Campus Series: Matt  Glennon – The Glennon Sales Diamonds

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Matt Glennon

💡 What he does: Matt is the senior lecturer and educational consultant at UMass Amherst.

💡 Company: UMass Amherst

💡 Noteworthy: Matt got involved in sales in the early ‘90s and started working at Castrol. From sales, he went into marketing and became a product manager for Castrol. Then he decided to open a small distributorship and eventually ended up doing a bit of teaching. This love for teaching led Matt to the Isenberg School of Management, the business school at UMass Amherst. Matt founded the Isenberg Sales Club, where he is the faculty advisor. He also travels to sales competitions around the country to coach and support students.

💡 Where to find Matt: Linkedin l Website

Key Insights

⚡You have to love your job to be successful. Any job you’re just getting into will be difficult, and it will take time and effort to prove yourself. When Matt started working at Castrol, there was a lot of competitive pressure from different companies. But, as he points out, you learn a lot about yourself when you are put into a position like that. “I knew two things. One is that I really liked Castrol and [second,] I really liked sales. And so from that, I got this energy to figure out, ‘Okay, how am I going to make this work?’ And I was able to take a territory that was fairly distressed, and within a year and a half, I was runner-up salesman of the year for Castrol. And it was a really nice couple of years for me where I had to sort of reach down deep — a lot of rejection, a lot of lost business, trying to recover — but I found that I liked it. I actually enjoyed going to work every day.”

⚡ The GSD approach as preparation for sales calls. Sales representatives make sales calls to convince a new customer of the usefulness of a product or service. Also, this is the most challenging and unpleasant job for most sales representatives. Remembering how nervous he was when making sales calls, Matt now strives to prepare his students to go out and make calls using the GSD approach, which he developed. “It’s my own content for making three different types of calls. One is a cold call when someone doesn’t know you’re going to be showing up or calling on that day. The second is a standard call when the customer has an idea that you’re going to show up on that day; that’s a different type of call. And then you have the executive call, which is one of my favorites to teach when you’re walking into a boardroom filled with people, and there’s going to be a decision made on that day; that is a distinctly different type of call. So I developed these approaches, and I spent quite a bit of time with them. That is one way that I specifically prepare them, and really what the GSD is all about is helping students understand the structure of the call and what things need to be accomplished at each stage of the call.”

⚡There are some natural synergies between sales and marketing. Matt has always loved to travel, and that somehow led him to the world of sales, even though he was going to college for a different course. Further, he also transitioned from sales to marketing and ended up teaching marketing. Matt says that there’s some natural synergy between sales and marketing, but you choose one of these two areas depending on what you enjoy. “If you have an interest in working behind the scenes; if you’re that type of person where you’re like, ‘I think our company should do this, and our company should do that, and they really should think about doing this,’ chances are that you belong in marketing. And eventually, you’ll get there. If you’re someone that likes to be out in front of customers and really likes solving those problems and being customer-facing and you really like helping bring projects to fruition, you’re likely going to enjoy a career in sales.” 

Episode Highlights

From Capitol Hill to Sales

“I grew up in Connecticut, I ended up going to the University of Connecticut, and I was a political science major, and I had visions of maybe going to law school. That was my focus as an undergrad. And when I graduated, I actually went to Washington DC, and I worked on Capitol Hill with the idea of going to law school. But as I got a chance to work in DC for a little bit, I realized that it wasn’t exactly as I had envisioned. And I thought that I’d rather be out there, working with people to solve problems versus arbitrating — and that’s nothing against the legal profession — but I said, ‘I think I’d rather go a different direction.’ And so, I got in touch with Castrol and went out to interview in Chicago for that position. And one of the things that struck me about Castrol was the approach they took when they hired you; they were hiring you for life. […]

Working on Capitol Hill, you have a set schedule, and you need to be there; I guess I had a lot of interest in having a job with more autonomy to set my own schedule. And in terms of income, to be able to make more money than I was making; that was also important to me.”

Matt as an Educational Consultant

“After I’d started teaching, I decided to take a Ph.D. level class at the School of Ed at UMass just because I felt like, ‘Hey, I’m teaching all these students, I should take an education class and make sure that I know everything that I need to know or as close as I can.’ So as I was taking that class, I got asked by the faculty there to become involved in a project that they were working on for USAID. And so the School of Ed — or the College of Ed now — had an arm where they provided services to USAID, and they helped developing countries with educational support projects. And so I started to work as a business partner coordinator. And while I was teaching at Isenberg, while I was doing consulting over the summers, I also held the position supporting USAID, and that took me to travel to Afghanistan for almost two weeks, where we successfully opened up three associate degree programs. And I was a part of that.”

Inside Versus Outside Sales

“Inside sales — it can be comforting to some people to go into an office every day; it can be comforting to some people not to have to drive in your car and drive through the rain and the snow and be able to do your job from a desk. And there’s also energy you get from making calls, where you really start to feel it as you start making those calls, and you start getting some business. […]

Outside sales —  you’re out, meeting with people; you’re managing that schedule. You have a lot more responsibility to keep that schedule full and keep yourself on track, [and there is] certainly the travel component to it.

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Matt Glennon: I’ve gotten it to the point where I feel like I can help engage, like, large groups of people. And again, it’s been a process. It didn’t happen overnight. But if you needed someone to get in front of 500 people, I would be your guy. 

[00:00:31] Kristen Wisdorf: Welcome back, hustlers, to another episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers. It’s your special Campus Series. I’m your host, Kristen Wisdorf, and I have joining me today, Jeremy Wood. Hey, Jeremy. 

[00:00:43] Jeremy Wood: Hey, Kristen. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:45] Kristen Wisdorf: We are excited to have you back, and we’re also extremely excited to have Matthew Glennon, the Senior Lecturer at UMass Amherst. Welcome to the podcast, Matthew.

[00:00:56] Matt Glennon: Thank you for having me. Yeah, nice to be here.

[00:00:59] Kristen Wisdorf: We are excited to have you here. I think Jeremy mentioned that we’ve actually hired some of your students already, which is pretty exciting too, so we always love to have a professor on who has experience, you know, teaching students that we end up hiring. So, thanks for joining. We like to start all of these episodes really the same way we start our interviews with students, which is, Matt, if you could take 60 seconds, give or take and just tell us about you, give us your highlight reel. Let’s start there.

[00:01:31] Matt Glennon: Okay. So, many years ago, back in the early nineties, um, I got involved in sales. And it’s just something that I kind of stumbled into. I didn’t plan to go into sales, but I went to work for a company that we all know very well, Castrol, the oil company. And I ended up learning that I had a passion for sales and I just loved solving problems.

[00:01:53] Kristen Wisdorf: I loved meeting people and traveling. Your dog loves meeting people too.

[00:02:00] Hopefully, he’s all done. So, I worked, yeah, for Castrol, and I got a chance to, to travel and to work with some high-level customers. From that experience I went into, uh, marketing, and I became a product manager for Castrol, uh, which I enjoyed very much. And then, I went on to open my own business in a small distributorship. I had an entrepreneurial spirit, and I loved owning my own company. Eventually ended up teaching a little bit ’cause I was asked to come in by different faculty members. And as time went on, I learned that I loved business, but I also loved teaching too. And that’s what kind of led me out to Isenberg, which is the business school at UMass Amherst.

[00:02:43] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. That’s great. I wanna start kind of at the beginning. So, you went to Castrol right out of undergrad. Where did you originally go to school? Where did you grow up in? How did you find your way to college? And, and I’m gonna pile on more questions, but what was your major, too, at school? Walk us through kind of the beginning of Matthew Glennon.

[00:03:02] Matt Glennon: So, I grew up in Connecticut, and I ended up going to the University of Connecticut, and I was a political science major, and I had visions of maybe going to law school. Uh, that was really my focus as an undergrad. And when I graduated, I actually went to Washington DC, and I worked on Capitol Hill with the idea of going to, to law school.

[00:03:26] But as I got a chance to work in DC for a little bit, I realized that, yeah, I, it wasn’t exactly as I had envisioned. And I thought, “You know, I don’t know. I’d rather be out there, like, you know, working with people to solve problems, you know, versus arbitrating.” And that’s nothing against the legal profession.

[00:03:46] But I said, “You know, I think I’d rather just, you know, go a different direction.” And so, I actually came into touch, got in touch with Castrol and I went out to interview in Chicago for that position. And one of the things that struck me about Castrol was the approach they took when they hired you, was they were kind of hiring you for life.

[00:04:04] And so, I actually flew out to Chicago, I think three times from Washington, spent the entire day meeting everyone in the company, and I just got a really nice warm feeling about the company. And, and once I started selling at, at Castrol, I came back into New England. So, I moved from Washington into Western Mass, and I just found out I loved it.

[00:04:27] I started working with manufacturers all around New England. I was in my twenties and ended up just really enjoying, really problem-solving and kind of working with people. I just had a knack for it.

[00:04:41] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. I think, so you moving to Washington and having this kind of like law school path, we’ve hired a lot of people with that exact same background. They plan to go to law school, or they work on Capitol Hill, especially, you know, our headquarters being right outside of Washington DC, so it’s very normal.

[00:05:01] We, we experience this a lot, people leaving, either government or law to come and get into sales, but there’s a lot of listeners who haven’t had that experience yet. So, was there anything in particular that was like, “Yeah, I’m gonna try the sales thing,” or was it Castrol specifically that drew you to it? How did you know, “Okay. I’m definitely, you know, changing courses and not doing this law school thing and getting into sales,” which is a Far Cry in, in a lot of ways, from people who are originally pre-law or PoliSci?

[00:05:34] Matt Glennon: I think what occurred to me ’cause I did, you know, I interviewed, I think right around the time I was looking to make a career change, you know, the economy wasn’t really that great, you know, I think we had a double-dip recession around the time I was looking. So, things were a little bit different in terms of, like, the job search.

[00:05:50] It’s not like it is now. And I remember sort of interviewing, you know, different companies like Merrill Lynch was one and a couple different companies, I was really trying to find my way. But there was something about Castrol specifically where I felt like it was gonna be a really good fit for me, and there was a lot of autonomy in that position.

[00:06:10] And, you know, working on Capitol Hill, you have a set schedule and you need to be there. And there was a lot of, I guess I had a lot of interest in having a job with more autonomy, to set my own schedule and in terms of income, to be able to make more money than I was making, uh, was also important to me.

[00:06:28] But there was something, and I would encourage anyone listening to this podcast that’s considering a career in sales, yeah, to try to find that right fit, you know, in terms of the company you’re gonna join. I think I knew almost right away that Castrol was gonna be a good fit.

[00:06:41] That’s a really good example of, you know, sometimes you need to get a chance to experience what, what you’re selling, to know if you’re passionate about it. Matt, what, because it sounds like you, you had a lot of success there, what is it that helped propel you from, you know, getting into this new role, in defining success, in achieving this, some of the accolades you did at Castrol?

[00:07:03] Matt Glennon: I think one of the things, so I, I should tell you the story. So, when I went to work for Castrol, I was put into kind of a distressed territory, and we were having a lot of competitive pressure from different companies. Our manufacturing was located in Chicago and Pennsylvania. We were competing against companies that were manufacturing, like, right in the middle of my territory.

[00:07:25] They had free freight, they had good sales representation. I was kind of put into a hotbed of competition. And I think for any salesperson, you learn a lot about yourself when you get put into a position like that. And I knew two things. One is that I really liked Castrol and I really, you know, liked sales, and I liked, you know, and so from that I got this energy to sort of figure out, “Okay, how am I gonna make this work?”

[00:07:51] And I was able to take a territory that was fairly distressed, and within a year and a half, I was runner-up salesman of the year for Castrol. And it was just, it was a really nice couple of years for me where I had to sort of reach down deep, you know, a lot of rejection, a lot of lost business, trying to recover.

[00:08:11] But I found that I actually liked it. So, it wasn’t something that, I actually enjoyed going to work every day.

[00:08:18] Kristen Wisdorf: So, you had a career change and decided to go into something that you were, weren’t planning on, at least growing up and in college. You went into this kind of hotbed of competition, your words, and you, I mean, that’s like two things. Not only are you switching careers and getting into sales, but you’re also doing it in a really competitive environment.

[00:08:40] What was the training like? What was the preparation? Like, how did you figure it out early on?

[00:08:48] Matt Glennon: Okay. So, Castrol, in my opinion, had a really interesting approach to hiring. They really took a lot of time to find someone that they thought was the right fit, but then they would put you into a territory, and you were on your own for a little bit, and they just counted on you to sort of find your way.

[00:09:06] And I have to say that I actually learned the business from my distributors, you know? Think about that for a second. I’m a manufacturer. I’m learning from my suppliers on, you know, different things I needed to know from a technical standpoint. And along the way, I started to become stronger as a salesperson because I learned the technical one.

[00:09:25] Matt Glennon: And so, there wasn’t a lot of training. There was a lot of support there. If you needed support, you could pick up the phone and call someone. They were very good about that. They were very good about supporting you, you know, if you call them, but they were certainly not holding your hand during the first, you know, 6 to 12 months.

[00:09:42] And as I look back on it, it probably was the right thing to do because I, you know, it made me become resourceful, it made me reach out for help when I needed it. And I actually think that that’s not a bad approach. As long as the resources are there to support someone, I’m actually, I think that can be a good way to, to start somebody up.

[00:10:01] Kristen Wisdorf: I also think it’s important that you saw, like you said, reach out for help when you need it. I think that’s a really important message and It’s important for young people considering a career in sales or getting into their first sales jobs to know that that is exactly what you should do, is not suffer in silence, but go seek out, tap into the resources you have, ask questions, ask for help, et cetera.

[00:10:26] That’s a very different, though, than what a lot of college students get now, especially college students in sales programs and like your students. So, how do you take kind of your experience when you first got into sales and everything you’ve learned over the years, and how do you now prepare your students to enter the workforce without having to maybe struggle in the same ways you did?

[00:10:47] Obviously, there’s different struggles nowadays, but how do you kinda use all your experience and help prepare the next generation of sales professionals?

[00:10:55] Matt Glennon: So, you know, during my experience at Castrol, I remember my first year on the job, there was a lot of terms I just didn’t know, you know? What is margin? I was like, I did not, I didn’t know. What’s FOB mean, you know? What are all these things that we take for granted that we know? And I also was really concerned about just making a sales call.

[00:11:17] I used to get nervous about picking up the phone and calling someone. And I remember those days when I was a younger sales rep. So, now that I teach sales and I got asked to teach sales about five years ago at Isenberg and at the time I spent a lot of time looking at different resources that were available to teach student sales.

[00:11:40] There was some great information out there. There’s some great, yeah, resource information, but at the end of the day, I wasn’t satisfied that I could put together content that would truly prepare my students to go out and make calls. And this is just my opinion. I looked at it, and I said, “I’ve been making calls for 25 years, and I’m not exactly sure if this is gonna prepare them the way that I would like them prepared.”

[00:12:06] So, I came up with my own approach. It’s called the GSD Approach. And I prepare students, and it’s my own content for making three different types of calls. One is a cold call when someone doesn’t know you’re gonna be showing up or calling on that day. The second is a standard call when the customer has an idea that you’re going to show up on that day.

[00:12:28] Okay? That’s a different type of a call. And then you have the executive call, which is one of my favorite to teach when you’re walking into a boardroom filled with people, and there’s gonna be a decision made on that day. That is a distinctly different type of a call. So, I developed these approaches and I spent quite a bit of time with that.

[00:12:48] That is one way that I specifically prepare them. And really what the GSD is all about is helping students understand the structure of the call, what kind of things need to be accomplished at each stage of the call. And so, once you’re familiar with the, the structure, you can start to customize that and sort of make that your own.

[00:13:08] Matt Glennon: And I always, you know, with students, I always tell them, you know, you can only be you, and you want to preserve that, uh, your style and your approach and everything that makes you, but what the GSD does is help take the stress out of the call through providing, like, the structure. And we do all kinds of practice and real-life scenarios, and yeah, we, we try to make it as real as possible.

[00:13:29] Yeah.

[00:13:30] Jeremy Wood: Now, I think that’s, that’s so cool and I, I’d love to dive more into to how this got started, you know, did it and sort of how it evolved. So, take us back to, to the beginning of, of the GSD Approach. Was it, you know, how did it kind of evolve into what it is now where you’re applying it and teaching it to, to your students?

[00:13:55] Matt Glennon: Well, so I started at, uh, Isenberg back in 2015, full-time as a faculty member, teaching marketing, uh, Marketing 301. It’s a foundations course. And the course itself typically has about 480 students in it. And so, it’s a big class. And as I started to teach that, I invited companies into the classroom to do, like, what I call live business project.

[00:14:23] And so, I started having companies like Target come in. Salesforce comes into my class, Procter and Gamble. We have all different types of things. So, I sort of started to mix, you know, the textbook, present, presentation of textbook concepts in with, like, real-life business. And I had a lot of success. In every semester

[00:14:42] content got a little better and better to this day, and I still teach that course. I got asked to teach the sales course maybe three years after I started, maybe 2018 timeframe. And that, I wanted to bring that same type of an approach to the sales class. So, in addition to, like, the GSD Approach, I started to invite companies like memoryBlue into the classroom, and we started to have companies share, you know, their view of sales and how they train their people and what kind of things are important to their companies.

[00:15:18] And, and then we would run through scenarios based on their company and based on sales scenarios that those companies came up with. And what I like about that approach is I always tell students, “You know, the GSD, I’m gonna teach it, and I’m a big believer in it, but it’s not the only way to sell.” And it’s nice to hear from other companies about things that they think about sales and the way they approach sales.

[00:15:42] So, it brings, like, variety into the classroom, and that’s what I’m really focused on, is showing students, you know, there’s not just one way to do things. There can be many different ways, and so that’s really the sort of the theme of the class.

[00:15:56] Kristen Wisdorf: Variety, but also, like you said, that real experience, which I think, I, I mean, I remember being in my sales classes in college, I was just craving kind of like a looking glass into what it would actually be like in sales, so actually having real professional sales, professionals, and recruiters come in and kind of give a little glimpse, not only prepares students but it kind of takes a little bit of the nerves away perhaps too, in getting into a career in sales, I would imagine.

[00:16:24] Matt Glennon: Yeah, and you’d asked a question earlier about, like, you know, what did I bring to the course, you know, based on my experience. And I remember when I got into sales with Castrol, I had no idea of compensation. I didn’t understand a lot of things that would’ve helped me. And so, as I custom-built the class, I wanted to make sure that every student that goes through that course has some exposure to professional sales

[00:16:47] people can ask questions, can get familiar with all the things that would help them before they start a, a career in sales. So, you know, when companies come in, we really do try to talk about everything from compensation to success stories that they have and also the kind of like war stories. And I try to bring as much, like, yeah, real, reality into the classroom as possible.

[00:17:13] Jeremy Wood: So, Matt, I wanted to step back because we, I think we skipped ahead to you teaching, but I want to ask about how you got into, to teaching. You mentioned that you developed this passion for it over time. Was that something that you had always had a passion for, or did it develop as you got into the sales world and got that real experience is when that passion developed?

[00:17:39] You know, just thinking back a few years ago, I’d always kind of kept in close touch with professors, you know, at UMass ’cause I went back to get my MBA, I forgot to mention that. And I started a little bit of Ph.D. work. And I started to get asked to come back in and to present material to different classes, MBA classes in undergraduate.

[00:18:00] Matt Glennon: And as I went into to present, I started to get some really positive feedback from the faculty. They said, “That was great. Can you come back?” And then, as I opened up my own company and then I joined another company, I started to travel quite heavily. So, I was traveling all over the US, and I got an invitation from Isenberg to teach two classes on campus in 2011, marketing management classes.

[00:18:27] And that would be, would put me home for a period of time, and I would teach those two classes. And so, I went to the owner of the company, and he said, “Yeah, if you wanna teach those two classes, you can teach them. You’ve been on the road for three or four years.” And so, when I taught those two classes at, uh, at Isenberg back in 2011, I realized like, “Wow, this feels like home.”

[00:18:48] Like, I really enjoyed my time in front of students. They seemed to really enjoy the classes. And, and then I went back into the private sector and continued to, to make calls and to travel. And my travel started to get more international. And so, I was really bouncing around for a bit. So, for family reasons and a number of other reasons, in about 2015, when I was offered an opportunity to join Isenberg full-time, I took the job. But with that being said, I still consult, and I still do sales trainings, and I still do consulting around the world. COVID has kind of changed my schedule just a little bit, but before COVID came along, I would spend most of my time over the summers overseas, South America, you know, uh, doing consulting work.

[00:19:36] Yeah.

[00:19:38] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, I wanna dig into that. So, you’re also an educational consultant as one of your titles and you, you know, travel abroad. Tell us more about what you do and what that kind of piece of your current career is now.

[00:19:53] So, in 2015, when I joined Isenberg full-time, uh, the company that I was consulting for asked me to start becoming more involved in their international business ’cause they were expanding from a relatively small company to a global company, and it opened up some operations in China and the UK and also had some interest in going into South America.

[00:21:07] Matt Glennon: And so, during the breaks, whether it was December break or the summer, I would start to travel, and I got involved with primarily sales, but some marketing too and it really had to do with new business development in open, opening up different parts of the world. And so, I would travel, you know, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Brazil,

[00:21:30] lots of time in Canada. And I would work with the distribution network. I would work with managers in the area, salespeople, and really just a lot of new business development. So, I really spent a lot of time traveling. And so ironically, after I’d started teaching, I decided to take Ph.D.-level class at the school of

[00:21:52] Matt Glennon: Ed at UMass just because I felt like, “Hey, I’m teaching all these students. I should take an education class and make sure that I’m, I know everything that I need to know or as close as I can.” So, as I was taking that class, I got asked by the faculty there to become involved in a project that they were working on for USAID.

[00:22:13] And so, the School of Ed, or I should say the College of Ed now, had an arm where they provided services to USAID, and they helped developing countries with, you know, educational support projects. And so, I started to actually work as a business partner coordinator. And while I was teaching at, at, Isenberg, while I was doing consulting over the summers, I also held the position supporting USAID, and that took me, uh, to travel to Afghanistan for almost two weeks, where we successfully opened up three associate degree programs over there

[00:22:56] and I was a part of that. And a lot of my work was hiring faculty that had some expertise in community colleges and associate degrees and then, uh, coordinating that work, uh, with faculty in Afghanistan who were looking to launch these associate degree programs. And together, we worked to implement these programs.

[00:23:19] And there’s three that we launched. And it was a wonderful experience, one that I’m very proud of. It was a great project.

[00:23:29] Kristen Wisdorf: Wow, that’s really exciting. You’re kind of like the poster guy for common themes we see, which is, you know, people who wanna travel in their career and potentially get into sales or business because of it. People who start off kind of going to college for one thing and then transitioning to sales.

[00:23:46] And then ultimately, the third would be people who transition from sales to marketing, which I think is, at least it’s very common for Jeremy and I to hear that kind of on the interview trail and on the recruiting trail. And you’ve, you’ve created a career where you’ve done all three and then sell, which is pretty exciting. I wanna dig into those a little bit more. I like, specifically, like, sales to market. I can’t tell you how many times every year we interview students who are marketing majors, and they, they’re interviewing for a sales job because they feel like they have to start in sales or because they want that experience, but they ultimately wanna get into marketing.

[00:24:20] And that’s okay. I was that person too. But you did it and you did it after a couple years at Castrol. So, how did you make that transition? And then obviously, you did it well enough that you ended up teaching marketing. But walk us through that transition from sales to marketing and what you tell your students now, your marketing students now about kind of marrying sales and marketing or, or possibly not marrying the two.

[00:24:46] Matt Glennon: So, I think there’s some natural synergies, you know, between sales and marketing for sure. But one of the things that I tell my students is, “If you have an interest on like, you know, working behind the scenes, you know, if you’re that type of person where you’re like, you know, ‘I think our company should do this, and our company really should do that, and they really should think about doing this,’ chances are you belong in marketing, and eventually, you’ll get there. If you’re someone that likes to be out in front of customers and really like solving those problems and being customer-facing and you really like helping, you know, bring projects to fruition, you’re likely going to enjoy a career in sales.”

[00:25:25] Matt Glennon: And so, I was one of those people, as I was driving around working for Castrol, thinking, you know, “Why don’t we do this and why don’t we, you know, why?” And then eventually, that led me to become the interim product manager. And that was the position that I took and, you know, that was a great position too.

[00:25:42] I mean, but most of your time, you know, in marketing is spent, you know, working in teams, working internally, some communication with customers, and we did trainings and some focus groups and things like that. But you spend a lot of time behind the scenes working on strategy, whereas in a sales role, you’re gonna be out in front of customers, you’re gonna be trying to make things happen and, but that’s the advice that I do give my students.

[00:26:07] Jeremy Wood: That’s really, I think, impressive to go down that path. And then at some point, you, you got, reached a, a point there where you decided to sort of take a, a leap of faith in opening up your own business. Could you talk about, you know, how you got that idea and, and sort of what led you to, to making that jump when you, you’d obviously establish yourself as a, as a key member over there at Castrol?

[00:26:37] So, what happened was, you know, Castrol, uh, was purchased by British Petroleum, and I’d been there for about eight and a half years. BP is a very smart company, they’re a very big company. But in my opinion, the business that I worked in was a very small part of the portfolio. Very small part. And they were much more about oil wells and gas stations, uh, which makes sense.

[00:27:00] Matt Glennon: I mean, BP’s, yeah, one of the most successful companies in the world, of course, right? But for my part of the business, I felt like maybe it was a good time to move along because of the change in ownership. And again, nothing negative at all about BP. These are, these things happen in business, you know, great acquisition for BP,

[00:27:18] but in my part of the business, I thought, you know, “Maybe this is a good time to, to move along.” And so, I went to work for a small startup company. I was asked to, to help do that. It was a manufacturing company, and after a short time there, I learned, you know, I really would like to own my own business and have the ability to make decisions. And so, I bootstrapped my company and opened it up in Holyoke, Mass, and I got equipment, I negotiated relationships with vendors, lines of credit with the bank, and it was just a great, great experience, and I felt like, I guess in some ways, I got my street MBA, they call it, you know, from actually doing it, which was after I’d gotten my MBA. But just the ability to just go and do every part of a business, including the accounting and the bill collection and the the legal part was a great experience for me.

[00:28:13] Kristen Wisdorf: Wow, that’s really exciting. And I guess now it makes sense why you created GSD. Like, you had this experience creating something already. It probably was, was, you know, in the grand scheme of things, quite simple for you to take your experience at these other companies, your experience building a business and create kinda your own sales, essentially methodology and, and training curriculum, just pretty exciting.

[00:28:36] Matt Glennon: It was on the job, you know, what I learned. And, you know, at the startup company, I made cold calls eight hours a day for a period of six months. You learn a lot about making cold calls. Those are different because that call can end if you don’t grab somebody’s attention. And so, that’s why that module came up because it is different, what you’re trying to do versus, you know, warm call and that executive call.

[00:29:01] So, it’s something I just, you know, kind of drew from my own personal experience and, and also, I should mention that, you know, after I joined Isenberg, after about two or three years, I ended up starting a sales club with a student there and that was really cool. And they also got trained in the GSD and they grew from a club of, like, 2 or 3 students to, uh, now I think they’ve got around 50 and they travel all over the country and compete, and it’s a lot of fun. 

[00:29:31] Jeremy Wood: Yeah.

[00:29:33] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah. That’s awesome. I’m glad you brought that up. So, you know, you’ve done both, you’ve done essentially outside sales where you’ve worked a territory, and you’ve met with people face-to-face, and you’ve done the, the real, like, cold calling eight hours a day. Wh, I guess not necessarily what’s better than the other ’cause I think it depends on the person and the role and what you’re selling and what’s necessary, but what, how would you highlight for, you know, a student or some, one of our listeners, kind of the pros and cons of each, the outside sales versus inside sales?

[00:30:05] So, let’s look at inside sales just for a second. So, inside sales, it can be comforting to some people to go into an office every day. It can be comforting to some people not to have to, to drive in your car and drive through the rain and the snow and be able to just do your job, you know, from a desk.

[00:30:24] Matt Glennon: And there’s also an energy you get from making calls, where you really start to feel it, I’m sure, you know, as you start making those calls and you start getting some business. And that can be very comforting for some people and some people are just naturally great on the phone. And if you’re born to do that, boy, go for it because it’s not easy to do, and I have so much respect for folks at work call centers and that they make calls all day long. And having done it, I, I started to enjoy it, actually, quite a bit. Outside sales, you know, you’re out there meeting with people, you’re managing that schedule, you have a lot more responsibility to keep that schedule full and keep yourself on track, certainly the travel component to it.

[00:31:09] I mean, there was times where I was traveling, you know, six or seven months straight, you know, leaving on Sunday, coming back on Friday, and I did like certain parts of that. There’s a lot of energy towards being on the road and meeting with customers, but they are different, you know? Um, if you are in, like, cold call selling or a call center, you can, you know, go to the gym every night where you live. You can, you know, visit with friends at night. You can do those things. Or if you’re an outside rep and you’re traveling, you could really be gone for significant stretches of time.

[00:31:40] Matt Glennon: And so, I think for every salesperson, they should ask themselves, “Where would I feel most comfortable?” You know? ‘Cause ultimately, you want to be comfortable in what you’re doing. 

[00:31:49] Jeremy Wood: Absolutely. And I think that’s a good way to break down the two. One thing that’s, that’s common in, in both of those roles is, especially in that new sort of entry-level position, is stress. And you talked about that earlier, about how a huge part of your program is how to kind of handle the stress going into making those calls or doing the, going to those meetings.

[00:32:16] How, what’s sort of your approach to managing stress? Because that, it can be very stressful to go to it, that, that meeting or, or make those phone calls when you haven’t talked to that person.

[00:32:28] Matt Glennon: One of the common themes, and actually, it’s the major theme of the GSD Approach, which I haven’t shared with you, is that, uh, it doesn’t matter which module I’m teaching, but at the heart of the GSD is one central theme and that is to help people, to help people make good decisions. So, in your heart of hearts, if you really conduct yourself in that manner where you’re trying to be consultative, you’re trying to help someone make a good decision by sharing this information, that in itself can take away a lot of stress.

[00:33:03] So, in my class, I actually, I meant, I give this example a lot. I’m like, “If you’re really trying to help somebody make a decision, then how can you have a bad sales call?” Even if someone was to say, “I’m completely not interested, this has been a complete waste of my time. I need to go.” I would say, “Oh,” you know, “I completely understand, you know, when you’re, if and when you’re ready, please call me back ’cause I would love to get a chance to maybe work with you to see if we can, uh, help you meet your needs, you know?” Hang up and I would go make the next call. Because in my heart, I’m really trying to help someone, you know, and I, we spend a lot of time on that in class.

[00:33:39] That in itself can help reduce stress. And then also knowing the structure of the call and knowing how to greet someone and how to have that personal connection and how to set an agenda, if you know how the call is going to generally transpire, then you can relax and start to really listen to someone, and that’s really the key we all know, is listening to people.

[00:34:02] But it’s hard to listen if you’re not sure where that call is going, you know? And you’re sitting there, your mind’s working, and you’re thinking of the next thing you’re gonna say, and when you do that, you’re not listening. And so, we spend a lot of time on the mechanics of it, but the, the nice thing is by the time my class wraps up, most of my students just seem really comfortable making that call, and I think that’s, that’s the main reason why it works so well.

[00:34:26] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s great. I think you’re right. I think preparation and to the point where they feel like they know what’s coming, or at least they have a structure to handle what’s coming, and then you, you hit the nail on the head, the central theme of helping people make good decisions. We’ve kind of debunked this myth, myth podcast over podcast, over podcast that sales is this like kind of old-school, sleazy thing, selling people to, or selling things to people that they don’t need.

[00:34:53] And that is not sales. That’s not sales education these days. And so, it’s, you know, time and time again, another professor has proven that’s not what he’s teaching his students and that’s not really the core of, of professional selling, which is great.

[00:35:07] Matt Glennon: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting. The other thing I do share along those lines is, you know, most of the salespeople I know really like their job, you know? It’s one of those things when you look at, you know, in terms of being a fulfilling career and away from that sort of snake oil analogy, you know, most salespeople are consultative, most try to help, you know, customers.

[00:35:27] You, you see that a lot with salespeople. They tend to be people that really listen well and try to help people, and yeah, I’m just a huge supporter of the industry itself, yeah.

[00:35:38] Kristen Wisdorf: That’s great. Well, hey, we wanna wrap with a couple fun questions. So, I would say just answer the quickest thing that comes to your mind. No right or wrong answers here.

[00:35:49] So, Matthew, which feeling is stronger for you? Is it loving to win or hating to lose?

[00:35:58] Matt Glennon: All right. So, I’m trying to be, like, as accurate as possible to my responses. I really don’t like losing, and I’m like, that might have helped me back when I was starting in sales. I, I mean, I love to win, but I really don’t like to, to lose either. So, if I had to pick one, it would be very close. But I actually, I don’t, I don’t like losing. Yeah.

[00:36:19] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah. It’s stronger feeling. I hear that.

[00:37:05] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. This one you might have to, like, dig deep, but do you have most memorable or embarrassing sales story you can share?

[00:37:19] Matt Glennon: Okay, so I used this one in class, and it taught me about the value of, like, asking questions and listening. So, as a younger rep, I remember I was trying to sell a customer on some feature of our product, and I thought to myself like, and maybe I didn’t really think too much, but I’m like, “Of course this is gonna be a huge value to this customer.”

[00:37:41] And so, I went into about a 30-minute diatribe about how this feature, the product, was going to save them money because they were going to use less tools and they were gonna have this great productivity improvement. And I was like, “It’s because of the chemistry and it’s gonna do this and this and this.”

[00:38:00] And I remember him kind of looking at me, you know, like, “Are you almost done?” You know, he was like, and he said, “Listen. We can’t do what you’re asking us to do because it’s specified by the FAA that this needs to be changed, you know, every, like, three minutes or whatever it was. And so that doesn’t apply to us.”

[00:38:20] And I remember thinking, “Okay. I’m gonna remember this because ask questions, don’t assume and verify the, you know, features of what you’re selling are truly benefits.” Yeah.

[00:38:34] Jeremy Wood: That’s a, that’s a great example of, of, you mentioned it before, learning from your, your customers and always, always being open for feedback. Matt, what would you say is something that you’re world-class at?

[00:38:49] Matt Glennon: World-class at? I would say, I do a lot of public speaking. My class is 470 students. And I think I have a good understanding of, like, my audience and how to try to get them to engage. And it’s been a process of 7or 8 years. It didn’t happen overnight. But I’ve got a lot of experience working with, like, large audiences and it’s been like trial and error, you know? 

[00:39:13] There’s been ti, over time, I’ve gotten it to the point where I feel like I can help engage, like, large groups of people and again, it’s been a process. It didn’t happen overnight. But if you needed someone to get in front of 500 people, I would be your guy.

[00:39:28] Kristen Wisdorf: I love it. All right.

[00:39:40] Kristen Wisdorf: We appreciate you joining today and chatting with us. You have lot of great experience and really, really good, you know, between sales and marketing and travel and setting up curriculum in Afghanistan and being an educator, there is a ton that your students and our listeners can learn from, so we appreciate the time. Thank you for joining us.

[00:40:04] Matt Glennon: Well, I wanna thank you so much for your time today, and also, just having memoryBlue into my class has been a wonderful experience, and I’m so glad to hear that some of our students joined your company recently and I look forward to working with you in the spring. 

[00:40:18] Jeremy Wood: Likewise, Matt. I know the team loves every time we get a chance to, to meet the students and be a part of the program.

[00:40:24] Matt Glennon: Yeah. Thank you very much.