Posted: January 12th, 2023

For this discussion, you are to read  the video transcripts, that discusses the

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For this discussion, you are to read  the video transcripts, that discusses the sales journey of the three diverse individuals and reflect on the following questions:
What in particular do you think made each of these individuals a successful salesperson?
What attributes do you possess that you think might make you a successful salesperson? Be specific.
What attributes do you think might be a hindrance if you decide to enter the selling profession?
What did you learn from their experiences that might help you become a stronger salesperson right away?
Did this lesson change the way you look at salespeople and what makes salespeople successful in the real world?
You must write a minimum of 150 words for your response to all questions.
ASH-LEE MICHAEL JAMES: My name is Ash-Lee Michael James. My company name is Weystone Financial. And my official title is managing director of Weystone Financial. 
My journey to finding a sales career was a bit of an anomaly, to be honest with you, because at first, as a college graduate, I was at McDonald’s. And after being there for about 11 months, I got offered the opportunity of an interview. 
And it was a bit of a funny story. Because of my accent, I thought the interview was about wheels, which is car insurance-related. I was more than happy to learn the role, go into anything else they wanted to bring me up to. So I said, as long as you’re willing to give me the training, I can learn it. I know sales myself. 
Got the job. And on day one, I found out they were talking about wills, as in dying, death, life insurance. So it was a backwards road into it. But when you have work ethic, when you can apply yourself, I assimilated into the role quite seamlessly once I realized what I was actually into. So yeah, it is a bit of chance. But at the end of the day, you generate your own luck as well. 
It was a magical fit because it turned out that not only is it a relevant industry, but as I started to surpass my peers, grow, and became recognized in that area, funny enough, about eight years later, I ended up having my own company and having my own staff and actually having other people in that same exact industry, my former peers, come to me for not only advice but asking for me for jobs as well. 
So to come that full spectrum in such a short span amount of time, winning awards that I never dreamed of, just being an advisor myself, is a testament to how far I’ve come as an individual. But also making sure that I didn’t just take this by chance. I actually took everything on stride and tried to make sure I took it to a higher level than just doing the bare minimum. 
I was headhunted for the role as the managing director, actually, because a few people had heard about my experience. I had a former recruiter who would work with me over the years who, funny enough, helped me get one of my other better jobs in the past and thought I’d be the perfect kind of role to help nurture and grow an organization. 
Was it everything I entailed? Not everything as such, because for me as a person, I never envisioned owning a company 100% by myself. That’s never my goal. I was built up around teen sports and the idea of building up others. So having at that point almost a one-man band, that wasn’t my kind of gig, whereas I was more about being the team player, the captain, the director of the ship. I’d rather be a sales manager driving a force and having other powers that be higher than me. 
So that was a bit of a difficult challenge for me, actually being the face and image of a brand. So over time, eventually, once I established the brand, established the credibility and reputation that preceded me beforehand just by myself, that’s when I started to feel more comfortable when I had people underneath me. And it didn’t have to be about me. It was about the brand, Weystone. 
My current position as the managing director, it’s now at this moment in time exactly as I hoped it would be. It’s a position where I facilitate the day-to-day activities, which is, for example, for myself, I speak to banks, lenders about my clients. I get to reach out to introducers, so people who want to introduce either clients to us on a daily basis, on a monthly basis, on a one-off basis, to make sure that our advisors have clients that they can work with. 
So it’s actually developed into a business-to-business type of model instead of a business-to-client-based model, which is fine. But the way I put it is I’m actually chasing golden geese as opposed to chasing golden eggs. 
A business-business relationship is a lot more dynamic because you’re talking to people who are potentially clients as well. But as a business, you have more liabilities at stake. It’s easier to talk in terms of just statistics and numbers. Whereas if you’re talking to a person about their personal circumstance, it’s more of a heart conversation. 
Whereas, for example, if you say you’ve got a business company, you need business insurance, this is the cost, they know that they need it. It’s a much-needed transaction. It’s a lot more cut and dry. It’s a lot higher premiums, monthly payments that people need to pay. But it’s a very straightforward conversation in terms of you need it. This is something reputable. It’s end of type situation. 
Whereas when you’re dealing from a business to a client perspective, they want to get bought in a lot more into yourself. They have a lot more options in terms of client basis. When you talk about the power of millennials, et cetera, they want to get 10, 15 different answers, quotations. 
Whereas you’re a business-to-business, if they find someone that they trust, they’ll stick with that person for the next 10-odd years. And not only that. The people that work within the business potentially reach out to you as well. So it’s a lot different dynamics because you find that people are coming to you as opposed to you chasing down individuals. 
Some of my favorite things in sales is the day-to-day dynamics just change. You’d never speak to two exact of the same scenarios. And as always, you’ll find new solutions. You’re a problem solver to everyone’s kind of dynamic. 
And especially in our industry, which is ever-changing, ever evolving, you can’t just go in with the same pitch, the same dynamic. You’ve got to listen, actually, more than you actually to talk. And the better the listener you are and active listener you are, sometimes you end up making the person the best salesperson there is possible. So that’s actually something I quite love. 
I wish someone would have told me that I had the power to actually go out on a limb and do this all myself from the very beginning. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword because it’s a catch-22 of experience versus credibility. But I wish someone would have actually told me that you’re using and soaking up information up for a further purpose. 
A good salesperson has the attribute of being an active listener. If you’re an active listener, you can actually hear what the people who you’re talking to on a regular basis generally want. And the other part of it is getting them, in their own words, to explain what they want, why they want it, and what happens if they don’t have it. 
Because at the end of the day, a generally good salesperson and the greatest salespeople, they don’t have to say what the client wants. They get the client to say it. And they get the client to say, this is what I want, and I want it now. 
I wish someone would have told me how hard it is. When it comes to sales, it’s almost like these athletes online that are getting slated off on Twitter, et cetera. You just have to have a thick skin and understand it’s not necessarily always about you. It’s sometimes people have had a bad day. It’s sometimes that there are other circumstances as well. 
But what you have to do is take on board all the things that you can do to get better with each call, with each person you meet face-to-face, and just get better. 
A great football coach I used to have back in the day said, the most important play in life or on the football field is the next one. You could have a terrible phone call or a terrible meeting with one client. But if you carry that mood into your next client, that client could be your month, your year. 
And all it takes is one bad instance. We only get one chance to make that first appearance. That’s it, one chance. People will judge you within the very first four seconds of either hearing your voice or seeing your face. And all it takes is that one bad carry on to potentially ruin your next day as well. 
So for me, any new opportunity is a new opportunity to change your day. That could be the catalyst to actually having a good day or a good moment. 
Advice I would give to an undergrad student is take on board and watch people that you want to be like. For example, for yourself, if you want to be in sales, if you want to be an astronaut, whatever it is in your undergrad, see someone that you know that has done it, that has been there, and that you can actually emulate. 
Because the worst thing you can do is take the advice of people that haven’t done the walk, haven’t gone to those actual end roads as well, because then it’s just you’re talking generics. You might as well be a Monday morning quarterback. 
So try and find people, either on LinkedIn or social media, that you know of that have gone into the exact fields that you have done as close as possible and ask. Get the answers from the horse’s mouth. JENNIFER SHEETS: My name is Jennifer Sheets, and I work for Access DMC as a sales manager. 
A DMC is a Destination Management Company, and we bring events to the city that we’re in. So my main focus is bringing corporate events to San Antonio, Texas. 
For me, I always knew I was going to be in marketing or sales. I always talked in school and I always got in trouble for talking. And my father was always saying, just please be quiet, but he felt bad because he knew that one day my talking would get me far in life. Which it has, because you need to be able to network as doing sales. 
So leading me up to the position I’m in, I actually worked for three different restaurants. I made it up to their event manager. And I graduated college and I thought, man, I need to make a bigger move. So I started working for Marriott doing events for them. And it was more black and white sales managing. And I’m more of a creative person. And so I went into the destination management field, where I found my current company. And it’s a lot of fun because I get to sell but I get to actually network with people still along with using my creativity to create fantastic corporate events. 
Someone that is going into the sales field would definitely need to be– sorry, let me start that over. Someone going into the sales field would definitely need to be organized. It really helps a lot down the line when you’re trying to figure out what’s going on with your day to day. 
Day to day depends. So being in event management, usually I’m out running around everywhere and trying to answer emails through my phone, which isn’t fun all the time. But luckily, sometimes, I get to sit down and have office days and I am just calling and networking with people. It does come with a lot of nights so I do go to a lot of happy hours or grand openings for hotels. Then my events usually happen at night so I always like to be there to talk with my client. 
That being said though, weekends in the corporate event world are usually off, which is nice. And then, of course, once things are crazy busy, then it kind of calms down and I’m able to take the week off. But always, I’m on the dot trying to stay working. 
My favorite thing about being in a sales position is the networking. I love talking to people. I love making the new connections and it’s just a lot of fun for me. 
I think the hardest thing about being in sales is getting that “no.” Whenever you get a “no” it really hits home but once you’ve been in it for a while you’ll understand that “no” comes all the time. However, whenever that “no” comes, it’s knowing how to get around the “no.” So always keeping that connection and saying, hey, maybe next time we can work with you. But just knowing that a “no” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a “no” in the future. 
Nothing really surprised me getting into sales, I think, because from when I got my first job when I was 16 I served at a restaurant. And when it comes down to it, serving in a restaurant you start sales. So it’s way back when because that’s still, you’re talking in front of people. And being in that position really helped me be able to talk to people and talk to different people. And even when you’re serving tables you still get that “no,” which really helps down the line. 
I think the best thing for a sales person is to have that networking and that drive to get out there and talk to anyone, everyone that you can. 
Luckily, with my position, I have been in the field for a while. So I get a lot of leads from the colleagues that I’ve networked with. So again, networking is the biggest thing on sales. I cannot stress that enough. 
I think the biggest thing is networking. I, again, cannot stress that enough. Networking is where you’re going to meet people and be passionate about whatever you are selling. RUBEN MEDRANO: My name is Ruben Medrano, and I am a licensed Texas State Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, Don Johnson being the broker I work under. I’m also heavily involved in various organizations, whether they be real estate related or not. A lot of these, I actually started at the student level of these organizations, and then I just transferred them over to professional levels, simply because I found the value within those organizations and committees that I serve under. 
How I got into sales is unique because I actually wanted to grow up to be a scientist. And I got my first opportunity to do this experiment at the age of nine, only we were from a very poor family, and there was no way that I could afford some of the supplies and equipment that I needed. 
And, one day, I noticed in the back of a comic book where I could send off for a bunch of seeds or greeting cards or things like that, and all I had to do is sign for it. They would send me the merchandise. I would sell it. I keep half. I send them back half. 
And I enjoyed that so much that, even though I still dreamed about being a scientist, I now found a way to where I could buy things by having my own little sales platform. So I actually got into sales by accident starting at the age of nine. And, by the age of 13, I had already established four small businesses of my own. 
I’ve only been a realtor for six years, but I’ve been in business all my life. And, regardless if I’m working for someone or if I own my own businesses, I’ve always wanted to go into real estate, and the transition over into real estate is really quite easy if you pay attention to your business skills and talents as you get older. 
And I unfortunately had to leave a very beautiful position that I had with a company because of a medical– it was a medical leave, and I never did go back. So I was stagnant for about five years. And I said, hey, you know what? I need something that I can do where I can set my own schedule, work or not work. And real estate was perfect because we had many family members who were realtors or brokers, and so that’s how I transitioned into it. 
How I spend my day normally is I start very early. I have a set– pretty much an internal set of rules that I must have what I want to accomplish done by a particular time. My time management on my calendars is very strict, and I try my hardest to make sure that I do everything that I have to do as a realtor, but that’s secondary. The first thing I’m more concerned with is taking care of my clients and customers. 
One of the things that I enjoy the most about sales is how I’m able to adapt an action, a method, something that helps me get from needing to sell up an item, a product, or a service and getting it done more successfully than, of course, failures. And, to me, the challenge is unbelievable because I tap into things that I learned when I was a kid, selling those greeting cards. I tap into things from high school and from college and from marketing and departments that I’ve worked with and advertising departments I’ve worked with, merchandising, city sales, supervision. You name it. 
I actually get to tap into many of these things that I learned and apply them to make this thing successful. And, to me, the challenge is the most exciting component of sales. 
The biggest challenge of being a sales professional, I believe, is the willingness for individuals to give up too soon or to rely on opinions and comments that do not matter. It’s so easy, especially with social media nowadays, to become heartbroken, to get discouraged. If you receive one negative comment or opinion or if somebody starts to question your abilities, do not agree with you, the discouraging factor is unbelievable. 
What I believe makes a good salesperson is someone that pays attention. I used to have an uncle who used to buy us Christmas gifts, and he would get it right. He would never ask us what we wanted. He would never ask for a list, but, come Christmas day, here he comes delivering presents. And, when we opened them up, it’s exactly things that we wanted. 
He’s the one that taught me that you need to pay attention to what people want. And, in sales or in any profession, if you pay attention to what the people want, the industry wants, or what is needed, you can become quite successful if again you pay attention to what’s happening. 
I think that sometimes, when people get into sales, they look for the thing that makes them the most money while very few actually look for the things that make them happy. And so I think that, if an individual can find a happy medium and not be afraid to try selling small things, medium things, large things, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service, I think that you need to dip your foot into every swimming pool you come across. 
They have to be passionate about the items, the products, and have ideas of what they want to sell or attempt to sell and not be afraid to do it.  

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