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Highlights

• From playing sports and traveling around California to becoming a sales manager (00:46)
• Valuable lessons he got from working in retail that he applied in his first sales role (04:39)
• Why it’s important for salespeople to focus more on bringing value to conversations with customers (06:42)
• The marathon 8-hour interview that took him from accounting and retail to the telecom industry (08:09)
• Pros and cons of working for a Fortune 100 company versus a small company (12:01)
• His quick ascension from individual contributor to sales leader (15:32)
• Learning to work with people to really succeed in building a great sales team (19:06)

In this episode of the Transformed Sales Podcast, I had a chat with Gary Guymon, the VP of Sales at Xfernet. Gary was born in Santa Clara, California and he grew up all over California. He played sports, ran track, played football, and was an editor of a literary magazine. He started a tax firm from the ground up centered all around the California enterprise program until 7 years later when the program was shut down. His business partner wanted to convert the tax firm into a traditional accounting firm which Gary was not interested in so he decided to be bought out by his partner. 

He then moved to Seattle, took a retail job, and was later contacted by NTT Communications for an inside sales rep job. Gary worked his way up to a global account manager until when he was recruited by Xfernet as a global sales manager and worked his way up to his current position. Gary and I will dive into his interesting sales career and how he went from being a tax firm owner to a sales leader. He will share his wisdom with us around why salespeople should focus more on gaining the trust of their potential customers instead of just talking about their product or service, how to build a fulfilling sales career, and his top strategies for being an effective sales leader. Stay tuned for that and more!

Quotes

“Most people have an idea of what they want anyway so it’s whether or not they trust you and what you’re selling” - Gary Guymon

“To succeed as a sales leader, you have to learn how to work with different people” - Gary Guymon

Learn More About Gary in the Links Below:

• LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/garyguymon
• Email - garyg@xfernet.com

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website - https://transformedsales.com/
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/wesleynegreer/
• Wesleyne on Facebook - https://web.facebook.com/wesleynegreer
• Wesleyne on Twitter - https://twitter.com/wesleynegreer
• Email Her at wesleyne@transformedsales.com

Welcome to another episode of the transform

sales podcast today. I am so excited to have Gary Gaiman with

me today. How are you, Gary? I'm doing well. And thanks for

having me. How are you doing? Well, I'm doing well. Let me

tell you a little bit about Gary. He was born in Santa

Clara, California, and he grew up all over California. He

played sports, ran track and played football and was an

editor of the literary magazine. He started in accounting firms

center all around the California Enterprise Program. He is now a

sales manager at expert net. So, Gary, tell us how did you go

from playing sports traveling around the state to becoming a

sales manager? Yeah, so Well, I played sports in high school, I

mostly coached in college, I ran a little bit of club track, and

competed on that level. But I never ran collegiately. But I

interned while I was in college at a tax accounting firm. And

they specialize in the California enterprise zone,

which really helped out economically distressed areas

throughout California to help give them a tax credit. And it

was something that that was very fulfilling. And it gave me an

opportunity to have a career coming straight out of college

and one of my mentors at the tax accounting firm, elected to

start a new firm with me. So I got licensed as a tax preparer.

And we started from the ground up, no customer base, no

anything, just figured we could figure it out as we went along.

And we built it from nothing and sustained it for about seven and

a half years when the governor of California did elected to

shut down the program. And my business partner at the time

wanted to convert our tax firm into just a traditional

accounting firm, which wasn't really something that I wanted

to do. So I elected to sell him my portion of the company. And I

just uprooted and went to Seattle, Washington, one of my

buddies played football for the University of Washington and

convinced me to move up there. So I went up just kind of took a

retail job, sort of on a hiatus to figure out what I wanted to

do. And my next career steps and I was contacted by a

telecommunications company called NTT communications.

They're a Japanese company, fortune 100. And I had never

heard of them before. So I did some some research, it was very,

very interesting. I'm the kind of person who likes to take

opportunities based on how much I can learn and can grow in that

industry. And being that the job that was presented to me was

centered around the internet. And the internet is changing

every single day. I mean, the growth potential is limitless.

So I kind of jumped at the opportunity started at the

bottom from an inside sales rep, and worked my way up to a global

account manager. And then I was recruited by exponet, who was a

customer of NTT communications. So I really hit it off with the

CTO, they flew me out to Los Angeles to meet the CEO. And

then we hit it off as well. I think my interview was about

like seven or eight hours while I was down here, was went from

dinner to rooftop of the building to just everywhere,

just talking. And then needless to say, I accepted the position.

But I originally started as a global sales manager, and then I

worked my way up to what I am now as a VP of sales. So your

journey in life, you started out as a as an accountant, and then

you decided, okay, I don't want to do this anymore. I'm gonna

take a different step. And you took a huge leap and just move

to another state. So when you move to another state, and you

decided to get into retail, did you miss anything about being in

that accounting world? I think I kind of missed the just going

after the customer base. I mean, you work in a retail store,

people just walk in, they have a specific need. And your only job

is to sort of upsell them, there is no real like, hunting

involved in that. And I missed that. Because I mean, that was a

huge part of what we did is we were cold calling going door to

door back when that was still relevant. And that part of it

was something that I found to really love and I missed that in

the retail aspect of selling. You like cold calling. I don't

know how many people that I can say hang their hat on. I missed

cold calling when I had to cold call. I missed it. I don't think

that's something a lot of people say. So getting into retail,

then you move back into that business to business space. So

what lessons did you extract from that retail sales

environment that you actually employed when you worked for

NTT?

I think it was just being more personable. That was

something I struggled with originally in my career path,

but being in retail, you have to be personable otherwise You will

not be successful. And that's something I kind of carried with

me and I, I learned to kind of develop a sales style of selling

myself and making sure that I'm a likable person and earning the

trust of a customer, as opposed to trying to sell them a

product, because I think most people have an idea of what they

want anyway. So it's whether or not they trust you in what

you're selling. And that's kind of something I learned in the

retail world. That's so good. The likability the trust factor,

because you're right, if I'm walking into a retail store, I

can go next door and get the same thing. So why do I stop and

say, Here's my credit card buy from me? And a lot of times in

the b2b sales world that doesn't quite translate, it's like, ah,

yeah, well, this is what I want to I want you to buy this, buy

this buy this, it's all about the products. It's all about a

future dump. But it seems like you took the those key skills

you learn in the b2c world and translated them to the b2b

world. That's correct. Yeah, I learned pretty quick too, at

NTT, that most of the people that you're pitching and trying

to sell know your product better than you do as a sales rep being

that they're all technical. And they have to be very, very

knowledgeable in what they do. So they're buying because at

NTT, we were selling wholesale internet. And that product is

something that they need to be well versed in. So for me to try

to speak to them on their level is not something that I could do

as a sales rep, starting out. So the only really selling point

that I had was myself, and I just built my career off of

that. That's good. That's so good. Because a lot of times in

our technical realm, I was actually just working with a

client today. And she was like, what, Wesleyne? I don't know

this as much as they do. And I don't know this, and I don't

know that and I'm like, Yeah, okay, you know, your world, they

know their world, right? So let them stay in their space, and

you have to bring value, you have to add things to them so

that they're like, okay, this person isn't trying to act like

they're the expert, like they know more than me, right?

They're really just trying to help me achieve a goal that I

want to accomplish. Right? Yeah. I've always found too, that

coming from a sales rep, trying to be technical, trying to

engulf yourself into a customer's world is almost a

disservice. Right? It comes off kind of shady, almost in that

you're trying to act as you're involved in their world. Whereas

if you have a technical person, like a sales engineer speaking

to what they do, it's almost trusted more. So I mean, it's

kind of taking a step back, swallowing it a little bit of

pride and just allowing things to organically move forward, as

opposed to trying to overstep and speak about something you

don't necessarily know about. Yeah, like you literally, you

have to stay in your lane. And so you came from a very

different world accounting than retail, and you stepped into

this telecom world, and somebody saw something in you. And they

said, Oh, yeah, you're pretty good at this, we want you to. So

how did that marathon eight hour interview to walk me through

that process? What was that like?

Well, it was kind of intimidating at first.

So they put me up at a hotel across the street from the

office. And I walked in kind of expecting to just be greeted,

you know, by reception, or be sat down and then just go into a

room like a traditional interview. And I walked in, and

I was greeted, and they took me around on a tour through a data

center, which I was not expecting at all. But extranet

owns and operates a 10,000 square foot data center. And

I've been to a few I've been to New York, I went to one 11/8,

which is now owned and operated by Google, and the security

level at our data center was a lot higher than anything I've

experienced. So that initial aspect of it was pretty

intimidating. And then just coming in, I went into the CEOs

office and he sat me down he had a couch in his in his office and

that was kind of where the interview started. And it threw

me off a little bit just the comfortability, this the person

ability in the interview, but he's extremely friendly,

extremely likeable, kind of ease any sort of stresses from the

get go. And we just started chatting he was he was first

trying to pick my brain trying to see how much I understood

about the industry, how much I understood about his business

versus what NTT offered, I mean, coming from a fortune 100

company to a company that's not even publicly traded. It's a

huge change in environment, not only in, in status of the

company, but also in the customer base that you're

targeting. So he was trying to grasp whether or not I would be

able to make that adjustment and if I'd be successful at his

company, so once he was able to determine that he brought in the

CTO who picked my brain on a more technical level, we start

We're talking more about the ins and outs of what IP transit

actually was versus peering relationships, which is just a

different component of the internet. And we talked back and

forth on how we could grow the company with our goals kind of

aligned, and it would be a good fit. And then he just took me

out to dinner where we kind of just continued conversations,

and at the end of the day, he ended up extending an offer. So

it's almost like they, yes, they were interviewing you. And

they're kind of trying to sell you too, right? And especially

in today's job market, where we are I mean, this is an

employee's market, right? I don't even know if that's a

coined term, but it is this is an employee's market. So as

leaders, when we think about, okay, how can I provide a

different experience for a candidate that I know I want?

And so maybe it's not like, Hey, you come into a hotel, and you

spend the whole day with us, but really getting to meet with

upper leadership and understanding from upper

leadership? These are our goals, this is our mission, these are

our values. Would you say that those things are we have reasons

why you decided, hey, I'm gonna move on back to California, I'm

gonna take a different step. Oh, yeah, for sure. I think that

just how much we kind of hit it off from an environment

standpoint, and just how welcoming how friendly

everything was, how easygoing the environment was, was very

appealing to me at the time, it still is, it's still something

that I value more than anything. And also going through a

pandemic at a company, you're always worried on how they're

going to handle things. And it's translated, you know, through

the years to where my upper management has allowed me to

work from home. Just been super accommodating to every concern

that we've ever had. And just, it's really something that they

sold and lived up to while being there at the company. So I was

the next question, I was going to ask you the difference

between that large, publicly traded company and your company,

because again, a lot of people are in that transition point in

their career where they're looking for something different,

something new, what would you say the pros and cons of both

sides are?

Well, I think the pros of being at a smaller

company is probably there's a lot more more freedom to what

you're able to do. And I say that because you can build case

studies, you can build how you pitch things, whereas when

you're at a fortune 100 company, it's more scripted, they have an

idea of how you want to pitch things, how they want you to

operate, how you have to manage certain customers, or whatever

it may be. And that responsibility, I think that

that can be deterring unless it fits your sales style to have

everything sort of planned out for you. For me, that is kind of

deterring, I like to kind of fit my sales style to the customer,

as opposed to just having something kind of planned out

and how you approach every single person. I think it's

very, very subjective. And I think that's kind of lost that

at a larger company, you don't you don't have the freedom to be

able to talk to people that way. I think a con is always you're

worried about stability? Are you worried about being bought by

another company? Like if there's a merger, if there's an

acquisition, how is that going to change my life? Am I still

going to be employed am I going to be out of a job, you know,

and all of those things go on behind the scenes, and you may

or may not be privy to it, depending on your status at the

company. And depending on how transparent leadership is with

you. I think that's probably one of the more bigger concerns I

had. Initially. It's not something that I share now. But

the biggest thing is just finding the right fit for you

and what you want in your career path. Yeah, I was speaking with

someone who is looking for new people within the organization.

And when I was talking about to them, I'm like, Hey, you have to

remember you're a large enterprise. If you find somebody

who's come from like a startup realm or a smaller company,

they're used to doing things, marching off their own beat,

that doesn't happen here. There's a lot of red tape.

There's a lot of stuff that a salesperson has to go through in

order to get something done. So you really want to think about

the culture fit is not just what you can do, but that culture fit

is going to help you get employees and keep them much,

much longer. Right. Yeah, no culture is a huge part of it. I

mean, even at NTT, there's a lot of things like you had to

dissect each opportunity. You had to dissect calls. They were

part of a Miller Heiman process, if you're familiar with that,

where you fill out green sheets for calls and you have to

outline what the reason is for having the call. He had blue

sheets for opportunities and it's just all of that is

extremely valuable if you use it correctly, but can be extremely

tedious if you're applying it to just like say like an

introductory call, which you're required to do, right. But yeah,

here at extranet that's not part of my process. There are Some

elements that I've taken from that and still use, but I don't

think all of it is applicable or necessary in every single

opportunity. Well, yeah, one of the great things about sales

leadership is you're like, I really like this, but I really

don't like that. So I'm not gonna ever do that, again, I'm

not gonna make my team do that, because it's just so annoying.

So tell me about your ascent from individual contributor to

leader? Because it seems like it happened pretty quickly with you

moving to extranet. Yeah, so just starting out, I started out

pretty successful at the company, not nearly as

successful as I was hoping to be, but to say the least, they

were happy with my performance. And I kind of put together a

proposal to create a position which was VP of sales,

everything kind of operated independently, whether that was

channel whether that was just outside sales, or inside sales.

And I wanted to kind of put everything under one umbrella

and expand and start hiring people. So I put together a

proposal, I pitched my boss, and he was all for it, he was

actually thinking of doing something similar to what my

proposal was about. But he said he loved the idea. And let's

just run with it and see where it goes. Hmm, being your own

advocate. So often, employees, people just sit back and they

wait for the company to say, Okay, there's a new position

we've created. But if you never speak up and use your words, and

say, This is the vision I have for the organization, then how

will you ever be thought of as a leader, if you're not thinking

about leadership initiatives? So you said, this is the plan I

have? This is what I want to do. And your boss said, Go do it. So

how did you start building this organization? Starting with,

okay, it's me, but I want all of these people. Can you say that

again? So how did you go about taking the plan that you gave to

your leader to say I want to make the sales organization and

what were some of the first things that you did to start

building out the sales team.

So I put together a plan to hire employees, I put together a

bunch of ROIs on when he can see his return on investment. And

then I also I put together a bunch of training materials, a

company story, started putting together marketing plans that I

was, I was hoping to accomplish to give all sales reps sort of a

head start in obtaining the goals that I had set out for

them. So I built a company story, I built a training deck

going over every single service that we offer, and just sort of

presented this all to him to where I was able to implement it

just from the start. And just any person that we on boarded

was able to go through these training materials and just have

a whole process put in front of them to hit the ground running

and be successful from day one. Wow. So you really focused on I

want to build a house before the people actually come right. You

wanted to give them the infrastructure. And I think that

that's something that so many organizations miss. It's like,

oh, no, no, we'll hire all the people. And then we'll figure

out what they do when they get here. Right? No, I think that's,

I mean, it works for some people, right. So I mean, even

when I came on board, extranet it wasn't, there wasn't a plan

in place. And it was sort of like, here's your desk, get to

work kind of ordeal. And I was fortunate to already have a

relationship with the CTO, so any questions that I had, or any

anything that I felt that I need training on, he was very

communicative, and in gave me that opportunity. Whereas I

don't I don't think, had it been a different situation where I

didn't know him as well as I did. I could have been as

successful as I was to start. So I wanted to make sure anybody we

onboard, it had that opportunity to just start and just be

confident in what they were pitching and be successful. So

as you've gone through this journey of building this team

from scratch and building all their playbooks and collaterals

what are some of the challenges that you had to overcome? Um, I

think it's a it's just kind of learning how to work with

people, because everybody's different, you know, you can't

treat everybody the same. Some people like, like tough

encouraged me, they like to be called out on what they what

they're doing wrong. Some people like to stop positive

reinforcement. I think that that has been my my biggest struggle

is trying to learn how to speak to everybody. Because if you

treat everybody the same, then you're going to fail and people

you're going to have a lot of churn in your organization. So

trying to understand that in training, I think focusing on on

where people are not understanding everything and

focus more heavily on that has been been a little difficult,

and then just being able to provide assistance while while

doing my own job as well. So I like to accompany sales reps on

phone calls whenever they need support, and also just continue

doing my job. So balancing everything, it's been a bit of a

struggle, but making it work. Yeah, and one of the things that

I really love to say is that every salesperson is an

individual. And because they're all individuals, every single

person on the team needs to have their customized coaching plan.

So you as a leader know how to best show up and serve them to

help them achieve their goals. And it seems like very early on,

you realize that and you adjusted your style for each

person on the team. Yeah, no, I like to, I like to ask people

what it is that they're really trying to accomplish in life,

not in the company. And like, for one example, I had a rep who

wanted to buy a home in a year. So I broke everything down,

asked him how much the home would cost, how much money he

wanted to put down and just kind of laid it out. And I said,

Okay, well, here's your goal for the month, I'm like, Don't worry

about your quota, because your quota is less than what you need

to hit to be able to accomplish this in a year. And I said, so

this is what you want to accomplish, then go ahead, let's

work towards it, let's find a way to make it happen. And

people are more receptive to achieving something that means

something to them than being motivated by fear. If you don't

hit your quota, you're going to be fired kind of motivation is

it works, but I don't think it's the best way to approach

managing people. So like I said, with this particular instance,

he had a goal in mind to buy a home, which would have put them

at 150% of quota anyway, so why not make that his goal? That's

powerful. That is powerful. You have had such a diverse career,

from accounting to retail sales, to really creating your own

team, what is the thing that you are most excited about having

accomplished either personally or professionally in your life?

That's a tough question. I'd say probably personally, just being

a father. So I have two kids, I like to think that I'm teaching

them the things that I wish that I had when I was a child and

helping them grow into a responsible and just healthy

person. So I think right now my one year old, it's a little

tough to tell, but my five year old, she displays quite a bit of

those characteristics that I was hoping would would come out in

her. So she's, he's very ambitious. She loves to learn,

she's athletic, she just yelled at me the other day, it was our

day off from exercising. And she said, even though it's your day

off, you need to be active. And so it's just those little things

that stick out to you. Or I talked to my kids quite a bit

about what's going on in my life. And there was a deal that

I was losing. And my daughter just tapped me on the shoulder

and said, It's just money, daddy, wow, you just You gotta

listen to them. Yeah. And understand what's important and

try not to let things impact you the way that they may initially

and just sort of take a step back and I'd say that's probably

my most proud I love it. Love it. Love it. Your children your

legacy. That is the thing that you are most proud of. That's

amazing. My son gives me those little bits and pieces to I'll

get I'll hold calling him like so mommy, what's this about?

What's that about? So I love I love I love the little people.

Gary, this conversation has been amazing. If people want to get

in contact with you what is the one best way either LinkedIn or

email is the easiest and best way to get in touch with me.

Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your time and

your experience with us on the transform sales podcast. We have

definitely been enriched by learning from you today. Yeah,

thanks for having me. And that was another episode of the

transformed sales podcast. Remember in everything that you

do, focus on the transformation within your sales organization.