Who Are You Being? — Gina Smith on Trust, Listening, and the Real Job of a Salesperson

You know, for me, it's always going to be the people and it's always going to be the opportunity for me to build relationships with them and to gain their trust and to gain their confidence. So when there's time to make a decision, that trust is in me and what I've helped them to do. Welcome back to the Thoughts on Selling podcast. I'm Lee Levitt, selling sales coach, podcast host and author of the Second Meeting and Together We Win both due out later this year. Today we're talking about what it really takes to build trust in complex sales environments and why being a great listener beats being a great talker every time. My guest is Gina Smith, a sales coach who spent 27 years selling medical devices into hospital operating rooms before launching her own coaching practice. She came to sales by accident with no role models and and every reason to believe salespeople were the enemy. Here's what to listen for. Why the best salespeople are introverts who learn to act like extroverts. The question that changes everything. Who are you being as a salesperson and why the clinical champions who used to control buying decisions now have to share the vote with the supply chain? If you're selling in a complex environment and wondering why relationships still matter when spreadsheets seem to make the decisions, this one's for you. Let's go. Today it is my absolute pleasure to have Gina Smith join me to talk about all things selling. Welcome aboard, Gina. Hi, Lee, how are you? I'm happy to be on here today. Thanks for inviting me. It's good to have you here. So, Gina, first question. Who is Gina Smith? Who is Gina Smith? I am first a daughter. I'm the favorite auntie in my family. I'm a fun loving person. I'm a cyclist, I'm a swimmer. I'm a cook. I'm a foodie. I'm a wine lover. And I love business and I love selling. Wow, so many threads to pull on there. Gina, let's talk about selling. Do you remember your first selling experience? My first selling experience was Girl Scout cookies. How'd it go? It's hard to remember. Yeah, and I hate to say I think my dad sold more cookies than I did back in the day. You had this little sign up paper and. And he took it to his office and lots of people signed up for Girl Scout cookies. I might have gone door to door to some of the neighbors. We lived on a military base. My other Girl Scouts are all next door. A lot of us conglomerated into a fairly small Community. But that was my first selling experience. Yeah. Wow. I remember my first selling experience. I was selling burpee seeds door to door. And because I wanted an airplane, a little model airplane. And of course everyone in sales says if I want an airplane, the fastest way to getting an airplane or a fast car or a vacation home is to go into sales. So I went into sales at the age of 12 and I sold burpee seeds door to door. My first important impactful memory was knocking on someone's door middle of the afternoon and a guy comes to the door in a bathrobe. And it was incredibly uncomfortable for me as a 12 year old looking at this neighbor who was looking at me going, what's this kid doing on my front step? He just woke me up from a nap or whatever. And I'm sitting there looking at him of, I'm so uncomfortable here. And what I took away from that was burpee seeds can get you an airplane. And I never want salespeople to be in a situation where they are uncomfortable about what they're doing. I want them to be prepared. I want them to show up with a point of view. I want them to be ready for that conversation. That's something that happened to me at the age of 12. And eventually I got into sales enablement and said, this is the culmination of all of that original work of that uncomfort discomfort in saying, okay, I can fix it. I can help salespeople be better prepared. Yes. I think back and it's like I consciously didn't know any salespeople. Very few women even worked. There were very few women in the military at the time and most of them were nurses. My mom was a stay at home homemaker and as were the moms of most of the kids I knew. I back and it's like, okay, maybe the tupperware lady. I didn't really look at that as a salesperson or the people that came around selling insurance as salespeople. I never imagined that I would become a salesperson. You had no role model, no role model whatsoever. And I wouldn't include girl scout cookies as a big role model for that. And I, like most people, had some of those unfortunate sales experiences with car salesmen or whatever. And just the media impression of salespeople. They're fat old white men with a cigar hanging out of their mouth that are trying to cheat you out of your life savings or your money in some way. I was reflecting on this when I first went into corporate after the military. My service in the Military. I was in hr. And so this was back in the day when we were literally in. The management team was in an office. So the sales manager for this product division was there. I spent maybe five years in hr, and I just really got tired of it because every year we're laying off people and it's just like the same old thing. And I did a project for my company in Boston, in Bedford. We had a distribution center there, and I was just exhausted at the end of the thing. At the time, all of the sales managers for the different product divisions had offices inside these buildings. And I just walked. And I'd gotten to know them over. I spent a year and a half there doing this project. I gotten to know them. And I walked into a guy's office one day, and he's like, listen, we can't find anybody for this job. You're hr. Maybe you should help us. And I was like, well, what is it? So he describes the role to me, and I'm like, I think I could do that, because I'm really over hr. And I wanted something different. That was my beginning of a sales career that I never imagined, purely happenstance of. You were in one discipline and just through happenstance. This guy said to you, do you know anybody? Yeah, in fact, I do. It was interesting because my boss, who was a regional. No, president at the time, it's like, why are you doing this? You're great at what you do. But part of me could see there really wasn't a lot of progression with hr, so there's not a big career path there. Two, I was tired of it, and I literally think they gave me a mercy interview. She meets all the qualifications. She can't. Tell her she can't interview. We'll let her interview. But I killed it. In the process of getting ready for it, I realized I had been selling. I had to sell the company to people were trying to recruit. Every year you gotta sell the declining benefits package. I was part of the management team. I had to sell ideas or things to them that we had to sell then to our employees. So it's like I really have been selling all this time. The guy who ended up being my first sales. He was like the senior sales guy trainer that I trained under. He said. We went downstairs to the bar and said, without talking, who do we want? And they were all like, we want. I want Gina. And that was the beginning of. That was the beginning of this great adventure that I had for 27 years. You know what they call that, Gina? What they call That a vote of confidence? Yes. Yeah, it was great. I sold to hospitals, a very consultative cell and I loved it. And I found that I was very good at it because I liked people and I listened to people. And maybe part of growing up in an Air Force community, like you don't have a choice who lives next door to you, who goes to school with you, whatever. People move out and the people move in. So you learn to be. At least I learned to be adaptable with just about anyone. So I could talk to the janitor, who by the way, knows everything that's going on, or I could talk to somebody in the C suite and people in between and formed really good relationships that helped me actually do large volume sales. Interesting. Very different pathway. And a pathway I never, ever, ever imagined in my life. Yeah, that's the way life works, right? Yeah. The one thing I've always said is when looking at a new opportunity, does that opportunity open doors or close doors? I like that question. And when I mentor other people, that's the question I ask them if they're looking at different paths. That's the question I ask. Not will you enjoy this job? And that's a piece of it. Not will it make you more money? That's a piece of it. Not is it the right career path? That's a piece of it. But will it open doors or close doors? And when you open doors, you have more options. Exactly. And it opened doors that I never imagined would be open to me. Yeah. So, Gina, aside from the sugar high of the Girl Scout cookies, what do you love about selling? For me, it's always going to be the people and it's always going to be the opportunity for me to build relationships with them and to gain their trust and to gain their confidence. So when there's time to make a decision, that trust is in me and what I've helped them to do. And I love problem solving. So a great deal of we sold customized disposable solution in the hospital environment. Yeah. Into the big procedure areas of hospitals. So there was a lot of hands on work. There was a lot of consultation with the clinical people who were going to use this. At the end of the day, there was a lot of even project related work because we would often help customers install what we sold and transition the other people out. So I just got a chance to be and talk and interact with lots of people. And one of the things I learned over the years is the value of those relationships is people move around. It's a very small world. So then Having those people go somewhere else and call me and say, listen, the other companies in here, I don't like what I see. Can you give me a quote or can you come talk to me? Having other people say, hey, we're going to bring you in here. Their contract is up June 30th. And just having people have confidence in me because they worked with me and they knew that I was honest, ethical, Lots of bad stuff happens, especially when they start making things offshore. And one of the things I always did is, like, it might be a painful truth for me to go tell my customer this. I'm going to tell them the painful truth. I realize the painful truth might mean they end our contract, but I can live with myself knowing that I told them, this is what's really happening. This is what I can or cannot do to help you. And this is if I can't help you, even though I hate to do it, my competitor has this, might want to call them. But I can always go to sleep knowing that I told them the truth. And that had a lot of value for people. Right. Well, so two things here. One is people would call you not based on what you were selling at the time, but based on who you are. Yes. And two, there's not a lot of room in the OR for saying, yeah, well, it's supposed to do that, but it doesn't really. No, there is not. There is not. You have to be upfront and authentic before you get into the actual OR with a medical device. And it's a tough environment if things go wrong. Your name can become mud really fast. And you bring up a good point. I thought, I am an introvert that has learned to act like an extrovert. But I was a really good listener versus the people that. Yeah, all the time. But I thought to be a salesperson, you had to be that talky person that's talking all the time and entertaining the room all the time. And I found that was not true, at least not for the environment I was in. Right. So people buy from people. The customer has to like you. Yes. But that's not nearly sufficient. No, they have to like you and they have to trust you. Yes. And then maybe you can guide them. Yes. But if they like you but don't trust you, you're out of luck. You're out of luck. If they like you and trust you, but they don't believe that you have the right perspective. Yes. You're out of luck. Yes. There's so many things that get in the way of good selling you were asking me before, one of the ways that I saw sales change. I'm not actively in corporate now. I have my own business now. One of the ways that sales were beginning to change even before I left a corporate environment is there was a time that we went directly to the clinical person to sell and then we told supply chain what they wanted and they just said, oh, director wants that. Get it in here. It changed to that being a partnership between supply chain and the clinical people. And then supply chain, which has gotten to be a very much more sophisticated group of people. Now you're selling the regional medical distributor and giving you shelf space for 90 days. Yeah. Or you're selling and you have these group purchasing organizations and local aggregations of in the Boston area. What is there two systems left now? Now they have all new names. So somebody at the top of one of those is making their decisions. They might have clinical people on a committee that have a vote. But at the end of the day it's going to be that scrutiny from supply chain and from value analysis, which is a clinically led validation of products. Have a bigger vote than Nurse Nancy. When I started selling, I spent probably four days a week in an OR in a procedure area and they're watching surgery talking with people and our interest was one, learning what is this procedure, what happens in this procedure and some medical device people actually get hands on. Let me show you how to do that. Doctor. Yeah, that's illegal now because some people, someone got killed back in the 90s of rep doing that and seeing how they use supplies. And we very often would be like, whoa, do they realize they're just using the most expensive thing? And there's another solution. But HIPAA started the restrictions, security started the restrictions. Things like there was an incident in a New York hospital where a rep was hands on and as a result a woman died. You know, started the kind of keeping people out of those environments. So then it becomes harder to sell because you don't have that connection to make those personal relationships and you probably aren't seeing some of the things you could help people with because you don't get to see it. And so non critical people are kept out of those environments, which probably isn't really the most helpful thing. Yeah, you're counting on the people that don't know what they don't know to tell you what they need. Yeah, yeah, that's changed a lot. I feel sad for the people who don't get that experience I had because it was, you know, very valuable for me to Understand when they threw some term out at me. Okay. I understand what that procedure is, or I understand what that thing is or that body part is. So, Gina, you left the corporate world. Yes. And now you're having fun on your own. You've been on your own for what, just over four years? Yes. So tell me, what's been your learning about helping others to sell? My learning has been that there are still a lot of people who hold those attitudes about what salespeople are and what salespeople need to be. So whether that's on the business side, that's looking to hire people or develop people, or whether that's people that go into sales jobs and they don't get leadership or support and they're gone after 90 days or 60 days. And just helping people to understand sales is not icky. You know, I work with some entrepreneurs. You're not an icky person if you're in sales. Sales is not icky. I hear people say, oh, I don't want to be salesy. Well, I don't know. If you don't sell something, you just have a very expensive hobby. Right. You know the origin of the word to sell? No, it's related to to give. Okay. And most salespeople don't give. Demonstrate that. They demonstrate the opposite. To take. I was always very good at follow up. And I had a customer and I sent them a report or something. I was in seeing them in their office and they said, you're great. You always come through with what I ask for. And I'm like, doesn't every salesperson do that? And she's like, no. I have people that don't even answer my calls until they want an invoice sign. And I'm like, but this is how we make our money, serving the customer. And she said that. Never did that to me. Some of that sales hygiene, some of it's systemic abuse of the people involved. Right. It's that ongoing search for the new logo. I don't care if you're not calling back people already in your pipeline, we want new logos that looks more impressive on the QBR report. It's a disease. There's a lot of. We've always done it that way. A mentality that doesn't serve the customer or the business. So when you have someone that says, I don't want to be that salesperson, how do you help them get through that or past that? So I talk to them about mindset and help them. Like, let's cast aside that old image of a salesperson. Because that's not true. That's what somebody in movies and TV have decided to portray salespeople as. I share with them about my own sales career and other great people I've known in sales. And it's like all the greats I know were never tricksters or anything like that. It's my foundational belief is sales is a people business. Sales is a service business. The highest form of service is for me to serve you and you pay me. Sales is problem solving. So instead of focusing just on I got to close this or get this or whatever, what is the real problem here? Right. That's the inside out view. It's about me. And the outside in view is about the customer. Yeah. Who is the real person here? What do they really need? Yeah. Versus what I could possibly sell them. I had a well known author on about a year ago, Jeff Lipsius. A primary perspective of his is selling is not about selling, it's about buying. Yes. And actually take that one step further. I sat with that for quite a while and I completely agreed with him. And then I said buying is the process is not actually about buying. Buying is just a step in the larger process. The goal of the customer is not to acquire something. The goal of the customer is to put something to use to benefit them. So I take it to that next step of the purpose of selling is to help buyers achieve a strategic objective. And so that's the pure outside in view. Yeah. Why are we doing this? Because a buyer has an okr they want to hit where sometimes they don't know that something is achievable. Salespeople have to walk in with a perspective. Yes. And then you start testing that perspective. You start testing that hypothesis. And a hypothesis is nothing more than an educated guess. And the customer rewards you when you're on the right path. And usually it sounds like that's not right. But it's close. Let me tell you what we are seeing. Yeah. And when they say that you're in discovery, you got information. Yes. Yeah. And a willing participant. Yeah. I love the discovery phase of sales. Now I should clarify that every phase of sales is discovery. True. I love that discovery and co creation phase. As Gerhard Schwartner says, co creation is what the buyer and seller do together. That's the part I like. Yeah. It's. So let's get to this point and let's create together. Yep. What will satisfy your needs? Yep. I have an idea. You have an idea. Let's get both of our ideas together. How do we best serve you with both of those ideas. And what am I not seeing because I don't live in your world. Exactly. I brought the perspective of the Gartner analytics maturity curve. This guy brought the perspective of, oh, we have a bigger problem than we first thought or a bigger opportunity than we first thought. Speaking of Gerhart, another thing that Gerhart mentioned to me recently was, number one question in sales, who are you? Right. To the salesperson, who do you show up as? Do you show up as someone who's inquisitive? Do you show up as someone who's either talking or waiting to talk? Do you show up as someone with an agenda? Right. Dan Pink says everybody sells. As you were talking before, you know, whether or not you carry a quota, whether or not you carrying a box of mint chips, everybody sells. And to know who you are in that process is really important. Right. So when you get to the VP of infrastructure, you. When you get to the head of nursing and they've decided that you're someone for them to bet on, they turn from buyer into seller. Now they have to sell you to the chief medical officer. Yes. Or to the cfo. That's true. Yeah. Who are you? Are you needy? Everybody knows that needy smell just comes right off of you. And people are just like, so, Gina, what does an ideal client look like for you, ideal coaching client look like for you? Are you mostly working with individuals? Are you working with teams? What's the composition of a good client for you? A good client for me is a company that has 5 but less than 50 salespeople that has challenges meeting their revenue targets or just having effectiveness in the salesforce in some kind of way. They don't really know why, because they believe they have good people in those roles. But the good people aren't producing the results they want. So I do have a couple of diagnostic tools I use with them to say, instead of us throwing spaghetti at the wall, which is the tendency is to throw spaghetti at the wall. It's the economy. It's too hot already. Whatever. Let's collect some data. You've gone from the linguine test to the OMG test. Yes. And OMG does not stand for oh, my God. No, it doesn't. And it lets us collect some data and information about what's really happening. Is there a failure in their sales process? Is there a miss in training? Lots of companies? I worked for, like a Fortune 20 company in my first sales role. I went to a week of training. It was all about product. It was all about how to conduct yourself in an orn and in the hospital. There wasn't one thing about prospecting, follow up, any of that. None of that. And companies don't do that because they assume if we hired you in sales, you already know that. But I hadn't come from a traditional sales background, so some of that just as a skill set, I didn't really know. And two, you get what you focus on. If HR or enablement focuses on training you on product, then a natural conclusion of the rep is we should talk about product. Yeah. And so many, especially smaller companies don't have effective onboarding processes and programs and don't have effective training. Here's a manual. Here's links to these videos. Watch those now. Go sell. Yeah, that's generally not a formula for success. It was not how you would learn how to ride a bicycle. No. Not how you learn how to do anything. Someone didn't go, hey, go read this book and here's a car keys. Go drive a car. You're just not going to do that. That's my ideal client to work with and to work with their team and to work with the leadership. Now, are you specializing in the medical device area or healthcare generally? Figuring out what's the perfect market for me. Yeah. So I haven't figured that out yet. That's definitely a direction in which I'm starting. Yeah. Because you have some specialty there and I know in having looked for that for several friends and having done just a touch of work there in the distant past, there's not enough knowledge there. Yeah. There's not enough expertise there in coaching people how to successfully be in that business. There's a lot of tribal knowledge out there and much of it is from the days of here's the product, here's the sharp end of the syringe, here's the pushy end, good luck. I go hit those numbers. And sometimes the management is the linchpin. Sometimes it's the process that they haven't defined for people. What is our process here? Who's. I just met a woman last week. She's with a company and she's their number one salesperson in the country. And she said, I have to talk to the CFO next week because he wants to know what my sales process is because hardly anybody else is getting close to me. Big clue that there's something missing here. Even though you have training and management and all this stuff in place, there's something missing. If one person is hitting the million dollar club and very few other people are getting there I'll give you a tip. It's not about her sales process. It's about who she is. It's about who she is. Yeah. Yeah. Mapping a sales process out on the whiteboard of the CFO is not going to materially change what other people's results are. We've both been there, seen that. Where can people find you, Gina? People can find me. I have a very simple website, ginarsmith.com ginarsmith. Com. And you can find me on LinkedIn. Ginarsmith. And as you said, who are you being? That's like the biggest thing that we don't talk about enough in business because it sounds too squishy and woohoo. Who are you being as a salesperson? Who are you being as a leader? Salespeople have a leadership role with their customers. Who you are being, what your intent is or your context is, it's written on your forehead. Yeah. Your customer knows. Are they just a bag of groceries for you? Are they just a boat payment for you? Or do you actually care? Yeah. You actually care about their success. If they feel that you're in the boat with them, that goes a long way. It goes a long way. Yeah. Thanks, Gina. This has been fabulous. Another deep dive into the topic of sales excellence and the performance mindset. If you found this conversation interesting, I would appreciate it if you would share the podcast with a co worker or two. And to explore this topic in more depth, send me a note via the contact form on podcast. Thoughts on selling.com or find some time for us to talk@meet.acceleragroup.com Thanks.