Tech Sales is for Hustlers Podcast

Campus Series: Greg Accardo – Good Habits Makes Great Salespeople

Guest-At-A-Glance

Name: Greg Accardo

What he does: Greg is the First Director of the LSU Professional Sales Institute. He has 25 years of experience in business. After graduating from LSU’s MBA program in 2014, he started working there as a teacher.

Company: LSU

Noteworthy: “Probably like a lot of people, I ended up in sales by accident.” Greg didn’t have formal business training. He graduated from LSU with a degree in Political Science. He had the ambition to go to law school and be an attorney. Greg also has experience in the insurance business, real estate investment business, and business development consulting. 

Where to find Greg: LinkedIn

Key Insights

⚡Read sales books. According to Greg, investing in books is the best way to invest in yourself. Especially when you are a student, it doesn’t matter if you read a couple of pages per day; the habit of reading is what’s crucial.

“I drill my students all the time and assign sales books. We assign a new book every semester, and I tell them, ‘This is the best $20 you will ever spend. You need to read one of these books, at least every two, three months. Read twenty pages a day, ten pages a day.’ Your brain is like a muscle. If you’re going to train for a marathon, you don’t start training one day and run a marathon two days later. Your brain is similar to that muscle, and there’s a functionality that you have to condition.”

⚡Learning responsibility from practice. Exposing students to real-world situations helps them understand sales. Practice leads to success. Learning outside the classroom is vital for every sales student. Greg gives the example:

“I’ll tell the team, ‘Okay guys, you got two days. I want you to go away, come back, tell me who’s going to be the manager.’ They have to self-select amongst themselves. Who’s going to be the manager of the team? It’s not just you get a title. You’re the manager. Now you are accountable for everything that everybody on that team does. At the end of the semester, we have the managers submit a letter grade for each team member. They have to self-analyze themselves, and they have to self-analyze their team. It’s the same thing in real life.”

⚡There’s no success without patience and dedication. Learning is a never-ending process. There are many ways to improve your skills — allow books to be your allies. “Never stop learning. You’ve got to continue, open the books, keep reading, keep getting better. And if you do that, the money will come. The success will come, the notoriety, the recognition. But don’t push it. Try to make it happen faster than it should. Let it take its natural course. The best thing you can do is help it along,” says Greg.

Episode Highlights

You want a candidate who’s willing to learn and move to the next level

”I have a lot of salespeople that I talk to, consult with, and I’ve had a few who were sales recruiters ask me, ‘Hey, what does the ideal candidate look like that we should focus on to help us meet our goals?’ And I’ll say,  ‘There’s probably one question that you could ask a candidate to see if they’re going to be successful. Ask them, ‘What is the last sales book you’ve read?’ If they don’t have an answer, that’s a key indicator, in my opinion, that they’re not willing to invest in themselves. You want a candidate who’s willing to learn, be curious, and move to the next level.”

Books that every aspiring salesperson should read

“I’ll tell you some of the authors that I think you could focus on because all these people write really good material. Daniel Pink has some great material out there, ‘Sell as Human.’ It’s a great book. Jeb Blount has some great material. He comes up with a new book every few months; the guy’s a machine. He’s continually just churning and burning books.  There’s a great book that I assigned to my class last year. It’s called ‘Stop selling, start leading.’ A great book about not just sales, but about how to be better at business. ‘Virtual selling,’ that I highly recommend to anyone who’s in sales, who found themselves suddenly all overnight thrown into their back room with a camera. Sitting in there trying to make up for a mess and still trying to do the same thing they were doing before when they were knocking on doors and taking people to lunch. Go to a bookstore and look at the sales books, and pick one, start somewhere.”

Motivation to enter a program at LSU

“I would say it is the opportunities that come from completing this degree program. We take students, and we’d go to sales competitions every semester, and we’ll go all over the country. I’m dragging these students through airports, and we’re going to these different universities. They never get away from the recruiters. They follow them. They’re constantly interviewing for jobs. I have a group of seniors right now who stay in our sales lab because they’re not role-playing, they’re interviewing, they’re doing virtual interviews, and these are scheduled back to back.”

The conversation is the essence of sales

”If you decide you want to be in the LSU College of Business, and you choose the marketing department as your degree, sales is the one job that you would have as a business school graduate where you will use everything that you learn in your four years at LSU, in your career. You’re going to have conversations with people about accounting. You’re going to have conversations with people about finance, management, marketing, IT, IFDS, economics. You’re going to have these conversations, especially in B2B sales. You’re going to have conversations about revenues and expenses and ROI. All of those classes that you hated.’ Having those conversations with people currently in those roles is the biggest benefit you’re going to get.”

Piece of advice to rookies

“It’s important to ask great questions and listen. I’ve learned that people will tell you why they want to buy your product if you asked the right questions and you know how to listen. I have great conversations around ‘what their goals are’ and ‘what’s keeping them from reaching those goals.’ You ask great open-ended questions that allow them to talk. They will tell you everything you need to know to sell them your product or your service.”

Finding a mentor is crucial for growth

“When you enter your first job, find a mentor. Find that person on the team you’re working with, who’s got experience and knowledge, and let that person be your mentor. You’ve got to have a mentor. You need someone you can go to and say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem. What do you suggest?’ Because it’s not going to be just a bed of roses. You’re going to run through some rough patches, and that mentor is going to be that helping hand to get you over those slumps.”

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:00:00] Hello, hustlers. Welcome back to another edition of the Tech Sales is for Hustlers Campus Series podcast. I am Kristen Wisdorf, and I have Libby Galatis with me. And today, we are very excited to have Greg Accardo from LSU joining us. Welcome to the podcast, Greg.

[00:00:21] Greg Accardo: [00:00:21] Great. Thank you for inviting me.

[00:00:24] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:00:24] We are really excited to chat with you, chat with a tiger, and learn a little bit more about your program and your background in sales. We like to kick off these podcasts the same way we kick off our interviews with students, which is tell us a little bit about you? Let’s take 60 seconds, and Greg, can you give us your highlight reel?

[00:00:45] Greg Accardo : [00:00:45] 60 seconds. That’s tight, but let me try. So I am a native of Baton Rouge, ah, an alumni of LSU. Now, a faculty at LSU College of Business. I have got about 20 to 25 years or so business experience. So a lot of that is in the sales space. And doors open in life and certain doors open for me that I ended up and I don’t know if it’s fate, but I ended up with a dream job where I became the director of the LSU Professional Sales Institute. Not the director, but the first director because, which allowed me to be part of a startup here at LSU.

[00:01:27] So it was a great opportunity and I’m very thankful for it.

[00:01:29] Libby Galatis: [00:01:29] That’s amazing. We were just talking about the program and we’ll definitely dive more into that. I’m interested to get a better idea of your professional background. Where you got started from a sales capacity? Why you transitioned into that space and how it came about? Now being a sales educator, I’m sure you share a wealth of experience with all of your students, which is so incredible.

[00:01:48] So maybe you can start by walking us through your very first sales position and how that came about and just your general experience there overall.

[00:01:57] Greg Accardo: [00:01:57] So probably like a lot of [00:02:00] people, I ended up in sales by accident. Okay? So I didn’t have formal training in business. I graduated from LSU with a Degree in Political Science. I had ambitions to go to law school. And this is back in the nineties. And I come out of LSU, recently been married, had to go back to LSU a second time to finish my degree. And really had dreams of going to law school, being an attorney. And,

[00:02:27] and, it’s fate that I didn’t get  except it in the LSU law school, because my LSAT score wasn’t high enough. And I remember the day that I got the letter from LSU saying that I did not make the cut. That day while I’m holding the letter, I get a call from someone wanting to talk to me about a job in the insurance business, because they had actually

[00:02:51] had me where I was referred to them. And I’m holding the letter and I’m holding the phone, I’m like, “Does this happen for a reason?” [00:03:00] So I said, “Why not? I had a plan over here, it didn’t work. Let’s try this one.” And went to work in the insurance business, life insurance business. And I had a great coach.

[00:03:11] I had a great mentor, a journal agent who said, “Look, I understand you don’t know how to sell. I will teach you how to sell.” A lot of his sales methodology was the old school. This is back before technology, the internet, we, the pagers was still a big thing. So that kind of gives you an idea of what it was like in sales back then. You had a phone book and you had a telephone. As I, you made appointments, made a lot of mistakes,

[00:03:35] but I think it was just the grit and the effort that I brought to the table that got me to a point where I have some success. Looking back today, knowing what I know today and thinking about all the things I would have done different in that sales role knowing what are, what I do know, what I teach, the different things that we study,

[00:03:54] I’m going , “Man, there was so many mistakes that I made. I’m surprised I even made a sale.” But I did. Okay? [00:04:00] Fast forward from there, I left the insurance business, went in the real estate investment business for a while, left that, went in consulting for in business development, ended up ended up at the LSU College of Business in 2012 in the MBA program.

[00:04:17] And the, this professional MBA program that was new. It was a mite program for working professionals who would come to school at night, take the same courses, same instructors professors. I graduated in 2014 from the program and at that time LSU had just approved through their border regions, the governing body for the Universities in Louisiana this new

[00:04:43] stand-alone academic program in the College of Business called the “LSU Professional Sales Institute.” So one of the first things they need to do is hire a director. And they put out a notice looking as a job ad. And I [00:05:00] saw the ad and I didn’t really know what it was, but I answered it, sent a resume,

[00:05:04] got a call to come in for an interview. And a little bit shocked I had to study up on a little bit what was this about, I almost forgot that I had applied. And I came in an interviewed with a board of faculty members, director of the the chair of the department of marketing.  Long story short,

[00:05:22] I was hired to be the first director. Started teaching my first classes in January of 2015. And they were, at that time, there were 30 students who had raised their hand and formally declared for this brand new Professional Sales Concentration. And when you, today we have about 180 students who are in the program earning that concentration.

[00:05:50] These are marketing majors, but they’re, they’ve got a concentration track in professional sales.

[00:05:56] Libby Galatis: [00:05:56] I think that, students these days that have [00:06:00] access to the resources and in the classes that you’re teaching and are able to gain that insight and understanding of the value of building a sales foundation and how transferable the skills are. And it’s just opening the door to professional opportunities.

[00:06:13] And I think a lot of students don’t quite consider unless they’re already exposed to it. You, yourself, you mentioned that sales just happened to you. It was a position that just, it just presented itself and you took it on. But you had mentioned earlier that looking back on that

[00:06:26] experience, there was a lot you wish that you had known going into it to better your experience. And I’m curious, if you could go back in time and tell yourself before you started that job any piece of advice, now knowing what you know to improve that first experience, what would you tell yourself?

[00:06:43] Greg Accardo: [00:06:43] Yeah. Yeah. Very easy question to answer. And a very economical question to answer. Read sales books. Okay? I drill my students all the time and assign sales books. And we,I sign a new book every [00:07:00] semester. And I tell them this is the best $20 you ever will spend. And you need to read one of these books, at least every two, three months. Read 20 pages a day, 10 pages a day.

[00:07:14] But your brain is like a muscle. If you’re going to train for a marathon, you don’t start training on one day and run a marathon two days later. Your brain is similar to that muscle itself and there’s a memory to it, and there’s a functionality that you have to condition. And there’s a lot of great material that students should be investing in themselves by reading the thoughts and the processes in the methodologies of sales professionals.

[00:07:45] Because you can’t replicate that amount of knowledge for the price. And if you’re on candles even save them last. I look at the books, I have tons of sales books and I buy them all the time and read them. Some I start reading, I can’t finish because I’ve got [00:08:00] another one I need to start. But what I try to tell my students that,  “If you remember anything from what you’re going to learn from me is that you’ve got to continue to reinvest in yourself.” So if I could go back 25 years ago, 30 years ago, I would have put more effort into reading the thoughts of sales leaders at that time.

[00:08:24] Okay? And they may be not particularly apply to your industry. There’s some thinking in there that you can benefit from. And that habit of continually reinvesting in yourself is something you need to keep pushing along. And good habits make great success.

[00:08:43] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:08:43] Oh, that is so true. I think the most elite salespeople that I’ve had the pleasure to know are ones who are  , constantly honing their craft and they recognize that you’re never at the top of your game, you’re never perfect. And so reading books [00:09:00] and continuing to invest in themselves is huge.

[00:09:02] But also to your point about it’s a habit. And a lot of elite sales professionals have developed and maintain really strong habits. Because that’s what it takes to constantly continue to be good in sales, which is constantly changing. And look, I have a lot of salespeople who that I talk to, consult with and I’ve had a few who were sales recruiters asked me before, “Hey, what does the ideal candidate look like that we should be focused on to help us meet our goals?” And I’ll say,  “There’s probably one question that you could ask a prospect, a candidate you’re recruiting to see if they’re going to be successful.

[00:09:45] Greg Accardo: [00:09:45] Ask them, “What is the last sales book you’ve read?” If they don’t have an answer, okay, that’s a key indicator. And in my opinion, that they’re not willing to invest [00:10:00] in themselves. Now they’re asking you to invest in them. It costs money to onboard somebody today. You’re talking 50 to $80,000 just to get you up to speed, three year commitment,

[00:10:13] the pay you, train you. Those are real dollars. Okay? That money comes off of your balance sheet. Okay? And if that candidate fails out and washes out, you never recoup that cost back. One thing you can do is find out, “Hey, we’re going to make an investment in you. Have you made investments in yourself?” And I and they stuck back and they said,  “We never thought about that.” I said, “Think about them as an individual. Have they taken the steps to make that choice? I’m making an investment in me. And if they can share a book with you, they’ve read that, whatever and I mean if some book that it’s about being a better business professional or better at sales,

[00:10:54] that’s great. That’s what you want. You want a candidate who’s willing to learn, be curious [00:11:00] and move to the next level.”

[00:11:03] Libby Galatis: [00:11:03] We just had a couple of episodes ago, we had Mark Weber, who’s the director of the Sales Program at Catholic University here in Virginia or in DC actually. And he mentioned that the most influential book that he’s read, most influential sales book is How to Win Friends and Influence People.

[00:11:18] Is there a particular book for the students that are listening to this today that you know, they’re eager to get in front of themselves and better themselves? Is there a particular book or a handful that you would suggest just as a starting point for somebody that’s looking to explore?

[00:11:31] Greg Accardo: [00:11:31] Without having to go in door somebody’s book when you watch, I don’t want to do. But I’ll just tell you some of the authors that I think you could focus on because all these people write really good material. Daniel H. Pink has some great material out there that, you know, To Sell Is Human.

[00:11:46] That’s a great book. This kind of get off the spot about what does it mean to sell. Okay? Why is sales important and why do salespeople really,… They’re not really selling a product, they helping people be better what they do. Okay? Jeb Blount has some great material, you know. [00:12:00] He has a whole stack of books.

[00:12:01] He comes up with a new book every few months, the guy’s a machine. He’s continually just churning and burning books. There’s a great book that I assigned to my class a few last year it’s called Stop Selling and Start Leading. Okay? A great book about not just sales, but about how to be a better business

[00:12:20] partner to your customers. So my recommendation would be, we just came through we’re still in a pandemic a little bit. There was a lot of material coming out about virtual selling and how to connect with people virtually that some of this went into the science of three dimensional versus two dimensional,

[00:12:37] and how do you overcome that barrier and that human connection. Really good stuff out there virtual selling that I highly recommend anyone who’s in sales, who found themselves suddenly all overnight thrown in, into their back room with a camera, sitting in there trying to make appointments, and still trying to do the same thing they were doing before a week before when they were knocking on doors and [00:13:00] taking people to lunch.

[00:13:01] When they took all that away, it’s  “Okay, I need to reteach myself.” W when someone is going to say, “Hey, what books should I read?” Oh my God. Make, go in a bookstore and just look the sales books, and just pick one. Just start somewhere. If you’re going to start this journey of a thousand miles, take the first step. Just grab a book, spend the 10 to 15 bucks and just read it.

[00:13:23] Okay? And go back and get another one. Or exchanged that one, trade it off, give it to somebody else and trade books. But, get a what, turn the TV off for about an hour a night, open up the book and just try to go through about 25 pages

[00:13:37] per night.

[00:13:39] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:13:39] Yeah, I love that. Um, I’m interested to learn more about your program. So when you walked us through, you said the first classes, I think you said were in 2015 for the sales program and  you , obviously, you give your students a lot of good advice, good books to read, et cetera, you make it part of their [00:14:00] curriculum.

[00:14:01] Why do you think you were, have been able to grow the program from when it started 30 students to now 180? Like what? Over the last five, six years, what do you attribute so much growth to, as it relates to learning about sales in college now? I would probably have to say,  if you say, “Point on one thing that you could put on a list that why so many students want to be in this program?” I would say, “It is the opportunities that come from completing this degree program.” We take students and we’d go to sales competitions every semester and we’ll go all over the country. And I’m dragging these students through airports and we’re going to these different universities in.

[00:14:43] Greg Accardo: [00:14:43] They never get away from the recruiters. They follow them. Okay? And they’re constantly interviewing for jobs. I have a group of seniors right now who stay in our sales lab because they’re not role-playing, they’re interviewing. They’re doing virtual interviews and these like [00:15:00] schedule back to back.

[00:15:01] Students are very connected. You get a College of Business, like the LSU College of Business. Okay? They’re connected. These students are talking, they’re communicating. So if they’re coming out of a program and they’re may, I don’t want to say they’re bragging, but they’re telling their friends, “Hey, I’ve got three interviews tomorrow,

[00:15:19] I’ve got to go sit in a sales lab from one o’clock to four o’clock,” if you got a student over here, who’s got no interviews, okay, and they’re still thinking about, “Hey, I’m graduating at the end of the semester, I don’t have a job interview yet, that’s impactful because now you’re talking about their professional careers, their livelihoods, when they graduate. And they’re thinking about this because

[00:15:41] their parents are saying, “Hey, you’re coming off our payroll in a few months, you better get a job. We’re not going to pay your rent anymore. You got student loans, you gotta pay it back.” So now they’re thinking about, “I need a job.” When they see the activity and a success that our sales students are having, getting great jobs, they’re moving all over [00:16:00] the country,

[00:16:01] a lot of them going to Dallas, Houston, I’ve got one last semester, she’s in Seattle, Washington, and they’re posting all of this stuff on social media. Okay? They’re seeing it. And so that draws more students coming into the program because they’re saying, “Hey, I want to be part of that. I need a job too,

[00:16:20] whenever I graduate. I want to go work for one of these companies. Teach me what I need to know so that I can go work for them.” So I think that’s where we went from five years ago. Now, look, our curriculum is very similar to most any our one new university like an LSU. We have an intro sales class, a sales management course.

[00:16:42] We’ve made an ad sales class, that’s our capstone course. We have internship opportunities. Now we’ve got marketing analytics. We’ve got digital marketing concentrations where students get paired these different tracks together. So we’ve evolved the program, but at in the end, it’s about the opportunities that [00:17:00] these students are getting. And companies really need qualified, smart, ambitious salespeople.

[00:17:07] And they want them right out of these sales programs because they want these young minds that have a lot of, they have a lot of intelligence, but they just don’t know what they don’t know yet. They are going to take them to the next level.

[00:17:19] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:17:19] Yeah, a lot of potential and young and hungry. That’s what we’re looking for. 

[00:17:23] Greg Accardo: [00:17:23] Yeah.

[00:17:24] And it’s, “Hey you’re not going to be an expert in everything, but guess what?”

[00:17:28] That’s what they want. They want to know that the basics of the selling process that you can engage someone in the conversation, that you can use the technologies that are available to most companies. And they’ll teach you the rest. They’ll teach you that, there are technical aspects that our product, you’ll learn who their customers are.

[00:17:46] Okay? And you’ll learn how to have great conversations with those people.”

[00:17:50] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:17:50] Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly why we partner with programs and we want to hire people from your program because we want people who [00:18:00] aren’t scared of sales and have some background and some obviously curriculum and education and to the, the fundamentals. Um, and are ready to hit the ground running.

[00:18:11] Um, I’m, based on your program and how much it’s grown over the last five years, what are you finding most of your students want to get into? Are there specific industries that are really popular right now especially? What are you finding your students, um, what types of jobs are they accepting nowadays?

[00:18:30] Greg Accardo: [00:18:30] It’s all across the board. I wouldn’t pick out one particular industry and say, “Man, I’ve got all of my students, that they want to work for those companies.” It’s never really been like that. There’s been a really nice mix and diversity of different industries. Now I can point out a couple that come up in conversations. A lot of medical

[00:18:49] sales positions are,  “Hey, I want to be in medical sales.” And we do have the students fill out a questionnaire especially when it comes to the capstone course that I teach. We want to know [00:19:00] ’cause we have corporate partners and we want to help steer these students to the companies that they think they want to be involved with.

[00:19:06] So you’ll hear a lot about industrial sales because we, in South Louisiana, we’re, the industrial base. A lot of oil and gas petrochemical, oh like a Houston area. We’ve get some who, want to be in tech sales. Okay? And they want to go move to Dallas. They want to live in that tech hub. Or they want to go to Austin and be part of that ecosystem there too.

[00:19:28] And so in, in we’re we’ve got contexts. We can refer them to people they can go interview. But no, it’s it’s been a nice mix,  I would say. Well, you’re right. Okay? If you come here with a desire to be working in a certain industry, we should be able to connect you face to face with a recruiter or an opportunity where you can take that next step with them.

[00:19:51] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:19:51] That’s great. So if you have come across on campus a freshmen or a sophomore and they express some interest in [00:20:00] sales in the, in the future, but really considered it too deeply or the program, what advice would you give them? Um, the program, obviously take, uh, take the first class, um, what other advice you give them to kind of educate themselves a little on sales as a career and a profession?

[00:20:16] Greg Accardo: [00:20:16] Yeah. So that’s a great question. It’s a timely question. So Saturday, I will be here at the LSU College of Business because we have our normal group of high school seniors who come in to visit, and they bring their parents and they come in and they have, they invite faculty to come and talk to this group. And there’ll be a 

[00:20:39] 150 people probably in the group. And so I’m going to be part of that faculty cohort, come in and talk about the different programs in the college. So these are high school seniors who are looking at LSU and specifically looking at being in the College of Business. So what I normally tell these students and their parents, I’ll get [00:21:00] in front of the class and I’ll tell them in front of mine colleagues from accounting and finance and management, I’ll say, “Look,” I say, “Guys if you decide you want to be in the LSU College of Business, and you choose the Marketing Department as your degree, and you look at sales is the one job

[00:21:20] that you would have as a business school graduate where you will use every thing that you learn in your four years at LSU in your career, you’re going to have conversations with people about accounting, you’re going to have conversations with people about finance, about management, marketing, IT, IFDS, economics,

[00:21:43] you’re going to have these conversations, especially in B2B Sales, you’re going to have conversations about revenues and expenses and ROI. So now all of that, all of those classes that you hated, okay, that were really hard, you’re going to [00:22:00] see now, you’re going to, it’s going to benefit you because it’s going to come back. And you’re going to intuitively show people how your product or your service impacts them from a financial perspective or improve their management, or helps their marketing or improve their IT systems.

[00:22:16] Are there whatever they’re working on, that would be IT related. So having those conversations with people currently in those roles, it is the biggest benefit you’re going to get. Sales is the one career, the only one that I know of that you will use every one of those topics.”

[00:22:37] Libby Galatis: [00:22:37] I think there’s so much that students can take away from a sales course that you’re just not going to find in any other classroom to, to your point. And I guess going off of that, is there anything specific that you feel that your students are taking away, leaving your class? Once they transition to the next course, they’re moving on to, what is something that you want them to take away from their time with you and taking that first sales class?

[00:23:00] [00:23:00] Greg Accardo: [00:23:00] So that’s, we have that question all the time. And we have that discussion all the time in class. And I was like, “Guys,. This is the main thing that you’ve got to walk away from LSU with.” When you’re in sales, your product or your service, if not the key thing that you focus on when you’re having these discussions in sales, you need to focus on your customer.

[00:23:22] What are their goals, what are they obstacles getting in the way of their goals. And be able to show them how your product helps them be better at what they do. I said, “If you focus on that and that only you’ll make all the money you want to make. But if you’re walking in the door and  your mind

[00:23:39] is totally focused on the possible commission you’re going to make because you want to take a vacation to the Bahamas, you need that commission check, you’re not going to make it in sales. Your thinking and your mentality needs to be focused on, “This is my customer. I’m like a doctor coming to see a patient.

[00:23:54] I’m going to analyze the patient. I’m going to ask them questions. I’m going to ask them, “How long has it been hurting? What have you done for it in the [00:24:00] past? How did that work out for you? If I could show you a better way, would you want to hear about what we offer?” I said, “If you go in there with that mindset, like a doctor patient relationship, you’ll make all the money you want to make. But your customers are gonna look at you different.

[00:24:14] You’re not a vendor. You now, you’re a partner to them and they need you. And they’re going to come back and buy again and again, because you’re, or you’re an asset. Okay? They don’t need someone to read a catalog to them. They can do that themselves. They need a consultant that knows their business as well as they do and can help them be better, more competitive, more profitable.”

[00:24:35] Libby Galatis: [00:24:35] Absolutely. I think a big thing with sales and misconceptions behind it and maybe students hesitation to pursue a career in sales or take that sales classes is just the unknown, the fear of the unknown, not really knowing what to expect and not knowing if they can do it. I think

[00:24:51] when you’re starting an entry level position, especially, you have to start somewhere. The best sales executives all made that first cold call. They all had that first uncomfortable interaction with the [00:25:00] consumer. My question for you is if there’s any, are there any particular exercises, assignments or projects that you’ve assigned your students that you feel pushed them out of their comfort zone the most and walk us through that experience.

[00:25:11] Because I’m sure they learned a lot doing that.

[00:25:14] Greg Accardo: [00:25:14] So what you’ve just done, if you perfectly described what the capstone class is for our students who are coming through this sales curriculum. This is how I kind of compare if you want to use an analogy. Okay? If you took swimming lessons when you were young, and if you took those swimming lessons sitting in a classroom and you took tasks and you watch videos, you listen to lectures and you made an ale on the test,

[00:25:40] do you know how to swim yet? Okay? So my class is, now we’re going to teach you how to swim. You’re going to get in a swimming pool. You’re going to get wet. And you may choke on some water. You may feel like you’re drowning, but we’re going to pull you out. We’re going to coach you, put you back in the pool and you’re going to learn how to swim [00:26:00] until you get comfortable in the water.

[00:26:02] So the class is taking them out of a stir, a sterile environment. Because the classroom, there are really sterile. There, there is no, no adversity. Yeah, they could fail my class, but they’re not worried about that. What the adversity is we push them out and make them sell a real product to real people.

[00:26:18] Now you’ve exposed them to what life is like on a daily basis for professional salespeople. So the class is structured around a sales project every semester. So we’ll do a symposium one semester and a student would have to sell the tickets to a symposium. So they’ve got a prospect, they’ve got to do

[00:26:39] pre-approach. They’ve got to make calls, cold calls, warm calls. They’ve got to set up appointments. Okay? And they’ve got to go sell the benefit of why these business people should come to our symposium. And then another semester we do a golf tournament. And the students have to sell the teams for the golf tournament.

[00:26:59] Then they play [00:27:00] golf with these companies when they come. So we’ve just recently moved this event to top golf, we used to do it on the LSU golf course, and it was a four person scramble, full day event with a banquet after. But now we’re doing it at top golf. We’ll just release the whole third floor and the students have to sell the bays and we have, and we give them a quota.

[00:27:19] Okay? And they have to sell so many bays or else, it’s going to hurt their grade. But they have to do all the prospecting, they have to do all the appointments pre-approach. But it gives them kind of a taste of what it’s like to get rejection. Look, they get a lot of rejection. Just because you’re an LSU student calling some business person on a Monday morning, want to talk to them about a golf tournament and they’re having a bad day,

[00:27:41] they hang the phone up on them. But, I can’t replicate that in the classroom, but guess what? Now they’re getting that experience so that when they graduate, they know, okay? Some of these people have good days and bad days. I have to just acknowledge that and move on and [00:28:00] maybe come back and touch that person on another day.

[00:28:02] Something else we do that I think is really impactful and important is that we take our classes. Two sections. They’re normally 20 students per class and we will divide these classes up into sales teams. So at the beginning of the semester, I assign each student and we’ll do teams of six to eight students per team.

[00:28:24] And then I’ll tell the team. I say, “Okay guys, you got two days. I want you to go away, come back, tell me who’s going to be the manager.” So they have to self select amongst themselves, who’s going to be the manager for the team. Now it’s not just, you get a title, you’re the manager. Now you are accountable for everything that everybody on that team does.

[00:28:45] If somebody doesn’t come to class, I don’t ask the student were they’ve asked the manager, “Where is your team members? Okay, you are accountable for your members come into class. Why aren’t they here?” All the assignments we [00:29:00] assigned to the managers give to their team members and the managers have to make sure that everyone at team does the assignment.

[00:29:05] And then at the end of the semester, we have the managers of submit a letter grade for each member of their team. And not just the grade, but a paragraph or two of why that student deserves that grade. Then they have to get their grade and why they deserve that grade. So they have to self-analyze themselves and they got to self-analyze their team. And it look, it’s the same thing in real life.

[00:29:29] The 80-20 rule is written all over it. 20% of students are going to do 80% of the work. Okay? It happens every semester. There’s going to be one or two students on a team that just don’t want to be involved. They want to take the lazy route and the managers are pulling their hair out. And it’s  “What do I do about this?”

[00:29:47] “It’s not my problem. They’re your problem. You fix it. I’m the CEO. They’re your, they work for you.” And and you really see the students kind of gel into that mindset that “Man, [00:30:00] sales managing is hard. Okay? It is really a hard job trying to manage people because their problems are now your problems.”

[00:30:07] And then you’ve got this quota you got to meet and,  “Oh my God, what are we going to do if we don’t make that quota? And I’ve got three people on my team, they’re just not doing anything. And two of them are doing all the work.” Now, guys like “Welcome to the real world.” Okay?

[00:30:21] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:30:21] Yeah, no kidding. Honestly, it’s, you’re not only taking them outside of the classroom environment, but you’re bringing it even beyond role-playing. Right? You’re making it real life, which is truly the best way to prepare students for this kind of crazy

[00:30:37] career.

[00:30:38] Greg Accardo: [00:30:38] What I tell them is, “I’m going to teach you about the environment that you are about to enter. Okay?” Most of these students, this is our last semester. This is like a finishing school when they come to me. So it’s my job to prepare them for how they’re going to be treated, how they’re going to be talked to, what’s going to be expected of them once they leave college. Because [00:31:00] college is one

[00:31:02] ecosystem in its own, but once you walk out of that bubble, it’s a different world. Okay? People talk to you different. They’re going to expect different things from you. They’re going to hold you accountable. They don’t care your car doesn’t start, they don’t care that your cat got out and you can’t go find it.

[00:31:17] That’s not my problem. Okay? We’re all accountable, and we have to perform. If not, then guess what? The company is going to make changes. So it’s my job to show them that, “Hey, life is not fair. Okay? Yeah, there are going to be some things beyond your control that you’re just going to accept and you’re going to move on. But in the end, everyone’s accountable.

[00:31:40] So take care of the little things, pay attention to details, but you’ve got to perform. You can’t put your work off on somebody else. Okay?” So it’s really entertaining sometimes to see the interaction between the students. And it’s really entertaining to watch these managers go, “I will never be [00:32:00] a sales manager.

[00:32:01] If somebody offers me a sales manager job one day, I’m telling them. Keep it. I don’t want it.”

[00:32:06] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:32:06] Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure some people are like, “Okay. Yes. Now I know that that’s not for me.” I’m also sure you probably are pleasantly surprised by people who really take to the role naturally too. And maybe have a future in sales managment.

[00:32:17]Greg Accardo: [00:32:17] It’s a mixture of, we’ve got some that really go,  “Hey, this is no problem. I can do this.” And some who thought they were really going to be a good sales manager when I got a taste of it like all the drama faking, because I can’t… Here’s the problem. These students are their friends.

[00:32:32] You can watch the dynamic where these friendships just dissolve. It’s we’re not friends anymore and guess what, and they start hating each other. I’m like “That happens in real companies. You become a manager and the people who you were hanging out with after work, they don’t like you anymore. Okay?” And it’s hard for a lot of students to accept. That’s life. Okay? When you hold your best friends accountable for the work they do, they’re not your friends anymore. They’re looking at you [00:33:00] different. It’s not all bad, but it’s a great learning experience for them to see that this semester is going to go by very fast.

[00:33:06] The last semester is your senior year. Spring semester is going to go by very quick. Be prepared, get ready. And what I want to do, I want them to be prepared for whatever comes at them from the other side. Because I want them to be successful. I want them to wash out and realize, “Oh, sales is hard.

[00:33:23] They never told me it was this hard.” It’s not easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. It’s a lot of hard work, but is, it’s the best paying hard work you’re ever going to be involved in.

[00:33:33] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:33:33] Yeah. I really resonated with your swimming analogy and how you’re like, “We’re going to get you in the pool and you’re going to choke on some water.” Because it is so true. And the more they can do that before they’re actually in it and it’s, it’s you know, the stakes are higher, is great. I actually want to talk a little bit about your career and your own career path.

[00:33:54] You know, you hop into sales when that wasn’t originally the path that you thought you would be in. I’m sure you [00:34:00] choked on a little bit of water in your first sales job too. Can you tell the listeners a little bit more about some of the, I guess, lessons you learned the hard way? Or do you have any stories that you remember from your first sales job that you’re like, “Oh, wow.

[00:34:13] I, I learned that one and that one stung when it happened.”

[00:34:19] Greg Accardo: [00:34:19] Yeah. And look, I a typical, rookie mistakes and I’ve had that same mindset before where I’m filling out paperwork for a big case I’m working on. And then the next day they call and say, “Hey, we changed our mind.” And I’ve already spent the money. Okay? I’ve already cashed in his commission, even though I hadn’t gotten it yet.

[00:34:41] But. What a let down. And you just let the air out of your balloon. You’re running around, you’re strutting like a chicken, you’re bragging all your coworkers, but the next day it just, poof. It disappears. And that emotional rollercoaster was hard in the beginning to get used to. And I never [00:35:00] forget my my, my general agent told me, my mentor has said,” Look,” he said, “let me tell you something.

[00:35:05] In this business don’t count your money till the ink is dry on the paper. And sometimes that ink, it takes a month to dry. Okay?” He says this, “Don’t count your money yet, but take care of your clients, answer their calls or questions.” But here’s something else that I really learned. It’s very important to ask great questions and listen.

[00:35:29] And I learned early on later that people will tell you why they were buy your product, if you asked the right questions and you know how to listen. If you’re not, have great conversations around what their goals are and what’s keeping them from reaching those goals and you ask great open-ended questions that allow them to talk.

[00:35:51] They will tell you everything you need to know to sell them your product or your service. That is the one key thing that I wish I [00:36:00] knew back then to be better at. I think and probably it’s probably a good thing, ’cause I may have still be in that business instead of teaching sales. But but I feel like my, my calling in life now is training the next generation of sales leaders.

[00:36:14] But yeah, it may, if I can go back and talk to myself when I was in my thirties, I would say, “You got to listen, okay? You got to ask better questions. You got to listen better and you got to follow up on questions. If they say one thing you need to come back with,  “How would you do that before? What’s been working best?”

[00:36:38] Libby Galatis: [00:36:38] I think that’s such incredible advice. And like we talked about earlier, you’re bound to face challenges in that first role, getting exposed to these things for the first time, you’re a fish out of water. I’m curious, you mentioned very early on in the podcast that your first manager in that first role played a really big part in your development and that you felt that they were a strong leader.

[00:36:55] Could you tell us more about maybe what you would suggest to students when they’re considering [00:37:00] opportunities? It seems like that left a really great impact on you. Are there certain qualities that your students should really be looking for in that first role? And what do you think some of those might be?

[00:37:09] Greg Accardo: [00:37:09] Yeah. Yeah. So great question. This is my advice from not just my students, but for any student graduating from college. When you enter your first job at a college, find a mentor, okay? Find that person who is on the team, that you’re working with, who’s got experience and knowledge and let that person be your mentor.

[00:37:31] You’ve got to have a mentor. You need someone who you can go to and say, “Hey, I’ve got a problem. What do you suggest?” Because it’s not going to be just a bed of roses. You’re going to run through some rough patches. That mentor that you can rely on is going to be that helping hand to get you over those slumps.

[00:37:51] Because on the backside of that slump is a rosier path. But the mentors are the people you can connect with [00:38:00] on a personal level and get human to human and ask them for their advice. I’m sure there are people in every company that you would go to work for as a new hire right out of college.

[00:38:12] They are people in those companies that would be glad to be your mentor. Okay? Your first three years are not going to be easy. Okay? If you don’t know what you don’t know, you’ve got to get built. It’s like building up this perfect robot who’s going to go out and be successful, but that doesn’t happen overnight.

[00:38:33] I wish it did, but it doesn’t. Okay? So mentorship is really important in never stop learning. You’ve got to continue open the books, keep reading, keep getting better. And if you do that, the money will come. The success will come, the notoriety, the recognition but don’t push it. Try to make it happen faster than it should. Let it take its natural course.

[00:38:58] The best thing you can do is [00:39:00] help it along.

[00:39:01] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:39:01] Yeah, that’s really good advice between helping yourself by continuing to educate yourself and learn and read books to going out and being proactive about finding a support system and a mentor. And I think you don’t just rely on the person who’s your manager, you know, you can go out and you can build an entire, you know, system, universe of people who you could go to when, um, when things aren’t, like you said, which is bound to happen.

[00:39:28] Um, you you have such a such a great background. You’ve worked in insurance. It looks like you’ve worked at, you know, for a communications company. And I even saw that you used to work for the Bat, uh, Baton Rouge Airport. Right? 

[00:39:42] Greg Accardo: [00:39:42] I did. And that was how I ended up in MBA school at LSU. In 2010, I accepted a position at the Baton Rouge Airport as their, their Property Director. And I handle all the leasing for real estate outside of the fence, they call that non aeronautical usage. A rental car [00:40:00] agencies, the vendors in the terminal, advertising in the terminal.

[00:40:04] So I was doing the contracts and doing some sales in that space. And the LSU college of Business MBA program had an ad in the airport terminal. And the contract for that ad had expired. So normally we would look at the contracts when they started getting ready to expire, we need to con contact someone.

[00:40:25] “Hello, we need to renew this contract if you want to keep the ad up.” So I reached out to the LSU College of Business and at the time of Dr. Ed Watson, I’ll never forget. Dr. Watson is still here, but he’s not director of the MBA program anymore. And I said, ” Look, Dr. Watson, we have this ad here for the LSU MBA program.

[00:40:43] The contracts expired. Would you like to renew it? Because if so, keep it up. We need to engage in a new agreement for another year.” He says, “I didn’t know we had an ad at the airport.” So I said , “Well, you do.” And I said, “Now, you know that Dr. Watson has kind of faded. We’d probably want to [00:41:00] upgrade the graphics. Make it look fresher.”

[00:41:02] He said , “Well, I need to come see that. ‘Cause I didn’t even know we had a A  ad.” So he made an appointment, come to see me at the airport. And we went, we did a tour. I showed him the A ad in, and I sold him some more ad space. ‘Cause we’re doing these high tension, these these vinyl graphic column wraps.

[00:41:20] And I sold him a couple of those. And while we’re doing the paperwork to renew the contract and A ad to that, he was telling me about the MBA program had just started this called Professional MBA for Business Professionals to go to night school. And he says, “You should consider doing our Professional MBA program.”

[00:41:41] I said, “Dr. Watson I was a terrible undergrad.” He said, “No, that,” he said, “that’s not the point. We built this program for working professionals like you who have business knowledge. You come and we put you on a cohort of other business professionals like yourself. Take the same classes.” So I [00:42:00] talked to my wife and I decided, “Yeah, what the hell, let’s do it.”

[00:42:03] So in 2012 I was an incoming student in the MBA program, graduate in 2014. But the airport is what led me to getting involved with a graduate degree at LSU. And because of that, I ended up as director of the, we talking about doors opening fate. Okay? That actually led me to this position.

[00:42:27] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:42:27] Yeah, that’s such a good reminder to people that everything you’re doing can lead you and will lead you, if you, if you work hard to your next thing uh, in your life. And also a good reminder that you can use sales and sales skills and fundamentals in so many different industries and jobs.

[00:42:48] Right? I think some people come out of college, they don’t, they don’t think, “I’m going to be in sales and work at the airport and for the airport.” You know? So it’s really cool that sales back to what you [00:43:00] said, you know, talking to those seniors who are going to be there this weekend. If you take sales as your education path, it will touch everything you do.

[00:43:10] Not only in the school of business at LSU, but your entire career. So that’s a great reminder.

[00:43:16] Greg Accardo: [00:43:16] Yeah, everyone is in sales. Okay? Whether you realize it or not, you are selling something to someone every day.

[00:43:25] Okay? So as, you know, your ability to excel in life and have better conversations and leave better impacts on people is your skills in sales.

[00:43:38] Libby Galatis: [00:43:38] It’s clearly you’re, the passion you have for professional sales, that’s contagious. And I think that’s, a huge factor for why the program has grown as much as it has and why students probably enjoy your class as much as they do. I’m biased, I work almost exclusively with marketing and sales professors and I think they’re the greatest faculty members of any university, because they’re so animated and they want to keep their students engaged.

[00:43:59] Going [00:44:00] off of that passion that you’ve sort of built over the years, what has been your biggest win within your career or the most kind of gratifying when that you’ve experienced whether professionally prior to starting the program at LSU or since becoming an educator and now trying to spread the word and educate about this industry?

[00:44:18] Greg Accardo: [00:44:18] So I will touch on a couple of things. So my biggest satisfying win is when I get emails from my students thanking me for teaching them the things they learn because it’s really helping them excel in their careers. And I, and what I’m fair to students who’ve graduated three and four years ago who are having a lot of success and they’re sending me emails saying, “Hey, thank you so much.

[00:44:41] Couldn’t have done it without you.” That’s very, very satisfying. On a personal note, last semester I had one of my sales team students won the International Collegiate Sales Competition in the role-play competition. She was the national champion. That was off the chart because we’ve been doing a lot of sales competitions ever [00:45:00] since I’ve been here.

[00:45:01] And that was the first time that I’ve had a student win a major competition. That’s a high bar to have to get over, but, we did. Yeah, and so there’s two things. Now, the students who messaged me on LinkedIn and thanked me for everything that they learned from the program, they couldn’t have done it without the Professional Sales Institute.

[00:45:21] I’ve had parents who sent letters to the Dean, who thanked, thanking the college and for the work that we do because they were worried about their child. Your son or daughter, what they were going to do after college and they got all these job opportunities to like, “This is unbelievable that Sales Institute has been a lifesaver for our family.”

[00:45:37] Those are very gratifying.

[00:45:40] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:45:40] Wow, that’s incredible. And I think I think a good reminder that you’re doing great work with students and the future of sales, which we’re obviously very excited to, to meet and continue to hire people from sales programs all over. Greg, we appreciate the time that you shared with us today.

[00:45:59] I want to wrap [00:46:00] it up with one final

[00:46:01] question, which is if you could have a billboard, anywhere in the world, where would it be and what would it say?

[00:46:10] Greg Accardo: [00:46:10] Well, that’s… 

[00:46:13] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:46:13] Hardest question of the day.

[00:46:14] Greg Accardo: [00:46:14] Billboard anywhere in the world. And would it say? This is easy. Campbell, Nebraska. If it’s going up next month  to tell my sister happy birthday.

[00:46:26] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:46:26] I thought you were going to say the airport, but this is great.

[00:46:29] Greg Accardo: [00:46:29] Yeah. So I would have a billboard outside the interstate in Campbell. So my sister would drive by and say, “Happy birthday.”

[00:46:35] Kristin Wisdorf: [00:46:35] I love it. Greg, thank you so much for sharing your career and your path and what you’re doing with the students at LSU. We greatly appreciate it and don’t ever lose  that we were chatting before the podcast here today, and Greg still has my business card, my poker chips sitting on his desk for like the last five years.

[00:46:57] I can’t wait for the next time we talk and we [00:47:00] can bond over, over poker chip business cards again.

[00:47:03] Greg Accardo: [00:47:03] Looking forward to it.