Campus Series: Kevin Chase – Practice Makes Perfect

The daily practice they put in, the goals they set, the plans they develop, and the way they persevere through rejection and defeat. For Kevin Chase, these qualities are not unique to athletes but also to his sales students.

In this episode of the Campus Series podcast, Kevin Chase, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Washington State University shares his lessons learned as an athlete, the importance of practice and overcoming rejection, and the misconceptions about sales.

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Kevin Chase

💡 What he does: Kevin is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Washington State University.

💡 Company: Washington State University

💡 Noteworthy: Kevin is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Washington State University with an extensive industry background in B2B and B2C sales. His research is presently focused on understanding how different sales approaches affect the buyers’ decision-making process. In addition to doing research, Kevin is the Director of the Washington State University Center for Professional Selling on the Pullman campus.

💡 Where to find Kevin: LinkedIn | Website

Key Insights

⚡ Use a training regimen to improve a specific skill set. Kevin played baseball in college and has taken some of the things he learned in the field into sales. One is that the desired goal can be achieved through practice and improvisation. “It’s the same approach that I use with a lot of my students, where we are very focused on specific exercises that build specific skills depending on the class that they’re taking. And so we start with very small changes, and you build on that — you build a strong foundation. And then you add maybe another, more difficult exercise, and you keep building until you achieve some level of proficiency or understanding, probably not mastery, by any means. But again, it’s developing a plan and following through on that plan until you can achieve the goal that you’re looking to hit.”

⚡ Don’t take a customer’s rejection personally. In sales, especially if you’re a beginner, customer rejection can be pretty challenging, and how you handle the situation will determine what happens next in your career. In his sales program, to learn how to deal with rejection, Kevin teaches students to put themselves in the buyer’s shoes and understand why they got ‘no’ for an answer. “And so it’s a lot about just not taking it personally and trying to think about it from the customer’s perspective or when they were a customer. It’s not that you have anything against the salesperson; there are probably just some factors that led to that ‘no’ that are outside your control. Your job is to find the ones that are within your control and make sure that you handle those correctly.”

⚡ Students hesitate to go into sales as a career. By definition, sales is used to describe the activities that lead to selling goods or services. But in practice, it means so much more. According to Kevin, that was the biggest challenge for students in the sales program — to help them let go of their prejudices and educate them on what a career in sales could be. “A lot of what our program is focused on and the activities and things that we’re building involve giving students the opportunity to expose themselves to different types of sales jobs and different types of industries to make them understand that sales is not just a used-car-salesman approach. Even within a sales role, you could be in customer success; you could be in account management; you could be in an inside sales role; you could be in an outside sales role. And just showing them the world that is sales to at least get them to open their minds to what a career could look like in the industry.”

Episode Highlights

Kevin’s Interest in Sales

“When I started working for Vector, the way that you start out is you start selling to family and friends, and that’s the easy part. But then, all of a sudden, that runs out, and you’re like, ‘What do I do now?’ And what I found is that I was actually really good at getting referrals. So, I really built my book of business by developing relationships with people. It’s consumer sales, and I really liked that aspect of it. I really liked going into somebody’s house and getting to know them and developing relationships, and I had a lot of customers that I sold to every year for Christmas or when I came back in the summer and things like that. So the relationship aspect of sales really appealed to me. 

And then, as you started to learn more about what B2B-type sales is; it’s solving complex problems for businesses — that became even more enticing to me. And so I really enjoyed the people aspect. I like the problem-solving aspect of it, and it drew me in by the time I graduated.”

Kevin’s Favorite Lessons to Teach Students

“One of the lessons that I really enjoy is objection handling. A lot of times, I use the example of dating and how you can use objection handling techniques in dating, and students find that pretty entertaining because they’re directly applicable.

And the other one that I really enjoy talking about is communication. And so, one of the things that I work on a lot with my students is just interpersonal communication. But, more specifically, we talk a lot about how, in technical industries, we use language that buyers may not understand, and so we go through all sorts of slang, and we talk about current slang, and it’s always really funny. 

The one example that sticks out for me is when I asked the class, ‘What’s a slang term that people use all the time that you hate?’ And a student was like, ‘Fire. I hate fire.’ He was like, ‘Everybody says ‘fire.’ It just grates on my nerves.’ Then half the class is like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And then you have a debate on why that slang term is acceptable or not acceptable, and it brings to light the fact that everybody uses language differently. And again, you have to adapt to the person that you’re talking to. And it’s one of those things that I think a lot of students don’t think about.”

Kevin’s Transition from Sales to Educator 

“When I was getting my MBA, I was talking to one of my professors about what I liked and what I didn’t like. And so I was looking at going back into sales; I interviewed with Inkur, Expedia, and a couple of these other companies. And I was interested in coming back up to Seattle originally. And so I was doing that, but then I was also talking about how I like problem-solving, I like autonomy, setting my own schedule, and all this other stuff. […]

He talked me into looking into getting a Ph.D. And we talked about different topic areas because when you get a Ph.D., you’re basically saying you’re gonna focus on doing research in a specific area. And so I talked a lot about sales and how there was a lot of stuff I saw from the sales side that just didn’t make sense to me. And so he was like, ‘Hey, why don’t you look and see if there are people out there doing research in that area?’ And so that’s what I did. And I ended up connecting with my Ph.D. advisor.”

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Kevin Chase: If you’re a salesperson talking to a buyer and you’re using all sorts of acronyms that are, you know, specific to your company, the buyer’s just gonna be lost, right? 

[00:00:56] Kristen Wisdorf: Welcome back, hustlers. I am Kristen Wisdorf, your host of the Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Campus Series. Today, I’m joined by our co-host Kyle Gross, who’s our managing director of memoryBlue Seattle office. Hey, Kyle.

[00:01:10] Kyle Gross: What’s up, Kristen? Happy to be here.

[00:01:12] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, we’re excited to have you, Kyle. For those of you who know Kyle, he started his career at memoryBlue as an SDR in our headquarters office in Virginia.

[00:01:20] I remember when Kyle and I had his final interview together at back at Boone Boulevard in Virginia. Kyle rose through the ranks, and he ended up opening our, U, uh, Washington Seattle office about a year and a half ago, January 2021. So, he’s grown it, it’s over a $2 million business, and we’re super excited to have you on the podcast today, Kyle.

[00:01:42] Kyle Gross: Yeah, I’m excited as well.

[00:01:44] Kristen Wisdorf: And we’re excited to be talking to Kevin Chase.

[00:01:46] Kevin is the Director for the Professional Selling Program at Pullman’s Campus for Washington State University. Welcome to the podcast, Kevin.

[00:01:57] Kevin Chase: Thanks. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

[00:02:00] Kristen Wisdorf: We’re excited to have you as well. We, like I said, we just opened that Seattle office about a year and a half ago. We have ton of Washington state alumni who’ve come and started their careers at memoryBlue and some who’ve, you know, left and already gotten hired out by their clients and are doing really incredible things.

[00:02:17] So, we talk to a lot of your students, we hire a lot of your students from Washington state, so we’re really excited to talk to you today and learn a little bit about your background and what you’re doing there at WAZZU.

[00:02:28] Kevin Chase: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:02:29] Kristen Wisdorf: So, I’m not sure if you know this, Kevin, but we like to start every one of our episodes the exact same way, which is actually the same way that we start a lot of our interviews here at memoryBlue when we’re interviewing college students and it is,

[00:02:42] take 60 seconds and tell us about you. What would you say is your highlight reel?

[00:02:48] Kevin Chase: My highlight real. Okay. Well, for me, I basically, my career started back in high school, and it started with a job shadow with my uncle who worked in, or still does, actually, in the financial services industry, and basically, he’s the one that kind of started me down the path of sales. And so, when I got to college, I got a degree in finance thinking I was gonna be a stock broker, and that was just going to be my career.

[00:03:17] And while going to school, I actually started by selling knives. So, I worked for Vector, like a lot of my students still do, and I sold all through college and just had an absolute great time. And that pretty much solidified for me that sales was a career that I wanted to go into. The interesting thing was is when I graduated, I, I did interview with a lot of financial services firms, but I actually ended up interviewing with a commercial insurance broker called USI and went into their sales training program in New York

[00:03:47] and I did that for a couple years. And came out, took a rookie-level sales job with them, unfortunately, right during the recession, so that, that was unfortunate timing for me, but I moved over to the carrier side and worked in a product management role where I actually got to do a lot of sales and sales support, sales training,

[00:04:06] so I kind of stayed related to the sales field. And as I was progressing kind of through my career, I was getting my MBA at the University of Portland, and I was basically looking at going back into taking a sales job or, or just doing something different ’cause I was getting a little bit burned out.

[00:04:23] And my professor in my MBA program actually talked me into getting a Ph.D. We had a beer, he told me all about it and he was like, “Hey, you can do sales research. You can do, you know, sales teaching, all that kind of stuff, and you can kind of make it whatever you want.” It’s like, “Hey, that sounds pretty awesome.”

[00:04:36] So, I went back to school and actually got my Ph.D. with a focus in sales at the University of Kentucky, took my first job. I went to work for Clemson University and helped them get their sales program started and then got the opportunity to come back home for me ’cause I’m a native Washingtonian, come back home and actually start the program at WSU.

[00:04:58] And so, that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two years. And here I am.

[00:05:04] Kristen Wisdorf: All right. Okay. I love it. So, you are, you said you’re a native Washingtonian. You worked in New York for a while, I think, it was your first job. Obviously, when you were at Clemson, you were in South Carolina, so you’ve been a lot of places. Let’s kind of like take it way back. You said you did a job shadow with your uncle.

[00:05:21] Was that in Washington? Is that where you grew up?

[00:05:23] Kevin Chase: Yeah, it was. So, I grew up in Bothell, Washington, just north of Seattle.

[00:05:28] Kristen Wisdorf: And where did you go to college, and what did you go to school for? I mean, if you, you kind of had, you said that you thought you were going to get into, what was it, that you were gonna be like a stockbroker Wall Street guy?

[00:05:41] Kevin Chase: Yep. That’s, that’s what I thought. So for me, I went to Linfield College, which is in Oregon. And so, it’s a small liberal arts school. It was actually smaller than my high school. And I originally went there to play baseball, but I absolutely wrecked my shoulder my freshman year of college

[00:05:56] and so, actually, ended up playing lacrosse. But I got my degree in finance because, at the time, they didn’t have a lot of different majors. It was basically, I think at that time, they had a business major and accounting major, and a finance major. And so, because I thought I was gonna be a stock broker, I thought finance made the most sense

[00:06:14] and actually, it’s helped me immensely since then. But I focused on finance, and then when I got out, I interviewed with people like Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley and a bunch of other financial services firms along with a couple other, other companies. And I, the funny thing is, is I ended up in commercial insurance through a referral of somebody I had met through networking with alumni at Linfield.

[00:06:37] And so, I just took an interview with the Portland office at USI, and they were like, “Hey, we actually have this national sales training program. It’s based out in New York, so you’d have to be based out in New York for a year or two, and then you’ll get placed within an office with, you know, somewhere within the country.”

[00:06:55] And, of course, they were like, “You know, we’d kind of like you to come back to, to Portland if you can,” which is what I ended up doing. But it was a great, great experience. I was actually traveling about a hundred percent of the time. And so, I was based out in New York, but I was, we basically go to an office,

[00:07:10] it was kind of an interesting program where we did audit work, so you really learn the company by doing audit work, but then we would do job shadows and spend a lot of time with the salespeople. I did a lot of, you know, I went on sales calls, I did sales trainings. I got my licenses for the insurance industry, all that kind of stuff.

[00:07:29] And so, when you come out of the program, you really understand kind of all facets of the company. You have your sales training, you have your licenses and you can kind of hit the ground and, and go.

[00:07:41] Kristen Wisdorf: So, it’s not surprising, but I always just find it so interesting, a lot of the guests we have on our podcast, they find their way into sales. It’s not like it’s something, I mean, they’re, every once in a while we have a guest who are like, “My dad was in sales, and my mom was in sales, and so that was the path for me,”

[00:07:58] but usually, people end up in sales and it’s not what they intend or go to college for. And so, it’s interesting, like, how did you know, like, “This was the right path for me.” I know you were, you know, shadowing and training, but when did you know, like, “Okay. Sales could be, like, the right viable career for me.”

[00:08:18] Kevin Chase: Honestly, I have to give a, a lot of credit to, to Vector and Cutco for that, because it, it, again, you, you have kind of an idea of what sales is for, or at least I did from my uncle, and he was like, “You know, this is my career. This is what I do, you know? I spend all day talking to clients. I, I do a lot of self-marketing self-promotion and you know, I’m out of the office all the time,” which is one of the things that was appealing to me

[00:08:41] and I’m like, “Oh, you know, it sounds like you have a lot of autonomy and, of course, a lot of control over your income. The harder you work, the more money you make.” And so, like, I kind of had this grandiose idea of what it was. And then when I started working for Vector, you know, the way, the way that you start out is you start selling to family and friends and that’s the easy part.

[00:09:01] But then all of a sudden that runs out, and you’re like, “Oh shit, I, I, what do I do now?” Right? And what I found is that I was actually really good at getting referrals and I, and so I really built my book of business by developing relationships with people. It, you know, it’s consumer sales and I really liked that aspect of it,

[00:09:19] you know? I really liked going into somebody’s house and, and getting to know them and, you know, develop relationships. And I had a lot of customers that I sold to every year for Christmas or when I came back in the summer and things like that. And so, you know, the relationship aspect of sales really appealed to me,

[00:09:37] right? And then, as you started to learn more about what, like, B2B-type sales is, is solving complex problems for businesses, that became even more enticing to me. And so, it’s just, I really, I really enjoyed the people aspect, I really like the problem-solving aspect of it, and it just, it really drew me in by the time I graduated.

[00:10:00] Kyle Gross: Yeah. If you don’t mind, yeah, I really resonate with that because I think I had the, the common kind of misconception when I was going through, you know, grade school and even college for a bit of this. You know, the used car salesperson is my vision, and then as soon as, you know, I get to memoryBlue, and I start actually learning B2B sales and that it is solving complex problems,

[00:10:19] like, that’s when I realized, “Wow, we’re not here to just fit square peg and circle holes,” right? Like, we’re here to actually solve a problem and pain points. You mentioned one thing earlier that a lot of people in sales, and one of my favorite things that attract me to get into sales in the first place was my sports background and kind of the competitiveness of it.

[00:10:38] I know you mentioned baseball and then lacrosse. Have you seen, you know, some of the mindsets or the skills that you developed as a former student athlete relate to your sales career and benefit you?

[00:10:51] Kevin Chase: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, for me, personally, so I was a pitcher, which it’s one reason why I wrecked my shoulder, right? It’s like a lot of times with sports, if you’re trying to develop a skill, like, for me, you know, trying to develop a new pitch, for example, right? You have, you put yourself on kind of a training regimen of how you’re going to reach, you know, that, that goal,

[00:11:15] right? So, I had a pitching coach for a while, who worked with me on developing, you know, a cut fastball, and so there were certain exercises that we did every day to develop that, and then we started using it in game situations and, and I took that approach when I went into sales as well, where, you know, a lot of times we’re like, “Okay, I’m not very good at,

[00:11:34] you know, let’s say prospecting, for example, especially when I started in commercial insurance, very different than when I was selling knives, right? And so, it’s one of those things where, you know, you start developing kind of a training regimen of how you’re going to improve a specific skillset.

[00:11:49] And so, that’s the way that I attacked my training when I got into sales. And it’s the same approach that I use with a lot of my students, where we have very focused in specific exercises that build specific skills depending on the class that they’re taking, right? And so, it’s, we start very small, you know, small changes, you build on that,

[00:12:10] you build a strong foundation, and then you add maybe another more difficult exercise, and you keep building until you achieve some level of, I would say, proficiency maybe, or understanding, probably not mastery by any means, but again, it, it’s developing a plan and kind of following through on that plan until you can achieve the goal that you’re looking to hit.

[00:12:32] Well, it’s very similar to how we train and how kind of the process we take here at memoryBlue and sales, really, is especially learning sales, it is a series of processes and systems that you can put in place, kind of like that training regimen to teach yourself to become proficient and better

[00:12:51] Kristen Wisdorf: and then you build and you build and you build on those skills. What’s interesting, though, is, you know, we hire a lot of former athletes or people who have always, you know, in college or high school, they’ve always been successful at everything they’ve done, and so we find a lot of people who at least come to memoryBlue or early in their sales career, they get very impatient because they want to be, they wanna master it right away

[00:13:14] or they’re like, “Wow, okay. I swear, I’m doing this prospecting piece, or I’m asking the questions the way I’m supposed to be asking them. I’m following this system, this process, and it’s just not working,” or it’s not working as fast as they want it to. Is that anything you experienced in your career? Maybe some of the students you’re working with now where, you know, they feel like they’re following that training regimen, but it’s just not coming as quickly as, either you wanted it to, or your students want it to?

[00:13:42] Kevin Chase: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it happened to me, and I see it with my students all the time, right? Where, you know, a lot of times when you’re an athlete, and you try something, and it just doesn’t work for whatever reason, your body maybe doesn’t, isn’t aligned or you don’t have the same muscle structure as somebody elsewhere, you know, you just have to adapt, right?

[00:13:59] Like, with pitching, everybody kind of has their own motion, you know, different arm slots, whatever it is, right? And so, you, you have to see what other people are doing and then adapt it to yourself. And when you throw another person in that process, like in sales, such as a customer, now there’s even more variables, right?

[00:14:20] So, not only do you have to adapt the process to yourself and find your own style, that’s a big thing I always talk about, is I can give you a process, but you have to adapt it to your own style. Not only that. Then you also have to adapt it to the customer that’s sitting in front of you. Right? And so, there’s two kind of moving pieces that make it a really big challenge for students, specifically to, you know, really feel comfortable,

[00:14:47] right? It takes a lot of practice. And so, a lot of them are like, “Well, just tell me how to do it.” I’m like, “Well, I can’t tell you how to.” Right? It’s, sales is not just, “Here’s, you have to follow this exactly, and you’ll see success.” It’s just, unfortunately, not the way that it works. Right? And so, like, we do a lot of role plays in my class, and my students always be like, “Well, you know, what’s the question I should ask here?”

[00:15:08] And I’m like, “Well, depends on what your goals are. Depends on what the goals of the customer are.” Right? Like, “You have to kind of figure that out on your own, and that can be a huge struggle for a lot of people.”

[00:15:20] Kyle Gross: Yeah. I’m glad that you, I really resonate with that answer, and I really like that you brought up, like, role-playing in class as well, too, because it, that might be the answer to my next question here, but I was going to ask, like, how do you go about with students that it’s not coming long as quick as they hoped it would,

[00:15:35] it’s not clicking as quickly as, you know, them being on the field or on the pitch? What specific, like, exercises, obviously role-plays being one of them, but do you run with your students to help them practice the art of patience and knowing we cannot prepare for every single thing, every single customer’s going to say?

[00:15:54] Kevin Chase: Yeah, for me, that’s probably one of the biggest challenges that I have with the students. There’s just a level of impatience, I think, for most people where they just, especially if you’re driven and self-motivated, you just, you wanna see this success, right? And if you do stuff and it doesn’t work the way that you thought it would, it can be really disheartening

[00:16:14] because, again, the process is very different. Like, selling for memoryBlue is probably very different than selling for, like, Pepsi, right? And so, again, it’s, it’s one of those things I always try and talk about with my students. I was like, “It’s not easy, and it just takes time.” I mean, and I even tell them in my intro-level sales class, I was like, “We do 12 role-plays throughout the semester.”

[00:16:37] And so, from the first one they do to the last one they do, they’re way better, but they’re still terrible, right? And so, and it, it’s just one of those things that there is, again, it just takes practice, right? And I do 12 different role-plays generally, so it’s not the same product, it’s so that they learn process.

[00:16:56] Right? And start understanding at least the thought process behind the sales methodology that we use. So, hopefully, when they go out in their jobs, and they use a different methodology or, you know, they have different customers or different products, they can look at it and say, “Okay, I at least understand

[00:17:13] what we’re trying to do, and now I have to take all of this information, the customer’s information, whatever the customer’s goals are, customer’s needs, environmental factors in my industry, my own personal style, what my sales managers doing and try and fit all of this stuff together into a process that works for me and my industry and my role right now.”

[00:17:34] Kyle Gross: Yeah. And an underlying part of all of this is o, obviously a huge thing in sales, having the thick skin, having the grit and being able to handle rejection, especially when you need to be patient. So, in, in, in your classes, your lessons, like, how, how do you go about talking to your students about the art of being able to kind of soak in the nose and the rejection and taking it in stride?

[00:17:58] Kevin Chase: Yeah. So, soaking in the nose is, again, another thing that’s kind of hard to teach, but one of the things that we talk about a lot is perspective taking. And so, a great example that we do in the very beginning of classes, I actually have the students talk about all of the negative sales experiences that they’ve had, and then I have them talk about all the positive sales experiences that they’ve had. And then we kind of, we talk about what they did in the situation, what they were feeling, what they were thinking, things like that and then trying to put them into a customer’s shoes when they’re in the sales role.

[00:18:38] Right? So, when they’re role-playing something, be like, “Why would a customer say ‘No’?” They don’t have enough information. Okay. They have time constraints, right? You can’t take it personal that they say “No.” Your competitor might actually have a product that’s a better fit. That’s something, again, you can’t control.

[00:18:54] And so it’s a lot about just not taking it personal and trying to think about it from the customer’s perspective or when they were a customer. It’s not that you have anything against the salesperson. There’s probably just some factors that led to that “No” are outside of your control. Your job is to find the ones that are within your control and make sure that you handle those correctly.

[00:19:15] But the thing is, you know, budgets, we talk about, you know, that all the time, like, that’s kind of a foreign concept to students, you know, some people just don’t have the budget for purchasing now, some people don’t have the decision-making authority, which means that you need to move on. So, we try and talk about a lot of the different situations that lead to “No” and why you kind of just have to shrug those off and move on to the next one.

[00:19:40] Kyle Gross: Yeah. And just outta curiosity, since we’re on the topic of, like, the lessons and the teachings that you deliver to your students in these courses and in the sales program, what is just your favorite lesson or course that you teach? Your favorite lesson that you deliver throughout quarter or semester and why?

[00:19:59] Kevin Chase: Oh, man. My favorite lesson. That’s a, definitely a tough one for me. I think one of the ones that I really enjoy is objection handling. And one of the reasons that we do that is a lot of times I use the example of, like, dating and how you can use objection-handling techniques in, in dating and students find that pretty entertaining because they’re directly applicable.

[00:20:24] And the other one that I, I really enjoy talking about as well as communication. And so, one of the things that I work on my students with a lot is just interpersonal communication, but more specifically, we talk a lot about how in technical industries, we use language that buyers may not understand.

[00:20:45] And so, we go through all sorts of slang and we talk about current slang, and it’s always really funny ’cause it, one of the, one, examples that sticks out to me is I had a student who I was, basically asked the class, “You know, what, what’s a slang term that people use all the time that you hate?” And he was like, “Fire.

[00:21:03] I hate fire.” He was like, “Everybody says fire. It just grates on my nerves.” Then half the class is like, “Well, what are you talking about?” And then you have a debate on, you know, why that slang is acceptable, not acceptable and it kind of get, brings to light the fact that everybody uses language differently

[00:21:18] and again, you have to adapt to the person that you’re talking to. And it’s one of those things that I think a lot of students don’t think about. And so, you know, it, one, the discussion is always pretty fun ’cause I, I get to learn all sorts of new terms that I’m, you know, not familiar with, but the 

[00:21:34] Kristen Wisdorf: Keep up with young kids.

Kevin Chase: [00:21:36] Yeah. Exactly right.

Kevin Chase: [00:21:37] I mean, it’s, I get to use the slang all the time and that hear it all the time, and then a lot of times they start using it in class and it just sounds weird, and they always laugh at me, but I don’t really care. But yeah, so that, that’s another one that I find really entertaining and that really resonates with students

[00:21:53] and I think is really helpful as well ’cause it really highlights the fact that, you know, if you’re a salesperson talking to a buyer and you’re using all sorts of acronyms that are, you know, specific to your company, the buyer’s just gonna be lost, right?

[00:22:06] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, and super applicable too, because particularly, so we’re in tech sales. Well, technology doesn’t mean the same thing across the board, all our clients and every type of technology and the ultimate buyer, decision-maker, for one tech, it could be a very technical person. And so, the salesperson actually has to learn new words and vocabulary and phrases to really understand their space.

[00:22:33] And so, it really does go both ways in using the right words and terminology and really kind of becoming a master when you get into an industry and when you graduate from college and learning your space is what will make, make a new salesperson stronger in the role. So, I wanna go back,

[00:22:51] Kristen Wisdorf: you mentioned perspective-taking, and it’s one of the things you do, and you have students walk through the most positive and negative sales experiences that they’ve had, so I’m curious, in your experience, either back when you were in insurance sales, or even now as, you know, I’m sure you have to sell your sales program, do you have any very memorable sales experiences? Maybe positive, maybe you’re like, “Oh, wow.”

[00:23:17] That was, like, the worst sales experience or sales call I ever had in my life that you can share with our listeners.

[00:23:24] Kevin Chase: Oh, gosh. I think the worst one was I was working on a very large account, it was a credit union, and I had been working with the buyer for a year on developing some new plans for this property and casualty back, Back when I was first getting started. It was a very big account, I think it was gonna be, like, a hundred thousand in revenue to our office, which, for me, that was big as, as a rookie rep.

[00:24:40] I mean, a lot of the other stuff I was working on was more, like, you know, 5,000. And so, I developed a relationship with this person and, you know, had really talked through all the stuff that they were doing, and I was really excited that we were working towards developing a really innovative plan. And I got a call in December,

[00:24:58] I remember it was December, like, 9, I think, right before Christmas, and he said, “Hey, I’m retiring.” And I was like, “Okay, what does that mean?” And he was like, “Well, I just decided I’m done, and I’m, we found a replacement, and he’s decided to bring in his broker from his previous job.” And I was just like, “Ah, what can I do?”

[00:25:24] And he was like, “Well, nothing, but, you know, thanks for everything and, like, I’ll connect to you.” And I called the new guy the next day as, he was still in his training, he was like, “Yeah, I have no interest. Sorry.” And just completely shut me down. And so I, I used that example in class a lot, ’cause it was a ton of work.

[00:25:40] I put so much effort into that and, and cultivating that relationship and it just disappeared overnight, basically. So, fun times, but.

[00:25:51] Kristen Wisdorf: I mean, yeah. So realistic, right? Like, you are not the only salesperson with experience like that. That’s

[00:25:58] probably serious, I mean, you even remembered the date that happened. But I also think, you know, it’s a great lesson. And going back to Kyle’s previous question about, you know, having your perspective out in the field with your students, letting them know that sometimes you can do everything right, per se, for a whole year and still ultimately get a “no” and kind of how you handle that situation will determine

[00:26:25] what happens moving forward in your career. So, not exactly the most fun, any really fun or positive experiences, or do you remember your first sale ever? Like, your first knife sale? Cutco knives really are the best.

[00:26:37] Kevin Chase: Yeah, they’re awesome. I still have ’em, you know, 20-some-odd years later. Well, my first sale was to my mom, so that one doesn’t really count, but the first one that I sold to somebody that I didn’t know was probably one of the most positive experiences I had where I went over to this, it was in Woodinville, Washington, again, I remember where it was, beautiful house and I met with this really nice lady, and they had just awful knives, right? And I was, it was just like a perfect fit.

[00:27:10] And she was really into cooking and was just telling me how great all these different products were and how she could see herself, like, she basically sold, sold the product herself, and then her husband came home and it was like, after that, I always tried to get them both together, but he came home and he got all excited

[00:27:26] and so it was just this, you know, really positive sale experience and they were having a family dinner, so their kids were gonna, they were an older couple and their kids were coming over with some of their grandkids and they were like, “Hey, stay for dinner.” And so, I ended up being at these people’s houses for, like, six hours.

[00:27:41] I had dinner with, like, their entire family, and it was just such a positive experience. And I, I sold her stuff basically every year, all the way through college. It was amazing. And so, that was one of the experiences where I was like, “This is awesome. I love sales. This is so great.”

[00:27:57] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh, my gosh. I love that story. How many years did you do, did you sell Cutco or work with Vector?

[00:28:03] All through college. So, four years.

[00:28:06] Kristen Wisdorf: Wow. That’s amazing. I mean, we obviously, I’ve interviewed and hired a lot of people who that is their first experience in sales as well, so what made you keep coming back? Like, every summer, you know? A lot of times for people, it’s just like, “Oh, well, one-summer thing,” right? 

[00:28:23] Kevin Chase: Yeah.

[00:28:23]  Kristen Wisdorf: Like, what made you wanna keep doing it?

[00:28:25] 

[00:28:25] Kevin Chase: I like the flexibility of it. And again, I treated it very, like, I had a very specific plan. So, my goal was to basically make somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 each summer. I mean, not, not huge money, but, you know, I basically figured out what I needed to kind of sustain me throughout the year

[00:28:44] and, uh.

[00:28:46] Kristen Wisdorf: Pretty good for a college student.

[00:28:47] Kevin Chase: No. Yeah, it was totally, I was, I used, I worked at a Quiznos in high school, so that was way better than smelling like toasted bread. So, I set my goals of what I wanted for the year. And I set my weekly goal. My goal was basically to sell a thousand dollars a week throughout the summer, which if you do, that’s, I had about 12 weeks that I could be fully committed to selling

[00:29:08] and then, you know, as you get to a certain level, you get 50% commission. So, it’s basically, you know, that, that’s kind of in the wheelhouse of what I wanted to do. And my second summer I came back, I sold $4,000 in my first week, and then I took the next two weeks. And so, my sales manager was not very happy about that, but I was like, “I hit my target.”

[00:29:27] Like, I know exactly what I want to do. I know these concerts are, you know, coming up and my friends are going to the lake for whatever and so I just, I planned it out, and that’s one of the things I really enjoyed about sales in college with that job specifically, is I saw the flexibility that I could have.

[00:29:46] And then I, like, I didn’t do a ton of sales throughout the school year, but I still, I had customers call me for birthdays, and I did hit it pretty hard for Christmas, in November and so made some extra money doing that. And the flexibility is just the main thing that kept me coming back.

[00:30:04] And so, I just.

[00:30:05] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s really what sales is all about. Right?

[00:30:08] Kevin Chase: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:09] Kristen Wisdorf: You fresh it to a good job and you get that lifestyle. Yeah.

[00:30:12] Kevin Chase: Yeah, absolutely. I could have made way more money,

[00:30:15] Kevin Chase: but again, for me, I had very specific goals through college.

[00:30:20] Kyle Gross: Yeah. I think salespeople from my experience, at least, I, the value on the work hard, play hard lifestyle, and being able to have a lot more autonomy and flexibility in your schedule is something that’s just very attractive to, to everyone that I’ve talked with in sales. I wanna fast forward a little bit through, through your journey, and I, I want to talk about your transition from sales to now, to then, like, educator, and I’m really curious to

[00:30:46] dig deeper into, you know, you helping us start the sales program at Clemson and then now at WAZZU, but just at the beginning of that, the transition, why did you make the transition and what were some of the, uh, positive and maybe surprising, like, culture shocks of that transition?

[00:31:02] Kevin Chase: Yeah. So, I moved into product management before academia from sales, and there was a couple reasons for that, but I loved. A lot of aspects of that job I got to do, I got to go do a bunch of our sales offices do training. I was doing presentations to really large customers on the products that I own, like, so I got to do a lot of the sales aspects of it, but I also was working in product management in the financial services industry, which is a lot of just writing contracts.

[00:31:31] And so, there was a, and that just didn’t fit my personality, which is one of the reasons that I was drawn to sales in the first place was, you know, being outside the office and, you know, being mobile. And so, I just started to get burned out with a lot of the aspects of my job. And so, when I was getting my MBA, I was talking to one of my professors

[00:31:56] about what I liked and what I didn’t like. And so, I was looking at going back into sales, I interviewed with, I think, Inkur and Expedia and a couple of these other companies. And then, and I was interested in coming back up to Seattle originally, too. And so, I was doing that, but then I was also talking about, I was like, “I like problem-solving.

[00:32:15] I like kind of, you know, autonomy, setting my own schedule and all this other stuff.” And my professor was like, “Well, you know, you sound like you’re in a very similar place that I was, you know, 10 years ago.” And he was an engineer, originally, and had a very similar experience where he just got stuck doing a lot of, you know, the not-fun stuff, the monotonous office-type work and ended up getting a Ph.D. in management, and he does strategy and entrepreneurship.

[00:32:44] And so, he talked me into looking into getting a Ph.D. and we talked very, at length, actually, about different topic areas because when you get a Ph.D., you’re basically saying you’re gonna focus doing research in a specific area. And so, I talked a lot about sales and how there was a lot of stuff I saw from the sales side that it just didn’t make sense to me

[00:33:08] and so, he was like, “Hey, why don’t you look and see if there are people out there doing research in that area?” And so, that’s what I did. And I ended up connecting with my Ph.D. advisor, who’s at the University Ken, Kentucky, and a really well-published person in sales, and we just hit it off really well. He’s somebody I thought I could work really well with, and I do work really well with, so it worked out, and just decided to take the plunge.

[00:33:32] And so, the biggest transition for me was, first was the massive pay cut I took to go from, you know, working full time to being a Ph.D. student. I was funded, and I had a stipend, but it wasn’t very much. And just completely going back to being a full-time student, and so, you know, taking a full-course load, learning all about research methods, learning about how academic institutions function, that kind of stuff.

[00:34:03] And it’s five years, generally, to get a, a Ph.D. in, in marketing. And so, that’s what I did. I spent five years focusing specifically in sales. And being a Ph.D. student is a lot of work and for not a lot of short-term payoff, but, you know, once you graduate and you get that degree, it opens up a lot of doors.

[00:34:25] We actually have a lot of people with PhDs that are going back into industry and doing a lots of industry work. Amazon hires a ton of PhDs. And so, anyway, I knew that I was interested in taking an academic job, and so when I graduated, I was looking for a position at a school that either taught sales or wanted to develop a sales program.

[00:34:46] And so, at that time, Clemson had been teaching sales for a while, and they had a certificate, but they hadn’t really developed a full-blown program yet. And so, one of the things that was really attractive to me was going there and helping them develop their sales center. And so, that’s what we did, and in working with

[00:35:07] dr. Mullins, who you guys have talked with, I believe, and Carter McElveen, and a couple of the other faculty, we basically developed a plan. We spent a lot of time talking to people in industry, looking at other sales programs and kind of developing a curriculum that we thought fit students at Clemson, the best to come out, prepared to hit the ground running when they graduated with an interest specifically in getting a job in sales.

[00:35:35] So, that led me to Clemson, and then I’ve basically gotten to WSU and my approach hasn’t changed. It’s basically developing a program for the students at WSU that fits them the best, that is focused on students that want a career in sales. So, when they graduate, they want to go into a sales job, and they’re prepared to at least, like I said, hit the ground running and, and succeed right away.

[00:36:02] So, that’s a general overview. I can go into a lot more details about just about everything.

[00:36:08] Kyle Gross: Now, that’s great. I, I am curious to know, you know, from the outside looking in, of someone, who’s obviously never stood up a new sales program at a university, what was something that was maybe, like, the most surprising thing about getting the sales program up and off the ground that maybe from someone on the outside, looking in, wouldn’t expect at all?

[00:36:28] Kevin Chase: Man. Something that, from the outside that, they wouldn’t expect at all? Well, I think the biggest challenge for any sales program is actually with the students. And it’s, it goes back to something that you said before about the stigma of sales. And so, at WSU, there hasn’t been a sales class before I got here, and Dr. Bald, Balducci got here, there hadn’t been a sales class taught herein, I think, over a decade.

[00:36:56] And so, there was just no exposure to really sales was other than the student’s conceptions of, like, a used car salesman or, you know, one of those salespeople in the mall of kiosk, right? And so, a lot of the challenge is breaking down those barriers and getting students to even think about or be open to experiencing what sales is.

[00:37:21] And so, we teach, I think we have three sections of our intro-level sales class each semester that are all full. So, we’re starting to see that traction, but there’s still a lot of hesitancy, I think, of students to go into sales as a career. And so, a lot of what our program is focused on and the activities and things that we’re building out is giving students the opportunity to expose themselves to different types of sales jobs, different types of industries, you know, making them understand that,

[00:37:56] you know, sales is not just a use car sales approach or even within a sales role, whether you are, you know, you could be customer success, you could be account management, you could be an inside sales role, you could be an outside sales role and just kind of showing them the world that is sales to at least get them to open their mind to, you know, what a career could look like in industry.

[00:38:20] Kristen Wisdorf: You mentioned something earlier about, you know, building sales curriculum that’s right for them, the students at WAZZU. And so, I’m curious, other than the, you know, the, we all know the misconceptions of sales and opening their mind and educating them on what a career in sales could be, are there any, or were there when you first came back to Washington, any, like, big differences between

[00:38:45] sales and the way you taught sales in Washington versus Clemson? Like, are there differences based on the coast? Like, I’m just curious, like, what is, has been more unique between both programs or students?

[00:38:59] Kevin Chase: Well, I, I think a lot of it comes down to mindset. And so, one of the things that was nice at Clemson is because they had been teaching sales previously, the students were at least exposed to it, and there were more students there that had gone into sales. So, there was, like I said, there was kind of more of an open mindset as to, you know, this could be a potentially. {..}Yeah, exactly.

[00:39:23] Right? So, there’s just a little, there was more familiarity. Here at WSU, the biggest thing is we’re starting from nothing. And so, like, our Vancouver campus has had a certificate for a decade, so there they’re, they’ve done really well with the students that they have here or have there, but in Pullman, again, it’s really exposing them.

[00:39:41] And we have a lot of great alumni that are actually in sales, and so we’ve started to try and build those connections that haven’t existed previously. So, I would say that, hands down, has probably been the number one challenge for us is to kind of build those connections and build that exposure that wasn’t there previously.

[00:40:01] Kristen Wisdorf: Absolutely. Well, you have a company in memoryBlue who’s in Washington, who we also wanna support and advance the career of sales and sales education, so we’re really excited about what you’re doing. Could you finish this sentence for us? You should definitely consider a career in sales if you? 

[00:40:21] Kevin Chase: If you want control over your career.

[00:40:28] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh, I like that. ‘Cause control can mean a lot of different things for a lot of people based on you what’s important to them. Amazing. All right, we’re gonna hit you with some fast questions. This is, like, a little game we like to play at the end of our episodes. So, don’t overthink it. Just answer the first thing that comes to your mind.

[00:40:47] What is your favorite book? Whether it’s, like, a business book, a sales book leadership, or just an easy summer read? What book would you recommend?

[00:40:57] Kevin Chase: It’s really cheesy, but I still love “How to Win Friends and Influence People.” And it was one of the first books. 

[00:41:05] Kristen Wisdorf: A classic.

[00:41:05] Kevin Chase: Yeah, it’s a classic. It was the first pro, it’s not sales book, but I call it kind of my first sales book because it was the first book that was given to me when I worked at Vector selling knives.

[00:41:18] And the thing that I love about it is one, it’s a really easy read. The principles are really straightforward, and once you think about on the naked sense, and even though it was written a hundred years ago, there’s a lot of research that’s been done since then that backs up the assertion that it’s been ma, that, that the book is made.

[00:41:37] So, for me, I just, I think it’s something that all, I tell all my students to read.

[00:41:43] Kristen Wisdorf: I love that. Okay. And one more. Do you love to win or which feeling is stronger for you? Do you love to win or hate to lose?

[00:41:52] Kevin Chase: I would say I love to win. Like, I, my mindset is definitely much more, the nerdy way to put it is promotion-focus, like achieving goals. And so, I love working, putting a plan in place, again, this probably ties back to being an athlete, putting a plan in place to achieve a goal. And it’s so nice, it’s such a great feeling when you put a plan together, and the plan works out, and you achieve that goal that you’ve worked so hard to get.

[00:42:19] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s awesome. Well, we appreciate you spending your afternoon with us, Kevin. Thank you so much. We’re really excited about what you’re doing at WAZZU, the Pullman campus, and hope to hire more of your students in the future. Thank you so much.

[00:42:32] Kevin Chase: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was great, and I hope you do hire more of our students.