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Earning the Right to Win: Sell with Passion and Empathy, with Bill McDermott, CEO, ServiceNow, Former CEO, SAP SE, and Author, Winner’s Dream
Hit the ground running
In your first hundred days in any job, you’ve got to really hit the ground running. What I try to express to people is have a plan. My first sales management job, I was 24 years old. I’m interviewing against candidates that are 10 years my senior, far more experienced and probably far more ready for that position. I had a very tight plan of precisely what I would do for the first 30, 60, 90, and up to the hundred days, the results that I would deliver if I was selected for that job. The other candidates took it a little less seriously, perhaps a little more casually. Maybe they should, in their own minds, because they thought that they were deserving of the position. I’ve learned never to expect anything, that you have to fight and hustle for everything. So I envisioned with my own unique skills and what I thought I could bring to the equation, my own unique plan with my own unique DNA and precise terms of what I would do.
Well as I closed for the interview to see if I got the job, I wasn’t given the job at that moment. I was told that it would be a very tough decision because there was so many candidates. But I was in the office the next morning ahead of everybody else. In fact, it was still very dark in New York City. The then district manager called me into her office, the deciding manager, and she says, “You got the job and I wanted to let you know before I let all the other candidates know. Please don’t say anything until I tell them.” I said, “That’s fine. Why did you give me the job?” She said, “Because I love the fact that your plan was so clear and that you would walk on fire for this job. Nobody had that level of passion.” Today I still have that level of passion. I never take anything for granted because I know anything that you have can and will be taken away from you if you don’t wake up every morning with a burning desire to win and stay ever true to the winning dream. That’s who I am.
Read the room
I was a new trainee at Xerox and honing my skills as a salesman in the streets of Manhattan, knocking on cold doors for a living. And this one day I had a great opportunity to travel with a more seasoned sales rep and go on a call. It was August. Temperature couldn’t have been anything less than 95 and I was walking up Fifth Avenue with a copy machine on my back, a memory writer, electronic typewriter, my briefcase, along with my colleague who was a much more experienced salesman. I was a new trainee.
When we get to the brownstone, it had several floors. So no elevator in 95 degree heat, carrying these machines up was no small task. By the time we got to the top of those stairs and walked into the brownstone, it was a lovely office. And I could see the owner out of the corner of my eye, across the room. And at that very moment, a large cat jumped off a filing cabinet and grabbed onto my chest with its claws.
Now, I wasn’t so much worried about dropping the machines or even the cat, but for a second, I did worry about my $99 suit that I bought from the mall. But instead of panicking or overreacting to the situation, I held the cat, I petted the cat, and the owner of the business quickly realized that we had something in common: we both liked animals.
She comes over and starts a wonderful conversation. And while my colleague couldn’t wait to start selling the machine, plugging it into a wall and demonstrating it, I knew that Garfield the cat was in charge that day. Garfield was the president of that company. So I teach the lesson on the importance of reading the room, being in the moment and being a person that has empathy for the situation. Think on your feet, don’t go in with a prescribed set of pitch points. Be a person that cares about other people and really understands the circumstances you’re in.