Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Campus Series: Chuck Howlett – Be a Partner, Not a Vendor

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Chuck Howlett

What he does: Chuck is the Director of the Professional Sales Center at Northern Illinois University.

Company: Northern Illinois University

Noteworthy: Chuck thought he wanted to become a veterinarian, but life had different plans for him. He entered sales, and before becoming a professor at NIU, he spent over 30 years working at Eli Lilly and Company.

Where to find Chuck: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡ Company culture matters. People no longer look for one company to spend their entire career at. Still, regardless of how long you want to be at a specific organization, it is critical to find a place where you feel valued and resonate with the culture they promote. That’s something Chuck teaches his students. ”I’m trying to get them to make a decision that it’s not six months or 12 months; it’s a career. But what I’m trying to tell them is to find someplace that fits your values and grow within that system. If you’ve got people that are supporting you and you enjoy your job, and everything is going well, life happens, and everything is solid the whole time through.”

⚡ You must know your product. The misconception among salespeople is that they just want to sell you something even if you don’t need it. But, the reality is different. Companies across various industries aim to build long-term relationships with customers. They don’t want to be another vendor. However, you must know how to represent your company and its offering. Otherwise, you risk being perceived as unprofessional. “You’ve got to know your product, and if you’re there and can’t represent your product, you don’t need to be there. […] You’ve gotta understand this thing. Do different role-plays, challenge yourself, and get those things. So you’re delivering information that has value and is truthful to a customer.”

⚡ Learn from the experts. In the past 10-15 years, sales has changed enormously. Today, anyone interested in the field can get a formal education and a sales degree. Still, the best way to upgrade your learning and gain experience is to have a mentor. “Look at the people that are successful in your community and what they do […] because if you meet one person, they’re going to open the doors to two or three other people. And whether you call it pyramid-hopping or whatever, try to get that exposure if it’s something that you want to do.”

Episode Highlights

Here and Now

“Everybody wants the next thing and to keep looking ahead to what’s next. My mom would always say, ‘Stop and smell the roses along the way.’ And I laughed at her when I was younger, but now, at my age, I understand that you have to enjoy what you’re doing.

You have to enjoy the people you’re with. Everybody has situations and problems. If you can help them find out what their problem is and help solve it — we’re all better as humans trying to help each other versus arguing about something that may in the long term not make as much difference.”

A Good Salesperson Is a Partner, Not a Vendor

“Everybody thinks that a salesperson is just somebody that’s out there trying to sell you something you don’t need. Those people are probably out there, but I don’t spend time with them.

I would rather understand how I can help that person and have a long-term partnership or a long-term relationship, and be a problem solver and a partner moving forward versus a one-and-done thing.”

A Piece of Advice on How to Approach Customers

“Instead of thinking that we’re trying to do something to a customer, it’s doing [something] for the customer and having that conversation and making it a win-win. I would be the first one to say that if my product doesn’t fit you, I don’t want you to buy it.

It doesn’t make sense because we all buy things, come back home, have buyer’s remorse, and say that that’s not the right thing. […] Let’s talk about how, as humans, trying to figure out the best way to solve this and make it work for both of us is the best way to go through with it.”

Transcript:

[00:01:15] Kristen Wisdorf: Today we are very excited to have the Director for the Sales Center at Northern Illinois, Chuck Howlet.

[00:01:21] Welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:23] Chuck Howlett: Thank you very much for having me, Kristen.

[00:01:24] Kristen Wisdorf: We are very excited to have you, you know, both Madisson and I are from the Upper Midwest, so we like it when we can get someone from the Midwest on the podcast. Very excited to speak with you.

[00:01:34] Chuck Howlett: It’s fun to have you here, but, you know, right now it’s middle of winter and I don’t see cargo. So, we got to work on that. We have to get you back into the Midwest.

[00:01:41] Kristen Wisdorf: We do. Yes. I have become a bit of a winter baby since I left, but so, Chuck, we like to start all of these episodes the same way. It’s actually the same way we start all of our interviews with college students interviewing for our SDR role, and that is, Chuck, can you give us your 60-second highlight real overview?

[00:02:01] Tell us about yourself.

[00:02:03] Chuck Howlett: Sure, 60 seconds for a guy my age might be difficult, but I’ll try. I’m a farm kid from Iowa, grew up in the Midwest in the cold and snow, went to Iowa State University, going to be a veterinarian, that didn’t work real well with chemistry so I ended up getting in the business world, had a few jobs, one selling herbicides in North Dakota, South Dakota, moved to Indianapolis, moved into the parent company with Eli Lilly and Company,

[00:02:25] and then did sales throughout my career of 33 years with the company landing to a point of early retirement and which said, sounds fantastic, and my wife said, “You can retire as long as you’re gone Monday to Friday, eight to five,” and I had a chance to go to Northern, I’ve been recruited there and I’ve been blessed with the interaction with the students over the last nine years.

[00:02:43] Really learning more than probably I’m teaching, but a great dynamic of helping them get into their sales careers.

[00:02:49] Kristen Wisdorf: I love that. Okay. So, like most people you got into sales even though it wasn’t your original plan, and I think a lot of people end up in sales, at least 5, 10 years ago or more. Nowadays people like you are obviously making it more of a reality for people out of college to go into sales and prepare for it. But, talk to us a little bit about that.

[00:03:09] Go back to when you graduated and you got into your first sales job and how it happened. Tell us that story.

[00:03:16] Chuck Howlett: So, I would obviously at Iowa State, I did an internship where I sold herbicides, a company called Elanco, that’s actually stood for Eli Lilly and Company.

[00:03:24] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh.

[00:03:25] Chuck Howlett: So, I grew up on a farm. So, it was really going back into my roots and going and talking and talking to chemical dealers, co-op oils, elevators, and a lot of the folks, the customers that I talked to were my dad’s age,

[00:03:36] so I had a chance to learn a little bit about their agriculture system in the Dakotas, but then more importantly, try to help them with a situation they had and help solve their problems. And it became one of those things, and my first time, I think it was my first six months on the job I’m working North Dakota and a farmer had a complaint and I said, “I’ll be right out.”

[00:03:53] So, I go out and walk his fields and I said, “You know, I’m a single guy I’m going to, I’m going to stay out until it’s dark and then I’ll go do something. We’ll come to find out.” I’m walking his field in North Dakota, it’s 10 o’clock at night, I had no idea what time it was ’cause it’s light up there all summer.

[00:04:05] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah.

[00:04:06] Chuck Howlett: I already a reputation that, “Hey, call this guy, he’ll be out to help us out.” So, that was one of the positives that I had.

[00:04:12] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s exciting. Okay. So, you worked for a company that ultimately was Eli Lilly and you ended up spending 33 years with them for your career? That is incredible. What were some of the most surprising things when you started your sales career and as you transitioned, I mean, I’m sure the company, I’m sure your role.

[00:04:32] I’m sure sales changed a lot over that time?

[00:04:35] Chuck Howlett: Yeah. ‘Cause I, you know, grew up in the farm. I knew that, with my family, I was not going to go back and be a farmer because I was the youngest of four kids. So, going in to school, I knew I was going to have to find something to do, and it kind of, one of those things, you kinda fell into it, you enjoy the people you were with, you enjoyed what you were doing,

[00:04:52] and when I started working in the Dakotas, I got a chance to wear a beard as a young kid, so I felt like I was pretty, pretty cool, but more importantly than, I got to meet some of the upper management people, and just did your job, you know? So, I’m looking at my sales kids now, it’s like, just do your job, what you’re expected to do and there’s good things happen,

[00:05:08] and don’t worry about this happening in six months from now or a year from now. And I got that, I got some opportunities. One job led to another, inside marketing to outside, to a little bit of market research and all opportunities to interact with different types of customers.

[00:05:22] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, I love what you just said. Just do your job. Good things will happen. Don’t worry about six months, a year from now. I say that all the time, especially, you know, I think the first couple jobs or years out of college students are obviously, especially sales students, they’re very hungry and they want to see those promotions and they want to see their career develop

[00:05:39] and of course, those are the right people for the job, but I think sometimes they get more focused on what’s next versus really perfecting what they’re doing now and knowing that if you just work really hard, six months from now or a year from now that really good thing will happen. What are your thoughts on, I guess, it’s almost like we want inpatient salespeople, but we also want patients as well?

[00:06:02] Chuck Howlett: That’s a very good question because everybody wants the next thing and you want to keep looking ahead, what’s next, what’s next, and sometimes, my mom always would say, you know, “Stop and smell the roses along the way,” and I always laughed at her when I was younger, but now as I get to be my age, I’m like, “I understand that.” You have to enjoy what you’re doing.

[00:06:18] You have to enjoy the people you’re with. Everybody has situations and problems, and you can, if you can help them find out what their problem is and help solve it, better off, we’re all better as humans try to do that and actually helping each other versus arguing about something that may in the longterm not make as much difference. 

[00:06:33] Madisson DeLisle: Definitely. And I, I’m super curious, I’ve wondered this for awhile, but I don’t know why I haven’t asked anyone. I would love to hear what you think or what your opinion is on why nowadays people aren’t staying in jobs for decades the way it was like when you started. Is that just how the industry is? Do you think it’s more the way generations have been?

[00:06:56] What do you think the big change has been to make that a thing?

[00:07:00] Chuck Howlett: could say yes to all. I mean, I don’t know, it’s just one man’s opinion, but when I went to work for Elanco Lilly, I didn’t really think that I was going to be with any other company. That’s just, my mom and dad, maybe the personal values raised me that way, but my dad was a farmer, and it wasn’t like he was going to change jobs every two years, you know?

[00:07:16] So, it became one of those things. It’s like, you find somebody that you really treat you well and you enjoy your job and it kind of just happened. One thing that I’ve tried to instill in my sales classes and we do a case study in the class that the students are getting ready to graduate in three months, they have three job offers that they’re looking at,

[00:07:34] they’re looking at an inside sales and outside, different salary, different seller types commissions, and they have different dates they have to give back to recruiters about. So, I get them in the group and they talk through which one, and I said, “Oh, by the way, you have one more interview, it’s your dream job.”

[00:07:47] So, before you decide what you want to do, figure out what you want. So, what they’re spending their time on is really thinking, what do they want in a job? Where are their personal values? Do they run up to the highest dollar? Do they go after geography or where family lives? What’s the culture of the company?

[00:08:03] And more that I’ve seen in the last six months is just, the students are looking at companies, there’s some great opportunities right now, especially where the market is, but they’re looking and saying, “I want to go to a place that really has a culture that I want, the philanthropic,” and I’m trying to get them to make a decision that it’s not a 6 month or 12 month, it’s a career and everybody’s brought up differently,

[00:08:23] but what I’m trying to say is find someplace that really fits your values and grow within that system. And to me it’s a lot of stress. If you’ve got people that are supporting you and you enjoy your job and everything is going well, life happens and everything is really, really solid the whole time through.

[00:08:39] I don’t know if that answered your question, but. 

[00:08:41] Madisson DeLisle: Yeah, no, it definitely did. Very similar question from when you first got into sales to now, how has sales itself changed in your perspective? 

[00:08:54] Chuck Howlett: I think when I started compared to now, our buyers are really smart, they have a thing called Internet that they know a lot about the company, they know a lot about the products, and in even us, when we go shopping, I probably 75% know what I want before I even talk to anybody, if I need to talk to anybody.

[00:09:10] So, I think that means that an idea of, you know, I know Barry talked about it from Washington, about everybody thinks a salesperson, that’s just somebody that’s out there trying to sell you something you don’t need. Those people, they’re probably out there, but I don’t spend time with them because I would rather really understand how I can help that person out and have a long-term partnership, a long-term relationship and really be a problem solver and a partner moving forward versus a one-time-and-done kind of thing.

[00:09:34] Kristen Wisdorf: Absolutely. I think those maybe aren’t the type of salespeople who last or stand the test of time. So, that’s really good. Okay. So, you have this amazing career in sales and you started off kind of doing something that you felt comfortable with, right, going and visiting farms, which is kinda nice.

[00:09:51] So. I’m very curious. I’m sure you have a lot of stories over the time, whether it was on a farm or has your career transitioned. I want to hear some of those juicy details, some of those fun stories. So, are there any sales experiences, whether you actually got the deal or not that you look back on and you were like, “Wow, that really taught me a lesson or that still sticks with me all the time later.”

[00:10:14] Chuck Howlett: How long do we have? We got a lot of stories. I would say, one, one of my biggest transitions, I said I was going to be a veterinarian, I started selling herbicides, so as I moved in my career, I ended up getting in the pharmaceutical business. So, the agriculture market, when I was there had an overabundance of managers,

[00:10:29] so there’s no opportunities for me, so I moved to the pharmaceutical side. All sounds good. I felt like I was relatively smart, but the idea of going from selling herbicides to farmers versus selling a drug, a medicine, a pharmaceutical with some of the most intelligent people in the world and physicians,

[00:10:45] it was a little intimidating. So, my biggest challenge that I had was product knowledge. It’s like, what do these products do? How do they work in a system? And Madisson, how they work in you versus Kristen? May be completely different. You don’t know. So, I’m booking this thing and I’ve got, trying to figure this thing out,

[00:11:00] I figured I’ve got it all covered after the sales training, so I’m now the smartest person ever made. I get into my first office, and here’s where the story is, the opportunity is. The doctor looks at me and I’ve got my manager with me and he says, “Tell me a little about your product versus another product,”

[00:11:14] and I’m looking at him and I’m like, ” I have no idea what the answer is, but it’s on page 30, one of the training module, left side, bottom paragraph, I highlighted it 16 times so I wouldn’t forget it.” We laughed and I’m starting to sweat. And they said, “Okay, well, what about the product compared to another antibiotic that we were selling?”

[00:11:29] And I’m like, ” That’s on page 32 and bottom of the right side there as well. Let me get back to you. I know I can get back to you,” but the idea of thinking, you know it, and I’m putting you into that really kind of information really resonated with me that you got to know your product and if you’re not there and you can’t represent your product, you don’t need to be there.

[00:11:46] My boss, I asked him, I said, “How come you didn’t jump in and help me in this? Because I knew, I didn’t know it.” He said, “That’s the way you learn,” which I might’ve disagreed with because that would at least help me coach through it, but yeah, it really resonated with me, like, you got to understand this thing, test yourself, do different role-plays, challenge yourself and get those things,

[00:12:04] so you’re delivering information to a customer that has value and is truthful.

[00:12:08] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, that is a good story, and obviously, while it probably didn’t feel good at the time, it has stuck with you, and I’m sure you teach your students that nowadays as well. So, it’s interesting, you know, we have a lot of, we hire into high tech and we’re talking enterprise-level technology and a lot of, you know, our students who come here right after college, they are really worried about not knowing all of the nitty gritty and the details about the technology, which is very interesting,

[00:12:35] right? You know, sitting across from that physician, you’re not a physician, you’re never going to be a physician, and our sales reps know sitting across from a chief technology officer that they’re not a chief technology officer. So, how do you, like, balance, especially educating sales folks? How do you balance, you know, knowing your product inside and out and being confident and ready, but also knowing that you’re talking about things that maybe you didn’t go to school for?

[00:13:00] Chuck Howlett: I think that’s a good question. I think, what I learned from the physician interaction is I need to know my product better than the doctor did in this case. She has all these other products and they know lots about all of these, but I need to be the specialist in my specific product and be aware of the other products, but I need to be that specialist. On the second side of that question was more, it’s ok not to know, and if you don’t know, find out and get back to them. I think there’s a lot of industry trends I saw on the pharmaceutical that people would say, “Yeah, I’ll follow up with you next week or next Tuesday,” or whatever. I don’t know what the percentage is, but 70, 80% never followed back up,

[00:13:35] so that small number of just showing up, the 20% that show up, suddenly you have credibility because you’re trying to help business to be able to move from that regard.

[00:13:43] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s so absolutely true, and the honesty too, of being honest and vulnerable, “I don’t know, but I’ll get back to you.” So, is there a sales transaction and actual sales win, a deal that you did that you are most proud of in your career overall that time?

[00:14:00] Chuck Howlett: Yeah, the one that sticks out to me, that again, I was in the pharmaceutical business so I ended up moving into manager roles and I have to move to the Birmingham, Alabama, and I was the manager in charge of a Managed Medicaid. So, when TennCare came into place back in the, I think it was probably in the eighties, nineties.

[00:14:16] So all the managed care organizations moved into this Medicaid and nobody knew anything. Everybody was trying to figure it out, and I was fortunate to be in a spot where I became one of the experts as far as the Medicaid in Tennessee, because I called on all these MCOs around the state and I became a specialist in this.

[00:14:33] And so, they were calling me to say, “Hey, I don’t understand how this works.” So, I was still at the pharmaceutical company, but I was there as a partner to try to make them work. And then to complicate it, a pharmacy benefit manager was in Rhode Island. So, they were taking the pharmacy benefit managers from the State of Tennessee to manage it

[00:14:49] and I’m based out of Indianapolis, so it became all this. But, where it really resonated to me is I could help a lot of people along the way, not only the managed care to share ideas, but also then share with the company saying, “Hey, here’s how this thing is rolling out in the Clinton administration.” And then from the other companies I became the guy that really could

[00:15:07] broker deals a little bit and try to make sure everybody kinda knew, and that was very beneficial to me. In fact, I proposed my company buying one of the pharmacy benefit management companies, and we had everybody in the corporate office with the president of Lilly and it was like, “Wow, this is kind of fun.”

[00:15:21] We didn’t go through with it, but at least that opportunity was really when that I felt like I was really customer-centric and really trying to help the business along the way. 

[00:15:29] Madisson DeLisle: Definitely. And obviously being customer-centric is a huge piece of being successful in a lot of rules that deal with customers, but especially sales. What would you say would be, like, your biggest tip or, like, your golden rule when it comes to dealing with customers and clients in a sales role? What would you say,

[00:15:50] like, the number one thing to remember or do is?

[00:15:52] Chuck Howlett: The other person’s a person, that’s a relationship. I think, instead of thinking we’re trying to do something to a customer, it’s doing for the customer and really having that conversation and making it a win-win. I would be the first one to say that if my product doesn’t fit for you, I don’t want you to buy it.

[00:17:04] That doesn’t make sense for your, because we’ve all bought things and came back and home and had buyer’s remorse and say, “That’s not the right thing,” but I, I would say, going in and usually, especially in the pharmaceutical industry we’re tainted because we’re pharmaceutical people, or you’re tainted because of this, we all have background and baggage

[00:17:20] we bring to it. So, the quicker we can strip that off and become a, just a, “Hey, let’s talk about as humans, try to figure out the best way to solve this and make it work for both of us,” is, in my opinion, the best way to go through with it.

[00:17:30] Kristen Wisdorf: You know, it’s interesting when you were telling your story about how, you know, your most memorable deal, right, and you said you had suggested potentially buying that company and it became a whole conversation, and I think that’s sometimes, young people forget the type of business impact that being in sales and can really have and the foundation that it can take you, it might not always just be getting contracts signed, but it really is a foundation for a career in general.

[00:17:58] What do you think are the biggest, like, misconceptions you’re fighting with young people or students on what sales can do for them or what sales is for career or a role? 

[00:18:11] Chuck Howlett: I think some new salespeople think that sales is the sexy thing. You can earn a lot of money and you don’t have to have a lot of bosses. You just kind of go and sure if you’re creating Facebook or Google or whatever else, that might be it, but the idea of really understanding again, kind of where you go,

[00:18:27] and I think in that situation I described with the Medicaid is the idea of networking with those individuals, because I got to know all these people in that industry and the state of Tennessee and whether it’s tomorrow or a year and a half or three years from now, you’ve got that relationship, that network to be able to better facilitate.

[00:18:44] Now what are, ’cause every, every company changes products, the ones that we had were really good at some point, some of it wasn’t the right fit. I would say this, I would not recommend putting this on the formulary because this is a better fit for you, but I would try to really work that through. And the whole thing is just creating that network of people that you can spend time with a year, 3 years, 10 years, 20 years from now and continue to try to provide them the value for their, in this case, the patient.

[00:19:08] Kristen Wisdorf: Absolutely. Let’s talk a little bit about your sales program and what you’ve done with the sales center. How are you keeping, I guess, sales fresh? You just mentioned, you know, I think, you know, one of the biggest misconceptions now is people’s thought on what sales is and I’m sure five years ago, there were totally different misconceptions on what sales was.

[00:19:27] How do you stay fresh, continue to update and kind of keep sales content relevant? ‘Cause I’m sure that’s what, like you said, customers have more information, they have the Internet, sales and how to sell and how to, even though it’s just talking to people it’s kind of evolved over the last several years especially, what do you do with your students and in your program?

[00:19:49] Chuck Howlett: Let me answer your first question. That was more like, what has changed in five years? Sometimes, I don’t know if it’s changed, because people still think the salesman’s bad, is, he’s a dirty term, and we’re doing things again to people versus working with them. Two things we’ve done at Northern, one is in the process,

[00:20:02] I’ve been working with the college of engineering because here are some very smart technical people and they do technical sales, but they don’t understand necessarily some of the communications, so that one’s ongoing. The one that I’m starting to have some, some really good impact on is, like, a class that we’re doing at the 600 level, the master’s of accounting.

[00:20:19] So, this current semester I’ve got 24 students, all accountants and they’re taking a sales class and the opportunity to them to understand how that all works, the initial thing is like, “Why are you in this class?” “I want to learn communication. I don’t want to be a salesman.” And the more they get through the sales process, understanding the discovery all the way down to

[00:20:38] answering objections and handling problems like this, they get to have a good appreciation for it, then I put them in a role-play. So, I’ve got accountants selling the accountancy program to sponsors and it’s not even a program, but the idea that they know the product, so have that conversation, and when they get done with it, they’re like, “Huh, sales isn’t as hard as I thought it was, or I have another appreciation for it” and understanding the impact that it has on in this case, the accountant world or the revenue stream of that, it’s mind-opening or mind-blowing as far as,

[00:21:09] to see how these things all work. Because any company, you don’t have sales, sometimes you have sales, you have marketing, you have all these components, but you got to draw it all the way, whether it’s enablement or whatever you want to call it is to try and get these guys all work together and for the benefit of the customer.

[00:21:22] So, that’s some of the things I’ve done to try to do that. In the class of undergraduates, there is just the exposure to the corporations like yourself to understand what you guys are doing, what other companies are doing and seeing your sales training programs. When I came into the academic side about nine years ago, I thought there’s only one way to sell because that’s what I’ve been for my career,

[00:21:43] and to see all the different companies, all the different tech worlds or placement firms or enterprise, Adobe, whatever it might be, they all have very similar sales programs, and you may highlight one of the other, but that’s where I get the, continuing to evolve, I was trying to stay fresh and update with people like memoryBlue. 

[00:22:00] Madisson DeLisle: Yeah. And from my understanding from our conversations previously, and I use sales program is if not the oldest, one of the oldest programs in the US, correct? 

[00:22:12] Chuck Howlett: Are you saying I’m the oldest? 

[00:22:13] Madisson DeLisle: No. 

[00:22:13] Chuck Howlett: I just, I believe, and I don’t know a hundred percent accurate on this, but I think Baylor might’ve been one of the first ones back in 1985. And I think NIU was probably the top couple in the late eighties, and stephen Castleberry developed it at that period of time. So, it’s morphed over the last 30, 35, 40 years.

[00:22:30] My gosh, that’s been awhile. 

[00:22:31] Madisson DeLisle: Yeah. So, the reason I ask is, your program does some things that I’ve never seen in the other programs that we’ve worked with previously. One thing in particular is the Sales On Wheels course. I would love for you to kind of explain what that is, and then why that was something that got developed, because it is very unique and interesting. 

[00:22:52] Chuck Howlett: Well, thanks. That was a fun little project. I’ve just come to Northern Illinois and I saw one of the objections a lot of students have was relocation and they didn’t want to get too far out of Chicago or quite frankly, out of the Cal because of family or whatever the scenario may be, and we had two students that turned down jobs, one in Louisville, Kentucky, and one in Milwaukee, because they were far from where they live.

[00:23:12] First of all, Milwaukee is not that far and Louisville is not. So, it’s like, there’s gotta be some kind of discussion we need to have on relocation. So, I threw the idea of out of, why don’t we, could we do something to put them on a bus and just get them to some of these areas and see it?

[00:23:26] And we developed it into a course that I affectionately call Sales On Wheels, but it’s during the intercession, after classes right in the fall and before Christmas, we jumped on the bus on Sunday and we ended up going down through south side of Chicago to Indianapolis and over to St. Louis and back. We traveled about a thousand miles,

[00:23:43] we generally hit about seven or eight companies. So, I take 24 kids on a bus and take them into a corporate environment to have them see what these companies are all about. During that time I focused on, because I’m a dad and I know the kind of questions I get from my daughter, we spend a bit time on personal finance and what’s a budget is, and what’s, how does insurance fit into this whole thing?

[00:24:03] And how do these benefits play when these companies say, “Well, we’ve got medical benefits or we have extra vacation time.” So I tried to, in my mind say, “I want to put you in a situation to be a salesperson for a week. So, we’re going to get up at seven o’clock and have dinner, or excuse me, dinner, have breakfast and then move throughout the day, have a lunch with another customer, finish up with a dinner with somebody,”

[00:24:25] so I kept them up between, for me, from seven to about an eight o’clock, nine o’clock at night. And, of course, as we all are, it’s like, I want to go out and explore these cities. So, usually by Wednesday night mostly everybody is dead-tired, so when people get real tired, you get really emotional, and all of a sudden you see the whole team dynamic change,

[00:24:43] and, “I don’t like you,” and I’ve had tears and everything else, but by Wednesday night, Thursday and into Friday, people come to respect each other. You come to, like, a team does, you have that norming and storming and forming, and at the end of Friday, our biggest customer for this trip was enterprise and they had to present in the boardroom with the CEO, along with all the HR people,

[00:25:03] and they had to present things about what kind of salary types are these? What does life insurance mean? What’s relocation work? So, I put them in a whole scenario over a week to really get an idea of who they are, what they want and just how these companies, that to look at it. My goal was to really help the students understand when they make a decision, like, go to work for you guys,

[00:25:22] understand the benefits, understand what this is and don’t just go into it because seems like a good thing to do. But, I’ve had a terrific time. I’ve been at six years at about 24, so about 125 to 150 students, and that is really like a transformative kind of experience where they learn and they network with all these companies and have a wonderful time of meeting each other.

[00:25:40] So, the kids on the bus, when you’re seven days, 24 hours a day, you get to know each other pretty well.

[00:25:46] Kristen Wisdorf: That is coolest thing and so valuable. It’s one thing to join a sales class or sales program and to have roleplay which is the closest thing to preparing yourself, but to be gone for a week and actually travel with people, have long days, have the stress and the emotion that goes with life after school, it is so, so valuable

[00:26:10] and that’s amazing. You were preparing your students and in more ways than you know, and the personal, finance, benefits, insurance, that’s all stuff like you think back and I’m like, “How come I never learn this? Why did I have to, like, graduate college and have a couple of jobs before I figured out what my 401k really was and how important it was?”

[00:26:27] So.

[00:26:28] Chuck Howlett: Yeah, no, exactly. I ended up going a lot of my friends that had worked with me over the course of my 30-year career and I said, “Hey, would you be willing to come in and spend an hour?” So, it became a lot of my friends, Chuck’s friends along with seven or eight different companies. I will say that it took me probably close to a week to actually get my sleep pattern back after spending time in the field with 24 twenty-year-olds .

[00:26:47] Madisson DeLisle: Yeah, and like Kristen said, it’s super cool. My university, I went to Marquette, didn’t even develop a sales program until a few years after I graduated. So, I didn’t even get the chance to experience any program, but I would love to know how you go about picking where you take the students for these trips? 

[00:27:07] Chuck Howlett: I’m doing it in December. I originally, I’ve only done it to the same location each time. So it, first of all, came with our biggest sponsors. So, we went to the biggest sponsors that are supporting the program. So, this was a chance for them to recruit 24 students during that interim period. So, that’s how it worked,

[00:27:22] and then it became how far can I drive in Chicago in December without getting caught in the storm. So knock on wood, only one time we got hit by ice down by St. Louis. So, that’s kind of how we got there. We have looked about taking a bus trip down to the Kansas City area around there, through the Moines, maybe up to Minneapolis,

[00:27:38] and it kind of just depends on their sponsors and just how much planning and prep you want to do. The on top of that, we also started doing a second program that’s actually going to come by the time we hear this in the end March, is going to be a Silicon Valley trip where another professor has taken a group of 15 kids,

[00:27:55] and they’re going out to the Silicone Valley to talk to some folks on the tech world and see a chance, and we’re hopefully going to get a chance to stop in a memoryBlue, where they’ve got Adobe, they’ve got San Francisco Giants, Wells Fargo and some other entrepreneurial kind of companies, and they’re doing something different where I stayed in the area,

[00:28:11] they’re staying in a hostel, so they’re getting opportunity to understand life, right, and do the culture as well as just the jobs, ’cause it’s more than just a job.

[00:28:19] Kristen Wisdorf: Well, the hostel is about right as it relates to how expensive it is in the Bay Area, so that is real-life experience once again, which is great. So, let’s talk a little bit more about your program. What do you do as far as recruiting goes to get more students? I know you’re working with the accounting program and engineering program, which is so smart, because again, this is the foundation for really a career outside of sales as well. What roadblocks do you hit? Is it parents and influencers? Is it time? Like, how do you get students involved in your program and what are the common roadblocks do you see in them joining?

[00:28:57] Chuck Howlett: Yeah, that person is one of the biggest challenges that I have. Every two years, the whole student bodies changes over, so if I don’t have some kind of golden thread pulling freshmen and sophomores into the junior, senior classes I missed. During COVID we missed it. It was very difficult to try to have a commonality and have conversations when everybody’s on a screen.

[00:29:15] So, we have a, we started it two years ago and then didn’t do it, so this coming year we’re going back and say, “Well, there’s four classes to take to get the sales certificate. One of them is the Principles of Selling.” So, we’re going into that 350 level, and we have about 180 students at that level,

[00:29:29] and we’re trying to bring my 450 class in there to become mentors. So, I’ve got a little bit of role-play going on and helping them and assimilate a little bit, and actually they’re getting graded by the 350 instructors for their participation and the 350 kids are being graded by the 450 students as they have those interactions.

[00:29:49] And then we’re putting together a social. We’re doing one of the local places they’re in the Cal, we’re trying to get together and do a mixer of a meet and greet. So, try to get that commonality. Salespeople like to talk. They like to have potential beverages, it could be Cokes, it could be a beer, whatever,

[00:30:03] so an opportunity to really try to see how much fun it is and the department, see the kind of colleges and opportunities they have on this one. So, that’s one of the things we’ve done. We’re also doing something at the sophomore level to try to get this group that have, they think of sales as a used-car salesman,

[00:30:18] like we’ve talked about. What can we do to see, have them see the opportunity? So I’m becoming more involved in that 200 level. We’re going to have, we’re giving away caramel popcorn, so you can pop on in and understand about sales, and try to do things on the campus to keep it fun. We also have put an Instagram together.

[00:30:34] So we’re trying to do as many things there and making sure we’re supporting other organization like the head coach at Northern Illinois, Tom Hammock, is a program alumni, so whatever I can do to keep him bringing people from the athletic area and it’s all the better. So, like, any good sales we need to fill the top of the funnel,

[00:30:51] and right now my funnel has kind of been drying up a little bit, so I got to fill that back up again.

[00:30:55] Kristen Wisdorf: And I mean, it’s the same thing here at memoryBlue. We have a very unique program where people elevate out of the kind of entry-level sales role, and so, your alumni are so important and using those upperclassmen is such a good idea, and the mentorship kind of that relationship is preparing them for life after college as well, which is great.

[00:31:14] Chuck Howlett: Yeah, Yeah, that’s been fun because I’ve Ien, me see a lot of relationships in my small class of 25, 24 students. They become each other’s executive council in the years to come. They get to know each other in a family-kind-of format, and 5 years, 10 years, 15 years from now, I’ve got people that have come back and said, “Well, I met my wife at the class,” or “My best man is, I talk to him every week.”

[00:31:34] So, those kinds of relationships are, you can’t change them.

[00:31:37] They’re just, they’re just solid.

[00:31:39] Kristen Wisdorf: Totally. So, there are some listeners who don’t have the luxury of going to a college with a sales program like yours. What advice would you give to someone, whether they’re still in college or maybe a couple of years out of college who can’t join a sales program with their university, if they want to learn about sales or kind of self-educate? What ideas, suggestions would you have for those people?

[00:32:02] Chuck Howlett: That’s a good question. I mean, um, in my case, Iowa State, they didn’t have a sales program, now they do, but I would say, looking at the people that are successful in your community and what they do and become a mentor, become an apprentice and reach out and just make connections with folks and understand how they’ve done it,

[00:32:18] because if you meet one person they’re going to open the doors to two or three other people, and whether you call it “pyramid hopping” or whatever, try to get that exposure if it’s something that you really, really want to do. There’s all kinds of books, there’s all kinds of videos, and there’s a gentleman I worked with,

[00:32:32] he said, “We’re not any smarter, if I’d never been illiterate, unless I read books and people I meet. So, the more I can read, the more I can meet more people, the better I’m going to be and become a better salesperson to move forward.” Universities are, are good, good place, but I think the company also has

[00:32:47] terrific sales programs, because you have to train your sales people too. So, regardless of where you go, there’s opportunities to interact, and it may just be a family thing where you have experiences in the family and you can, again, apprentice that and make it go from there.

[00:33:03] Kristen Wisdorf: Absolutely. All right. We’ve got some fun kind of quick, fast questions for ya. Don’t overthink it. Just answer the first thing that comes to your mind. Some of these are sales-related, some are not. What do you think is your proudest atypical accomplishment?

[00:33:21] Chuck Howlett: Atypical accomplishment. My biggest accomplishment in my life is my family. I don’t know if that’s the answer you’re going for, but been married for 40 years, have two kids, have three grandkids. There’s nothing more proud than seeing them and seeing the growth they do.

[00:33:34] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s amazing. That’s incredible. Okay. So, let’s see here, another one. Who was the most influential person in your life?

[00:33:42] Chuck Howlett: Oh man. There’s so many. I don’t know if anybody really sticks out, but I would probably be remiss to say I wouldn’t be where I am without my wife who’s been around for 40 years. I’ve really only closed two sales in my life, one is with my wife and the other is the first job I got because I only had one job.

[00:33:57] So, I’m two-for-two in closing. I’m gonna have to stop there, but now she’s been one that’s kept me balanced and I’ll never forget the situation, I had a job that I didn’t really think I was doing fine, but she said, “You’re not having fun in your job. Why do you do it?” “It’s money.” It’s like, “Well, when did you ever work for money?”

[00:34:13] And she really held myself accountable, and I think that kind of person whether it’s a mentor or a friend or your spouse is a, is somebody you have to have.

[00:34:20] Kristen Wisdorf: I have a question. Chuck, what feeling would you say is stronger for you? Loving to win or hating to lose?

[00:34:29] Chuck Howlett: I’m laughing ’cause I asked my class that yesterday.

[00:34:32] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh, wow.

[00:34:33] Chuck Howlett: I absolutely love to win, but I take more to heart, I think, in failing, whatever the other one, I hate to lose, because I don’t care if I lose as long as I’ve given it my best effort to be able to really say, “You know what, this guy beat me, this guy beat me,”

[00:34:47] that’s fine. But if I can come back and say, “I didn’t prepare, or I wasn’t ready,” that kills me. So, yeah, I love the jubilation of winning, but after that it’s like, I’m not going to brag about winning and move on to the next thing, but it’s like, “How can I self develop myself in that second part of it?”

[00:34:59] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, you’re not going to break about winning ’cause you’re just going to go focus on trying to win again and again and again. Yeah.

[00:35:08] Madisson DeLisle: So, Chuck, what would you say your super power is? 

[00:35:12] Chuck Howlett: My superpower, what I really enjoy doing, I think I do it relatively well is probably putting teams together. You see the classmates that I have, even in my teams I would try to put teams together that would compliment each other’s strengths versus everybody the same. So, I had a lot of success in the sales industry of building a team that was very dynamic, but also diverse,

[00:35:32] and that I think is, it was fun for me to do, to try to put together a team that really compliments each other.

[00:35:38] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay, we’ll wrap up with this. Chuck. You have an illustrious sales career. You run the sales program and the sales center at NIU. So, why do you think people should consider a career in sales?

[00:35:53] Chuck Howlett: If I look at my success in the career of sales, I would say, number one, financially, it’s very, it was very good, very rewarding, but more important to me was a flexibility, the opportunity to use your entrepreneurial skills, to use your problem-solving skills and the flexibility. I said, one of my biggest accomplishments I feel as a family, that all becomes the flexibility of the job, whereas actually to be at football games, softball games, band, concerts, choir, whatever it might be,

[00:36:14] and it’s that flexibility that drove the family and was financially rewarding to kind of wrap it all through. 

[00:36:20] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, that’s great. Well said and why a lot of people get into sales and it continues to remain, even though sales may have changed a lot over the last 30 years, those things still run true. So, we appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much. We are really, really excited by some of the things you’re doing with your Huskies there at NIU and keep doing it.

[00:36:41] Hopefully we can see some of your students in Silicon Valley, we do have an office there and we appreciate your time, Chuck.

[00:36:47] Chuck Howlett: Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed the time at memoryBlue.