Barbara Giamanco

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Dig That Well Before You’re Thirsty

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

By now, if you’ve read some of my work, listened to any of my interviews, you know that I believe that learners are earners. People often tell me that they have a desire to keep on top of their own learning but then complain that they just do not have the time.

We all have the same 24-hours in a day.

That is not meant to be flippant or sound like I lack empathy for others who may have more and different obligations than I do. I simply believe that when any of us choose to focus on what we believe to be important; we will make time for it.

Why make learning a priority?

As 21st century humans, we live in a world moving at speeds faster than our predecessors could have imagined. The rapid pace of change is dizzying, and all signs indicate that won’t be stopping any time soon.

To remain relevant as people and business professionals, our learning mindset must always be on. Whether it is through reading (I’m a junkie), podcasts, webinars or watching video clips, or any combination that works for you, there are so many ways to learn on the fly that you have no excuse not to.

Even 10-minutes a day learning something new will translate into 3,650 minutes of learning or 60.83333 hours of new learning each year!

You seriously cannot invest 10-minutes a day?

Harvey McKay wrote a book called Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty and while many books written about networking have been published since Harvey’s, what I liked about Harvey’s book is that he says DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU NEED YOUR NETWORK to build it. Many an employee surprised by the news that their job was eliminated have discovered the hard way how painful it is when they don’t have a network to fall back on.

Networking and learning the 21st century way.

Online networking and relationship building using platforms like LinkedIn has never been easier. Yet, even today, I’m surprised at the number of people who barely keep their profile up to date, much less dig that well before they need it.

Aside from the networking and relationship building, LinkedIn has also become quite a learning resource. You can learn from others through their articles and posts or follow hashtags (#) that feature topics of interest most relevant to you.

The point is that you must keep up.

What you know today is important. What you know about what’s coming or could be coming is how you maintain relevance when others are left behind.

I’ll close this post with another book recommendation.

Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein.

As David says, “Plenty of experts argue that anyone who wants to develop a skill, play an instrument, or lead their field should start early, focus intensely, and rack up as many hours of deliberate practice as possible. If you dabble or delay, you’ll never catch up to the people who got a head start. But a closer look at research on the world’s top performers, from professional athletes to Nobel laureates, shows that early specialization is the exception, not the rule.”

He makes the strong case that range of knowledge and skill is of high value. Being educated in many different areas I have found to be of great importance as a sales professional. The more diverse our education and skills, the easier it is to connect with people on so many different and diverse levels.

I’ll continue to promote my belief that learners are earners. A few times each month, watch for posts that promote books, podcasts, articles or videos I recommend.

AND… please share YOUR favorites with me and my readers in the blog comments.

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: b2b, commission, digital transformation, earning, education, learning, productivity, revenue, salary, sales

Succeeding as a Woman of Color in Sales Leadership with Mandy Bynum McLaughlin, New Relic

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this interview, I talked with Mandy Bynum McLaughlin, Director of Sales Development – Enterprise and Commercial at New Relic. Mandy also serves as Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at her company.

For those women just starting out in sales or for those women who’ve not considered a career in selling, I started off by asking Mandy how she got started in a career in sales.

Other questions we tackled:

Being a woman of color in sales – have there been specific challenges that you’ve faced? What about the opportunities?

You are a sales manager, Mandy. How would you describe your management style? What is unique about it?

You’ve worked with many different types of Salespeople (Account Executives) – what are the characteristics/habits of a great Account Exec, and what are key indicators that someone isn’t ready to be successful in their sales role?

Often the next step for a salesperson is management – or at least they think that is the next step. What does it take to make the transition from individual contributor to sales manager?

I’m a big fan of learn to earn. I believe that learning never stops. Learning/research is also a critical element to selling in that we should never go into a sales meeting or get on a sales call without having learned about them, their company, their industry, competitors, etc.

I asked Mandy if she believes in the importance of research. Second, I asked Mandy what kind of research or outside resources she has used throughout her career.

Another insight packed interview, which I encourage you to listen to and enjoy!

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About Mandy

Mandy Bynum McLaughlin. Mandy began her career as an Account Executive at Clear Channel Radio, using the phone book to prospect. Fast forward 10 years, 2 startups, and many different sales teams later, Mandy now runs New Relic’s Sales Development organization for North America.

Her greatest passion thus far in her career, is around empowering women and people of color and other marginalized groups in the workplace so that we in the Bay Area and throughout the greater corporate society can become more inclusive and end marginalization, and has been lucky enough to work for companies that share the same passion.

Connect on LinkedIn

Thanks to our Sponsors!

This podcast is presented by our Elite Sponsor, Microsoft. Corporate Vice President and Channel Chief Gavriella Schuster, along with other female leaders in the company, are driving for change, trying to bring more women into the technology industry. Gavriella and Microsoft are committed to giving “young women better role models and a stronger voice to all women.” You can hear more from Gavriella and other Microsoft leaders, on the Microsoft Partner Network podcast. Or visit partner.microsoft.com 

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Filed Under: blog, Women In Sales Tagged With: BDR, inside sales, leadership, learning, management, sales, SDR

Building a Career as a Lifelong Learner with Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft

By Barbara Giamanco Leave a Comment

In this segment of the Women in Sales Leadership series, I talked with Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President in the One Commercial Partner team at Microsoft where she is responsible for global partner channel management and programs, with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers.

I talked to Gavriella about what it means to build a career as a life long learner, and why you should too.

I asked Gavriella about her different roles with Microsoft, from sales to operations and now as Microsoft’s channel chief. Here’s what she told me is the most important thing for everyone to keep in mind as they build their own careers. It is all about ongoing learning to keep growing your skills and opportunities.

Gavriella shared with me the constants she has noticed throughout changes in her career.

You will love Gavriella’s story about how she took the stage at Microsoft Inspire with tens of thousands of people, both in the arena and watching online, for a keynote address. She shared her major learning from that opportunity.

You’ll also learn what Gavriella feels she has learned in the past year or so. Things like leading teams through ambiguity, start with won’t change, how to create clarity or yourself on how you, personally, can help achieve that outcome, why you should not work in a vacuum and more.

Finally, Gavriella shared her advice for women just getting started on this journey as a lifelong learner.

Enjoy the interview!

About Gavriella:

Gavriella Schuster is a Corporate Vice President in the One Commercial Partner team, Gavriella Schuster is responsible for global partner channel management and programs, with a focus on driving digital transformation for partners and customers. Gavriella’s team is responsible for the high-touch experiences of Managed Service Providers, Hosters, Resellers, Distributors and National/Local SIs. She is also responsible for connecting, enabling, investing in, and rewarding partners through high-touch and low-touch programmatic experiences. She has extensive experience in sales, marketing, product management, and partner development with a strong track record of managing customers, partners, and teams. Over the last 20 years at Microsoft,  she has managed sales and marketing teams across the Server and Cloud business, the Windows Client Commercial business, Enterprise Services, licensing sales and marketing, field business development, training initiative development, segment marketing, worldwide partner marketing and training strategies and worldwide operations.

Connect with Gavriella on LinkedIn and Twitter

 

 

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: channel, gavriella schuster, learning, marketing, microsoft, partner, sales

Tell Me Something I Don’t Already Know

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

I notice things.

My daily goal is to be as present as possible in every conversation I have as I move through my day. I am also paying attention to the various things happening around me. Something that I hear, see or read just might spark a new idea, a blog post, get me thinking differently or cause me to dig deeper to learn from the experience and underlying meaning. I have this weird thing about three’s. If I see it or hear something three or more times, I really start paying attention.

That leads me to my post today.

A few months ago a colleague referred me to a potential new client. She had paved the way for a social selling discussion, because in the course of her conversation with the Sales VP, she knew there was a qualified opportunity. I set the meeting with the Sales VP, we had lunch, discussed his desire to train his sales team to more effectively use social media – LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. – to prospect, generate leads and secure more meetings.

That lunch conversation resulted in me sending over an outline of a potential program for his sales meeting. It all seemed good. After a few failed attempts at following up with him, I began to suspect something was amiss. Finally, I decided to send a note that said, “I have not heard back from you about my suggestions for your sales program, so I assume that you’ve decided to go in a different direction. I’ve cleared the date from my calendar, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to be considered.” A day later, he responds and says, “He had been traveling on business. He thanked me for the information that I had sent to him and went on to say that he liked what I had proposed, but he felt that the price was too high for his smaller team. He told me he would recommend me to his boss for the upcoming national sales event.”

Boom! There it is…price.

I am fond of saying that it is NEVER about the price! I knew that I had either not communicated a strong enough value message, or I misinterpreted how willing he really was to correct the sales problem he said he wanted to fix. In other words, no matter what he had told me, it seemed clear that the pain wasn’t great enough for him to take action. Given that I believe in the importance of learning from the deals that go south, I called him a few times with the intention of learning what went wrong. He never responded, so I let it go. My colleague, however, did not.

Recently, she had a scheduled lunch with the VP, so during that meeting she asked him what was behind his decision not to hire me. Side note…he didn’t hire anyone else either! At first he went with the line about the price. She pushed back and assured him that my pricing was quite reasonable. Finally, he admitted that the real reason was that he liked everything that I had shared with him and he went on to say, “She didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know.” Hum.

A few days later, in a conversation with a the Sales VP at two different companies who are also clients, they both told me that a couple of their sales reps when asked about the work we had done with the team also said, “She didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know.” Now I know something is up, and I’m wondering if it’s me? After pondering the comments, I came to this blinding flash of the obvious…

Knowledge without execution is useless!

These people know what to do, but by their own admission, they were not doing anything about it.

If you think that you already know what to do, ask yourself what good it will do to learn something “new” if you don’t put that new information into practical application either? You already know the answer. Nothing.

For any salesperson who thinks that they already know it all and still aren’t hitting sales targets, I’d like to suggest that you don’t need to learn anything new. You need to get off your backside and put what you know into action!

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: learning, sales, social media, social selling

Tell Me Something I Don't Already Know

By Barbara Giamanco 1 Comment

I notice things.
My daily goal is to be as present as possible in every conversation I have as I move through my day. I am also paying attention to the various things happening around me. Something that I hear, see or read just might spark a new idea, a blog post, get me thinking differently or cause me to dig deeper to learn from the experience and underlying meaning. I have this weird thing about three’s. If I see it or hear something three or more times, I really start paying attention.
That leads me to my post today.
A few months ago a colleague referred me to a potential new client. She had paved the way for a social selling discussion, because in the course of her conversation with the Sales VP, she knew there was a qualified opportunity. I set the meeting with the Sales VP, we had lunch, discussed his desire to train his sales team to more effectively use social media – LinkedIn, Twitter, etc. – to prospect, generate leads and secure more meetings.
That lunch conversation resulted in me sending over an outline of a potential program for his sales meeting. It all seemed good. After a few failed attempts at following up with him, I began to suspect something was amiss. Finally, I decided to send a note that said, “I have not heard back from you about my suggestions for your sales program, so I assume that you’ve decided to go in a different direction. I’ve cleared the date from my calendar, and I want to thank you for the opportunity to be considered.” A day later, he responds and says, “He had been traveling on business. He thanked me for the information that I had sent to him and went on to say that he liked what I had proposed, but he felt that the price was too high for his smaller team. He told me he would recommend me to his boss for the upcoming national sales event.”
Boom! There it is…price.
I am fond of saying that it is NEVER about the price! I knew that I had either not communicated a strong enough value message, or I misinterpreted how willing he really was to correct the sales problem he said he wanted to fix. In other words, no matter what he had told me, it seemed clear that the pain wasn’t great enough for him to take action. Given that I believe in the importance of learning from the deals that go south, I called him a few times with the intention of learning what went wrong. He never responded, so I let it go. My colleague, however, did not.
Recently, she had a scheduled lunch with the VP, so during that meeting she asked him what was behind his decision not to hire me. Side note…he didn’t hire anyone else either! At first he went with the line about the price. She pushed back and assured him that my pricing was quite reasonable. Finally, he admitted that the real reason was that he liked everything that I had shared with him and he went on to say, “She didn’t tell me anything that I didn’t already know.” Hum.
A few days later, in a conversation with a the Sales VP at two different companies who are also clients, they both told me that a couple of their sales reps when asked about the work we had done with the team also said, “She didn’t really tell me anything that I didn’t already know.” Now I know something is up, and I’m wondering if it’s me? After pondering the comments, I came to this blinding flash of the obvious…
Knowledge without execution is useless!
These people know what to do, but by their own admission, they were not doing anything about it.
If you think that you already know what to do, ask yourself what good it will do to learn something “new” if you don’t put that new information into practical application either? You already know the answer. Nothing.
For any salesperson who thinks that they already know it all and still aren’t hitting sales targets, I’d like to suggest that you don’t need to learn anything new. You need to get off your backside and put what you know into action!

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: learning, sales, social media, social selling

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