The Biochemist Who Sold His Way to Success

Nick Hoy’s story is an insightful look at switching careers from working in a biochemistry lab to pharmaceutical sales. He shared how he’s used his background in science and a knack for business to get ahead, and shares some lessons learned along the way. During this discussion we talked about how important it is to mix what you're good at with what you enjoy to succeed in business.

Another theme was how work/life balance is something people talk about, but it’s tough to actually pull it off. In this episode, Nick shares some personal challenges, including struggles with loss and parenting, and shows how these things have changed the way he handles his professional life. 

Finally, we discuss what it means to be an authentic leader and a skilled salesperson. It's more than just making deals; it's about building trust and long-lasting relationships. Join us to hear about some keys to finding success in both your personal and professional life, this was a deep dive into both.

Transcript

Career Transition and Work-Life Balance

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome everyone to the Sales Gym podcast , where we talk about the subjects of sales , training and human development with an eye on giving our listeners a leg up on the competition . Today , our guest is Nick Hoyt . Now Nick is a director of business development with Sterling Pharma Solutions and throughout his career he's had exposure to nearly every facet of the supply chain . His journey started when he completed a degree in biochemistry and got his first role in the industry working in a lab , ultimately moving his way up to a lead chemist and running a team . But the desire to be in a selling role , which has been with him since he was a kid selling lemonade on the corner , just couldn't be contained . So , after a client's site visit and a conversation with a friend , he made the transition into the role of a seller , and that's where he spent the last 15 years .

Speaker 1 0:45

When we initially connected , I thought we would be spending all of our time talking about how he manages large contracts , product development and client expectations and what it's like working in the industry with startup companies all the way to the big players in the pharmaceutical game . But our conversation ended up focusing primarily on the idea of work-life balance and what good leaders do to get the most out of their teams , even in turbulent times . Alright , so , nick , let's go ahead and start with your early aspirations . What drew you to sales ? Because your initial career started working in a lab synthesizing molecules and somehow you ended up on the selling side of things . What prompted you to pursue a career in business development ?

Speaker 2 1:22

Well , dean , first of all , I just wanted to say thank you for having me on your podcast today . It's been about four years since we worked together , so it was extremely flattering to get the invite from you to sit down and talk . So , yeah , I mean going back , looking back to my early childhood I think , as you mentioned on my intro , was selling lemonade on the corners all the way through college . I sold cutlery in my freshman year of university and then spent the last three years managing retail stores throughout the area . And when I got my first two job offers out of out of college , I had to put my biochemistry degree to work . So I ended up with a lab job . But you know , even when I was looking for work , I had a professor who I did really well with in her lab and she had offered me a letter of recommendation to use wherever I wanted to to apply for a research job . And I told her I said , look , I kind of think I'm just going to go under pharmaceutical sales . So that was kind of the hot thing back in the 90s was being a pharmaceutical sales rep , selling , selling drugs , so anyway , and so I ended up not taking that letter of recommendation wasn't really needed .

Speaker 2 2:32

I ended up working for a great lab down in the Santa Barbara , california area . Great experience I mean working in lab really got its pluses . There was camaraderie , there was a lot of creative outlet involved every single day and there was a really strong routine just embedded in the science . So those are things that I thrived on . But , as you mentioned again , when I did start going into more client facing role , I kind of got a taste of that travel getting on an airplane , going to a client's site , sitting down with them for an hour or two talking technical support or any kind of product development needs that they might have had , and then flying though , you know , and that was really intriguing to me in my early 20s .

Speaker 2 3:19

You know , it was a time in my life where I think that I needed a change , and , whether that be career or location or whatever it may be , going back to my you know natural tendencies to sell stuff was something that I wanted to get into , and so I was given the opportunity through a friend that I had at the company that I worked for . He , luckily wasn't able to take the job that he was offered , so he recommended my name and 15 years later . Here we are . So it was a . It was really luck . You know . It really came down to who I know and the small network , professional network that I had at the time . That really gave me the opportunity to go back into again where my passion lies , and that's selling and working with clients .

Speaker 1 4:07

Well , that's good to know , nick . That's some good background on understanding how you actually transition from that lab work into the sales work you're doing right now and , with that said , a lot of the past experiences we have , even if they're not directly related to what we're doing now , do inform a little bit of how we approach life right now . So , whenever it comes to your role as a lead chemist and maybe your educational background of biochemistry , how does that influence your sales process or your approach in how you're actually trying to conduct business today ?

Speaker 2 4:32

Working in the space that I'm in right now , having a technical background really helps . It helps to contribute to the conversation , understand what the client's asking , understanding the services that we offer , whether it be equipment or chemistry or any kind of testing . Just having that core education can help you talk the talk , and I think that having my experience working in the lab , hands-on doing molecular synthesis , having success with one product line specifically , scaling it up all the way into GMP manufacture , becoming the company's first pharmaceutical grade product , that was really kind of paved the way for where my career would eventually evolve to and looking back , it's really all come full circle , just the sales positions that I've had and the companies that I've worked for . It all relates back to my technical background and the work that I did for my first company out of college .

Speaker 1 5:38

Well , you know , that's really good to know , and one of the things you mentioned whenever we were having this conversation earlier is that early in your career , one of the things that was really difficult was the work-life balance . Life through view quite a few curve balls and it actually presented a lot of obstacles to your career success . And , no matter how hard you try , for most of us it's really hard to separate those two and , first off , find the right balance whenever it comes to work in life , and then second , whenever life starts feeling overwhelming , performing well . So how some of those experiences you had in your early career shaped your approach to your work-life balance right now .

Speaker 2 6:13

Early in my career I mean I was early 20s Everything was about having fun and seeing friends and traveling the world and just having the best experience as possible . So the work-life balance was very different than it is 20 years later , to what it is today

Compartmentalizing Work and Personal Life

Speaker 2 6:29

. But earlier in my career , I think you know , I went through a really traumatic experience losing my mother unexpectedly a year after I graduated school . So at that time , while I was working in the lab , you know I really wore my heart on my sleeve through that experience and I think I learned a lot about how not to behave , how not to treat people in a professional setting at work , made some mistakes and , like I said , lucky that I learned from them . But it really it really kind of taught me in hindsight to compartmentalize my personal life , how to be a professional .

Speaker 2 7:10

I mean I'm probably going to make a lot of sports analogies as we talk today , but you know we're professional salespeople , we're professional in our industry and if you relate that to a professional athlete , you know you got to show up every day . You have a team who relies on you , expects results from you , and you have to deliver every single day . You just can't give up and you kind of have to leave your home life at home and when you show up to work or show up on the playing field you have to be there for what's expected of you . So that was really kind of lesson learned early in life , early in my professional career , about work-life balance and how you know it's good to kind of keep those separated at times .

Speaker 1 7:53

You know that's a really good thing you're touching on and , as we both know , sometimes that's easier said than done , especially whenever we're developing the tools of how we do keep those things separate and compartmentalized . I know myself personally when I was in the Marine Corps flying and attack helicopters , we had quite a few pretty traumatic situations that happened and at the end of the day , we just had to get back to work because there was a mission on board , there was a job to be done . With that said , you know , one of the things that's been useful , for me at least , was some of the ideas of stoicism , following , you know , meditations from Marcus Aurelius and just learning how to deal with life in a way where you can focus on what's in front of you and actually staying to work while dealing with some of those emotions on the side . So what are some maybe like thoughts or approaches or techniques that you found helpful whenever it comes to compartmentalizing and trying to keep that separation so you can actually get a job done in the midst of sometimes a turbulent ?

Speaker 2 8:45

life . I'd say , at the top of all , that would be just a positive mental attitude . It's you can . You can really fall into the trap of thinking negatively every day when you're going through bad experiences , when you're going through hard times . I think that for me , just right now in my life , at the present moment , you know , for the last six years , there's been a lot of . There's been a lot of highs and a lot of lows .

Speaker 2 9:13

My wife and I went through a very traumatic miscarriage when we were started trying to start our family and following that it led down to a two year long IVF journey and going into that third year of IVF , my wife got pregnant with our , with our daughter Charlie , and she's super healthy and , you know , the best thing that's ever happened to us to this day . And but , you know , during that exciting time and coming out of a challenging IVF journey , that same year that Charlie was born , my dad passed away . He was going through a couple years of , you know , struggling with dementia and going in and out of assisted living facilities and trying to , you know , figure out end of life process for him . So there was that sadness that came along with , you know , not being able to have my , my kids grow up with , with my grandparents , so you know . And then all this was going on during the global pandemic . We were going through the coronavirus pandemic , so it was , you know , just odd times for everybody . You know a lot of anxiety , a lot of worry about what's gonna happen out in the real world when you go get groceries . There's a lot of things you can't control in life and bad things are gonna happen and it's really how you deal with them .

Speaker 2 10:34

But really , what I've learned in hindsight is just having a positive mental attitude every single day . It really changes your thought process because those negative thoughts really can impact your every single day and it becomes a habit . You develop a habit of negatively thinking and you have to proactively change that habit . And for me specifically , it was really hitting the emotional rock bottom , Realizing that you know things weren't going well at home . My current boss sat me down and said to me look , I've noticed your attitude has changed . Are you unhappy with what you're doing ? Do we need to find a different role for you in the company ? Because you just don't seem to enjoy your role right now . And that was really a wake up call to me to realize that I need to make a change because this is my professional career . This is what pays the bills . Without my job , you know , we're really in trouble . So , anyway , that was really day one for me to turn it around .

Speaker 2 11:39

I went and got help . You know , talk to a therapist . Still talking to a therapist . I've identified through therapy that I do carry a lot of stress through the sales job . It's a very stressful job but how you know , learning new ways to manage that and cope with it and use it to your advantage . It's really kind of been a blessing for me to go through all these negatives or you know , ups and downs experiences , because it's taught me a lot about myself and it's taught me a lot about how to be a better sales professional and really appreciate the leadership that I have at the moment and reflect on a lot of the leaders that I've worked for in the past and really how they shaped my career .

Speaker 1 12:26

You know that is a heavy subject , but I think it's something that's probably close to a lot of people , especially over the last few years , because they simply haven't been all peachy keen all the way around , and I guess one of the things I'd be curious to dig in more to is you know , it's one thing to be able to understand some of the things that we need to do for ourselves , and kind of understanding we do need to compartmentalize , we do need to learn , you know , good ways of coping with some of the stress and a good mental attitude .

Speaker 1 12:53

Where you know life is , it has a lot of good and it has a lot of bad in it , and what you focus on is ultimately what truly matters . So , in relation to other people , though , whenever you are maybe talking about a sales leader trying to speak to somebody who they know is going through a rough patch in life and it's showing up on the job and the performance isn't quite there , what advice would you give for a sales leader if they need to have some of those tough conversations to make sure that they go smoothly or you can get the most out of your people and it just doesn't lead to a confrontation in a clash , you know the experience that I just went through with my current boss .

Speaker 2 13:26

I mean he's one of the best leaders that I've ever worked for . He's worked for the organization for about 34 years now and he's , you know , knows all the ins and outs of the business and he's one of the best guys that I've had a chance to work with . And the way he came at it was showing me that he truly cared , like it was a moment where I really valued him bringing this to my attention , that he noticed that I was struggling and that my colleagues , you know , were being impacted by it . When I would maybe say something not so nice or challenge something that someone said for no reason , but really that care , he didn't come at me about my numbers . It wasn't , hey , you need to get more meetings , you need to close more deals , it was why aren't you happy ? And that really showed that he was caring about me .

Speaker 2 14:25

And that's not only in that one instance , but just the way that he leads the sales team is . He always stands up for us , he's always the one to go into a fight for us . Whether it be in front of a client or within the organization , within another department or with the leadership team . He's always the first person to step up for us , and that really goes a long way

Effective Leadership and Building Relationships

Speaker 2 14:46

. I don't think I've ever had anyone with that exact style of leadership , where that's truly their strength , and that's something that I've learned a lot from just seeing how important it is to a team to have a leader who's gonna stand up for you .

Speaker 1 14:59

But you know that's a good point . I think it's a good segue into talking a little bit more about leadership more broadly . I know one of the key things I learned whenever I was in the military was this idea that leaders eat last . And it's just this general mentality that leadership has to make sure that their people have everything they need to execute before they start focusing on themselves and their needs . And by doing so you ensure that your people are ready to go . They can take care of the mission that you've given them and they can tell , they know by your actions , that you actually valued them . You think they're important . So I'm kinda curious what does effective leadership mean to you and how does that play a role in your career ?

Speaker 2 15:36

Effective leadership . I mean it means different things . I think every leader has a different strength and being able to identify and learn from that strength , that's really something that I focused on later in my career , having worked for , I don't know , maybe six , seven , eight different direct bosses . They're gonna teach you different things . I mean one of my old bosses who I worked for a couple of companies back me and him are still really good friends to this day . We get together whenever we're in the same town . We call each other out of the blue just to catch up , but he taught me he a lot about the sales process in the industry that I work in and that was really his . His strength was he wanted things done his way and it was a productive , successful way . And you know we had to show the numbers and we had to show results , but again , it instilled that discipline of this is what's expected of you and you know , again , coming from a sports background , that's that's really , at the end of the day , what it's all about . Being successful athletes is your discipline , and you're practicing fundamentals and focusing on the little things that prepare you for the big moments , and you know it's it's um , just .

Speaker 2 16:58

I think that's effective leadership is just that . It's . It's our responsibility to identify their strength and to learn from it and to , you know , understand that not every leader is going to be the same and some people aren't going to be as good at other things . I've definitely worked for some bad leaders in my past and you know I learned from it . I still had something to take away from bad leadership . So , again , that's that's . I feel like that's . One of the most important assets to an organization is your leadership team , and you know that's that's something that I look for when I , when I go to work for a company Is who's in the leadership positions and and how are they going to lead us to success ?

Speaker 1 17:43

You know , that makes me think back to some of the people I've worked with in the past and One of the things I've noticed is whenever you do work with somebody who's extremely effective as a leader , often if you're around them a long enough , you start to admire maybe one of you know Two or three traits that they display and you try to emulate that in your own life . Often it's a little bit of a shadow of what they're doing , just because you know we're not them . But whenever you think of those leaders that are admired , you'd mention , maybe , sales process , going to bat for people . Are there any individuals that you'd like to maybe highlight ? A particular trait or a story about them or something they did that made you think like this is something I've learned and I'm gonna carry with this , this with me through the rest of my career ?

Speaker 2 18:23

Absolutely , I like that question . That's something that I really enjoy talking about because it's one of the greatest people that I've met in my life and he was just such a huge impact on me as a person and a young man growing up . He was the CEO of the company that I got my first professional sales job with and , you know , I Worked for him for seven years . It was it was a family owned and operated company , so everything they had that family feel . If I'd go out there and visit with them , it was like going and seeing your aunt and uncle and everybody in your extended family . It was just , you know , the , the , the happiness , the tears , the fighting , the everything that you would expect from a Wonderful family environment . That's , that's what I got , and that was exactly during that time , after my mom passed , and I was looking for change and I was really trying to figure out Okay , well , this is , you know , this is a life lesson and what ? What does it all mean now ? Like , how , how do I continue on with life ? And so , you know , I spent a lot of time with , with the CEO , you know , not only in the field or with the company , but we'd spend weekends with him and his wife and his kids up at their lake house , and it was just his whole mantra that I Grasp onto was it's .

Speaker 2 19:43

It's really about the people like the , the , not just the people you're selling to , obviously , the , the people you work with , the people you encounter every day . You know everyone's got a boss that they have to answer to . Everybody has a task or a deadline that they have to meet . And it's , you know , when you're in a sales role , it's finding out what exactly is it that they need and and bringing them a useful solution , and not just cramming capabilities down their throat or being tone-deaf to what they're actually Trying to collaborate with you on .

Speaker 2 20:18

So really focusing on the people , understanding that the people you work with , your support staff , your leadership , you know the , the subject matter experts in your organization , having those relationships with them is just as much , if not more , important than your relationships with your clients , because those are all people who are gonna get things done for you and and and lead you to that win at the end of the day . And so again back to back to my , my favorite leader of all time . He was a great man . He still is . He's retired now , but I still I cherish every moment I spent with them . I smile every time I think about him and he really taught me about the importance of focusing on the people and relationships and what we do .

Speaker 1 21:07

You know that seems to be a common theme with a lot of people I haven't speaking with recently is , if you truly value other people and relationships , you focus on developing those things that it's gonna lead to just long-term great outcomes overall . You're gonna be able to enhance their lives just in a personal basis and you're gonna be able to enhance both their and your professional lives by doing so . And what ? One of the things that's changed over the last few years is this idea of remote work . A lot more people are working from places besides the office and that's made some of that Relationship and kind of culture building and some companies a lot more difficult . So I was curious whenever it comes to building relationships , both internally and externally , with clients , what are some key things that you focused on over these last few years and how has that impacted your ability to actually do business and build these relationships ?

Speaker 2 21:56

I don't know if you want to call it luck or or or curse , but I've worked from home for 15 years . Every sales job that I've had has been a remote position . So I've been well accustomed to Working alone and a little silo in my living room or in my office or wherever it may be at the time , and it's something that you constantly have to pay attention to and you constantly have to nurture , because your life changes all the time and so you do have to adapt that that work , life balance as your life changes . And so , interacting with colleagues and clients and you for all the efforts from a remote position , you kind of just realize that when you're face to face with these people , that's when it all matters . The face to face meetings with clients , that's when you get the most collaborative work done .

Speaker 2 22:55

The times when you're at sales meetings or trade shows or trainings with colleagues , that's really when you need to spend that time to build that camaraderie with everybody . Luckily enough , the company I work for now , when we all get together for sales meetings , it's not just sales , it's a commercial department , so we have operations there , we have our partnership management group , we have our contracts group and the entire executive leadership team . So it's not just the salespeople getting together every quarter , it's the majority of the organization . And so , again , going from a remote position to all of a sudden seeing everybody for a full week , it's just really taking advantage of it and being ready for it and having that mindset of , hey , this is really why we do . What we do is to be together and to make things happen and makes it all worth it on those lonely days at home .

Speaker 1 23:57

You know the words you're using here have brought to mind the idea of just preparation and intent going into conversations . It doesn't sound like you're just showing up either internal or external meetings just saying like , ah , let's just see what happens . I feel like you're actually being intentional with your time and your mindset's reflecting that . What role has maybe preparation and having the right intent and knowing how you wanna go about the conversations or relationships ? What role does that play in your career ?

Speaker 2 24:22

I think preparation's probably the most important role . I think that if you show up to a meeting or you show up to a presentation unprepared , I mean , imagine going in front of 100 people for a public speaking event and you haven't prepared your speech what's it gonna look like ? No one's gonna wanna sit there and listen to you because you're gonna be fumbling over what to say and it's gonna be awkward . But we've all been there . We have we've all been there . But you know it's preparation .

Speaker 2 24:49

Third time I'm gonna bring up sports analogies . But growing up eight years , playing football practice was always about the fundamentals . It was about your footwork , where you put your hands , where you put your head . It was always repetitive creating the good habits and making sure we don't hurt ourselves or get blown over . And so if you carry that over into a sales career , you know things like public speaking , things like no preparation , writing that agenda whether it's a prospecting call , a huge business review , meeting with a big pharma company or , you know , a friendly lunch with a consultant that you've been working with for years , just prepare an agenda . It takes all that thought process off of what are we gonna actually talk about ? What is the goal , what's the intent of the conversation and make sure you kind of have a takeaway at the end of that . Have it be a small sale , have it be , you know , let's get a non-disclosure agreement going , or let's get a follow-up meeting together , or , you know , I'd like you to meet this person on a subject matter expert to find out and answer all the questions that I couldn't answer .

Speaker 2 26:00

So I think preparation is the most important part of what I do as a salesperson , and then also reflection . I think reflection really can help you in your preparations . When you finish a meeting , walk away from it thinking what did I do well , what did I not do well , what could I have done better ? I do that probably after every single one of my meetings and you know we're all human , we make the same mistakes over and over . But it still makes the conscious in my mind that the next time I talk to somebody in the same type of meeting , you know , be a little more prepared for it . Be a little bit more prepared for that conversation and what you want to say and what you want to get out of it . So it's a never-ending process that you have to focus on , practice , your fundamentals , every single day , and preparation is a part of that .

Speaker 1 26:48

You know . With that in mind , nick , I guess one of the questions I'd be curious to know is it seems like you've got a pretty serious approach to preparing for meetings and you're actually trying to get things out of it . You got this fundamental approach to how you do so . What made you have that approach ? I know a lot of people . I've worked with thousands of sales people , most of them that I work with . They don't have much of a process behind how they're approaching sales or the conversations they're having . What made that change in you ? Was there a moment in time where you know was a meeting you want to ? Was it a conversation with the leader ? What was it that made you think I need to do things a little differently , I need to show up different in my meetings ?

Speaker 2 27:22

Well , I'm gonna fill this back as a compliment to you , gene . It was my interaction with Sales Gym with you , where the company that I worked for at the time was very generous to bring on a sales coach and invest in the team's learning , and you presented those concepts and they really resonated with me , just based off sports background .

The Importance of Partnership in Sales

Speaker 2 27:54

Working in the lab a lot of lab works very repetitive and you learn a lot from those repetitions and failures . But having somebody say it or reading it somewhere , you might think it seems obvious . But once you read it and you start focusing on it , you're like , okay , that really makes sense to me . That really connects with the way I've experienced life and so really learning those tools and those principles and fundamentals of meeting preparation , sales preparation .

Speaker 2 28:30

That was a big takeaway that I had working with you and again some other past business trainings that companies that I've worked for that I will always remember and still benefit from to this day have been like public speaking training , business speaking training how to prepare your speech , how to stand , how to compose yourself , how to make eye contact , voice inflection , just all those things that you probably don't know people are practicing in the background . Those are keys that we use as salespeople to be successful and to be engaging and to really try to get someone to look at you as a partner rather than a salesperson . You just need to work on all your fundamentals again , that kind of bring everything all together , small moments that prepare you for the big time .

Speaker 1 29:29

Nick , I guess the last question I have for you is whenever you mentioned the idea of being a partner versus bringing a salesperson , what does that actually mean ? I know a lot of people have this idea that salespeople are the slick talkers and they can get ask them most to buy ice , whether they need it or not . But the idea of being a partner to somebody and genuinely caring about their needs and their business and only selling whenever you feel like you're in a place where you can sell from integrity , that seems to be a reoccurring theme with some of the best people I've ever worked with and I'm just curious what your thoughts are on that the difference between being a partner and just being a salesperson .

Speaker 2 30:01

The industry and the space that I work in for contract development and manufacturing , it's partnership is key . You're being relied on to be an extension of your client's business and delivering on something that they can't do themselves and really bringing more to the table than they would have been able to do themselves . I kind of when people don't know what I do and I try to maybe explain to them at a party or something what I do for work . Think of like a building contractor or a house contractor . You got a guy who knows how to make the house and he's got all these subcontractors that he knows who can get the work done expertise where he can't do it himself and that's kind of what I bring to the table . It's you have an idea and how are we going to turn this into a product ? So really having that partnership mentality is key to working with the client base that we have . It's not just a widget that we're selling . We're not selling products , we're not selling numbers . It's selling services and it's selling the culture of the company that you work for . It's these are the people who you're going to work with , who are now going to become like employees of your organization . Essentially , it's people that you want to work with it's .

Speaker 2 31:21

I don't know if you've ever had work done at home from a contractor , but there's some bad ones out there and I've had some bad experiences personally , and it's the most frustrating thing in the world . It can really put a daily stress on your entire life , and so that's what we're doing . We're , if we're not listening to our clients , if we're not acting as if it's our own product that we're trying to bring to patients , we really have to treat it that way , and the only way to get to that level is to have that partnership mentality . It's not what have you done for me lately ? Or how can I win this negotiation over price ?

Speaker 2 32:00

It's really , at the end of the day , how are we going to find a harmonious way to work together and really kind of make sure our companies mesh well and align with our goals and the way that we do business ? And again , that kind of comes down to even the type of company that you work for it's . I think that I've worked for different companies with different business models or different mentalities , and that reflects on you as a salesperson out in the industry and your reputation that you create for yourself , your brand . So you got to be choosy about who you work for and make sure that that company is like-minded to the way that you want to do business as well . And I think partnership it revolves , everything revolves around that partnership .

Speaker 1 32:50

You know , mike , st Lawrence often says that people like you , that they trust you and that they think you're confident . They'll want to stay working with you forever if they can help it . So that's , I think , a really good thing to take away or to close this thing out . So just to kind of recap some of the things we've touched on work-life mallets it really does matter and , with that said , life it can often get overwhelming and start sneaking into work . So it's really good to learn how to compartmentalize those things and learn how to actually deal with life when it gets that way .

Speaker 1 33:18

In relation to that being in leadership , being a great leader means having some tough conversations , but approaching them from a point of empathy and caring to make your people know that the reason I'm talking to you about this thing is because I genuinely do care about you as a person , and ultimately , you as a person are gonna be who shows up whenever it comes to these sales interactions .

Speaker 1 33:37

Another thing is , when you're having these conversations with partners , be intentional , prepare for them , actually focus on the fundamentals of the conversation and really know what you want to get out of the conversation and what's in it for your partners as well , and these partners could be internal or external and then , with that in mind , try to make sure that the relationships you're forming with partners are actual partnerships . You don't wanna try to sell things that you feel like and your own integrity aren't a good idea to sell . You wanna make sure everything you're doing is mutually beneficial and that whenever you finish a deal , it feels like both sides of the equation won and it got something great out of it . That's what I heard during our conversation , but what else would you add if you had any parting thoughts for the audience ?

Speaker 2 34:16

I'd say for my sales colleagues out there just don't give up . You can't give up . You're gonna have highs , you're gonna have lows , you're gonna have banner years and you're gonna have dry spells and kind of just having that grit , that discipline to just keep pushing through , just keep doing the right thing , keep following your fundamentals . Trust the process . It all works out . It's cyclical , timing is everything . But again , you're gonna have great moments and you're gonna have not so great moments . I do remember at a point I was questioning am I in the right career path ? I was having some , I was getting sales , I was closing deals , but they were small deals and I was chasing . I wanted big numbers and the big numbers weren't coming . But I was bringing all these small ones in and finally , a year later , that big one hit and that big one was the biggest one of my career I've ever had . And had I given up two months before , obviously that never would have happened . And so it really is . It's don't burn out .

Speaker 2 35:30

Pay attention to your work-life balance . Make sure you have a routine like take a shower in the morning . That's every morning when you work from home . Take a shower , get dressed like you're gonna go to the office , but luckily all you gotta do is walk down and sit at your desk , take breaks , make sure , if you like exercising or stretching or yoga or surfing , whatever it may be , find time in your day to go do that , to take your break . Because , working from home again , you don't have those interruptions of colleagues , you don't have meetings that you need to walk to another building to go attend . So you have to find ways to be physically active at your home life .

Speaker 2 36:08

For me it's laundry . I do a lot of laundry . Now that I have two kids at home I feel like I do laundry all day , every day . But that gives me that excuse to stand up for my desk , go , walk around and then come back . And then same thing with morning routine . When it comes to work , it's whether you go to the gym or whether you spend some time with your kids before they go to school , setting that boundary for yourself to get what you need to done for your home life and then transition to work . Have that starting point and that endpoint . Put it away at the end of the day , don't let it linger . If you need to check email , set time later in the evening to do it later , but make sure you're present for your family and your friends and everyone else that you spend your time with . Don't let it all mesh together and really kind of take care of yourself . Don't burn out .

The Importance of Work-Life Balance

Speaker 1 37:03

So well . Thank you for your time here today , Nick , and those words of wisdom . I think this focus on work-life balance it wasn't where I originally thought this conversation was gonna go , but here we are . We had a heavy and deep conversation about life and the realities of living life as a salesperson , with a lot of pressure on us on work whenever life can often be difficult , and I appreciate some of your thoughts there on that topic and for everybody else out in the audience , I hope you're able to take away something that'll improve your life as well . It'll help you get some lessons learned and it'll really give you a way to go about executing well on the job , even whenever things get overwhelming in your personal life . And if you're listening in right now and you think that yourself are somebody you know who's an inspiring leader would be a good fit for our podcast . We'd love to hear from you .