231: The Man who Eats, Lives & Breathes Sales, with Carson Heady

 

Microsoft sales wizard, Carson Heady, joins us for this week’s episode of Conquer Local.

Carson started his career in a call center and now is a top performing sales leader at Microsoft. He has been through it all from dial-up internet, DSL, cellular, to when high-speed internet took off. He gives us his insight on how you can understand and work with the territorial sales person who doesn’t want to give up control over his client. Carson explains the path that Microsoft transitioned to the new market while expanding to nearly 50 technology centers worldwide. He tells us how they switched gears to have sales specialists dedicated to accounts and work in tandem with their partners.

Carson is also the author of the ‘Birth of a Salesman’ series, which details the art of sales—from interviewing through preparation, pitching, closing and advancing your career in sales.

 

Introduction

George: How about another episode of the “Conquer Local” podcast? Hello, conquerors. My name is George Leith. I’m very excited for you to be tuned in to this episode because we have spared no expense to bring you an expert in sales, his name, Carson Heady. And Carson has been doing this for quite some time. He won’t tell us how old he is, but when you look at his LinkedIn profile, you can pretty much figure it out from when he graduated University and when he went to high school.

So anyways, but Carson is a number one best selling author of the, “Birth of a Salesman,” series that follows the life of this gentleman named Vincent Scott. And Vincent, started out as a young whippersnapper. A 25-year-old-gonna-light the-world-on-fire sales guy. And the series of books follows Vince… It’s actually a book inside a book. But it follows Vincent through his career, from young, no-wrinkles, sales guy to grizzled-up old veteran sales guy, who starts questioning whether they’re still relevant. It’s a great story and we are going to dig into it with Carson.

Here’s the other thing about Carson. The guy works at Microsoft. He’s had a long sales career. He is leading sales teams inside Microsoft… Do you own the stock? I own the stocks and performing very well. We’re gonna ask Carson about his Microsoft sales experience. You know, I don’t know if we have had a guest with this depth in their resume of sales. All the guy has done… He eats lives and breathes it. He is a sales trainer extraordinaire. He is a number one best-selling author. And what did he write about? Sales. This is my type of guy. Hey, Carson. How are you doing today?

Carson: George, I am fantastic, yourself?

George: Well, it’s a lot colder where I am than it is where you… Well, what’s it like in St. Louis, Missouri today?

Carson: You know what? We’ve actually been blessed today and we are nearing the 60s. But depending on the day here, it can be anywhere from single digits to 50, 60 degrees. You just never know what you’re gonna get with Midwest weather.

George: And we’re like minus 50 because we’re in the middle of the frozen tundra of Canada. That’s where I come to you today. But thank you for joining us. Carson, I wanna talk about a number of things inside this episode. But first off, can we talk about the Microsoft days? And before we do that, I do wanna go back because, you know, with LinkedIn, I know everything about you. You started in the telco business and you’ve been in sales for quite some time. So can we talk about what you saw in the sales industry from the days that you started selling to where you are today, now leading teams inside Microsoft?

Carson: That’s a great question, George. And it’s been a fun ride to be certain. And, you know, starting out, I was in a call center-type environment, which is obviously very different from what I do now, which is a lot of field sales. And while I work with inside teams, you know, I do a lot more face-to-face meetings and things of that stature with my teams today. So, you know, what I’d say I saw back in those early days, I won’t say exactly how long ago that was, but was just really spending a lot of time in the business to business and then also the business to consumer. We actually did a transition. I was at AT&T and at the time it was Southwestern Bell. And we did a transition, literally, mid-flight, I had just started. And we actually had to go back to the drawing board from a training perspective to learn the business to consumer. So I had a pretty good view of that piece, but, you know, there’s a lot of folks that were calling in, challenges that they may be having with their bill. And then the requirement on our side was to look at opportunities to get them into new plans, lots of different things that we were working on at that point in time.

You know, so the telco side, I was there when DSL and high-speed internet kind of took off. And I remember the expensive price points that us and our competitors had back then to cellular and wireless that we dabbled in, dial-up internet, even at one point and which, you know, obviously we’ve seen transition quite a bit all the way till you know, over the last several years, I’ve gone through advertising and marketing. And then also today where it’s technology. So a lot of time spent inside sales, outside sales and seem quite a bit. It’s ironic because I thought I knew a lot about selling back in my early days, and I knew relatively nothing. So it’s been a quite a journey and quite an eye-opening experience.

George: As I mentioned in the intro and the preamble to the interview, you know, you reside today at Microsoft, you know, a very impressive organization. I’m sure there’s a lot of systems in place when you get rock stars delivered to your doorstep, they’re properly trained. And can we talk a little bit about your role inside Microsoft and what you do on a day-to-day basis today?

Carson: Yeah, it’s a great question. You know, I’ve done a few things here. I’ve been very fortunate because we are in an evolving business. You know, if you followed Microsoft for the last few years, we’ve undergone quite a bit of a transformation ourselves, you know, with going to open source and, you know, just some of the ways that we plug and play with a lot of different platforms. So my role has evolved as well, which has been great because it seems like every year or so, there are different nuances to my job.

This year, I’m very focused in strategic deals and work a lot with small-medium and what’s called premier corporate clients that are mostly in Missouri. There’s some subsidiaries that are scattered throughout the United States. But I work with partners. You know, our partner ecosystem is very valued. They do the vast preponderance of our actual implementation work. So I will work and liaise with them. So I have an inside sales team that I work with, that’s located in a few different spots throughout the United States. And then lot of times, I get to work directly with customers, a lot of sea-level involvement. So it’s quite a solid array and the day to day can be quite different, which is exciting.

George: It’s interesting, you know, I’ve spent some time, the early part of this year traveling in Africa, and Microsoft has quite the footprint in the African marketplace. Do you find that the footprint varies country-to-country, continent-to-continent?

Carson: I think it continues to be strengthened across the world. You alluded to Africa. In fact, I actually had a client who has a presence in Johannesburg. And so he would travel down there, usually a few months out of the year. And we’ve got a lot of very strategic partners there as well. And I think you’ll see too as we’ve continued to build up some of these Azure cloud data centers throughout the world to increase bandwidth and access to those endpoints, you’ve continued to see it strengthen across the world.

We also have Microsoft technology centers scattered throughout the world as well. We have 15 in the United States. One, the latest actually here in St. Louis, which we’re very proud to have. But there are nearly 50 worldwide. And so it has been amazing to watch the transformation of Microsoft worldwide, what we’ve done, not only from the data center and the technology center space, our partner ecosystem, and then also even Microsoft retail stores that we’ve opened overseas.

George: So if I were to talk to one of your customers, what do you think that the top three or four things they would say that you folks are doing right when it comes to looking after customers?

 

The Big Three

Carson: Number one, we’ve really focused a lot of attention. And again, you know, I wanna reiterate. I work a lot in the small, medium, and premier corporate space, so I could have clients that are 50 seats, that are born in Cloud, that consume a lot of Cloud and have their entire infrastructure there, then I could also have clients that are 10,000 to 15,000 seats, and they’re really just kind of embarking on their Cloud journey. So it’s a really good mix, really good cross-section.

I think what they think we are doing right is, number one, we’ve invested a lot of time and energy and resources into this space. And so whereas a few years back, there were less resources that were devoted to some of our accounts, that’s changed dramatically. There’s a lot more specialists that are devoted to each individual account and that are available to kind of be part of the road map. You know, before, a lot of our activities were very much partner-driven, 100% almost, and now we are very much able to work more in tandem with partners.

I think another part, number two, would be just, as I mentioned earlier, the transition that we’ve made as an organization to, rather than only focusing on Microsoft-created platforms, just really opening that up, you know, just to speak to how prominent Linux is running in our Azure Cloud, to speak to some of the abilities that Power BI and the analytics can plug into different data sources that are not Microsoft created. Some of the partnerships, the strategic partnerships and the acquisitions that we’ve made over the last few years, I think that growth has been phenomenal.

And if I hadn’t named a third, you know, I think it’s the access and availability, and just the amount of information that’s at folks fingertips now from a Microsoft standpoint. There’s a lot more involvement and direct engagement, proactively, but also just the availability that Microsoft has from our presence, our growing presence worldwide. I think those are the things that would be the most prominent and where, you know, a few years back, we are not always first to the party. There are folks that have made…obviously, we have, you know, some different Cloud competitors, you know, that have offered some pretty strategic offerings over the years. I think we’ve learned a lot in the space and we’ve come to play very competitively, and we’re very strong in all of our core competencies.

So I think, you know, as we’ve matured, and we become a much more major player, all at the same time as the strategic moves that we’ve made in order to be open source as an example and play well with these other investments. So I think those would be the big three.

George: Carson, I appreciate that feedback. You know, congrats on the success. It definitely has been a pivot inside the organization and you can see it if you were watching Microsoft today. I do wanna go back to something that you mentioned earlier in that statement, and I’m hoping that you can give me some color on this and some insight, especially when we look at your career over the past number of years that you don’t want to admit, but it’s not five years, it’s more than that. And you’ve been a sales leader. And, you know, probably like me, we, you know, we started in the space where it’s very transactional, we just go out and you close the business, and you take care of the customer, you hope that everything goes great. And then you go back and see the customer, again, to upsell them.

But you mentioned the fact that you’re getting involved with partners. And this is this whole concept of a team sales approach, where you may have somebody that warms the lead up and nurtures it, then somebody that closes the business and somebody that makes it successful. And then somebody else that comes in and does the upsell. This partnership piece is, you have a partner that may sell a number of things, Microsoft being one of them. And just correct me if I’m wrong, but this is what I think is happening. A 10,000 seat opportunity comes forward and they’re like, “We need to get Carson involved in this because he’s the expert and can answer all the questions on, you know, how Microsoft stacks up against what else they might be looking at.” So you are actively involved with the partner’s customer. Am I right in this?

Carson: Very much so. And again, I think it has become very important, you know, I know that, for instance, the local presence that we have here because a lot of our clients are right here in our neighborhood here, in St. Louis. So, you know, it’s very important… It’s funny, and I’m sure you run into this all the time. You know, St. Louis, while it’s a relatively large city, is very much like a small town in of the fact that, you know, how people are connected, how reputations are built. And so it has, it’s been very important to get in, understand the partners, understand the other folks that are part of the team, what their motivations are, what makes them tick.

Now, I think our partners do a fantastic job of keeping at the pulse of what Microsoft is doing and understanding what our priorities are. And that’s helped us align, but at the same time, it’s paramount that I understand where these partners are coming from, what services that they have the differentiate themselves from other partners, you know, what initiatives they have with the client, what is going to make the most lucrative outcome.

 

The Holy Sales Trinity

I’ve got a sales philosophy that I call, “The holy sales Trinity.” And it’s all about the customer, the company, and yourself as, you know, the three kind of entities that must benefit from each deal. And with team selling, that company aspect really expands because it’s not necessarily just your company, but it’s also those other partners that you touch. Everybody’s gotta benefit from the deal. Everybody’s gotta be receiving value. And that makes it very important for me to ensure that that value is being realized by the partner, but also by the client. So I think that’s where it comes into play.

But yes, I am actively involved in a lot of these deals because I do have a lot of those relationships that have been cultivated over the years, both with partners and with clients. It’s been really fun to watch and to be respected enough to be brought in to help navigate some of those waters sometimes with complicated deals. You hit the nail on the head, George, there are a lot of different partners. There’s a lot of different competencies that they have, not always with Microsoft. So it’s important to understand that ecosystem and some of the nuances they bring, but also to understand the client. And at the end of the day, that all comes down to listening and understanding where they’re all coming from.

George: When we look at personas of salespeople, you know, we can put them into some buckets. I actually have some graphics that I use when I work with sales organizations. And there’s one persona of a salesperson that really has trouble with this partnership model. And that is the landlord. So the salesperson that’s like, “No, that’s my client. Stay away from that customer. I don’t want anybody else to get involved in it.” They usually are quite good at looking after the customer. How do we break through the landlord’s persona and their fears, so they understand that the way to do business in 2019 and beyond is going to be this partnership model?

Because you can’t really know everything and the customer is more educated than they’ve ever been. It’s really easy for them. They’ve got a bullshit detector right in their hand, in their mobile device, where they can say, “That’s not right.” I see that partnerships are key to growing business. How do we break through? I’m sure you’ve run across these landlords. You know exactly the person I’m talking about. You probably can picture two or three of them right now in your head. How have you been able to overcome that landlord persona and show them that partnerships are the way to, you know, the promised land?

Carson: George, it’s funny to answer that question with kind of the transition that I’ve had to make in my own career because, for instance, when I was at AT&T, I was very much kind of in charge of my selling process. It was very much single-seller when I was an individual contributor. And even when I was leading sales teams. You know, these folks were individual sellers and there weren’t a whole lot of folks that were involved in the selling process. Flash forward until now. Everything that we do within Microsoft is very team-centric. And you know, we even have a mantra, “One Microsoft.” It’s that we are all fighting the same fight. We’re all after the same goal and so it’s important to embrace that.

And let’s be frank, you know, there are a lot of folks out there that are territorial. To really make sure that those folks, that landlord, understands that, “Hey, look…” Number one, if they have that mentality of like, “Hey, this is my client,” kind of, “keep at arm’s length,” type of thing, why is that? Like, we were talking about before, understand that motivation. You know, a lot of times they may feel that way because they may feel that only they can deliver the level of service that that client deserves or expects or needs, perhaps they feel that somebody else would come in, maybe muddy the water, or just it’s what they don’t understand. And that is perhaps the fear that creates that territorial attitude.

Because let’s be real, a lot of these folks, yes, they are absolutely. They’re quite good at looking after the customer, being customer-centric, customer-obsessed, that is at the core of a good seller. So I think it’s natural sometimes to be territorial, but I’ve had a lot of account changes in my day, too. And so I’ve had to come to peace with, “Hey, I had a great client. And for whatever reason, they moved to a different patch.” Maybe they graduated and went up because they were spending so much. Or maybe they were geographically aligned someplace else. And there were absolutely moments where I saw that new account list and I was a little bummed that I didn’t still have that client.

But we have to make sure that at the end of the day, and this would be the second part of my answer, that, “Hey, our company loans us these accounts, they’re not ours to own.” Our company needs us. We’ve got an agreement with our organization, I call it a contract, where they’ve agreed to provide us the training and the support and the opportunity to make a living, and all those things that we set out to achieve when we signed on that organization.

On the flip side, the hard part of the contract is we agree to be the person we said we were going to be on interview day. There were no exchanges of deals and certain account list at that point in time. So, you know, we have a job to do. Our company pays us to do a certain job. And as I mentioned before, my rule changes substantially from time to time, which I view as a great thing. But we have to be adaptable.

And to your original point, George, that’s where sales is going. 2019 and beyond—it is all about the partnership. And I’ve loved the fact that at Microsoft, number one, I’m surrounded by the most brilliant people I’ve ever been surrounded by. And number two, that opportunity to connect, you know, the name opens a lot of doors, but it’s what you do after you get in that door, that customer obsession and bringing in the right resources on your team. I don’t have all the answers. And you’re right. I mean, customers are more educated than they’ve ever been. So it’s vital that when they’re asking questions, that we’re responsive, and that we’re bringing in the right resources that exist within our organization to be part of that team.

I mean, we have a philosophy here, “Get as many people in the boat with you as possible,” because you don’t wanna go down alone and you don’t have to, and that’s the beauty. And I think that’s where territorial folks… You wanna understand the territorial persona. Why do you feel that way? But you’ve gotta help them break down that wall and to understand that, “Look, I’m not here to do anything but add value to the relationship. I’m happy to sit on the sidelines if you really don’t need me, but if there’s anything that I can do to help you, I wanna do that and add value.” And I think if you do that enough with that territorial person, you can break down the wall and you can actually show them, especially if you’re able to add value for them, that you’re a necessary asset on their team.

George: You know, there’s a couple things that come into play that we found and one of them is, you know, there’s definitely a fear there inside the landlord and that’s why they’re that way. Probably they’re a bit of a control freak in their personality, which makes them a great salesperson because they take, “Extreme Ownership,” to quote Jocko [SP] in the book. But the piece is, if you can break through and solve that fear.

The other thing that I found and I don’t know if you found this but, you know, you’ve dealt with a lot of salespeople of your career…and we’re gonna get to the book here in just a moment. I’m really excited to dig into the book. But what I’ve found is, it just happened to me, I was on the road for three weeks, I’m going to see customers in like six different countries, you know, I’m doing what I do, going out and seeing customers. And I get home, people are like, “You sure are quiet and you sure…” Because I completely… You know, I was dealing with customers and that, but the rest of the time, there was a big chunk of the day where I was on planes and I wasn’t really talking to people and you kind of get…you’re a bit of a loner. And I think that that loner piece is where you’ve gotta break through and show the value, and solve the fear that they have. Say, you know, “I have dealt with this before. I understand that maybe you had a bad experience with somebody that you trusted, but, you know, I’m here to help you. We have common goals. We can go better together, faster together,” that type of thing.

So great. I really appreciate that insight because, you know, when I look through your profile on LinkedIn, and I would encourage our listeners to look through it, Carson has been working with sales organizations his entire career in different disciplines. And I think that that brings a very unique perspective and, of course, working for one of, you know, the biggest tech companies in the world. I’m sure that you folks are enormously well-trained inside your organization.

 

Who is Vincent Scott?

Now, let’s get to the books because, you know, our producer, Colleen, gave me these books and said, “You gotta read these books. Carson is gonna be a great guest.” So I did, I read the books. Let’s talk about this. We’ve got, “Birth of a Salesman,” which was the birth of the brand that happened in 2010. And then you followed it up in 2014 with, “The Salesman Against the World,” and in 2016, “A Salesman Forever.” And as I was reading through these books because they talk about this Vincent Scott…great name, by the way…you know, Vincent’s career. And it’s actually a book inside a book. So the first question I have, are you Vincent Scott, Carson?

Carson: You know, I have been asked that before. You know, I think Vincent Scott’s all of us. You know, as sellers, there’s a lot of things that we see and experience and do that are infused into this character. You know, we’ve all started out in sales, maybe we knew what we were doing, maybe we didn’t, maybe we knew where our desired trajectory was, maybe we didn’t. But you know, this guy, he comes out, he makes a lot of mistakes, but he does some things right. And he learns a ton. And that’s really the heart of what it’s about is how this gentleman’s career evolves. You know, how…honestly, things in his personal life.

You know, we all go through a lot of stuff and a lot of crap sometimes. And, you know, it’s how we react and respond to those things, both in our business and personal lives that’s gonna define our course and our journey. So I think this guy’s on an interesting journey. I certainly was inspired by certain things that I’ve seen or heard about, or maybe even experienced as I’ve penned these books.

George: So, you know, digging into this, I find it really interesting that it’s the book inside the book concept. When we’re looking through the various titles and the lessons, you follow Vincent’s career from, you know, green rookie, making the mistakes, and then moving through into management, and then into ultimately the struggles that all of us with some gray in our hair go through where you’re, you know, it’s not that you…I know how to sell, but am I gonna be able to be relevant in the world that I live in today? So when you were penning these novels, what was the thing that you were hoping the reader would take away from it?

Carson: A connection. You know, there was a reason why I did a book inside a book. You know, there’s so many great sales books that are out there and I knew that I could never do something that would be new in that space. But at the same time, I felt that there was a story to be told because we all have our own story that continues to weave, you know, through different arenas, you know, different challenges. And so, really, I wanted people to be able to see like, “Hey, this guy, he’s flawed and he is very forthcoming with often, but also cognizant of what his weaknesses are.” But he is trying to get better. And at the same time, he’s learning these different fundamentals of sales, of leadership. And what he’s good at is the people connection, which is ironic because he is a loner. He’s also been kind of hurt in life by a number of people.

So I think that’s indicative of a lot of us. And that’s where I felt that it was important to me that people saw connection in this guy because sales gurus, to most of us, are unattainable. They’re these amazing people that they have these philosophies that inspire us, empower us, but we don’t know anything behind the covers. With this guy, you do. And so it almost felt like more of a human connection, even though he was obviously a fictional character.

George: It’s really interesting to me that you talk about the vulnerability aspect of getting buy-in for a character. And I also think that, you know, if true life is coming out of the writings of this book, do you find that to be important when you’re training a sales team at Microsoft that you’ve got to say, you know, “I’ve been there, done that. I’ve made the mistakes, and here’s how I dealt with it.”? Like, it seems to me like the underlying theme is, “Don’t ever stop learning.”

Carson: I couldn’t have said it better myself, you know, especially when you’re training a sales team. And there was something that I read once and it was all about, you know, we can all have peaks in our career. We can have these great triumphant moments at the top of the mountain, but those moments can be very fleeting. And then from there, it can be very much downhill. You know, there are peaks, there are valleys. But if you’re teaching, you have the ability to impart your knowledge, your experience, your ups and downs into the ability of somebody else to earn a living. And I can’t tell you how rewarding it is to be able to have those types of conversations with somebody and be able to share kind of where you’ve gone, where you’ve risen and fallen, and almost like, “Hey, I made these mistakes so you don’t have to.”

And there’s a lot of that too that comes into being a parent. You know, I think we all have that ability with kids that, “Hey, I’ve been there, done that.” And I think it’s important not to tell them like, “Hey, you don’t wanna do this because of this or that.” But it’s more, “Hey, I understand where you’re coming from. I understand why you’re having these questions, these doubts, but this is how I handled it. And if that can help you in any way, you know that you can come to me and I’m happy to kind of help you navigate through these waters.” Being a teacher or a trainer or even a mentor isn’t about telling people what to do. It’s about being there, understanding their plight, maybe having lived it before or lived something similar before. And then being trusted and respected, but being a safe space for them to be able to speak and to share their own vulnerabilities.

I think that’s something that we’re constantly learning more about. You know, I was not comfortable at all talking about my vulnerabilities 10 years ago, but, you know, I think as we continue to evolve as people, we’ve gotta understand them so that we can better master our own process and we can better optimize our own delivery.

George: Carson, you know, there’s some very good advice in there. Let’s talk about the Vincent Scott brand and how salespeople can consume this knowledge that you and Vincent are providing. So we’ve got the three books and then there’s some weekly columns as well that exist. You’ve got a website, and, you know, where can I go to learn more about this character, and you, and get some of these learnings if I’m, you know, one of the listeners of the Conquer Local podcast?

Carson: Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I do spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. And full disclosure, I’ve gotta say, you know, that’s obviously a Microsoft acquisition from years past. So that is part of our strategic family of companies. But I spend a lot of time with LinkedIn. I do a lot of articles and blogging, and I like to engage with people all over the world. You know, I always say, “Hey, obviously, I haven’t sold enough of these books to retire because I still have a day job that I very, very much love.” But the beauty of the books has really just been having conversations that would have never happened otherwise. In fact, I could tell you, part of where my career… You know, I lost a job several years ago and the subsequent job that I ended up getting was only…they only looked at me because something made me stand out and it was the book that I had written. And that took me on a course that has brought me to today.

But, you know, the books are available via Barnes and Noble, Amazon. And there’s also an audio version on Amazon as well. So a lot of stuff that’s out there. And it’s always changing and always evolving. I’m always looking for new mediums and new ways to talk to people and engage. I think it’s fascinating that there’s so many ways today to connect. And I tell salespeople that all the time. There’s so many tools that are available. I get the privilege at Microsoft of speaking, even to different divisions in our organization, about social selling, how to utilize it to garner results. And, you know, one of the things that I would say is, we’ve got all these fascinating tools and these amazing ways to geo-target, to find clients, and to prospect, and to meet people, but nothing will ever replace that face to face or that personal connection and that ability to actually have a conversation.

And so I encourage everybody to, you know, even if it’s not with me, go out and find different ways to connect with folks that are maybe on your similar path or are where you want to be and seek those people out and ask for advice. You know, I think that people are very happy in this day and age to connect with folks and impart their knowledge, very similar, George, to what we were just talking about in kind of that being a teacher, being a mentor. So there’s a lot of places to find out more about the books and about me and to connect with me, and I would love it if, you know, I was able to have a personal connection with any of your listeners.

 

Conclusion

George: Carson, we really appreciate your time today on the podcast. Good luck as you continue with your rockstar career with Microsoft. And when you get to the next book, I think that George Leith would be a great character you could put in there. And I can give you some stories. You can use them verbatim. Oh, it’d be great.

Carson: I love that idea, George. That sounds fantastic. You’ve got a deal.

George: All right, next time I’m in St. Louis, I’ll look you up for some barbecue. Thanks for your time, Carson.

Carson: Sounds good, George. Thanks so much.

George: The Conquer Local Podcast is brought to you by “Conquer Local,” the Conference, coming your way June 10th through 13th in sunny San Diego, California from the beautiful hotel Coronado. And we are looking for you. All you have to do is part with some of your hard earned dollars to come to Conquer Local, the conference. No, honestly, come, join us. It’s gonna be fantastic.

We’re gonna be talking about all the things that you need to do to conquer local inside your agency or inside your media company or inside whatever organization you are in, where you’re dealing B2B. It is a B2B conference extraordinaire, all about technology and sales. And if you just go to our website, conquerlocal.com, and click on the conference tab, you will read testimonials from people who have been to our past conferences. And they will tell you that it is not only great content, but it’s a really good time. Those Canadians at Vendasta know how to throw a great conference. So come join us “Conquer Local,” the conference June 10th through 13th in San Diego and you can find out more at www.conquerlocal.com.

Well, I could talk to Carson for hours but producer Colleen was like, “No. Five minutes. You just have five minutes left.” She’s already learning, you’ve got to corral that George Leith guy. Listen, the guy has a lot of experience. And if you read the books, you’re going to learn some things. And for a new salesperson or somebody who’s young in the sales industry, I guarantee that you are going to learn a lot from it. The other thing that I liked is, for us grizzled-up old veterans, he speaks to us too. He reminds us of the things that we need to be cognizant of.

Here’s the other thing that I liked is, you know, as we move in our career and maybe we get promoted into management, we really have a weight of responsibility to help the younger salespeople as they come into this. And, you know, that was my mission when we started the “Conquer Local” podcast, a little over a year ago. If I would have known how much work was going to be…no, it’s all worth it because we get great comments from you, our listeners.

And thanks to Carson. Go to his LinkedIn profile, go to the website, get the books, it’s not a lot of money. It’s a good investment in your career. I guarantee that you’ll get something out of them. And please reach out on LinkedIn to myself because that’s where we get the best feedback. So go to George Leith’s LinkedIn profile and reach out.

And also I have this one request, please recommend us to your friends. We’ve had a really good lift in the last quarter. And I’m sure that’s coming from our raving fans that have been listening to the podcast. We’re here to serve and we’re here to bring great content to the salespeople that are listening all over the world. Nineteen different countries is where our listeners are coming from. We’re very proud of that, and we take that responsibility very seriously as well. My name is George Leith, I will see you when I see you.