Sales Coaching and Mentality with Kendra Warlow, part 1

Brad Seaman: [00:00:00] So you plan on being a larger animal event and then somehow get into sales. So how’s that all?

Kendra Warlow: [00:00:06] Yeah. So, um, ever since I was little, I was, I knew that I wanted to be a veterinarian and work with animals and I had done everything in my life to, you know, with the forward idea that I was going to vet school.

From traveling as a kid, writing letters to my high school, telling them why I needed to get off to go shadow large animal veterinarians, keeping journals, everything in my life was dedicated to wanting to become a veterinarian. Went out to, um, Cottey college first in Nevada, Missouri, this little teeny tiny town, 14 miles east of Kansas did an associates of science there then went to the university of Missouri in Columbia, in their animal science program.

And it was a pretty big transition from this tiny little liberal arts school at the time to the university of Missouri and living by myself after, um, living in a suite with a couple other women. You know, getting, having, you know, 15 credit hours and, but I loved it. Right. I got a job at university Missouri’s dairy, farm, foremost, dairy farm, shout out to all the people out there.

Who’ve milked cows in the morning before doing a regular day of anything. And I applied as a junior to vet school, which was allowed at the time if he met the requirements and I got on the waiting list, didn’t make it in, which was fine. Did a, did a senior year, graduated with a degree in animal science and.

Sustainable agriculture. I decided that as a minor and really fell in love with sustainable ag during that year and applied again as a senior and was super excited, known a lot of the professors in the vet school and the day comes to turn everything in. I get it turned in and we head of admissions at the vet school calls me.

I’ll never forget where I was on campus and says. Somebody didn’t turn in a letter of recommendation for you and we have to throw your application out. And the zoo at the time, I don’t know if it’s changed is one of seven vet schools that did not accept late letters of recommendation. And so there was nothing I could do about it, and I will never forget that feeling was a gut punch.

I just, I lost it. Yeah. I started sobbing. I was right next to a fence in between buildings. On main campus. And I didn’t know what I was going to do. Everything came collapsing down around me. What did I dedicated my life to? Why did I move away from Pennsylvania? I’m here all by myself. I’m alone. I don’t know what’s what’s happening.

It was terrifying. It was absolutely terrifying. And that was, you know, close to like a nine months long grieving process. Probably more than that because I had to go through watching my friends, get into school and then four years later watching them graduate as doctors of veterinary medicine. And it was really difficult for me.

You know, people would ask like, well, why are you just gonna apply again? I graduated, what was I going to do for a year? And I didn’t want to be a third year applicant to vet school. Right. It ended up being, that was the first. You know, big pivotal moment in my life, right? Learning how to live alone, learning how to manage my finances by myself, learning how to keep this job and go to school and then not getting in.

I was lucky to have a, you know, great professors who said, you know, have you ever thought about grad school? And I had only ever thought about, you know, grad school in terms of animal science, but I realized that a deep love for sustainable ag. And got into an ag economics master’s degree with an emphasis on international development policy, and actually got to go to Peru for my master’s research and work with vulnerable farming communities in the Altiplano Highlands and Southern Peru.

And then I graduated with my master’s and was like, oh crap. Now what? Now I have to get a job and I got to pay these bills and there’s no more school or graduate funds coming my way. And I landed at a, um, preclinical research facility in business

Brad Seaman: [00:04:04] development. Okay. So you get done with the tea, so super fascinating.

So I can relay, um, sounds like you were really super focused on what you wanted to accomplish and that was deferred. Um, I think back when I was a senior, I had a little bit of a different experience. My dad calls me and says, Hey, look, uh, the money’s up, you got to come home and bring all your stuff. You can’t do not, you’re not working.

I can’t, you can’t finish school. So I had to make a decision. At that point of, Hey, am I going to go home or am I going to go stay, let this be the best thing that ever happened to me. And I decided when he called me, my parents were going through a divorce and there was some, some kind of crazy stuff going on, but I decided at that moment, Hey, I was going to let this be the best thing that ever happened to me.

And it really is probably the starting point for what gets me to where I’m at today. But you have that defining. I can remember being, I was in my dorm. I wasn’t between buildings. How do you call it? A couple of minutes later? I might’ve been, but you have these important life decisions that sort of just come, come out of nowhere and you’ve got to make a decision on what direction you’re going to go.

So it sounds like you put that together. Pretty well, but talk to me a little bit about what happens when you get done with your grad degree and you end up at what kind of business did you say? It was, it was

Kendra Warlow: [00:05:21] the preclinical research facility that tests drugs before they go to human being trials. Okay.

Brad Seaman: [00:05:28] Yeah. Did you like, so how’d you decide to go? Like, what was that process like? How’d you decide to take a job there. How’d you get the interview process? What made you think you were going to sell? I mean, cause I’m assuming that you were at this point, you’re thinking you would do something hands on, right?

Kendra Warlow: [00:05:42] Yeah, absolutely. I had applied to government jobs for international development, sustainable agriculture

Brad Seaman: [00:05:50] through a series of, of the time in your life where you, everything is a no.

Kendra Warlow: [00:05:55] Yes. Yep. And, and Aggie kind and everything. Um, and it’s really hard to get into those places. It’s hard to get, you know, state jobs like that.

It’s hard to get into the federal government to do that stuff. And it, there, wasn’t a huge amount of nonprofits in Columbia, Missouri that were in this space. Um, and so I had to get a job. And my background was animal science. You know, I didn’t necessarily want to be milking cows, but what’s the next, you know, what’s something else in the animal science field and it’s working at a facility that does animal research.

And so instead of being a caretaker at that facility, I decided instead to apply for the business development role. And I’ll never forget asking in the interviews, you know, Hey, are you going to miss the animals? Yeah. Yeah, but they’re in this building, so technically I could go see them. Um, and that’s what started into cold calling.

Now I have a background in fundraising probably since four H having to sell four H cookies for a rabbitry like, okay, what

Brad Seaman: [00:06:56] a great, what a great program.

Kendra Warlow: [00:06:57] Yeah. You know, and so making cold calls was like, no new thing for me. When I got set up to do it, I was like, yeah. Let’s get on the phones. Let’s talk to these people because they were just people to me, like, you know, like the neighbor I was knocking on to be like, Hey, do you like cookies?

I know you do. Like it

Brad Seaman: [00:07:16] was, you know, so that’s awesome. So that’s your, that’s your transition from agriculture into sales? So what was next? What happens after you’re in Florida? So what happens

Kendra Warlow: [00:07:28] between, and that’s the, uh, the second pivotal life moment? Um, I left the. The research facility and went to fundraising at a university.

And it turned out that my supervisor at that time was kind of engaging in some pretty rough behavior at the end of every day, in terms of. Saying, making fun of others, like not, you know, stuff that just kind of makes your skin crawl a little bit, decided to reach out to, uh, a coworker at the time and talk about it, you know, Hey, why, why does this person do this?

What can I, you know, is there something I can do about it? I really don’t like this. This is not, you know, I feel like I need to defend these people who are not here to defend themselves. And she turned that over to my supervisor. And three days later I was fired. And when I pressed HR, you know, why are you firing me?

It, it was stuff like, you know, Kendra, it seems like you’re, you’re not self-aware, you know, I really think you should take a couple of weeks and think about how you can become more self-aware and just like a list of critiques against my integrity and character that have never happened in my life. And that was gut wrenching to me to have somebody create lies.

My character and integrity. And then that’s what fired me. The pivotal moment came in the months after when I was like, great, I’m going back to ag international development, sustainable agriculture, feeding, hungry people, affordable, available access to food. Like, yes, let’s, let’s do this in a month. I applied to over 65 jobs and got two interviews and I was crushed because my self-worth was tied.

In this idea that I knew I was capable of doing these jobs. And again, this is like my mindset at the time. Right. I felt like I was beyond capable of doing these jobs of coordinating programs for food bank of looking at value chains. Speaking. Local farmers and helping them get food into places and people

Brad Seaman: [00:09:34] in the community background too.

Right? I mean, you have a resume, you have a background that should fit the jobs that you’re going for. Correct.

Kendra Warlow: [00:09:41] What’s tough about that is that my resume didn’t look like that. My resume wasn’t in community food systems, it was an animal science, right. Resumes are done.

Brad Seaman: [00:09:50] They really are. They’re really are done.

It creates an opera. I think it’s unfortunate that we look at, I think it’s probably human nature, right? We want to put people. In boxes. And we want to know, are these are these, the a box players are the B box players. And so you can look at a rep resume and it creates a, a way for you to categorize. And it’s unfortunate cause uh, you know, some of the.

Uh, at least in my experience, some of the best people I’ve had don’t match the resume

Kendra Warlow: [00:10:17] and no, it’s, it’s tough, right? Like there’s a, there’s a purpose for it, especially where you’re at a huge organization. But even at that, we’re seeing it now where you use your network. Great. You have a massive organization, but you have spots that need to be filled.

You would rather have a current employee refer to you. Someone who they know is going to fit that vision, then you go through 300 resumes. Right. So that. That happened. And I was, I was devastated. I was angry. I was exhausted. I was beside myself. I’m like, what more could I do? Kind of thinking that’s when I picked up Viktor Frankl’s man’s search for me.

Read that. And my husband was a therapist at the time. He’s got a great mental health regimen. Meditates every day has always going on, you know, his own spiritual journey. And here I am just in the midst of my, um, pity pool and attachment and not wanting to get out of this and take ownership that like, I don’t have to feel like this.

I’m the one deciding to feel like this every day, but reading man’s search for meaning and understanding. You know, Victor Frankl existed in, in Auschwitz and every day he chose his attitudes. That’s our, the most brilliant thing we can do as human beings is choose our attitude. And no one can ever take that away from us.

I went home to Pennsylvania and I was crying with my sister, just sobbing, broken hearted. And finally, I just stopped and looked at her and said, oh my God, I’m killing myself doing this, being this way I’m done. And it was the first time that what I knew in my head. Connected with how I felt in my heart.

And I understood what it meant to choose how I feel and respond. And so that was like life moment. Number two, right. Uh, was that experience. And a couple of weeks later from that, I was asked to go to coffee with this extraordinary guy, uh, named Brian, who I’d known for a long time through a local gym. And he said, look, Kendra, I’m starting this company.

I would love, you know, for us to just kind of collaborate a little bit and see where it goes. And, you know, if you guys go back to PA, that’s fine, but maybe we can help each other out. And it was a tech startup, and I was absolutely honored and I definitely privileged to have the chance to be the first employee at this little company that I dearly love.

And that’s how I really got into sales and understanding. Holy crap. Sales is so much bigger than I thought it was. And then getting on LinkedIn and Brian, my CEO at the time at this little company said, you should really connect with Amy bolus. She’s doing some pretty cool stuff. And that’s how I bumbled into the Thursday night sales community.

And that’s when I was like, whoa, look at all the salespeople, look at how many resources they have. It’s amazing. And it was like, these curtains were flung back to this Vista and you’re looking out and you’re like, oh my God. I never knew. No, I don’t

Brad Seaman: [00:13:18] know about the, the Thursday night sales community. So what is that?

Kendra Warlow: [00:13:21] Yeah. Yeah. So it has, um, it was started with Justin Wells and Scott, Lisa, and Amy bolus all together who are different, um, sales people. Like Amy has a lot of experience with enterprise level sales. Scott is more transactional sales. Justin is more the, like the, the management side and growing startups and into companies and then personal branding.

And it was a place for salespeople to come together on Thursday nights and ask these three, any questions that they want, right. They get pulled off mute. You asked the question then the three of them debate. And give you their, their take on it, their answers, they still

Brad Seaman: [00:14:03] do. They still do this. You still have the thirst.

Okay. I know, I know of Scott. Um, but I’ve not heard of this. I’ve not heard of

Kendra Warlow: [00:14:11] this group. Yeah. Yep. It’s a blast. Still goes on every Thursday night, Thursday night sales.com. And I have met some of the most extraordinary people who are now my dear friends and the level of support in that community. Makes any salesperson feel like they can crush quota quarter after quarter, week after week?

Because if you have any question you just drop in and ask it, right. Hey, this thing happened, I don’t really know what’s going on. Can you help? And there’s like 10 people here ready to say like, yeah, let’s do this.

Brad Seaman: [00:14:42] So as you’re transitioning into your kind of first serious role as a tech sales yeah. W what’s ha are you having highs and lows?

Like, okay. And so this group sort of fills in kind of this need that you have, that you’re like one day. Everything’s great. And then the next day things are happening. The way deals are getting cut short, you’re trying to get your first couple of deals in the, in on the board.

Kendra Warlow: [00:15:08] Absolutely. And it was look like COVID had just hit, we had been home for seven weeks.

I’m an extrovert. You take me out of the office with my team, my little company, and put me in the spare bedroom for seven weeks. And I’m like, wow, this is, this is rough. I didn’t really know. Cause my husband was still going into work every day. So he, so TNS fill that. But also. You know, at, at that little company at patient, we were trying to figure out how to sell.

Right. And we’re going direct to HR people. We’re also working with insurance brokers. How do we do this relationship? What about this relationship? What’s the sales cycle look like? What words are we using? How are we being relevant? And so it was a, it was a rollercoaster. Right. And TNS helped level that out because, so there was so much experience in one place.

Brad Seaman: [00:15:56] Yeah. So, so what’s interesting about your story here. A couple of things, one, I really appreciate you sharing. I think a big piece of this is I think it’s really important that we, I know we like to overcome adversity. And we like to not have those experiences cause they’re hard, but they really make us who we are and they’re really important.

And one of my favorite quotes is actually a quote that I think I originally read by John wooden, but it’s an Abraham Lincoln quote and it says, don’t do for others, what they should do for themselves. And I think that that’s really important because you w what we want to do is take away that struggle.

Right. But ultimately that struggle is what makes it. And I saw something on LinkedIn the other day that said, that said something around the lines of, you know, when somebody says something negative, like, Hey, you can’t do this, or you’re not quite chocked up for this. Or sometimes those are just there, so you can overcome it.

And what I took from it was, Hey, not that that stuff is, is, uh, we, we, we like to villainize those people for saying that. But that might be what you needed to hear or like what you do to here. Right? Just as a, you know, some of the toughest times in my life or the, the most, the things that I cherish the most, those are the times that I have the most fondness for.

So I love that you shared that story. So great. I mean, all those, I mean the two or three there’s lots of takeaways there. Did you feel like when you stepped into your sales role and at this point you’re, I would say you’re, you’re, you’re coming to a place where you’re more seasoned as a sales rep. Do you feel like sales is adverse.

Do you feel like it’s wrought with adversity or do you feel like it’s just natural for you to get in there and sell? Or do you feel

Kendra Warlow: [00:17:40] setback? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s natural, like that’s right. And I’m not going to use the word normal because it’s natural. Right? We are trying to help somebody by understanding them, their position at the company, their space that they are.

We’re trying to help them and be a consultative to them, just to explore if something is, is the right fit. Right. And I think the highs and lows happen, but not to the extreme, because you detach from the outcome of that. Right. And, and it takes a lot of practice to do that. Right. You, you first have to learn why you’re attached before you can detach.

And that’s when, when the detachment is. If it doesn’t fit and it doesn’t work, it’s not so bad. It’s okay. There’s no, it’s not a big deal. Yeah.

Brad Seaman: [00:18:30] W why do people get a tea? So talk about that. I know Josh talks about it. I’m naturally not detected. I know as we’ve grown the business, I’ve always said, Hey, look, the company is not made out of one.

Like we’re not gonna, we’re not going to win or lose. The business is not going to survive or go extinct because of one deal. You know, we have lots of clients. If we get a deal great, w we’re not going to carve deals up or try to make astronomical changes to the deal structure. So it just is what it is, right.

I mean, you’re, you’re not gonna, I just don’t believe you live and die on one on, on one deal. Maybe you do. I don’t feel like you do, you know, I think there’s rare situations in, so I’m naturally not attached. Like I don’t want the tasks and stuff now I’m not as, as detached as my wife, which is she’ll, uh, just naturally like anything in our house comes in like mail, it’s going out the door, you don’t touch this thing.

And in 30 seconds it’s getting thrown in the trash. Can.

Kendra Warlow: [00:19:24] Brad, why do you think that? Why do you think that you are a little bit more naturally detached from, you know, reps that you’ve seen or other sales people. What has cultivated that for you? Where do you think that first started?

Brad Seaman: [00:19:38] That’s a good question.

I think some of it is personality. I think there’s some personalities that are just more naturally attached. Um, I think some of it’s probably rooted in faith. Like I just think things are gonna work out. And so I try to stay grounded in the sense that, you know, taking a long, a long view. But I would, I would say that those are probably the two primary things.

I think some of it’s personality, I think the other piece is that I just believe things are gonna work out the way that they should. And so then that changes the friction of wanting to manipulate. Yeah.

Kendra Warlow: [00:20:10] It sounds like you have the ability to sit back and observe. What’s happening rather than being like the kite in the wind during whatever’s happening, that you can step back and see it for what it is in reality of that moment.

Now that’s

Brad Seaman: [00:20:27] not to say that I don’t care deeply about it. I just it’s over removed. Hey, we gotta move on. And I heard a really good quote by Barbara Corcoran. She, she said, Hey, the number one thing in my observation, Of good salespeople versus mediocre salespeople is how quickly they get over a big deal going south.

So the quicker somebody can move on that is the number one indicator. And I’ve had people argue with me around that quote, but I think that’s, that’s pretty, pretty right on in my head.

Kendra Warlow: [00:20:59] How have you figured out how to do that? Are you saying that it was, it was a Nate with you already that, you know, the loss of a big deal was never going to be a mountain.

Or is it learned over your years of experience doing that? Um,

Brad Seaman: [00:21:13] I, I think I’ve had a lot of setback in life and I just tried to take every setback with HEDIS, the best that he’s going to have ever happened to me know, Hey, this is the, um, this is, you know, this is the best thing. Like this is going to work.

This is going to work out in the long run. Yeah.

Kendra Warlow: [00:21:30] I think it’s, it’s about, it’s about mindset, right. But what’s really hard is when. We’ll have a rep, right. We’re paid off of our performance, which is, which is a great thing and a crappy thing. But sales naturally individuals who have these booming personalities and most of the time, right?

Not all, but if you’re not with this booming personality, I know many salespeople that are very, you know, quiet monotone on the level, but their hearts are massive. And so when something doesn’t work out, they feel it so deeply. But it’s about, it’s about mindset, right? The moment when you mentioned faith, that it’s a long game, this is the best thing to ever happen to me, you know, hearkens back to something that I think I’ve said with speaking with Josh or people who have done coaching with me have heard me say that the universe works for the good of all things at all times, for the benefit of all conscious beings.

So no matter where you are and what’s happening right now, it’s only setting you up for something that’s coming down the road and without. These difficult moments in our life. We don’t have the opportunity to scrub down our foundations and see the cracks and remove blocks and put new ones in and decide, you know what, next time I’m going to think about it like this, I’m going to be aware of the present moment, not live in the, what ifs of the future, nor review and regret the past to see something as it is in the reality of today, the present moment with the understanding that no matter what happens.

It’s setting us up for what whatever’s coming. Right. We don’t take a wrong turn for a long time. Me not getting into vet school was like, Oh my God. I could have done so many other things I could have gone back from Marine biology. I could be on a research vessel right now doing ocean research, saving the ocean, which is my other passion until I allowed that belief to permeate to understand, right, there is no wrong path.

You can’t choose a wrong path. There was only the path that we’re on, that we are left to cure. And decide how we choose to intentionally walk down it. And when the barriers arise, did we put them there ourselves? Do we go over around? It just is. Yeah. No.

Brad Seaman: [00:23:39] And I think so, yes, to all of that. And I think that, um, sales specifically is an environment.

Sales has a lot of setbacks and you have to accept you. You have to get your mind wrapped around. Some of those principles, if you’re going to survive or you’ll just be crushed,

Kendra Warlow: [00:23:56] last thing. And I see it, I see it with, with especially new reps, a lot, right. Or folks that have had to transition from a different kind of sales into tech sales.

And it is, it’s so painful to see them in pain and helping them understand. You can, you can do this. Right, right. Right. Next to pain is peace and joy. They exist right next to one another. You can reach over and grab it. And it’s teaching somebody that they aren’t bound to their emotion. In fact, they can allow it to pass along in front of them.

And so. When it comes to sales, the detachment piece is huge because it enables you to do your job without, you know, when the deal doesn’t close. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Doesn’t mean you’re a bad spouse. It doesn’t mean that you have a bad heart or that you’re worthless, or you can’t, you know, you as a human being do not change just because this one thing didn’t happen.

Yeah. I

Brad Seaman: [00:24:55] think that the TA the detachment, thing’s interesting because, and you asked me, you know, Hey, why do I think I have that? Now mindset. I think some of it is, uh, if you’ve ever watched Tommy boy and he tears up in terms of the muffin, that’s the reality. If you’re selling, you know, if you get real ID, if you take that little clip, that’s what happens is you get, get it.

Everything’s going really good. It, if you get attached to it, Yup. And then you just tear it all

Kendra Warlow: [00:25:23] up and, and that’s, but, and that’s true, right? It’s pushing it. It’s the same thing in life where I can’t tell you how many decisions I’ve made in life. Not because it was what the universe presented, but because I wanted it, so I’d force it.

I I’ll never forget one time wanting to travel to Ireland. And I saved up all my money and everything along the way was like falling apart. Like clearly there were, there were signs to like, not do this. And I forced it and it was an awful experience. How do you,

Brad Seaman: [00:25:52] how do you balance forcing with just like, yeah, tenacity and being committed to something.

When

Kendra Warlow: [00:25:59] you learn, be in tune with yourself, you learn when you’re forcing it and when you’re allowing something to happen and you pay attention a little bit more. To how something feels and you learn when you’re smothering it, right? You learn when you begin to place your expectations on something and your assumptions on something.

We as salespeople have this nasty habit of showing up with these assumptions, because we’re taught that this person has a persona, a profile, the company runs like this, they do these things and you show up with these expectations and assumptions. And then when things don’t, don’t go the way as planned, you freak out about it and you force something that shouldn’t be forced when instead, if you showed up without these things and said like, oh, I’m just going to talk to Rachel today.

Brad Seaman: [00:26:50] I think I mentioned this last week. So when I started the podcast and I love, I mentioned the last week or a couple of weeks ago when I started the podcast, I used to do a lot of research. So I would, you know, I’d have a guest on, I’d read all their books. I, you know, so I was getting them on, on, and I knew everything.

And I’m really like working hard. I’m trying to force these inner, I’m trying to force the interview. I’m like, no, no, no, no. You need to get back on my path. And I heard Oprah say that, um, at some point and she got lots of little, I just want to be clear. I was not on her website and I was not looking specifically for this.

I just happened to come across. And what she said was she stopped at some point, she stopped trying to prepare for the interviews because she wanted to be fully present in the moment. And she found if she did too much research, she wasn’t able to get the interview. Didn’t go the way that she ever, that she intended it to go.

And they were just so much better when that she didn’t. And so I started throwing the notes out in the interviews have been substantially better and we’ve gone some places that I never would have ever would have planned going, uh, in some of the, some of these interviews. Um, but you know, being present really has changed the tone, I think, for the, for the interview.

So I’ve really enjoyed, I think there’s something to be said about that from a podcast. There’s also something to be said about that from a sales perspective. And I think the most important thing, particularly if you’re early on your SDR role, and I specifically take a lot of sales calls from other vendors because I want, I want to know what it feels like to not.

And so what happens is you get these young BDR. So if you’ve got a BDR team and you’re listening to this, I think this is really, really good.