Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Campus Series: Brock Adams – Embrace the Unfamiliar

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Brock Adams

What he does: He’s the Director of the Alan E. Hall Sales Center.

Company: Weber State University

Noteworthy: Brock started his career in sales as a sales rep. Now, he’s a renowned professor with a demonstrated history of working in the higher education industry.

Where to find Brock: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Believing in your product makes you a better seller. Believing in what you’re selling makes you more persuasive. Plus, it’s much more fulfilling to sell a product you truly believe in. Brock reflects on his beginnings as a salesperson. To this day, he considers his first sales job to be the best he ever had. “It was a perfect job — to sell a product I truly believed in, and that’s education. I love education. It’s like, ‘Oh, you want me to sell that?’ Yeah. That’s not hard at all. And one of the things sales reps have to do is to believe in what you’re selling. I believed in my undergrad. I don’t want to say the stars aligned for that position, but I loved it.”

⚡ Relationships are crucial for career success. There are a lot of different traits that will help in making you a great salesperson, but the true secret to success in sales is building relationships. It’s what will help you close a sale, nurture teamwork, and get ahead in life. Brock says sales is all about relationships and communication. “The advice I would give is that relationships matter, and building those relationships is far more important than posting some stuff on LinkedIn or just going out and handing out flyers at a career fair. Relationships are valid. […] We came into this all fresh, but we respected each other. We were working together. It was not about, ‘I need to use you as leverage to get to my next stage.’ It was, ‘How can I make this team better so that we’re performing and hitting all cylinders?'”

⚡ Step out of your comfort zone. Nothing ever grows in the comfort zone, and neither will you. Brock says that getting uncomfortable with yourself from time to time is what will make you a better sales rep and a more content person. “This is going to push you to be a better sales rep. The more uncomfortable you get, you say, ‘Oh, I can do this!’ and you gain confidence. For these things, I push my students to be adaptable. Don’t have this preconceived notion in your mind about what’s going to happen. Be uncomfortable because if you’re not, if you’re just settling and being comfortable where you’re at, you’re neither going to grow as a sales rep nor as an individual.”

Episode Highlights

Learn to Be Adaptable And Uncomfortable

“You’ve got to be adaptable. If you go in thinking that this is how things will work, and if they don’t work out that way, you’ll have a flight of panic, and you can’t have that. You’ve got to be adaptable and understand that you’re going to get objections that you’re never going to think of, and if you’re able to adapt to those, it will help you become a better sales rep. So that’s one of the things. The other one that goes along with this is, as I always tell my students, you need to be uncomfortable. And students get this idea of saying, ‘What’s my comfort zone?’ This sounds cliché. Every great leader always says, ‘Push out of your comfort zone.’ Everyone always talks about that cliché phrase, but the bottom line is that it’s true.”

Knowledge Is Power

“You’re going to be given case studies. That’s something that everybody is uniformed for the teams, but what you can control is how much knowledge you are digging deeper for, so that when the objection comes, you don’t say, ‘Ah, I’m freezing like a deer in the headlights.’ Instead, you say, ‘Oh, no, based on my research into your company, I know you do this,’ and you’re able to pull out figures. I said that is going to give you more leverage in the sale than anything. Having that knowledge on your side, you’re able to pull through, and not be caught again like a deer in the headlights saying, ‘I don’t know what to say now because I only did the bare minimum research on this.’ So I think that knowledge is an untapped reservoir that a lot of students really should look for.”

Is Technology Diluting the Art of Conversation?  

“The idea that social media and asynchronous communication have killed the art of how to have a conversation. If you think about sales, the foundation of sales is literally just a conversation between two people. And that’s what a lot of people are discussing with the advent of technology. There’s a competition going on — it’s called Rainmakers — and you’re having a conversation with an avatar. You’re going in and selling software to a police station, and you’re just talking to an avatar. It’s like, ‘Okay, all I’ve got to do is plug in the right answers to this algorithm. That’s going to get the sale done.’ But, how is that sales?”

Transcript:

[00:00:56] Libby Galatis: Hello, hustlers.

[00:00:58] Kristen Wisdorf: And, today we’re super excited, we have the Head of the Sales Program at Weber State, Brock Adams. Thanks for joining us today. 

[00:01:07] Brock Adams: Oh, you’re welcome. Thanks for having me. And yeah, you can’t call me the head of the department, I’m not department chair, so I don’t have that title yet. Not that I’m, like, aiming for it, but no, but thank you very much. 

[00:01:17] Kristen Wisdorf: Yes, the Director of The Sales Center. 

[00:01:19] Brock Adams: Yeah, there we go. 

[00:01:20] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, and that’s why you’re with us. We’ve been doing this podcast for a while, talking with sales professors all across the country, and we’re very excited, you’re our first professor we’re chatting with from the great state of Utah,

[00:01:31] so thanks for joining us. Absolutely. We like to start all of these conversations with the, actually, the same question that we asked the students who we interview for our stewart job, which is, Brock, take 60 seconds and tell us about you, hit us with your highlight reel, 

[00:01:50] let’s call it. 

[00:01:51] Brock Adams: You want my elevator pitch that we tell for the speach zone and competition? No, that’s a good point. So yeah, my background, I was born and raised in Utah, went, got my undergrad in communication, enterprise communication, emphasis and film, thinking that I was going to be the next Quentin Tarantino.

[00:02:06] Oh, how I was completely misguided there. Then I got my Master’s Degree in Professional Communication from Southern Utah University, and then I worked as, I worked in sales my whole life life, like, I’ve sold door-to-door, I’ve sold pest control, I’ve sold insurance plan. I’ve sold a lot of things, but then I got into it into sales, selling education.

[00:02:24] I worked for my undergrad on my alma mater, selling and promoting education and selling that for five years, and then went to grad school, went down to LSU, got my PhD in Interpersonal Communication, and then, I want to say, the stars aligned, the guy, things opened up and a position opened up a Weaver State University, which is the last place I ever thought I was going to end up at.

[00:02:42] I really didn’t think I was going to be here. I was looking all over the country and I’ve been here for four years and I’ve loved it. It’s a great opportunity to kind of be involved back in education, but also in the same side of, the educational side of sales, so.

[00:02:55] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. It’s very interesting. You grew up in Utah, you left for Louisiana, which is an interesting, and then you made it back to your home state. So, let’s talk a little bit about maybe the differences in your time in sales in Utah, and just being in a sales environment for there versus Louisiana, and maybe some of the differences in the two places you’ve lived.

[00:03:16] Brock Adams: So, and it probably goes both ways in the sense of not only geographical differences, like, by the way, like I miss, I love the South, I love the, people love the food, I wish we had that kind of dining out here in Utah, we don’t. We’re really boring and bland and it was just not, it’s not fun. Right? But the differences are

[00:03:32] my educational focus is all about communication and being in sales, it’s a different ball game, like, a lot of communication with principals that are dealing with they’re, like, theoretical applications for relationship building and public speaking. A lot of those kinds of overlap with sales. So my experience in Utah, you know, when I was selling education, I wasn’t just selling in Utah,

[00:03:52] like, I was over in Northern Utah, and I was the assistant director of recruitment and admissions at my own modest Dixie State University. Now they’re going through a name change, so who knows what will be called in about a year or two. So, but at the time I was selling education, not only to Northern Utah, but then I was also going all over the Western United States.

[00:04:07] Like, I was going to Seattle, I got stories about these I can bring up a little bit later, Idaho, Portland, all over the West, California, like, I was doing these fairs in Arizona, like, all the West United States. And so I was selling education, and it was just a different, it was a different cell compared to when I was selling, I was selling software for home refinancing during the biggest housing bubble burst in 2008, it was a dumbest product ever sell,

[00:04:30] I think that I sold at the wrong time, but there’s a difference in selling for commercial gain and for, like, the net profit, where I was just selling educational experiences to kids to buy into pursuing education. And, that was kind of what my sales pathway was for those five years, from 2010 to 2015 in education.

[00:04:49] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah.

[00:04:49] So, I wanted to dive into that a little bit more. Your first sales job selling education, how did that happen? Was it, um, planned? Usually, most sales, first sales jobs are not planned, but walk us through that story. 

[00:05:03] Brock Adams: I was listening to your podcast, when it was a Bill Steiger and he’s like, “Sales is the accidental profession,” and I was like, “Well, yeah.” Everyone always says that, and no, I don’t want to say it was unplanned in the sense of, like, when I was going to school, I really got involved in education, like my undergrad, right?

[00:05:17] Like, I was doing everything, I was involved in athletics, I was involved in your murals, I was playing, I was also in student government, like I was, I love my institution and there’s a lot of reasons why I love my undergrad. And, there was a position that opened for it, and this is, “All right, why don’t I graduate?

[00:05:31] I got a position working as a retention advisor for like nothing.” Like, it was only working 25 hours a week, I was trying to find jobs, right, and as an undergrad in 2009, we were literally right in the middle of that huge, great recession. Right? Like, this was, I walked in O’nine it’s like, “Where do I go for a job?”

[00:05:47] And then this position opened up and it’s like, you’re selling your education. I, I’ve been working, I’d gone to school there for four years, love the institution, I was like, I’ve, I’ve sold my whole life, I’ve sold, growing up. Like, my dad, he was a salesman, he was actually selling software and web space during the dot.com bubble burst back in 2000,

[00:06:03] so sales has been a part of my life. And so it’s like, “Oh, so you want me to go sell this institution that I love with a passion?” For there’s so many motivations, as far as like the faculty, the, the cost of tuition, the location, it was like, “Yeah, that pretty easy to do.” So I don’t want to say stumbled into it,

[00:06:18] like, it just fell, but it was like, the stars are aligned, like, this is a perfect job to sell a product I truly believe in, and that’s education. Like, I love education. It’s like, “Oh, you want me to sell that? Yeah. That’s not hard at all.” And, that’s one of the things sales reps have to do is you got to believe in what you’re selling.

[00:06:31] Yeah. Totally believed in my undergrad, and that’s why it was such a, I don’t want to say like the stars aligned for that position, but I loved it. I will always go down, and this is off the record, you can even tell my employer right now, that was the greatest job I’ve ever had in the sense of, and I’m not meaning in the sense of like, I don’t like my employer,

[00:06:46] I love working for Weber State, but it was the greatest job I ever had in the sense of the people I connected with, the office mates I had, the product we were selling and the experiences that kind of helped shape my life and focus on sales. I loved that for those five years.

[00:07:01] Libby Galatis: I resonate a lot with your story. I actually got my undergrad within communication as well, and when I graduated, this was kind of an accidental profession for me though, but in my transition into recruiting, now selling, the opportunity within memoryBlue and the brand and it’s something that I’ve found a lot of passionate as well.

[00:07:18] So, selling the experience, that’s incredible, and I like the connection between that education, background within communication and how it translates within sales, within recruiting, and all of it kind of all altogether. I’m curious to kind of take a step back before you began that role that was the best position within your, whole career,

[00:07:38] Brock Adams: oh yeah. 

[00:07:38] Libby Galatis: tell us a bit more about where your sales experience started. You mentioned briefly, kind of, door-to-door experiences, selling things like pest control, where these kind of sprinkled in throughout your career, or was this more kind of while you were in undergrad, just to share with us a little bit more about your initial exposure into sales?

[00:07:55] Brock Adams: So initially, like, my dad was, he was a salesman, he was a teacher as well. He’s an educator, but he also was selling, like, on this, he, he wasn’t like the traveling sells but it was one of those typical stories of like, “Dad’s going out for the week, gonna sell,” that story you hear, and kids these days are like, “What do you mean dad gets into, he loads up a suitcase and gets in his Buick Concentra and drives?”

[00:08:13] No, no one hears those stories anymore, but that was what it was kind of like for me growing up. But, I mean, I sold all sorts of stuff, like, when I was in high school, like, everyone’s got the cliche, lem, lemonade standing, like that, but then I also sold, like, a marketing packages for, there’s this product called, this is way old school,

[00:08:28] it’s called a TV guardian, and it was basically a censorship box you could place on top of your TVs. So, like, if words came on the screen and they were inappropriate, by the way, I don’t know if this has got an E next to the podcast name, I won’t say these words, but it would mute those, it would have, like, captions coming up, and it was all about, like,

[00:08:45] “We don’t want to have these kinds of, like, negative things.” It was really, it’s a weird product, right? This is 19, this is, like, 1994, right? So, I was like, “Oh, okay.” So, let’s sell these kinds of things growing up. And then, when I got to college, I worked for student government,

[00:08:56] I worked for marketing. Like, I would work for the marketing PR offices and I would sell, like, a lot of, we’d sell ad plans to coordinate sponsorship for the department, with our college, and then, just in all together, this is a whole different podcast episode, by the way, there is a market for door-to-door representation in sales, in the state of Utah,

[00:09:15] for a specific reason, and a lot of Utah kids got scooped up in that. So, like, and the reason I bring this up is there’s a lot of companies, like, pest-control companies or cable companies or security, and they go, “Hey, let’s go to Utah where there’s a bunch of people who go around and sell something for two years and let’s recruit them to come work for us.”

[00:09:33] And so we all kind of bought into that, like, “Oh yeah, I can go do this.” And so I sold door-to-door for Orkin Pest Control, those in Albuquerque and Denver, didn’t make any money. I was 18 years old, right? It’s my first job, my, after my first year of college, I’m like, “I’m going to make a ton of money,”

[00:09:46] and they build these sites of like, “You’re going to make six figures.” I’m like, “Okay, I’ll, I’ll walk away with a check for three and a half thousand dollars. That was a good summer.” Right? And then the same thing, like, I remember when I sold again, I sold software for, this is the refinancing mortgage software,

[00:10:00] we sold it for a company my buddy founded, we went down to Vegas and we’re selling this, basically, it was this debt consolidation program, it wasn’t like Dave Ramsey kind of stuff, but it was, we’re going to sell to you a way to pay off your home and get out of debt in like 9, 10 years. Brilliant idea, wrong time to market it,

[00:10:18] and the great housing burst of 2009. Yeah. And so we’re knocking on doores, and, like, every third house had a foreclosure sign on it, so we’re like, “Hey, we want to help you pay off your home.” And, they’re like, “Do you not see the sign in the yard guys?” Like, so it was interesting time, but so I’ve always been in sales and that’s why when the educational opportunity came up, it’s like, “Oh, I can sell education,” like, I’m not talking about ROIs and try to explain the profits the students are going to make, it’s more of the educational experience, that’s why it was an easy sell for me.

[00:10:45] Libby Galatis: I think it’s so interesting that there’s such a strong presence for door-to-door, I think that there’s kind of lot of misconceptions surrounding door-to-door sales and, like, how relevant is. As a sales recruiter, working with mostly recent graduates, those that I have recruited, that I’ve worked with door-to-door sales have some pretty interesting stories and experiences stemming from that

[00:11:03] so I’m curious, like, from your background, exploring that phase of your life, where you were on the ground floor, knocking on doors, are there any experiences that kind of come to mind as far as something that you just cannot forget about, negative or positive, just kind of in that, type of role?

[00:11:21] Brock Adams: The funny thing is my buddy and I, we sit around and talk, I still talk to him, he is my best friend. Every time we’d go sell it, just join his hip and be like, “Yeah, we’ll go sell together.” We have all sorts of stories from the times, in Denver and Albuquerque. One of the funniest stories that, I just, sticks out,

[00:11:35] and this really has nothing to do with sales, but more has to do with, like, me personally, and it was just a complete zero. So, I have epilepsy and it’s caused by, I’d played a lot of football, like, I have been hit in the head a ton, right? So I have epileptic seizures.

[00:11:50] Now, I haven’t had one for 12 years because I had brain surgery and I’m on medication for it, so, like, that’s included in source, but the reason why I bring this up is from the time I was about 12 years old ’till I was about 23, I would have these petit mal seizures. I was in between a petit mal seizure and grand mal’s seizure,

[00:12:06] and you guys are like, “We’re not doing this WebMD podcast,” but the grand mal seizures, the one people don’t think about, right? Like, the convulsions, the shaking and, the petit mal seizures, you’re kind of just blackout and you just, your face goes blank, you use a little bit of drooling and you just kind of pass out.

[00:12:20] Right? And, it’s, that’s one of the phases of epilepsy and that’s the kind of seizures I have. And, I bring this up because one of the most, like, awkward moments and we still talk about this to this day, I’m knocking doors in Denver and selling Orkin, you know, and we had this cliche line, like, we’d open up the doors, we see the cockroaches, we point at them, you know, use the nonverbal gestures and you say, “Come on,”

[00:12:42] and you just basically work your way into the house because once you’re in the house, it’s like a 40% closing rate, something like that. Right? So you’re just trying to get in the house. And, I remember I could feel a seizure coming on because it was, like, way hot in Denver, it’s like in the middle of July, it was actually, no, it was 4th of July weekend and it’s 104 degrees,

[00:12:57] like, we were just dying and I was dehydrated and all these factors affect my epilepsy. Right? So, I’m going in there and, I was like, “Okay, let’s get the sale done,” and then I feel the seizure coming on, I’m like, I don’t know how to tell this study ’cause a seizure to me, I just black out, like, it’s literally, like, me passing out.

[00:13:12] And so we go into this and I just passed out, and then probably two minutes later I wake up and, like, the woman’s vase is broken in her house and I had, like, my lip, my chin and my cheek were bleeding and she’s looking at me like, “Oh, we got the exorcist in our house, like, we got to get this guy,” and I just looked and I said, “I’m sorry, man,”

[00:13:33] and I stumbled out of the house and I walked to, like, I call my buddy, I was like, “You gotta come pick me up,” and he’s like, “What happened?” And, the lady calls, she’s like, “Yeah, your sales guy just came over and broke into my house, but he was unconscious, I don’t know what’s going on.” And, it was that moment of

[00:13:45] like, I was like, “Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to get a call back and get them sign up for work and pest control.” It was one of those moments like, “I don’t think I should go back in for the close.” 

[00:13:55] Kristen Wisdorf: No kidding. 

[00:13:56] Brock Adams: It was one of those moments, you want to say, I was a little embarrassed coming back from that

[00:14:00] sell.

[00:14:01] Kristen Wisdorf: I mean, if you can pick yourself up after that and keep knocking on doors, I mean, more power to you because that, that probably shook you up for the rest of the day, for sure. 

[00:14:10] Brock Adams: Well, yeah. Well, the funny, yeah, it was one of those things, it’s like, “Well, hey, at least you got in the door,” I was like, “Yeah, I also kind of broke the door too, so it was.” 

[00:14:16] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, “And her vase and my face, and.” 

[00:14:20] Brock Adams: Wherever she is, hopefully she’s listening, and she’s like, “That’s the guy. I remember that guy. He stumbled in.”

[00:14:25] No, maybe, that was me. I apologize, ma’am, if you’re listening, so.

[00:14:28] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh my gosh. That the craziest thing about sales is whether you’re in-person, in store-to-door or you’re over the phone, which is, obviously, pretty common in sales these days, you never really know what you’re going to get. There’s all sorts of kind of unique stories and experiences and good days and bad days,

[00:14:46] so along those lines, like, what think through kind of, like, your best days and your worst days that may have been on the short list for worst days, what are some of the best memories that you have from selling, whether it was education or pest control? 

[00:15:02] Brock Adams: Yeah. And, I think the best memories I would have, I go back to, like, that job, that selling education, one of the best moments in those kinds of cells were when you could kind of see a light bulb going on, because when we were out selling education we weren’t going, like, “We’ve got to meet a quota. Like, we got to have, we have to have X number of kids coming in from California or we are gonna be fired.”

[00:15:22] Like, then granted, some educational institutions do that, like, they have a quota, they have to meet admissions numbers. We, on the other hand, because admissions in Utah were going up so much, we weren’t under fire. Like, we didn’t feel like we were under a lot of pressure to get these deals done. Right? So, I didn’t feel the pressure as I would like when I was selling home mortgage software.

[00:15:39] But I think those moments where you could feel like, “Yeah, I really did a good deal,” and I remember one time I was selling that in Victorville, California, y’all ever been there before, so it’s, kinda, like, the last town before you get, pull into Southern California, like, there’s this dead road from basically Vegas to right

[00:15:55] as you pull into California, like, big part of Callaway, the big population center. Victorville is this little town, like, probably about an hour outside of there, right? It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere, and we would always go to the high school, ’cause it’s a small high school, it’s like, “We can get them down there.

[00:16:09] They’re only three and a half hours away from the school year recruiting from,” so I just remember going down there and this kid one time, you just said, I was doing this presentation about, “You should come go to school here. Here’s some educational experiences,” he’s like, “I’m never going to do this.

[00:16:21] I’m not good enough.” And, it was that whole mentality of like, “I’m not smart enough to go to,” and he was, I mean, Victorville it’s, it’s not one of these top tier academic high schools, not knocking it by any means, but it’s just a public institution in the middle of California.

[00:16:33] Right? And so I remember going over the steps, like, “No, if you come here, you can have a great educational experience. You’re not going to have to chop off your arm and your leg to pay for this college experience. You’ll have great faculty members.” And, I just remember seeing, like, this kid, you could just see the gears turning in his head like, “Oh no, this is it.

[00:16:50] This is going to be where I’m going to embed myself for my education.” And, I remember that moment, like, yeah, I made a difference maybe in that kid’s life. Like, it wasn’t about like, “Oh, I, I’m really going to get a lot of profit because he’s a non-resident student, we’re going to get a ton of tuition dollars,”

[00:17:03] it was like, “No, I, I feel like I am making a connection with this kid and it’s going to change his life for the better because he’s pursuing an education.” So, I think that was probably, like, my best deal. On the contrary, did you say you want my worst deal or, like? 

[00:17:17] Kristen Wisdorf: I want all the juicy details. Yes. 

[00:17:20] Brock Adams: Well, it’s like, yeah, these are backdoor deals, under-the-table deals, like.

[00:17:23] And, I don’t know, like, are my experience not as like juicy ’cause you have these, you got a lot of corporate partners come on this show. Right? 

[00:17:30] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah. I mean, well, sales educators from all across the country, whether we have alumni from their program or not. 

[00:17:36] Brock Adams: Okay. So yeah, I guess the worst, I would still say was with that same job, but I remember I used to do the stretch and I kinda called it “the stretch from hell” in the sense of, like, being on the road for so long, and one of the, it was a stretch where I would go into the Pacific Northwest, and I would just do nonstop fairs,

[00:17:57] like, I would go to small high schools and then I would hit big national conventions where there’s, like, 300 universities in a giant warehouse and thousands of kids are shuffled in, right? And so I would see both sides of this. But you got to keep in mind, the schools recruiting for as a small public institution, open enrollments, it’s Dixie State university in Southern Utah, about two hours north of Vegas,

[00:18:18] right? And, enrollment at the time was about 9,000 students. They only have about a handful of master’s degrees, but it’s just a small public institution, right? So, when I go into these fairs, like, I just, I’m a peon compared to University of Oregon, Oregon state, Washington, like, all these big types of, Boise State when I do the Boise legs,

[00:18:36] right? So, I remember going up and I did this, it was probably the worst stretch of, I mean, I was just exhausted, but then the return, no one cared, like, I remember that I would have this routine, I did a fair in twin falls, drove, like, the Farragut over at eight o’clock, drove to Boise, caught a red eye,

[00:18:54] flew from Boise to Seattle, got up at 7:00 AM, was at the Seattle Convention Center, downtown Seattle, right, for all day. Like, you’re just sitting here, this table, just standing there, thousands of kids are getting bused in. Then from there, I drove down to Portland, did another one of those fares, drove back up to Seattle to do a few high school visits, did Tacoma,

[00:19:14] then I flew back to Boise, and then for some reason, I thought, “Hey, I’m going to save money and I’m going to drive eight hours to Spokane.” Who wants to do that? Right? So, I remember doing a fair at Boise and it was like, I get to Farragut over, like, six o’clock, I was like, “You know, I think I could drive to Spokane.”

[00:19:29] So, I drove all the way up to Spokane in the middle of the night, I remember listening to Stephen King’s book, like, I’m going to get possessed on this road. Right? Do this fair in Tacoma, come back down to Boise, do, like, more fares. I remember pulling into my office, my boss was like, “So, how many kids you got?

[00:19:41] I’m like, “I don’t know, maybe two that filled an application card out.” It was, like, this brutal stretch as far as, like, return. Now, it was not worth the money we spent going to these fairs, like, the registration fees, the mileage, the lack of sleep on my part. We just, there’s no way we got a return on those fairs.

[00:19:59] Kristen Wisdorf: That is so interesting. I think people early in their sales career, obviously, it’s different, but they can resonate with, sometimes there’s just the stretches of, it’s just a slog, like, end of quarter, end of month, we’re literally end of month right now, you know? And, I think one thing that people can take away from it is sometimes you have to pull the quote-unquote all-nighter to get it done for your customer, or your quota or whatever that may be.

[00:20:25] So, I feel like there’s, like, a good takeaway there in terms of some days, things, you just feel like you’re on top of the world and you can see the gears turning and the light bulb going off, and then some days you are back to back to back, but it all kind of evens out when you all, you do it for this greater purpose, which in your case was that, you know, selling that educational experience. 

[00:20:46] Brock Adams: Yeah. And, I think that was the thing that kind of kept us going. The other thing I always think about, and there’s one main point on drive home, was why I love that job or the relationships with the people in my sales office and my admissions office. Yeah, it wasn’t like, I wasn’t sitting there counting the pennies when we were trying to figure out can I drive to Spokane because we weren’t making a lot of money.

[00:21:03] Like, minimum wage for a bachelor’s degree, and this was in 2010. Think about where it is now. But, you’re right. Like, that picture of, like, the greater good it’s like, “No, I don’t want to let my team down. I don’t want to let my coworkers who were doing the same grind in Vegas, doing the same grind in California.”

[00:21:19] It’s like, it was for that greater good of education. Then again, we all believe in what we’re selling too.

[00:21:23] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah.

[00:21:23] I think it really kind of highlights how important that first job out of college is. And, you still say to this day, it was your favorite job ever. What advice do you give to your students or people who are graduating, they’ve just started their senior year in picking that first job out of college and what should be important to them? 

[00:21:42] Brock Adams: Well, that’s a really good question, Kristen. It’s hard because the advice you would give, because the route that I took, that’s not going to be another kid’s route, right? Like, me getting this job and, like, my sales experience and my background communication and going into sales education, it’s like, my route is a really different route, and somebody else can have a completely different route,

[00:22:02] like, the first job you take. Right? So, I remember when I was at LSU, one of my advisors, Graham Bodie, he, like, the first day of class at grad school, he’s like, “Your first job once you graduate with your PhD, your first job is going to be a nightmare. Your first four or five jobs, like, you’re not gonna like those.” Anybody, he was being authentic,

[00:22:22] right? Like, there’s so many congress not to disparage my major or Libby, your major as well, but like, there’s so many congrats that it’s like, “What do I go in?” And, a lot of times it’s like, “I just got to find something to pay the bills.” Right? And so I don’t know what to say, the advice, but I get my first job right out of college, was, I was a retention advisor for an open enrollment institution that we couldn’t even retain half of our class.

[00:22:43] And so that was not an ideal job. This was, like, my first full-time gig. But I think, to answer your question though, the advice I would give is that relationships matter and building those relationships is far more important than posting some yada yada stuff on LinkedIn, or just going out and handing out flyers at a career fair. Relationships are so valid,

[00:23:07] and I think that’s something that, people always attack social media and say, “Look what is deteriorating our relationships,” and I don’t necessarily agree with that point. But relationships are crucial. Like, the reason why I love that job absolutely more than any other job is I love my coworkers.

[00:23:22] Like, the guys who were with me, the ones who are, even the coworkers now, like, there was some, you know, ambassadors, we have my boss, we came into this all fresh, but we respected each other, we were working together, whether it was about, “Look, it’s not about I need to use this as leverage to get my next stage,”

[00:23:38] it was, “How can I make this team better so that we’re performing and hanging out, hitting on all cylinders?” And, like, the guy, we’ve all got our separate ways, like, two of them now work for Qualtrics, another two on their own business, I’m at education, we still talk all the time. Like, we are still on the fr,

[00:23:53] we’re more than Christmas-card friends, right? Like, we talk all the time, and we always remember those five years as some of the most beautiful moments of our life. But that was all contingent on relationships, and that’s a key element of sales. Sales is about relationships. It’s not about the product you’re selling,

[00:24:07] it’s not about the ROI, it’s not about how much money you’re making, it’s about, “Am I establishing a relationship with this person to get them to buy into what I’m telling them?”

[00:24:15] Libby Galatis: I love that point. I sell sales and the profession of sales all the time, every day, with my candidates that I’m talking to, a lot of passive individuals that never considered it before, and,as know, as a professor, like, that’s what you’re doing every single day, speaking to your students.

[00:24:29] Would you say that it’s pretty common for students not to be very interested in sales before taking your class and then having these realizations as you’re sharing this information? And, I’m just curious, like, when it comes to the message that you’re relaying to your class and the influence that you’re trying to have on them, what is your favorite part about teaching in that introductory sales course?

[00:24:51] Like, how do you approach selling sales?

[00:24:54] Brock Adams: Yeah. And, are you kind of going on the lines of, like, when you talk about how there’s the stigma with sales, like, how do I get people to buy into, like, sales ’cause that’s, and again, what’s the stigma with sales it, but it’s like, “You couldn’t do anything else, you’re going to go into sales.” Right? You always hear that line.

[00:25:08] And so you’re, are you asking, like, how do I get people to get past that?

[00:25:12] Libby Galatis: Yeah, well, so I think that this idea that sales is just relationship building and that’s kind of the key focus, that message is kind of lost in the noise of all these misconceptions that people have, and then once you kind of strip all of those misconceptions away and get to the core root of what sales is, which is relationship building, it is all about communication,

[00:25:30] that’s the message that I found that resonates most with individuals that are, either in this place where they’ve never considered it before or prior to talking to me, they never saw themselves pursuing it. So, would you say that, like, most of your students are influenced by this idea that it’s relationship building or how are you changing those misconceptions in the classes that you’re teaching?

[00:25:48] Brock Adams: Yeah. And, that’s a really good question. Yeah. I think there is this, on the surface people just think like, “Oh, all I’ve got to do is go in and know my product background, know the SPIN selling process, know the personalities.” It’s almost like formulaic for them, and in some ways sales is, right?

[00:26:04] And, they think like, “Oh, I just got to do this,” and they almost look at it, I’m not saying there’s a stigma against business, but it’s like, “It’s just a business deal.” And, the way, one of our approaches, one of the, like, Weber States, one of our specialty areas is like, we talk about how relationships are crucial.

[00:26:19] Like, you have to have those, like, it’s all about the customer and the relationship, and then that authentic relationship you have with that customer. Like, I don’t wanna have a conversation with them just to get the deal done. I want to have the conversation with Michelle, like, “No, I care about you,” and then from a more transcendent picture, like, if you’re going all philosophical, you know what life is, really, like, the relationships, and that’s what everyone always says, right?

[00:26:37] So, we kind of instilled in their minds like, “Yeah, you’re getting a deal done. The products are going to fluctuate. You’re going to go to five or six different companies over the course of your career, but your network and your relationships, that’s not, that shouldn’t fluctuate. You should always be building those.”

[00:26:51] And so, like, I, for example, I teach a really unique course, course I’ve never taught before, it’s called developing team leadership skills and it is an upper division course, three-day seminar, and the entire course is all about how to be a good team member and how to be a good leader. And, one of the things I just push and I drive in that course is it doesn’t matter where you are in your professional career,

[00:27:12] it doesn’t matter where you are in your life, what teams you’re on, you know, when we talk about professional teams, work environments, educational settings, the most important thing is are you, do you have good relationships with the people around you? And so I drive that point home every time I teach that seminar,

[00:27:28] and again, it’s a unique class of three-day class, and I’ve never heard this kind of class taught before anywhere else, but it was something we teach at Weber. And, that thing about relationships, I know students come back and we have all these dialogue with our alum and they’re like, “Oh, we love this class.

[00:27:41] I love this professor,” or “I love this other professor.” And, they don’t talk about, “I love the curriculum.” No one ever comes back and says, “Man, that textbook you had just rocked my world.” Like, that’s not what we’re getting back from our alumni. We always get, “I love the relationship that we had with your department and how much you cared about me as a student,”

[00:28:01] and that’s why I love this department right here.” Like, we always kind of highlight Damian Lillard, like, professional basketball player. He’s a grad of our department, and one of our faculty members, Tim Boarder, has a great relationship with him. He’s not using like, “Oh, I’m friends with Damian.”

[00:28:14] Nope. They really have a great relationship, and Damian’s ties with department is not like, “They helped me become a better basketball player.” He’s like, “No, I love this school, and I love the professors who were there,” and that’s why we drive home. It’s like, relationships are more important than anything else in the sales environment.

[00:28:31] Libby Galatis: I mean, that message is like, that is why I love sales, that’s why I love, I mean, I was, prior to the role that I’m in now, managing a team, I was on the campus recruiting side. I loved hearing about your experience traveling, going school-to-school, it’s exhausting, and I think that there’s a lot of people out there who, in that position, in that experience, may not have realized or taken advantage of that relational side and found the gratifying aspects of that position that you did,

[00:28:54] and as a result may not have grown as much or threw in the towel too soon. So, I think it’s a hundred percent accurate, and now that I’m in the professional world, it’s something that I didn’t experience or get exposure to in classes, in schools, so, that’s awesome 

[00:29:07] that you’re 

[00:29:08] receiving. 

[00:29:10] Brock Adams: And, I think about all the points in my life, and again, my path is not going to be X student’s path. Right? But I think about all the moments in my life where, like, decisions I’ve been, I’ve made are heavily contingent on, “I felt a value in that relationship with X entity.”

[00:30:24] Like, for example, like, when I was going to grad school, right? This is summer of ’15, I’d applied all over the country, basically, I’d narrowed on my, I had four options, like, here, “Where, am I going to go to Lincoln? And, I’m going to go to Nebraska. Am I going to go to North Dakota or North Dakota State?

[00:30:37] Am I going to go to Southern Miss or LSU?” And, it wasn’t like, “Well, I want to go to the best football programs, obviously, I’m going to go to LSU.” But I remember, like, I was kind of up in the air, like, it wasn’t gonna cost me anything as far as, like, there was not a net difference on cost to go to school,

[00:30:49] right? So, I was really kind of debating back and forth, and I remember, this was what, April 15, and I hadn’t made my decision yet, and I get a phone call from a guy and he’s like, “Hey, how are you? I’m Graham Bodie from LSU department communication studies, I just want to know, like, what are you thinking about,

[00:31:03] are you going to come to school? We’re just looking to,” and I was just kinda like, I thought he was like, this is little grad assistant, like, “Hey, I’m just here to talk to you and bring it,” and, no, no, no, I’m doing a voiceover, thinking that’s how grad assistants talk, but I just thought he was this guy, I was like, “Oh yeah, come on down.

[00:31:18] We like it.” ‘Cause we had ambassadors at our school, but we would have them do that. Right? We’d, “Hey” we’d say, “Here’s a list of students that made their decision, call them out.” So, he calls me up and he’s like, “Hey, it’s Graham Bodie. What are your thoughts?” And, he was just saying, he would ask me a bunch of questions,

[00:31:30] and I was like, ” I think Louisiana’s good,” you know, I, I liked the program, I liked the emphasis and all these kinds of things. I was like, “Well, I’ll touch base with you next week. We’ll talk more.” So, I got the phone and I’m like, “I wonder who this guy is,” and I look him up and he is, like, the most decorated faculty member in their entire department.

[00:31:44] Like, the man was a legend. His Vita is ridiculous. He is one of the forefathers and kings of listening research. He’s got to move a Cullison first project and it’s phenomenal. And he teaches it all miss now, but I remember sitting there, like, “This guy is, like, the godfather of department and he’s calling me up to get me to come to LSU.”

[00:32:04] And, it was this kind of, like, “Oh no, they do care about me. Like, LSU wants me to be there.” And, that’s where I was like, “I’m going to go to LSU.” And, I always am indebted to Graham Bodie for doing that because he, changed my life. Like, going to LSU was a game changer for me, and I always value the relationships with the professors there, like, Renee Edwards and Loretta Pecchioni and Billy Saas and Graham Bodie, like, all of them, like, they’re all incredible.

[00:32:27] Now, Tracy Stephenson Shaffer, like, they’re phenomenal professors. I wouldn’t have made that choice if Graham had not reached out to me and said, “I want you to come here because I care about you as a person.” And, it just made all the difference for me.

[00:32:40] Kristen Wisdorf: This is so kind of, like, perfect timing, right? We’re entering the school year, students all across the country are going to be looking for where they’re going to take either internship or full-time job when they graduate, and those moments and experiences they have with the people at the company, it’s not like “I’m going to go work for this company,”

[00:32:59] it’s, “I’m going to go work for this person or these people, after graduation, or with this team.” I think that is the such a great example of how pivotal people can be in other people’s lives and that who you decide to go work for or go to school with really has a lasting impact. And so it’s something that a lot of the students listeners can definitely take away from this,

[00:33:24] and, the folks who have already graduated and are in their jobs now can remember that they could potentially be that person for someone else someday. 

[00:33:32] Brock Adams: No. Absolutely. Yeah. They can be that mentor that helps bring, and I hope that I can, one day return the favor, not to Graham, but to, like, the cliche “Pay it forward.” Right? Can I help my students, say, “Here’s a good place for you to work? I know these people, I know that the foundation in that company.” We have partners all the time, whether they’re a partner with our university, that’s like, “I know that if you go there, you’re going to have a great relationship and network with them that will springboard you to greater things in your career.”

[00:33:58] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah. Well, speaking of relationships and the experiences you kind of kicked off or jumpstarted your professional career

[00:34:05] selling education, you said, I think you said your father was also a teacher and in sales, and so how appropriate that you’re now a professor of sales, and it’s kind of, you know, you started your career that way. And, I imagine you sell your sales program and you teach sales,

[00:34:21] what are the, I guess, biggest pieces of advice that you give your students nowadays, or what are things that you tell them that no one told you about sales? 

[00:34:31] Brock Adams: So, like, here’s the things that I wish I would’ve known when I was starting, you know, I want to go, well, and the funny thing is, like, and I think Libby, you can attest to this as well, like, when I was going to school, I was like, “No, I’m going to be the next Quentin Tarantino.” I fell in love with, I watched Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and then Kill Bill came out when I was writing for a newspaper,

[00:34:51] and so I was like, “No, like I did the film reviews of that,” and I, that’s when I had this, and I am obsessed with cinema, like, my students were like, “There’s one thing we know about Brock. He loves his kids, and man, he like, he watches a lot of movies.” Like, that, that was what my, that was what my track was. So, like, I didn’t have this,

[00:35:07] I wasn’t thinking that I’m going to be teaching sales. I was like, “No, I’m going to be behind the camera, making films.” Like, my senior capstone, I made an 11-minute movie about basketball, like, that was what my passion was. So, not saying that I don’t have these words of wisdom, but, like, my course of action was like, “No, I’m going to go to Hollywood,”

[00:35:25] I was like, “Nah, you’re not.” But I think the advice that I give my students, obviously what we just talked about, the relationships, but I think another one that I talked to them about, well, two things that kind of goes hand in hand is, one, I tell them, like, “You have to be adaptable in the sense of, like, when you go into a, a sale, you can’t have an expectation as far as, “This is how it will go.””

[00:35:46] So, I work as the advisor for the PSSA, the Professional Sales Student Association, we go out and we do these sales competitions all over the country, like, there’s regional ones, local ones, national ones. It’s a huge hub, like, a lot of companies are buying into this. And so we go into this and I say, “Look, you’ve got a game plan for what this situation will be like, but you also have to be adaptable to the customer.

[00:36:04] You can’t go in and say, “This is how things will play out. I will go in and I will get this deal done, and they will say this, and I will say this, we’ll shake hands and deal will be done in seven minutes.” It’s not true.” I had an experience, we were trying to get a partnership with a company and I walked in and I said, and one of our faculty was like, “Oh, it’s a done deal.”

[00:36:19] Like, she wouldn’t talk to me. And, she said, “We have a long relationship with them. You’re going to go in. It’s a formality.” Right? So, I go into this thinking, “I’m just going to go and shake the guy’s hand, talk about football and get the deal done.” I go in there and it’s like, “Hey, you know, we’d love to have you be on,”

[00:36:32] and his son came in and he was like, “We don’t want to do this.” And, for that moment, it threw me off ’cause I had to be adaptable as like, “Okay, well, my expectation of, “This is a done deal,” that’s not gonna happen.” So, we talked for 90 minutes. I had to answer objections, I’m like, “Where was this going?” Like, I thought this was in and out,

[00:36:47] I’ve got other plans. No, we talked for 90 minutes. So, I always tell that story being you’ve gotta be adaptable. If you go in thinking, “This is how things will work,” and if they don’t work out that way, you just have this flight of the panic. Like, you can’t have that,

[00:36:58] you’ve got to be adaptable and understand, like you’re going to get objections you’re never going to think of, and if you’re able to be adaptable to those, that will help you become a better sales rep. So, that’s one of the things. The other one that kind of goes along with this is, I always tell my students, “You need to be uncomfortable.”

[00:37:13] And, students kind of get this idea of like, “What’s my comfort zone?” And, this sounds cliche, right? Like, every great leader and they always say like, “Push out of your comfort zone.” Everyone always talks about that cliche phrase, but the bottom line is it’s true. Like, you students can’t think, I said, “You,” I always tell them, “Get out of Utah. Go somewhere else.

[00:37:31] Like, move out of this place.” And, they’re like, “Well, it’s difficult.” Well, yeah, of course it’s difficult. That’s what life is like. If you think you’re going to stay in your comfort zone and have a successful life, that’s not how it’s going to work. Like, so I always tell them, “Get uncomfortable, always be uncomfortable yourself so that you can be adaptable and you can deal with those objections and deal with

[00:37:51] those stuff that comes up that you do not expect at all.” So, I’m always pushing my students to be uncomfortable. So, like, these kids that are taking our PSSA, it’s uncomfortable for them to go to these competitions and talk to reps from Gardner and Qualtrics and big companies, and they’re like, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

[00:38:07] It’s like, “Yeah, this is going to push you to be a better sales rep. The more uncomfortable you get, then you’re like, “Oh, I can do this,” and you gain competence.” So, those things, I really kind of push in my students. Being adaptable, don’t have this preconceived motion in your mind, like, “What’s going to happen?” and then be uncomfortable. Because if you’re not, if you’re just settling and being comfortable where you’re at, you’re not going to grow as a sales rep nor as an individual.

[00:38:30] Libby Galatis: That’s a very interesting point, and it’s kind of an ambiguous piece of advice, “Be adaptable,” right? Expect the unexpected. And, I think that that’s a big hesitation for a lot of students or recent grads that I’ve spoken to when it comes to their hesitancy towards sales. It’s just that, that discomfort.

[00:38:46] So, can you expand a little bit, when you say, be adaptable, there’s obviously going to be levels of uncertainty and uncontrollables that they just need to be prepared to tackle. What would be some of the controllables that would allow somebody to feel confident in that situation where they need to be adaptable? What can they control or be confident in order to be able to adjust and roll with the punches?

[00:39:08] Brock Adams: So, like, what can they control? Like, there’s the line, like, “You can only control yourself,” in that sense, like. And, I guess, are you, are you asking what do they have control of in a given situation, like, in a situation, is that what you’re kind of saying?

[00:39:21] Libby Galatis: Yes. So, like, in any conversation, you can’t control what the other individual is going to do, but how do you get confident in the position of that unexpected situation? Or, what are you in control of? And, everyone is able to kind of gain that control of themselves, I think a lot of people feel like they can’t, but they’re just missing that perspective,

[00:39:39] like, what can a student or an individual or sales professional control in order to be confident with the unexpected?

[00:39:46] Brock Adams: Yeah, I get what you’re saying. I think, we were talking about this yesterday in class ’cause we’re doing a competition about two weeks, and one thing I always tell them, I say, “You’ve got to dig deep as you can, as far as knowledge is concerned.” Right? So, like, when you do these case studies and the students come in and they have, they give you a case and they say, “Here’s the company,”

[00:40:04] and a lot of these times the kids have never heard of these companies before. Right? It’s like, “Oh, I’m selling HORMEL Chicken.” Like, “This isn’t their bread and butter.” Like, they’re not going into that, right? Knowing everything there is to know about those. They have the rubric, they have the case study, and from that point on, it’s just about

[00:40:19] how much can they pull, like, what, kind of knowledge can they pull? And, the best teams that always win are the ones that don’t just look at the rubric, and don’t just look at the case study, they dig deep. Right? And, that’s something that they can control, like, going back and saying, “I’m going to research this company, know the ins and outs of this company.

[00:40:36] I am going to know as much as I possibly can so that if I’m in a situation, objection comes up, I’m not just going to say, ‘Well, let me talk to my manager about that.'” Right? I always tell my students, “Get as much knowledge as you can.” My grandfather, he is the, probably the most influential person in my life,

[00:40:54] one of the things I always am grateful for what he taught me growing up was, every day he would be like, he would ask me a question. He’d be like, I was five years old, right? He’d be like, “What did you learn today? What were you learning?” And, my grandpa, like, he was a military colonel, very intelligent man,

[00:41:08] I respected everything about who he was, but he would always bring up the line, like, “What did you learn more today?” And, we would talk about all sorts of stuff, like encyclopedia things, and why is Texaco called Texaco, like, we had a gas station from our road, right? And, my grandpa was always like, “What are you learning today?

[00:41:22] Like, how much knowledge are you acquiring?” And, it, like, I think that goes back to what he was able to control in his life, being in the air force, and I always tell my students that, “You’re going to get, you’re going to be given these case studies, that’s something that everybody is uniformed for, for the teams. But what you can control is

[00:41:38] how much knowledge are you digging deeper that one objection comes out you’re not like, “Ah, I’m freezing like a deer in the headlights.” You’re like, “Oh, no. Based off of my research in your company, I know that the, you do this and you’re able to pull figures.” I said, “That will give you more, it’s going to give you more leverage in the cell than anything.

[00:41:54] Having that knowledge on your side, you’re able to just pull out and not be caught like a deer in the headlights.” Like, “I don’t know what to say now because I only did the bare minimum research on this.” So, I think that knowledge is something that’s, it’s an untapped reservoir that a lot of students really should look for,

[00:42:09] like, getting as much knowledge as they can in everything.

[00:42:12] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, that’s a perfect segue because the next question we have is our student-of-the-game question. So, Brock, how do you personally stay fresh in either sales or communication? What do you do to continue to soak up knowledge for yourself, so you can pass that on to your sales students? 

[00:42:32] Brock Adams: I I browse Reddit for about six hours a day now. 

[00:42:36] Kristen Wisdorf: Good source. 

[00:42:37] Brock Adams: Yeah. Great. No, great source of information. Ah, I don’t know if I have, like, this is my go-to wishing, well, I don’t know if I have that in a sense of what my student of the game is. We all have our passions and things that we’re subjectively biased towards, right?

[00:42:52] Like, again, if I go to film, it’s like, all I can just zone on for, or drone on for days and days about that, but if I talk about something I’m not interested in, maybe it doesn’t clue me in, I think I would, I want to say my playbook or, like, my source of information, I just always want to know, and this goes back to when my grandpa taught me, I just always want to know more.

[00:43:07] Right? Like, my buddy, he’s an economics professor at Utah State, and when we became friends, he was teaching at LSU, and I know nothing about economics, like, it’s not my thing, right? And, I remember when we were down there and he’s like, “Hey, I think you should read this book called ‘Naked Economics.'”

[00:43:20] Like, “Really?” And, it goes along with, there’s, like, a three-book series, like, “Naked Statistics,” and he’s like, “I really think you should read this.” And, I was like, “Oh, okay.” Like, I don’t care about this at all. Like, I care more about public speaking and interpersonal communications relationships and film by the way.

[00:43:32] And, I was like, “I’m not going to care about this book.” And, he’s like, “No, I think we really should.” And, his perspective on life is completely different. Like, he is in health economics, he’s a researcher there, he’s phenomenal, very published, well-decorative at Utah State. And, I remember reading that book,

[00:43:47] I was like, “Oh, this is really interesting.” And again, this goes back to the eyes, like, this is getting out of my comfort zone. I’m never going to become an economics professor, but knowing more about economics has helped me carry on conversations and have discussions about this with him, and it’s strengthened my relationship with him.

[00:44:02] And, I think this happens, I’ll talk to people from other faculty members, from other departments in our campus, other colleges, and I just always want to know, like, “What’s your perspective? Like, I want to hear what you have to say. Like, I want to hear your knowledge.” And again, goes back to relationship building because there’s things and perspectives and ideas that they can bring,

[00:44:18] It’s like, “Oh, I want to hear more about this.” And, I’m not saying that my, me reading Naked Economics is going to be, that’s how my bread and butter for becoming a better sales rep, and then we talk more, he’s like, “I think you really should read the book “Range.” You know, why generalists triumph the world.” And, it’s a phenomenal book,

[00:44:32] and I wouldn’t have read that had we not talked about this and kind of have their own little book club. And so I think taking the advice and just listening to other people who were outside of your sphere, right, outside of your, “This is my box. This is only who I talk to. I’m specialized in this area and that’s where I’m just going to stay.”

[00:44:49] It’s like, no, I think when we talk to other people and listen to other people who have a variety of different backgrounds, like, that’s where we can really broaden it and kind of diversify who we are, not as salespeople, would enlight in general.

[00:45:01] Libby Galatis: I think, in learning about your story and your experience and your upbringing, you really fit the mold as far as the traditional salesperson. You have a lot of the key qualities that at least I look for as a sales recruiter, being competitive, being able to tackle those uncomfortable situations, being naturally very curious, and I’m sure in your experience teaching, you’ve worked with and taught those non-traditional sales students as well.

[00:45:23] So, I’m curious, do you think that there are specific qualities that every good salesperson has, and if so, what are some of those qualities?

[00:45:33] Brock Adams: Well, we talk about this, what makes the cookie-cutter sales person, like, what are the best personality traits, like, we teach personality profiles, and everyone’s always trying to figure out this, like, “What is the perfect sales person?” Right? Like, “Are you more introverted or extroverted?”

[00:45:46] It’s like, well, that’s just garbage. There’s no research that shows that one, if you’re more prone to be a better sales rep. Like, it wasn’t a Bill Steiger on your podcast, he’s like, “I’m an introvert.” Like, “I am total introvert,” is like, well, yeah, as you can talk, does not mean that you can be a good salesperson.

[00:46:00] Right? So, I think that there’s not, like, this personality profile, like, if you hit this, I remember when I sold, my very first summer selling pest control, they had me do this, I think it was the MMPI personality index, and my manager, Ben, came back and he’s like, “Oh, Brock, did you know that your personality, you are bred for this?”

[00:46:19] Like, in my mind, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I have like biological tendencies to be a better salesperson?” It’s like, no, it’s not true, but I’m not saying it was warped into this, but I was like, I had that idea that, like, this was the one way to be a sales person, right? And, like, you have to have a dad who sells and was an educator, to become a true salesperson.

[00:46:37] I don’t think that is there because I think everyone’s past different. I mean, when you look at, like, some experiences with sales, like, if you look at, like, the big five personality profile scale, like, people who have, but it’s more for leadership though, like, people who have higher e-scores are prone to more be, like, you’re more likely to be a better leader, in that sense,

[00:46:53] and sometimes businesses look at that as a reference point. So, I don’t know if there’s like this copy-and-paste template that students have to follow to, to be like, “This will make you the best sales person, if you do this, this and this.” I mean, I think that consumption of knowledge, like, knowing what personalized profiles are, and, like, knowing how to have conversations. And, Libby, you being a COM major, do you think this is missed in the world today,

[00:47:18] like, how to have a conversation? Do you think we’re kind of getting away from that in the world today?

[00:47:24] Libby Galatis: I mean, in my experience, maybe with certain students that I talked to, but I found that, I mean, most are very curious, so guess, a follow-up question would be like, what specifically, like, what frame of reference are you coming from asking that question?

[00:47:37] Brock Adams: So, the idea that social media and, like, asynchronous communication has killed the idea of how to have a conversation. Like, it gives me, I think 

[00:47:44] Kristen Wisdorf: Like a 

[00:47:44] dialogue, 

[00:47:45] Brock Adams: Yeah. Like, the foundation of sales is literally just a conversation between two people. And, that’s what a lot of people are discussing with the advent of technology,

[00:47:54] and, like, there’s a competition going, it’s called “Rainmakers” and there’s literally, you’re having a conversation with an avatar. Right? 

[00:47:59] Libby Galatis: Well, I think to your point, in my experience recruiting for entry-level salespeople, especially, there’s this, it’s called ‘call avoidance.’ We don’t want to get on the phone and actually call a prospect, right? We want to send them an email, or now text messaging is like a really big thing, and, and this fear of engaging in that back and forth and having that level of uncertainty that we were just talking about is very anxiety-inducing. But to watch individuals kind of tackle that head on, maybe not necessarily because they want to, starting, I mean, who wants to do entry-level cold calling forever, right?

[00:48:29] But you have to get through those first few calls, and to watch the representatives kind of grow and develop from those initial days, to even like five, six weeks into the position, it’s like night and day. So, I think, yes it is, but it’s easy to get into once you just kind of tackle it head on and,

[00:48:47] like, you were saying before, just get comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s unfamiliar territory for most, but I think it’s easy to get in the motions for most people, once they’re able to actually get into that role and experience it.

[00:48:59] Brock Adams: Yeah. Go ahead. I’m sorry, Kristen.

[00:49:01] Kristen Wisdorf: No. I think we all know scarcity creates value, and so if we’re, society is moving in this direction where we’re so used to texting or scrolling versus actually, like, talking and communicating, that the people who are interested in getting into sales and taking sales classes in college, or starting with a sales career, I think it’s even more valuable and even more exciting that you said,

[00:49:24] and I agree with you that there’s no cookie-cutter perfect sales person, out there on paper, because if you’re willing to try and you’re willing to have conversations, you have a bright and a very robust future ahead of you given that a lot of people are moving away from those types of communication and dialogue these days. 

[00:49:43] Brock Adams: Yeah, for sure. The communication dialogue, when you talk about the phone anxiety, right? Like, it’s, I think of, like, the anxiety I had as getting ready to go to Colorado, the summer before I went in my freshman year of college, I had two jobs. So, I worked from 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM at a fruit stand,

[00:49:59] sold watermelons and sweetcorn. Yeah, again, kids are like, “What’s a fruit stand?” So, like, “Yeah, I know, this is way back in the day.” And then I took a half-hour break and then I drove to a telemarketing company and I was selling AT&T long distance phone plans. And again, students are going to be like, “What is a long distance phone plan?”

[00:50:16] I know, it’s like, “Yeah, back in the day,” and I was, like, only 36, but it’s like, “Back in the day, kids, we had what are called rotaries.” No, but we, I would sell, like, I was a telemarketer selling long distance phone plans for AT&T, and I remember the anxiety I had when the robocall would generate and it would pull up on the screen and the green numbers and, or the green lettering,

[00:50:36] so, like, that, it’s like, “You’re calling X person,” and I’m like, “Okay, please, don’t pick up, please don’t pick up.” Can you just get a voicemail. And, I’m like, as an 18-year-old kid, I’m, like, panicked, and it’s like, and then that was before, like, technology completely took over and we’re in this world of, like, we get anxiety seeing if the bubbles pop up on our phone, right?

[00:50:54] On a text message, like, “What are they saying? What are they thinking? Are they unsure what they’re going to say? It’s taking too long.” Like, there’s that anxiety with that asynchronous communication. Then, like, emails, you send an email, they don’t respond immediately, “Well, what are they thinking about?

[00:51:05] Why aren’t they responding back to me?” And, that anxiety is there, so I can only imagine how kids feel that today, when I was feeling that 20 years ago, sitting in this, um, in this cubicle selling AT&T long distance phone plans, I was like, “Please don’t pick up, please. I just want to sit here in silence.”

[00:51:21] Kristen Wisdorf: The more things change, the more they stay the same though, right? 

[00:51:23] Like, we have new hire classes every other week, and we just had a new class start on Monday and guarantee they’re all thinking, “Please don’t pick up the phone, please don’t pick up the phone,” in their first week, so it’s very relatable for new sales reps out there, every. 

[00:51:38] Brock Adams: Yeah. Door-to-door sales too, it’s like, I’d knock on doors, I would say the prime point of knocking doors was really from, like, noon to three because no one would ever pick up the, enter the door. Here, not prime point, like, we were making the most sales, but you’re like, “This is the three hours when I get to talk to the least amount of people,” granted I’m in a hundred-degree weather in Albuquerque, New Mexico, but it’s like, “I don’t have to talk to them.

[00:51:58] I can be fine here in my bubble.” Right?

[00:52:01] Kristen Wisdorf: Yup. Oh man. Well, Brock this has been amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. We just have a couple quick questions to wrap up with. If you could, say that you had a superpower, what do you think your personal superpower is? 

[00:52:19] Brock Adams: If had a super power, wow, now we’re going down this rabbit hole of, like, “What do you mean?” So, you’re saying like, if I could fly, I’d fly, or are you 

[00:52:28] saying my superpower? 

[00:52:30] Kristen Wisdorf: No, like, what do you actually, 

[00:52:30] what is thing? 

[00:52:32] Brock Adams: My thing is think I already know what my students are going to say. They’re going to be like, “Your super power is referencing way too many pop culture references and how they relate to the real world.”

[00:52:46] And, I’m like, ” God, that’s again, not a superpower.” This is not something that’s like, “Oh, I’m really happy.” So, like, for example, and again, this is what the students will listen to this book, “Where is this guy going?” We were talking about this, we got this file from our printing office, right,

[00:52:59] where this is, yesterday in our office and it was these notepads. You could tell that they were like the people that delivered them to us, we’re like cheap knockoffs, so it was almost like this was the copy of a copy, and that’s why they look, the digital copy was, like, really bad. I was like, “Oh, why are we paying for, like, a low budget?”

[00:53:15] Like, “This is just a clone-of-a-clone kind of thing.” Right? That’s what I said. I was like, “Yeah, we’re, like, Michael Keaton’s referenced in “Multiplicity.”” The advisal expert’s like, “What are you talking about?” I was like, “Multiplicity, Michael Keaton, ’98, ’99, when he’s made a clone and then make a clone of him and yeah,” and she’s like, “What are you talking?”

[00:53:29] I was like, “Nevermind, I’m just going to shut up now.” 

[00:53:31] Kristen Wisdorf: I had 

[00:53:31] a 

[00:53:32] feeling it would come back to movies. 

[00:53:34] Brock Adams: Well, I know, that’s what I’m saying. So, you say like, “What’s your super power?” I’d be like, “My super power is probably,” and I can, I don’t know if this is a super power, my super power is probably, like, if somebody gives me a scenario, I can dig through the archives of my mind and be like, “There’s a movie or a TV series or a reference that they’d be like, “You watch way too much TV,”” that probably other, they’re not going to know, but I’m just going to be, I’m going to reference that because I watched a lot of movies until films and that’s my superpower.

[00:53:59] It’s like, I can reference a 1978 movie and tie it into the conversation. That’s really my super power. 

[00:54:06] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s a good one and it is quite unique. 

[00:54:08] And, our last question, if you could have a billboard anywhere in the world, where would it be and what would it say? 

[00:54:15] Brock Adams: I honestly, like, the billboard I would put up would be for our institution, so Weber State, we’re one of the founding fathers of the professional sells industry, in the sense of our program’s been around since 1968, 1 of the oldest things in our country.

[00:54:28] We’re one of the only schools that has a sales lab, online courses, especially, or you have a CRM internship opportunity. We have one of the highest faculty rates, we have 12 faculty members and we have a 99% graduation rate. We have one of the largest departments in the entire country. We have about 550 students at our department at any given time. We graduate 120 every year.

[00:54:47] And so if I were to make a billboard, it would be advocating for this department. I know that you’re saying like, “Oh, that’s so cliche, you’re putting in a kick for your department.” No, It’s the bottom line, like, Weber State is phenomenal. What we offer here, it’s one of the best universities in the West,

[00:55:02] we actually, there’s a study that came out at sustainer.com, ranked as number one sales department in the entire country. And, this is after Texas A&M, Ball State, Purdue, Kennesaw, K-State, they’re all on this. We were saved for best. We can, we have incredible tuition rates, incredible faculty experiences, incredible networking, job placements,

[00:55:17] so if I were to put a billboard out for this, it’d probably be advocating for this. ‘Cause, and I know I talked about how much I loved, like, the greatest job I ever had was with those five people, there was all those people that I worked at, at my undergrad. The opportunities that our department provide for our students,

[00:55:34] it’s second to none. Like, it cannot be matched, it is one of the best, if not the best departments in the country. And, a lot of this was put forth by, like, pioneers in our department, so, like, Steven Eichmeier, Vel Casler, Dan Litchford, Desiree Cooper Larsen, like, all of these pioneers that help bring forth our department,

[00:55:51] that’s why we’re so good today. Those people, those relationships, so I would probably put advocate for those people and say, “This is what they have built. This is the billboard advertising for our department and why students should attend here because the experience they’ll have cannot be, it’s, they’re unmatched.”

[00:56:06] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s amazing. And, we are the beneficiaries of that. We’re very lucky as are a number of other companies to, that people like you and programs like Weber State exists, to kind of create the future of sales professionals. So, we appreciate your stories and your time today. Thank you so much. 

[00:56:23] Brock Adams: Yeah, thank you. It’s good to be here. Appreciating you.