Campus Series: Deirdre Jones – Everyone is in Sales
No matter what you do for a living, you’re in sales. And Deirdre Jones makes sure all of her students understand this important lesson.
Deirdre is the Director of the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales at the University of Toledo, and few can match her passion for professional sales. She often tells students a sales course in college could be the single most important and applicable class any of them will take. The skills, lessons, and tactics applied in professional sales will serve them well no matter where they end up.
In this episode of the Tech Sales is for Hustlers: Campus Series podcast, hosts Kristen Wisdorf and Libby Galatis get exclusive insight into the sales program at University of Toledo through Deirdre’s dynamic perspective. She dispenses a wealth of knowledge in this episode, divulging everything from her own personal secrets for sales success to her unique insights born out of running one of the first college sales programs in the country.
Guest-At-A-Glance
Name: Deirdre Jones
What she does: Deirdre is the Director of the Sales Program at the University of Toledo.
Company/Institution: The University of Toledo
Noteworthy: Deirdre wanted to be an Olympic track star. She also thought about becoming a physical therapist or a pharmacist. Ultimately, she entered the world of business and professional selling. Not only is Deirdre the director of the sales program at the University of Toledo, but she also studied at the same university and was a graduate assistant.
Where to find Deirdre: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ The vast majority of universities will have some token sales class. Deirdre says that students from other programs who want to dive into this profession should look for a university that provides post-baccalaureate certificates. The University of Toledo is one of them. However, Deirdre believes that most universities will have some sales classes in the future. ”They might not call it a sales class. They will probably hide it in marketing. We did not have the call PSLs for professional sales; It was MKTG. We were hiding within the marketing department.”
⚡ The job of a salesperson is to see things through the customer’s eyes. Deirdre is highly competitive. She loves to win, but she hates to lose. Also, she relies on logic and once believed that if she proves to someone that one plus one equals two, they will accept any offer she brings to the table. Reality refuted these arguments. Today, she teaches the students that sometimes things will not turn out the way they hoped, no matter how prepared they are. They will come across prospects that will not agree with them, so they need to master the skill of understanding other people’s perspectives. If they want to succeed in sales, they need to have the ability to look through the customer’s eyes. ”My mom was always about making sure you understood someone else’s perspective, and she kept hitting us over the head with it growing up. I’m so glad she did because it helped me in life, but especially in professional selling.”
⚡Do a predictive assessment and see what type of sales professional you are. There are different types of sales professionals, so Deirdre encourages students to go through a sales assessment and see what role fits them best. As she explains, depending on a student’s wiring, they could be anywhere from a strong, moderate, or weak fit for different types of sales roles. ”I’m a strong fit for consulted system sales, which makes a ton of sense, but I’m a low fit for indirect selling. It would drive me bananas to work and that particular type of environment. So I would encourage them to do a predictive assessment, take a look at that and realize that there are different types of sales roles out there.”
Episode Highlights
Selling Is Teaching Someone How to Buy
”When I was doing the business technology, consulting, sales and services, I remember initially being afraid to talk to that company in the first place, because ‘Oh, it’s tech.’ People, when there’s something they’re not sure about, having someone who understands the other side and understands the customer perspective is huge. After I graduated, I was going after this three-year, $18 million ERP project that we wanted to get. I remember being so confused at one point, I was like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense; this doesn’t align with what they’re asking us to do.’ I was 20 something, and I was like, ‘How can this 27-year old tell this customer they might not be on the right path? I was afraid to ask the question. I should’ve asked the question a lot sooner because the customer did have unrealistic expectations, and I was too afraid to push them at that point in time. So it’s about teaching people how to buy and helping people realize that there’s better ways, more effective ways to do stuff.”
The Importance of Understanding The Story Behind a Tool
”I remember doing more process-based training with my students. I don’t want to teach them how to use a tool; I want them to understand the story behind it, know when and how to use the tool and when they need to talk to their sales manager and be ready for client interactions. It’s not about the data entry and clicking around.”
A Piece of Advice for Those Interested in Sales
”I would encourage them to take a look, to see if there is some sales class that is out there; to take a look at university sales center Alliance and, or the sales education foundation. It’ll give them a list of all of the different universities that have professional sales programs. Read some books, watch some videos. Good reads that we like to recommend, Miller, Heiman, conceptual selling, we’re fans of Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling, we’re fans of Corporate Executive Board — The Challenger Sale. It’s all good stuff that folks need.”
Understanding and Agreement Are Two Different Things
”I think people in general, not just necessarily students, confuse understanding and agreement. You can understand someone but not agree with them. Those are two different things. That also goes back to the sales process and the customer’s buying process. They have that cognitive thinking, where they have that cognitive moment of, ‘I have a problem, or I have an opportunity I want to take advantage of.’ Then they move into divergent thinking, where they’re evaluating options, and then convergent, where they make a decision. And what we try to make sure our students understand is you are selling two things at the same time. You are selling the concept of change and change with me.”
Transcript:
[00:00:45] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:00:45] Welcome back hustlers to the Campus mini-series, Tech Sales is for Hustlers. I’m Kristen Wisdorf.
[00:00:55] Libby Galatis: [00:00:55] And I am Libby Galatis.
[00:00:58] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:00:58] Today we are very excited to have joining us Deirdre Jones, who is the Director of the Sales program at the University of Toledo. Welcome aboard, Deirdre.
[00:01:09] Deirdre Jones: [00:01:09] Welcome both of you. And thank you so much for having me in today.
[00:01:13] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:01:13] Yeah. We’re very excited to speak with you. A woman who is leading a sales program at a University and one of the oldest sales programs, which is really exciting. If you’ve been here before the drill, we like to start all of our podcasts with the, actually the same question we ask the students that we interview, which is, “Tell us about you.”
[00:01:34] If you could take 60 seconds, give or take and just give us your highlight reel, Deirdre. We are very interested in getting to know you a little bit more.
[00:01:43] Deirdre Jones: [00:01:43] Yeah, the Director of the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales at the University of Toledo. I’m also a proud Rockets alumna. So I’m one of those folks where I knew, I didn’t necessarily think I really wanted to be in sales. Don’t think anyone grows up thinking that they want to be in sales.
[00:01:59] What I knew about myself at a very young age is I’m competitive. I like to help people. I want people to trust me, and I want to be that conduit, that information source to help people solve problems or figure things out. And so, over the course of my life, the first thing I wanted to be was an Olympic track star.
[00:02:18] Florence Griffith Joyner and Jackie Joyner-Kersee were like my idols. I was like, ”Oh my gosh. Like they’re glamorous, they’re fast.” And, but I realized that it was the competitive nature. Then I wanted to be a physical therapist, then I wanted to be a pharmacist, but through it all, I look at the consistent threads of what I was looking to do.
[00:02:33] And ultimately came upon business. And then at one point professional selling, and now I’m on this other side of professional selling. So because I’m an alumna of the program in the sense that I was a professional sales concentration, back in the day, I was also a graduate assistant and got to help behind the scenes with different things, the professional sales program at some point during that period of time.
[00:02:56] And then also I hired our professional sales students when I worked out in [00:03:00] industry, so got to hire our alumni as interns. Then I came back in as a professor in the program and now know director of the program and still teach in the program. Although I wish I could teach more than what I do right now, but it’s fascinating and really big honor for me to be able to be a part of this program from every single angle to understand where are our students are coming from,
[00:03:23] the other people that work as a part of the team, also where our corporate partners are coming from. So it’s love what I do. Yeah, that is so unique. You were in the program when you were in school. You hired people from the program, were a professor and now lead it as the director, which is in, it’s such incredible perspective you have. You understand what people who are recruiting your students are looking for, and you’ve probably seen the curriculum change along the way with industry and time.
[00:03:53] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:03:53] And what it feels like to be a student and to be learning about sales? Like you said, something that you didn’t consider when you were [00:04:00] younger, which I think a lot of people don’t, hopefully, we’re changing that and you’re changing that. But let’s talk a little bit about you before Toledo. Did you grow up in Ohio?
[00:04:09] Let’s talk a little bit about your journey to The University of Toledo originally.
[00:04:12] Deirdre Jones: [00:04:12] Yeah. So I’m actually a Toledo-Ohio native. I’m I still live in Northwest Ohio. Technically, my address is not, it’s not T-town. So yeah. Grew up in Northwest Ohio. I’m the oldest. So I definitely have that driver, work now, play later, got-to-take-care-of-everyone-else a mentality on things.
[00:04:30] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:04:30] That’s funny. Libby and I are both the same. We’re both the oldest and that take care of handle the business-driver personalities. So I definitely appreciate that.
[00:04:41] Deirdre Jones: [00:04:41] Yep. And 12 years of private Catholic School, which is a whole other dynamic. I have very limited Platt in my wardrobe to this day. And but it was a good experience. I ended up marrying my high school sweetheart and stuff and, but ultimately yeah.
[00:04:57] Libby Galatis: [00:04:57] You had mentioned before when you’re talking about your story that sales [00:05:00] wasn’t something growing up that you intentionally wanted to move into after looking back on your experience, you were able to find commonalities and that’s what landed you in business. What do you think that Aha moment was for you when you realized that sales was interesting enough to pursue as a career and ultimately end up teaching?
[00:05:17] Deirdre Jones: [00:05:17] Yeah, for me, it was the Aha was when I realized that selling wasn’t selling as that selling was teaching someone how to buy. And because there were some misconceptions that I think, not think, I know that I had at some point in time. And I remember when I took my first basic sales class here at The University of Toledo,
[00:05:37] I remember sitting there thinking “Wow, there’s, this is stuff I do already. This is common sense communication.” There were certain things about the selling profession that I realized, “My God, it’s just my natural wiring.” And so that, ’cause I’m very curious. I like to ask questions.
[00:05:52] I’m not one to, yeah. I like to cut through some of the fluff on it’s like fundamentally, like, “What’s the heart of the issue? What are we really trying to [00:06:00] solve or get across?” And I remember when I was in, I can’t remember exactly what semester in undergrad it was, but I was in the Honors College and one of my Honors professors at the very end of the semester, he promised to give us all like predictions and where he thought we were all gonna end up.
[00:06:15] And when he came to me at the end of the semester, he said, he goes, “You’re going to be a teacher.” And I’m like, “I think I might be getting the wrong degree right about now.” And because I was in the college of business and he said, “No.” he goes teacher. He goes, “You know how to help people. You know what people need, you know how to communicate with them.”
[00:06:33] He goes, “Teacher doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to be a teacher. ’cause you know how to teach.” And when I started working in professional selling, I did business technology consulting, sales and services before I came to the University. I also did some B2C selling when I was in college. I worked at at Sears. I sold fine jewelry on commission for a number of years, part-time even outsold the full-timers. but it’s w I remember when I was doing the business technology consulting, sales and services, I remember [00:07:00] initially being very afraid to talk to that company in the first place, because, ,Oh, it’s tech”.
[00:07:05] Now my undergrad, my, my minor wasn’t information systems, because I recognize that was a deficiency and a fear that I had and I wanted to attack that head-on and I’ll keep in mind, I’m dating myself right about now. So I graduated from high school in ’98. So that’s why Y2K was like a thing.
[00:07:21] And I just remember, and back then, Apples were still toys. They weren’t really like real computers back then. And. And so this PC was this like interesting thing that not everyone knew. People were so scared of technology or just misunderstood. And I just kept finding myself, like I deliberately went into information systems so I could better understand things.
[00:07:42] I learned how to code and stuff. Granted, you would never want me to build anything. I’m good at figuring out how it should look. I’m a good general, not necessarily the best soldier, although I did write a database to automate my wedding. When I’m going through that process, what I discovered is a lot of times people like when there’s something that they’re not sure about, or they’re [00:08:00] uncertain about, having someone that understands the other side and understands customer perspective is so huge. And when I was doing that internship, I was amazed at how I didn’t give myself enough credit for how much I actually knew.
[00:08:12] And I learned that it’s okay to ask questions because sometimes everyone else has the exact same question. You just have the, you just need to have the courage to ask the question and not be so nervous that you’re going to look stupid or reveal your age, because after I graduated, I remember I was going after this three-year, like $18-million ERP project that we wanted to get.
[00:08:36] And it was for, obviously, for a large organization. It was three-year project. I remember going through all the, all the standard operating procedures and flows for this manufacturing facility. And I remember being so confused at one point, I was like, “This just doesn’t make any sense. Like this doesn’t align with what they’re asking us to do.
[00:08:50] We can’t do a vanilla implicate implementation. We’re going to have to do some custom coding. I just don’t get it.” But I was, I was 20 something. I was like, “How can this 27-year-old tell this [00:09:00] customer that they might be not on the right path? And I was afraid to ask the question. I should’ve asked the question a lot sooner because the customer did have unrealistic expectations and I was just too afraid to push them at that point in time.
[00:09:13] And when one of my colleagues who was the more experienced tech person brought it up, I remember feeling so validated on the inside and then kicking myself for not asking that question earlier. So it’s just really about teaching people how to buy and helping people realize that there’s better ways, more effective ways to do stuff.
[00:09:35] Libby Galatis: [00:09:35] There’s so much that you just shared that I want to dive into. Your background is so interesting and the puzzle pieces that were put together, ultimately to turn you into who you are today. That’s incredible. I want to talk more about like your experience in the classroom declaring the professional sales concentration.
[00:09:50] Do you, from your experience in those classes, when you first took them, how did what you were learning in those courses contrast what you were learning in other classes and [00:10:00] was there certain activities that you had, back then when you were in those courses that had assisted you in that light bulb coming off?
[00:10:07] Deirdre Jones: [00:10:07] Yeah the role-plays, and even to this day, you can talk to practically any student in the Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales. It wasn’t the Edward H. Schmidt School Sales when I was there. We weren’t in doubt at that point, but it’s absolutely the role-play because we would do simulations and other classes or case studies, but with the role-play, I you’re, things that sound nice in your head,
[00:10:28] you have to come up with the verbiage on the fly, and just say it, go with it, see how it lands. And it’s it was, it’s a bit unnerving because you’re making yourself very vulnerable. And as much as I would love to have this 15-minute long, completely scripted conversation, that’s not realistic.
[00:10:46] It’s not fluid. It’s not natural, the importance of having a plan and just the preparation side of really understanding your value prop and really understanding the customer because that’s how it can be more of a conversation. Because you can anticipate what their answers are [00:11:00] probably going to be, but you still didn’t make sure you’re listening all the way, but for me, the role-play was it.
[00:11:05] I remember after that role-play was done, by the way, back in my day, we role-played in a supply closet in the basement with a VHS camcorder and then they took our VHS tapes to the Carlson Library. I had to check out my VHS tape. They gave me an alcohol wipe and a set of earphones. And I had to go into the basement and sit in a cubby and watch my role-play.
[00:11:27] I was just petrified that someone else could actually hear my role-play because I had to watch it in that quasi-public setting. And I just remember thinking like, “Oh my God, like, why did I, that implicit need was right there? And I didn’t do anything about it.” And then other things I was really proud of myself or for catching on.
[00:11:44] And I just remember being so determined that on my next role-play, I’m not going to make some of those same mistakes again and stuff. So it just, it really drove home for me. Just, once, I did practice, but just really the importance of practice and role-play and then just doing [00:12:00] it, because sometimes, as a student and then even later on in life how to deal with uncertainty and that fear of failure that is probably one of the biggest things that we didn’t necessarily address in the professional sales program back in my day, but that’s stuff that we’ve definitely started to infuse over time in our curriculum. And actually there’s specific things I work with our students on now, on how to address fear of failure and navigating uncertainty.
[00:12:27] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:12:27] I guess the thread about sales and sales professors is it is practical it’s and it’s putting it into practice. It’s very real-world. It’s hands-on which is different than most classes in college. And it’s interesting that like one thing that still remains to this day from when you were in the program to now you’re running the program is role-plays even for us when you’re, if you don’t take a sales program in college or sales classes and you get into a sales job, like here at memoryBlue, the first thing you do on day one [00:13:00] is we train you and then you role-play. And so it’s just, it’s constant and it still remains to this day. Other than the role-playing, which is still the same and I’m sure the technology has changed quite a bit. What is what is different than now in the curriculum versus when you were in the program?
[00:13:20] Deirdre Jones: [00:13:20] We don’t have enough time. No, because when I was in the program, all we had initially was just the concentration, right? So you’re talking about two to three classes. Now we have a full blown major in the professional sales program and that major started right on the tail end of when I was leaving.
[00:13:35] But now we’ve got a seven core sequence. There’s so much more we can do with the students to prepare them to be successful when you’re talking about a major versus just a minor or a concentration or a certificate. And that’s one of the things where I think we’re so blessed at University of Toledo and with the other universities that are in a position to offer a major and professional selling. Because our students and others that are in at a University that have the [00:14:00] major, they are so much more prepared when they get out.
[00:14:02] You take a look at University Sales Education Foundation. They have track students that you plead to and other universities. They ramp up 50% faster on the retention is 30% higher than their non-university trained counterparts. The proof’s there, you see how fast the students are getting hired and the success that they’re having an fast in terms of how fast they’re ramping up.
[00:14:19] But now, we actually have a sales simulation on, in our sales leadership class that we built ourself. We worked with our Chief Technology Officer here at The University of Toledo and we’ve developed a sales world to practice things on the sales on the sales management side. Yeah.
[00:14:33] There’s some stuff that was already out there, but it wasn’t addressing some of the things that we wanted to make sure our students needed to get, and we also want to be able to customize it based on different types of industries and market conditions. So students could see, “Hey, when you’re leading a Salesforce and you’re trying to divide up a territory when you’re trying to allocate resources to your team, what do you do if you’re in an economic downturn. What do you do if it’s a different industry?”
[00:14:56] Because we wanted the students to understand there’s [00:15:00] differences and ’cause it’s not just a game and you figured out how to win the game and it’s over, it’s this life, you know how you won one day, that’s not how you’re going to necessarily win the next day.
[00:15:11] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:15:11] And the people that you’re leading change.
[00:15:14] Deirdre Jones: [00:15:14] Absolutely. They needed to understand that.
[00:15:16] And now we’ve got some great stuff too, where we’ve put in some stuff with team selling and emotional intelligence, we know we continue to do more and more with better understanding, stuff and the and that’s what, we’re, what we’re now labeling or been labeling, sales enablement.
[00:15:32] That’s been probably one of the most interesting in terms of just what we’ve seen on the sales education landscape in general, what had initially started as like Salesforce automation and CRM and have people, and this is something I knew like years ago and lots of other people knew too was
[00:15:49] it’s not about the technology, it’s about how you use it and about your people and your policies and your procedures and your culture. And I remember doing more [00:16:00] process-based training with my students, anyways it’s, I don’t want to teach them how to use a tool. That’s ridiculous. I want to, I want them to understand the story behind it so they know when and how to use the tool. And so they know when they need to talk to their sales manager and how to be ready for client interactions. It’s not about the data entry and clicking around. And it’s just it’s really cool to see the stronger emphasis on what’s being labeled as sales enablement.
[00:16:23] But nowadays it’s daunting to see how many different tools and apps there are out there to try and help salespeople be a little bit more efficient, a little bit more effective in what they do and. It’s, I’ve literally lost count. People could mention a platform to me and I would just smile and nod politely.
[00:16:39] Okay. ‘Cause there’s so much out there and, I think, having been in tech before and having, kept an eye on that pendulum swings ’cause at one point in time was all about best of breed. You’re going to buy the best financial apps, the best manufacturing, the best CRM platform.
[00:16:54] And then it got too hard because there were all these silos. So then everything became about the ERP system, the whole enterprise [00:17:00] and an integrated platform, a single record of truth. And then what did you see happen then, right? Then people were like, “Oh, but I didn’t have these specific needs.”
[00:17:07] And then you start to see breakout players again. That’s the phase we’re in right now is we’re seeing a bunch of breakout niche players and a variety of different ways. And when you take a look at some of the big boys out there, we’ve got our integration partners and stuff.
[00:17:20] All we’re doing is it’s, we’re going to see somebody who’s going to try to snatch them all together and that’s why you see companies buying up the others is because they’re trying to stitch stuff back together to get back to an enterprise solution again, ’cause it’s just, there’s too much out there and the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is talking about anymore, but it’ll swing back again.
[00:17:38] That’s life.
[00:17:40] Libby Galatis: [00:17:40] Absolutely. And, and going back, you mentioned when you were just talking about your experience with the sales program, you said, “All we had was a sales concentration back then.” And I think about all the universities that we partner with. And the fact that you guys have a sales rep as a major now is so incredible.
[00:17:56] There are so few universities that have that. And I’m curious, you mentioned so [00:18:00] many amazing statistics. We’ve talked about this so many times on our podcast, just how valuable these skills are, the depth of education that can be involved with sales as a whole. Why do you think so many universities struggle to grow their programs?
[00:18:13] Where do you think that disconnect is coming in knowing all of this that you’ve mentioned in our conversation today to be true?
[00:18:22] Deirdre Jones: [00:18:22] There’s a lot of different layers to why there’s still a struggle on that. Part of that is that professional sales programs at the university level, they’re still relatively new when you look at the grand scheme of things. University of Toledo, where we’re, second program in the country to launch, so we’re more mature in the marketplace. But a lot of these other universities, there’s, they have a concentration because they’ve only been around for a little better. That’s all they could get approved at that particular point in time. And universities right, wrong or indifferent.
[00:18:49] That’s another podcast. They don’t operate like businesses. And so they got to support all these different majors and all these different colleges, depending on which university we’re talking about. And so that [00:19:00] is another thing that’s holding back, some of that growth is because it’s we can’t necessarily go all the way to a major over here because what would that mean to these other areas? It’s also, you’re looking at a faculty shortage. And because you see we’re seeing more and more faculty at the higher education level that are people like me, I’m just Mrs. Jones, Deirdre
[00:19:18] Jones. And so that’s the other part of it is there’s in order for things to get approved at different universities and for certain things to happen, you do need to have the tenure track, the PhDs there for a variety of different reasons. You need to take a look at university of pseudo mission.
[00:19:33] Our logo, we’ve got three leaves on it. It stands for our three-part mission of learning, discovery and outreach. Our vision at the University of Toledo is we’re about creating knowledge, shaping and making connections to transform the profession of sales. You need all those three parts working together to effectively transform the profession and live your mission.
[00:19:51] And there’s just not enough. There’s a lot of poaching that goes on in the sales education landscape. All of a sudden, someone’s not happy with their teaching [00:20:00] load or something, or another university waved some more money at them. And then they’re gone somewhere else, which is a separate issue.
[00:20:05] But we, there’s just not enough faculty and staff resource, frankly, across the country to get stuff where they need to be. Also higher education moves incredibly slow, too slow. Is part of it. Part of it is necessary to make sure that we’re putting the right foundation in place. But the other part of it is just frankly, universities don’t operate as effectively as they could in a lot of different cases.
[00:20:27] And the other part on it is when you’re starting a new program, these are things that you’re developing from scratch. There’s some stuff that’s not exactly there. We’re a founding member of The University Sales Center Alliance and there’s other schools that obviously worked with us to help found it grow and be a part of it.
[00:20:43] It’s a great resource to not have to start at square one when you’re trying to create your sales program and then further grow it. And so that helps, but there’s still a lot of heavy lifting that goes into that. And when you’re trying to work on class development and also trying [00:21:00] to recruit students into your program and deal with the companies that are interested in hiring or recruiting those students, it’s a lot.
[00:21:07] And a lot of university sales programs are pretty thin in terms of the people power to run them. And a lot of university sales programs, we are in part like at University of Toledo, we’re 100% externally funded. Our staff and our operations are 100% externally funded.
[00:21:22] Not granted there’s only 25% of us that are in that, on that side of the extreme, but most of the professional sales programs across the country are at least partially externally funded. And we are in this constant state of trying to get the time, talent and treasure needed to grow and sustain our programs.
[00:21:43] And it’s a constant chicken and the egg battle of the corporate partner, community and alumni, and frankly, all the other people that have been in sales, but they didn’t go through professional sales program. We need those folks giving back to, to help get to where we all know that [00:22:00] University Sales Education can get in this country because we are, we’re behind, Yeah, there are so many students at colleges, whether they have a program or don’t, that ended up in sales. Like it, it’s a common job right out of college. And whether it’s a job or not, the skills are necessary for everybody.
[00:22:18] Absolutely. Everyone is in sales in some way, shape or form. We are. We, I go all in on that. Our biggest growth year after year is actually outside of our college of business. It’s our engineering students and our pharmaceutical students that are our biggest growth sector because having technical subject matter expert who understands sales and business development, those unicorns are incredibly valuable, incredibly effective with what they do because everyone is in sales.
[00:22:47] So
[00:22:48] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:22:48] You’re doing great work because you talked about there being like a resource shortage for sales programs and it’s incredibly time consuming and heavy lifting to build these programs. So there’s a, a [00:23:00] professor shortage. There’s a student shortage in the marketplace, right?
[00:23:03] There’s not enough people who have a sales program background for us to hire. We could literally gobble them all up. And so it’s great that university isn’t, even from when I graduated, more of them are embracing sales. So whether it is a full major, which is incredible, or it is a certification, the important thing is that it’s happening and sales is becoming curriculum that’s taught in schools which is really incredible. There are students out there though who don’t have the ability, maybe their university doesn’t even have a class or the certification. What type of advice would you give people like that? People listening to the podcast were like, “Okay this sounds awesome, but I’m not, I can’t transfer for my last year to join the sales program at this college that has it.”
[00:23:51] What advice would you give them when they want to consider preparing for that inevitable sales job when they graduate?
[00:23:59] Deirdre Jones: [00:23:59] That is a [00:24:00] fabulous question. The vast majority of universities will have some sort of token sales class. They might not call it a sales class. They will probably hide it in marketing. ‘Cause even admittedly, back in the day we did not have the call PSLs for professional sales.
[00:24:18] It was MKTG. We were hiding within the marketing department. So they probably have a sales class somewhere. Obviously, I’d be real curious who’s teaching it. Right? And how are they focusing on it and stuff like that. But I would encourage them to take a look to see if there is some sort of a sales class that is out there. And and I would, I would have them take a look at University Sales Center Alliance and or the Sales Education Foundation, because it’ll give them a list of all of the different universities that have professional sales programs. University Sales education, University Sales Center Alliance will list all the associate and full numbers linked to website.
[00:24:56] And then if you look at Sales Education Foundation, they do an annual publication of [00:25:00] different sales programs across the country, and while they might not necessarily be in a position to completely transfer somewhere, some of us offer post-baccalaureate certificates. So after you get your degree, like at University of Toledo, you could do a post-baccalaureate certificate.
[00:25:17] Go ahead, finish your degree at university ABC and then come to University of Toledo to get a post-bacc certificate. And then you’re just taking a handful of classes to get that dose of sales education that you would need because we’re not going to make you go all the way back through all the paces to get a bachelor’s of business, you can do the post-baccalaureate certificate.
[00:25:38] And then I know at other universities, some of them also have a certificate program like that, or maybe they have some sort of yeah, I like certificate programs where they could get them. Now, some of the certificates are more of like a professional thing where it’s, “I’m going to take a couple of different modules or whatnot.” But we do have our post-baccalaureate certificate.
[00:25:54] Should be a good route for some folks to take. There’s other, I would read some books, watch some [00:26:00] videos. We subscribe, we don’t subscribe to any one particular methodology. We pull from a variety of different groups if you will, because on some level, and this might sound blasphemous to some of the sales offers out there, and there’s a lot of the some of the same stuff that they’re talking about in these books and in these programs. But they’re using slightly different language and slightly different labels on some of this stuff. But good reads that we like to recommend, Miller Heiman, ”Conceptual Selling”. We’re fans of Neil Rackham ”Spin Selling”. We’re, we’re fans of Corporate Executive Board ”Challenger Sale”.
[00:26:33] It’s all good stuff that, that folks that folks need. I think that’s incredible advice. And speaking from experience at my university, we didn’t have an official sales program, but I know in the last couple of years we’ve actually established those sales courses, so students are finally getting exposed to those concepts. I want to talk a bit more about your personal experience in the sales roles that you’ve had and have excelled in.
[00:26:54] Libby Galatis: [00:26:54] I think it’s interesting because you’re an athlete. You’re competitive, you’re driven, you have all [00:27:00] of the intangibles that a strong sales person needs. And it’s not necessarily an exclusive, you don’t have to have those things to do well, but I think when we consider top performers or individuals that begin this job assuming that it’s going to be something they take too easily, they have a lot of those qualities.
[00:27:14] And even though these might be strong individuals that have those qualities, they still have to go through those humbling experiences, those hardships that are naturally part of an entry-level role or your first sales job. Can you recall an experience that you had or that humbling loss, or a particular challenge that you faced that you are now trying to prepare your students in the classes that you’re teaching for?
[00:27:39] Deirdre Jones: [00:27:39] Yeah. Just a quick side note, when you talk about, some of the intangibles and some of the wiring stuff I would encourage students to hopefully they’re there with the Sales University that’s working with Sales Education Foundation, but they can get challenged and go through a sales assessment to see what type of a sales professional they are because there are different types of sales professionals and different types of sales [00:28:00] roles. And it’s, and depending on your wiring, you could be anywhere from a strong, moderate, or weak fit for different types of sales roles.
[00:28:08] And for some certain sales roles, ’cause I’ve even challenge myself. I’m really a strong fit for consultated system sales which makes a ton of sense, but I’m a low fit for indirect selling. It would drive me bananas to work in that particular type of an environment.
[00:28:21] So I would encourage them to do a predictive assessment and take a look at that and realize that there are different types of sales roles out there. And then to use that to help them figure out what types of questions they should have to when they’re doing their background research on companies to talk to, and then during the interviewing process to find out who’s going to be a good fit for them.
[00:28:39] But going back to your question about, some things that I’m trying to help students with based on my past experience and not in when I’ve messed up. There was a thing I mentioned earlier about just not being nervous about asking those questions on that. I know one of the things that I was, ’cause I hate [00:29:00] losing. I enjoy winning, but I hate losing the most. I hate losing. And I remember I had a prospect that I desperately wanted to turn into a customer. And I’m a very, I’m a driver, shocking. And I’m very much like logical, right? If this, if I can logically prove this to someone, they’re going to say yes. How could they possibly say no to me?
[00:29:21] And it was, I’ll leave the industry for this organization out of it. But I had approached them because I knew they kept having, ’cause I knew someone that worked there. And they kept having, their system kept failing. And so I reached out and I’m like, “Hey, talk to me more about like, why your system keeps going down?” Because this company did customer service and claims processing and that types of, and that type of thing.
[00:29:45] And when I remember talking with them and like they had this planned downtime because they knew the system was going to fail sporadically on a regular basis anyways, because the system was being overly taxed. It had, it was. It was past its prime and [00:30:00] I was a civic. I’m like, “This is a slam dunk, right?
[00:30:02] Your system keeps going on. I did the whole mathematical proving. How many people do you have? How much money are you paying your people? You’re losing X amount of dollars on a regular basis because you’re telling people to go take an extended coffee break ’cause you got to reset the system, because that’s better than the chaotic unscheduled unplanned downtime you’re going to have if you play Russian roulette.” I thought this is a slam dunk, right? I did the math. I showed it to him and he’s just yeah. I’m sitting there thinking “That was my mic drop moment. What are you talking about? Like you gotta be a moron not to sign with me right about now, because what is your plan?”
[00:30:36] And he wanted to see what was going to happen. He really, he just did not want to give up on this vendor and stuff. And I’m like, “Okay when is their user group conference? Okay.” What, I, and I was very prescriptive. “What do you think is going to happen at this user group conference?
[00:30:48] What are the magical things that they need to tell you was going to be in that next upgrade that’s going to make this worthwhile and what sort of a timeframe for them to deliver that to you? Because how much longer can you possibly bleed?” [00:31:00] And I was just, I was overly confident on logic and I just kept thinking the logic was going to win.
[00:31:07] And and I gave him the extra time that he needed and I came back to him a couple months later. I stayed in touch, came back a couple months later. I’m like, “How’d that user group conference go?” And it, bottom line is it didn’t give him what he needed. So I was like, “All right, we were ready to sign. We ready to do this.”
[00:31:22] And he still said, ”No”. And I’m just like, “This is ridiculous.” Like what. And, and one of the things that I had failed to ask earlier in the process was who picked this current system and how did this current system get into place? Guess who built this train wreck system? He did.
[00:31:42] It’s like, how do you tell someone their baby’s ugly? And it’s he just, he was not in a position. He was not in a place to say my baby is ugly and it might’ve been a beautiful baby when it was born, it needs braces, right? Like we need to change and he [00:32:00] just wasn’t willing to do it.
[00:32:01] What I did learn and I pivoted pretty well at that point. His his brother was the owner of the company. And I’m like, there’s, I was just like, ‘I’m not touching this. I’m just not touching this. It’s this, there’s no way this is going to end well and stuff.” And so I continued to like, stay in touch just in case they would get desperate at some point.
[00:32:20] But I just, it, I should’ve walked away sooner from it. I was just, I just kept thinking I’m like pragmatically speaking, right? Like you just got to, they’re going to do this. And they just, ultimately, they didn’t. Fun fact, they went out of business shocking. But it just, it was a hard lesson.
[00:32:34] And so that’s one of the things that, ’cause you, I never want to mislead the students and to say, “Oh, we’ve got this sales process and if you do one plus one equals two, when you follow these steps and everything’s gonna work out.” And I want. I really want the students to know, like it’s not gonna work out all the time. You can follow the steps. It can make all of the sense in the world that they should be saying yes, but they don’t. And that’s, one of the key [00:33:00] things, w one of the top skills of a top performing sales person out of any industry is the ability to see things through the customer’s eyes.
[00:33:07] Number one skillset. And even growing up, my mom, she had this expression, she was just always about making sure you understood someone else’s perspective and she just kept hitting us over the head with it growing up. And I’m so glad she did because it’s definitely helped me just life in general, but also, especially in professional selling.
[00:33:25] But, even when you can see things through the customer’s eyes, I think people in general, not just necessarily students, people confuse understanding and agreement. You can understand someone but not agree with them. Those are two different things. Those are two different things. Understanding and agreement are different.
[00:33:49] And that also goes back to the sales process and the customer’s buying process because they have that cognitive thinking where they have to have that cognitive moment of, “I have a problem,” or, “I have an opportunity I [00:34:00] want to take advantage of.” Then they move into the divergent thinking where they’re evaluating options and then convergent, where they make a, where they make a decision.
[00:34:07] And what we really try to make sure our students understand is you are selling two things at the exact same time. You are selling concept of change and change with me. You have got to close the concept of change sale or else change with me is never going to happen. And you can work on both simultaneously, but you’ve got to make sure you’re closing concept of change first.
[00:34:30] And that was something that I didn’t necessarily, I wasn’t as disciplined about that in the beginning. I was so maybe sometimes I thought that like my value prop was like, self-evident duh, like, “Why wouldn’t you see this?” Or I thought that it was so logical. How could they not come to that conclusion that they should change?
[00:34:51] That? I jumped ahead to like my company and or my product or service is awesome. Yeah. Getting them to understand concepts of change and change with me and [00:35:00] understanding and agreement, those are clear things they need to wrap their arms around.
[00:35:05] Libby Galatis: [00:35:05] I think that is such an amazing point. And your experience, you’re talking more towards the end of the sales process where hopefully you were looking to get somebody to sign on the dotted line. And with our opportunity with memoryBlue, it’s so entry level. Our reps are making cold calls.
[00:35:20] They’re so far in the beginning stages of the sales process. And there’s certain things that you’re in control of, right? How many calls you’re making and why it ends up being a numbers game? But you can be the best sales person on the planet, the best cold caller, the best sales development rep in the world.
[00:35:34] But if you call somebody on a bad day or when they’re leaving a meeting or just got bad news, they’re going to hang up on you either way. It doesn’t matter who you are. And that’s definitely a lesson that I think a lot of our sales reps when they first start have a hard time wrapping their head around and they get so discouraged.
[00:35:50] And I mean that lesson that you just shared, I think is extremely valuable and really important to recognize.
[00:35:56] Deirdre Jones: [00:35:56] Yeah. And I’ll tell you it’s still hard. It’s still [00:36:00] 20 years later to have those moments where this isn’t happening today.
[00:36:04] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:36:04] Yeah, it’s so true.And to hear your story about this prospect that you were working with so long, like he was emotionally tied to the project that he had started or he had built. And there’s a lot of emotion that goes into sales on the seller’s perspective and on the prospect’s perspective. And you have to, it’s hard to remember that failure is going to happen.
[00:36:27] There are going to be emotional aspects of the job and it’s hard to prepare for it until you actually experience it. It’s something that kind of has to happen, I think, firsthand for students or people in their first sales job before you can like really understand, “Oh wow, this is what they said.
[00:36:45] You’re going to fail in this job. This is what it actually feels like. I thought I was prepared for it, but now I’ve actually gone through it.”
[00:36:52] Deirdre Jones: [00:36:52] Desensitize them while they’re still with the failure, ’cause it’s important to deliberately have [00:37:00] them fail ’cause it’s important for them to fail while they’re still in college.
[00:37:03] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:37:03] In that learning environment where they can, yeah.
[00:37:06] Deirdre Jones: [00:37:06] It’s so important to build things that are designed for them to fail. It’s important for us to build things that designed, that are designed to confuse them, design to introduce them to uncertainty because you can train for that.
[00:37:22] You can train for that. This is why we love students from sales programs. I’m sure you keep in contact with a lot of your alumni. What are you finding a lot of your stu students are getting into when they leave? Are they a lot of them in technology sales? Are they going into different industries? Does it vary given your location in Toledo?
[00:37:44] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:37:44] What are you, what are your alumni doing nowadays?
[00:37:46] Deirdre Jones: [00:37:46] Anything? That’s one of the things that we’re really proud about at University of Toledo is that our students are in a variety of different industries. We are not seeing heavy concentrations and manufacturing or healthcare or tech or services or financials. [00:38:00] They are literally in every different industry that you can think of.
[00:38:03] They are, they’re working with manufacturers. They are working with distributors. We’ve got a number of that have gone off to start their own companies and they’re entrepreneurs. And we love that. We love the fact that because our goal was to create a curriculum and a framework that would be transferable and that they wouldn’t be pigeonholed or feel like they only had a particular type of opportunity to get into. So yeah, they’re in a little bit of everything.
[00:38:28] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:38:28] That’s exciting. And if you could look back at, Deirdre, when you were in the sales concentration at the University of Toledo, what advice would you give yourself, that version of you for your future career in sales?
[00:38:46] Deirdre Jones: [00:38:46] Take some time to get off of the checklist. I was, did my undergrad in three and a half years, graduated with Honors diploma. Had my, I had my internship locked and loaded before my junior year was even [00:39:00] done. I had that internship for like maybe a month. They already made me a full-time job offer.
[00:39:05] I was locked and loaded right before I even graduated school. Like I did, I had my plan. I created my plan. I executed my plan. I followed it and everything clicked But I, and I did student organizations. I was a leader in student organizations and enjoyed doing that.
[00:39:21] I worked while I went through in school. Sometimes way too many hours, went with w with working. I don’t regret the level of involvement I had with the student organizations and with working and everything I did with school, but where I fell short was I didn’t, I did not talk to enough companies.
[00:39:41] I was just so focused on get a job that I… I should have talked to more companies. I should have talked to more companies I should have networked more. Classic example. I I actually won the top award in our college for an undergraduate student. I [00:40:00] was one of the student Pacemakers and they have two Pacemaker winners in each department every year.
[00:40:05] And I was like, “Yeah, Pacemaker.” And they do this whole award ceremony and this phenomenal networking event that I was too foolish and too ignorant to recognize what was going on at the time, because I already had my full-time job lined up. And I was like, “Okay, cool. I’m going to go. I’m going to go.”
[00:40:21] And I just, I really only talked to the people at my table because those are the people at my table. And in hindsight, I should have worked that room and I didn’t, and that was a mistake. And when I, and if I rewind before that, when I went to the college job fair, I did my background research. I saw which companies were there for the things that I was interested in.
[00:40:44] And, once I had a couple of good conversations, I stopped, because I was like, “Oh, these were really good conversations. This’ll turn into an interview. I’m not going to need to talk to anybody else.” And I was right, but I was also [00:41:00] wrong because I should have talked to more companies while I was there because I didn’t recognize that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
[00:41:07] And I, I should have learned more about the different types of sales and marketing opportunities that were out there to learn more about different industries, different types of sales and marketing type roles to get a really good understanding of what’s ultimately going to be the best fit for me. I don’t regret the company I was with.
[00:41:27] I don’t look back on and be like, “Oh my God, that was such a mistake.” Because I did, there were positives and negatives to that experience and I’m glad I worked with that organization and that people in that space. But I was too quick to just get stuff done that I should have taken some more time to that.
[00:41:46] And that’s, and I see students today, even still make that exact same mistake. And it is so hard to stand where I’m at and be like, “Oh my God.” I am like, [00:42:00] it’s, I’m watching it all over again, semester after semester. And just really trying to help some of them pump that break and be like, are you and not necessarily saying, are you sure?
[00:42:12] ‘Cause I always tell my students. I said, look, I go, “You don’t owe me any answers, any explanation. You don’t have to share anything with me that you don’t want to share with me, but these are some questions I want you to ask yourself and you can go over these answers in this conversation with me or you can do it on your own or with some other folks, but you really need to have real answers to some of these questions before you can come, before you could realistically say I’m done networking at job fair networking night the sales competition.
[00:42:42] Or these are the only companies I’m going to talk to for an interview perspective.” A lot of students, they’re overlooking things. I see some students making choices that, you sit there. I the vast majority and we’re making good fits, good fit choices.
[00:42:54] When you see some of them not doing the proper due diligence on talking it’s and the thing is we provide them with tons of [00:43:00] opportunity, tons of opportunity. And that’s one of the things that our students are very thankful and appreciative of between the sales program and our college of business and innovation is the amount of opportunity.
[00:43:10] But yeah, I’m sorry. That was a long one, but it hits home when.
[00:43:14] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:43:14] I think it resonates with a lot of people because especially people looking to get into sales, they have goals and they build out path or a plan to get to those goals. And it feels really good to cross it off your to-do list or to reach that goal. And sometimes you’re right. It does take the best advice is just to sit back and talk to more people and give yourself more options ’cause you don’t know what you don’t know, which is yeah very real life for a lot of students that we talk to. We want to hit you with a couple quick, just quick hitters, fast questions. Just answer the first thing that comes to your mind.
[00:43:53] What is your favorite book whether it’s business, work-related, it doesn’t matter? What’s your favorite book?
[00:44:03] [00:44:00] Deirdre Jones: [00:44:03] My favorite book.
[00:44:07] I think probably the, one of my favorite books that I read was probably ”The Millionaire Next Door” because it helped me, helped me understand that building wealth and security is something that’s very easy to do.
[00:44:23] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:44:23] Yeah, that’s great. And would you rather work for a great boss and a not so great company or for a not so great boss at a really incredible company?
[00:44:34] Deirdre Jones: [00:44:34] The boss. The people that you’re with you can get through crappy companies together. The boss and the people that are around you on a regular basis, that’s your everyday reality. So yeah, I would take people over organization.
[00:44:49] Libby Galatis: [00:44:49] That’s great. And my question for you is who has been the most influential person in your life, whether professionally or personally?
[00:45:04] [00:45:00] Deirdre Jones: [00:45:04] I don’t. So I don’t think there’s any one particular person. I think fundamentally I take a look at just, I would, I’ll just say like my parents and my grandparents, just that unrelenting faith that they had in me. Sorry, just that unrelenting faith and just the joy of sharing the family story
[00:45:28] and the story part of it. I love family history. I love learning more about stuff like that. And when you learn more about your family history and your background, you realize how much we are all, even as on a society basis, we’re all standing on the shoulders of those before us. That’s great. You have awesome stories and really good perspective take this full circle to the beginning of our conversation. You are teaching and building future sales leaders you, yourself, where that are that sales leader, you were in the program. And it’s awesome [00:46:00] perspective that you have when you’re building up this program and the students going through it.
[00:46:04] Kristen Wisdorf: [00:46:04] So we appreciate you sharing your stories with us today. Thank you, Deirdre.
[00:46:09] Deirdre Jones: [00:46:09] Thank you so much for having, having me.