Episode 61: Sam Burkhalter – How to Make Progress By Being Patient
If at first, you don’t succeed, keep trying until you do. Sam Burkhalter applies this motto to whatever he pursues, and his consistent progression suggests he is on to something.
Now an Inside Sales Representative at Precisely on a strong path to Account Executive, Sam preaches the power of persistence. You’ll never master anything if you don’t stick with it long enough. Sam overcame cold-calling nerves at memoryBlue with repetition, patience, and — above all — commitment to his long-term career goals. Overcoming unexpected challenges through consistent preparation fortifies Sam’s approach to growth.
In this episode of Tech Sales is for Hustlers, Sam shares insights on how to improve your cold-calling confidence, the winning moves he unlocks through prospect research, and why staying committed when the going gets tough yields the best outcomes.
Guest-At-A-Glance
Name: Sam Burkhalter
What he does: Inside Sales Representative
Company: Precisely
Noteworthy: He’s focused on building and improving upon his skills with his next goal of becoming an Account Executive in mind.
Where to find Sam: LinkedIn
Key Insights
⚡ All practice is good practice.
Recruiting with the Association of Former Students at Texas A&M University eased Sam into talking to strangers on the phone; repetition dissipates anxiety.
⚡ Reaping benefits from any pursuit requires commitment.
It’s easy to write off something you’re not great at, as being “not for you,” but you’ll never be great at anything if you can’t dig in when things get tough.
⚡ No one said the road to success would be easy — or short.
You can’t bypass the hard work inherent to prosperity. Focus, be patient, put the effort in, and you’ll get where you’re trying to go.
Episode Highlights
From University Call Center Worker to Future Account Executive
“Through Ruffalo Noel Levitz, we run the fundraising call center at A&M, which is The Association of Former Students. We were calling former students on a nightly basis. We would just call, ask for donations. We’d make probably over a hundred, not necessarily cold calls in a night because everyone is somewhat warm since they went to A&M. That’s one distinction – we’re not cold calling people. We’re calling former students. They’re not entirely cold, even though we’re calling them out of the blue. I think it gave me a lot of confidence in making phone calls and talking to strangers. […] Once I started going down the road with Infogix, I wanted to be hired out by them because that was something that I was learning a lot about. So, I wanted to stick with that and hopefully evolve into an Account Executive at Infogix.
I want to get to that next level of being an Account Executive. I feel like I’m ready for it. I’m looking for that challenge. And I didn’t want to go through rising stars because I didn’t want to land somewhere new and be back at square one. At Infogix, I had a good group of people around me, and they wanted to see me succeed, and they already knew who I was. I already know what I’m doing, and why not continue that and grow in that?”
A Great Team Makes Everything Easier
“It is much easier to have people to share in the woes of being an SDR, and have people to back you up and understand where you’re coming from when you’re having a rough week, or you’re not booking any meetings, and giving you advice when you’re on the phone. When I was here [at memoryBlue] for the first couple of months, […] everyone was always willing to pitch in and help the new guy. And I was willing to help them once I got a little bit more acclimated to everything, but having a team there to work with and share in all of that pain and struggle with being an SDR, and share the victories in the great parts of being an SDR too, was really helpful.”
Be Personable on the Phone. No One Likes to be Cold-Called
“I think one of the biggest things is learning how to be personable on the phone. No one wants to be cold-called. No one wants to hear some recent grad who doesn’t know what they’re talking about on the phone, on the other end, trying to sell them something. So, you have to learn how to break down that barrier that prospects have around them and be personable and get them to open up on the phone, which isn’t something that everyone can do.
You can make a joke on the phone and get the prospect to laugh at you. And that usually makes phone calls a lot easier. Like, ‘Hey, I’m calling from Infogix. I’m a salesperson. So, I’m going to give you the opportunity to hang up right now. Or you can sit here and listen to what I’m about to say.’ And if you are self-deprecating, and you know how to laugh at yourself, people respond well to that on the phone. So, being able to get that laugh or get them to have a little bit of trust in you at the beginning of the phone call is super important.”
Anything Worth Doing Takes Time
“I think you have to be in an SDR position for the long haul sometimes. And even if it’s going to take a little bit longer, you’re going to be in the same position for another six months after you get hired out. Sometimes, that light at the end of the tunnel is worth it. That’s how I was brought up to commit to those things and keep my head down and keep grinding. But, I guess some people just don’t have it, or maybe they think the grass is greener on the other side. I know a lot of people that are frustrated that they’re not going to get promoted right away, so they’re going to go take another SDR job somewhere else. If you do that, you’re just going to be stuck back where you started. […]
If you grind it out and take the time to sit down and learn from the people around you, that people who are successfully doing it, whether it’s reading books, listening to podcasts, talking to your account executives, or the people who’ve been there before, I think you can learn a lot from that. But if you have it and it’s inherent in you, it’s going to make it a thousand times easier to get to that next level.”
Transcript:
[00:00:49] Marc Gonyea: Sam Burkhalter. The first Aggie on the podcast.
[00:01:02] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys.
[00:01:03] Chris Corcoran: Howdy.
[00:01:05] Sam Burkhalter: Howdy. Good to be here.
[00:01:07] Marc Gonyea: Is howdy an A&M thing?
[00:01:08] Sam Burkhalter: It is an A&M thing. That’s the official greeting of Texas A&M.
[00:01:13] Chris Corcoran: My son has a shirt that says ‘Howdy’ on the front and ‘Dammit’ on the back.
[00:01:18] Sam Burkhalter: That’s an Aggie thing too.
[00:01:20] Chris Corcoran: Dammit.
[00:01:21] Marc Gonyea: All right, man. Well, thanks for joining.
[00:01:22] Sam Burkhalter: Of course. Thanks for having me, happy to be here.
[00:01:25] Marc Gonyea: Here’s what we want to do. We want to get into a little bit and, you know, it’s funny as the company progresses, Chris and I don’t know all the stars as well as we used to. And you and I met when I’d come to the office before COVID.
[00:01:36] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:01:37] Marc Gonyea: So why don’t we go a little bit back, tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of, where you from, where you grew up and kind of go two to four X on that, but it’d be good for everybody to hear.
[00:01:49] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. Give you a little life story. High-level life story.
[00:01:52] So I’m originally from Evergreen, Colorado. I grew up about 30, 40 minutes outside of downtown Denver in the mountains. Came to Texas in 2015, after I finished high school and went to Texas A&M and then once I graduated, I came out to Austin, got a job with memoryBlue and here I am today.
[00:02:09] Marc Gonyea: People are a little curious though about people who end up working here, because some of the people listening are folks who are thinking about coming to work here and maybe some Aggies.
Did you know, or when you were growing up, what kind of kid were you like in high school? You know, share a little bit of that.
[00:02:25] Sam Burkhalter: I always thought I was kind of, I was always wanting to be like the funny guy, so I’m always cracking jokes, kind of a class clown. I was really serious about school though.
[00:02:34] So, you know, my parents really instilled that in me to do well in school and my academics, so that I could go to college and, you know, open up a lot of doors for myself. And then I guess I was also kind of a jock. I always played sports. I played hockey and lacrosse when I was in high school. So, that’s kind of who I was.
[00:02:50] Chris Corcoran: So lots of people say you’re serious about academics. Sam is actually serious about academics. When you went to A&M, he started in pre-med. So talk a little bit about the journey of starting a pre-med and then pivoting.
[00:03:01] Sam Burkhalter: I did. So, you know, I, I’ve always kind of liked, you know, learning about medicine and the human body and biology.
[00:03:10] So when I went to A&M, I was on the pre-med track, so I have all my prerequisites, I’ve taken all the science classes. You know, I have good grades. I have a good GPA. After four years of going through that, I just kind of felt burnt out. So I decided not to apply to professional school right away.
[00:03:26] I thought, you know, “I’ll get out there, I’ll work for a few years. And if it’s something I’m really passionate about, you know, I’ll come back to it one day. I’ll be drawn back to it.” So that’s kind of what I looked at. You know, there’s some days now working in sales where I’m like, “Damn, I think I might’ve made the wrong choice.
[00:03:40] I should’ve gone back to school. And then there’s some days where, you know, it’s going really well. I get great news from a prospect or a customer and it’s like, I, you know, “I’m happy doing what I’m doing and I want to keep doing it for, you know, even longer.” So I kind of go back and forth, but I think that’s just how sales is, you know, ups and downs. Some weeks suck some weeks are great. So…
Marc Gonyea: [00:04:00] Yep. I want to settle something and educate the audience a little bit. UT Austin versus A&M. So like, what’s the difference when you were out, you’re looking at both these schools are like, what, what, how, how do you segment these two? ‘Cause Chris and I went to Virginia Tech and then we get UVA. I know, I can say all sorts of bad things about UVA grads, but you know, what, what’s, if you could talk to me a little bit about that. Educate me on the rivalry.
[00:04:21] Sam Burkhalter: About the rivalry?
[00:04:21] Marc Gonyea: Yeah.
[00:04:22] Sam Burkhalter: Oh, it’s been around forever. It’s a, it’s definitely a huge rivalry. We call them the t-sips. Over here, the t-sips, you know, ’cause they’re, you know, they’re UT. They think they’re better than everyone else. They’re, they’re nice and fancy. And A&M is like a, you know, an agricultural school, engineering school, a little bit more blue collar feeling.
[00:04:41] You know, a lot more country kids are going to A&M, so that’s kind of how we differ. It’d be like A&M is more like Virginia Tech. And T is more like, and we call it TU too. Little T, little U, periods optional. So, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of love between, you know, A&M and UT obviously, but it’s definitely a big rivalry. And, you know, coming back to, you know, if we were going to play football again and we probably are, you know, when they joined the SEC and in couple of years, but at this point it’d probably be, you know, A&M all the way since, you know…
[00:05:12] Marc Gonyea: Good.
[00:05:12] I want to dig it up then… But going back to, before we progress, I remember when, and I’m fast forwarding a little bit, but when we were rolling you out on Infogix, your campaign, and I was talking to Scott Hughes, the client. He said, “I’ll tell you what. This guy, Sam Ott is definitely pretty smart.” Who was your predecessor on the campaign?
[00:05:33] “So this guy, Sam broke all through. He is probably smarter than Sam Ott is.” Both smart dudes. So it was tickled, need a debt that we’ve gotten so many of your intellectual horsepower working here back in the day.
[00:05:46] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:05:46] It was great. Sam and I really, we had a lot of synergies. We got along really well, so he’s a smart guy.
[00:05:51] I’m a smart guy and it just, I mean, we clicked. So, he’s actually going to be a groomsman at my wedding here and in about a year. So, formed a good bond working here at, in memoryBlue and Infogix together.
[00:06:02] Marc Gonyea: Obviously.
[00:06:02] Obviously. Let’s go back. Let’s go back to this. So you’re rolling out A&M and you, you were going to give the professional life a chance.
[00:06:10] Sam Burkhalter: Yep.
[00:06:10] Marc Gonyea: How did you roll that dice on a memoryBlue? How did that happen?
[00:06:16] Sam Burkhalter: You know, I never really knew that I was going to go into sales or had any inclination. My mom was in pharmaceutical sales when I was growing up, but, you know, we never really talked in depth about what that was like or like what being a salesperson was really like.
[00:06:29] So, you know, I had a lot of experience doing cold calls, working at the association of former students at A&M for, for Ruffalo Noel Levitz. So I had a ton of experience, so I thought, you know, I could get a sales job pretty easily. There’s an abundance of sales jobs in Austin and in tech sales jobs in Austin.
[00:06:46] And, you know, I was just applying for a bunch of different roles. I think it came down to SHI and memoryBlue. Just something in my gut and my girlfriend at the time who is my fiance, you know, something in her gut. She was like, “I think you should go with memoryBlue”. So, that’s what I went with.
[00:07:01] So I came here.
[00:07:02] Chris Corcoran: Smart enough to listen to his fiance. Right? He already knows.
[00:07:05] Marc Gonyea: He’s married to his work.
[00:07:06] Chris Corcoran: He already knows.
[00:07:06] Marc Gonyea: She’s, but she’s, I think she’s probably the smartest one in the whole… She’s just rolled us.
[00:07:12] Chris Corcoran: So, I wanted to talk a little bit about your experience at A&M and not just in the classroom, but kind of what you did outside the classroom, which is working for RuffaloCODY and calling and doing fundraising. That’s a profile and a background that we really, really covet because that’s what you’re essentially doing. It’s a little bit different, but you’re on the phone and you’re talking to people and you’re trying to persuade them and you were successful at it and you didn’t have a cup of coffee doing it for a semester.
[00:07:38] You did it for three years as a, as a caller and then as a manager. So talk to the listeners a little bit about what you did. And how was similar to being an SDR and then how was different?
[00:07:49] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah, of course. So, through Ruffalo Noel Levitz. It’s actually not RuffaloCODY anymore. They changed that.
[00:07:54] But through Ruffalo Noel Levitz basically, you know, we run the fundraising call center at A&M, which is the association of former students. So we’re calling former students on a nightly basis. I’m sure a lot of people listening and you guys as well have gotten calls from your Alma mater before where a student comes on, they say they’re calling from the university and they ask you for money for student programs and whatever else. So we would basically just…
[00:08:15] Marc Gonyea: Say how would you say ‘Howdy’?
[00:08:17] Sam Burkhalter: I would. I’d say, “Howdy. This is Sam Burkhalter. I’m calling from Texas A&M,” and then I’d jump into it. And, you know, we would just call, ask for donations. We’d make probably, probably over a hundred, not necessarily cold calls in a night because everyone is somewhat warm since they went to A&M, if we’re calling them.
[00:08:36] So that’s one distinction that they always made is we’re not cold calling people, we’re calling former students. So they’re not entirely cold, even though we’re just calling them out of the blue. And you know, most of them don’t want to talk to us at the end of the day, but that’s kind of what we were doing.
[00:08:49] So we’d make, you just sit there and make, you know, 100 and $200 a night for like three and a half hours at a time.
[00:08:55] Chris Corcoran: And so how is that similar to being an SDR and how is that different?
[00:08:59] Sam Burkhalter: So it was similar, you know, I think it gave me a lot of confidence in, you know, making those phone calls and talking to strangers.
[00:09:06] I remember my first phone call ever, you know. My voice was shaking when the person answered the phone. Halfway through it, I was like, “I’m so sorry.” Like, “This is my first night. You’re the first person I’ve ever talked to you on the phone like this.” And she, she was so nice. She goes, “Oh, you’re doing great.
[00:09:20] Just keep going.” So, you know, after a few calls like that, things started getting easier.
[00:09:25] Chris Corcoran: Did she…?
[00:09:26] Sam Burkhalter: I don’t think so.
[00:09:28] I don’t think so.
[00:09:29] Chris Corcoran: That would be how I start all my calls.
[00:09:31] Sam Burkhalter: So sometimes when you’re stuck and you don’t know where to go, you’re just like, “I’m sorry, it’s my first day.” And they give you a little bit of confidence, but it was, it was, it’s similar in the fact that, you know, we’re making calls and we’re talking to strangers. You know, you have to be professional and you have to learn how to build the core with people and have that conversation with people. And then you’re, you’re giving them an ask at the end. You know, as an SDR it’s, you know, “Would you like to have a meeting or is this interesting? You want to book a meeting with A&M or with working at Ruffalo? It’s, would you like to donate to the university?”
[00:10:06] And then, you know, if you get shut down, you have to ask two more times. So you have to ask three times when you work at Ruffalo Noel Levitz. I don’t know if that’s one of their trade secrets or anything that I’m spilling right now. But, if you don’t ask three times, you get written up or you get some sort of disciplinary action. Unless you have a good reason, like they’re cussing you out on the phone or they hang up on you, you have to continue forward with your ask.
[00:10:28] So you have to learn how to overcome those objections, provide more support for why they should give. And then go ahead and ask again, and I’d say it’s different. You know, I guess being an SDR is just like a more professional level than that, you know? I’m not just calling them from the university. I’m calling some stranger who, they’ve never heard of me.
[00:10:45] I’ve never heard of them. They’ve never heard of my company and I’m trying to pitch to them, you know, this product that’s going to make their lives easier and try and figure out a way to just get them to come learn more with me.
[00:10:55] Chris Corcoran: When, in fundraising, what do you like there? Calling or supervising?
[00:10:59] Sam Burkhalter: I liked supervising better. Honestly, you know, being on the phones can be stressful.
[00:11:03] You know, I’m, I’m good at it, you know, I came from Ruffalo and got right back on the phones with memoryBlue. So it’s never really been a problem for me, but I like supervising ’cause, you know, the pay was better obviously, that was the first thing. And also just being able to mentor and teach, you know, people on the phones.
[00:11:20] I think that’s something that, I’m really interested in just mentoring and teaching, you know, younger SDRs or, you know, mentoring younger callers at the call center and helping them be better on the phones and teaching them what I know and what
[00:11:31] I’ve learned from being on the phone to people.
[00:11:32] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. And so you were telling me kind of when we were talking earlier of just about the, the culture of A&M and just have generous the alumni. So it wasn’t like shooting fish in a barrel. I mean, A&M is known for their culture.
[00:11:48] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Chris Corcoran: How’d you describe it to like a place on the outside?
[00:11:52] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. It’s the saying A&M it’s, ‘from the outside looking in, you can’t understand it, from the inside looking out, you can’t explain it’. So A&M is very much like people say it’s a cult and it kind of is. You know, former students and students are very full of school spirit.
[00:12:07] And if you’re, you know, super duper into A&M and you have so much spirit, they call you red ass. Okay? So your red ass Aggie. You’re full of school spirit. There’s…
[00:12:20] Chris Corcoran: And you’ve got to tell Marc about the two percenters.
[00:12:22] Sam Burkhalter: The two percenters are the people who don’t participate in the traditions A&M. So A&M, because they say, they say that only 2% of the student body doesn’t want to participate. They don’t want to go to football games. They don’t want to go to midnight yell.
[00:12:36] They don’t want to go to any of the other, you know, traditions and events that we have on campus. So we call them two percenters.
[00:12:44] Marc Gonyea: I worked there eight hours. My dad was in the army and there are a lot of guys and he was army run around with the A&M.
[00:12:50] Sam Burkhalter: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:51] Marc Gonyea: It all makes sense now. Yeah. Right? It all makes sense.
[00:12:55] And I still haven’t been there. I was on the phone with what we’re saying right now.
[00:12:59] Sam Burkhalter: And there’s just, [00:13:00] there’s a lot of comradery in A&M which is what I like. ‘Cause it’s a huge school. There’s over 60,000 students in college station. But, you know, everyone finds their place and you know, you could be walking around and you bump into someone who you know on campus or even people you don’t know.
[00:13:14] And everyone’s very friendly. And even though it’s a huge school, it feels like a tight knit, small community, because everyone is an Aggie and everyone gets along with each other for the most part.
[00:13:23] Chris Corcoran: My, this is my last question about A&M.
[00:13:25] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, I got one more.
[00:13:26] Chris Corcoran: Dixie Chicken or Chimes?
[00:13:29] Sam Burkhalter: I can’t say I’ve ever been at Chimes. Definitely the Dixie Chicken.
[00:13:32] Chris Corcoran: Chicken. They have a rattlesnake on… They do have a rattlesnake.
[00:13:40] Marc Gonyea: Sam, did, I think you’re a man of commitment, right? You’re talking about your fiance, girlfriend who, must have met her in school. I don’t know when you met her. It doesn’t matter.
[00:13:49] Sam Burkhalter: We actually met at Ruffalo, at the At the golf.
[00:13:52] Marc Gonyea: Okay.
[00:13:52] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:13:53] Marc Gonyea: Oh, right. So this leads to my next question. ‘Cause that’s what, you stayed there for three years and a month.
[00:13:58] Right? And you did a great tour of [00:14:00] duty with us. So when you’re in college, very, very, very few people at the same job for three years a month, maybe sometimes over the summer and never during the school year. And then, you know, you came in less and you did, you did your thing. You get committed to things.
[00:14:14] Yeah. Like walk me through that discipline or whatever your view, your perspective is on that. Because a lot of people, that’s not the case.
[00:14:20] Sam Burkhalter: You know, it probably started when I was younger. You know, whenever I signed up for something, you know, whether it was sports, like when I was little, I played baseball.
[00:14:29] And I went through a few seasons and just started to not like it at all. And my parents would always say, you know, “You signed up, you made this commitment to the team. You’re going to finish the season, whether you liked it or not. And after that, you know, you can decide whether, you know, you want to be finished with it.”
[00:14:42] So I think the same thing, you know, when it comes to my career, you know, I’m not going to just give up on something immediately, even though, you know, being an SDR in the, in the beginning days, it’s, it’s tough to want to come into the office every day. And, you know, I definitely considered it a few times, but I was never going to quit.
[00:14:58] You know, I was going to stick it out and I talked to my parents about it and they’d say, “You know, just stick it out at least for a year and then decide if you want to do something else.” And I think that was some really good advice and a really good decision on my part, considering where I am today. So, you know, I think that’s where it starts.
[00:15:14] And I think, you know, as a caller at Ruffalo, maybe I wouldn’t have made it for three years, but as a supervisor, it was much easier to hang around and have that position for three years. And you know, a lot of the supervisors and management did stay, stay around for a little bit longer than, than a lot of the callers.
[00:15:28] Marc Gonyea: I admire humility, but this guy’s too humble like and you kind of say, “I was dealing with that long too”. And you were involved in like out, outbound call business. What did you, you were with the A&M or, or not, right, for awhile and then you were an SDR with us for awhile. Right? And then you were in for just to know that that’s outbound world.
[00:15:46] So like, you need to, like you’re so, you’re so humble, which is good. I appreciate it. So, all right. So take us back. You started at memoryBlue and you talked a little bit about it and we want to, I want to move forward because people do think about quitting. I thought about quitting the business a million times. I’m sure. So what was it like when you started?
[00:16:04] Sam Burkhalter: When I started, it was rough. I don’t know if it was just the shock of, “I’m done with college and now I have to be an adult,” or the shock of, you know, “I don’t like being an SDR.” Probably a little bit of both. And I think you guys have Huy on here and on here. A few months ago, I think he, he outed me a little bit. He was like, “Sam told me that, you know, he used to cry before he came to work.” I’m like,
[00:16:25] Marc Gonyea: “What?”
[00:16:26] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah,
[00:16:27] I didn’t like going in for the first couple of months. It was rough. You know, it’s not an easy job. Even when you come from cold calling for, you know, three years in college. It’s like, you know, people don’t have to be nice to you on the phone.
[00:16:40] And, you know, I kind of learned at Ruffalo, you know, you can’t take what people on the other end say with any weight, you know. I’ve been cussed out way worse calling former students at A&M than calling professionals through memoryBlue. But it’s still not easy to always have that confidence and get on the phone and, and portrayed that.
[00:16:58] So, you know, it was rough starting out and, you know, it’s a grind as well. So when you’re first starting out and you’re not really seeing any success right off the bat, you know, you may go through a whole month of cold calling and making a 100, 150 calls a day and you may not get anything, but you know, the first time you book a meeting and you finally just kind of like break through that wall, it’s just, it’s a great feeling.
[00:17:20] And you know, it’s like, you know, you fall and you fall and you fall and you feel like you can’t do it. And then it’s like, bam, you’re there. And you just have to learn how to repeat that process and not give up along the way.
[00:17:31] Marc Gonyea: Who helps you out in those early days? ‘Cause it is, it is difficult. It’s extremely difficult.
[00:17:37] And most of the people we have on the podcast tell us that. Yeah. There’s some freak of nature that was like, “Yeah. I liked it.” But for me, when I started my gig and I hadn’t experienced going door to door, college cut this part out, but like who kind of got you, who helped you along the way?
[00:17:51] Sam Burkhalter: You know, I think Tyler Cassett probably helped me a little bit.
[00:17:57] He was my mentor when I was here for those first couple of months. And then I think just being on a team and having a lot of people to, you know, I don’t know how big our team was at that point. It’s probably like seven or eight people. I was on T Rich’s team. But it just made it so much easier to have people to kind of like share in the woes of being an SDR.
[00:18:16] And have people to, to back you up and understand where you’re coming from when you’re having a rough week or you’re not booking any meetings. And to give you advice when you’re on the phones. I think Kemi Adetutu help me a lot too. I mean, I sat right by her and you know, we would talk and she would give me pointers and I feel like she always had great advice.
[00:18:35] And then also if we, and I, you know, Huy, he would always help me and give me advice on the phones too. And he’d only been there a couple of months longer than I had, but, you know, everyone was always willing to pitch in and, you know, help the new guy. And I was willing to help them, you know, once I got a little bit more acclimated to everything, but just having a team there to work with and, and share in all of that, you know, pain and struggle with being an SDR.
And of course the victories in the great parts of being an SDR too was really helpful.
[00:19:01] Chris Corcoran: How important is that?
[00:19:02] Sam Burkhalter: Having a team?
[00:19:03] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:19:04] Sam Burkhalter: I think it’s really important. You know, at Infogix I had Sam Ott and then he got promoted. Then we had a couple of other, you know, memoryBlue SDRs, who we went through, but for a lot of time, I was the only person doing that work at Infogix.
[00:19:18] I was the only, you know, inside sales business development type person. And it gets rough. You know, when you don’t have anyone to go to like, “Oh, I just got off a really terrible call and I messed something up.” And I don’t really have anyone to, you know, who would understand, you know, when I go and take this problem to them. You know, I have some great account executives who are always there to help me, but, but they’ve even told me, like, you know, I, I don’t do a lot of prospecting.
[00:19:42] I’ve never had to do it. You know, they’re all very experienced account executives, so they’re like, you know, I’ve never really had to cold call or prospect or use ZoomInfo or sales navigator before. So they don’t really understand it quite as well. But, you know, having a team now on a much larger company and having that group of people to, to have your back and to talk with throughout the day is just, you know, it’s everything.
[00:20:03] You know, sometimes, when I be the only, you know, BDR at Infogix, I’d be having a rough week and I just, I just like, I just want to like, shoot the shit with someone for a minute and like, just, you know, get on the phone, Sam and I used to talk like. We just call each other throughout the day and just talk about, of this, you know, prospect you blew us off or something.
And, you know, that’s really helpful just to even have that when you’re an SDR.
[00:20:25] Marc Gonyea: And I mean, I’ll tell you, so he got out, came to memoryBlue in your client, Vicki Grey at Aparavi, that’s a tough campaign. And you know, there’s all sorts of BS with what’s an easy campaign, what’s not easy campaign. You want to be in that tough campaign where you’re terrified to come to work because Vicki, she’s an industry veteran.
[00:20:46] She’s been memoryBlue customer multiple times. And I used to be her delivery manager on the work, she has high expectations. Right? But that’s, that’s the best way to learn, you know. Especially the hardest way, but that’s the best way.
[00:20:59] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. That is just skin thrown to the wolves is the best we figure it out, you figure it out.
[00:21:04] Marc Gonyea: But, and I remember I would check in with her and she was telling me about you and she was always happy, but she’s, she, she knows how to get the best out of her vendors. So I was real, and I remember talking to about you going to the campaign. I was so happy. So, all right. And then, so we moved you from Aparavi to Infogix.
[00:21:23] And you mentioned it, but talk to us about that. ‘Cause were you the second, the third person on that at memoryBlue?
[00:21:28] Sam Burkhalter: I think I was the second, second. I was the second and then we had a couple of people after me. But right when I started that campaign, like the day I started, they did a big round of layoffs.
[00:21:39] So they, it was probably like half the company gone, I feel like. You know, Scott Hughes called Sam Ott like, “Hey, some big things are happening today. Just like, take this new guy out to lunch. You know, everything’s going to be fine. You guys are still good. You have your jobs, you know, whatever.” So it was a bit of a slow start.
[00:21:58] You know, the first couple of weeks, I couldn’t really do anything ’cause they were still shuffling a lot of parts around.
[00:22:03] The once things are going, it kind of felt more like I was working for Infogix every day, unless like I was working for memoryBlue everyday. And, you know, wanting to be hired out and seeing Sam get hired out before me, you know, that was a good sign for me as, you know, they’re really taking me under their wing. They’re taking a lot of time to train me up on these products and their processes. And from that point it just kinda felt like I was an Infogix employee and I was part of that family. So it was a really easy transition when they finally did hire me out and I started working for them full-time.
[00:22:33] Marc Gonyea: And you’re still there and now through that position, right?
[00:22:35] Chris Corcoran: Scott Hughes knows how to do it.
[00:22:36] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So it’s funny. Of all the people you were with, Vicky. Vicky was next. Sam was one of our first big clients. Right? Scott Hughes was hired me in my second sales job. So it’s kind of like passionate towards now, right?
[00:22:51] In a way, like, we’ll get the Bill Walsh, coach you treat here, for the people who don’t know who Walsh is. But let’s talk a little bit about what, what did you get good at? Because you got to you, what was kind of your trademark? What was your power, your, your superpower when you’re doing this job?
[00:23:06] Sam Burkhalter: You know, I didn’t, so it changed. I guess when I was with Aparavi, it was just all cold calls all day.
[00:23:12] They never really wanted me to do any email campaigns. They’ve been like, you know, most of the leads that I was calling were webinar leads or trade show leads. So they’re a little bit warmer, which, you know, it’s easier to get on the phone and talk with someone, if you know, they have some recollection of who you are, they’ve met you before they know what your company does.
[00:23:31] So cold calling, you know, I got a lot of practice with that, but then moving into Infogix, I think I got much better at doing the research on prospects and writing good emails to prospects because that’s how I book the majority of my meetings today is through email. If it’s going to be a cold meeting, it’s going to be through an email for me.
[00:23:50] So I got, you know, a lot better at writing those emails. I got a lot better at taking the time and doing the research on those prospects. You know, sometimes, you know, you feel like, “Oh, I just have to make a bunch of calls. I have to touch a bunch of people.” But in the grand scheme of things, you only want to touch the right people.
[00:24:06] You only want to get to the right people. So I kind of had to take a step back from Aparavi and going into Infogix and say, “Okay, I need to just take a step back, you know, manage my time and take a little bit more time to, you know, learn about the people I’m getting in contact with to do the research, to make sure that they are the right person and make sure that, you know, maybe they have something going on.”
So I’ve gotten a lot better at, you know, finding the right people to reach out to. I think is one of the biggest things in just researching prospects before I give them a call or shoot them an email.
[00:24:36] Chris Corcoran: What do you mean researching prospects?
[00:24:38] Sam Burkhalter: So, you know, just, I really just using sales navigator, you know, really coming through people’s LinkedIn profiles to find out what they have going on.
[00:24:46] You know, what they’ve been doing and finding things that you can use to personalize, you know, whatever email or message or content you want to send to them. And even to the extent of like trying to find out if these accounts have anything going on. So I learned a really good trick to, you know, [00:25:00] use the job boards, you know, go on the job board, search for data governance, job postings.
[00:25:04] And, you know, if they have something going on, if they’re hiring for a director position or a data analyst position, reach out to that person who might be doing the hiring and, you know, bring that up and get ahold of them that way.
[00:25:15] Chris Corcoran: So, interesting.
[00:25:17] Sam Burkhalter: Even just going down that route and finding that out is, has been super helpful just to be able to hit the right people instead of, you know, wide blast, just kind of trying to send a rifle shot at the right person.
[00:25:28] Chris Corcoran: Timely, relevant, personal.
[00:25:31] Sam Burkhalter: And so I’ve tried to get to.
[00:25:34] Chris Corcoran: Like how you’re also going through the side door too. That’s great.
[00:25:38] Marc Gonyea: Are you going to pull old school? Seth Godin back in the day. Yeah. And Truman circle in the house. What, when did you kind of realize, “All right, I got past the craziness of this job?” Right? And you never truly get past it ’cause it’s a hard job and that’s what makes it a fun job and well compensated position.
[00:25:58] When did you kind of realize, “Okay, I’m going to give this a [00:26:00] shot. Like I think I’m going, I can see myself continuing to do this.”
[00:26:05] Sam Burkhalter: I think a lot of it was probably right around the time when Aparavi left and I joined up with Infogix and I was brought to that campaign. It was, it was just kind of a different perspective since you know, their processes are a little bit more, you know, email’s a little bit easier on that campaign to get a hold of people, as opposed to phone calls.
[00:26:24] I was doing a lot more inbound work, for demo requests and, you know, webinar follow-ups and marketing leads and stuff like that. So that’s kind of where I, I started feeling like it was, you know, “Okay, I can do this”. And they also gave me a little bit more responsibility in terms of, you know, as, whereas I was just booking calls for my account executives before on Aparavi.
[00:26:46] When I got to Infogox, I would start, you know, booking calls for myself and I would have that initial 30 minute discussion with someone. I would be the one to qualify them in or out. I would do that initial discovery and then I would send them on to, you know, whatever account executive was pertinent for either another call or a demo and just having that responsibility and kind of experiencing that next step in the sales cycle and having that. You know, that’s a lot more fun than just sitting on the phone cold calling all day for me.
[00:27:10] So that, that kind of was like, “Okay, I’m getting a little bit of a taste of what this is really like.” You know, and that helped me along.
[00:27:15] Marc Gonyea: What do you mean by qualifying in or out?
[00:27:18] Sam Burkhalter: So just making sure that, you know, they have a project, they have a need, they have a budget, they have sponsorship for this. They fit within our target customer of who we’d be working with. And if not, saying, you know, “I don’t think it’s a good fit.” And going on to the next.
[00:27:31] Marc Gonyea: Sure.
[00:27:31] Sam Burkhalter: Whoever served the demo request.
[00:27:33] Marc Gonyea: So what would get you excited about that?
[00:27:37] Sam Burkhalter: I think just having that responsibility and just something new, other than just, you know, “I’m going to book this meeting and it’s going to go to the account executive.
[00:27:44] I’m never going to talk to this person again.” I’d actually get to, you know, sit down with someone, build rapport with them, learn about the problem. You know, learn how to listen to them and ask those, you know, thoughtful questions to get the most information possible out of this prospect. And, you know, find out how we can help them and see if we have a solution for them.
[00:28:01] So, that, that was a lot more fun for me as just, you know, getting a lot more in depth with these prospects and talking to them to be able to move them forward in the sales cycle.
[00:28:10] Marc Gonyea: Nice.
[00:28:10] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:28:11] Chris Corcoran: You know what that sounds a little bit like a Doctor talking to a patient.
[00:28:16] Sam Burkhalter: Now that you mentioned it, it kind of does.
[00:28:19] Chris Corcoran: So that’s just…
[00:28:20] Sam Burkhalter: It does a little bit. Yeah.
[00:28:25] Marc Gonyea: Don’t tell your parents now. What I wanted to ask you. Yeah. I mean, this is kind of self-serving, but I think that’s one of the benefits work on a memoryBlue, right? So you’re on Aparavi, which is a different type of campaign. This is kind of new to them. I remember the, the CEO was maybe a Southern California and like the biggie was into the bay and the couple were spread out.
[00:28:50] And the budgets were a little more mature. Yeah. I’ve been in an organization.
[00:28:53] Sam Burkhalter: Yep.
[00:28:53] Marc Gonyea: Two different types of technologies.
[00:28:55] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:28:55] Marc Gonyea: But talk about how that perspective kind of helped you. Right? ‘Cause when you got a view and sometimes people are going to get that in a first job.
[00:29:00] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. No, it was great. And that’s, that is one thing that I like about memoryBlue is you get exposed to a lot. You get exposed to different technologies, different companies, whether it’s a startup or an old corporate business, like Infogix.
[00:29:12] So, so I think, Aparavi was definitely more laid back. You know, like you said, they’re on the West Coast, it’s more of a startup. So, so it was fun is a little laid back for my first position. You know, I didn’t have anyone, you know, breathing down my neck the whole time and I didn’t have that an Infogix either, but going to Infogix, you know, it’s an older business, a lot more, you know, older people who’ve been around the block a few times in the corporate world.
And, you know, they just kind of felt like they knew what they were doing and they have these more strict processes in line. So that was the biggest difference was, you know, laid back processes versus a little bit more strict processes around, you know, what we’re doing and how we’re handling, you know, the sales cycle and just our business in general.
[00:29:50] And it was also a different, the different technology, but a different, I guess, target market that we were after too. Whereas Aparavi, I might be selling to a lot more smaller and mid-sized businesses, Infogix, we work with a lot of big enterprise companies and, you know, so I may be reaching out to a huge company as opposed to just, you know, a little managed service provider or IT integrations place with Aparavi.
[00:30:13] Chris Corcoran: Cool. If you’re going to fish, fish where the big fish are. Right?
[00:30:18] Sam Burkhalter: Right. Now they know.
[00:30:33] Sam Burkhalter: Speaking of fish though, that’s what they call freshmen at A&M.
[00:30:37] Marc Gonyea: That’s how we started. Cool.
[00:31:16] Chris Corcoran: It’s crazy.
[00:31:17] The crazy. They talk about, they talk about fish camp. What Duke did perfect?
[00:31:35] Sam Burkhalter: They talk about fishing.
[00:31:36] Chris Corcoran: When they were, on how I built this podcast, they were talking about A&M and fish camp and all that stuff.
[00:31:43] Marc Gonyea: Alright, so let’s just repeat what you said. Do your or you got fish or the big fish are and you can say whatever you want.
[00:31:48] Okay? I’ll say, they’ll, they’ll say those things that they asked, and then you say, we’re doing all this as SNL writers from…
[00:31:58] Chris Corcoran: So Sam, if you’re gonna fish, you got to fish with a big fish are.
[00:32:03] Sam Burkhalter: Right.
[00:32:05] Marc Gonyea: They don’t say that stuff at A&M? Do they?
[00:32:06] Sam Burkhalter: Well, they actually, they, they kind of do. Not, not as close, but they do call it, they call it freshmen fish at A&M.
[00:32:12] Chris Corcoran: Why is that?
[00:32:13] Sam Burkhalter: I don’t know, it’s a, it’s more of a core thing.
[00:32:16] I feel like in the Corps of Cadets, but they call them fish. And then instead of freshmen orientation, we do fish camp at A&M, so you go out to this, it’s like a summer camp basically. But you go for four days and you just meet other students, you learn about the traditions, you learn the fight song.
[00:32:33] You learn the yells. Actually it’s not called the fight song. It’s called the warhead,
[00:32:39] but you learn all about that. And that’s like your introduction to A&M. It’s like a four, four day camp.
[00:32:45] Marc Gonyea: I’ll tell you what. You know what? Every day you kind of learn something new without the doubt, but I learned today’s Chris Corcoran went to the wrong school.
[00:32:54] Sam Burkhalter: That’s how I’m feeling right now.[00:33:00]
[00:33:06] Marc Gonyea: ..instead of the A&M. I wouldn’t, that’s not an insult, it’s pretty cool.
[00:33:12] Sam Burkhalter: The kids stay in the school.
[00:33:13] Marc Gonyea: There you go.
[00:33:13] Sam Burkhalter: Spend a lot of time down there.
[00:33:14] Marc Gonyea: That’s why your kid has a shirt, youngest. All right, so let’s go back. So you’re doing the gig.
[00:33:21] You’re kind of over the initial jitters. In memoryBlue term, you becoming a vet, right? Because at memoryBlue time, at 12 months you can get promoted, if you want, right? At any time, you can convert by client. If the client wants to do and you want to do it. And then we kind of have this thing at 15 months, where if you want a balance, we can help you find the gig in the high-tech sales world.
[00:33:40] If you want to leave, if you don’t want it, you don’t have to be able to judge for you to do. You might want to go home and on your own, like the company existed develop the SDR professional.
[00:33:49] Where did you see yourself going when you were kind of getting settled in, getting to know this future comes of yours? You know, so on and so forth, like where did you see yourself going with your career?
[00:33:58] Sam Burkhalter: Once I started going down the road with Infogix, I really, I wanted to be hired out by them because that was, you know, something that I know, something that I was learning a lot about, something that I was good at. So I just wanted to stick with that and hopefully evolve into an account executive at Infogix.
[00:34:15] Now Jackson was talking to me about becoming a manager here at memoryBue, but you know, I, I probably would have interviewed and learned a little bit more about that opportunity, but Infogix got to me first. So, so I went with them. And you know, that’s, that’s kind of where I’m at today is I want to get to that next level of being an Account Executive.
[00:34:35] I feel like I’m, I’m ready for it. And I’m just looking for that challenge. And I didn’t really want to go through Rising Stars ’cause you know, I didn’t want to land somewhere new and you know, be back at square one back at the bottom of the totem pole, whereas at Infogix, you know, I had a good group of people around me and they wanted to see me succeed and you know, they already know who I am. I already know what I’m doing. And you know, why not just continue that and grow in that?
[00:35:00] Chris Corcoran: That’s great. And so, you’ve been more, qualifying in, qualifying out. I remember you mentioned you haven’t even been close to a couple of deals.
[00:35:08] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah, I, I haven’t. The one we talked about on the phone a couple of weeks ago has not closed yet, but yeah, they’ve, they’ve given me a little bit more responsibility in that area.
[00:35:18] So technically I’m still a BDR. And precisely which, which, yeah, it’s fine. It’s, it’s a much bigger BDR organization. There’s, they’re trying to get to, you know, like 40 or 50 BDRs, I think precisely we’re at about 30 right now, but, you know, it’s, it’s a great place to be and I’m still doing the, the Infogix products and everything.
[00:35:38] And since we have such a small sales team Infogix, you know, they kind of said, “Hey Sam, you know, if we have a smaller deal come in, you know, you can take it, run with it, let us know if you need any help or mentorship on that.” And that’s been a really great experience. Being able to, you know, as a BDR take deals all the way through the sales cycle, to closing and you know, everything in between. It’s, it’s been a really great experience. And I know that, you know, I think the people internally from Infogix are vouching for me and fighting for me to, you know, get to that next level. And they want to see me in the pipeline to become an Account Executive.
[00:36:13] And that’s why they’re, you know, giving me these responsibilities and giving me these opportunities to grow and grow that skillset.
[00:36:20] Chris Corcoran: When you were an SDR or BDR, think back on who, who is the most impressive person that you had the opportunity to work with?
[00:36:30] Marc Gonyea: Besides yourself?
[00:36:30] Chris Corcoran: Of course.
[00:36:31] Sam Burkhalter: Besides myself?
[00:36:32] Marc Gonyea: Besides. Don’t say Sam… Save it for the toast.
[00:36:35] Sam Burkhalter: I don’t know. We had a lot of pretty strong SDRs on my team, I feel like.
[00:36:41] Chris Corcoran: And what were these SDRs doing that the others weren’t?
[00:36:45] Sam Burkhalter: I don’t know, just heads down, making their dials. And I think one of the biggest things is learning how to be personable on the phone. You know, if you can kind of, no one wants to be cold called.
[00:36:55] I think this is the biggest thing I learned was how to make my calls successful. No one wants to be cold called, no one wants to hear some recent brag, who doesn’t know what they’re talking about on the phone, on the other end, you know, trying to sell them something. So you have to learn how to break down that barrier, breakdown, I guess the barrier that, that per, that prospect has around them and be personable and get them to open up on the phone, which isn’t something that everyone can do.
So whether it’s someone who just sounds really nice, their tone, like something like Kemi, who, you know, you just hear her on the phone and you’re like, “Wow, this girl’s really nice. I think I’m going to have a conversation with her.”
[00:37:30] Chris Corcoran: You can literally hear her smile.
[00:37:34] Sam Burkhalter: I know. It’s great. It’s great or whether, you know, you can make a joke on the phone and get the prospect to laugh at you or at whatever. And, and that usually makes phone calls a lot easier. Like, “Oh, hey. I’m, I’m calling from Infogix.
[00:37:47] You know, I’m a salesperson. So I’m going to give you the opportunity to hang up right now or you can sit here and listen to what I, you know, what I’m about to say. And usually, you know, if you kind of, I guess self-deprecating, and you kind of know how to laugh at yourself, people respond well to that on the phone so…
[00:38:01] Chris Corcoran: This is your class clown coming out?
[00:38:03] Sam Burkhalter: Right. Exactly. So being able to get that laugh, like, or get them to, to have a little bit of trust in you at the beginning of the phone call is super important, I think.
[00:38:13] Marc Gonyea: You talked a little bit about why you chose, so look, your background. You did exceptionally well college, same school. You know, same, same job while you’re in school for awhile.
[00:38:26] And then you had a good background coming out of memoryBlue or staying in memoryBlue, right, doing the memoryBlue thing. And you chose, you talk about why you chose this world Infogix. Why do you think other people decided not to? Because sometimes I get upset that people like may go to another company.
[00:38:41] I don’t know if they think it through as much as they should. Why, why do you think that happens? But this goes to the advice we’d like to hear you give to people who are maybe SDRs, maybe coming upon their 10 year. And they’re thinking about what they want to do next.
[00:38:54] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah. People who are, I guess, leaving the SDR profession is…
[00:38:59] Marc Gonyea: People go and work for their client, ’cause when they to a tech company because the base is 10K higher.
[00:39:04] Sam Burkhalter: You know, I, I think, you know, you have to be in it for the long haul sometimes.
[00:39:09] And even if it’s going to take a little bit longer, you’re going to be in the same position for another six months after you get hired out, you know, sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel is worth it. And I think that’s the biggest thing is, you know, they see a higher base and it’s like, “Oh yeah, I’m going to go make more money.”
[00:39:26] But in the grand scheme of things, you know, working at the same job, you know, getting promoted to an Account Executive a little bit quicker, it’s like, “I’m going to be making a lot more money too. I’m just like growing my skills and taking a little bit longer, longer to get there.” So I think looking at things in the long-term, not being afraid to just put your head down and commit to something for, you know, longer than you would like to sometimes, can be really helpful to, to get you forward.
[00:39:51] And I’ve realized, you know, in everything it’s, it’s not always the best to get ahead, but the person who just sticks with it and grinds it out the longest too, is going to get to that point one day. So, you know, that’s something that’s also pretty important, I think.
[00:40:06] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. Why don’t more people do that?
[00:40:09] Sam Burkhalter: I, I don’t really know.
[00:40:11] I just, I mean, that’s how I was brought up to, to just commit to those things and keep my head down and keep grinding. But I guess some people just don’t have it, or maybe they think, you know, the grass is greener on the other side. I know a lot of people, you know, they’re frustrated that they’re not going to get promoted, you know, right away.
[00:40:29] So they’re going to go take another SDR job somewhere else. If you do that, you’re just going to be stuck back where you started, you know, “Oh, I’ve been at this company for eight months. They said I was going to get promoted to AE and I haven’t gotten there yet. So I’m going to go take an SDR job somewhere else.
[00:40:43] And they say, I’m going to be promoted in a year.” You’re probably not. You’re probably going to be in that same spot, you know, six months from now. And you could have been promoted, you know, if you just stuck it out for a few more months, so…
[00:40:54] Marc Gonyea: Why don’t they get promoted? Because the company is tell them that they will and they believe them.
[00:41:00] Sam Burkhalter: Some people just don’t have it. I guess that’s what it really comes down to. Some people just don’t have what it takes to, I guess, go through the entire sales cycle or, or, take it all the way to the end, all the way to the goal line and get that commitment from a customer. And some people just, I think there’s just an IT factor in some people and some salespeople.
[00:41:20] And I guess some people just don’t have it. And I think I learned that, you know, talking to one of my Account Executives, the few weeks ago actually. And he said, “You know, Sam, you have, I think you have what it takes to be an Account Executive to, you have the, you know, the stones to take it all the way through the sales cycle.
[00:41:36] And I can see that in you. And you know, that’s why I think you’re going to be successful, whereas, you know, some BDRs or people in your position, they may not have it. So they may just be, you know, making cold calls until they decided to go try another career path or something.”
[00:41:50] Marc Gonyea: So can you learn it? Usually you don’t have it, but is that some people born with, or is that something that you can learn?
[00:41:54] Sam Burkhalter: I dunno. I think a lot of it is just something you’re inherent in people and just being able to be personable. I think it can be learned. I think if you grind it out and you really take the time to sit down and learn from the people around you, that people who are successful doing it, whether it’s reading books or listening to podcasts or talking to your account executives or the people who’ve been there before.
[00:42:16] I think you can learn a lot from that. And you know, I guess people can learn it, but I think it’s also something like, if you have it and it’s inherent in you, it’s going to make it, you know, a thousand times easier to get to that next level.
[00:42:26] Chris Corcoran: So, talk to, talk to us a little bit about the University of Sam. How’d you, how’d you, how do you learn your craft? Like what you’ve done to sharpen your skills and kind of develop where you are now?
[00:42:38] Sam Burkhalter: I think just kind of like Marc, you were saying earlier, just being thrown into it. I think that’s the best thing for me. You know, I can sit there on all the webinars all day, you know, taking notes on how to cold email and cold call,
[00:42:51] but that’s never really stuck with me. You know, I have a hard time learning that way. And, and being thrown into it, it’s really helped. Like when I was at Ruffalo, being able to sit there and make hundreds and hundreds of cold calls over the course of three years, it’s, that, that made it a lot easier to have that confidence, to be able to go talk to a stranger and ask them a difficult question and ask them a question, you know, you’re not sure how they’re going to respond to that. Like I’m asking you to donate a hundred dollars right now to the association of former students. And that’s not an easy thing for most people to do, to just, you know, ask a random stranger for money.
[00:43:25] It’s, it’s, it’s something that takes a little bit of work to get the confidence to do that. And I think that’s helped me a lot. And I think just having that confidence makes you a lot more, it makes you a lot better on the phones and a lot better when you’re working with, with prospects, because even if you make a mistake or you’re not entirely sure, you know what you’re saying to them, saying it with confidence is going to make things a lot better and that’s going to make you feel in the prospect, feel a lot better.
[00:43:48] So I think that’s one of the big things is just being thrown into it and like the opportunities that I’ve been given to, you know, work deals through the sales cycle, by myself and with the help of my, my account executives, it’s been really helpful to just go into those calls. You know, I may have a chat with an account executive beforehand, like what should I try and get out of this?
[00:44:05] You know, what should my agenda for the call be? And, and having that mentorship and then just going into it by myself, you know, ready to make mistakes, but also ready to, I guess progress and from making those mistakes has been really helpful. So mentorship and just being, you know, kinda thrown into something headfirst is really helped me develop, I guess, kinda light a fire under me.
[00:44:28] Chris Corcoran: Yeah. Like what I’m doing.
[00:44:29] Sam Burkhalter: Like, “I’m super nervous to get on this call. I’ve never had a call like this, you know, going through the sales cycle, like setting up a POC or something.” Something that I’ve had a little bit of experience in doing now. Then you know, those first couple of calls, I’m like a little shaky.
[00:44:41] I’m like, “Okay, what do I ask? Like, where do I take this phone call?” You know, I have my account executive. Like, “I’ll jump on with you if you need.” And I say, “You know, I think I’ll learn a lot more and I’ll grow a lot more if I just do this on my own. So I’m just going to go for it. And you know, I’ll come to you with any questions or I’ll ping you while I’m on the phone if I need to.” But that’s, that’s helped me a lot.
[00:45:00] Marc Gonyea: Very well-thought out. Those are just huge strengths.
[00:45:04] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:45:05] Marc Gonyea: Well, whatever it is, right?
[00:45:07] Chris Corcoran: It’s just a strength.
[00:45:08] Marc Gonyea: So kind of knowing what you know, all right, so two things, we’ll all go back to, I’ll come back to the second thing. First thing. So knowing what you know now, were back to the future, what advice would you have had for yourself the night before memoryBlue?
[00:45:21] It sounds like it was a rough go as it is for most people when they start doing it.
[00:45:24] Sam Burkhalter: You know, I, I knew, I had a feeling this question was coming when I agreed to do the podcast so I’ve been thinking about it.
[00:45:30] Marc Gonyea: Okay.
[00:45:31] Sam Burkhalter: And I don’t know. What I would tell myself is to just stick it out because that’s the hardest thing I had to deal with when I was just starting this. I was so on the verge of like, “I don’t want to do this.”
[00:45:45] Not that I can’t do it. I just like,” I don’t want to do it.” It’s not something that’s comfortable for me, even though I’ve, you know, been cold calling for so long. It’s, it’s something new, it’s from a different perspective. And it’s something that’s, you know, still uncomfortable to be making phone calls and being a salesperson.
[00:46:02] I think I would tell myself to just stick it out, you know, keep your head up because things are going to get a lot better. You know, being an SDR, if you want to go into tech sales, it’s something that everyone has to do these days. Maybe, maybe not like 10, 20 years ago, but now if you want to be in tech sales, you pretty much got to go through an SDR role first.
[00:46:20] And what, what, what comes from it on the other end is, you know, a very lucrative career and a respected career. And that’s something that, you know, it’s always going to take a little bit of work and a little bit of uncomfortableness to, to get somewhere where it’s actually worth it to be. You know, if I want to do something easy and you know, something that I’m comfortable with all day, then I’d be in the same spot that I’m in now, 40 years from now. So.
[00:46:48] Marc Gonyea: Alright.
[00:46:49] Chris Corcoran: And this is just sticking it out?
[00:46:50] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:46:50] Chris Corcoran: That’s a skill. Isn’t it?
[00:46:52] Sam Burkhalter: Is it?
[00:46:53] Marc Gonyea: See, we’re trying to get, I’m trying to pin it down, those…Let us put them down because it is a skill, Sam. It’s, I mean, it’s part of how you talk about how you were raised, you talked about the sports, right?
[00:47:03] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:47:03] Marc Gonyea: You talked about how, you know, give just give us a shot and the grit and you have some terrible days. There’s no shame in that game because anybody who says they, it wasn’t hard to beginning’s full of shit. Yeah. Right? ‘Cause, or it got hard for them at some point there’s like remembering themselves differently.
[00:47:19] Sam Burkhalter: Now then I would say, yeah, just keep my head down, keep that grit and like, I mean, tech sales is for hustlers. That’s the name of your podcast. I didn’t realize it until, you know, I’ve been doing the job for, you know, six months to a year. It’s like, yeah, this really is a grind. And you know, not everyone’s comfortable going after that grind every single day and having that grit.
[00:47:41] When you have a couple of weeks where you don’t book any meetings, you know, that’s when I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to have a week from now where I’m going to have like 10 meetings on my calendar and it’s going to be great. And I’m not going to be able to pick my head up because I’m going to be working so hard.”
[00:47:54] You know, it’s, it’s, it’s ups and downs. So being able to stick it out through that, through that is super important.
[00:48:00] Marc Gonyea: And getting good at it.
[00:48:01] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:48:02] Marc Gonyea: But that’s the big thing. Like it takes time to get good at stuff.
[00:48:07] Sam Burkhalter: And sometimes anything that’s worth doing, takes a little bit of time to get there.
[00:48:11] Marc Gonyea: And then you wonder, you know, how much patience do.
[00:48:16] Not that we’re experts in this either. It’s kind of weird, ’cause you have to be good at this. I think you have to have an element of a patience because you can’t sit around and wait for things to happen in this world and the SDR world, the sales world, or else you could never booked meetings, and for meetings or move along. But like you gotta have the patience to kind of see it through.
[00:48:34] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:48:34] Marc Gonyea: And see it through the right way.
[00:48:36] Sam Burkhalter: And I, and I’ve always been a very patient person. So I guess that’s helped me a lot too is, you know, there’s something more for me at the end. So I’m going to, I’m going to stick it out for a little bit and keep that patience.
[00:48:48] And that’s something that not everybody has, you’re right. So that’s something that can be difficult for people if they’re expecting, you know, instant results and, you know, to be the best instantly.
[00:48:59] Marc Gonyea: Yeah. So what do you hope this patience is going to take you? So we’ve talked about that specifically. Like, it sounds like it took you, you know, to get a memoryBlue, to get a, doing a good job on Aparavi, no matter how you felt about, how you did, like everybody thinks you did a great job in that campaign.
[00:49:15] You know, Infogix has Scott Hughes. This guy Hughes is not an easy customer either. Although he managed differently, he’d be the first to call me and tell me, does it enjoy how the experience is going. Because he hired me back in 1999. And now you take your Infogix, which has been acquired. Where do you want the path to go?
[00:49:32] Sam Burkhalter: So yeah, we got acquired by Precisely, which is a much larger software company now.
[00:49:37] So I’m, I’m hoping to be promoted to Account Executive. That’s my, my short term goal. and you know, I have a lot of, good teammates around me on the inside, you know, internally who would fight for me and vouch for me to, to get to that next place and who have already been mentoring me and helping me, you know, develop into an account executive, even though, you know, I’m still a BDR, all my Account Executives, the VP of Sales at Infogix there.
[00:50:03] They’re really great about, you know, giving me those opportunities and, and pushing me and helping me along to develop into that role. So I see a lot of people who want me there internally, which is great. So that’s my short-term goal. Long-term, I would like to be an Account Executive for a little while, see how it goes and you know, one day, you know, when I’m a little bit more stable, I’d like to open a business or find something that I’m passionate about doing and work for myself.
You know, that’s the end goal. I don’t know what that is yet, but you know, it’s something that I think about a lot and that’s something that I, I like to do one day.
[00:50:35] Marc Gonyea: Wow. Okay.
[00:50:37] Sam Burkhalter: Marc Gonyea and Chris Corcoran call in to my own podcast.
[00:50:43] Chris Corcoran: Very good. Well, that’s a great way to kind of put a bow on this episode. This is our first roadie.
[00:50:49] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, from Texas. First day of A&M guy or gal.
[00:50:54] Chris Corcoran: Yeah.
[00:50:54] Marc Gonyea: And then first one where we’ve taken it on the road.
[00:50:58] Sam Burkhalter: Glad to be the first.
[00:50:59] Chris Corcoran: Absolutely. Yeah, this was all great, great advice for the listeners.
[00:51:03] Marc Gonyea: When do you get married?
[00:51:04] Sam Burkhalter: Next October.
[00:51:05] Marc Gonyea: And what you bride’s name?
[00:51:06] Sam Burkhalter: Madison.
[00:51:07] Marc Gonyea: Madison, a shout out for helping you make the decision and stick, to stick with us.
[00:51:11] Sam Burkhalter: Shout out Madison. She told me on the way out the door, “Shout me out on the podcast.”
[00:51:16] Marc Gonyea: That’s why I’ll give the shout out, because if it wasn’t for her, potentially, you know, maybe you would have bounced, you know.
[00:51:21] Chris Corcoran: He would’ve gone to work at SHI.
[00:51:24] Marc Gonyea: Yeah, no problem.
[00:51:25] Sam Burkhalter: And I got a shout out Andrew Schweser too. And he, he’s also one of my groomsmen. He was here a couple months after I started here. So we’ve made a lot of good friends here at memoryBlue. I, I couldn’t shout all of them out, obviously, but
[00:51:40] Marc Gonyea: How’d you, so why do you think that is? Why do you think you’ve, you’ve met these people with memoryBlue who you’re like close with? You know?
[00:51:47] Sam Burkhalter: I dunno. That’s like, that’s like our social circle is the people we work with. So, you know, there’s a lot of good guys here at memoryBlue and gals, too. But I just, you know, found a circle of people who have some of the same interests. We get along. We got the same sense of humor. So, we, we kind of bonded over that.
[00:52:05] Chris Corcoran: Yeah, that’s great.
[00:52:06] Marc Gonyea: Great. We can get shout out. You give Kemi a shout out. I texted her, she said, “I love Sam. He’s the best.” So…you’re making, you’re influencing people, making the friends, man.
[00:52:16] Sam Burkhalter: Yeah.
[00:52:17] Marc Gonyea: Thank you.
[00:52:18] Sam Burkhalter: Thank you.
[00:52:18] Chris Corcoran: Very good.
[00:52:19] Sam Burkhalter: And Gig’em.
[00:52:20] Chris Corcoran: Gig ’em?
[00:52:20] Marc Gonyea: I was going to say what’s the, what do you, what do you say?
[00:52:21] Sam Burkhalter: Thanks and Gig ’em.
[00:52:23] Marc Gonyea: Gig ’em?
[00:52:25] Chris Corcoran: Gig ’em.
[00:52:30] Marc Gonyea: Okay. Gig ’em. Cool. Word ’em up.