okay.
15:49
Calder Justice
I love it.
15:49
Tab Norris
Yeah.
15:50
Calder Justice
I met you and a few other guys, and it just kind of became something that became really important to me. I remember on Tuesdays, driving home and thinking to myself, man, I was arguing with my wife yesterday about X, and this guy’s been living under overpasses for the past three years or five years or ten years, and he’s been using his shoe as his pillow. I’ve got a roof over my head. It’s not that bad. It gives you a lot of perspective on how you talk to people, how you treat people. It led me to meeting you, which is part of life changing, caller life changing.
16:42
Tom Stanfill
This is relevant to the topic. I feel like God’s created us all to serve. We have these unique talents, right? He’s created us, and that’s what we’re wired to do. Doing things like that really doesn’t have to be to the homeless. It could be anybody that you rub shoulders with or intersect with your life intersects with theirs. But we’re wired. That’s why I remember going Tuesday morning and going, this is what life is, and it’s not because I’m better than I’m not. What was interesting about I remember learning this about the homeless is when Foxworthy would lead them through a discussion, and he would say, what do you want? This was really interesting. What do you want? I expected them to say a house. I expected them to say money. I expected them to say job. They didn’t. They said the same things I say.
17:31
Tom Stanfill
They all wanted the same thing. They wanted relationships, they wanted meaning, they wanted connection. They wanted purpose. It’s like we’re all the same. It’s like I just happened to have some resources and time to give, and they were there. For whatever reason, they were there. What I found I loved about your story is meeting you is that you’re actually doing something like, you’re taking time. What’s cool is you’re doing something right. You’ve started purpose on tap. You’re investing time on a mission, and you’re the number one salesperson for your company. It’s obviously the time invested there doesn’t keep you from being successful in sales. It actually could, you argue, makes you more successful in sales?
18:21
Calder Justice
Most likely, yeah.
18:23
Tom Stanfill
That interesting. Well, let’s talk we’ll come back to the ministry thing in a minute. Let’s just shift to selling. You have this interesting path to selling, which I find to be a consistent truth about the people that are really successful. They don’t come into the role as, I’m here to sell something, right? I want to sell something, and I want to earn commission. Yes. There are definitely people who are successful that have that mindset. The idea that you came from I’m an expert with the product, and I don’t think of myself as a salesperson, which a lot of times when people think of themselves as a salesperson, it’s about manipulation. I don’t like to manipulate. I don’t like to persuade. I don’t like to talk people out of their money. I’m not associated. You come in with, like, I don’t have that mindset. I come in with a different mindset.
19:14
Tom Stanfill
How did that help you, that path to selling? Did that help you? What can you share that other people can walk away with that may help them?
19:23
Calder Justice
Yeah. Like you said, I had never thought about being in sales. When my boss had said, hey, you need to come up with a better excuse, I went to those guys in my small group that I’ve mentioned and asked each of them, and out of the ten guys, I think there was eight of them that their same response was, I thought you were already in sales.
19:47
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right.
19:48
Tab Norris
What do you mean you’re not in sales?
19:54
Calder Justice
It’s like, no, I’m not over there, guys. Yeah.
20:01
Tom Stanfill
When I met you, I thought you were in sales. You probably weren’t.
20:04
Calder Justice
Yeah, but so I think how it helped me was a being able to answer most technical questions in a sales cycle and not have to rely on my sales engineer, which just gave me more confidence.
20:21
Tom Stanfill
You were an expert.
20:23
Calder Justice
Yes. Just coming in with the mindset of, hey, all I have to do is prove that I can do this. My boss at the time had said, hey, I’m not going to fire you if you’re not performing and you’re following our process, if you’re not performing and following our process, then we need to do something with the process, because you should be able to be successful here.
20:53
Tom Stanfill
Wow. That is something every leader should write down. Right. That is a great way to think about it. People are perfectly trained to follow your process. If you don’t have a process right.
21:05
Calder Justice
Yeah.
21:06
Tom Stanfill
Then they’re not going to follow it. Right. The fact that you do what we tell you to do, you’ll be successful. That should be true.
21:14
Tab Norris
I love the confidence. I mean, that’s just the way you should be if you do what I tell you to do. If I figured this thing out, called her, just do this process and you’re going to be fine. That’s awesome.
21:27
Calder Justice
Yeah. It didn’t happen overnight. It took me probably a year and a half to hit my stride, and, hey, my boss could have been lying to me, but thinking in the back of my mind, well, hey, as long as I bust my back every day, every week and follow what they’re telling me to do, my job is safe.
21:52
Tab Norris
Yeah.
21:54
Tom Stanfill
Why did you believe her?
21:57
Calder Justice
Why did I believe my boss when.
22:00
Tom Stanfill
They said you said, they may have been lying, but you obviously I don’t know if it’s a he or she.
22:05
Calder Justice
This was a he.
22:08
Tom Stanfill
Your other boss was a she.
22:09
Calder Justice
Yeah.
22:10
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
22:10
Calder Justice
Right. I don’t know, because they’re the VP of my company, and I’m new to this thing. Call it maybe I was naive, but he said that, and I took his word for it.
22:22
Tom Stanfill
Okay. I just didn’t know if there was something about that person that you’re like. Okay.
22:28
Calder Justice
That boss actually ended up coming to the Atlanta Mission two separate times I met him.
22:35
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, sharp guy.
22:38
Calder Justice
Very sharp. The first time we got out of the truck, and he said, hey, so what are we doing? We serve him breakfast. What’s the deal here? I said, no, actually, it’s a Bible study. He said, oh, okay. Well, does it matter if I’m Jewish? I was like, no. I felt like an idiot.
22:58
Tab Norris
I felt like an idiot. Once I got aftert over that yeah.
23:04
Tom Stanfill
That’s another thing I forgot that I loved about you. Called her is he brought his boss to Atlanta Mission. I’m like what? And the guy had no clue. I remember meeting him. I had no clue why he was there. Why are you here? I don’t know. Call her out. Hey, it’s our first sales call.
23:24
Tab Norris
That is awesome.
23:29
Tom Stanfill
Know the process, follow the process, be an expert. Anything about the way that you interacted with the customer in a nontraditional way that you found helpful because you didn’t have that sales mentality.
23:44
Calder Justice
Yeah. I think something that helped there was being new, because I had a handful of colleagues that had been doing it for a long time, and when they weren’t finding success, they would blame it on the product, blame it on the company, and they’d leave. I would tell myself, like, well, I can’t leave. I’m brand new at this thing. No one’s going to take me company. But so I had a different call. It mindset approaching people. Think of it as Tom, how we would walk into that room or walk into the doors of the mission. Your guard is down. You want to help somebody. Something I learned from a guy that I worked with when I worked at Caterpillar back in Montana was he would say he was a really successful sales guy. He said, it’s amazing what you can learn when you ask the customer how they’re doing, and then you shut up.
24:45
Tab Norris
It’s good advice.
24:46
Calder Justice
Yeah. And just listen. Yeah. He’s like, God gave you two ears and one mouth. Why don’t you abuse your two ears first?
24:54
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. How are you doing? I think it’s harder back to you what you were saying about the reps with experience. The more experience I have, the harder it is for me to do that.
25:05
Calder Justice
Yeah.
25:06
Tom Stanfill
Because you now that I have so much information, so much knowledge about their world. You make assumptions. It’s easy to make assumptions. I forget those days when I really didn’t know what they needed, and I wanted to get to know them, and I had time, and I was new, and I was so fascinated by anything they had to share. The longer I’m in the business, the less fascinated I am about how they are doing. But it is critical.
25:30
Calder Justice
It is. I find myself now, ten minutes into a sales call, thinking to myself, crap, are they going to buy from me? Are they going to buy this quarter? All that stuff. And it’s horrible. That’s how you can, in your own mind, quickly ruin a deal.
25:47
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Your mindset was like when you walk into a room, it’s like, I have no agenda. I want to get to know them, and in whatever way they want to reveal that I want to help them. I’m not there to sell you. We’re here to explore how we potentially could help each other. No pressure. You don’t seem like a guy that puts a lot of pressure on people.
26:15
Calder Justice
I don’t, and I feel like that helps because I want them to be able to comfortably make a decision versus if you’re pressing them, and, hey, we got this approval. You have to do it by the end of the month or it’s going to leave. I didn’t find that working very well.
26:36
Tab Norris
Exactly.
26:37
Tom Stanfill
It feels better, but it doesn’t work.
26:40
Calder Justice
Right. It’s like telling your wife what you’re really thinking. It may feel better for a second.
26:47
Tab Norris
Honey, do you really want to know my opinion? Yes, I do. No, you don’t. I’m sorry.
26:52
Calder Justice
I know you don’t.
26:55
Tom Stanfill
I understand that. I get it.
26:58
Calder Justice
Tom Something, the CEO of Monday Night Brewery spoke at purpose on tap two, I think it was two years ago, and something that he shared outside of going to Harvard, because the only way that somebody went to Harvard is because they tell you they went to Harvard.
27:21
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, people definitely don’t know that about me.
27:23
Calder Justice
Yeah, I went to the Harvard of the south. Old men.
27:26
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. It’s rebels, I bet.
27:32
Calder Justice
No, but close. What he said was that they did a different approach at the brewery for their employees when they were having one one with them. He would ask them, not the generic, hey, how are you? He would ask, hey, where are you coming from today? Kind of the same question, but you’re going to get a different answer. What he learned was, hey, if I’m going into this meeting and I’ve got to reset expectations with this person, we need to course correct what they’re doing, how they’re doing it. They come in and tell me that their neighbor died or their mom is sick or whatever it is. Hey, my spouse just lost their job. Whatever life had happened to them that he would not have known. He said, now, knowing that person’s mother just had a stroke, well, I’m going to change my whole tone in this conversation and maybe pivot and revisit that topic later with them, because right now, their mother just had a stroke.
28:45
Calder Justice
They don’t need to hear me telling them they’re doing their job wrong. Right. I’ve tried to bring that’s brilliant into my sales calls of asking people, how you’re doing? Where you’re coming from today? Because if somebody says, I just got my b*** chewed out by my boss, I’m probably going to approach it a little differently, have a little more empathy in the dialogue.
29:09
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. If they give you that can I don’t want to talk about answer. You know that’s, right. This is a task, or this is a person in task mode. Let’s get it done. And you can be versatile. There anything you do call her before you walk into the room metaphorically that gets you in that mindset? How do you remember to do that? Is there anything you kind of remember?
29:33
Calder Justice
It’s just become a habit.
29:35
Tom Stanfill
Okay, so it’s a habit now. You just know to do it, and.
29:39
Calder Justice
It’S call it my recipe for success. Hey, this works for me. I mean, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to close the deal, but you’re going to get good traction with them. I’m learning now. I’ve been in the role four and a half years. There’s a lot of long games. I’m finalizing a transaction right now with a guy who did not buy from me two years ago, but he came back. He said, well, actually, your competition, they’re not doing everything they said they could do, and I want to evaluate you now.
30:08
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, I love that long game.
30:11
Calder Justice
Yeah, it feels great. It’ll feel better when the DocuSign is completed.
30:17
Tab Norris
If you keep doing that and you just kind of do your process, it’s what you talked about before. You trust the process. Right. Just keep showing up, doing your thing that, works over time, and it’ll pay off.
30:29
Calder Justice
Yeah. And you guys will love this. I did not love this. Last fall, I went 104 days without closing any transactions.
30:40
Tom Stanfill
Wow.
30:41
Calder Justice
And I couldn’t sleep at night. It was horrible. I was very worried for my job. It says last fall, it’s kind of starting the tech layoffs. While I had a successful track record in years prior, it was not trending well. The first day of Q Four, I was at 42% of Plan, and I called my boss, my VP, and I was like, hey, I’m really worried here. I don’t know what’s going on. Do I have commission breath coming through the computer? What am I doing? He said, Calder, just everybody has ebbs and flows. Stick to your process. Just continue to do what you’re doing. And that was the first. Week of November, the second week of November, actually. It started on my birthday and I got one deal closed that kind of came out of nowhere. Another one, somebody just reached out to me and said a customer was like, hey, can you send me this order form?
31:41
Calder Justice
From there I did four hundred and ninety six K in three months, which was about half my number, but I did all of that in Q four, but I put up a goose egg in Q three.
31:54
Tab Norris
Wow.
31:55
Calder Justice
It has reminded me, as I reflect upon it now, it has reminded me that, hey, while that was not the way that I had drawn it up last February, I still got there and it wasn’t the sexiest way. I would have been much more comfortable over the summer had it been consistent. Just knowing that, hey, it’s four quarters. It’s like the Falcons losing the Super Bowl. It’s four quarters.
32:27
Tom Stanfill
Yeah.
32:28
Calder Justice
Last part of the fourth quarter. You can win it or lose it.
32:32
Tab Norris
Yeah.
32:33
Tom Stanfill
That’s also important as to why we got to constantly build our pipeline. Because it’s a long game. It’s a long game and we work harder in the beginning and then we work smarter. If we continue to do that and follow the process and make those investments and get better, it gets easy. I think the reps to me that consistently are unsuccessful because I believe that everybody can be successful in sales if they’ll just do the work. You’re going to get above the line if you just do the work. There’s the level where you just crush it. Right. That’s about doing the work and being very competent at what you do. If you just follow the process, a lot of people want to, I think, in sales are looking for the magic. Like, I want to go work for a company that has the magic product and the magic thing.
33:26
Tom Stanfill
If we don’t hit that, if I’m not successful, then it’s the company’s fault and that merry ground is going to end. The music stops. There’s not enough chairs. At the end of the day, the people that are good at what they do and follow the process and stick to it over the time, it gets pretty easy versus you bounce.
33:45
Calder Justice
It’s much easier now than it was to me four years ago.
33:50
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, exactly.
33:56
Tab Norris
There may not be answer to this, but is there any challenge that you’re focused on working through now? I mean, obviously you’ve had tons of success, but you sound like the kind of guy that’s always striving to improve and make yourself better. Anything you’re focused on inside of work.
34:16
Calder Justice
Outside of work, or both, really?
34:18
Tab Norris
Either. Both. Either one.
34:20
Calder Justice
Inside work, the lame answer is achieving quota.
34:26
Tab Norris
Okay.
34:27
Calder Justice
Now, I did put of metrics on that this year and said I want to achieve quota before Christmas and our fiscal year doesn’t end until the end of January.
34:39
Tom Stanfill
Okay.
34:39
Calder Justice
I would say tell myself I want to hit it one month in advance to be able to have a less holiday. That’s right.
34:47
Tab Norris
Everything’s gravy above that.
34:50
Calder Justice
Right. Personally, actually, we talked about this at Small Group last week, so purpose on tap and doing it. We’ve been doing it for seven years since we started talking about it. Eight years we have been working intentionally to replace ourselves. We were all in a different phase of life. None of us had kids. We were all in our early thirty s. Now I have my second kid due in a month and all the other guys have at least three kids and we just don’t have that margin anymore. After work, in between work, whatever. A goal is identifying a successful replacement and kind of onboarding them. Obviously I won’t get to sleep this summer with a two and a half year old and a newborn. My goal is once I can come up for air called End of Summer, really start trying to figure out personally what’s the next thing I’m going to do.
36:02
Tab Norris
Yeah, no, that’s good. I think I got it. You may want to write this down. Purpose while I potty train. I think that’s a whole nother it’s kind of the next phase. That’s right. I don’t know. I’m just brainstorming. I’m a brainstormer. Guess what I do? I’m an idea man.
36:23
Calder Justice
I love it. I think it’s a great idea.
36:27
Tom Stanfill
No, your purpose is to potty train. Yes, exactly. I love that we toured that into hitting your number earlier, which I love that because the reason I laughed because I thought about that last week sometime I’m like, I want to go into the holidays feeling like the following.
36:47
Calder Justice
That’s right.
36:47
Tom Stanfill
I really visualize that. Kind of get ahead of that and go, what do I have to be doing now to where I’m celebrating? I’m celebrating during Christmas and I don’t have the Christmas I had last year, which was we had a good year, but it was like insane.
37:05
Tab Norris
We were diving across the line going.
37:08
Tom Stanfill
There was all kinds of things happening. I don’t even remember if this doesn’t.
37:11
Tab Norris
Pull and this doesn’t go at the right time and it’s like you’re going, Please, Lord.
37:16
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, how do I get ahead of that and do the work now? Because it is you have to sew before you reap, as I say. Sticking with the Bible, there one of the things I do along those lines that I think in talking to you previously that you’re really good at is you’re tenacious about being strategic. You really are focused on doing the things you need to do and you’re good at that, which I think a lot of sellers struggle with that because I think people that gravitate to sales gravitate to freedom and lack of structure. Right. They like to flex and they like to be able to move around. They don’t want to be in a process driven, structured world. So how is that serving you? Is that true? If so, how do you do it and what would you want to share about being strategic as a seller?
38:06
Calder Justice
I do a lot of reading on trying to figure out how can I better at this? How can I be more effective with my time? I’m a firm believer that every time you say no to something that you’re not fully in, it provides you the opportunity to be able to say yes to something. The next thing that comes along that you are fully in for. A few things that I’ve been doing recently has been time boxing. I’ll have a list of, hey, these are the ten things I have to do and I have 60 minutes to do them. And just no excuses. These have to be done.
38:45
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, this is a thing. Yeah, people are signing up to do this.
38:50
Calder Justice
There’s apps and there’s all sorts of stuff on the internet to do that, but I just do it a spreadsheet and put it up on the screen and put my timer on my phone.
39:00
Tom Stanfill
You give yourself an hour and it’s like and at the end of the hour, I’m over and then I go back to whatever it is.
39:05
Calder Justice
I’m not responding to emails, I’m not responding to slack. Obviously I’m in sales and my phone rings, I pick it up, but other than that, I’ve got this thing to do. Something I started to do a few weeks ago that I’d read about was called the Scary Hour. The goal is to have four of them a week. You get one day off during the work week, and that hour you do everything that you don’t want to do, preferably it’s in the morning, but all the stuff that you’re dreading to do, you do it then. So, like, when I did it on I started on Sunday this week and I did my expense report. I hate doing my expense report. We had just come from SKO and so I had a boatload of receipts and dinners and all that stuff and I was like, hey, this is what I’m going to do in my Scary Hour today.
40:06
Tom Stanfill
I love.
40:09
Calder Justice
Yeah, I mean, I even have looked, I got on my notepad titled Scary List or Scary Hours.
40:16
Tab Norris
I love it.
40:17
Calder Justice
It’s basically everything I’ve been procrastinating over the past few weeks or months.
40:21
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. The writing for me is part of that scary hour because it’s so easy to do the things that are pressing. Like, you have to do this right now because it’s on fire. Something’s on fire which keeps you from doing the things that you need to do that build your business long term because this is on fire. So you’re supposed to put it out.
40:43
Calder Justice
It’s so hard to let that’s right. This morning I had the scary hour blocked off on my calendar and two different people had I’ve been working towards these for a while, the two different people, we came to an agreement and they were like, all right, cool. Can you send me over the DocuSign? I was like, Well, I think I’m going to sending out order forms takes over the scary hour. So I didn’t get to do that. Now I got to figure out this afternoon, this evening, this weekend, some time to do that because I chose selfishly. I want to get these contracts signed.
41:17
Tom Stanfill
Yeah, right, but then you can reschedule your scary hour.
41:22
Calder Justice
Yes, it’s flexible.
41:24
Tab Norris
It’s flexible scary.
41:26
Tom Stanfill
The point is it’s having four. Write it out through the week, have four beautiful. Any other top of mind important advice if you had to say just one thing like, hey, if you just do this one thing, I’m a new in sales, I’m sitting across the table from you or having lunch and what’s the one thing? What do I got to do to.
41:50
Calder Justice
Be listening to your prospects? The second one would be you got to block your calendar off. You got to reserve your calendar, otherwise you’re not going to get the stuff done. That hey, on Monday morning I said I was going to do all this week, but then emails come in and slack messages come in and some colleague wants to vent about something that’s going on in their life and you don’t get it done. What I’ve done, and I’m on a new team now. We went through a corporate hygiene exercise at the beginning of February, and so now I’m on a new team, new colleagues, new boss, and they all live in California, or at least they’re all West Coast, and they just love to start hitting me up at two, three in the afternoon, their time on a Friday. I’m like, guys, it’s 05:00, it’s 04:00, it’s 06:00.
42:56
Calder Justice
Whatever it is, I’ve already put in my 50 or 60 hours this week. Yeah. Now it’s kind of turned into a joke. They’re like, oh, well, called her don’t like to do meetings on Friday afternoons. And that’s true. There’s a few things I’ll say about that. One is I have found that the best time to be able to connect with an eco buyer is Friday afternoon. Typically your eco buyer is going to.
43:23
Tom Stanfill
Be an executive economic buyer, right? Economic buyer.
43:27
Calder Justice
Typically they’re going to be an executive and typically they are available on Friday afternoons. If I have my calendar blocked off after 01:00 p.m.. I’m able to tell somebody, hey, what time works for you? I will call you then. Versus, hey, these are the times that work for me. You tell me what works for you, I’m going to call you then. It’s a great way to close out the week, and it’s just been very successful. Another thing I’ll say on that is this took two years to learn. We don’t do demos on Fridays, or I won’t do a demo on Friday after lunch. I’ve caught some heat for that internally for oh, somebody they’re in the buying cycle. You need to accommodate to that. My first argument would be, well, what did I just say? Like, you have to reserve your calendar, otherwise you’re not going to get the stuff done.
44:20
Calder Justice
The other thing was, what I realized was, now I’m not sending that recap email out till 07:00 on Friday night. Guess who’s not reading a recap email at 07:00 on a Friday night?
44:36
Tab Norris
Right?
44:36
Calder Justice
Nobody. Right. It just turned into a poor use of time if I asked you, hey, Tab, when are you most checked out during the week? Yeah, probably Friday afternoon.
44:51
Tab Norris
Friday afternoon, I’m on my way out the door.
44:54
Calder Justice
It’s all shut down.
44:55
Tab Norris
You’re getting it wrapped up?
44:56
Calder Justice
Yep, that’s right. Why do we want something if we need 90 minutes of their focus and attention? Why use that time of the week so small? Things like that have just helped me be more efficient with my time, and I know, hey, if I can’t talk to them on Friday afternoon, but I can talk to them on Monday, they’re not buying anything over the weekend. I only get my commission checks quarterly. I don’t care if they buy today or next week, as long as it’s by the end of the quarter.
45:29
Tab Norris
Right? Yeah.
45:33
Tom Stanfill
Great wisdom there, Calder. I want to double click one thing, and then we’ll wrap it up. I think people might just gloss over your number one thing that you mentioned is listening. It’s just like, oh, okay, listen to your prospect. Everybody wants some magic thing that you can do. Really selling kind of comes down to some really basic things. I remember Randy Riemersmith is senior vice president from what was his forgot his company, tab, I can’t I don’t remember mine. Tickle.
46:09
Tab Norris
MuleSoft, mulesoft, MuleSoft.
46:12
Tom Stanfill
He said is it?
46:15
Calder Justice
Yeah.
46:16
Tom Stanfill
One of your big competitors. Okay, we’ll delete that podcast, but he said it’s about doing a few things really well. It’s like, that’s one of the things that drew me to you instantly. Of all the people in the room and all the people I met, I’m like, you actually were present. Like, you seem to listen. We think that’s not a big deal. We think about what do we need to say and how do we validate our recommendation, and all the cool stuff and sexy stuff that we talk about in sales, but just the basics of, like, hey, when the other person talks, do you give a d***? Because if you don’t, then what are you saying? You’re like, I don’t really care about you, so buy from me. I don’t care about you. What you have to say is not worth me listening to because I think a lot of times I like to say in tabs for me, say this story, we’re not just selling a solution.
47:08
Tom Stanfill
We’re selling a dopamine hit. When we actually listen to people and care about what they think, they’re like, wow, this feels really good. I want to return your phone call. I want to hear what you have to say. I’m receptive to you. I want you to win. I think of the times I’ve worked with really great salespeople. I’m like, I don’t even know what they sell. I just want to work with them. I’m finding myself rooting for them, and I’m like, I moved from them. What do you offer, and how much is it too? How can I figure out how to buy from you? Because sometimes we don’t have enough time to figure out who’s got the best solution. We base our decision on emotion.
47:44
Calder Justice
It’s a total emotion. People buy from people. They don’t buy from websites.
47:51
Tom Stanfill
Unless or if they do, they’re not talking to you and you’re not going to have a shot anyway.
47:54
Tab Norris
Right?
47:55
Calder Justice
That’s right.
47:56
Tom Stanfill
Yeah. Where we come into play as a salesperson is selling something complex that needs a salesperson or an expert to explain it or to help them buy. If they don’t need our help.
48:08
Calder Justice
They’Re going to buy a job.
48:10
Tom Stanfill
That’s why we’re needed. If we’re not doing the things that require our expertise, then we’re out.
48:17
Calder Justice
That’s right.
48:18
Tom Stanfill
Brilliant. Do you have any other last final thoughts or questions?
48:21
Tab Norris
No. This was great. It’s good to meet you.
48:24
Calder Justice
Likewise.
48:26
Tab Norris
I love what you’re doing. I love the thing just on both sides. It’s so cool that you have another purpose that’s bigger than I think we all need. It something that’s bigger than it’s about others that drives us as we kind of the older we get, I think more and more important it becomes that’s right.
48:48
Calder Justice
Thanks for having me on, guys.
48:50
Tom Stanfill
Very inspirational for me. Called to see what you’re doing, and.
48:53
Tab Norris
I got to check it out at some point. Tom, we’re going to make that happen.
48:57
Tom Stanfill
Next time Calder allows an old guy to come, is there, by the way, any requirements?
49:02
Calder Justice
You have to be a male.
49:04
Tom Stanfill
Okay. But there’s no age requirements. It’s not for funny. We identify.
49:14
Calder Justice
We started with we thought our target market or our target demographic is going to be guys that are 25 to 35. What we quickly learned within the first year was people our fathers and our parents age in their late 60s, early 70s. They loved it. It’s funny because there’ll be a 25 year old sitting next to a 75 year old, and they both are getting something from that. The 25 year old is thinking, I’m going to get some wisdom from this guy because he’s been through it before. What the older guy is getting out of is, hey, I’ve got all this life knowledge and wisdom, and I’d love to share it with somebody who could benefit from it because I’ve made the mistakes before.
50:00
Tab Norris
Yeah, that’s it.
50:02
Tom Stanfill
That’s great. Yeah, it’s awesome. All right, so the next time, next one in Tab coming next to the purpose on tap. Come into town.
50:09
Tab Norris
Let’s do it.
50:10
Tom Stanfill
All right, everyone, thanks for joining us for another episode of SALES with ASLAN. Calder, thanks, my friend, for joining us.
50:17
Calder Justice
Thank you for the invite.
