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hey Craig thanks for joining us today is where you're getting started give us a little background on yourself yeah thank you so of course my name is Craig Hodges and I appreciate the opportunity to join today thank you so much Brian um as far as background I've been in sales for I'm guessing well over 20 years but maybe not well over but over 20 years and uh I started out like you a little different than most salespeople I didn't get a bdr job out of college like a lot of folks did and I wasn't involved in the sales area at all in fact my my father was though he was a long time salesperson and so I always thought well that's a good career to have but I wanted to get into business and so I started out as a purchasing agent and so I did that for probably about six years uh sitting on on one side of the desk and interviewing sales people all the time and after a while what happened was your performance didn't match what your pay was it has no correlation whatsoever no it's not correlated so I'm saving a company millions of dollars and I'm getting you know just you know part of the part of the uh the I guess we'll call it the group's budget I would get a little bit of the raise maybe you know a percent more than everybody else which you know it wasn't enough so after seeing uh these sales people come across the desk over and over again sitting on the other side and talking to them um I thought you know I can do that and I had a I was put a I had like a a plaque that would I would sit on the side of the sales people let them know what I'm looking for and so since I had that I thought well I'm just going to go jump on the other side of the desk and do that okay how'd that go ah yeah so basically it was it was a it was a it was a culture shock to say the least right and so the first thing I did was call on one of my good suppliers and I knew they had a need for what I was selling and I had given them a great opportunity one that they're still 20 some years later exercising today and they had absolutely no desire to buy from me I was like what it's me it's me yeah don't you know who I am yeah who I was yeah and so that that was my first uh introduction into sales I thought I'd get something under my belt really quick and it just didn't go how I wanted so you know you gotta adjust and you gotta you gotta put in the work and that's what I did so the motive was economic at first or was it economic and future upside the motivation was was essentially economic and so you know when when you're on the one side of desk you get paid a salary to do your job maybe a small performance bonus and you're doing better than everybody else in the group but in sales you find out right away how you're doing and you get instant feedback from the market was that may be and how awesome it'll be too right so that that's why I got into sales just because it you know the customers when you deal with them directly are voting you up or down whereas management even in Sales Management subjective right I mean but it's really it's really the customer so that's what it was yeah and how long did it take you to get your groove in sales how long take my groove I would I would say to hit the groove it was probably I'm probably a slow learner right so I'd say it's probably three years yeah once I hit my groove I was rolling and year after year I was the number one salesperson uh year after year after year after year yeah well let's dig into that how did you do that so essentially i i i modeled myself after what I wanted to see as a Salesman right and so empathy I had that plaque that I talked about on the side of my desk and I have it sitting right here and and I would always the first thing on the list is you know have the the buyer right which is of course the customer's interest at heart right you need to be able to go to bat for them within your firm that was like the number one thing and so I always carry that forward making sure that I understood or that the customer understood that my job is to make you look good and the reason for that was was you know as a purchasing agent you make decisions all day long right and and you know if everything goes right that's your job it's when things go wrong now why did you make that decision and of course in in this world especially in a software world you know everything's not going to go right just didn't go it's not and so now you have to find out do you have a good supplier or a bad supplier that's when you find out if everything goes right you never know but if something goes wrong now you know so I always wanted to work for a good supplier and that's you know that's what I call them today still suppliers but suppliers vendors yeah vendors oh yeah that's a nasty word right a vendor no I gotta believe you know because I did a short stint in procurement as well it wasn't very formal there was two of us so it was really just Administration but you understood how companies get things done administratively yep did that help you in sales it still does yeah it absolutely still does and so it's one of those things where you do it day in day out for years you you know like for example I would bring in Consultants to help with certain activities because I didn't know the full business so I'd hire a consultant and let them assist me through that and of course you're putting on committees right which of course now I mean you see a lot of buying happening even today with committees now you got to deal with these multiple personalities on it on the committee you got to make sure that you know you're dealing with an analyst but you're hearing the people in the group saying hey this analyst has got really the keys of the deal so you better make sure you pay attention to the analyst and those kind of things sitting on the inside I would understand and what helps you and what helps me in sales is I can tell where I'm at in the deal I can tell if I'm doing okay I can tell if I have problems I can tell who I should focus on all because of that experience sitting on the other side of the desk and watching it answering those questions and most importantly listening yeah and so getting to number one that must clearly must have been a goal you brought it up so you clearly value that oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely so what's behind that yeah what's behind getting to be number one well you have to do you have to do the homework on the organization you're you're looking to go after you have to send the emails which of course back then it wasn't emails right you didn't have that but you have today you have to send the emails you gotta reach out on LinkedIn you got to do all those things that are out there but it has to be a quality lead as well and quality comes with building relationship making sure that that Prospect understands that you have their interest in heart and that you understand what they're trying to solve not what I'm selling what are they trying to solve and so that that's really the key and what I would always do you know from from when that I used to sell a recording right so telephone recording for contact centers and so having conversation so if you have it you're just going to use in the office right listening to those conversations that you would have on the phone really provides an objective analysis of what you're doing and people hate it they hate listening to their calls and the reason is that you hear all your flaws you're you're always your worst your worst critiqueer is you yeah and so in order to improve yourself you know I listen to those calls and by listening to them you also hear the things that weren't said in the conversation that you didn't hear because like you and I are talking and I'm I'm thinking hard but there's things that aren't being that are being said that I'm not hearing because I'm trying to get to the next thing I'm trying to get over what I have to say next and so by listening to that you pick up on those things and that's really oftentimes where you identify what are they really looking for and what question is going through your mind to find out what they're really looking for well that's all dancing on the site right and so sales is a process and as you're going through the sales motion you're asking questions right but as you review the meeting you're thinking okay I'm following a process here I'm looking at my medic process for example what holes have I yet to fill in that knowledge and so as you get your next meeting before you you prep you make sure that hey these are the three things that I want to get accomplished in this next meeting I need to know this this and this and I don't want to make it too much because I don't want to make it too obvious but for me anytime I'm meeting with a customer I'm trying to move that ball forward a little bit so it's not like it's it's more like a feel during the meeting than it's planning after the meeting to fill in the gaps yeah and what do you think is your strongest selling characteristic listening for sure yeah that's 100 is understanding what the customers wants to buy and then strategize making strategic decisions on getting to that result is really is really what I'm good at I would say that of course negotiating I'm very good at as well I mean I can think of a couple of times where I've had I I can tell when I've sold the deal I know when I sold the deal and so now when it comes time to redline and negotiate price and those things I know how hard I can push and so like I remember being on a call this is when covet first happened and really no one in the company had closed any deals yet with the lockdown so everybody's really anxious a lot of pressure to get something done right and I knew but I knew I knew I sold this deal it was already sold all the competition was eliminated I was working with the CIO I'm sorry the CFO and the ultimate decision maker and so they they made a mistake already telling me so now everybody in the team internal team is on the call and I think I had like eight people on a call which from an account executive standpoint when you're in this stage I would rather have less people than more people but it was chock full of people and we had the old pregnant pause and I'm sure you're familiar with the pregnant pause where the customer says hey Craig I need to sharpen your pencil yeah you you need to you need to move on the price and and you know and I said you know Mr customer I went back I researched it I talked to everybody I pushed it up and man I am at where I am at this there's nothing I can do and then it was a pause just like that but this was 11 seconds long which you know in a conversation 11 seconds is a whole lot of time and finally he said uh well I had to ask game over right well I think a lot of people and it depends on the customer and what you're selling think that the CFO is the economic decision maker it's like maybe the administrative yeah it was we were we were in teasing season he was signing it and so he was giving it you know and beating up a salesperson is it's a great way to start the day isn't it yeah yeah that was actually sport right yeah I get 10 20 50k off look at me exactly but he but they'd already let the cat out of the bag so yeah and give us some insight or ideas of how you kind of knew did they tell you we're going with you or did they kind of just not kind of you knew no one they weren't looking at anyone else any longer yeah I mean basically through asking questions you know you can read into the answers and so you ask a question you don't hear a direct answer on another meeting asking another question you don't get the direct answer but you know between these two questions the answer is there and so there always is some assumption you need to make yeah right but but that's where being on the other side of the table gives me the confidence to make that decision this is this is where we're at we're in good shape there's nobody else let's let's go ahead and and get our best margin that we can out of this deal but that's it because clients typically won't overtly tell you we've eliminated everybody else and it's going to be you so really give it to us yeah yeah no that's not going to happen I mean I guess in a perfect world it would but you and I don't yeah you can tell you can tell I mean how active are they with responding to you right if you call them and they're right back on the spot with you you're like okay I'm feeling good about this you know are we having a Friday night after six conversation boy I'm feeling really good now right so it's just those indications that you pick up during the sales process and you just throughout the process you're always trying to affirm where you're at in that process where am I at yeah you ask them you know do you have any Consultants to help you implement this well we always had our implementation Consultants you know so we had those internally and that's what we would we would push certainly you know when we're working on other deals with rfps and and they have their you know big three accounting firms helping them right that's a whole a whole nother a whole nother challenge to that but yeah and what do you think or what skill have you developed as a salesperson over the years that really separates you from number two and three again I'll I'll go I'll go back to listening understanding what the customer is going to be buying is critical and let's dig into that because typically they don't know right they they need something to do something some way yes and they wanted to work fast and soon and be not too expensive as a not ruffle feathers so again you know you have your your basically your committee and you're looking for what each person is trying to to solve for so the analyst is looking for it easy to use and the you know the the economic buyer is looking forward to be of a given price and everybody has their own I guess we'll just call every everybody has their own stake in this and what they want to do and you have to balance all of that and come up with a solution that you feel is going to fit that and so through collaboration internally right working with your your um your Solutions Engineers your management uh you can put together a package and a pitch to suit those points so look you were at the high end you were not at the low end so you had to earn that margin well certainly yes you had to earn a margin yeah and again it's it's all about positioning the product and the value of the product and so you know that that goes all the way back to preparation of the call right and so in the data analytics space you're looking for some common metrics that they're measuring you're you're looking for what maybe there's some machine learning that's going to decrease the amount of customer churn right those are the kind of things that you're looking for within there to justify the sale and so that that's all part of that internal collaboration and selling that higher ended product or higher and software and in those committees you know everyone's got an opinion but some opinions matter more than others yeah it's not a democracy it never is a democracy and I can think back to my my purchasing days when you know I I would basically have the committee and then great those are great opinions that's happened for sure yeah and I remember those committee meetings but then there's always you know in maybe your space was a little bit different like the Chief Architect was always the pretty much the decision maker yeah well you know when purchasing you know I had different Commodities technology was one but there was a whole host of other Commodities so it just depended on what was being bought and how that's that that decision got made some of them I didn't have as much influence but others I had ultimate influence yeah and so you're right trying to understand that in the buying committee is is extremely important and what were you listening to that would tell you that it was going your way versus low-cost provider way that you or portfolio because although you guys were big you probably didn't reach the level of the portfolio company like a Oracle Salesforce IBM HP type company again it would come back to to selling that that specific thing that they were looking to solve for yeah what were they trying to solve and quite frankly you know a lot of competition you know we'll just call it throw up and show up they don't pay attention to the details that need to be paid attention through throughout the sales process so they have their pitch down and they're going to go on their pitch and they're going to put up their PowerPoint and they're going to say hey these are the great things about our company and why why that you should buy it and you know the customer doesn't care about your company they couldn't care less about your company they're trying to solve their problems so you got to focus on them oh and were you best with the executives or better with the technical people or certainly uh I mean I since I sold in the technical space for a long time I've always been good with the technical folks that's always been something that uh that I've excelled at but oftentimes you know when you deal with the executives you know you can bring in uh your you know yours your sales superiors your VP and do a VP to VP discussion right bring in higher authority making sure those connections get made so that it's all part of quarterback and the opportunity right I need Executive Lyman here let's make some internal connections and let's let's get those two together to talk yeah and how did you get the understanding of all this technology because you sold very deep and Broad stuff it wasn't a brochure type stuff it was really deep stuff yeah and so basically you know if I look at here on my list of stuff class a sales person right that's what it says here and it goes down to technical education and so you have to take time to learn it on your own I've always been very good at being able to visualize how things work that's just one of my natural abilities and so being able to visualize how things work helps you in the sales process a lot because now you can explain it to your prospect this is how it's going to work this is how this messaging works this is how we're going to make a 360 degree view of your customer yeah and were you able to go it alone or did you require a sales engineer in most calls or well I will save back in back in the earlier days there you were I was working with a smaller company so you were it so you had no choice yeah you just get out there and you do it from A to Z but as you as you grow into the Enterprise space you know you're getting a lot of extra support you're getting support from the manufacturer first they started having solution Engineers on the calls and then as you start working for Enterprise like tibco they have the support to help you through the deal they have the subject matter experts to help you through the opportunity so it just again it's a quarterbacking thing where do I have my gaps where do I need to fill them and you just pull those people in and collaborate and make the deal and some people are big deal big elephant Hunters some people are lots of medium deals and some people are transactional lots of lots of lots activity activity activity where do you fit on that Spectrum I would I would say the the other two meaning that the higher end deal the elephant hunting and then you have to mix in the medium-sized deals because if you don't your numbers are not going to look very good quarter to quarter yeah right and so you know we we see a lot of transactional people and being in the in the Enterprise space you would actually I oftentimes saw people were they would they would press the customer to the point where they didn't want to talk to you anymore and so that was the last day the new AES in here and the first thing you hear out of their mouth is don't go above my head where did that come from well you get you get a lot of pressure put on these account Executives and they they will do anything happily burn a relationship yeah yeah and how did you repair that time yeah right and so you got to get so for example with some of these larger customers they'll have weekly meetings and support meetings attend the meetings be with them there right the other you know some account Executives will feel like well I don't want to give up my account executive status by being at this lowly meeting there's something to that right okay that's great yeah but from my perspective anytime I face time I get with a with the customer or the prospect that's I want to be there right so that way I get yeah that's that's me yeah and let's say because a lot of people are very comfortable either talking to the user of the product or the pure economics of how the product impacts the company sounds like you've been able to do both yeah absolutely and again when you can think about being back to when when you're purchasing right you you are the executive you are at least I was I was I had all the authority with my Commodities period And so and also back in you know I was also in the military where I was an infantry officer and so I I get it I've been at that level I understand that level and so I try to make things quick and concise when I'm working with those folks but I've also you know I've been Joe Snuffy the trooper right so I understand that as well and did the military experience help sales oh yeah a lot and so yeah sales is is not comfortable it's not if anything it's not constant not comfortable right and so the what the military teaches you real early on is I don't care if you're comfortable right who does that they don't I mean if you've ever ridden and I had a friend of mine and uh he went on drill weekend with me great you want to come I said hey you you know you want to ride the bus you want to ride in the in the Humvee and he says man I want the full experience I want to ride in the Humvee I'm like well it's going to be raining well he didn't get it so three hours later right in a in a Humvee when it's raining is you might as well be outside yeah so he was soaked on the way up there and so they don't care about your being comfortable and so that prepared me well for being in sales because you have to just get out in front of people and you have to talk to them is is uncomfortable as you may feel at the moment just jump in and it'll be fine so it it handled all those uh stress levels that you typically feel in sales it was nothing compared to someone yelling in your face at six in the morning I had I had one instance where we had a maneuver and uh it was you know I never got deployed so just keep that in mind so it was just a maneuver and I it was like 45 degrees you're trying to determine what uniform am I going to wear am I going to wear my winter so I'm going to wear my Summers well I wore my Summers and I on the way up to the objective I split my pants from my right knee to my left um I guess what it's called belt loop well you can imagine being an infantry you go commando so I don't know if I need to tell people what Commando is but you can imagine what Commando is so it's cold Windows Seinfeld yeah yeah if you know Seinfeld so anyway I'm split from stem to stern right and again you know it's not that big a deal it's all guys all right so anyway what do you think the the Battalion Commander notices who do you think has to give the briefing in front of 600 soldiers okay there goes the on a cold day I'm interesting nobody yeah but everybody had a good a good laugh at my expense so it you know there's nothing that bad that's going to happen to you in sales well because a lot of people say well military people can be good but they're they need to be told what to do and I'm like no no that's no I mean this it depends on the Army right but here in the United States we're very uh Mission focused and a mission a mission is not step by step take that Hill which is a lot like sales make that sale yeah figure it out figure it out yeah exactly yeah it's up to you let's get her done yeah and what skill do you wish you had learned that first three years in sales that you know the rejection was was difficult to learn it was it was it was it was a challenge right and understanding it took me a little bit to to understand that this is an annuity business you're going to make a sale to some the same person you might lose it once but but you're you you exit with class you exit with understanding you get a good after action review which is basically a summation of what happened on this deal from them and you you carry it forward and then when you run into them again they have a good feeling about you you might be selling the same product you might be selling a different product but they have a good feeling about you you know I worked with Craig in the past and this is a great deal so you know some of those early losses you know I I could have handled them better yeah and what was the Tipping Point after the three years was it you had a big deal that gave you the self-confidence that put all that stuff away or you know you just you just I I would say I wouldn't say it was a big deal that put that stuff away I would say it was just the the totality of what had gone on over the past three years that just gives you enough experience in order to pick it up and move it down the road yeah and why did you choose to stay as an individual contributor I I had gone I've been up in management a couple of times one of the times it was basically I would say every time I didn't stay up there it was because I didn't I did not believe in what the my supervisor was telling me to do right and so as an individual contributor if you're bringing in the numbers no one's going to really argue too much with with what you're doing and how you're doing it but if you are if you're you know in management and you know the management feels that the account Executives need to make 600 calls in a month and guess what guess what you know they get the uniform on put the uniform on yeah yeah you know the deal with the Winter's on this time yeah exactly believe me that was a lesson learned put the winters on cool I really appreciate your time today Craig where can people go to connect and follow you oh I didn't come to my my LinkedIn profile Craig B Hodges yeah absolutely