My first and best software sale ever

My first software sales job and I’m twenty-five, selling CRM for Dataworks. It’s 1996. I had no skills; the only thing I knew was Sales was social; it’s about people. And I was persistent because that’s all I had.

I wanted to get into software because I thought I needed to become more technical. I remember getting my first laptop that I could barely turn it on. I was all freaked out. I got some technical training, but that made it even worse for me. The very first thing they gave me was “The Demo.” My Pre-Sales person spent a ton of 1:1 time teaching me how to demo. But I swear, despite all the time I spent with her, I was going backwards.

All I felt I could do was prospect my ass off. So I did.

Nathan and NVision

Using a list they gave me, I cold-called and got some meetings. One of the first was with NVision, a hardware manufacturer in Grass Valley, CA, in the middle of nowhere. I went out to Grass Valley for my first meeting with their VP of sales, Nathan, a middle-aged Australian guy. In every way, I was totally outside of my little world. In my first meeting with Nathan we sat down and I had no idea what to do, so I just sat there, nervous as hell. I think he sensed my anxiety because he started the meeting by talking about NVision. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember we had a really nice exchange. I thought at the time that he was just being nice to me because I was a kid. We spent about an hour together and whenever he asked me a question, my response was, “Let me go find out.”

This was before any training; I had no SPIN, no Solution Selling. And this might sound weird, but I was too scared to ask Nathan any questions. I had no process and there was no way I was going to try to turn on my computer to give him a presentation. I remember thinking I could just get through my first few sales calls to learn “The Process.”

Something else made things worse for me — our weekly sales meeting. My director of sales, Lee Palmer, would have each of us bring one opportunity to each meeting, and he would debrief us. I had just my one little opportunity at the time - NVision.

In this debrief we had to tell him the prospect’s budget, timeline, critical business issues, decision-makers, compelling buying events. And with my one opportunity at Nvision, I couldn’t answer even one of his debriefing questions. It felt awkward to me, since my starting point was about “people”, but nothing in any of our own internal dialogue was about people.

Just like that, I was no help to my boss. I couldn’t answer any of his questions.

Time for the demo

Although I didn’t know it at the time, my little gig with Nathan was falling into a pattern. We would talk, get to know each other better, he would have a question for me, I wouldn’t have an answer, I would go find out, come back to him with some lame answer, and the cycle would continue. I think we had two in-person meetings, and a couple of phone calls. We were getting to know each other, though.

Soon enough it was time to bring in his CIO, so I had to bring in my pre-sales person. She handled the entire meeting and she performed the demo. I don’t remember exactly what went down in that meeting because the whole thing went over my head. But I remember feeling crummy, convinced she would become the “lead” on this thing. It would become hers; not just literally, but if anything good happened, it would be because of her. I was convinced that Nathan and his CIO would now want to keep a direct line with her.

But right after that meeting, Nathan, followed up with me directly — and our little relationship continued.

A barrage of questions

After about three months, Nathan asked me to come out and meet with his CEO to work on the details of a deal. I hadn’t met him yet. I sat there in that conference room with these two middle age executives, at twenty-five, getting barraged with questions by this intimating CEO that I had never met, and he was trying to squeeze a discount. It was even worse for me because I had no idea what to do in a negotiation like that. I didn’t know the tactics or any of our discount policies, so I continue with the only thing I knew, “I don’t know.”

The CEO finally said, “If you give us a two-year services plan, we’ll do it.” And with that he walked out of the room. I don’t even think I was nervous at the time because it was all so surreal to me. I grabbed the contract, without knowing if I had authority to do it or not, I crossed out “One Year”, wrote in “Two”, and we had a deal.

Not having all the answers

It was my first software Sale. It was wild — I don’t think I was able to fully processed what had happened.

A couple weeks later, I called Nathan and asked him why he decided to go with me. He told me how they brought in three other vendors, and got quotes from all three. He also described the other salespeople. He told me how those guys had all the answers.

He said, “You were the only one without all the answers.”

At the time, I didn’t know what that meant. But now, thinking back on that whole experience, there were some really important lessons that I didn’t realize until years later.

I knew everything about NVision and Nathan. I couldn’t answer my boss’ debriefing questions in his sales meetings (and maybe he was asking the wrong questions). But here is what I did know — I got to know what NVision was all about and I got to know Nathan pretty darned well. But I got to know him on a different level. I think we liked each other. Our conversations were soulful, and weren’t so ‘business-y’. And by no stretch of the imagination, was I ‘consultative’. I think I was just sharing and tending the relationship.

And yet over the years, with all the protocols and trainings, I know I became less soulful, more diagnostic, more prescriptive, and overall, more clinical. NVision was one of my best “Sales” ever.