HOW TO SELL WITHOUT LIMITS AND WIN HUGE DEALS IN B2B SALES AND SELLING

Hey, Meredith, thanks for joining us today. As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Okay. Well, I went to Texas A&M to get my education. And it's a much longer story. But while I was there, September 11th happened. And also, that's when the bonfire fell at Texas A&M. And so I made up my mind to travel the world and Because I didn't want to wait until I was old and 65 to see the world. So I, I said, okay, I'm gonna take 5 years and travel the world. That kind of turned into 10. I ended up getting my MBA, but it was— I was good. It was good though. Like, I, I learned a bunch of languages. I traveled. I saw the world. Um, I ended up getting my MBA from a university in Taiwan, fully paid for with a scholarship from the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. And then I was like, oh, I'm 30. Let me go back to the States and get a real job and, you know, maybe get married or something like that. And so that's what I did. And the road was not that smooth. It was a bit rocky. But yeah, that's basically my background. And I was raised by a phenomenal salesperson. So I feel like I've been raised to be a salesperson almost my entire life. My entire family is sales. And so I naturally fell into that and it's been a great career.

And I take it you have the adventure gene taking—

Oh yes.

10 years to travel the world.

And yes, yes, I went to, I got a scholarship to study a year in Argentina for A master's degree in international relations, and then I discovered one on accident while I was in Taiwan. I wanted to go to Taiwan to learn Chinese, so I taught kindergarten and then took a ton of Chinese classes, and then I ended up going to Chengchi Da Shui, which is the, the university there. I didn't study in Chinese, though. I did do all my studies in English. I wish my Chinese was that good. And yeah, I just, I mean, my, when I came back to the States, it was like the, it was like the tail end of the financial crisis. So what is that, 2010? And my resume looked like a travel brochure and it was very, very, it was so hard to get a job and I finally got a job as an intern. So like I'm 30 years old, I have an internship for 3 months at this financial firm. And the only reason why I got the job, I think, is they didn't have a posting. I don't think I've ever gotten a job from a job posting. Like, I've never applied to a job. And it's just kind of how things happen. And I remember I took little pineapple cakes and I went in and I said, I really want to work here. I did my thesis on financial firms going to China. That's what I thought I wanted to do. And yeah, I ended up getting an internship there. And then they turned—

2 months.

And then it turned into a 6-month internship and then they hired me on for a couple of years. So that's how, yeah, that's how I came back and got my career started.

And what do you like about sales?

Oh, the money is great.

First of all, it's a good thing.

Yeah, you get paid for, you get paid for it if you're really good at it. I think what I like most about sales is the challenge and it's a puzzle. It's almost like solving a puzzle. And it's not about convincing the other person to buy the stuff that you have. If you think it's about that, I think you just lose. I think it's really about— it's honestly about caring about the person enough to discover how what you're selling makes sense to them. And if you can find that, then it's a sale you should pursue. But it starts with, like, actually caring, like actually giving a shit about the person you're sitting across from. And if you do that, you can discover, oh, this product is really good for them, and this can really serve them. And then it's easy to convince them to buy the stuff you have. And if you discover, like, actually, honestly, this isn't right for them, if you keep going after that sale, you're just— it's painful, and you're either gonna trick somebody or you're gonna lose. So if I'm selling something to somebody and I'm like, actually, What they've got going right now is pretty good and this is gonna mess— I mean, I wouldn't buy this if I was them. I'd just back out of it. So I think it's more about identification of is this good for somebody? And if it is and you think it is, man, that after that, that sale becomes so much easier.

And how long was it before you got comfortable doing this? Because it's pretty different than teaching kindergarten.

It is.

It is much different.

Well, and everybody sits in their chair, so it's very nice because in kindergarten, you know, they don't sit in their chair. They, you know, they're all— it was actually, it was, I taught anywhere from like when I was in Taiwan, 3-year-olds all the way to 65-year-olds. And so it was, it was just like that. And I just did it because it made the most money so I could learn Chinese because I felt like that's what I was gonna do. And when I— what I liked about sales, and I think it— I think I became comfortable because my dad was an Allstate Insurance salesman. And he had his own agency for 19 years. He is such a mentor of mine still today. I still ask him for advice. And I love the way that he sold. People would come into his office. So I worked at his office because the idea was, is like, He had— he's totally fine now. He's, he's much older. At the time, he's having heart issues and I needed a job. And so it was like, okay, this is his business. Maybe I'd be— maybe I'm the person. And he's got 3 daughters. We're all in sales. Maybe I'm the one who, who helps him or take over the business and things like that. And this actually before I went to Taiwan, and he had a way of selling life insurance that, that taught me how to approach sales in a completely different way. So, and it taught me to talk viscerally to somebody. So when you sell life, like, no one wants to buy life insurance. Like, hi, you wanna talk about death? Let's talk about death. You know, you wanna talk about— do you wanna talk about dying? Let's talk. And then—

Sit down, have a cup of coffee.

Yeah, you're dead. You're gonna give me $200 a month. How does that sound? It's terrible. And I think a lot of salespeople get really caught up in, in how like their product works, like, and no one gives a shit. Like nobody cares. So like if I come out here with charts and graphs of like, okay, this is your life insurance and you put in $200 in a month and then it goes up and then there's variable life annuity. I mean, like, it's confusing. So here's how my dad sold life insurance. And he's actually on— it'd be funny to have him on your podcast. We could do like a duo. He's actually on the Hall of Fame at Allstate Insurance. Still, his name is on the wall because he asked one question. And when he sat down with some, he made sure, do you have kids?

I don't. No.

Okay. So anybody who has kids understands and people who don't have kids can get this too.

I get the idea.

The gut punch, right? So he sat down and he would just ask people a question, which is the best way to sell something. Well, what would happen? And he said, never, the funny thing he said, don't ever ask him about anyone's spouse. 50% of marriages end in divorces. People hate their spouses. But they all love their children, right? And he goes, tell me what would happen to your children if you were to die today. I mean, that— so people start talking, well, and they're looking for answers. And he would watch them just like go through this and try to figure out what the answer was. And he, he had the answer, and it was life insurance. So he said, okay, I can sell you life insurance and that way your family's taken care of. But he put them on this defensive, on the visceral, like where, where they're holding the ball. And I think in sales we're very scared to do that. We want to show up and throw up, show up and I'm going to tell you all this shit that's awesome about my product. But what you really have to do is you have to gather the trust and almost like the ammunition from the other person. And that is, tell me about, you know, such and such. And as they tell you, they start to go, oh crap, maybe I need something to help me with this. And I think that's the essence of sales. It is an emotional experience and a journey of empathy, I believe.

Well, what he did is he got them focused on what they really are there You're not there to learn about how Allstate has better insurance.

Yeah. Yeah.

And they, and you're right, they don't. Who wants to think about their death? It's like the last thing anyone wants to think about.

It's, it's a really hard sale, but my dad made it easy. And then he taught other people and he taught me how to sell. And it wasn't about tricking people or convincing them. It was about showing them. And, and he would even when I would take sales calls, because I mean, I was— this is like 24 when I worked for my dad. I was like, oh God, I'm out of college. Like, what am I doing? And I remember he would sit next to me and he would listen to the other person talking and he would, he would whisper in my— like, I'd have the phone here. He'd whisper in this ear or write down what I should say. And I was like, that's not going to work. And I would say it because he's my dad and I would— and it would work. And I was like blown away. I was like, people would come in angry about their insurance and they would leave with more policies. It was crazy. And so I learned by— I learned by what he— he and another guy who I'd love to have on your podcast, Rick Roland, he was my second sales mentor. And he really— he was— he was such a great— watching somebody who really had gotten just done great with their craft. It was so much fun.

Well, I'm also thinking, you know, as a parent, that's your identity. And what kind of parent would you be if you didn't think about the impact of your passing on your children?

I see. You can't brush it off.

Your identity.

Yeah, good point. Never thought of it that way.

Because when your kids mess up, parents are very sensitive, not because the kid messed up, but how it reflects on how the parent raised the kids.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, what happens if, if you do die and you have—

Faultless parents.

Yeah. How do you, how do you confront that? So yeah, it's a, it's a very, it, It teaches you that. And my dad never really explained until he got to like what he was going to recommend about like, this is term versus variable annuity, whole life. Like none of it mattered.

Because until they're interested, it's just going—

Exactly. And yeah.

It turns into a course instead of a sales call, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And he sold to, I think he, because he was raised, he was a poor cotton farmer. That's how he was raised. And he had a, he was a sharecropper, which means he didn't even own the land that he was. I mean, he picked cotton when he was like 8 or 9 years old. And he, what I really loved and appreciate about my dad is that he doesn't see people like the way that he didn't judge them the way that they came in. He always treated his clients so wonderful, shook their hand. He didn't care if they were bankers or if they were like the window washer down the street. He treated everybody with such class.

So how do you apply those lessons to what you sell today?

So, okay, so I know this is like, I am not in direct sales today. There's a reason for that. I've got small kids, so I can't travel. But I, I mean, I've had a 20-year sales career and I, everything that my dad taught me about treating people a certain way and then also really trying to hone in. I had a CEO sitting across from me and I had this, my, actually my, I used to sell toy claw machines, millions of dollars of toy claw machines. So everyone's like, that's really weird. Like, no, like, I have very big clients. I'm not gonna name the client because I don't, I don't want him to be known. But my, the company I worked for, Ennean, I'll say that, was trying to get this client for 10 years. And then when I started to go after him as a prospect because there was a $5 million opportunity, my boss was like, you have 5— I have the email still. You have a 5% chance of closing this. I was like, that's great. I'm doing it anyway because I'm in sales and I, I do things my own way, right? I'm a little bit of a maverick that way. And so what I did is I went to the stores that he— so this person owns like 1,000 locations and I knew. So what do I— so we're talking like big CEO. He was really hard to have meetings with. He would push back at me. He would sometimes Not yell at me, but, you know, call like, no, we're not making money there. And this— and I had everything ready. I was like, actually, you're wrong. And I would call him to the carpet. I think he respected me for that because I didn't let him push me around. Like, I was very, very forceful with him. And but one of the things that I did and this whole like PowerPoint selling thing has got me completely— I hate selling. I never sell with PowerPoint. If you show a PowerPoint to somebody, they're staring at the PowerPoint. You've lost that human connection. So here's what I did. So I went in and I went to his locations and where he stored the money from his toy claw machines because he ran the business himself. So I have to convince this business person, don't do it yourself, let me do it instead. And in, in, um, so what I did is I got to know people in his organization that my organization didn't take the time to get to know. And they were very— the COO, I don't know why, why didn't we ever talk to the COO? So I made sure to talk to him and I knew that he was gonna have to manage it. I found out he was my champion. He was either gonna have to manage it or I could. So at that point he was like, I don't want— he's like, I don't wanna do this. So what was great was I went to probably like 6 or 7 locations and I took photos. of what was currently going on. And then I went to where I go, I want to see the warehouse. And it was kind of— it was a little bit dangerous because the, the guy who was running it for him at the time kind of knew who I was. And, um, there was a— there was one point where we were like in a storage unit and I was like crawling over games and stuff in a storage unit, and it's in Texas and it's May, and he's like, you know, if I closed you in here— and I was like, oh shit. So I, I, I mean, it was just— I was like, God, get me out of here. But I went into the operations where they counted the money, and it was in a room with no lock on the door, and there was a safe in there. And I took video of me opening the safe, and there had to be $25,000 worth of quarters in there. And I sent him that video and I said, I'm looking through your— and no one told me. Here's the thing, and you know this too, no one told me to do it. My boss was not like, you know, you should go down to Houston and look at his operations and take pictures of his— like, like he actually— my boss was like, You're wasting your time. Don't do this. And I was like, I don't know. Let me look under a couple rocks and see what I find. So I go to go talk to this owner, and I'd already sent him a picture. I go, this is a picture of your safe. This is all of the money in it. There's no lock on this door. There's no cameras. And so what I did is I took the photos and I put them in front of him one by one, because I knew Because I saw him as a human, that he saw his worth as the value of his companies. So I gently put a photo in front of him and I said, okay, this is what's going on with your— because it's like, how do I— I mean, this guy's really smart. He owns 1,000 locations, but I never let that faze me because I had information that he didn't. I'd been to more of those locations than he had that year, right? Because he owns 1,000. So I was like, I put the thing down, the picture down. I carefully orchestrated this and I said, what's your plan for security?

And he was like, you saw, you took a picture of it.

Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, I opened your safe. I had access to, and then, and then when I did, and then I just hit him over and over again and then I hit him with the other picture and I'm like, okay, what is your, what's your plan for procurement? All of your You know, your toy claw machines are empty. And then I just sat there, and my dad always said, whoever talks first loses. And I, I would sit there with a pregnant pause for like 2 and a half minutes while he was like, I don't know the answer to these questions. And that's exactly when I knew I had my sale. There was a lot that went into it. There was a lot of negotiations. He was a very heavy-handed negotiator. I learned a lot by negotiating with this guy. But I knew then that's when I had sold him.

And how big of a deal was that?

$5 million.

Wow.

Total contract value is $5 million.

And I gotta take, that's a huge deal for the company.

It was massive because we were trying to, we were owned by private equity. They were trying to sell to another private equity firm. And then there was another saleslady. Her name's Heather. God, you should have her on this show. She's amazing. And yeah, we would switch back and forth and both of us would bring in million dollars, million dollar deals over just the two of us just over and over again. And that enabled them to sell the company.

And how did you come up with this idea? Was it just instinct or was it?

It was, I put myself in the position of the business owner. If I owned this business, what would stick out to me as holy crap, I can't have this go on anymore. And so what I wanted to do Is unearth what he had. Again, no one told me to do this. They told me to stop.

They were like, "Don't go." They told you not to do it.

They told me, "Don't do this." And then it was funny because, like, like, and I just started this job. Like, I had started the September before, and this was February. And they're like, "Oh," like they felt bad for me. Like, "Oh, she doesn't know what she's doing." Oh, what's she doing?

She'll learn. Let her learn.

Oh, like, let her. And like they were. And one, the the CEO at at the company at the time was like. He wouldn't even send out people to look at the restaurants to do what was needed to do to do the sale. So I went to the guy who owned the P&L in that region. His name is Glenn. I love Glenn. And we did it ourselves. I said, how many can you do? I'll do it myself. And I did. I did the surveys for all the stores. I didn't get help from who I should have actually gotten help from. And we sold it. And I remember the There was like, I had to change the contract with the organization, our EULA. I'm not gonna explain it because it's like kind of boring, but basically I got them, we were supposed to pay the, the brand $50,000 if we got to a certain amount of stores. And I got them to change it to give it to this franchisee because it was in their interest for me to sell a $5 million deal to the franchisee. So I was able to give that bonus over and my boss, Said, he said, and it was $50 grand. He goes, why don't you just offer $20,000? I said, because do you think that brand hasn't told that franchisee how much money is flowing through? And if we, if we try to save $30,000, we will lose this deal because all the trust will go away. And so I, I knew. I, it was almost like letting him know I'm not lying to you because he never negotiated on that. It's like he knew the exact amount of money. So if I had walked up to him and said, oh, here's $20,000, that's your bonus, that's all I could get, he'd have been like, I can't trust her. And I was like, I got you $50,000. And he goes, it was the only thing he didn't negotiate. He goes, okay. And that was it.

When you were going through this, I'm sure it didn't happen fast. It took time.

A little bit. Yeah, it took, it took my, it was actually like pretty fast for a $5 million deal. It's, I started in February. We set up a trial in May with him with a couple of stores. And I think the contract was signed in like June or July. Like he didn't even do the 6-month period. I was blown away. I was like, heck yeah, ring the bell.

And did you have any doubt? You must have certainly at first, right? Trying to figure this out. Is there a chance? Most reps would have sent an email, tried to get a meeting, tried to reason and use logic instead of—

I think what I did, here's what I do when I sell because you shouldn't, if you're just waiting on like that one big deal to come through, you're dead or you might not be, might be lucky and it might come through. But That deal wasn't the only deal. Like, I had a ton in the hopper. That was just one of them. And I had other deals turn over too. I had another deal that I worked on. It didn't close that year, but it was like, it was like a $300,000, $400,000 deal. And it, and it turned over the next year. But I always had stuff in pipeline, but I always went the first— what I would do every day, because you don't spend 8 hours on it, you spend like an hour trying to figure it out and then boom, on to the next, on the next, on the next. So I would pick out from my list of stuff in Salesforce what's gonna make me the most money fastest. That's what I did that day. And then when I ran out of day, I ran out of day. And so I was prospecting or touching, you know, I would cold call. I did not have a BDR or like a marketing whatever. It was me. It was me. And, and I, I loved it. And I mean, I would talk to 25, 50 people a day sometimes. Yep. But I liked it. I liked my clients. I even liked— I even think people are fascinating that I don't like.

And what drove you? I mean, clearly there was money in it, but was it the challenge? Was it—

It's a challenge. It wasn't even— I mean, I make more now and, and like, because I work for tech and whatever, but I— and then I really liked it when I was right. that tasted so freaking good. I was freaking right and I was bringing it in and I, and I absolutely loved that. And like, what was fun was little by little the company like got on board. They were like, oh, this is like a thing. And so like my boss was like, I'm like, he was very— because of course, like my success is his success and he got on board and he, he admitted like when he sent out the ring the bell when I won the deal, He attached that to the email where he said I had a 5% chance. So really cool boss. I think Randy Chilton, wonderful dude. I love him so much. He's a great person, great boss. But like the CEO got into it and he went and met, he met one-on-one with my prospect and then everybody started jumping on board to help. So at first everybody was like, she's nuts. And then what was great is like after I closed this deal, there was another restaurant chain that I wanted to get in Iowa. And it— because pizza restaurants are really good for toy claw machines, right?

Yeah.

I wanted to go get this one in Iowa, and like nobody could really get into it. They kind of tried a little bit before, but I had met this lady randomly at a trade show, and I knew that we had like 2 toy claw machines in her restaurant from this brand in Luverne, Minnesota. And so I told my company, I'm gonna go talk. And she's like, I'll set up— I'll set you up with other people in the brand in La Verne, you know, in Minnesota or whatever. You can go out and sell to people. And so I told my boss and the CEO, this is my next business trip. I'm going to go to La Verne. And, and the CEO was like, let me get this straight. You're gonna go to a lady who has 2 toy claw machines, and you're making a trip up there? I said, uh-huh. And he was like, I know. He goes, I know now not to question you. Just go ahead. And within 5 months, Randy and I were presenting to the CEO and we closed the deal.

Nice.

It was so much fun. It's fun. It's so fun. I miss it. I miss it a lot.

And the creativity, the outside the box thinking.

Yes. I've always been told I'm too loud. You know, I need to follow more rules. I need to be on time. I, you know, And what sales did was give me like, I used to have raging parties in Taiwan and in Argentina, and I would invite people over. And I never, I never really connected that that's actually the piece that lends itself to being a good salesperson, that liking people and inviting them over and feeding them and having fun with massive amounts of people is what you do at a trade show. And not a lot of people can do that. And that's what I didn't. That's what I didn't realize was like, what was naturally me was actually a talent. It wasn't something to be, you know, teachers— I mean, I was a good student, whatever, but they told me to like, you know, be quiet, you're too loud, you know.

Well, you leveraged your strength.

Yeah.

You know, because that being a connector, you know, bringing disparate people together and have them enjoy each other's company and finding a possibility where there isn't any.

Yeah, yeah, obviously, that's fun. I think that that's the, that's the most fun part. And then also, there's the idea that, you know, nobody eats unless the salesperson can go hunt. And it's hunting the company and the company, nobody's gonna eat, no one eats. The sale of our company was incumbent upon Heather and I bringing in million-dollar deals.

Which is, when you look at that market, $1 million is Astronomical.

It is. That was our quota every year. We hit it by October. We had a couple of months of gravy and then we would, you know, we would move into the next year and I loved it. We worked as a team, you know, we helped each other out with our accounts. Not all salespeople will do that. And it's also the great equalizer. And I would say too, like, I'm not really like, this is a sensitive subject, the The female and the business and blah, blah, blah. But I will tell you that sales is the great equalizer. And nobody, nobody could tell me at that company, like, now that I'm not in sales, I feel like I have to be like even more strategic and think about how to create, like, prove my value. Because again, I have young kids and I can't be traveling everywhere. But it was undeniable where I was before. And with that became, came a lot of responsibility, but also a lot of power. When you're going out and you're making sales and you're bringing in money, it doesn't matter if you're a girl. Not anymore.

It doesn't.

Doesn't, right?

You manage it. And this is what I don't understand, because people always bring up gender, age, race, this background, education. If you can get money, you will be loved.

Yes, yes, they will. They will continue to want you to be there. And what's great is that There's, there's not really— there's— it's really limitless if you put, if you put the work into it. And you also— I go back to just connecting with that person, you know, really figuring out what matters to them. And if you can figure that out, then especially business— I love small business owners. They're my favorites. They make decisions quickly and they're really smart. Like, I hate to say it, but they're just some of the smartest people I've ever met.

They have to be. It's their money.

Yeah. And they're, they're like brave, they're cunning, and they can see through bullshit. And if you always apply honesty and come to them, there was one sale where I misquoted what I thought a guy could make off of his toy claw machines. And I realized my math mistake. But I'm really good at math. So I was very, I was like torn. I was like, I have to call him. I have to tell him. And so I called him and I was like, hey, and I remember the phone call and I was like, hey, I just have to tell you I made a mistake. Like I told you, I think you can forecast this and I made a mistake and it's not, the number is actually this and I'm so sorry. And I understand, you know, I was like, I understand if this changes things, but I gotta tell you before you sign the ink. And he signed with me anyway. And the next time he signed the contract and it was a $300,000 deal. Because I got all of his restaurants. And the next time he signed the contract, it was such a cool thing because it was at a trade show. I was like trying to get a hold of him. I was like, please sign that. I was like, hi, I need you to sign this contract. You know, will you sign it? And he just took it and like true small business, he goes, is all of it the same? Is it what we talked about? I said, yes, sir. And he's like, he didn't read it. He didn't even read my contract. I was blown away. I was like, and it's because it was, he trusted me because I think I called him. I would give him bad news.

Well, hey, Meredith, I really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Oh, my, my LinkedIn, linkedin.com/MeredithClinton. And if there's young people in the audience or old, it doesn't matter who, you can certainly reach out to me and ask me questions. No problem.