Transcript

[0:00] Welcome to the Full Funnel Freedom podcast. I'm your host Hamish Knox. Today, we will be getting ideas and insights from Carson Hetty, multi-time author, podcaster, and award-winning seller who is a sales leader today at Microsoft.
This is the Full Funnel Freedom podcast, supporting sales leaders and managers to improve their sales funnels from people to prospects. I'm Hamish Knox. In this show, you'll learn how you can improve your results, lead a great team and hit more targets with.

[0:36] Music.

[0:42] Full Funnel Freedom. When you need to hire top sales professionals, turn to a recruiting partner, that speaks sales. That's Allant Workforce Solutions. For more details and to book an an introductory call, go to www.fullfunnelfreedom.com slash allant.
That's www.fullfunnelfreedom.com slash A L A A N T.
So my guest today, Carson Heddy is the best selling author of salesmen on fire and the birth of a salesman series.

[1:12] Eight times CEO slash president's club winner across six sales and leadership roles at AT&T and Microsoft.
He's been recognized as the number one social seller globally at Microsoft and currently serves as sales director for Microsoft Health and Life Sciences. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with his wife, Amy, daughters, Madison, Sidonia and Charlotte. Carson is in the Sales Hall of Fame, a contributor to Dale Carnegie Training and produces the Salesman on Fire podcast while co-hosting Social Selling for Newbies and Taming Your Sales Crocodiles. Carson, welcome to Full Frontal Freedom.

[1:47] Hey, Mitch, thank you so much for having me. I'm just ecstatic to be here to talk about full funnels.
Absolutely, yeah, one of my favorite topics too. So the audience has got the 30,000 foot view of your amazing career.
Take us down a level, tell us the story of Carson, how you got to where you are today and where you're going from here.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that. I feel very, very blessed as you as you list off some of those things. You know, my thought was like, my gosh, there's there's a lot going on there. And I've been very fortunate. I've had a lot of opportunities in my career and in my life. And I just I tend to say yes, to a lot of things because they lead to a lot of joy and opportunity to create and to connect like this. So thank you for this opportunity. As you mentioned, I work for from Microsoft, I've been here nine years, been in a few different roles, but I've been a lifelong student of sales.
I started with AT&T and I had a few jumps, hops, and skips in between those two organizations, but all the while, it's always been for the passion and enthusiasm around sales and sales leadership.

[3:01] And as you mentioned too, I kind of became what I like to call an accidental podcaster a few years ago, mostly because at the onset of the pandemic, I was lamenting that I couldn't just sit down talking about sales and leadership and culture with folks.
And then I realized I can, and there's no geographical barriers anymore to doing it.
So I started to have conversations and publish them. And then people started asking me like, hey, I'd love to be on your show.
I shied away from the podcast host term just because it implied commitment and I have a lot going on, but I have to say it's been very fulfilling and rewarding to be able to connect with so many sellers and sales leaders, and frankly, to learn from them.
To sum me up in a brief term, lifelong student of sales.
Very cool. Absolutely love that. I am curious, before we go more into the business side, I have two daughters, eight and 11, and I know that we could certainly be burning the candle 24-7, 365.
But that's not going to create success as a whole human being.
How have you and what do you coach your sellers to do to make sure that they are a whole person and not just a job title.

[4:12] It's ruthless discipline to scheduling. I learned this term about a year ago actually from someone I interviewed and she was articulating the value of being able to go through and sometimes you have to be selfish with your time because time is one of the most important resources and assets that we have. As you mentioned, I've got a wife and kids and I prioritize my faith and my family and obviously the ability to live out my passion, that's very important. But there's not enough hours in the day to do all the things necessarily that you want to do. But every morning, I construct my daily non-negotiables. And so I have to go through those and I have to execute on those every day, often before I allow myself to get sucked up in the minutiae and the inevitability of all the fires we have to put out and the different things that we want to get to, or sometimes the email or the instant messages.
I can't get to all that in a day, but I try to stay very grounded on what are those priorities.
Faith, family, and daily non-negotiables.

[5:20] Very cool. Curious, because I have a similar format on this non-negotiable.
So what is your process? What does that look like? Help the audience understand a bit more so they might, if they want to adapt it, they've got at least a bit of a starting point.
Love it. So one of the first things I do, you know, I set my alarm usually for like 4, 430.
I'll give myself some grace and I'll hit snooze a couple of times, but then I'm up.

[5:40] In the pandemic, I made a home gym. Before that, I went to the gym down the street before we moved.
But it's got to be some some fitness time. A lot of times I'll do is I'll surround myself with some kind of medium that gets me going. It could be something inspirational, motivational, could be, you know, faith based also could be audiobook, whatever it is, it kind of gets me just, you know, my mind off of everything and so that I can be present in that time.
That's when these ideas start to come. Because when you're not being pulled in all these different directions, whether it's by kids getting them ready for school or by the insanity of a sales day, that's when your mind is actually relatively free. And usually I'll just come up with, you know, they just come to me. It's one, two, five different things that I will, you know, I might pick up my phone, put it on a notepad document and just, you know, put down these are the non-negotiables for today. I've also constructed my, kind of.

[6:38] My sales grid because I've gamified sales for myself and my team. You know, it's so relationships and resources focused, people in process. So, a lot of times, you know, I'm going down my, you know, whether it's my account list or my pipeline, I'm going through these things every day and I'm asking myself, okay, what do I need to do to move the ball down the field on this deal today?
Is there a call I need to make? Is there an e-mail I need to send?
Is there someone internally or externally that I need to be reaching out to?
That's also a daily non-negotiable, is I'll go through that list and make sure that I'm doing what needs to be done to influence what's already in the pipe.
Then obviously prioritizing the time that needs to be done, doing net new prospecting for new relationships, new conversations. So those things are on my daily non-negotiable list.

[7:28] I love it. So I'm hearing, you know, taking care of yourself first, giving yourself that energy, also giving your space, your mind, the space to, uh, to actually come up with these things.
I know for talking to several leaders that I've worked with, sometimes it's they're up and they're on and whether it's family, whether it's, you know, emails, whether it's whatever. And oftentimes they, they are the opposite of where you're at is they don't have time to think.
And so what I'm hearing is you're giving yourself the grace and the space to take care of yourself, think about the day, but you're also, what am I moving forward?
What do I gotta get in the pipeline on a consistent daily basis?
Did I hear that correctly?
You nailed it. So then when we look at gamifying, because this is a big buzzword, obviously, and it means different things to different people.
Some people roll their eyes. Some people are like, I'm all in, and then they spend more time making a game than they actually make sales.
That's the other extreme of it. So when you look at gamifying, what does gamifying mean to you and why did you go down that path?

[8:32] Very relevant question. So I've realized over my time in sales that it's a game of probabilities, right? A lot of times the data that we get as sellers or sales leaders, it helps us diagnose potential gaps in process. But hammering the data doesn't help anything into the past. It can just help us potentially course correct. And so I look at the things that I can control. Very similar to to a game of cards or anything that has a game of chance.
Selling has probabilities. There's a probability if I reach out to an executive that they'll respond or not. There's a probability if I reach out to 10 executives if somebody will respond or not.
But I started to look at the things that I could control.

[9:14] I can control the quality of my message. I can control the quantity of outreaches that I make.
And then I can control the consistency of my execution of prospecting and messaging over time.
And so by being able to control these things, I evolve my message.
And it does change naturally over time too. Right now we're meeting customers with different message than we were three, five years ago. And so it's very important to be at the pulse of the customer, but you look at the things that you can control.
What sales tools am I using? What resources am I leveraging internal to my company or partners?
What customers am I reaching out to and why? and how am I arming myself with information so that I can show up with perspective that hints to them that I have some value to add.

[9:58] All of these things are super important. These are all things that you can control.
Now you asked about the gamification piece of things.
At the beginning of the year, I've got a phrase I like to say that it's before you can feast, you gotta set the table.
And so there's some arduous hours that I sometimes spend painstakingly pulling together all of this data. I study a lot. As I mentioned, I'm a student of selling.
I look back at the prior year.
What got me paid? What didn't? What got my team paid? What didn't?
If I'm gonna execute on something, and even as a seller, a lot of times, you touch a lot of other people in your organization that probably your outcomes matter to them.
So figuring out what do they care about? I go to all the people that touch my territory and I ask them, if I'm gonna master teeing up conversations for you this year.

[10:47] You tell me what are those conversations you wanna be having?
Which ones get you paid the most?
Arm me with what I need to tee up those conversations.
That's part of it. The next part is what are all the resources at my disposal?
I find a lot of time when we talk about, hey, we're gonna run these sales plays.
That means to a lot of people, hey, we're gonna send this marketing crafted email one time to customers and let the chips fall where they may.
No, I look at every way that I could potentially execute that play.
Should I do a new?

[11:16] Should I do a webinar or a series of webinars to execute that play? Is there a way that I can connect with people on LinkedIn? So, the biggest deal I ever got in my career, I reached out to over 500 director and above in one organization. I had well over 200 first degree connections that were director and above. We are in the right to be trusted advisor because we created a groundswell of influence. So I look at again, Hamish, I look at how do I set the foundation for a solid year by knowing what compelling events are already built in, like, do we have renewals? Are there, you know, low-hanging fruit to upsell? Are there some compelling events that are already out there? And then I start to map out what my year should look like based on high-priority activity. Where can I make very focused approaches and where can I make very scale approaches where I'm reaching out to thousands of people and making quality touches once or twice a month? So, it's kind of a combination of all of those things, but I But I wanted to create a tool or a mechanism.
Mine just lives in an Excel spreadsheet that my team uses.
But I wanted to create something that was valuable to my team that we'd be in every day.
And we are. It's got all of our leads.
It's got a relationship heat map for our top executives. It's got all of our resources, links to decks and collateral that we can use to execute plays.
Wow. It's our framework.

[12:35] That is amazing. And I was curious as you were sharing, it sounds like a lot, it sounds great, But from a seller's perspective, like when you and I were sellers and our leader would come down and be like, okay, we're gonna do this.
And it's over here, it's over there, it's over here, it's over there, it's over here.
And like, I gotta make phone calls. Like I gotta talk to people, like I don't have time.
So what I'm hearing is you've also created a central repository.
And you've created clarity with your team around if you need to know anything about how to move the ball forward towards getting to our target, this is the place.
Is that right?
I love that you made that delineation because this was never something where it was like, I came out and said, hey team, you have to follow this. It was, hey team, I've created this mechanism.
You keep me honest that this adds value.
But when I was a seller, these are things that I was having to look up manually every single day. Like, you know, the customer code or where their headquarters was or who's the key partner running point on this deal or whatever it was, it's all here.
And I know these things. And so I'm gonna ingrain this into this document.
And so the goal was to create a time-saving mechanism for the team, but also a coaching tool.
Because when we do our one-on-ones, we can go straight to this playbook and we go down our list of deals.
Okay, we know where we are with this or what's the next thing we should be doing here?
Is there constructing sales plays, priority shift?

[14:02] It's funny, I got a call literally yesterday from someone and they were looking to brainstorm on some ways that they could do campaigns. And sometimes we went right into the playbook and said, OK.
It sounds like what we're needing is we need to filter through and look for some of these people of a certain title and data play whereby we could engage these folks around a particular message.
Let's go. And so a lot of that stuff's already there. So while it spent some time in my first quarter constructing some of this stuff with the team, now it's like it pays its dividends because it's such a time saver. You can create a sales play in minutes and it dispels a lot of those, I think a lot of times, hey, if something looks like it's going to be too much work, and I've got to make these calls, and I've got all these fires going off, guess what happens?
We shuffle some of that prospecting to the back. We shuffle that sales play execution to the back.
This gives us the opportunity and the ability and the room to execute on a play at any time.
Person sales people don't push prospecting. That's a myth. Come on, man.
They never push prospecting. Never.

[15:07] I love your analogy of the feast. I actually, I catered my sister-in-law's first wedding.
I used to cater Christmas parties for my friends when I lived in Vancouver, 40 people.
And so I love food analogies. So the feast, setting the table, and I'm picturing this Excel spreadsheet.
Every column is a dish, right? You've got a dish. And you shared that you ask your team to hold you accountable to making it valuable to them.
So how do you know that you've either gotta take a dish off the table or you need to make a new dish and put it on the table to support your team?
I love that. That's a phenomenal question. I think.
Over time, you start to see where people emphasize and where they don't.

[15:51] No idea is a bad idea if the team thinks that there's some value to it.
And what I've actually loved to see is when they will take the initiative to create a tab.
And I'll give you an example. Earlier in the year, one of the members of my team created a tab that was specific to all the tribal knowledge that we had. A lot of times in sales, I mean, my goodness, as accounts customers, they change hands over time and we forget all that tribal knowledge.
And my goodness, I know how frustrated our customers get when they're like, my gosh, I've told you this 20 times, you know, five different versions ago of you, we told you about this.
And it dispels some of that dissatisfaction from customers because now we have a lot of intel, we don't ask all those questions.
So that would be an example of adding something. Subtracting something, you know, I think over time, Like you get an idea of where you think a play may really be prominent, or you emphasize at certain times of the year on certain things.
Beginning of the year, I mean, it's full court press to go out and start creating the relationships that you know you're gonna need that year to get what you wanna get done, done.

[16:59] That's simple. So it's full on prospecting mode. But this time of year, it's our fourth quarter right now.
So I'm de-emphasizing some of the things like creation of new webinars for things that are going to have a longer sales cycle, right?
So some of these things may ebb and flow in and out of, you know, when and why they're the best priority. And frankly.

[17:22] Sometimes the market or the customer's voice that will kind of guide you to what might be new or may go away.
You know, we've got to listen right now and this past year, the most intriguing, interesting and consistent conversation talk track has actually been about helping our customers do more with less and to help consolidate costs, to help them optimize their environments or their investment.
And I feel like I get paid, my team and I get paid to be the custodian of the customer relationship and really be their evangelist, but also be that advocate for what we can bring to the table and maximize the investment we're making in those partnerships.
And so I take that very seriously. And I think a lot of times, those are the things that will make the changes to what might be in our playbook.
Very cool. And one of the things that you've hit on a few times is making the time at the beginning to set this up for success because you and your team, you don't just walk in, walk out with an order. This isn't like, hi, thanks for calling. Give me your credit card. Let's rock and roll.
I'm sure small deals come across. I get that. But in terms of actually hitting your number, you are on a longer term sales cycle. And so what I know I've seen sellers do is they wait told Q4 and then go, oh my God, boss, I need help.

[18:45] So when you have a seller who maybe hasn't invested that time and you can see the future, you've got the experience, how do you help them see the future without becoming overbearing micromanager?

[19:01] Yeah, oh my goodness, love the question. You're a pro Hamish.
You know, I think as a leader, you've got to help your team see around corners.
And frankly, a lot of times, I'll be completely candid, the reason that I can do that so effectively with my team is I've been burned by just about everything possible Thank you for having me on.
I've worked in the one call close environment where I had to get the deal done and we parade around because we had a great call and we're like, oh, they asked me to send a proposal and we were all jazzed and then we never talked to that prospect again. I've been in those situations.
Flash forward to now, you get these situations where you get hamstrung because a customer has this last or second legal review that you didn't anticipate or you hit a threshold that's got to go go to the board or whatever it is.
These things, I've been stung by a lot of these things or I've experienced a lot of these things in the past.
So as a leader, I think it's important that we're helping our teams map out what milestones should look like and when.
It's just, we work in an environment where a lot of times our relationships with our teams are very similar to the relationships we have with customers.
We have to, there's mutual accountability.
Absolutely.

[20:10] From my perspective, it's important when I'm leading And when I'm having the conversation with my team, that I'm asking them, okay, on the horizon, we've got this renewal, or, okay, you've told me this year, these are the deals that you want to get done.
So walk me through what you think, what are the steps based on your relationship with this customer that need to transpire between now and then, you know, what's their process look like?
Who's going to sign this deal? And so I think if you're asking the right questions and doing it strategically upfront, But then when you do your one-on-ones, you're going back through and say, hey, when last we spoke, you told me you're going to have this conversation with their executives and understand what their signing process looked like, the review process, what did you find out?
Oh, I didn't get to that or I'm not sure yet. Great. How can I help?
Would you like me to call? Would you like me to reach out?
A lot of times by the time you get to that, it's like, no, boss, I got it.
I get it. Then they'll do it right then and there. I don't ever want to second guess my team, you know, I'm cognizant everybody's in a role.

[21:16] For a reason. They've earned the right to be there. It's not my job to tell people how to do something a certain way. What is my job is to help them see around corners based on my experience and offer them resources and support when there is need to accelerate and they're stuck or they're blocked. And so I think that's where that delineation is so important. I don't want to second guess my team. They're free to do it their way. It comes down to results. That's what sales is about? Results. Are you driving outcomes? If you're not driving the outcomes, then let's take a look at that process. And that's where the data comes in, right? That's where looking at the funnel comes in. What's our close rates? Okay. I'm not going to beat somebody up because their close rates low. No, we're going to say, hey, based on the close rate, do you feel that this is indicative of your skill level and the effort that you're putting in? No. Okay. So let's look at, you know, where are we getting stuck in the process?
Where are we being told no?

[22:11] Is it up front? Are we having trouble opening the door? Once we're there, you know, are customers ghosting you?
Let's look at where we are stuck in that process. That's why it's so important.
Great sellers, great sales leaders, they're like doctors. You've got to take the data and you've got to diagnose the challenge in the process based on what the data is telling you.
And then you work to improve it. You work to improve it based on the controllables that we talked about before.
Absolutely, I love that. Carson, you and I could talk about this stuff all day long.
Can we, I mean, this gets me all jazzed up.
But we are gonna be radically disciplined, right? We have our non-negotiables for the day, so I'm gonna hold you accountable, you're gonna hold me accountable to that.
I have a few questions for you right before we wrap up. So, you have had an amazing career, all sorts of awards, podcasts, books, et cetera.
You've also got some scar tissue and some bumps and bruises.
We haven't dove into that quite yet, but it's there, all of us have it.
If you could go back to younger Carson, It doesn't matter how far back, but you go back to Younger Carson and go, hey, Younger Carson, you're gonna be in this place in a period of time, and you're gonna have all these awards and books, et cetera, et cetera.

[23:15] But you're also gonna have a bunch of scar tissue and a few bumps and bruises.
What would you coach Younger Carson to say or do differently to arrive at the same place, but with fewer bumps and bruises?
Man, you're bringing the heat today. There's a couple of good ones that some mentors and prior leaders have told me that I wish I had known 20 years ago, frankly.
Number one is your network is your net worth.
And what that means is that you're gonna be defined by the relationships that you can create and nurture.
And this is true, not just in your career and your life, but also within the sales environment.
I got laid off years ago and I thought that my really cool experience as a sales director was gonna help me walk in anywhere and it didn't. I was sadly mistaken.
It took me over a year to find a new role and it even paid me less than half of what my prior role had paid.
It was a very humbling experience. And it was because I didn't have a network of relationships that, you know, where I had that brand and that credibility to walk in and to get that role. So.
Now I get a lot of overtures for different roles and things of that stature, but.

[24:20] It's all about creating and building that brand and having those valid, valuable relationships where there's mutual value, invest in those relationships.
Number two, win the crowd. I know in my younger days, in my 20s, I always felt like, and it was a different sales culture then too, but I always felt like I had to be the smartest person in the room. And so I definitely approached situations like that. But when the crowd, what that means is it's actually from the movie Gladiator, but I had a man tell me this and it's like, you know, hey, you've got to be able to read the room and you've got to be able to build consensus and you've got to be able to influence and understand where everyone is, meet them where they are. Don't be the smartest person in the room. In fact, be the one who is the sponge in the room. Take it all in and make sure that you're, you know, like Dale Carnegie would say, winning friends and influencing. And I think that's super, super important.
The last one is control the controllables. We've talked about that throughout the course of this conversation. You got to figure out what you can control. There's a lot of things that happen in life, in a career and in sales that you cannot control. But if you build a strong foundation and you know exactly what you can control and you execute based on that.

[25:30] And when things don't go your way, you're able to not react and you're able to sit in that moment, quickly survey the new parameters of the new playing field, come up with a new strategy and and execute based on those controllables, guess what?
You put yourself in a probability to win. I've lost a lot of deals.
I've had a bad, I really, I had a bad sales year. And, you know, I've been laid off multiple times.
I've had a lot of negative experiences in my career, but by the by, I've been able to create a body of work to be proud of because I won't stop getting back up up and going full throttle.
Amen. Get knocked down seven times, get back up eight. That absolutely resonates with me.
You are a student of sales, as you've shared with us a few times.
What do you, right now, listen to, watch, or read to develop yourself professionally and personally?
Yeah, that's a great question. I think you have to have a mix. I'm pretty scattered. I mean, sometimes I have like five, six books going at the same time. I've got a Kindle for when I just happen to be on my phone. I've got a hardback. I've got a paperback. I've got an an audio book.

[26:37] But for me, I like to also consume a mix of things that are gonna be central to my faith and my age, where I am in my life, because it helps me feel like I'm connected to something.
And also like sales podcasts. I listen a lot to my friend, Mike Weinberg, just fantastic.
I read nonfiction a lot too. And I also read a fair amount of fiction.
In fact, they just released a new James Bond novel and I'm excited to jump into that.

[27:06] The escapism, sometimes it's great to see the escapism and to read even about like those heroes that are sometimes a little bit beat up and have scars because there's some relatability there.

[27:20] But you can cast yourself out of your current scenario for a bit, but I like to read motivational stuff, things that I can relate to.
Very cool, thank you for sharing that with us. And we're gonna certainly put links to all of your books in your podcast in the show notes.
I read a couple of years ago that actually reading fiction 20 minutes before you go to bed actually helps you dream better because it starts to get the brain working and then you end up sleeping better.
So Carson, you've shared some amazing insights with us today.
What would you like to leave us with? Something to plug, a closing bit of wisdom, the floor is yours.
You know, I got asked this recently in a similar fashion and this is how I answered it.
It resonated with me when it happened. And a few years back, I went to a backpacking trip and a camping trip back in the back country, completely out of my wheelhouse, out of my comfort zone.
And it was with my father-in-law and my brother-in-law. I thought maybe they actually just wanted to take me out there and leave me.
But when you would look up at these mountains and that we were going to climb, and they weren't gargantuan mountains, by the way, but you'd look up at these mountains and it would be very daunting, right?
Sometimes life is like that. Sometimes sales is like that.
You look at these goals, these astronomical expectations, and it's like, I can't possibly hit that.
But you know what I started to do, Hamish, is I started to say, okay, I just gotta land the step.
I gotta land the step right in front of me. I know what to do.
I've been here before.

[28:46] So, and that's true of all these sales scenarios. As stressed out as we get, or as crazy as things get, you know, it's our fourth quarter right now, it's madness, and it's just like fast and furious activity.
I've been here before. I know what to do.
Land the step in front of you. And you know what happens is eventually you land every step in front of you and you get to the summit and you look down and you're like, oh my gosh, look how far I've come.
And that is what I encourage every one of you to do. Look back at all the things that you have achieved.
You read off those things at the beginning and it's surreal.
I have to pinch myself. I'm a small town kid from the Midwest US.
And so I'm very proud of the things that I've done and that I've, you know, the teams that I've been able to be a part of, but the best is yet to come.
And I believe that strongly, land the step in front of you, keep landing steps, it'll be amazing how far you can go.
Very cool. Carson, this has been an absolutely amazing visit for me.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and I look forward to carrying our conversation offline.
Thanks for being a guest on Full Funnel Freedom. Likewise, Hamish.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity and the chance to chat.

[29:49] You've been listening to the Full Funnel Freedom podcast. I've been your host, Hamish Knox.
We have got some amazing ideas and insights from Carson Hetty, best-selling author, podcaster, multi-time award winner, and currently sales director for Microsoft Health and Life Sciences. The full Funnel of Freedom podcast is brought to you by Sandler Calgary. Do you desire to dominate your niche and seek to scale sales sustainably? Go to www.hamish.sandler.com forward slash howtosandler for more details and to book a 15-minute initial call. Thanks for listening. Leave us a review and a rating. Share this episode with a sales leader in your network who you care about. And until we connect on the next episode, go create full funnel freedom. Thank you for listening to full funnel freedom with Amish Knox.
If you want to increase your sales with ease, go to Full Funnel Freedom.

[30:40] Music.