Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Campus Series: Brian Collins – It’s Not Just About The Money

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Brian Collins

What he does: Brian is a Professor of Practice – Sales at Virginia Tech (VT). He is the Sales Center Director, the Sales Competition Team Director, and the faculty advisor to the PSE sales fraternity. Mr. Collins also serves as the faculty chair of the Sales Industry Board at VT.

Company: Virginia Tech

Noteworthy: From 2008 to 2014, Brian was a mentor for students in the MBA program and has held the Student Relations Chair and First Vice President positions on the MBA Alumni Board. In 2009 and 2012, he received awards for outstanding service as a mentor for the program. 

Where to find Brian: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡A manager should be a mentor. Finding a job is the biggest challenge students face after graduation. One thing they should pay attention to is what type of manager they should look for. ”If you can find somebody that you could trust and if you could find somebody that you like to think is going to be a good mentor and a teacher, that’s a great place to go. And that’s the type of people that I tell my students to look for.”

⚡We use sales methods every single day. It is hard to believe, but sales is incorporated in every aspect of our lives. We base most of the interactions on negotiations and closing the deals. ”Go through your day. You get up in the morning, and if you have a significant other and have kids, who’s going to take the kids to school. That’s a sales job.You’re getting an agreement. If you think about sales as working towards an agreement, you’re using that all the time. And of course, negotiations go along with that as well.” 

⚡Books and theories are great, but nothing can replace a real-world experience. Nothing will prepare students for future job roles like real-life situations. ”We try to do as much as we can for them from training. That relationship building, all baked into what we do at Virginia Tech, from our role-plays. Anything that you could bring in from outside, from inside to get them exposed to what is real life, I think that’s the best way we can prepare them.”

Episode Highlights

Who Is Brian Collins?

”I’m a dad and a husband, and I think the family is extremely important to me. I come from a large family. So, that really is, from my point of view, the biggest thing about me. Then, you also have my career, and you have things that I’ve done there. So those are items I’m very proud of. And the students are almost like my kids. So being able to deal with them is just an extension of my family.”

People Have Misconceptions of Who Salespeople Are

”We have this in our brain because of movies where the salespeople typically are depicted as someone who’s not honest, someone who’s just trying to make a buck and hey, what can I do to get money out of you, don’t really care about the relationship; don’t care about you; don’t care about your company. I just want to make a dollar. That’s entirely incorrect. There are always bad apples, but the vast majority of people in this are professionally educated human beings who work their tails off to try to do the best thing they can for their clients. We basically are consultants just in a different vibe.”

Key Qualities of a Successful Salesperson 

”Some of the best salespeople are introverts. A lot of times, those people are really good listeners. Most salespeople forget, at least when they first come out, you have to listen. If you’re someone who could listen, if you’re someone who can connect with ideas, you hear one thing, and that allows you to open up to others. If you’re someone who can earn respect and the trust of your clients, or people, when you’re talking to them, all of those things I think are really important for someone who goes into this.”

Your Speed Is Not Your Client’s Speed 

”I still work at this every day — patience. I want to close a hundred deals today, and I want to close a hundred deals tomorrow, and I have that capacity, and let’s roll. That’s not the speed of your clients. You can push, and you should push a little, but you also have to give them time to absorb and understand what that decision means to their company.”

It’s Not Just About the Money; It’s About People Too

”One of the largest deals that our company did from a mergers and acquisition standpoint was with a company we bought. It was a hundred million dollar company. We were not the highest bidder, and I managed to close that sale. I think it’s because I was really able to create a value proposition for that company. I knew they were concerned about their people. I knew they were concerned about what was going to happen after they were absorbed. How was their company going to move forward? And that was really the tact I took because I knew that all of my competitors, their main goal was to come in, strip the company, fire everybody, take the business and move on. And that was not what the gentleman who had the company wanted. He had built a company from day one, square one. He was the only boy, and it meant a lot to him. That was probably the one that I was most proud of because I was able to not only get the deal done but take care of his staff of 250 employees.”

Once a Salesperson, Always a Salesperson 

”I still take classes. I still do stuff just as if I were a salesperson in the real world because I still am. My clients now are just students. That’s the only difference; rather than selling to someone out in the business world. I’m selling to students to get them to come to the program. Since we started in 2014, we’ve had a hundred percent job placement. So I can sell that to the students too. Hey, if you come here, we’re gonna allow you to be able to find a job and hopefully more than one job offer.”

Getting Used to the Concept of Working Hours Is Challenging for First-Time Job Seekers

”Hey, now I have to be at work for X amount of time per week, and I have to be dedicated to it. And it’s not that they’re not dedicated. They just never have dedicated themselves for that long of a period every day to one item. But until you get into it, you don’t really understand the amount of time and effort it takes. I don’t care what that is, sales or engineering or whatever, whatever you’re walking into, that seems to be the biggest thing.”

Transcript:

Brian Collins: [00:00:00] You can be a really technical person and still be very successful at sales. You can be someone who’s not technical at all and be really good at sales. So those types of things aren’t necessarily as important.  If you are a curious person and you’re just asking questions and wanting to know and wanting to broaden what your knowledge is. I think that’s a really good platform to build off of to be a salesperson. 

[00:01:10] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:01:10] Hey everyone. Welcome today. We have our favorite Virginia Tech professor, Mr. Brian Collins. Hi Brian.

[00:01:17] Brian Collins: [00:01:17] Hi y’all, how are you doing?

[00:01:18] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:01:18] Good. We are really excited to have you today. Obviously, Libby and I have known you for a while and we’ve hired many of your students. We’re really excited to have you. And you can walk through some exciting things for people who are either sales majors, or students who are considering sales as a career.

[00:01:37] So Brian, I start probably every single interview that, with students with the same question. So I’m actually starting with the same question with you today, which is, I know, it’s not a tough one though. I promise. So if you were to give me your highlight reel,  what would you say about yourself in 60 seconds or less? Who is Brian Collins?

[00:01:58] Brian Collins: [00:01:58] Oh, my gosh. That’s a really good question. There’s a lot of things that go on with me which is, I think good. Right? You want things to be in your life. So first and foremost I’m a dad and a husband and I think the family is extremely important.  I come from a large family. So when you know about me, who’s probably very glad to see you always coming from that big family, we were raised to be welcoming and I still carry that with me today. So that really is, from my point of view is the biggest thing about me.

Obviously, then you also have my career and you have things that I’ve done there as moving forward into the careers of professor at Virginia Tech. So those are items too, which I’m very proud of. And definitely the students almost like my kids.

[00:02:39] So being able to deal with them is just an extension of my family.

[00:02:43] Libby Galatis: [00:02:43] Yeah, Brian. I have to say, I mean, we work with a lot of universities and your students just adore you. You’re just such an extremely influential sales educator. So we’re really fortunate to have the partnership that we have with Virginia Tech and the talent that comes out of the classes that you’re teaching is just incredible.

[00:02:58] So I’m excited to pick your brain. We haven’t talked too much about your background before, so I’m hoping that you can share with us a bit about where you started off your career. You have a history within professional sales and selling. So share with us a bit about, what your path was like and where you started and how you got to where you’re at now.

[00:03:14] Brian Collins: [00:03:14] Well first thanks for saying good things about Tech and about the students. We really try hard to do what we can for them to make sure that they’re prepared to come out to work. So companies like yours are ones that prove the test, right? So it’s a very much appreciated it. You all are hiring and think highly of the students.

[00:03:30] I really started at Virginia Tech I went to school there bachelor’s and master’s both in finance, not in sales. So my whole goal coming out of school was to be the next big CEO of fortune 100 company. We see how that turned out. so in looking at the process where I was going through, I was in banking.

[00:03:47] I loved it very much, but I really started getting into the sales side of banking and that culminated with both of the first two banks I was with was executives of both. And they both got bought out. So it was really great for me in one sense.,I got a big payday. In another sense, I’m immediately looking for a job again.

[00:04:05] And with the advent of knowing that my wife and I were going to have twins in 2000, decided to change careers and do something a little bit different. I’d always been on that kind of sales side. And I went directly into a, what was basically a full commission sales job and really loved it. I have to give credit Robert Half was where I first went to work and yes, they do give you a salary, but yes, you have to sell enough to earn your salary back before you get any more.

[00:04:26] So really  it’s a commission job. But there are wonderful trainers. They were a great company, really enjoyed my time there. I was actually there for about two years, which is a year and 10 months longer than 95% of the people that are there. it’s a kind of come and go transient type of business.

[00:04:40] At least it was back then, but I learned a tremendous amount of things and led me to really move into a position that was one of my favorites, which was, from there I went to Mergers and Acquisitions for a fortune 500 company and led that and really enjoyed that time and doing it. And from there went into that for the same company, we ran out of money, stop bying things.

[00:04:58] So time to do something different. And I got some really good advice from an incredible CEO who said, if you want to stay with the company and you really want to build your career, you should go into sales because that’s where everybody gets promoted. That’s where all of the top managers come from.

[00:05:14] And that’s what we look for is for someone to know our customer and know what we’re doing. So I became a national sales manager and ran the national sales division. got to get on a plane every Monday and come back every Thursday.  so there’s a little bit of time away from my family, but it worked out. It was a really good experience.

[00:05:29] So all of those formative years really led me to what eventually was, I had my own business which we could talk about the bad things when that when we did. And then from there, I moved into a local company here in Richmond, Virginia. And was a sales trainer, as well as head of sales for that company.

[00:05:44] I went out and not only had to get the business, but had to come back and train as well. And then finally from there, I got a call out of the blue one day from Virginia Tech, not expecting it at all. the former professor was in the midst of moving on to a different position. and they called me and said, Hey, don’t know what you’re doing, but we need some help.

[00:06:02] And I talked to my wife and we said, You know what? no better time in the world and to try to do this. So I said, I’ll do this for one year. That was six years ago. my one year has continued on, so that’s the story, the long version. My apologies for taking all that time. But that’s really the process that I’ve come from initially was really a finance background then into sales.

[00:06:23] And that’s grown into really training and sales and really just, I love the career. It’s a phenomenal career that you can do a lot of really neat things and be able to help people at the same time. Quite honestly, you can help yourself. there’s no, shame in that. we all go get a career for a purpose and sales just has allowed me to do a lot of things that I thought I would never be able to do.

[00:06:43] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:06:43] That’s interesting. I think a lot of people have a similar background, right? They don’t necessarily intend to get into sales. They end up in sales or they come from non-sales majors. And so when you decided to take that leap and get into your first sales job, were there any misconceptions about the role?

[00:07:03] Like how did you enter that role and how did it end up surprising you or being different than what you thought it was?

[00:07:09] Brian Collins: [00:07:09] That’s a really good question, Kristen, because there were, and I think there’s still a lot of those out there. Originally when I went into sales, I grew up in a family where my mother owned her own real estate company. And she started from just being a real estate agent, grew up and then ended up owning her own company, is very successful.

[00:07:26] And so I’d had a taste of sales and kind of what that looked like from the ownership of a company. Even back then and I think even til today, people have misconceptions of what salespeople are. I think a lot of times we have this in our brain because of movies, cinema, whatever, in my, day was Glengarry Glen Ross.

[00:07:45] Right. that movie. But up through now, it’s, Wolf of Wall Street, things like that where the salespeople typically are depicted as someone who was not on the up and up, someone who’s not honest, someone who’s just trying to make a buck and Hey, what can I do to get money out of you, don’t really care about the relationship, don’t care about you, don’t care about your company,

[00:08:03] I just want to make a dollar. And that’s probably even back then, that was more prevalent than now. But I think that a lot of people see it that way and they see, it may be not as a noble profession, they see it more as something of, Hey, that’s what, people who are kind of all in the lack of a better word, smarmy side, right there.

[00:08:22] There’s those, the people that they do that, it’s not the professional people who do this, and that’s entirely incorrect. If you look at B2B, business to business salespeople, there’s always bad apples, but    , the vast, majority of people who are in this are professional educated human beings who work their tails off to try to do the best thing they can for their clients. We basically are consultants just in a different, vibe. And I think when you try to explain that to people, it takes them aback a little bit. There’s a lot of folks who just think, Hey, it’s going to be that guy or girl who cheat you out of your next paycheck.

[00:08:55] And that’s not it. We’re very different than that.

[00:08:57] Libby Galatis: [00:08:57] I just think that is a huge reason why we’re doing this podcast to begin with. We just want to enlighten and educate and just shed some light on the value and building and establishing a career here. Even if you were to start in sales to what we were talking about earlier, a lot of non-sales students, their first job after they graduate is sales and it opens the doors to so many other different opportunities for them.

[00:09:16] So I think that your story is a true testament to that which is awesome. And you’re able to share that with your students as well. Because memoryBlue is an entry-level company, you  we hire people fresh out of school, first job. And you were talking about your first job in sales being purely commission.

[00:09:29] I mean, that’s challenging. And there’s a lot of uncertainty that comes along with that. You really had to sort of bet on yourself to dive head first into that. what was the biggest challenge that you think you faced in that first year up in that all commission sales role. and how did you overcome that challenge? what really pushed you out of your comfort zone there?

[00:09:46] Brian Collins: [00:09:46] I think the hardest thing was never having done it before. I wasn’t sure if I were going to be successful. A lot of doubts, right. A lot of time of sitting there thinking, Wow, should I really do this? I’m getting ready to have. At that point, we knew we were having twins and, getting ready to do that, walking from something that I’d known very much in banking and was very good at and. Just really enjoyed to something where I was saying, I’ve never tried this before. Don’t know what’s going to happen. I could walk in and fall on my face and you know what I just said, So what? it’s something I wanted to try. And it’s something that it was still early in my career. This was only probably about eight or nine years after I had graduated that I took this leap.

[00:10:24] so if you think about it, that was even a little bit more scary sometimes. And new students going out to do it because new students don’t necessarily have that career that they’ve spent eight or nine years growing and then just completely cut off and change careers. Right.

[00:10:39] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:10:39] And the pressure of twins on the way, most likely.

[00:10:41] Brian Collins: [00:10:41] Yeah. Yeah. So, that’s probably one of the things that scare me the most was probably one of the things that may be performed. Right. think about the pressure family is ,the one of the biggest things you have as a pressure, which is good for most people. It, encouraged me not to give up and encourage me to keep trying. I was also a benefit of having a wonderful person that was my manager at the time who sympathized with my position and understood and did everything she could help me be successful.

[00:11:08] So having a good manager or having someone that you can trust and talk to interestingly enough, she was only there for about the first six months or so of my career and then moved on to a different company. But just that six months made a huge impression upon me of what she could not only teach me, but the empathy that she had and the ability for her to be able to say, okay, Hey, you did this really well.

[00:11:32] This is something you need to work on. And let’s try to figure out how to do that. And I’ve taken that in my career. my kids tease me all the time. They tell me I’m a sandwich guy, but it’s because it’s the positive, then let’s talk about the negative. Okay. Now let’s talk about the positive again.

[00:11:45] but. I learned that really a lot from my mom, but also from Brenda, who was one of my first managers that really in the sales world that preach that.

[00:11:54] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:11:54] That’s incredible. I think it’s really important to have a strong leader in sales, especially if it’s going to be your first job and you’re joining an entry level sales role, and you’ve never done anything like that before. Obviously you’re preparing your students, before they graduate.

[00:12:08] But what type of advice would you give one of your students or even one of your daughters when it’s, they’re considering entering a sales role? What type of manager they should look for?

[00:12:17] Brian Collins: [00:12:17] I have those conversations all the time, Kristen, as you probably know, because you’ve probably helped me on some, but the thing that I look at really is, I talk about comfort level and  I had. A recent student who came to me and she was very excited. She had a couple of different job offers and she was getting down to the final one and she said, I’ve met all these people.

[00:12:35] They’re fantastic. And then I went in, I met my boss and he was horrible. And I went, so what are you going to do about that? And she said, well, I’m not so sure I could work for him. And I said, well, odds are, I know you very well. And you’re pretty easy person to get along with and you work hard and you do well.

[00:12:52] If you couldn’t get along with him, you don’t think it’s a match. Perhaps you should think about, somewhere else that you’re going. I really view that, especially that first job, we can all make mistakes in our first job. We can all choose the wrong thing. That’s okay. That’s, we’re human. We do that.

[00:13:05] But. If you can find somebody that you could trust, if you could find somebody that you like to think is going to be a good mentor and a teacher, that’s a great place to go. And that’s the type of people that I tell my students to look for, somewhere where you’re going to continue your learning. If you’re just going to have a job to get a paycheck, you can do that anywhere.

[00:13:22] worst comes to worse. You can go be a truck driver or, whatever, not that’s bad, I have a brother he’s a truck driver. This is the first thing that came to my mind. but all of those things that you could do but really try to find something that culturally fit into.

[00:13:34] Libby Galatis: [00:13:34] I think that’s awesome point. in any first, entry level, first step job after graduating or whatever job you start day one, there’s such a big learning curve that comes along with that. You can’t expect to start day one and be excellent at the craft. It’s you have to fall on your face a bunch.

[00:13:48] And we do teach that a lot in our position here, like through a training process, you have to learn from your mistakes and develop over time. And it’s really gratifying, but it’s a lot easier said than done. so that support system and having the resources and training and tools I think is essential.

[00:14:02] but more important than that, I think coachability is really important as well. So we talked about this  the last couple of episodes what it takes to be an incredible salesperson. And I would say that most of our sales leaders have agreed that it’s not a specific type of person, right.

[00:14:16] There’s a variety of different individuals that could thrive in this sort of space. But I would, argue that there are key qualities that top performers typically have, and my question is like in your experience, working with different students and seeing their potential, what are some qualities that maybe non-sales students have that they don’t realize could help them in a role within sales or apply in a role like this? 

[00:14:36] Brian Collins: [00:14:36] It’s really funny that you say that Libby, because I mean, coachability is one that I, really preach in our, ability for you to take direction to not take it personally. It’s, what can I do to make myself better? And there are a lot of things out there. It’s also funny too, thinking about it.

[00:14:51] Some of the best salespeople that I’ve had report to me, and then all my teams are introverts. They’re not extroverts. There are people who, at the end of the day are worn out, talking to people because they regenerate by going and reading the book or.,You alone time or going for a run or what it, listening to music, that type of thing.

[00:15:07] It’s not a, Hey, I’m going to go out and party with a bunch of people or go have drinks. I know those two, but a lot of them were on that other side. So there’s a lot of misconceptions as to, Hey, you have to be someone who really likes talking to people or you have to be that person that goes out and talks a lot or whatever.

[00:15:21] A lot of times those people who are not like that are also really good listeners. And that’s, I think the thing that most salespeople forget at least when they first come out, our first start is, and you have to listen well. actually, I take training all the time. I just finished a training ever winner Master.

[00:15:38] I was teaching and also took a. training on the side for a couple of days try to keep my skill sets up. And one of the things that they came up with and they said was, listen intentionally. And I thought that was a really good description of what we should do, because when you’re someone who’s on the sales side, you have to be doing that.

[00:15:54] So if you’re someone who could listen, if you’re someone who can make connections with ideas, you hear one thing and that allows you to kind of open up to others. If you’re someone who can, really feel like you can earn the respect and the trust of your clients, or if people, when you’re talking to them, all of those things I think are really important for someone who goes into this.

[00:16:12] So you can be a really technical person and still be very successful at sales. you can be someone who’s not technical at all and be really good at sales. So those types of things aren’t necessarily as important. I think the way you interact in the way being genuinely curious, if you are a curious person and you’re just asking questions and wanting to know and wanting to broaden what your knowledge is.

[00:16:35] I think that’s a really good platform to build off of to be a salesperson.

[00:16:41] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:16:41] Wow, that’s such a good point. You even mentioned earlier that coachability is good trait in someone and you yourself took a training this past winter as well. So I am a firm believer that you’re never at the top of your game in sales, there’s always more to learn and you can always get better. So.

[00:16:59] Thinking back to your own personal career, what is like a skill or maybe a technique or something that you struggled with, that you worked at and you got better at over time or over your career?

[00:17:09] Brian Collins: [00:17:09] Yeah. and I still work at this every day is patience patience is my hardest and you probably wouldn’t know that by talking to me or anything like that is, going through my current position, but in the sales world I’m a little bit different in the way I react with my clients and so forth.

[00:17:24] And  when I first started, I didn’t have as much I do now, but patience really comes along with, you have to go at their speed, not at your speed. My speed is I want to close a hundred deals today and I want to close a hundred deals tomorrow, and I have that capacity and let’s roll.

[00:17:39] That’s not the speed of your clients. Your clients have to understand, Hey, how’s this going to affect my business? What’s this gonna do to my income stream, all of those things that how’s it going to affect the people that work for me. And you have to understand that, yes, while you can push and you should push a little, you also have to give them time to absorb and understand really what that decision is going to mean to their company.

[00:18:02] And for me, it’s something I work on. And I was like that when people sold to me, cause I’ve been in positions of ex where people are selling to me. And it’s really funny. My students will laugh at this because they’re like, that’s not you Collins, but it really is when people would come in and sell to me, I’d be like, okay, you’ve been here 30 seconds and you haven’t told me why you’re here.

[00:18:20] So you’ve got 30 seconds more before I kick you out of my office. And you can talk to my line managers because I don’t have time for this. I’ve got other things and it wasn’t that I was trying to be rude or trying to be mean. It was just that’s how my interactions were with people. I had a lot to do, things I wanted to get done

[00:18:37] and if you had a reason to be there, well, you better get that value proposition across within the first 30 seconds or minute, otherwise you probably not going to get another, time with me.

[00:18:46] Libby Galatis: [00:18:46] I think What you’re saying is it’s also great because recognizing your shortcomings and kind of attacking them head on, that’s the only way that you grow and develop. And I think confronting those shortcomings, a lot of people have a really hard time with,  and that’s a big adjustment in your first job, it’s to be expected, which is something that I talk about in a lot of my class presentations, just kind of preparing them for the discomfort of being in something that you’ve never done before and being willing to take the process to learn,  and be patient with yourself, as you develop over time. So that’s amazing feedback and advice that our listeners should definitely take. My question now. So we talked about your first job in sales. It pushed you out of your comfort zone. It kind of set the pace for the rest of your career.

[00:19:25] I want you to think about when you were in your peak professional sales kind of position, and when you think you hit that peak within your career, what that biggest win might’ve been for you? just walk us through something that you’re really proud of or something that you would consider to be a peak within your sales career.

[00:19:41] Brian Collins: [00:19:41] Well, hopefully I haven’t a picked yet. hopefully I have some more growth to do and some more successes to come along whether that’s maybe in a different sales role now right, or getting more and more students jobs. maybe that’s what I’m looking for. But I think if you’re thinking about deals or the places that I’ve, been able to influence or that kind of thing, I’m actually probably the one that’s the best for me, at least I kind of hang my hat on, was one of the largest deals that our company did for mergers and acquisition standpoint. and that was a company that we bought was a hundred million dollar company. and we were not the highest bidder. we were in a space where every other company that was a large company in our space wanted that particular business. And I would manage to be able to close that sale, which was, Hey, this is a reason why you should sell to us. Mergers and Acquisitions is sales for those of you that don’t know that M&A, yeah, you’re doing a lot of financial analysis. You have to figure out what things are worth. All that kind of thing.

[00:20:36] But in the end it’s conversations between and negotiations between the buying company and the selling company. And obviously the sales company always wants more dollars to buy. And company always wants to spend less dollars. I had a collar on what I could spend and fortunately we were able to spend what we did and it, and I didn’t reach that collar.

[00:20:53] I didn’t have to pay all the money, but I think that’s probably the most because I was really able to create a value proposition for that company. I knew they were concerned about their people. I knew they were concerned about what was going to happen after they were absorbed, how was their company going to move forward.

[00:21:09] And that was really the tactic because I knew that all of my competitors, their main goal was to come in, strip the company, fire everybody, take the business and move on. And that was not what the gentleman who had the company wanted. He had built a company from day one, square one. He was the only boy and it meant a lot to him to see that those people continued on and continue to have jobs and continue to provide for their families. He was going to get a huge payday. he didn’t have to work anymore, but he was still first concern and I give him credit for this. His first concern was his people. And I latched onto that really early in the conversation.

[00:21:49] And I think that was the thing. And that was through listening. Right. And just, asking, so what do you think about your company? And just listening to what he said and the passion that he had. And that was immediately what I took. And when I went back to report to my executive group, I was like, look, this is the message we have to send.

[00:22:06] This is not about dollars. This is about people and what’s going to happen to them after the sale. And that’s how we’re going to win this deal. And that was how, and to this day, that’s, his whole reason behind that. He has said the reason he sold us was because of that. So from a standpoint of not a sale necessarily, but really a sales deal for an M&A, that was probably the one that I was most proud of because I was able to not only get the deal done, but take care of, his staff of 250 employees.

[00:22:35] Libby Galatis: [00:22:35] That process of getting an individual to buy into something, again, like you were saying, you guys weren’t the highest bidder, but you offered the most value by recognizing the deal beyond what it was and looking at the individual. I mean, sales is the profession of dealing with people solving problems and seeking out the best solution for the person that you’re looking to sell to and coming off in a genuine way, having that emotional intelligence to recognize it and then roll with it. that’s incredible. and often that’s what we’re finding ourselves having to do here at memoryBlue. I mean, we typically don’t offer the strongest base salary out of the gate, but the value of the opportunity, I would argue a biasly obviously the value of the opportunity sort of outweighs that. And you have to think year two, year three. and again, you’re working with people. 

[00:23:17] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:23:17] I think also the fact that, like you said, this wasn’t necessarily like a sales position, but it was a sales deal. And even now as a professor who runs a sales program and trying to get more students in, sales is in everything we touch and it applies to more than just a sales job. So how do you talk to your students or maybe students who are considering sales, but think they want to end up in a different career?

[00:23:43] how do you walk them through the different, foundation that they would get with a sales job and how it impacts multiple positions in the long run?

[00:23:51] Brian Collins: [00:23:51] It’s really important to have the skill set. and Kristen, that’s wonderful question because you do use sales every single day in your life, whether you want to think about it or not. Most of us go through and don’t think about it, but just go through your day, you get up in the morning and if you have a significant other and you have kids, who’s going to take the kids to school or whatever.

[00:24:10] Right. That’s a sales job. You’re getting an agreement. If you think about sales as working towards an agreement, you’re using that all the time. And of course, negotiation goes along with that as well. But I always look at my students and I go, how many of you all want jobs after you graduate? all the hands go up and up.

[00:24:27] so how are you going to get that job? Well, I’m gonna talk to the interviewer. So when that interview, what do you have to do? Well, I have to tell them about myself. And you’re doing what? I’m selling. Oh, yeah. I’m selling myself. Yeah, I get, thank you, you might. So might it be good idea to learn about sales and to learn about how you might do that,

[00:24:43] So when you go out, you don’t just get one job offer, you get two, three, four or five. Wouldn’t that be great? And so I think that’s the first part of that conversation is how that goes. And then we talk a little bit about, even in your careers, if you go on, you’re an HR professional, but you want to change your 401k platform.

[00:25:02] You have to sell that to your CEO, your CFO, because they’re the ones making those decisions. You can’t just do that unilaterally. So you have to come up with those reasons why that makes sense. If you’re in a county and you want to have your own CPA firm, you’ve got to go out and find clients.

[00:25:19] So you’re selling Here’s the dirty little secret. We have all these students who want to go into the Big Four and they all say, yes, I want to go in. And I go, okay, well, what’s your next step? Well, next step is, partner or whatever. That’s where I want to be. Okay. How do you get there? Well, you have to have  a lot of knowledge.

[00:25:34] Yes. And what else? Well, you have to go out and find clients. Oh yeah, that’s right. Yeah. And so when you start thinking about the things that you’re doing,  we constantly sell them negotiate. Every single time I want to go out to dinner, that’s a sell on a negotiation because I want to go where I want to go,

[00:25:51] not where my wife and girls want to go. So how do I convince them to do that? Right. And they’ve gotten really good at negotiating and selling back. So I probably taught them too well.

[00:26:00] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:26:00] Runs in the family. 

[00:26:01] Brian Collins: [00:26:01] Right. 

[00:27:17]Kristen Wisdorf: [00:27:17] Well, speaking of sales touches everything in our lives. and you started the program and you started at Virginia Tech six years ago, you said. How has it evolved since you started there? And what types of things are you doing to prepare the students who take your class to, get ready for a sales, either job or sales in life?

[00:27:38] Brian Collins: [00:27:38] I think that the way it’s evolved is one I’ve gotten better. And I’ve strive always to do that. And so, like I mentioned, I still take classes. I still do stuff just as if I were a salesperson in the real world, because I still am. my clients now are just students. That’s the only difference, rather than selling to, someone out in business world. I’m selling to students to get them to come to the program and to grow the program.

[00:28:01] I think that going along with that and staying up on current trends, having sponsors come in, like you all and memoryBlue has been there really since the beginning to help our students and to help, create that atmosphere through support, financial support, through coming to the classes.

[00:28:16] both of you all have been in my classes and have supported us. I think all of that we’ve grown as well. So now instead of one or two we’re three, four, five, ten, coming in that kind of thing, which helps, the ability to make sure that all those students have jobs. since we started in 2014, when I got here, we have a 100% job placement.

[00:28:37] So if you are someone who is coming in our program and you’re getting the sales, moderate concentration, and you want to go into sales because not everybody who gets a concentration wants to go into sales. But if you want to go into sales, we have a 100% placement on that. And that’s something that we’re really proud of.

[00:28:54] So I can sell that to the students too. Hey, if you come here, we’re gonna allow you to be able to find a job and hopefully more than one job offer. so all of those things we’ve grown over time and made the program better and are consistently trying to resell and rebrand. much to my chagrin.

[00:29:10] We’re in social media now. I’m not a social media person. I am someone who is only on LinkedIn. So if you try to track me down on Facebook or Twitter or anything else, you won’t find me. But our program is, And so I’ve learned to adopt that and learned to get through. So we’re trying that avenue now, how do we connect, with students on their, problems.

[00:29:28] So all of those things that we try to add to our program, I think have made us grow and made us more attractive to the new students who are coming in.

[00:29:35] Libby Galatis: [00:29:35] A hundred percent placement rate of your program is just incredible.  and to hear that is so empowering because I mean, we’re sales educators too, you know, we’re just trying to get the word out. And I would say that most people don’t consider a career path in sales because they’re just not exposed to it.

[00:29:52] A lot of students that I speak with I mean, Virginia Tech is such a large school and your program has grown so much, so this happens less often, but a lot of them would just be like, Oh my God, I didn’t even know that my university offered sales classes. I didn’t know that was a thing. so it’s great to see how fast profession is expanding just by planting the seed a little bit earlier on, With that said, as a recruiter now we’re facing what you were saying.

[00:30:13] It’s a good and a bad thing having students, just a wealth of opportunity out there. Companies are bending over backwards to hire these incredible students that have already been exposed to what they’re going to be doing in an entry level sales position. When you have a student come to you with maybe two or three offers on the table, what advice do you have for them as they’re evaluating their options?

[00:30:32] it’s a very stressed, focused decision that you have to make first job out of school. How do you help them make that decision ultimately?

[00:30:39]Brian Collins: [00:30:39] we’ll assume that all three are great companies, because if not, it’s pretty easy to say, You really should do some more research on this company and think about them and maybe look a little bit more over here. But let’s assume they’re all three great companies. really, I start going through what my mom did to me and what I’ve learned through the world, which is, I start out with something simple as a T-account.

[00:31:01] What are the good things on one side and one of the bad things on the other, and let’s talk through them and almost become a psychiatrist in a sense. well, how does that make you feel? What do you think about that? How do you think that’ll affect you from your career? Where do you think you’re going to get your best training, all of those things.

[00:31:15] How do you think you’ll fit in? What’s your boss going to be? Like? Did you have an opportunity to have those conversations? Have you done everything you need to in your research to figure it out? Because sometimes when we don’t have a good decision or a best decision set up is because we don’t have enough information.

[00:31:32] So have you asked the right questions to make yourself more comfortable with that and to understand who might fit you better. And ultimately here’s the real secret. You get down to two that you really like, you know what? Pick one, it’s your first job. We’re gonna try to do the best we can.

[00:31:48] You’re going to try to be the most successful you can if you get into it. And if it’s absolutely horrible and it doesn’t work out well, then call me. We’ll figure out another solution, and if it’s one of my sponsors, I’ll go to them and say, Hey Kristen, Hey Libby. You know what? Bobby’s just not really happy there.

[00:32:05] And I don’t want to see him fail on your part. And I know you don’t want to see him fail. So how can we help him manage himself out, maybe into a different company? And the students are just amazed, like you would do that, or, the companies would do that?

[00:32:17] A lot of the companies want you to be successful to If you think about it, companies hire you to add to their, not only people and to their culture and all of that, but also to their bottom line. So if you’re not producing that doesn’t help, you doesn’t have them. So it’s not that they’re mean people that  just going to fire you out the door. It’s Hey, how can we work together to figure out a better solution for both the company and the person? So don’t put so much pressure on yourself to make that first job decision. Odds are you’re only going to be there for a couple of years. And then you’re going to move on to something else.

[00:32:51] So from that perspective we’ve all made mistakes. I’ve, after 15, 16 years in, business, I made one of the worst mistakes I ever made and still, learning from that. So all of those things, you can make bad decisions at any time. It’s just how you recover.

[00:33:08] Right. It’s not how you fall down, it’s how you get back up.

[00:33:10] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:33:10] That’s like a manifesto for sales in and of itself, right? every day you’re going to hear no, or you’re going to struggle or you’re going to fail or not get the lead or not get the deal. And it’s more about like, how do you harness that and move forward and take that and make it fuel to learn from it.

[00:33:24] spot on. So we have some pretty amazing alumni from your program specifically doing awesome things, between Ellie and Morgan and Casey, and so many others who’ve taken your class how do you prepare these students? What types of things are you exposing them to in the classes or the program, the sales club to get them as ready as they can possibly be, so they can hit the ground running?

[00:33:50] Brian Collins: [00:33:50] Really we try to do as much as we can for them from a training. So my last four years give or take, five years before I came to Virginia Tech, the company that I was in was a boutique sales company. So we did just two things how to train people on negotiation and how to sell the C-suite. I was able, because of the kindness of the CEO, I was able to bring some of that information into my classroom and that’s been my basis from where I started.

[00:34:15] So a lot of what I do with things that I used to teach to, companies all over the country and all over the world that we would, tell them, Hey, these are the things that you need to be doing from a negotiation standpoint and in a selling standpoint. And so that really grew into that, more of that value proposition type selling more of the high-level selling, which is really what the B2B world is about these days. And that relationship building, that’s all baked into what we do at Virginia Tech, from our role-plays. they have, role-plays not only with me, but as you all know, they have role-plays with you all.

[00:34:47] they go out and actually, our first role play in every advanced professional sales is with our board members, nothing like having to sell to Chris. Right. here we are selling to the CEO of, memoryBlue, but the other people that are there just like that as well.

[00:34:59] So I think all of those experiences, anything that you could bring in from outside, from inside to get them exposed to what is the real life, but what you’re going to be facing when you come out. I think that’s the best way we can prepare them. Books are great, don’t get me wrong. And I know teachers like to teach out of books.

[00:35:17] I honestly, I have a book for both of my classes. I can’t remember the last time I opened those books and that’s not because they’re not great books. It’s because they support what I do. But it’s more of a conversation of how do we prepare for the day when you walk out the door that you’re going to ramp up 50% quicker, that you’re going to stay up, double time there.

[00:35:37] And, instead of a year, you’re going to be there two years, three years, four years that you’re going to be the person who’s number one. And how are you going to do that? Let’s prepare you for that. And that’s really how did the tact that we take with the program of let’s talk real world. Books are great and theories are great, but there’s nothing that replaces real world experience.

[00:35:56] And that’s not just for me. That’s from you all. You all come into my class and preach it everyday too. And that’s extremely helpful because they hear real live salespeople or sales managers come in and talk about this is what happens to me, and this is what goes on, and this is how we handle it.

[00:36:13] Good or bad. Libby has been kind enough to play live sales calls in our class. That’s insane. I would never want to do that. I would never want to take that chance and we have done that and we’ve actually had live sales calls. What an incredible experience for students sit in the audience to hear a live sales call going on right at that second, all the conversations. Incredible.

[00:36:34] Libby Galatis: [00:36:34] I guess a lot of career paths are similar to this too, but until you’re in the driver’s seat experiencing it,  you don’t quite know what you’re getting ourselves into. We can say all of these things and prepare the students as much as possible, but until they’re in that role in the trenches experiencing it, they don’t know what the a hundred percent certainty With that said, I know that there are a lot of common challenges that students face in that first sales position, a lot of realities that they sort of have to face transitioning to the 9-5 from being a student. What do you think is one challenge that students should be prepared to face in that first year after they graduate?

[00:37:07] and what advice would you have for them on overcoming that challenge?

[00:37:11] Brian Collins: [00:37:11] I think the one that wanted to name is really important is that flip of the switch. Hey, now I have to be at work for X amount of time per week, and I have to be dedicated to that. And it’s not that they’re not dedicated to it. They just never have dedicated themselves for that long of a time period every day to one item.

[00:37:27] And I think that’s the, one of the hardest things that are come because it can tire you out really quickly. I know I’ve talked to a lot of new graduates. There’ll be in a job, like, Man, I’m just worn out and I’ve been in here six months and it feels like I’ve just been here for 10 years. And it’s because of that, whole new process that you’re having to do, you’ve trained your whole life through education to prepare yourself for this position.

[00:37:48] But until you get into it, you don’t really understand the amount of time and effort that it takes. and how much that we’re self out and I don’t care what that is, sales or engineering or whatever you’re walking into. that seems to be the biggest thing. I think that like you named and said, how do you do it.

[00:38:03] And I think we talk a lot about, what’s it going to be like your first year. we have, different people will come into our classes and we’ll say, this is what to expect on your first day. This is what to expect your first month, your first quarter, your first year, this is how it’s going to look.

[00:38:16] Because you need to prepare yourself for this, because it’s going to be a lot harder than you think. We bring in recent graduates who have maybe been out six months or eight months. And, the questions are, Hey, what do you do? how do you do? Been really unique, right, with COVID because many of them haven’t even gone to their offices.

[00:38:31] They’ve been remote during that time. And what kind of training are you getting? What are expectations? All of those things. So I think it really just helps to be able to, for that particular item, which I think is probably the, one of the most important that they have to overcome is to get a bunch of different backgrounds and people to tell them about, Hey, this was my experience.

[00:38:47] It may not be yours, but probably pretty typical.

[00:38:49] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:38:49] Yeah, it doesn’t matter how many times you talk about how hard that first sales job is. It’s always, I think harder than people expect. just because you have to do it. And like you said, you’re dedicating all of your time and attention during the workday to it. So it just takes building up stamina. And as long as students come in and they’re coachable and they want to get better and they stick with it, it gets better and you learn and it gets easier every single day that you do it.

[00:39:17] Brian Collins: [00:39:17] Yep. It does. And I think that’s a testament to companies like y’all’s that take that time to train, right. And take that time to say, Hey, these are the things that we’ve seen people go through before benefit from our experience. this is going to happen to you. I promise it’s going to happen to you.

[00:39:31] But that’s okay. This is how you resolve it once it does happen to you. We’ve all done it. We’ve all gone through it. It’s nothing new. We’re here to support you. And I think once they start understanding that it allows them to embrace it a little bit more. It’s tough. just real quick, I tell the story in my class, if you’re a Hall of Fame baseball player, right, you hit 300, 333, that’s basically seven times at the play you fail.

[00:39:55] But yet if you do that over your career, you’re a Hall of Famer almost assuredly. You’re going to get voted in. So think about that. I mean, think about how many times and that professional baseball player, that’s all he does for the whole time or professional softball player. That’s all she does for the whole time.

[00:40:11] Right? That’s all they do. And yet, you’re failing 70% of the time. So there’s a lot of failure in a lot of different places out there. We just don’t tend to recognize it because we think only sales has that.

[00:40:23] Libby Galatis: [00:40:23] I think to your point that failure, because when a lot of people aren’t exposed to professional sales and are educated about it, they have those misconceptions about, cold calling, getting rejected all day long and just like the natural challenges that are just expected from learning how to do it which is part of why playing those calls for students and, showcasing that and shedding light on it and eliminating the fear of the unknown, which I think is the biggest reason why a lot of people hesitate. They just don’t know enough to be able to commit or jump right in is a huge driver for a lot of students. I know. there’s always going to be that, those few students that hear that cold call that crash and burn and are like, Oh my God, I would never, ever do that. I don’t want to be in that position. But the students that are still standing there and they hear that this person who got beat up had called that person back immediately and ended up booking the meeting right afterwards.

[00:41:10] They’re like, Oh my God. I can see myself doing that now. And I think that’s the biggest thing is, showing that there are people in your shoes that were just as uncertain about sales as you are right now that began their career in a job like this. And they found their calling just because they tried.

[00:41:23] so you’ve shared a lot of advice today that a lot of students are going to find really valuable. and I really, appreciate your perspective a lot.

[00:41:30] Brian Collins: [00:41:30] hopefully it helps.

[00:41:31] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:41:31] let’s just do some quick inspired, fun questions. So just,  answer the first thing that comes to your mind, This is super timely, but what do you think are the pros and cons, especially for people right out of college working from home?

[00:41:48] Brian Collins: [00:41:48] pros are, it’s probably easier to adjust right off the bat. you’re not having to, commute and all that kind of thing. So it’s probably a little bit easier to get going, your familiar surroundings, all those types of things. Cons you’re not in an office, so you don’t have that support necessarily right next to you.

[00:42:06] It may be online. It may be through a Zoom chat or things like that, or Teams or whatever you’re using, but you don’t have that interaction a lot of times immediately right there on a phone call or someone necessarily listening to all your work and being able to help you with it.

[00:42:21] So it can be a challenge from that standpoint. I think people forget about how hard it is to be isolated being in, your own home and not being in a job. So while it’s great that, you can be in a familiar environment, the con of that is, you’re also not with others who are doing life things at the lifetime and give you support through just their energy and their ability to go out to do it.

[00:42:43] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:42:43] Yeah, we’re doing everything we can to mimic our in-office culture with our new hires from home so that they still get that instant feedback and coaching, but it’s absolutely, it’s a good skill that everyone is forced to learn right now which I think will help everyone long-term in their sales career as well.

[00:43:01] if you could have a billboard, one billboard anywhere and it said anything that you wanted it to say, where would it be and what would it say?

[00:43:10] Brian Collins: [00:43:10] well, I assume you mean related to sales I don’t want to get myself in trouble on anything else. actually, it’s really funny. I would love to have,  a billboard that would be, noticed. So it may be in Hollywood or wherever where things are always shown on TV, but the billboard would say come to Virginia Tech and be a sales professional be a hookey.

[00:43:30] and I think that’s for me all of the schools are wonderful and they’re all fantastic. And I have a lot of friends or professors, at other schools, and a lot of students that I know at other schools. just, for me, the culture at Virginia Tech, I’ve obviously been a hookey. I’m a very biased, but I love being a hookey.

[00:43:45] I love the support that we give. I mean, our motto is That I May Serve. What better motto for a salesperson can you have? I mean, that is, Virginia Tech. So, to shout that from the rooftops is come see us, come get your education here. You’re part of the family. We’ll take care of it and you make sure you have a great job when you leave.

[00:44:03] Libby Galatis: [00:44:03] that’s awesome. So, Brian, I’m curious. We ask this question in a lot of our interviews. do you love to win or hate to lose more? And why?

[00:44:12] Brian Collins: [00:44:12] I probably love to lose more.  that’s a combination of the two of yours, but I tell you why I liked that is because I learn so much when I lose. I take a lot from that. why was I not successful? Why did that not go well? We all love to win. Trust me. I, would love to be, the best salesperson in the world and, being interviewed on every single channel, every single day.

[00:44:32] And that will be wonderful I think. I don’t know, maybe not. But ultimately though I really liked, losing to a certain extent because it helps me be better. It helps me understand what the pitfalls are and then I can give that to other people and I can tell them, Hey, look out for this, look out for that.

[00:44:48] really try to go through that process. I think we learn a lot about ourselves when we lose. And I think we learn a lot about how we can handle adversity and it makes you step up. Doesn’t mean I’m a want to be a loser. It just means that’s probably the situation where I learned the most from. Wins are great too.

[00:45:05] And you always go back and look at wins and try to figure out how you won, but when you lose that’s typically when you’re going, okay, what did I do wrong? How can I fix that? And what can I do to make myself better? So that never happens again.

[00:45:16] Libby Galatis: [00:45:16] love that answer. And it correlates so directly with sales because in any sales position you have your wins, but you also have your losses, especially entry-level. I mean, you’ll have a lot of losses and you’re going to learn from each one of them till they’re less and less over time. So my final question. I would argue every professional has their strengths and weaknesses.

[00:45:33] what do you think your biggest strength or your super power is as a professional? Marc Gonyea, I remember when I first started at memoryBlue, he always talked about how once you get to a certain point in your sales career, you have the specific style to how you approach conversations or your sizzle that you throw in there, or a specific phrase that you mentioned every time, your signature move.

[00:45:53] what do you think is your super power in the sales world?

[00:45:56] Brian Collins: [00:45:56] I think it’s a combination of two things. one is empathy and being able to put myself in the other person’s shoes in wanting to do that. I’m a big planner. So before I go in, I think about what do they want out of this conversations, what are the things that, that company wants to accomplish. it’s about them,

[00:46:12] it’s not about you. And if you can, that’s my biggest secret sauce, I think is I always look at it from their perspective first. It’s easy for me to tell you what I want. I can run down those things in five seconds, right. But to set back and do the homework and to understand what the client wants out of it before you even have the first conversation, that’s a heck of a lot harder.

[00:46:33] And I think that leads to what becomes your great questions, your open-ended questions and just your conversation and, as I said, the very, very beginning, your willingness to be curious and to just understand. So that’s really probably, my secret sauce is just being able to think about it from their side and to really pursue their side and then figure out how that gets back to me later on.

[00:46:55] Right. I’m second in that conversation there 

[00:46:58] Libby Galatis: [00:46:58] That’s incredible. Amazing advice. Thank you.

[00:47:01] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:47:01] Thank you so much, Brian. You dropped a lot of nuggets and really just shed the light on some things that students, whether they are coming right out of college, or maybe they’re considering a career change can consider when it comes to a sales career and you have a ton of really great experience yourself that you’re using to teach the kind of the next class of sales professionals.

[00:47:25] And we appreciate it. And we appreciate our partnership with you. Thank you so much.

[00:47:30] Brian Collins: [00:47:30] all very much for allowing me the opportunity to join you. And like I said, memoryBlue has been there since the beginning. I don’t have favorite companies, but y’all are one of my favorites.  and we joke about that because we,  We love all of our sponsors, but the amount of time and effort that all of you all have put into our program has been tremendous. And thank you for doing that. you all have made our program better, so we couldn’t do it without you.

[00:47:50] Libby Galatis: [00:47:50] Well, feelings mutual. Go hookies. All right, Brian. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. it was incredible speaking with you 

[00:47:56]