Campus Series: Rob Peterson – Repetition Overcomes Fear

Guest-At-A-Glance

💡 Name: Rob Peterson

💡 What he does: Rob is the Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Sales; the Editor, Journal of Selling; and the Founding Member – Sales Enablement Society.

💡 Company: Northern Illinois University

💡 Noteworthy: Rob has been in sales and education for 30 years. He is also the editor of the Journal of Selling and has authored 100+ peer-reviewed articles/proceedings on various sales challenges. His dissertation focused on negotiation. In addition, he helped start a Sales Center in a university from a green field startup (William Paterson University). Further, he retooled a very mature program and its curriculum (Northern Illinois University).

💡 Where to find Rob: LinkedIn | Website

Key Insights

⚡ Sales in DNA. Although he says that selling is in his blood, Rob points out that it was only in his last year of college that he realized it would be his life’s calling. “I’m a lifer. My old man was a career salesman, and my mom was a high school business teacher, so this was part of my DNA. Growing up listening to my dad, I got at least half the conversation because he was always on the phone during the day. […] I went to Indiana, and then I took my first sales job because that’s what you did unless you were an accountant or an engineer. You went in. You’re hanging out with customers, hopefully creating revenue. My first sales job was in Washington DC, trying to find the smallest place that would not have any risk toward me when I fell on my face. So I moved around; I have had a great career so far, and now, it’s all about educating the future generations on how to do things better, stronger, faster, and also, make less mistakes than I did.”

⚡ The art of using the phone. Rob worked in print sales first and later switched to inside sales. He made a 100% commission on the phone and thus doubled his income in a year, and he did door-to-door, in-person cold calling for two years. He is happy to share this experience with his students, which teaches them all the benefits of using a phone. “There are a lot of 20–21-year-olds walking around this country who don’t know that there’s a dial tone on that phone they have. They just take pictures and stuff. So I’m teaching them the fine art of a voicemail. I’m like, ‘How many of you guys have left a voicemail? Like a B2B voicemail?’ One hand might go up, maybe. I said, ‘How many people even listen to their voicemails?’ They’re like, ‘Well, if it’s from my mom.’ Like, ‘Yeah, because she pays your phone bill, right?’ ‘Yeah.’ So I’m trying to teach them voicemails, gatekeeper interaction, and then, the top of the funnel, first call is what I get to do in the B2B class, and I absolutely love it.”

⚡ Repetition overcomes fear. Sales brings a lot of challenges and confrontations with different people. That is why many are reluctant to continue selling as soon as they feel uncomfortable. Rob points out that repetition is the key to pushing past the discomfort. “Anything that we do, we get better at by shooting more free throws, doing more putts, playing more chess games, painting, singing; everything that we do, we get a little bit better at it by doing it over and over again.”

Episode Highlights

Hard Work Brings Money

“I try to tell my students, ‘Look, you can’t hit quota 40 quarters in a row and have that be your only goal because that’s gonna be a pretty shallow life, guys. You need to figure out who you are, what you’re doing, and how you’re growing. If you’re willing to work hard and learn, the money will come. If you have to change companies — that happens a lot these days — think of the bigger picture. So comp will take care of itself, but don’t tell me you want to make 60 as a base, and you wanna make another 20, 30 to start the year and by your first or second year, and then you think you’re gonna work eight to five or nine to five. […]

I got an email from a guy just last week, throwing me some love, and he said, ‘Dr. P, this started with you; without a doubt, I couldn’t do this and that.’ He’s working at Cisco, which is not a small company, and he’s going to go to a startup, and I’m like, ‘Wow, the skillset that takes — what it takes to thrive in a megacorporation or a startup — those are different.’ And he felt confident enough to pull the trigger and then share that story with me. And he says, ‘Oh, it started with you.’ I was like, ‘Well, I might have helped, but I can’t teach grit and determination. You had to bring that. The rest I can help fill out, but if you don’t have the drive and the love to be the best that you can be, then it’s gonna be hard road.'”

The Importance of Improvising With Students

“One of the things that I like to do is put my students on edge every day. We come to class, and they’re gonna do improvisation. Because in sales, the customer gets to say and do whatever they want, and you’ve gotta listen and figure out what to do next. The first time I got to teach this B2B sales class, I was like, ‘Oh, this is gonna be part of it.’ And the students thought I was nuts, and they even wrote in my emails, ‘Why do we do this?’ Eventually, they figured it out when they got on the phone, and they had a cold call, it’s like, ‘I didn’t understand it for the first 12 weeks, Dr. P, but then it made sense because customers can say anything and do anything.’

‘We had an outline that you guys needed to hit on here,’ I said, but no one came up — just a script that we’re following right now. There are no lines; it’s not Shakespeare. So, they come in, and each week I give them a different challenge, and they need to listen, adapt, collaborate together with the customer, and then take action. So, if you look at that, ‘listen, adapt, collaborate’ is the same thing that makes for good improv. You don’t wanna pay money, go to a show, and see people argue. I can get that at home. So, when they do that, it’s just like sales. You have to listen. You have to adapt. You have to collaborate internally and with the customer, and then you have to take some action; you have to be engaged.”

Be Open to Asking and Learning

“Maybe I’m an old dog, maybe because I like to win, and I don’t like to fail, I’ll ask, I’ll source. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m the younger, but I’ll go around, ‘What do you guys think? What is this?’ But there are a lot of people who won’t do that. Hard knocks is a rough school to get through. You’d rather learn through, if you’re open to it, coaching from more seasoned people to give you some feedback on the good, the bad, and the ugly. Like, ‘What would you do, Kristen, if you were in this situation?’ Like, ‘Oh, perfect. This person wants to be coached; they’re looking for some advice.’ It doesn’t mean they have to follow everything that I’m saying, but at least they’re open to it.”

Transcript:

F6345105_95 – memoryBlue – Campus Series – Rob Peterson

[00:00:00] Rob Peterson: I might have helped, but I can’t teach grit and determination.

[00:00:03] You had to bring that. The rest I can help fill out, but if you don’t have the drive and the love to be the, the best that you can be, then it’s gonna be a hard ride. 

[00:00:58] Kristen Wisdorf: Welcome back, hustlers, to another episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, special Campus Series. I am your host, Kristen Wisdorf, and I’m joined with the lovely Libby Galatis. Libby, welcome back.

[00:01:10] Libby Galatis: Happy to be here. Hey, everybody.

[00:01:12] Kristen Wisdorf: And today we are super excited to have known to students and, uh, memoryBlues alike as Dr. P, but Dr.

[00:01:21] Robert Peterson from Northern Illinois University. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. P.

[00:01:26] Rob Peterson: Awesome to be here. I thought there should be, like, some applause in the background when you guys were being introduced.

[00:01:31] Kristen Wisdorf: Maybe we can have our team edit the applause. Uh, we’re very excited for you to join us. We just want to chat a little bit about your journey to sales and how you’re enriching the minds of future sales goers, but we like to start, you may already know this, Dr. P, but we like to start with, actually, the same way Libby and I typically start our interviews when we’re interviewing sales students, which is, take 60 seconds

[00:01:57] and tell us about you. Who is Rob Peterson?

[00:02:02] Uh, 60 seconds. Let’s make it happen. I’m gonna talk fast, no, I’m not gonna talk fast. Let me throw this out there first. I heard, I mean, I, in order to prep like any good sales rep, I listened to a bunch of different previous ones, you know, Chuck Howlett and Bill at Central Florida and Stephanie, uh, sorry, I’m listening

[00:02:22] Rob Peterson: like, and they, like you said, they all fell into sales one way or another. I’m a lifer. My old man was a career salesman, and my mom was a high school business teacher, so this was part of my DNA. Listening, growing up, listening to my dad, at least, you know, I got half the conversation ’cause he was always on the phone during the day.

[00:02:40] So no, this was my, my calling. So, I have a couple of older brothers, none of ’em are in sales. One’s an accountant, one’s electrical engineer. They went to the University of Illinois, so I went to Indiana, and then I took my first sales job, ’cause that’s what you did unless you were an accountant or an engineer, you, you went and, you’re hanging out with customers, hopefully creating revenue.

[00:03:01] And then I went your neck of the woods. Uh, my first sales job was in Washington DC, so I can tell you all about my first sales call in this remote cavern of Gaithersburg, trying to find the smallest place that would not have any risk toward me when I, you know, fell on my face. So, yeah, I moved around, had a great career so far, I think, and, uh, now it’s all about educating the future generations on how to, how to do things better, stronger, faster, but also, like, make less mistakes than I did.

[00:03:30] Kristen Wisdorf: That is amazing. I can’t wait to dive into all of those items you touched on, but what I am really excited about is that you embrace sales. It wasn’t something you fell into it. It wasn’t something you were like, “Well, I’m not a great electrical engineer, so I guess I’ll go into sales.” Right? Like, this is, you said it, part of your DNA.

[00:03:50] Like, when did you have that realization or did you even have a realization? Was it just, like, part of your path always?

[00:03:58] Rob Peterson: No, what, I mean, it would be nice to say, “Oh yeah, I knew that I was gonna be a doctor” and blah, blah, blah. No. Let’s be honest to the people at home. I had no idea until senior year as a marketing major. ‘Cause I, I didn’t want finance, I didn’t want accounting. As a marketing major, we kind of going through and we would had all delusions of Grainger, right? ‘Cause I went to Indiana University, which, at the time, didn’t have a sales program,

[00:04:20] now they have a great one. We had one sales management class back then, M-426. It’s still numbered the same way, I, I talked to Charlie about that. So, we all thought, like, because Indiana has a great MBA program, we’re all gonna be brand managers. We didn’t even know what the hell the term meant.

[00:04:38] And we didn’t have, never had one P&L responsibility in our life, and yet we were gonna be brand managers. So, somewhere along the line, during the fall semester, we kind of all realized, like, “No, we’re not. No, we’re not.” And so, um, the business placement office there was great, as far as, you know, now everybody emulates that, I think most of the universities do a good job of bringing,

[00:04:58] bringing companies onto campus, and so I started interviewing without a doubt, and it was gonna be a sales, sales job. And, you know, we had to pick from a lot, even it was the early mid-eighties, actually. Economy was doing better, so I had a lot of choices on what, what I was gonna do. And I started off on print sales.

[00:05:15] I know that people are like, “Print sales? What?” I mean, anytime you enter the bank, you fill out a form, insurance, you fill out a form. There’s something called ‘carbon interleave’ ’cause you had to make eight copies, and people don’t even know what that means. It’s like, so it was, two guys came from Wallace, and they so impressed me that I’m like, “Yeah.” I went with a, another company called Duplex, but I moved to Washington DC.

[00:05:36] They gave me the pick of the entire country. He says, “We have openings all over.” I mean, Dallas, Houston, LA, New York, Nashville. And I said, “All right. DC is the place to be, so let’s go.”

[00:05:47] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay. Why DC of all the pla, you get your choice, most young people are like, “Send me to sunny California, get me outta Indiana.” And you go to the nation’s capital. It’s like a swamp here in the summer. It like, why?

[00:06:03] Rob Peterson: It is tremendously hot in DC in the summer. That’s why Congress always, you know, years ago used to take a large chunk of time off ’cause it is the swamp, swamp land. You know, at the time, I still had an interest in politics thinking that that, that also could be ’cause, you know, sales translates into so many other capabilities, whether you would be an accountant who wants to make partner you’re gonna sell,

[00:06:24] a doctor, you know, has to sell the patient sometimes on following, you know, taking the pills or following the regimen or convincing the family this is, so I thought that politics was the same ilk as that you’re educating and whatnot. Well, without getting too personal, are you kidding me?

[00:06:39] There’s no way I could be a politician. There’s just, I can kiss a lot of babies, but I can’t, you know, do some of the other stuff that is like, oh, meetings, the, the constituents are insane, and then all you’re doing is raising money to keep yourself in power. So, I’m like, “You know what? Let’s go out and solve problems and, for businesses, and hang out with, you know, real people who,” you know, if you, if you get a chance, you get a shot, you gotta work your way in,

[00:07:03] so I got stories up and down, you know, Rockville Pie, talking about how I got into businesses and all ethical, but just, I tell stories like that in class and they’re like, “What?” So, yeah. That’s what you did.

[00:07:16] Kristen Wisdorf: I love that. And you mentioned print. You’re, I mean, I got my sales career started in print, and now, like, I don’t even know if any of our SDRs even own printers. So, when you think back to what you did, what were you selling? What types of, you know, do you remember your first deal that you made?

[00:07:33] Were you going in person? Like, let’s paint a little picture of, like, what that first job was like for you?

[00:07:39] You know, I was given notebook of business, zero, so I had a cold call for my, not even one account. So, I was out foot prospecting, knocking on doors, Writing down things when you, when you drive, I mean, you had to live in your territory, but I drove across the Cabin John bridge to beautiful Virginia

[00:07:56] Rob Peterson: and that’s where the office was, which was hellacious traffic. But you know what? That’s what you did. You were starting out and, um, taking down notes of companies and one of the senior guys said, “Hey, Don’t call on the big marque companies yet in your territory ’cause you don’t wanna screw it up.” And I’m like, “Yeah, that makes sense.

[00:08:12] Let me go make some smaller mistakes. Learn from that before I call on the, the big boys and girls.” So, you know, I did that, and I knew that it really wasn’t a match for me. I mean, printing has, there was zero margin for air. Now, I’ve gotten better in my old age here, but back in my twenties, I had, you know, I was not ready to, if you make one mistake, the, you can’t use the form.

[00:08:34] And I made a mistake and I got hung out to dry and I’m like, “Huh?” So, I thought maybe it was time for a move, and then I moved to inside sales. I’d sold stock market, live data from the market. So, stocks, options, futures. And that was really cool to the small, to the small investors.

[00:08:50] So, that was before the internet. So, we used to use FM radio waves and people are like, “What are you talking about?” And in the cable system we would use and we’d send a signal through that, and I worked a hundred percent commission on the phone and that was, I doubled my income in one year, so that was pretty lucrative move.

[00:09:06] I didn’t have the best, you know, it wasn’t the best match coming out of college, but two years later, you know, it wasn’t two weeks. I know some of my students, I’ll tell a story. This one girl calls me, she just graduated this a few years ago now. She calls me, and I was in California. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, go.

[00:09:20] Rob Peterson: I got time. What’s going on?” And she says, “Oh, Dr. P, I don’t know, I’m this, I’m that, they’re not, you know, they got me working here” and, and, I’m like, “Oh my God. Are you kidding me?” I won’t use any names. “Lexi. Are you kidding me? Why, why they haven’t promoted you? You’ve been there seven weeks.” And then just the, the laughing comes up.

[00:09:41] “All right. Dr. P. All right. I hear you.” So, I lasted two years at my place, and then I said, “No, I, I’ve got to role. I got to role.” So, I wasn’t making any money for my manager. I was one of the few young guys that they ever hired. They all used brokers, they, they got more experienced people,

[00:09:57] so he wasn’t great at that. So, together we weren’t, we weren’t making it happen for each other. I’m like, “Okay, time to go.” And so, I got to double my income by working my, you know, on the phone. And that was a great experience for the downstream, for the students that I have, both outside and then inside sales, working the, the phone.

[00:10:13] So, that’s one of the classes that I get to teach right now is, hey, how do you define art of using the phone to talk to people. I mean, there’s a lot of 20, 21-year-olds walking around this country that don’t know there’s a dial tone on that phone. That takes pictures and stuff. So, teaching them the fine art of a voicemail,

[00:10:32] I’m like, “How many of you guys left a voicemail? Like, a B2B voicemail?” Like, one hand might go up. Maybe. I said, “How many people even listen to their voicemails?” They’re like, “Well, if it’s from my mom,” like “Yeah because she pays your, uh, phone bill,” right? “Yeah, yeah. Yeah.” So, trying to teach them voicemails, gatekeeper interaction, and then top of the funnel, first call is what I get to do in the B2B class

[00:10:56] and I absolutely love it.

[00:10:57] Libby Galatis: Wow. I’m gonna jump in here because you, the way that you mentioned the fact that this role you had was a hundred-percent commission, didn’t even bat an eye, you were excited about it, honestly, the way that you were saying, like, talking about it and obviously, you were able to come out on the very lucrative end of that.

[00:11:15] and I think this idea of commission and the comp structure within sales roles is often a very foreign concept for students, especially those that might not have the exposure of the sales classes, like what you guys offer over at your university. So, I’m curious about your take on compensation, the importance of it, how your students, you know, are assessing the comp plans of these different companies and commission versus bonuses,

[00:11:39] Libby Galatis: just generally speaking, from your perspective, all about that stuff because, um, as a recruiter hiring students, I obviously, am getting one side of that story.

[00:11:50] Rob Peterson: I will, let me give you some kudos, Libby, ’cause you’re absolutely right. Nice listening skills there. Yeah, I did light up ’cause to me it was like, “Yeah, let’s go.” I mean, I was 20, nothing with no responsibilities, no spouse, no house. I had a car payment and no college debt. You know, back in the day, you were able sometimes to do that.

[00:12:06] So, I’m like, “Well,” I, I’ve got a cushion to try some things that are a little bit more risky, and to me, though, it really didn’t seem like a bunch of a risk. You’re gonna pay me. I’m gonna get commission on the stuff that I deliver. And that we got callbacks. We got chargeback for things that didn’t, if the, if the customer bought and they didn’t stay 30 days online, and there was a lot of technology issues back then, they dinged us back on the commission.

[00:12:28] So, we understood that we were working for the customer. We were not just working for the initial, “Hey, let’s bring them in, get your comp, and then just keep moving.” To a degree we had to do that ’cause we weren’t, there was no residuals or anything like that, but. No, comp, just depends on your risk aversion

[00:12:46] and as we all know there, there’s all kinds of comp plans. There’s a straight salary, not very often, but a straight salary, and then there’s maybe a commission. There could be a, a quarterly bonus, which is, you know, so what motivates you? What gets you excited? I, I try to tell my students, “Look, you can’t hit quota 40 quarters in a row, and that be your only goal

[00:13:05] because that’s gonna be a pretty shallow life, guys. You need to figure out who you are, what you’re doing, how you’re growing. Will, if you’re willing to work hard and learn, the money will come. If you have to change companies, then, you know, that happens a lot these days, but, you know, think for the bigger picture.

[00:13:20] So, comp will take care of itself, but don’t tell me, you wanna, you wanna make 60 as a base and you wanna make another 20, 30 to start year and by your sec, first or second year and then you think you’re gonna work eight-to-five or nine-to-five.” It’s just, they don’t and again, when I get ’em, a lot of ’em are traditional, and so they haven’t had a career,

[00:13:39] they’ve had jobs, but now I had a career, so it’s a wake-up call, and I get lots of email, I get lots of angst in the class. I got an email from a guy just last week, throwing me some love, said, “Dr. P, this is, you know, it started with you, without a doubt, I couldn’t do this and that.” He’s working at Cisco, which is not a small company and he’s gonna go to a startup, and I’m like, “Wow, the skillset that takes you,

[00:14:03] you know, what it takes to thrive in a, a mega corporation to a startup, those are different,” and he felt confident enough to pull the trigger and, and then share that story with me. And he says, “Yeah, it’s, oh, it started with you.” I was like, “Well, I might have helped, but I can’t teach grit and determination.

[00:14:19] You had to bring that. The rest I can help fill out but if you don’t have the drive and the love to be the, the best that you can be, then it’s gonna be a hard ride.”

[00:14:27] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah, I love, I mean, you’re right, you can’t teach grit and determination, but you can teach perspective and use your experience with your students, which I love that you were willing to, kind of, bet on yourself, obviously, and take that hundred-percent commission job, which a lot of those, a hundred percent commission jobs, a lot of ’em don’t exist anymore.

[00:14:45] But, the fact that you’re willing to do that, I think, is a great story for the students that you’re teaching today. And also, going back to the job before that where you did that for two years and even the call you got from your former student, I feel like there’s a lot of, like quick, quick, quick, onto the next thing kind of impatience

[00:15:03] nowadays that, you know, your first job while it wasn’t the right fit, you still did it and you pounded the pavement, and you did door-to-door, like, in-person cold calling for two years and that probably, well, it wasn’t, like, the perfect career, you know, long-term career for you, it gave you a foundation for probably that next job and all the other, you know, jobs after that, which I think is a great perspective for your students.

[00:15:26] Rob Peterson: Well, trying to live the example, be the example.

[00:15:28] Kristen Wisdorf: Yeah,

[00:15:28] I love it. Okay. Let’s take it way back. Dr. P, I’m talking growing up. So, you had mentioned a couple things that stood out to me. You said your brothers went to U of I, so you went to Indiana. Um, it was in your DNA, like, were you, did you always wanna be the person who stood out? Did you wanna go, like, your own way, a different way?

[00:15:49] Talk to us a little bit about what it was like growing up and your parents, I know your mom was a teacher, like, give us a little bit of how you became that guy you were your senior year of college when you realized sales was for you.

[00:16:04] Rob Peterson: I feel like I’m on that, I’m on the couch and

[00:16:05] now I’m looking at war shack, uh, you know?

[00:16:08] Kristen Wisdorf: I am not qualified for that.

[00:16:10] Rob Peterson: Ink blotter. What do you see here? Let’s just say as the youngest of three boys, I always, you, you know, especially if anybody’s a baby who’s listening to this, you had to play up. You had to defend your turf. And you let the oldest blaze the trail,

[00:16:23] so if you, anybody, first-borns, you know that you were blazing the trail with mom and dad and all the rules and blah, blah, blah. So, we all have a role, you know, in the lineage, and so I was the youngest. I was a little bit of a scraper. I was a little bit of a fighter. But I, I was also, you know, not the,

[00:16:39] I was large. I was big. I was a big kid. So, I was, my mom loves this story, I was always the defender of the little guy because I was a little guy at home, would just, I didn’t know that other families were more functional than my own, so let me air some dirty laundry. I used to get beat up on a daily basis just for fun.

[00:16:55] My brothers would just, you know, I mean, melt ice cubes in my naval, stick grass up my nose and so, I, you know, was a fighter. I, you know, I eventually, in my teen years, I took martial arts, I wrestled and yada, so, so no one would mess with me anymore. But yeah, I ha, I’ve always wanted to be, you know, out there a little bit of an extrovert. So, yeah, what I was trying to do was A, survive, B, you know, back in the day, I was a decent athlete, a Jack of all trades, an expert at nothing. But, um, yeah, I didn’t mind the limelight.

[00:17:27] I just had the 40th reunion from my high school, so, um, that tells you how old I am, and they were just giving me all kinds of, “Oh, why don’t you just give us your graduation speech again?” ‘Cause I gave the, you know, and, and I, I, let me be honest here at my school, it wasn’t a valedictorian giving the speech, trust me, it was a tryout.

[00:17:49] Rob Peterson: So, I put together my speech, I had some things to share, I wanted to share. It was definitely comical, lighthearted, so they put me first and then it got heavier as the second and third final speech was, but yeah, I was trying to be all in, trying to live, live life, have some fun. And that’s kind of what I bring to the classroom, is that we’re gonna make it real, people.

[00:18:08] And don’t take anything that I say personally, ’cause I don’t know you, I’m not coming home, seeing if your mom really wears army boots. I don’t even know what that reference means, but take it professionally ’cause that’s the way it’s intended. And this old guy up here at the front has had more, many more sales, failed sales calls than you could even imagine.

[00:18:28] So, it’s all in, all the time in our classroom. It’s not a war zone, but when you walk in, you know, it’s gonna be fun. It’s gonna be on. And if you stroll in late, it might be, “Oh, look, Libby. Libby’s just joining us. That’s nice. We started without you, Lib. Sorry. I,” you know? But I want them to feel a little bit of that excitement and burn that you can’t disappoint the customer and your manager and everybody else around you, but you can’t disappoint that customer ’cause there’s probably a lot of other options for them to use.

[00:18:58] Libby Galatis: I love that. I think it’s sort of, like, a pioneering character. You’re just looking to tackle things, get them done, you see what needs to happen, and you kind of execute. I really appreciate that energy. I’m curious, as you were growing up, I’m sure you, you mentioned that your father was in sales.

[00:19:12] What kind of sales did he do? What did you kind of watch him sell growing up?

[00:19:16] Rob Peterson: We didn’t understand anything that he did because he was in the soft, well, he’s in the software business, and that didn’t make any sense to anybody ’cause there was no such thing as software, even as a term in the seventies. Believe it or not, he was the first sales manager or the national sales manager of Computer Associates.

[00:19:34] So, he would fly every, every Sunday night. Dad would take off, fly to New York, ’cause that’s where he’s headquartered, stay until Thursday, come back Thursday afternoon or evening, and then we’d have him for the weekend, obviously busy, all kinds of Boy Scout stuff. All three of my brothers are Eagle Scouts

[00:19:48] Rob Peterson: and so we were busy. He was phenomenally busy. So, we didn’t understand what he did. He was talking about software, and it wasn’t like, you know, for mainframe computers and this and that and I’m like, “I don’t know what that means.” So, we got an early exposure to the software industry, but no one really understood what he was talking about.

[00:20:06] Libby Galatis: It’s so interesting that you saw so little of him, but you were still like, “That’s what I wanna do. I, you know, I’m gonna move into sales too.” What about, like, the sales aspect of his, of his job? Or was it your dad that kind of influenced that decision? I know that you mentioned that at the end of your college career was sort of when you really knew, but how much of an influence was, you know, watching dad growing up and seeing him on, on your own decision?

[00:20:29] Rob Peterson: You know, I, I think, and I tell my students who are in the sales class with me, it’s like, “Can you imagine?” And there’s a lot of smart kids and a lot of great universities that don’t have a sales program. Even our own state, the University of Illinois, great Big 10 school, I said, “How would you like to come out knowing that you’re probably gonna be hanging out with customers as a marketing, as a management, as a history major, as a comms major and not have one formalized sales class? Like, no way.”

[00:20:55] So, I got to listen to him and, you know, he, one of the traits that he had, he feared nothing in this world. Even death, he was not afraid of anything. So, I kinda grew up with that. I’m like, “What could be the worst thing?” And I tell you that, “Oh,” like, how tough I am. It is true. Up until the, you know, to the point where, you know, you’re a high school boy or a college boy and you’re trying to ask some girl out for a date, and you know you’re gonna get crushed

[00:21:16] and so you’re so scared of asking the question and you won’t and you won’t. So, I was quite shy when I, you know, when it came around to trying to ask a girl out on a date. Couldn’t do, it was fearful. Trying to, you know, trying to minimize the risk by asking all my friends, “What do you think, would she?” “Well, talk to her.

[00:21:31] Does she?” like, “Oh my God.” Now, I have no idea how the hell I got on my personal life there. Sorry about that. Well, you know, we can keep it. I’m on the edge, um. 

[00:21:41] Libby Galatis: No, it’s working. 

[00:21:42] Rob Peterson: One of the things that I, I like to do is put my students on the edge every day. We come to class, and they were gonna do, they’re gonna do improv, improvisation.

[00:21:54] I said, ’cause in sales, the customer gets to say and do whatever they want and you’ve gotta listen and figure out what to do next. So, I had that the first time I got to teach this B2B sales class, I was like, “Oh, this is gonna be part of it.” And the students thought I was nuts, and they even wrote in my emails, “Why do we do this?”

[00:22:11] So, like, eventually they figured out when they got on the phone and they had a cold call, it’s like, “I didn’t understand it for the first 12 weeks, Dr. P, but then it made sense.” ‘Cause customers can say anything and do anything. “I mean, we had an outline that you guys needed to hit on here,” I said, but no one came up just a script that we’re following right now.

[00:22:28] There’s no lines. We’re not, there’s not Shakespeare.” So, they come in, and each week, I give ’em a different challenge and that, you know, they need to listen, adapt, collaborate and take action. So, they need to listen, adapt, collaborate together with the customer and then take action. So, if you look at that, listen, adapt, collaborate,

[00:22:49] the same thing that makes for good, improv, I mean, ’cause improv, you don’t wanna pay money, go to a show and see people argue, I mean, I can get that at home, right? So, when they do that, it’s just like sales. You have to listen. You have to adapt. You have to collaborate internally and with the customer, and then you have to take some action.

[00:23:06] You have to be engaged. So, um, with that in mind, ladies, let’s do an improv exercise. So, there’s three levels. There’s the, no, the novice, there’s the inner meeting and the advance. What do you guys feel comfortable with today?

[00:23:24] Kristen Wisdorf: Let’s go, novice.

[00:23:27] Kristen Wisdorf: I was gonna say, I was gonna say.

[00:23:28] Kristen Wisdorf: I can’t embarrassed, too bad.

[00:23:32] Libby Galatis: All right, let’s go.

[00:23:33] Rob Peterson: All right. So, this is what I do the, one of the first, when we’re first together, it’s the easiest improv. So, let’s go intermediate. All right. 

[00:23:42] Kristen Wisdorf: Okay.

[00:23:45] Rob Peterson: So, Let me give you the, the easiest improv is just called ‘Last Word.’ So, we have a conversation and whatever my last word would, Kristen would have to start her the, and then whatever Kristen’s last word was, Libby would have to

[00:23:57] then use that as our first word. So, that’s the easiest one, but we’re gonna do the middle of the road, and it’s harder for a reason. So, we’re gonna have a conversation that’s gonna fall off the tracks. Okay? But we’re gonna do the alphabet one. All right? So, I’ll start and it’ll start with an A, and then Kristen, yours would have to start with a B, and then Libby, yours would have to start with the C. We’re gonna try to have a conversation about,

[00:24:23] you can either, if you don’t wanna give ’em anything, they can talk about anything. A lot of times they like a little bit more training wheels throw us. So, what is a, a topic that we might converse about?

[00:24:33] Kristen Wisdorf: Sales.

[00:24:35] Rob Peterson: Sales.

[00:24:36] Kristen Wisdorf: A career in sales.

[00:24:38] Rob Peterson: Career in sales? All right. Absolutely,  without a doubt, the best career that you can have is sales. You make a lot of money, you determine your own future, and you make a lot of your pro, professional problem solver. Love 

[00:24:52] it. 

[00:24:52] Kristen Wisdorf: But before you begin with a career in sales, you wanna sit down and determine what you wanna sell and what the best industry is for you by doing a bit of research.

[00:25:05] Libby Galatis: Sorry. I can’t. I’m, my brain is not working right now, but I see where you’re going with this. I like it.

[00:25:15] Rob Peterson: Okay, your T is not spelled that way.

[00:25:17] All right. Can you get your students to really understand the value and benefits of pursuing the sales career?

[00:25:25] Rob Peterson: Don’t count them short. They love this exercise. They get into it. They also get a little dirty with it, so I, I’m like, “Okay. Okay. Come on back.” But yeah, they’re, definitely intimidated to start and most get through it, some don’t. Some, some are still anxious about it.

[00:25:43] Kristen Wisdorf: Don’t expect a career in sales to be easy.

[00:25:46] Rob Peterson: I, I, I, had the D.

[00:25:49] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh, I oh, I have an E. Oh no, you gotta know the alphabet in order to do this.

[00:25:55] Rob Peterson: All right. In fact… 

[00:25:56] Kristen Wisdorf: Oh, wait, no. Let me rephrase. Expect a career in sales to be challenging. Oh my gosh. That’s actually really good, Dr. P because you’re right. It, that is a great exercise for thinking on your feet, which is something that actually, when we interview all of our, um, new hires, especially our May grads, college students, that is one of the things that we assess people on, is their ability to think on their feet and to adapt in the moment.

[00:26:25] And so, what a great exercise for strengthening it. I’m very curious what the advanced version is.

[00:26:32] Rob Peterson: So, all right, let me, let me let roll out this thing there, or debrief the rest of it. You’re right. ‘Cause then, as you start to go, I mean, everybody, you know, if you’re from this country, you can get through the, the early part of the alphabet. And then, after a while, you’re like, “Okay. A, there’s the L, P, P, P. Okay.”

[00:26:50] So, then there’s, there’s letters that are tough, you know? Q’s are tough. X’s are really hard. Z, you know, a lot of times, all of a sudden there’s a zebra that is in the sales call, you know? So, it’s, part of it is learning that, the give and take, and then you watch the students where they will, they will let Libby just

[00:27:08] blow in the wind and not help her. And while other another team, I typically do this with two, but you can do it as with three and then sometimes the other person helps and they’ll say, “T. Oh, God. Yeah.” ‘Cause they’re going through the alphabet. So, it’s a matter of, of thinking on your feet and, and you kind of alluded to it as well.

[00:27:25] Thinking on your feet A, and then B, you have to listen to the rest of what they’re saying, so you can’t just stop, like, as humans we often do. And that is the, the more advanced version, which is, as opposed to the, the first word, excuse me, last word, as opposed to driving through the alphabet, the harder one is, is last letter.

[00:27:46] So, whatever you said last, I have to take the last letter and that letter has to start the first word that I use to respond to you. That’s a little bit more difficult, I mean, but learning the alphabet’s pretty hard too, but that last letter is you’re, you’ve got to listen to the customer. You gotta listen to your, your scene partner to the last second and not dive out early.

[00:28:06] And so, that is one of the skills that, just this one exercise, again, this is day one and they’re thinking I’m nuts.

[00:28:13] Kristen Wisdorf: I love it. You gotta be in the moment is really what that’s all about. I love it. Um. You made a comment, too, about people. Some will let them kind of, like, flail and others will jump in to help. That is a, that’s an interesting point. And I think sometimes people think about sales as an individual sport, but it very much can be a team sport, and you can be in sales and have strong teammates be a really strong teammate.

[00:29:40] And it can be competitive with yourself or with your numbers or with your goal, but it doesn’t have to be cutthroat, and I think that’s a really good reminder too.

[00:29:49] Rob Peterson: I think there’s and again, we’re all human beings, and we’re all different, but there’s a little bit more younger folks, in fact, the other companies that recruit at, at Northern, point-blank they asked, “Hey, will this kid raise their hand if they need help?” And that’s something that the, you know, the, my generation, maybe I’m an old dog, maybe ’cause I like to win more than the, you know, I don’t like to fail,

[00:30:13] so I’ll ask, I’ll source. Maybe it’s ’cause I’m the youngest, like, I’ll go around, “What do you guys think? What is this?” But there’s a lot of people who won’t do that. And it, and then, you know, trust me, learning, hard knocks is a long, is a rough school to get through. You’d rather learn through, if you’re open to it, coaching for more seasoned people to give you some feedback on the good, bad and the ugly. What would, hey, what would you do,

[00:30:35] Kristen, if you were in this, in this situation? Like, “Oh, perfect. Person wants to be coached, they’re looking for some advice. Doesn’t mean they have to follow everything that I’m saying, but at least they’re open to it.”

[00:30:44] Libby Galatis: I think, going off of all of this, there’s a lot of just unknown and just, you have to navigate on the fly in these different conversations in sales and, and exercise that we just did. There’s a lot of uncertainty that comes along with that. The anticipation of what it, “What am I gonna say next? How is it gonna flow?”

[00:31:01] And I think a lot of students are fearful. They’re afraid of the rejection. Um, I mean, we’re talking about they’re afraid of picking up the phone and making the phone call to begin with. Um, and I’m curious, you mentioned way back when we were talking about your dad and his fearlessness, he, he just was not afraid of anything

[00:31:18] and I’m curious, from your perspective when you first ventured into sales, or if you could put yourself in that seat of those first few sales roles, was there anything the job itself that made you scared or that you were fearful of and how does that compare to some of the fears that your students have now?

[00:31:33] Rob Peterson: I, I think we’re all fearful when we start whatever any new job is. First time that you’re going to, as a nurse, you’re going to stick a tube in this, or you’re gonna pour concrete and, “Did I, you know, put the footings correctly?” you know? It wouldn’t matter what. So, like I mentioned, you know, I, I was at the most remote place in Gaithersburg, you know, because I knew I was gonna, I was so nervous. But, you know, you, after a while, you don’t, you learn not to take it personally ’cause they don’t know you. You interrupted, let’s say it’s a cold call, you interrupted their day, and now they’re upset, but you don’t know because their kid is sick or this or that, or they’re having financial troubles or whatnot, but you were interruption,

[00:32:06] it wasn’t who they thought and blah. After a while you’re like, “Okay.” I mean, when I first started, I took every email that students wrote, I took it, “Oh, my God.” I took it so personally. Now I don’t take it personally at all. I look for it. I mean, there’s some people who don’t like me because I’m all in, I’m aggressive,

[00:32:24] “Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s,” um, but if they write anything, it’s like, “Hey, I wish you would just give us more examples about X.” Or, “Can you show us why, you know, you’re bluffing.” Like, “Oh man, I, yeah, I gotta do that.” That’s my job. That’s how I’m gonna improve and get better. But once you’re done taking it personally, and we all do, no matter the job to start, then just take it professionally

[00:32:44] and it just allows you to breathe and be the best, no, to everybody, everybody. And if you’re taking things personally all the time, ugh, eventually, who’s gonna wanna be around you? Because it’s just a, it’s just a nightmare.

[00:32:56] Libby Galatis: I think in discomfort and, and that’s a, a common theme with this exercise and, and I’m sure with a lot of your experiences in your classroom, in discomfort and in that, just kind of, anxiety seed comes growth, you know? You, you don’t grow if you’re too comfortable. Do you think students should lean into that fear, whatever that fear might be and, and just kind of take it, on head on? What are some, you know, suggestions or pieces of advice you might have for those that might be fearful to pursue sales?

[00:33:23] Rob Peterson: It’ll be easy and try to say, “Oh, just go for it.” But, you know, if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room. All right? So, how do we push forward and get you comfortable? It’s by repetition. Anything that we do, we get better at by shooting more three throws, doing more putts, playing more chess games, painting, singing. Everything that we do, we get a little bit better at it by doing it over and over again.

[00:33:46] And here’s a case where, you know, we’re gonna do as many phone calls. And we have some tech, I mean, we’ve, we have some technology that we’re, that we’re using, I mean, you had Stephanie on, so the, um, the rainmakers sales contests where the students can to do as many as they want. Perfect. I’ve partnered with AAISP, the American Association Inside Sales Professionals, on some of their content to how the students do get ready for their, their, their phone call with me. And in fact, you wanna know about fear? I’ve gotta, I’ve got the one football player in my class last semester, who said, “Dr. P, I’m more fearful of this 10-minute phone call with you at the end of the semester,” it’s the, you know, it’s the cold call, “than I was playing for the MAC Championship last month

[00:34:29] or two months ago.” And I’m like, “Come on.” He says, “No, trust me.” Well, it’s because three hours a day, this guy’s been working out for umpteen years. How many professional B2B phone calls he’s made, he’s he’s made, you know? None. And same, anyway, plenty of stories like that. So, the more, as long as it, you know, skydiving, you don’t wanna do it without your parachute on, you know? The more things that we can do knowing that I’ve got your back and if you fail miserably, you don’t know what to say, that we’re all gonna laugh

[00:34:58] and then we’re gonna move on because we’re all in the same boat, and I think the students realize that. That’s, “We’re gonna be okay. No, one’s gonna die. Dr. P’s not gonna leave us on the battlefield.”

[00:35:07] Kristen Wisdorf: I love that. You talk a lot about your students, and you have all these great stories. 

[00:35:11] Let’s talk a little bit about your transition from sales or from being in the business world to teaching and educating. I know you said your mom was a teacher. How did you find your way into working with university and teaching sales?

[00:35:26] Rob Peterson: All right. Oh, a come-to-Jesus moment here. Uh, I have a short attention span. If I was, you know, lived at a different decade, they would’ve thrown all kinds of riddle and all kind, and I’m like, “Let’s go, let’s be excited. Let’s,” like. So, I looked at it after, after several years in the, uh, in, in the sales world, I’m like, “All right.

[00:35:45] What am I gonna?” I mean, I wound up being, living in Japan, you know? I went from DC to San Francisco, and 126 I’m in living in Japan. And I see, I came back and here’s the, you know, here’s the tough story. I came back from Japan to the United States in 1993, and then we were having a recession in ’90, started in ’91, but California was the last place to, to kind of grow out of it.

[00:36:06] So, I had an MBA, I had international experience, I had a hundred percent commission sales, I couldn’t get in interview people. I thought the world was over, and I’m like, “What is wrong with me? Blah, blah, blah.” And I remember just driving down 101, and all of a sudden at the Whipple Avenue exit, the frigging hole, my whole weight of the shoulders came off, and I said to myself, “You’re not gonna be unemployed the rest of your life, Rob.”

[00:36:28] I’m like, boom, it’s all I had to say. “Wow, you know, you’re right.” So, all right. You’re gonna have to remind me what the heck, oh, ADD, that’s, there you go. There you go. So, I looked at it, I was like, “Okay. So, what I wanna do, I’m like, I wanna be able to have some freedom once again, sales, some financial renumeration, but the cool thing about teaching sales is I get to teach it

[00:36:48] and then I get to research cuz, you know, it’s publisher perish. I get to change topics of what I wanna do.” I mean, the last five, four to five years, I’ve been doing sales enablement research. Before that, my dissertation was in negotiation. So, every five years or so, I kind of, I’m like, “Yeah, I’m done. I think I’ve made a contribution, and let me pick something else.”

[00:37:07] Well, you can’t do that in a lot of places. But in, I saw that that was possible. Plus, as I mentioned, my mom, I had a whole line of school teachers on my mom’s side of the family. So, it wasn’t, I was unaware of what I was getting myself into. But again, higher ed is definitely not K12

[00:37:23] and I’ve learned that. It’s interesting what we all do on this podcast as far as higher education goes. So, you have, you know, you’re doing a lot of work with Northern Illinois, obviously. You’ve been there for quite a while now, 12, 

[00:37:35] Kristen Wisdorf: 13 years, right? 

[00:37:37] Rob Peterson: I, I just, somebody asked me, “Where’s the longest place you lived?” And I was like, “Well, right here right now, except for my parents’ home, growing up. Right here, right now.” So, um, yeah, Northern’s been phenomenal. It’s, it’s the second oldest sales program in the, in the country. In late’80

[00:37:50] Baylor was first in ’85, and since then, there’s been a travel trove of people. Certainly not enough people teaching sales, but, you know, back in the day, Terry Lowe at, at, well, he started at Baylor and then he moved to Kennesaw and then he had the sales, you know, the national Cleat to Sales competition, which was phenomenal.

[00:38:08] I came along, and I was at William Paterson University with another guy, Dave Reeve. We were talking about it. I was like, “I think it’s ripe for another sales contest in this world.” And Terry and I were good because he, he was two years ahead of me in the Ph.D. program at Memphis. So, I don’t think he felt like, “What is this?”

[00:38:23] So, all of a sudden, you know, here we are, so we started the sales contest. I said, “We need something more than just a face-to-face role-play,” which is what a lot of them, um, that was what was happening, and so I added in-basket exercises, I started speed cell. And I didn’t, you know, this gal, Lindsay came into my, my, my office years or a couple of years before that

[00:38:44] and she said something about speed dating. I said, “Lindsay, what are you talking about?” And then she told me, “Oh, I put on speed dating.” And she told me the thing, I’m like, “Perfect. We’re doing that. Not speed dating, but we’re doing speed selling next week in class.” And I said, so I threw up a couple questions up onto the board,

[00:38:58] “How would you answer this?” Kind of prep ’em for, it was a sales class, ‘How to prep yourself’ but also how to interview well. So, we did that for like I, so I, you know, put it into the curriculum for 2, 3, 2 weeks, and I said, “Okay, we’re gonna have to move on from that.” I’m like, “No, we love this.” ‘Cause I also had serious questions

[00:39:17] but then I also said, “Okay, who’s, you know, you had a role play partner. Who’s the better dancer? Convince them.” And so, they had to figure out, you know, who’s, well, I won’t tell you that one. But anyway, we had a lot of fun and then they came to class. I said, “We can’t do it.” It’s like, “What if we come early?” It’s like, “You’re gonna come early?”

[00:39:33] Sure enough, the next class, they were all there before class, so they could, we could spend five minutes having some fun doing that. So, if you engage the, the students, so what I, I did was engage them in a speed cell And in-basket exercise, which is a prioritization task and then they did a, they did a role play.

[00:39:51] And that was at the national sales challenge that I created at, at William Paterson. And then, boom, I mean, Pat, Palatino that at Florida State said, “Hey, we like that.” He told me, he’s like, “We like that. I didn’t like the way you did it, though. You had, you had 40 something people, and then it was all crushed into the final 4.

[00:40:06] I didn’t like that.” I was like, “Perfect.” So, he created another one, which is, it’s been going just as, you know, for, for eons. And so, all these people then kind of got creative and, and, and started things. And so, it’s kind of, um, I mean, you can be creative, and that’s one of the things that I liked about, you know, making the switch from a pure sales job.

[00:40:24] I mean, I, I wish I had that extra zero behind my income if I would’ve stayed in sales, but I made my choice and I’m, I’m sticking to it.

[00:40:32] Kristen Wisdorf: So, between William Paterson and being at NIU for so many years, you’ve obviously implemented a lot, you’ve been creative, like you said. What do you think the future is? Like, the short-term future, the next five years in your sales education, and what you’re working on with your students?

[00:40:49] Rob Peterson: Uh, you know, one of the things that I started then when, I mean, I, I couldn’t take the National Sales Challenge with me, created that William Paterson, so that was, that was gonna stay there. So, I started the Sales To Cast one, another contest at Northern, which I had 10 different things that the students would do. They would do the pre-call plan.

[00:41:10] They would do a phone call. They would do a gatekeeper call. They would do a remote cell. I would make cuts to the field along the way. So, any university could start with 10 people in the, in the thing, and then we would just kind of, kind of cut ’em down and then the final 20 would come to campus where they would do a, another face-to-face.

[00:41:28] They would do a, a phone call with the CFO. Or no, excuse me, the CIO. Oh God, there’s just so many stories. And I told him, “At five minutes, I need you to hang up.” And said, “You asked for five, I gave you five. That’s all I can do. I gotta go to a meeting.” And I, and clicked. I said, “I need you to do that to these guys.”

[00:41:46] And, uh, that was so funny. So, at that evening, during the de, not a debrief, but I was talking to one of the, one of the sales, one of the students, their professor, and the next student was like, “That’s, that was so rude. The guy said, you know, he just, he said, “Okay, I gotta go. I’m done” click.” He says, “I wouldn’t sell to him.

[00:42:03] I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t sell to him.” And me and the other professor were just laughing our fan up. I was like, “All right. You asked for five minutes ’cause that’s what the role play said. He gave you five. That’s it. You got what you asked for. Don’t blink.” So, I think it’s just that maturation that goes along with, you know, I mean, I just, I mean, I used to have so much fun in the classroom and trying to teach these guys, so they don’t get crushed as much as, I mean, I got crushed a lot, you know?

[00:42:27] Oops. Made some mistakes here and there. But that sales to Cathline, I said, “You know what? We’re doing this for 20 kids in the country.” One kid’s from Scotland one time, and Canada came as well. They, they made it to the finals and stuff. I said, “We’re not even doing that for our own students.” So I said, “Let’s take this, the Cathline mentality, and roll it into the curriculum.

[00:42:48] So, now we’ve got through our classrooms, there’s always pre-call plans and, and a gatekeeper call and voicemail and top-of-the-funnel and face-to-face and phone call. So, they’re doing, they’re getting everything that we used to have as a sales contest, and now it’s part of the curriculum. So, the curriculum will, I think, will evolve going back to your question, you know, how did the tech stack, I mean, even my class,

[00:43:14] my tech stack is huge. And I’m like, “I can’t have me,” like, we’re doing the AAISP, and then they have another thing that they do the voicemail gatekeeper interactions on, and then there’s the SalesHood, which is an LMS that I use. So, I’m looking at this, like, “God, I, I can’t have these students up on so many platforms.

[00:43:32] It’s just like a Salesforce. They’re gonna get annoyed.” “Why do I have to log onto this and log onto that?” If it doesn’t hang on your CRM, you better have one or max two other things that they use, that brings them a lot of value. If not the sales force is just gonna be. If one thing I remember about is that,

[00:43:51] you know, we drank a lot of our own Kool-Aid in sales and we just thought, we were, “Ah,” if you hook up the company to the drug called sales, you start to believe your own, you know, your own PR and like, “Oh,” and you, like, you’re too big for your own bridges. So, up until, well, up until you have a bad quarter and then you’re like, “Oops, okay, shut up.

[00:44:11] Put your head down, keep going.” So, I think the tech stack will change and that’s, I know we’re probably running short on time, but that’s one of the reasons I take the students out every year during spring break to the Silicon Valley. I mean, I had a lot of connections in New York and a lot of connections in San Francisco

[00:44:26] ’cause I lived there as well. I said, “You know, where is it that?” So, I’m here in the Midwest. Do we go to New York? Do we go to San Francisco? I said, “You know what? It’s San Francisco that’s changed the buyer-seller relationships due to the technology that they are creating. Let’s go and hang with them and find out what is on the bleeding edge

[00:44:42] so we know what’s gonna come out and how it’s gonna change.” I mean, everything from, you know, well, CRM, I mean, when I first took, I mean, I, I took our students to one market, one salesforce.com in ’07 was nothing, nothing. I just wasn’t smart enough to buy stock in nothing. So, you know, I could be driving a nicer car than my 12-year-old Toyota.

[00:45:04] But I’m like, “Let’s go out there.” And, and so, you know, that technology stack, I think in the way that buyers interact and the fact that it’s the only way back in my day, for them to know anything about the product was to talk to me as a sales rep. Now they expect you to put on the most, I don’t say rudimentary, but the, the most basic and encompassing stuff had better be available for us to bone up before I call you or before I get engaged with you.

[00:45:30] Rob Peterson: So, the sales role is definitely a little bit later in the, in the decision-making process. So, it’s very incumbent upon the sales rep and the, and the marketing team and the entire company to when the, so they better be ready to go. Their enablement better be ready, their marketing collateral, their tech stack, yada.

[00:45:49] Libby Galatis: Definitely. I love, I mean, all of the building of the different programs and the different competitions, whether they’re national, the international sales competition, all of the exercises that you have, the lessons that you’re teaching to your students, it’s really all to prepare them for that real-world transition.

[00:46:07] Moving into that real-world first job, post-graduation, hopefully within sales after they leave your class. But with all these experiences, I mean our, our candidates couldn’t be more qualified to move into jobs like what we have at memoryBlue. And I know that so many companies are bending over backwards to hire your students.

[00:46:26] So, my question for you, as we kind of wrap up here is, you know, with all that opportunity in front of them, what advice do you have for your students that are transitioning and weighing out their options, and they’ve got all this opportunity in front of them?

[00:46:42] Rob Peterson: Well, a, you know, just the standard, just do your homework, uh,see if you fit. I mean, know that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers, but again, then you’re not guaranteed your manager forever. So, you know, make as best calculated, uh, decision as you can and not the first person who was willing to dance with you ’cause they’re so excited,

[00:47:01] “Oh my God. Yes. Yes.” Do your due diligence, ask your questions and then at a certain point, it’s time to, you know, to wear your big boy and a big girl pants and just make a decision. I’ve had people, “Well, what about this Dr. P and this?” And I’m like, and we talked about it, and I’m like, “You know what?” And you had a summer internship and you liked them.

[00:47:17] I said, “You’re ready to go. You just, you just don’t know that, you know, you’re at this level of, of your life now that you’re like, ‘Oh, I’m making this decision.’” So, yeah. Do your due diligence asking questions. Certainly, like, before we get on this call, I looked at your guys’ LinkedIn, eight ways to Sunday, you know? Look at your LinkedIn.

[00:47:34] In fact, I have an exercise in class, 10% of their courts, their semester grade is the LinkedIn exercise where they’re their, you know, “Do you have the right picture? Which so, your arm is not, you know, I can see your arm was cut off from somebody else, you know? You don’t have to have a suit and tie, so to speak, but is it appropriate?

[00:47:52] Do you have a right banner or was it the inherited banner that LinkedIn gave you from, from get-go? Did you customize your URL? Does, you know, spelling counts, what’s your summary? And then do you have?” I mean, they have to post, and it has to go viral and again, small viral, but I said, “Part of your grade,” and I show ’em, “Do you guys know how to post and do you know how to respond?”

[00:48:10] Rob Peterson: It’s like, I should write, you know, when I respond, put “@Libby,” and boom, it’ll start to catch the algorithms if enough people do that. So, they’re like, “Oh.” So, here’s, what’ was interesting I found on yours, Kristen, that someone gave you an endorsement for amazing, a copy editing. Do you have a story on that,

[00:48:29] or?

[00:48:30] Kristen Wisdorf: Well, I like you, Dr. P, got my career started in print, specifically print advertising. And at that organization I worked at for a number of years, we had to, it was an advertising company, so we put out ads and copy, and I helped a lot of the businesses that I sold ad space to create their ads and, um, created our own kind of, like, collateral and ads for the business as well.

[00:48:57] So, that is a rogue one, though. I can’t believe you caught that one.

[00:49:01] Rob Peterson: This’s one’s not as rogue as we’re gonna turn the sides on Libby now. She must make the most amazing PowerPoints because 24 people {..}

[00:49:15] Libby Galatis: I make a mean PowerPoint, and my content is very good. So, my whole thing going into classrooms, and that’s why I do so well in front of students, I don’t wanna show anybody anything that they could see from another classroom presentation from another company, right? I don’t wanna go in and shove memoryBlue and the opportunity here down anyone’s throat.

[00:49:34] I wanna make this job more accessible to students that may not have considered it before seeing the presentation. So, I bring in call recordings, like, dumpster fire, crash and burn, get it hung up on. I want the students to hear ’cause it’s like, “Hey, if this is what we’re afraid of here, like, here’s all these people that crash and burn.

[00:49:54] Everyone makes their first few cold calls and sound like garbage. The best salespeople on the planet stumbled and fall, so let’s look at, you know, these calls now and then also side by side at three months later, with some training, how different these same people that we were all cringing about sound.” And, and, you know, they’re people with all these different backgrounds

[00:50:12] and that’s why I love university recruiting and, and, you know, sales education, it’s so important and essential and so many people don’t get access to it, you know, until they’re later in life. So, I am a great PowerPoint maker. I will, I will hold myself to the moment.

[00:50:29] Rob Peterson: Absolutely love that answer. Wow. I love it. 

[00:50:31] Kristen Wisdorf: Dr. P, this has been so much fun. We love talking about your background and what you’re doing with your students right now. And your first job outta college in Washington, DC, we’re so excited that, um, you spent a little sliver of your week with us, and thank you so much. I know our listeners are gonna enjoy it as well.

[00:50:51] Yeah.

[00:50:52] Rob Peterson: Awesome. Can I, let me do a shout-out here. If you’re, if you’re listening to this and you’re looking for bodies, they’re, I mean, that’s the, one of the coolest things is about, you know, my challenge, is, it’s all about supply, supply, supply, supply. I have enough demand that I will retire and still not worry,

[00:51:08] “Well, how am I gonna get this kid play?” No, I need more students. So, two organizations that I’ve hung out with for years is the Sales Education Foundation, and that’s great at, for starting a program, um, if you’re at a university and they have the annual that tells you where all these universities are across the country and the world, actually.

[00:51:25] So, the Sales Education Foundation. The other one is the university professors have gotten together and really done a great job of creating the University Sales Center Alliance. University Sales Center Alliance. Again, we get together as professors twice a year and share, “Okay, who’s doing what, how’s it going?

[00:51:43] What do we look like it’s gonna be on the, you know, on the future?” Certainly, you know, great companies, companies that we, they said they were gonna do this, and they didn’t show up. Uh, “What are you guys doing for the?” So, we share everything. So, you know, it’s a battle for the hearts and minds of the students, but then there’s also the administration.

[00:52:00] I mean, the cool thing about sales programs is we essentially pay for ourselves. We don’t get a dime from the state tax. Well, they pay for my faculty line, but there’s not a dime that comes to us from, from most, uh, state taxpayers or, or universities. So, we raise our own funds and talk about a great position to be in. So, yeah, the future I think, is, is bright. The sales will, will, will shift, but if have two amazing ladies like yourself going out there and finding and spying talent with the best PowerPoint ever

[00:52:34] and amazing copy editing, I think the future’s bright. 

[00:52:35] Kristen Wisdorf: That was full circle, and I appreciate that you walk the walk when it comes to the research that you tell your students. That was awesome. Thank you so much for joining us, and keep

[00:52:49] hustling. 

[00:52:50] Rob Peterson: My pleasure.