135: Others-Focused Selling with Kaleigh Conners

This episode is brought to you thanks to the generous support of Revenue Grid, QuotaPath, and Outreach. To learn more about them and support them with your business, just click over to top1.fm/sponsors. [MUSIC] You're listening to the Sales Success Stories podcast, where we deconstruct world-class sales performers to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more, visit us at top1.fm. Here's your host, Scott Ingram. Today on the Sales Success Stories podcast, my guest is Kaylee Connors, or the artist formerly known as Kaylee Dwyer. Kaylee just finished as the top solutions advisor for the year at Greycastle Security. Welcome to this side of the podcast, Kaylee. Thank you very much, Scott. I am beyond excited to dive into the podcast that I spend most of my time listening to. This is so great. So, Kaylee, you have been such a super-involved member of the Sales Success community, and I couldn't be more thrilled to be able to feature you here. But before we get into all of that, let's kick things off like we always do and talk about the top three things that you believe have contributed the most to your success in sales. Absolutely. So, the top three things, and I'll kick it off right from the top, is asking questions. Not being afraid to ask questions in a new role or at a new company, or maybe you're in a new industry, and asking questions has really allowed me to better understand so much more about the intent behind decisions being made, and then just certain items that are expected from leadership. The second one there is continuous learning. There is always, always, always something new to learn in a new tactic to try. Keeping fresh on your skills and keeping fresh on my skills has really allowed me to see different changes in myself as a seller, as a person, and really just refine my process to better reach my customers overall. The third thing that has gotten me to where I am, or what I have believed to has gotten me to where I am, is finding a like-minded community that challenges me, but also supports me through my efforts. So the Sales Success Summit is a perfect example of that. So the saying you're the average of your five closest friends is absolutely true. So surrounding myself with people that I want to be like has really held tried and true and has truly gotten me to where I am today. That is awesome. What's been fun for me is watching you through this process, right? And seeing all three of those things in action, right? You're always asking questions. Your continuous learning. So we had an opportunity to be together and experience the outbound conference in addition to the summit together this year. And you are one of the just most dialed in students of sales that I have seen. Like you just come all in ready to absorb everything and not just take it in, but then to kind of turn that around and apply it. And then obviously the way that you have really become such an active participant in this community is awesome. And these are without a doubt my favorite episodes where we get to feature somebody who has come up from within the community, right? Has taken all this learning, has leaned on all of the mentors that are part of this and got into the top. Absolutely. And it's very exciting for me to kind of be in this place. I remember at the Sales Success Summit this year, I was sitting there and I was like, man, I really, really, really want to be in the top 1% and be on the podcast. And honestly, my own personal thoughts, I was like, there's no way I just got into this role of like literally a month before the summit. How is this going to happen? How can I make it happen? And it's kind of blowing my mind right now that here I am, you know, only a few months later on the podcast. So it's pretty cool and it's been an awesome experience to just kind of find myself here. Yeah, that fast, right? It's so amazing. Well, why don't we, why don't we contextualize this a little bit? And I'll have you, I'm just going to let you go for a little bit and talk about kind of three components, right? I'd love to hear about what is/was your role and, you know, what did it take to get to number one and then maybe talk a little bit about the transition that is happening or just happened as people are listening to this. Yeah, absolutely. So just to talk briefly about some of the roles that I've held at Greycastle Security. So I started in an SDR function back in 2019 and I was in that role for about nine months. So really what that entailed was just trying to figure out who I was as an inside seller. What did cold emails look like? How could I prospect more effectively? So that's really when I started to dive into the entire sales community. And prior to getting into that SDR role, I had actually graduated with a cybersecurity degree. So I was looking at sales like, all right, I'll try this and see if I'm any good at it. And then all of a sudden I found myself kind of wrapped up in a hurricane that is sales. And I realized, wow, maybe this is what I was supposed to be doing. So after kind of getting my bearings and figuring out how to be an inside seller, I went into a blended role between an SDR and an account executive. And this was pretty interesting because, you know, I had the chance a lot in my career to be the guinea pig for different roles or opportunities. So this was one of those moments where I was truly the guinea pig at Gray Castle and kind of figured out what a blended role of being an inside seller and an outside seller would look like. So I was in that role for only a few short months and then quickly became a full cycle account executive within that same year. So I was in a few different roles quite quickly and I felt like I was kind of barreling through my life at that time. But you know, I'm a product of the sales success community. So I've really kind of taken a deep dive into all of the content available through sales success media, other great podcasts and online resources. And most importantly was the networking that has gotten me through being able to jump through so many roles in only a short period. So building my knowledge base with the right people has been truly critical in being able to kind of traverse that type of landscape because it's kind of uncharted waters for me. I graduated early, thought I would go into a technical role and here I am kind of figuring out what a life is as a seller. So kind of a whole bunch of craziness going on in the past year and then low and behold, a funny story of how I'm transitioning into my new role, which will be happening in 2022, which is just around the corner, quite scary. I was having conversations and through the sales success community had gotten a bunch of different connections of folks in different companies and different industries. And I was introduced to a few of the folks over at Terry Berry and Terry Berry is an employee recognition company, quite a great one with some awesome, awesome, awesome things coming in 2022. But because of the connections made through the sales success summit, I got in touch with a lot of the folks over there at Terry Berry. And you know, at first you're comfortable in your current position. You can't really think of change as being a reality. So it took a few different conversations with Scott Vanderleek over at Terry Berry and eventually you found myself now transitioning into joining their ever growing team that is expecting some really, really significant but amazing changes coming in 2022. So it's quite exciting and I can kind of tie it all back to where it stemmed from in the sales success community. Yeah, it's been really fun again to kind of watch that evolution from both sides. Now Scott wouldn't tell me who, but you know, we did have a conversation, oh, maybe a month and a half ago. And I guess I do like to try and keep these things pretty evergreen, but we are talking about the timing of this change. So we're recording this. It's December 30th. It's the tail end of 2021. And so I was talking to Scott, I don't know, four or five, six weeks ago and he's, you know, was telling me about all the plans and all the growth and all the great things that they're expecting at Terry Berry. And you know, he's a smart guy. He's also been a big part of this community and he's like, look, we need to grow the team. I'm going to grow the team with the best people I can find. And so he let me know I'm actively recruiting from within the sales success community. And again, wouldn't share names at the time, but then he dropped the hint as things got a little bit more official here just in the last week or so. And it's again, such a great thing to see because the power of this network isn't just the mentoring and the coaching and the relationships you build with your peers, but there's career opportunities that exist here. And as you find kind of your path through this whole sales adventure, we're kind of here to support it all. Yeah. And the funny thing is, and it's actually something that Scott says is going around Terry Berry is prior to actually having the conversation about joining their team. I was talking to Scott about, you know, where Terry Berry is going and where they're headed. And they mentioned, you know, we're going to be transitioning into new territories and really trying to see what our growth can do and what type of results that we can generate. And as we're having that conversation, I'm like, hey, you know, Scott, there are certain, I would be remiss not to say the different cybersecurity factors that come into play when you're expanding like that. And I had asked Scott for a warm introduction to his chief information officer and actually was able to book a meeting and have that conversation about cybersecurity. So it's a funny topic going around. Terry Berry of, you know, we're trying to recruit someone and then they ended up asking us for a warm introduction. So it's cool to see everything come full circle and knowing that I'll be joining such an awesome team like Terry Berry and joining guys like Mike Anderson and Colin Ballas and it's just very, very exciting and you know, change is quite scary, but I'm welcoming it with open arms. So to see what happens. So good. So good. I'm going to talk about here real quickly and then I'll stop making this a commercial for the sales success community and summit and everything, but I get pretty frequent. I'd say at least a few times a month, people will reach out to me and you know, they're fans of the podcast and they'll just say like, Scott, this is the year. Like I'm committing to do what it takes. I'm going to get to that number one spot or into the top 1% in my company and you know, usually I wish them luck and I'll point them in the direction of some specific resources that might be able to help or I'll challenge them a little bit. In fact, if this works out, I think I might be having three of these resulting conversations in a row, right? Three people who've come up through the community who've made it to that number one spot, Kaylee being the first in that series. And what we've decided to do is formalize that in an informal way. So I may need a better title for what we call this thing, but right now I'm calling it our Summit Climbers program. And so the idea is I wanted to offer some free coaching and mentoring within the community for those folks who are committed to being number one this year. And all they have to do is send to me a written achievement plan documenting this is how I'm going to go about getting to the top of the leader board this year. The second prerequisite is they have to hold the ticket to the sales success summit, right? Because I want to make sure that they have some skin in the game that there is some commitment. But beyond that, we're actually in the process of standing up a Slack community that will only initially be available for the folks that hold the ticket to the summit. And we're going to build a channel in there for specifically for those folks, right? Who are, look, I'm going to get to number one. And I've been talking to and recruiting a lot of a guests that have been on this podcast to help contribute to that, right? To help all of those folks achieve that particular vision. So Kaylee with that maybe talk about your results, like especially, you know, this last whatever it's been four or five six month stretch and what you've done and what it took to get to the top spot. Yeah, absolutely. So for me, that all comes down to leveraging the people around you. So just as you're saying, there are people within the sales success community that are kind of climbing their way to the top by leveraging the feedback and the comments and the insights shared by some of the top presenters that are shared throughout the community. So I really believe that taking in as much information as possible from the successful folks that are willing to share their tips and tricks and their routines is so important to kind of just take that and then filter it down to what works best for you. A lot of the times I find that there is so, so much information available online that it gets a little bit overwhelming of do I need to do everything and I'm one of those people that gets into that mental battle of how do I incorporate everything this person is doing into what I need to be doing. And what I've really found is because there's just so much information and people available to share their insights is to take it, boil it down and figure out a way that you can implement it into your life based off of how you can be most successful. And I think a lot of that stems with figuring out how you can be most successful for yourself and what that looks like, how your routines are and really bringing it to a science instead of winging it, if you are winging it and figuring out what that looks like for you and making it into some type of mathematical equation, but coming through the summit and building what I am today has really led to specific routines, specific learnings that I dive into frequently and then making sure that everything I'm doing is structured and documented in such a way. So Scott, you were just saying, you know, document your success plans and how you're going to reach that top 1% spot. You know, if you're running your own, let's say personal operating system and figuring out who you are as a human being and get into the habit of documenting how you're going to be personally successful, whether that's in your job or your personal life and getting into the habit of just documenting that and signing your name to it and really owning your own success, I think is a huge part of, you know, how you can get to being on this podcast and seeing massive growth in your personal and professional life. Kaylee just talked about making success a science. And I think that's ultimately what our sponsor revenue grid is helping people do with their revenue intelligence solution. They're taking all the data that's flowing through your calendar, your email and your CRM and helping recommend the best next actions all while providing leadership better data to coach their reps. Check them out. Top 1.fm/revenuegrid and feel free to hit pause if you need to and now back to my conversation with Kaylee. So there's so many things that I want to dig into. Why don't we start with? I mean, you said a couple of things there around what I heard as the science of success, like the formula you've built, your personal operating system. What are some of the core components that you have found for yourself that are kind of the most key elements to that approach? So the key elements to that approach that I really try and keep consistent in my day-to-day life is waking up early, not everyone's a morning person, but quite honestly, after 4 p.m. I am not an afternoon person. So waking up early, going to the gym and being active every day. So what that looks like for me is waking up going to CrossFit at 4.30 in the morning. Yes, for anyone listening, I am that annoying CrossFit person that will let you know I do CrossFit. Waking up every morning at 4.30, getting your body moving, getting your brain thinking, and just really starting to anticipate the day ahead of you. I've also in the past year gotten into the routine of meditating. So taking 5, 10 minutes, and sometimes it's really uncomfortable. You're just sitting there and not sure what to think about or what to do. So it takes some time to get used to, but meditating and practicing some mindfulness. And I think that's something that majorly contributes to just feeling level when starting the day and feeling level in how you're approaching different situations or scenarios and really taking a step back to approach everything with a calm sense of mind and realizing, you know, not everything is a fire. If that makes sense. It totally does. And we'll keep going on all of that. I mean, you know how I structure this and kind of walking through your day. So we'll go deeper into that. But I want to do just a little bit more context. And I would love to hear say you mentioned you have a degree in computer security and thought that you would go down a more technical route. What was it that originally took you into sales? Like what transpired? Why did you decide to go down this particular path? Yeah, absolutely. So that is a pretty cool kind of origin story on how I got into sales and how I, how I'm here right now. So I was bartending in college just as, you know, many people do nowadays bartending, making ends meet and meeting as many people as I could. And one day I was attending bar at a golf course for a golf tournament. And you know, you're supposed to speak with everyone, make conversation. And I met the current CEO of Greycastle security and just got to chatting about cybersecurity, my hopes and dreams and everything that I want to accomplish in life. He gave me his card at that time and was like, you know, let's stay in touch. I prospected the hell out of him until I was able to land an interview. And essentially what happened in that interview was everyone, all the leadership saying, you basically did the job for the job that we're interviewing you for. So although I went to school for cybersecurity, I had always wanted to work for Greycastle security because it's the school that I went to. Greycastle is one of the local giants that everyone in the school is like, I got to get there. That is the place to work. So I always knew I wanted to work there and recognizing they only had a sales role open. And it was entry level. I was like, okay, this is my foot in the door. And I gave it a shot. So when I really was afforded the opportunity to try my best in a role that I didn't have experience in yet, it kind of instantly opened up a whole nother world of opportunity for me. And I fell in love with the idea of sales and that my success is really dependent on how hard that I work for it. As a former college athlete, I played lacrosse at Utica College. This kind of really lit a fire inside me that has me and has kept me driving to achieve greater success. So this is a really long winded way of saying, I was doing the job without knowing that I was doing the job by just being annoying, getting in front of people and kind of not giving up at the first no. I love it. I mean, it's such common advice that I give and I don't want people to miss it. Like getting a job is a sales process. Right? Absolutely. It's identifying, well, what's my ideal prospect to look like? Who do I want to reach out to? Who do I want to work for? You know, who in that company can make this decision and then? kind of working them through the process. So their feedback being, well, you just did the job. That's what this is. - Yeah, absolutely. And I can't say it enough. It's, you know, you really need to just put yourself in front of the right people and just not give up at maybe the first, first know or the first five knows and just keep giving it a go and showing your best self. - Let me quickly mention quota path here because they are one of those amazing companies with incredible leaders that could truly make your career. And in addition to having a great solution, they're also hiring. Check them out, especially their careers page at top1.fm/quotapath. So at what point did you recognize, like, oh, this is actually the role, this is the career that I want to be in. Maybe it's not in a technical cybersecurity role. What was that? Was there a moment? - There absolutely was a moment. And I think it kind of came in a snowball effect. I was kind of tumbling downhill on the world that is sales and drowning in so much information. I was perusing LinkedIn and working on trying to get connected with the right folks, especially in the sales community. And I had gotten connected with Mr. Jack Wilson, a frequent flyer of this podcast. And Jack and I had eventually, you know, set up a random conversation. I don't know you, you don't know me, but we're networking. This is what people do nowadays. So we started to have a conversation about sales. And Jack and I really struck a chord on a shared mindset and goal of how to be the most successful seller and person possible. So I think that moment for me in having that initial conversation with Jack really highlighted the path to success and how I could continue identifying ways to be more successful, more knowledgeable on what I'm doing, who I'm chatting with, and who the right people were to really kind of guide me to where I am today. So after meeting Jack, that had ultimately led me to the sales success summit virtually for the first time. And then at that point, I actually ended up winning the sales game. And the sole reason for that was just being comfortable with asking questions as silly as they might sound to get a better understanding of people, process, and just how things work. And I think that entire snowball into the world that is sales success really started with that first meeting with Jack. And what was it that prompted that very first conversation who reached out to who and what caused that? So my memory is a little fuzzy on it, to be honest, but there was a post up on LinkedIn. And I don't know who initially posted it, but they were like, connect with someone random today and make a new networking friend. Figure out someone new that you have not chatted with. And Jack had commented on the post, or I had commented first, or either one of us had commented on the post, and then I had responded to one of the comments. And Jack had quickly responded back saying, hey, let's meet. Let's be the one networking connection that we make today. And that's kind of how it all came to be. And now this is a friendship that I couldn't replace. Yeah, so good. And it was, I mean, that 2020 summit, right, that we pivoted to 100% virtual and playing the sales game virtually. It was wild, just watching that, because I had played the sales game before, and I got to just kind of watch it from a host and moderator perspective without actively playing it as we did that round. And that was so cool. And something that I hope we can bring Steve and Darcy back over from Australia in person live again this year and maybe we'll play the sales game at this year's summit in person, the way that it was originally created. Yeah, absolutely. Steve and Darcy have certainly been cooking up some great new opportunities in the works for them as far as sales gamification goes and coming up with some really, really great content with their new business, the outbound game, in addition to still successfully running the sales game just as they usually do. Yeah, I mean, those guys are amazing and they are doing really, really incredible stuff. So giant shout out to Steve and Darcy and the sales game and the outbound game. Check that out. I'll put links to that in the show notes for this episode. So if you go to top1.fm/thisepisodenumber or top1.fm/kley, I'm going to have to look up your it's corners, right? It is corners. This just changed it. Actually, that's a fun story in and of itself, because you snuck out of the second day of the sale success summit this year for maybe the only excusable reason I can think of. You don't talk about that. Yeah, absolutely. So to kind of fill in some context there for the listeners. So the sale success summit was long planned before my wedding was planned. But my now husband and I were chatting and we were like, let's do this thing. So we ended up deciding to alope and the perfect timing to fill just days after the sale success summit. So I flew to Texas the week of my wedding had previously, if you're a part of the the sales rebellion at all, my superhero name there is plan master slim. So weeks before the sale success summit, I made sure that everything for our wedding was set in stone and figured out. We were getting married on top of a mountain. So not much to figure out just to make sure that the mountain was still there. So we had everything in place and I flew to Texas. And it was quite the hectic scenario staying in a house with all the other sales success members. And I did in fact need to leave early for my impending marriage and left early and it ended up being just as great as can be. And something that's got, I don't think you know, when I got to the airport that day, I was standing in the security line for about an hour and a half going to miss my flight because the Uber was late, of course, gotta love that. And just as I'm leaving the security line, my iPhone launches itself out of my hands face down onto the floor of the airport and was completely unusable. So I had absolutely no contact to anybody in my family no way to get my ticket and somehow ended up on my flight without any contact using other people's phones, then landed at home about an hour and a half away from my actual home and my flight got delayed and then it got canceled. So I had no phone and was stuck in New Jersey and had to get driven up to Central New York where I live with no cell phone. And then my now husband Matt proposed to me in the parking lot where he met my sister who dropped me off that night right before our wedding. So it was a crazy, crazy week that ended up in ultimately lifelong happiness, but it was just a wild ride. - That is insane. And I didn't realize that you got married on the top of a mountain. So you're saying you went from the sales success summit to your wedding summit. - I really did. I went from summit to summit. So we got married on top of Mount Equinox in Vermont, which is very, very ironic. - That is so funny. - Well, that was a pretty amazing story. And since we call the show "Sales Success Story," as I wonder if you have a comparably amazing sales story that's maybe your favorite or something that you learned the most from. - Yeah, absolutely. So my favorite sales story is actually one that I was able to win and we won as a team. But something that I learned from that working in higher education in cybersecurity specifically. So focusing on the higher education industry, the risk landscape has just been increasing dramatically. And things are getting serious to the point where finance leaders are now interested in a conversation about cybersecurity. So working with a higher education institution in the south, they had their CFO involved in our conversations. And generally I speak with directors of IT or chief information officers. So it was interesting to see the first finance leader I had getting involved in the conversations about risk management and how to better secure their institution from cybersecurity attacks. If any of you watch the news and you know that higher education institutions are certainly a target for that. From this opportunity, I learned the value of educating your perspective clients by meeting them where they are. As a finance leader, this guy did not go to school to learn about IT services. And sometimes it's really, really tough to sign a large financial decision or check about something that you don't fully understand. So I had the really awesome opportunity to put a heavy emphasis on making sure we were on the same page with everybody in the entire deal by educating them along the way to make sure that everyone could be just as confident as we are in the solution presented to them. So that was my favorite sales story from this past year just because as the world has continued to change and we need to learn and adapt, it also makes sense to pump the brakes and make sure that everyone you're having conversations with are on the same page as you and most importantly, knows what you're talking about. - I love it, I love it. So Kaylee, you have been, I feel like your career, the early stages of your sales career have been kind of this rocket ship, right? Like you have progressed through your different roles and had a lot of success really quickly. What are you most proud of? - So that is a loaded question. and I was thinking about this prior to the podcast because there are just so many things that have happened over the past two or so years that I feel like I could write an entire book about. But from an accomplishment perspective, I'm really most proud of the opportunities afforded to me by the people who trusted I would do my very best. Without those people and without those opportunities, I don't know what life would look like right now and that's, I'm sure I would be doing something impactful but without those two things, you know, I couldn't be more grateful for those to have happened to me because they don't happen to everybody. So it's the people that I've known that have trusted me to do something great with the opportunity that they've given me. You know what, I want to talk about that because that is a really interesting call out. Is there anything that you did intentionally or maybe looking back, you kind of recognize that you've done to build that trust, to show people, like, look, I may not know everything, I may not have all of the skills today, but I'm going to do everything to be successful because I think that is a key part of your superpower and kind of your success factors is that is very, very evident. So I don't know if it's something you do on purpose or it's just kind of who you are, it's really obvious. I honestly don't think I do it on purpose. What I really try and keep top of mind is always being honest and always having integrity. And what that means when I'm building relationships is that I build as honest relationships as they can be. Anybody who knows me knows Kaley Dwyer now corners, but there's no other person than that. So I really, really value just being honest, transparent. And I think as I worked through my life and have met more and more people, those values are similar to those that I have relationships with. So all of the people that have kind of helped me climb the ladder of success and experience have also had similar journeys and have connected with me on a deeper level that really reflects who they are as human beings as well. So I try to keep those in my circle closely aligned with what I believe in and how I try to be as a person. Yeah, I love it. And I think there's also just this you exude sort of passion and it's the curiosity that you have. It really does come back to kind of that student thing. Like you are so eager and willing to learn and absorb and take on what people are telling you. And I think it's a lot of that. The people see that and just know like, "Okay, at least get a crush it." Because I mean, I think it's a lot in your DNA, right? It's probably not something that you do too intentionally, but it's definitely there. Yeah, and being a student is something that I will never stop being. Just because you graduate anywhere or just because you finished a class doesn't mean that you're done learning. And I think that's something that I've fallen back on and really used as my cushion. It keeps me, it keeps my cup full by continuing to learn new things and continuing to ask those questions because honestly, at the end of the day, you can read thousands and thousands of books. But I found the best information that I've gained is by asking the right people, the right questions about things that they're great at, and then taking that information and trying to boil it down in a way that I could emulate that or make it into my own. Let's talk about the information. And I want to talk about two sides of this. First, I'll ask kind of my traditional question about your information diet. But after we talk through that, I want to talk about how are you parsing this? Because you called out earlier that there's too much information. And the challenge is kind of choosing what you're actually going to act on, what you're going to try and implement. So anyway, with that preview, what is your information diet? What are you listening to? What are you watching? What are you reading? When does that happen? Give us a giant list and make my show notes editor work. Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, early on as an SDR, I, as an SDR, actually, end as an early 20-something year old. Free is for me. So I did the most that I could with the free available information online to grab as much valuable content as possible to apply it in what I was currently working on. So as an SDR, my biggest challenge was figuring out how to write effective messaging, effective scripts. And I really found Flip the Script by Beck Holland and her website, which by the way, if you jump onto that, you will go into the biggest rabbit hole ever. Because everything on there is totally available for use. It has downloadable content and materials and videos that walk you through everything. So I essentially lived in Beck's website for weeks. And really nailed it down to the point where I was speaking the same language and writing very similar content in order to kind of best figure out how to be the most successful. So the next thing that I listened to is going into podcasts. So first and foremost, any sales success media podcasts, of course, because Scott, you are just constantly running. And then the next podcast that I also listened to is 30 minutes to President's Club. So for those of you that don't know, it takes me about 30 minutes to get to the gym and 30 minutes to get home. So the best time that I consume that information specific to podcasts are within 30 minute little jaunts that I'm only focusing on driving and can listen fully to these ideas. And because I go early in the morning, it gives me a really great kickstart to the day with new information and new tactics that I can use within the same day of hearing it. Next, I read and listen to a lot of books. So my process here is to purchase a book on Audible first. And then I get the hard copy of the book and either reread it or keep it for my library. But some great books just to call some out for sales and then I'll also call some out for really just getting a handle on your mindset. The ones for sales are fanatical prospecting by JetBlunt. Never split the difference by Chris Voss and Gap Selling by Keenan. Those are a few that have really given me some actionable takeaways that I just get so excited while listening to them that I feel like I need to sit down and take crazy amounts of notes. The next set of books that I listen to and then also keep hard copies of are ones that have really helped me change my mindset. And the first one here is something that I live by and reread constantly. And that is Atomic Habits by James Clear. So this is largely how I live my life. Everything in this book and how it's outlined is how I've kind of adapted to different changes in my life, have built-in habits that I want to focus on or get better at. So one of those I mentioned earlier is that I started meditating. So I leveraged Atomic Habits to figure out how to effectively build that into my current routine to make it sustainable and make sure that it's something that lasts. The next book for mindset that also happens to be my favorite book is The Almanac of Naval Robbicont. And Naval Robbicont is an angel investor in Silicon Valley and this book seriously gets me pumped. It's broken down by tweets and then the tweets are explained. So it's an easy read and something that can really get you excited about just alighting your mindset to something that is focused on hard work but also focused on practicing your core values. The next book that I'll list is Skin in the Game by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Skin in the Game is a great book to get a really good understanding of how important you are in the sales process or even your life in different scenarios that put a greater perspective on just a lot of different life things that help you better understand who you are as a human being and that's something that's super important to me. But that was kind of a lot of information about my information diet but those are at the top of my list. I love it. Such a great list. There's a couple in there that I haven't dug into yet. So excited to do that. Now let's talk about the parsing piece though, right? Because that's always the challenge with this is when you're taking in that much content, what are you deciding to actually act on? What's your process for doing that? So I always feel like I have some type of mental battle going on when I'm diving into certain books and I don't know that I'm solving my problem until I solve it. So for example, the outbound conference, the one that we both went to, at that time I was really trying to figure out how to get my messaging to be more effective, how to reach my prospects authentically. And at that time I was only thinking briefly of that challenge. It was something that kept coming up over the past few weeks. And it was at that conference that I really pulled out key elements to what I needed in order to solve my kind of mental struggle there and figuring out how I could break through that wall. So to go back to your question on how I parsed through all of this information, I don't know what I'm looking for until I find it. So as I'm going through this information and as I'm kind of taking it all in, I'm really getting laser focused on only a few things, pulling those out, writing them down, and then making it an actionable note. So I really try and keep that list under five. And if I go over that, then it goes in. into kind of a backlog need to focus on list. But truly and quite plainly, the challenge that I am most thinking of at that time really kind of surfaces as I'm reading through that book and as I internalize those things, I kind of find my own solution by just diving into the mindset that the book or the podcast or the audible it is trying to get me into and solving my problem from there. - That's so interesting. I guess in a not very conscious way, I think I work in much the same way. And it kind of speaks to this, you could read or listen to the same thing at different points. And because of the context or the situation that you're in, you might hear it take away wildly different things. And I did an episode on daily sales tips sometime towards the very end of the year, maybe it was the very beginning of the year. Actually, you know what it was? It was January 1st. It was the very first sales tip of the year that as we recorded this, it hasn't been released yet. But as everybody listens to this, you can go back and listen to. And I had read the 12-week year and Ian Coneyack had mentioned that and recommended that actually at the summit. And for me, it was like, I just, I cherry picked two ideas. The opening of the book really does a great job of talking about why a year is way too long of a period for us to do effective goal setting around. It gets just too long of a time horizon. And we play a lot of tricks on ourselves with, oh, thinking we've got plenty of time. And it's just kind of a mess. And so their solution is a 12-week planning cycle. I took that, yeah, that's good, but it's still not even fast enough for me and some of the key prey already things that we are working on right now. I'm like, I need a month. I need to be really, really dialed into a month one thing. So it really just kind of inspired a tightened planning cycle. And then the other idea that they had that I thought was just fantastic was building a scorecard and having a weekly scorecard, right? So you never get lost in, oh, you know, the rest of the month is a long time or the rest of the quarter is a long time. It's none and no, did I get everything done that I need to get done this week and using that as an accountability tool. So very, very similar I think in process. And I love your articulation of, you don't know until you find it. And it's consuming a lot of this content that is going to help you find kind of those gold nuggets that are going to be different at different times. Yeah, absolutely. So to that point, a lot of the books that I do reread frequently are the Atomic Habibs book, the Almanac of Navalrabi Khan. And when I'm rereading those books because they are so kind of, they just touch on so many different points, which is impossible for me to go ahead and say I'm going to practice all of them. I reread them almost on a quarterly basis and get a really good idea of how I can go back and maybe focus in on something that wasn't a challenge three months ago. That's a challenge now. So it might not be consuming new content all the time, but it might be looking back at the things that you could really associate and align yourself with. And then just kind of finding that ground again and getting grounded in how you're going to tackle the next three months or the next week with that scorecard. That's a great idea, by the way. Yeah, well speaking of challenges, I mean, what do you find to be the biggest challenge in sales for yourself right now? That's a loaded question. I think the biggest challenge that I've had in sales so far is working too much. So that is something for me. And I know it's not specifically related to anything in the sales cycle, but for me and for those that are similar to me, it's really easy to go too hard and not recognize when you need a break or when you need to take a moment for yourself or when you need to kind of get back to who you are as a human being instead of just a seller. So I think as I'm diving in deeper and deeper into the world of selling, I'm finding that this is a super relevant topic amongst the sales community, but most importantly, among myself, because I know just how far I can go, that I can get super close to burnout and not even know it. Yeah, so how are you currently solving for that? What's been working? So I'm currently solving this by-- and this is a tip from the Atomic Habits book that I keep talking about. But once a month, I take a look at my month and see what I have going on, get a really good handle of what appointments I have both personally and then professionally as well. And then I try and look and find opportunities for recharging or rest or anything like that. So depending on what type of company you're in at Grayery Castle specifically, we had something called Responsible Time Off. So you could look at that a few different ways. I looked at it as, OK, when am I going to think I'm going to burn out? And when should I take a day? So for me, that pretty much comes every month and a half. I need to at least take maybe a Friday or a Monday to have a longer weekend to really get back to Earth a little bit. So I'm a big hiker and someone that loves to be outside. So I've found what my kind of bandwidth is until I'm reaching end of life. And need to kind of pull it back and take a minute for myself and just be with my family. End of life, too funny. It's so true, though. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's interesting to think about that in terms of burnout and trying to predict that, right? Because it's probably easier to be preventive about that and get just a little bit ahead of that rather than like, OK, I'm fried and trying to recover from it. Absolutely. So I was kind of chasing my tail with that. I was like, geez, I just keep getting to this place over and over again where I just don't feel like I'm getting ahead of this feeling. So what I started to do was proactively take dates off in my calendar ahead of time. Maybe I'll use that date or maybe I'll change it when it gets closer. But I take a look at the next few months, similar to that monthly review that I do. I take a look at the next few months, maybe the entire quarter. I look and I see where are opportunities where I could take a break. Maybe it's a half day. Maybe it's one of those Fridays or Mondays or maybe it's a few days. And I proactively take those days off. So that way I have something to look forward to and work toward knowing that I have a break coming soon. That's really interesting. Well, why don't we take this from kind of higher level and then we'll get more granular into the daily process. So talk a little bit more about that monthly review, that quarterly review process. What types of things are you looking at? What are you going through in that process? So on a monthly review level, if I'm looking at the month ahead, I'm really taking a good pulse from a sales perspective on what I'm expecting to close. I'm reviewing all of my opportunities, all of my accounts again on that monthly basis, which is also something that I practice on a weekly basis as well and then at some extent a daily basis. But on that monthly level, I'm taking a really good look at what I have going on in my world and then taking a look at what I have going on in my personal life. What events are coming up? Do we have concerts coming up? Or is there happening with family? Is there a family party? And then I'm making sure that I'm getting ahead and keeping a good balance between work and life and making sure that not one of them is any lower than it should be. So I'm really kind of taking an inventory of what's going on in the world and then taking a step back and creating a plan and approach to how I'll effectively do all of those things without letting a ball drop. Love it, love it. Very much like me figuring out how you're going to do it all. So let's go to the daily level. And I know you know the deal here. I mean, we talked a little bit about you're waking up early in the morning. You're doing crossfit, you're meditating. But give us a more granular blow-by-blow, right? Alarm goes off at 4.30 AM. What happens from each step of the way and until your head hits the pillow? Yeah. So first things first is that when my alarm goes off, it goes off at 4.15 AM out the door by 4.30, the alarm goes off at 4.15 and already the night before I have set out my workout clothes. I have every single item of clothing laid out and ready for me to just quickly put on. So there is no excuse to get back into bed. In addition to that, I put on my clothes. I go get ready for the gym day. And then I go downstairs and reset. I click the coffee maker. So the night before I set up the coffee maker, make sure everything is ready to go with my mug cleaned and ready to have some fresh coffee in it. I come back upstairs when my coffee is brewing, brush my teeth, and then generally go say goodbye to my husband, go grab my coffee, jump in the car that is pre-heated by the time I'm already clicking my coffee on. So it's warming up in the driveway. And I try to set myself up in such a way that I cannot turn around and say, "I'm not going and lay back in bed." So I make sure that everything in my morning is preset the night before. I promise you that even if I'm missing a single sock, I will use it as an excuse to get back in bed. So just knowing myself, I make it impossible for me to say no. So I get to the gym. I do all of the things. I usually have a 20 to 30 minute conversation with the gym owner over there who's also someone that I consider to be one of my mentors. I have a conversation with him just catching up. I take the 30 minute drive home and in that 30 minute drive home, I am listening to another 30 minute podcast. So again, on that drive to the gym, I am also listening to a 30 minute podcast. On my way home, you know, everything usually is very, very much the same in my morning routines. And any slight difference, in that routine is something that throws me off track just a little bit. So I'm getting better at being a bit more flexible in that schedule, making sure one tiny bump in the road doesn't throw the whole morning off. But I come home and then I reset the house from the night before. So a lot of the times we're watching movies, we're watching TV shows, there's blankets everywhere, pillows, and then there's dishes in the sink. So I can't work in a messy room, let alone a messy house. So I reset the entire household to be ready for the day, feed the dog, get everything done, and then come upstairs, shower, and get ready for work. So during this time, I am either listening to something I'm listening to on audible or just honestly mindlessly scrolling through TikToks as I'm walking through the house. And as I'm kind of giving my brain a second to kind of take a deep breath and think about stupid things for a little bit, I log in to work at about 8 to 8.30 and then actually Scott, I follow your morning routine that you shared on a previous podcast as far as what you do the second that you log into your computer. So I make sure that I get to inbox zero, I review my feed leaf for recent news, I check my calendars for events that happen the day before, the day of, and then the day after. I confirm all of my appointments, I review my open opportunities and current accounts to see if there's anything I can do to push things along. And then I prioritize my to-do list. After all of that is done, I generally try to avoid morning meetings because I try and get most of my prospecting out of the way early in the morning. So a book that I did mention, "Finatical Prospecting by Chip Plunt," you know that eating the frog early in the morning is one of the best things that you can do. And for a lot of people eating the frog means prospecting. So you're getting over the thing that you know that if you pushed along and waited until 5 p.m., you probably are going to go eat dinner and not continue prospecting. So I get my prospecting done before noon so that I can at least have some success from an activity perspective early on in the day. And then I go about my day, I always, always, always take my lunch and I am famous for taking a 20 to 30 minute nap at lunch strictly because by that time I've already been up for almost a full day. So I take a nap at lunch which makes me feel a bit more alive for the afternoon and then I am usually brewing a second pot of coffee at this time. And then I sit down for an afternoon of work when 5 o'clock rolls around depending on what I'm currently working on or who I'm working with. I've done a lot of work with Stephen Darcy recently. So after 5 o'clock is time for my personal brand, my business, and then whatever consultant type work I'm doing. So I try and keep the day job to a day job and then focus everything after the fact on myself, my personal development, and other important things that are going on in my life. I also try and go to bed usually around 9 to 9.30. Sometimes if I'm getting a little crazy then it's 10 o'clock and anything after that. I then again going back to an atomic habits saying if you don't do a certain habit you kind of build in a punishment and something that is really important to me and makes me who I am is going to the gym in the morning. So if I go to bed too late at night, I'm not going to kill myself and go to the gym in the morning. And I know for me that that is going to annoy the crap out of me. Because when I wake up I know the next day won't be the same as if I went to the gym in the morning. So that gives me some incentive to go to bed earlier knowing that the routine the following day is more important to me than another episode. I don't remember the punishment part of atomic habits. So I may have to I have to may do another reread there. I want to ask about a couple of things and then I actually have a couple of comments and recommendations. So when you say you get your prospecting done by around noon, what does prospecting done mean? What does that typically look like? So for what tools that we currently have in place, we leverage outreach IO, which is a totally amazing sales tool. So I try and get through whatever is due to me on my outreach dashboard. However, and thank you for highlighting this because I do schedule prospecting at different times during the week to make sure that I'm reaching different prospects at times that might be more beneficial to actually have a pickup or a response to an email. So when I say that I'm doing my prospecting in the morning, I'm getting all of the prospecting done that's either expected from me from a level of effort or activity metric perspective or whatever is sitting in my outreach dashboard saying it's due today. Outside of that, I do schedule blocks for myself to focus on LinkedIn efforts and LinkedIn prospecting throughout the day. So again, I do work pretty diligently to stagger what times these events are happening because for example, I had a stretch of time for one quarter where I was getting a lot of booked meetings at 7 p.m. So just like people change, there's also different times where a cold call could be more successful than calling it 10 a.m. the same morning every morning. It's so easy when my guests mention our sponsors and it happens a lot. Outreach and that magic dashboard that Kaylee just mentioned is amazing. It's probably the best way to proactively stay on top of your outbound prospecting efforts. And as one of my all-time favorite sales leaders used to say, pipeline saves lives. So go build your pipeline with outreach and you can learn more at top 1.fm/outreach. That's interesting. Now what you said, the level of effort and activity that's expected is that your expectation, where does that expectation come from and what is that? So that's a great question. Great Castle had recently started to transition into an expectation from leadership of reaching a certain metric level per week. Before that and what I generally follow that kind of falls under that idea of a personal operating system, I have gotten exposure into something John Barrows created to figure out your sales math. So how much activity do you need to do on a daily weekly monthly basis in order to hit your quota? And a lot of this is figured out through different conversion ratios, how many positive responses do you get out of sending 100 emails, what percent of your prospecting activities are email, phone, social outreach, and then, you know, how many, for example, out of 10 qualification calls turn into qualified meetings. So I leverage a spreadsheet to figure out personally what I need to do in order to exceed my quota. So I always do this math with a higher quota than what's expected of me. And then I give myself my own activity metrics to hit on a daily weekly and then monthly basis. This way I like to make sure that I'm constantly exceeding expectations. And then let's say if I have an emergency come up or somehow get sick for whatever reason, I'm usually always above what's expected to make sure that I'm giving myself a nice buffer. So I just had a quick sidebar conversation with Kaylee. Sometimes we do that. This is the magic of editing and podcasting. And she is going to be documenting or reassembling all the pieces that are her personal operating system. So here's what we're going to do. If you go to the show notes page, if you go to top 1.fm/this episode number or top 1.fm/kalea-conners, we're going to have an opportunity for you to sign up to get access to her complete documented personal operating system. And she may soften that and redact certain portions. So it's not quite too personal. But it may be something that will be helpful to you. And when you do that, of course, we will add you to the listener list, which you can certainly unsubscribe from at any point if you decide that it is not providing enough value for you. So Kaylee, thank you for doing that. One more thing I wanted to dig into here a little bit is the personal branding side and kind of the work you're doing on LinkedIn. Which you do a great job. So if you're listening to this connect with Kaylee right now, she posts some really, really great stuff on LinkedIn and does a really good job with video and a lot of the images and Kaylee, I was peeking at your LinkedIn before we started and your last post was a bathroom selfie, but it was very good. It was a great post. How do you think about that? Like clearly it's a priority. You clearly do it well. What's your process around that? How are you thinking about it? So my process around social media and LinkedIn is that it is a major time suck. And it can very easily take me into a massive rabbit hole where I get nothing done. So I needed to find a way to approach social media in a way that keeps me consistent and relevant, but also allows me to get other stuff done because there are more important things in making a LinkedIn post. So for me, I leverage Hoot Suite, which is certainly a monthly investment, but I do leverage Hoot Suite to get ahead of what I am doing on any social media platform at least one week ahead of time. If it's not something that relies on relevancy or something that might change in a few weeks, I might even be two weeks ahead of anything that I'm posting on LinkedIn. The purpose of this is again, I can get really tied up in social media. So what I do as a human being is I usually keep all notifications off on my phone. I don't receive a single notification for a single social media application. So it makes it really simple for me to kind of automate that process and make sure that I'm still communicating and interacting with the community, but also getting my stuff done and not getting lost in the noise. So that's a way that I try and kind of hack social media a little bit, but I spend my Sundays and I take a minute, I go through feedably, I look at relevant news and information, and Sunday for two hours I do dedicate time to Hootsuite in order to plan and effectively look at my week from a social media perspective. Again, consistency is key with social media. At first for me, it's definitely been a process over the past two years to build up my social media presence and focus on my brand. It's something that early on I saw as a huge importance in not only gaining more traction on different platforms, but also getting introduced to people like Scott Vanderleek at Terry Berry. A large portion of what has generated more interest in me as a human being and a potential employee is the type of content and the consistency and relevancy of what is being posted on social media. So that's kind of it in a nutshell, but something that I am excited to share and dive into is Jack Wilson had introduced me to Justin Welch's page on LinkedIn. After scrolling through his page, I saw that he has something called the operating system and that's something to refine your LinkedIn brand and learn a little bit more about how to be more successful in that realm. So for Christmas this year in the tree at my father's house, there was a little envelope that said, I got the operating system as a Christmas present. So I will be diving into that over the next two weeks to kind of refine what I'm doing on social media and get back up to speed with what the vast majority is doing and how to stand out from there. So so good. And I've actually bought that same program from Justin. It's very strong. What's really interesting is I was going through and reviewing some of our stats and metrics for the year. And the podcast hasn't grown as fast in 2021 as it has in the past. And part of that, I mean, you want to talk about two statistically strange years than you talk about 2020 and 2021, but I did not put nearly the effort into LinkedIn as I have in the past and almost none because of exactly what you called out where I had so much stuff that I wanted to get done this year that I knew that it could become kind of that vortex of distraction that I just I can't I can't afford. I mean, the process right now, we may talk about this later of really adjusting that. And I think my own approach, it doesn't take a lot to do LinkedIn really well, right? And so I think my commitment will be it'll be interesting to see what this looks like in the couple of weeks after the episode releases. But you know, I think I'm just going to commit to, you know, two to three posts a week. And the most important part of that is just not having LinkedIn open all the time and not allowing the notifications and just, you know, having designated times that you check in and engage because I think that's important, right? It's not just the posting, but it's it's commenting and interacting with those that are interacting with your content. That's all really important stuff, but that's where the vortex of distraction happens. So really interesting that you call that out. I want to make a couple of other comments and this is like all based on stuff you said 10 minutes ago, but the first one is I have a product recommendation for you. I'm sure something like this still exists. I bought one of these 20 years ago for my then girlfriend now wife. And this is what established the appliances are a bad idea as gifts, but I bought her a coffee machine. This thing was so freaking cool. I bought her a coffee machine that you put it had sort of a compartment for whole beans and kind of a built in grinder it ground it right into the filter and it had a built in alarm clock. So you would set this thing up. Oh, yeah. You set this thing up. You put in your beans. You put in your water. You put in your filter. You put in, you know, you have the pot in the system and then you set the alarm. So now you wake up to the smell or the sound of fresh coffee being ground for you right into your cup. How about that? That is some technology I need to invest in. I thought you might like it. The corollary to that and I think you've heard me talk about this before because it's part of my productivity presentation. Have you tried the napachino? So I actually have and correct me if I'm wrong but it's you drink an espresso right before you're about to take a nap and then you take about like a 15, 20, I fall and I'm a 30 person, 30 minute nap person and then you wake up and you are just energized beyond belief because that espresso finally hit. That's the theory. Yes. It's amazing and I will tell you that any time I'm taking a lunchtime nap I'm absolutely chugging an espresso right before. Perfect. Well, it sounded like you were making it after. So I just wanted to provide that clarification and again, if anybody is not familiar with the process, the napachino is exactly that. You drink a coffee, you drink an espresso or whatever your favorite caffeinated beverage is right before you take that short nap. So the idea is the caffeine hits your bloodstream right about the point that you're waking up and you're like doubly ready to go. Yes. Absolutely. And then for clarification, I am a two pot coffee drinker. So I do in addition to the espresso drink a second pot of coffee after one o'clock. That means you can apply my dad's joke. I always use, my dad was a massive coffee drinker and I would add them like that. How much coffee do you drink? And he's like, you know, three, four pots. It's the truth. It is the truth. In 2022, people you can see me running 18 different marathons because of all the coffee I'm drinking. There we go. So I'm going to do a lot of success secret and then I will also call out to, and we'll include this in the show notes as well, but the most recent version of the productivity presentation I gave was about a year ago for sales hacker. So if you go to top 1.fm/bq4p because Bq was a thing they did on beyond quota. So beyond quota and then 4p is what I call my productivity process. And that's the number four. So Bq4 the letter P. Again, let's all linked up. Just go to the show notes. You're supposed to do. That's where all the stuff is. Listen to Scott, everyone. Yes, yes. Please listen. Well, this is a podcast. So by nature, I think they are listening. We're good in that department, Kaylee. But so we've talked about your information diet. We've talked about the way that you're structuring your week and all of these things. What about the tools and apps? What is your kind of personal stack look like? So I am a big time ever note user, which Scott, I think I pulled from one of your suggestions because honestly, a lot of the things that are currently built into who I am as a person have come from your suggestions. So if you are a frequent podcast listener of this podcast in particular, you might have already a lot of the things that I leverage, which is a good thing. So aside from ever note, I also leverage to do list. So those are all of the ways that I kind of prioritize my to do list on a daily basis. I am a large user of feedly. But honestly, for the specific industries, especially if you are in an industry like cybersecurity, grabbing all of the latest information and news articles that are happening within the hour has been super useful to jump on to a discovery call or anything else and have a relevant conversation with my customer prospect. Something I also mentioned, I really could not live without hood sweet. This is how I keep my social media content up to date and up to speed while I am busy doing other productive things. And that is pretty much my application suite that I leverage on a daily basis. In addition to that, I actually forgot one, I leverage Habitify. So that app helps me kind of list out all of the habits I do on an hourly basis. So this is setting out my gym clothes at night, turning on the coffee pot and really just accomplishing all of the things that I know I need to do daily in order to be successful. I leverage this app to track my progress and also give me the satisfaction of kind of checking off an activity that I'm going to do. So I do leverage Habitify. And then in addition to that, if you are anyone that practices mindfulness or says any affirmations to yourself, I do have an app called I am and I am essentially is an app that is full of affirmations that kind of just keep you going throughout the day if you need a bit of inspiration or some positive self-talk as you're kind of going through your day as a seller. Awesome. I'm glad you mentioned the meditation mindfulness piece again because I meant to ask, you talked about how you incorporated an Atomic Habits process into building that practice. What is that specifically? What did you do? What are the components? Yeah. So I actually, as if you're seeing me right now, I keep looking to my left because I have all of my habits written out and hung up on a cork board in my office. It's just kind of be there as a reminder for me, but there's something called Habit stacking. So you take your current habits and then you look to identify opportunities to add in an additional habit. Let's see, I want to do something and build up to 10 minutes. I'll start with two minutes of meditating. So for a long time, I was logging into my computer and then I needed to connect to the internet. So the moment that I came up the stairs, put my coffee cup down and prior to connecting to the internet, I would sit on the table. I'm on the floor of my office and I still do this and it will be something that's outlined in the personal operating system that will come out. I sit on the floor. of my office and I started off meditating for about two minutes. Super uncomfortable, super awkward, although no one was looking at me. And then I would connect to the internet. So it's doing things in such a way where it's a step by step where you can easily kind of nestle in an additional habit into what you're already currently doing on a daily basis. Perfect. Yep. Yep. Great stuff. And I mean, as one who has spent way too much time going down the habits and productivity, rabbit hole and having read a lot of books on the topic, atomic habits is probably the best encapsulation of all of that stuff. So if you're going to read one book, that does a really good job of pulling together the latest and the greatest from a huge range of stuff. So save yourself reading ten other books and just read that one. Agreed. Absolutely. So let's pivot here just a little bit and talk about, again, this kind of goes into that parsing of all the information that you've consumed around sales. Do you subscribe to a particular sales philosophy at this point? So that's an interesting question, specifically because there is so much information out there. And I do like to plug and play what works best for me in certain moments. However, I do look to something like MedPick or Invasion, which is taught by Jack Wilson with the sales rebellion. So a little bit of mystery there. If you're interested in learning about what Invasion is, then you need to contact Jack Wilson and talk about it. But I do, for the most part, try to align my processes with MedPick and just make sure that I am hitting and touching on a lot of the key components included in that. Nice. And then within that process, that approach, how would you describe your style? So I was thinking about this before the podcast for a little bit. Honestly, I would describe my style as one human wanting to help another human achieve their goals. So that looks differently depending on who I'm talking to. And a lot of that goes back to being genuinely curious, helping to better understand what others goals are and just being very others focused. So my style is very much in line with who I am as a person. And that's just being genuinely curious, asking questions and seeking to better understand who exactly I'm talking to both personality wise and just professionally as well. Oh, so good. So good. There's your tweetable moment. We'll go back and grab that quote. That was, that was absolutely fantastic. So we returned from another sidebar. And I had forgotten that Kayleigh has her own podcast. We were talking about some behind the scenes podcast magic that sorry, you don't get to hear, you just have to join the summit climbers, become number one, join me on the podcast. And then you get to see behind the scenes, but that's really the only way here. Kayleigh, you want to talk about what is that podcast? I know you're you're kind of pivoting and rebranding it because I think there's also just a ton of value in documenting the journey, right? Like taking the time to really observe the process as it evolves, because none of this stuff is static. Yeah. So that is a fantastic point and a large reason why I created the podcast. So my podcast is called Katie's journey and it came to be one day I was driving home from the gym, listening to a podcast. And historically, I have made a point throughout my entire professional life, which has been about three years now. I have made a point of meeting someone new at least every week. And if it's not every week, then I certainly try and make up for it with meeting at least someone every two weeks. But I make a point of meeting someone new as much as I can. And I was realizing I'm having some amazing conversations with some fantastically unique people and no one is hearing it but myself. I'm taking notes on the conversations and then I'm keeping the notes and then what happens to it. And I was taking a shower after getting home from the gym and I was like, wait a minute, I should make this into a podcast. And the general goal was not to become, you know, a podcast where I want sponsors and millions of people, the really interesting was to create kind of a library of all of these great conversations I was having. So that way I could go back and relisten to them. And then for those that felt as though it would be valuable to listen, could also have the opportunity to hear the exact same insights that I was also hearing. So that was the purpose of creating my podcast. I had started out first doing a mix of interviews and then also kind of a blog episode of just where I am in my life, what I'm doing. And then, you know, as I kind of looked to be as consistent as possible, I kind of dropped off those blog episodes just because time is not unlimited and just kept it to interviews now. But as we head into 2022, I will be doing some sort of rebrand with the podcast to kind of better align it with where I am now as a person. So you'll find that a lot of the things that I work on are things that are really, really in line with what I am currently focused on and what I'm interested in learning more about. Perfect. And Kaylee's going to remind me as that rebrand happens. And we'll update the show notes and you'll have a link to the current version of the podcast so that you can give that a listen. So Kaylee, you are keeping quite busy. You've got a lot of stuff on your plate. What motivates all of this? What motivates you? How do you think about motivation from that perspective? So what motivates me, honestly, is creating a path that leads me to becoming my best self. I love surprising myself and exceeding my own expectations of everything that I've done and I like looking back and seeing how hard I worked for those things. So I know that's kind of a gray area type of response to that. But I like exceeding my own expectations and really trying to just be pedal to the metal. So the motivation for me is in a competition with myself. Love it. Love it. Love it. Now this next question may be a little bit hard because I don't know that you hang out with a lot of average or typical salespeople. But is there something you believe that the average sales professional would think is crazy? Honestly, I feel like I've had some decent exposure into a few different types of salespeople and I'll leave it at that. But sales is what I will say for this is sales is so much more than just closing deals. It's about figuring out who you are as a human being and then how you can build your best self to ultimately help others achieve their goals. And I think that that's something maybe historically historical sellers or maybe sellers from from 25 years ago, 30 years ago. Maybe that wasn't a huge thing back then or maybe not a huge focus to really look at yourself first. But that is something that I really do believe in that you need to take a good hard look at yourself before being able to help others achieve what they're looking to achieve. Wow. So well said and I have a sample book title for you because you said you've got a book worth of stuff in you. Oh, it fell out of my head. It's something about self first sales or something like that. I'm writing that down. We'll put it in the show notes. Perfect. So Kaylee, what about the flip side? Is there something that the average or typical sales professional believes that you think is crazy? Yes. So the average and this is honestly something that I've heard frequently. And when I had initially prepared, you know, what I would say to this question, I wrote, no, I enjoy hearing different ideas. But as you just asked it now, something else popped into my head. What really bugs me of average or I don't know, just an average representative, a sales representative believes in that I think is crazy is that you don't need to focus on kind of bettering yourself and that you already know what you already know. And I think this is still a mindset largely and it's certainly not in the sales success community. But I'm sure anybody listening is thinking of those one or two people that you're like, yep, they fall into that category of thinking that they just know enough and that they don't need to learn anything else. They know how to sell and that's it. And I think that is truly crazy. I'm with you. I'm with you, but we're not normal. Yeah, exactly. What's been the most important decisions you've made or the lessons you had to learn to really kind of break through and get where you are today? So this is something that I'm currently going through right now. I've had to make the uncomfortable decision to leave my current company and jump into a new role at a new organization and a new industry. And I can best describe this scenario as for any of you that have ever been in a relationship and have gone through a breakup. It's one of those breakups where neither person did anything wrong. You're just moving on to a new portion of your life. So this was a really tough mental decision for me to make. And at the end of the day, you know, companies will will always be there. But most importantly, the relationships that you're making at the companies that you're at, they're what you make of them. So you know, if you don't put in effort, then things fizzle out. And a lot of the reason that this was an important and tough decision that I made, it was just because I was like, man, I'm going to lose all of these amazing people that I met. And the reality of it is, is that it doesn't work like that. And it truly is what you put into it. And similar to keeping a garden alive, keep nurturing those relationships. And you'll have a full garden full of people to talk to. But another lesson that I want to throw in there that I've learned is that it is absolutely okay to be different. It's okay to not go out and party on the weekend or do all this crazy easy stuff for those listening that don't know I am 23 years old. So for me, going through this portion of my life focused very much on business and professional development. I've come across scenarios where people think it's weird to be learning more about sales or spending time on company happy hours instead of going out to a bar and partying with all these people that maybe don't have the same shared mindset that you do. So not everyone will understand it. And if you have people in your life that are like that, consider shedding some fat and keeping your circle small with the people who will lift you up and support your goals. Wow. Alright, so first, I guess I didn't realize you were only 23. It's ridiculous. Wait, did you really not know that? I don't know what I thought. I know you're young, but yeah, that's very surprising to me. So there's a lot to unpack there, right? And one of the things just honestly out of personal curiosity I'd love to hear about is you seem headed down a pretty specific path, right? Like you have a degree in cybersecurity and you were selling for a cybersecurity organization. And now you're pivoting to a completely different industry. How are you thinking about that? So I am thinking about it with a ton of excitement because this just means I am adding another tool into my tool belt of learning how to do something a little bit different than what I'm currently used to. I think it's a really great opportunity to kind of just expand my skill set and see what I'm made of. So it goes back to what motivates me and it's really self versus self. So I'm excited to see what future Kaley is going to create and I'm definitely ready to challenge her as well. Yeah. Well, there's a lot of us who are following your journey. And now that we all know that you're 23, we're probably paying even more attention because this is kind of ridiculous. You are the second person to say that today actually and quite surprising that this has happened twice in one day. Well, it's an eventful day. It's I mean, your mindset is so great. And I know that this has also been a challenging day because it's the day that you gave notice and had a lot of those conversations. But I think your outlook on it is exactly right. My personal rule is I don't even carry matches on bridges. So you know, there's the old saying that you never want to bird a bridge. I am so into that and so far into that. It's not even funny. And these are those types of relationships. And I think your call out there was so spot on is like, you know what? This is about me. This is a step I need to take. There's nothing that you as a company or you as leadership did wrong. I just need to go and do something else and there's no reason at all that that means that that's the end of the human relationships. It might be the end of the professional employer employee relationship, but that doesn't mean that anything else has to stop. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's massively important, especially even the responses of current leadership of just, hey, you know, this is what we want as leaders. It's sad that you're leaving. But I'm incredibly or were incredibly happy that you're taking this next step and expanding who you are as a human being. So brief little shout out for those in the sales success community. If you're looking to jump into cybersecurity sales, great castle security is the place that you want to be at because there are leaders like that that want you to expand and grow and achieve great things. And I think that that really has made me feel so much better throughout a tough decision like this. And I mean, that type of a culture is so, so important. And unfortunately, I feel like it's a minority. I think more companies than not would feel like you did something wrong or that's not the right path, right? Like that you did. Anyway, it's something that I was thinking about earlier in our conversation to around the sales success summit and around the community and for the leaders who are listening to this who because we've I've had a number of teams sign up again for this next year's summit. And it takes a really strong leader to recognize that the most important thing is the growth of the individual. Even if that means some of them might need to continue their path of growth somewhere else. Right. And I build this event in this community. It's for the sales professional, right? Like, yeah, sometimes the dollars and the decisions even are coming from leaders. But I'm really interested in in those enlightened leaders that are on board with that type of culture and that type of perspective that growth is not a bad thing, right? We want people to continue to develop and achieve more. And again, if that means that they go somewhere outside of the organization or they make a connection within the community to take that next step, that's just part of it. It can't be something that you fear. I mean, it's kind of like that. The meme that is the CEO talking to the CFO and the CFO says, you know, what happens if we spend all this money on developing people and they leave and the CEO says, yeah, but what if we don't? I think it's that same philosophy. I am in total agreement with that. And I think especially now more than ever, especially in the day and age of, as everyone's calling it, the great resignation, supporting your current employees and really supporting whatever growth that they're interested in doing or professional development that they're diving into to have that support and be there as their backbone and cheerleader to help them along the way. And I think it's just massively important, not only for retention, but like we're saying, if that employee will learn and grow in a different space, then be that person to say, hey, you should do that. Yeah. So well said. So well said. I'm curious what advice you would give to somebody that's just getting started in their sales career today because you know, they're 21. Yeah. Absolutely. So advice that I would give to someone just starting out is don't get too caught up in the planning on how you'll be most successful. I think we can all get really tied up in the nitty gritty of no, this plan's not perfect, this plan's not perfect. And my best advice to you is to just jump into it, ask questions and lean on others to help fill in the knowledge gaps that you might have. People want to help you, but all you have to do is ask. And going back to my point on just jump into it, I know for example, LinkedIn is something that people are super uncomfortable with still even though it's it's getting up there and getting extremely popular. It's still something that a lot of people are like, oh, I have to post something. And my recommendation is just jump into it and give it a shot. If you scroll back two years ago to my very first LinkedIn video, you will cringe. And that's okay because now you can look at my videos today and say, wow, look how much that changed for the better. So just jumping into it is my best advice for someone just starting out. You learned that a lot faster than I did. I spent the early part of my career. I way over planned and over thought, right? And it was, I got to have the answer to everything and it takes a while to figure out that, you know what, that matters. Because once you get out into the real world, you're going to get knocked around in ways that you can't ever plan for or can't expect. And that's what you learn the most from. It's much better to adjust to that stuff than it is to adjust your plan, right? And that's my approach now. It's like, we're just going to run it stuff really fast and screw up things really fast and adjust as quickly as we can and get as good as we can from that perspective. Absolutely. And that's the best advice I can give to someone just starting out. Just start. Love it. Love it. What about somebody that's a little further in and in particular, I think I'm interested here in, I don't know if it was a mindset shift or a decision or, you know, going from, I'm in this role, I'm doing well. But now I'm going to change my trajectory and I'm going to get to the top. So I think my advice there is always keep learning. You are never done learning and you can always refine a process. So let's say that for years and years and years, you're doing really well, but haven't quite hit the top 1% and that's your goal. And if that's your goal and you set your mind to it, I think what you would need to do is look back and refine your current process and learn how you could make it better. I think the biggest mistake people could make in their career is getting comfortable with what they know and stopping the learning process. If you think that you're the best in the room, just know that there are plenty of other people working double time to beat you. And I think that's a really true reality. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And I want to remember too, what's so interesting about this is I have basically asked the same set of questions since the beginning of this show. And what I love about that is just kind of a consistency, right? You can hear how different people who have completely different styles that are indifferent industries in different roles kind of respond to and think about these different questions. But I got a great question from an earlier, a pretty recent podcast guest. And it was, what's your favorite failure? So I almost forgot to ask that, but I'd love to ask it of you, Kaylee. What's your favorite failure? My favorite failure is not a specific point in time, but my favorite self-failure that I do far too frequently, but I am working on is saying too much. There is such a thing as just oversharing. And sometimes I can be like a car smashing into a fire. fire hydrant and that fire hydrant is just flooding the city. And sometimes I can be like that. And for me, that is something that has almost turned into my Achilles heel of, you know, things that could lead to just not not great things. Sometimes you need to keep information to yourself. And it's important to know when and where to do that. And that's something that I'm still learning. Love it. Love it. I mean, such great self awareness, right? Which I think is the other hard part of this is recognizing and calling out like, yeah, this is this stuff I'm still not doing great that I need to continue to work on. Do you have any type of process around that? I mean, are you doing some self reflection and thinking about, okay, this is something I need to work on? Yeah. So actually, my ability to over share is beyond frustrating to me. So it's something that just instantly, instantly pisses me off. And I'm, yeah. So what I do for that, and this is advice from Jack Wilson is to put a bunch of little paw prints around my desktop. And the purpose of the paw prints is to give me an opportunity to look at those paw prints and pause. Pause stands for P, pause, a awareness, W wonder, and then S speak. And ultimately, what this does is just helps me slow down in a conversation and take a moment to think about what I'm saying, how to word it and then respond with an effective and pin pointed answer. I've even gone as far as to make this my lock screen on my cell phone because that is how frequent I am over sharing. Too funny. Well, let's, let's be really, really clear right now right now. I'm trying to get you to over share. And this is my role. Although that is a great acronym and a great approach. So I absolutely love it. Kaley, you already do this a ton. And I mean, you, you again, are so immersed in the sale success community. But I wonder what do you still want to know about the top sellers and other organizations? So going back to what I really try and focus on a lot of the times is where I'm at in my life. So recognizing that, you know, life happens, family happens. I would love to hear from other top sellers who have a family or have other crazy life family things going on and how you best manage being in the top 1% while maintaining an effective work life balance. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. I mean, I think we've covered that to some degree in a lot of episodes, but to your point, I mean, it's probably something worth digging even deeper into because it dramatically changes. And it's, it's a huge adjustment once we throw kids into the mix. And I know Jack, who you spent a lot of time with, has been going through that. And I believe has number two on the way. Am I right? He does indeed. It's about to get a whole lot crazier in the Wilson household. Yeah. Yeah. Great, great, great stuff. And, you know, I mean, it's one of those things that I think it's absolutely important. I may have to go back through and think about, could we even organize some of the episodes based on that? You know, I've done it around the SDR episodes and the enterprise sales episodes and the episodes that feature women like yourself. But I haven't done it from like a family situation perspective, which could be, which could be pretty interesting. Yeah. That is definitely something that I would subscribe to. Awesome. All right. Well, something for us to work on. So we both have homework at this point now. So, Kaylee, I wonder, I mean, we've covered a ton of ground. Is there anything that I didn't ask or that you were hoping that we would talk about that somehow or other, I haven't managed to get to yet? So the next question on your frequently asked questions is, who is the most successful salesperson that I know personally? And just to call them out, and we've been talking about them throughout this whole episode, but the most successful salesperson that I know personally is truthfully and honestly, Jack Wilson. And I kid you not, and you know just as well as I do that guy can go anywhere and move massive boulders. He is a once in a lifetime coach and a really fantastic friend. So for those of you in the sales success community that have not yet met Jack personally, I highly recommend getting into his network and meeting him because he is absolutely someone that you want in your circle. Brilliant. So good. He is the only presenter at the sales success summit who has, I think at this point, removed all of his clothing on stage. Kind of a long story. You're going to have to kind of watch the videos to understand that. But no, Jack is, Jack, like you, right? Has been such a pillar of this community. And going back to that summit climbers program that we're working to put together, he along with David Weiss was one of the first people I reached out to and said, Hey, what do you think about this? Would you be willing to contribute to this to be a part of this to help those that are working to get to the top to do it? And was the fastest reply on the planet? You know, like, are you insane? Of course, I'm in on this. And Jack is also committed to a weekly contribution on the daily sales tips podcast. So I think you'll probably be hearing him most Friday. So if you're not listening to that podcast yet, go subscribe to the daily sales tips podcast and you'll get frequent doses of Jack Wilson, who is a pretty amazing individual on all levels. Kaylee, this has been really, really amazing. I am so glad that we got a chance to feature you here. We got to dig a little bit deeper into your story. You know, I'm always trying to make this as actionable as we can. So what's your challenge for our listener over the course of the next one to two weeks so that they can improve themselves and improve their results? So quite plainly, I challenge you to read or listen to atomic habits and revisit areas in your daily routine where you can build on the goals you're looking to achieve in 2022. Well said, so easily stated. So here's what I want you to do where we will have that document or that challenge fully documented. Go to the show notes page, go to top one.fm/this episode number. That's probably the easiest way to do it. Fill out the form. All you're going to need to do is drop in your name and your email address to get access to Kaylee's personal operating system. And I want you to seriously consider joining us at the sales success summit. And if you're ready to go that one step further and commit to the path that is going to take you to the top 1% in your organization, put together that plan, put together your own approach. And we would love to help you get to the top. The details about the summit are at top 1 summit dot com. But again, if you go to top 1.fm forward slash the episode number, you will find everything, everything, everything there. Kaylee, you're amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. It seriously is a dream and I cannot believe it happened just now. So thank you so much. Thanks for listening to the sales success stories podcast to be sure you never miss an episode. And for an invitation to our sales success community, powered by Influedif, subscribe to our newsletter at top 1 dot fm.