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In this episode of the Science of Selling STEM, I’ll be sitting down with Pete Tonsager, the Director of Worldwide Sales at MGK, a company that develops and delivers innovative insect control products. The youngest of nine, Pete worked several jobs while putting himself through college. His early work involved working in a composite wood research laboratory which served as a springboard to his career as a sales manager in specialty chemicals and composite products. He is customer-focused and a value-obsessed director of sales. 

He has had notable success in devising, defining, and executing short and long-term strategies to amplify revenue, sales, and customer service. He has an excellent history in managing budgets and ensuring efficient usage of the budget with aim of cost minimization. He is adept at assessing customer requirements and exceeding expectations for maximum client satisfaction and success. Companies he’s made a positive impact at including Sumitomo Chemical, Donatelle Medical, Liberty Diversified Industries, and Rehau. You won’t wanna miss this episode as Pete shares his great sales and sales team management wisdom with us. Stay tuned! 

On Today’s Episode of the Science of Selling STEM:

• Learning how to educate customers instead of selling them and making sure you deliver value (01:49)
• Why delivering value has nothing to do with the product you’re selling (02:40)
• How he coaches his sales team so they can keep performing at their best (05:06)
• Role-playing 101: How to make your role-playing sessions better (06:36)
• Giving the fresh sales talent the same type of support as the more seasoned salespeople (09:21)
• Developing a culture of collaboration within a sales team (10:30)
• The challenges they faced from going virtual since the pandemic began and how they tackled them (12:30)
• Remarkable achievements in helping salespeople achieve great results (17:15)

Connect with Pete Tonsager:

• Pete on LinkedIn

Connect with Wesleyne Greer:

• Wesleyne’s Website
• Wesleyne on LinkedIn
• Wesleyne on Facebook
• Wesleyne on Twitter

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Join The Science of Selling STEM community on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and visit my website for even more content, information, and resources.

Hello and welcome to another episode of

the Snack size sales Podcast. Today my guest is Pete Ponte

Sager. Did I say that right? Pete?

Yes, you sure did.

Awesome. How are you?

I'm fantastic about you.

I'm doing a lovely. Let me tell you guys a

little bit about Pete. He is the youngest of nine, he worked

several jobs while putting himself through college. His

early work involves working in a research laboratory for

composite building products serving as a springboard to his

career as a sales manager in specialty chemicals, and

composite products. He is customer focus, and a value

obsessed director of sales. I love it. I love it. I love it.

So tell me, how did you start your career? And how did you get

to where you are today?

Yeah, I'm sort of interesting. You know, I never

wanted to be a salesperson. Like, so many people out there

sort of thought. That's sort of not where I wanted to go. But in

college, I was working in a research lab, it was my work

study job. And it was a composite wood laboratory. And

so I started interacting with different people who were

bringing ideas into our lab, and got it got a job running a

composite slab for a startup business in Minnesota. And we

were a small startup. And so as the head of the lab, and it was

a technical product, I started getting brought out in front of

customers. And it really started with me seeing my myself as

educating customers not selling them. And that's really the

approach I've taken since then it's about helping the customer

and bringing value.

Oh, helping the customer in bringing value. So

when you think about those two things, helping the customer and

bringing value, a lot of times I hear salespeople or sales

managers saying you can't do both, if because when they think

about bringing value, they're always thinking about being so

product centric, and like thinking about their products.

So tell me, how do you balance those two things, right. And

that's where so many people I think, go wrong,

they think about it as product, right. And so I look at the

individual that I'm talking to, you've got to start there, we

all bring our personal lives, we all bring our public selves and

our business selves to work every day. And so it's relating

to that person. And then you've got to do research ahead of time

to and understand, if it's a large corporation, the division

there in the corporate goals, you really need to do your work

ahead of time. Because what I've learned is, a lot of times the

value you bring has nothing to do with your product. I always

tell my team if it's the perfect product with the perfect

company, the perfect quality, perfect supply chain, we don't

need salespeople, right, it's going to sell itself. And so

understanding and I'll use current examples right now,

global shipping is a mess. And so I now work for a global

corporation. And so for some of our smaller accounts, I put them

in touch with our global stuff, the global team that does

shipping and receiving. And they can help them understand how to

get a product. That's not a product, it's not me it but it

brings value to that customer. It's something that someone

selling the same product at a lower price can't offer. And so

that's what I always coach my team on understanding that it's

not always product, it hardly ever is product, it really is.

How can I help this customer?

I love that one thing that I often say is serve,

don't sell, right. And sometimes when you're in a situation with

a prospect with an existing client, they don't need what

you're offering right now. But you have a somebody in your

ecosystem, somebody that you know, who can help them, and you

help them with their problem today. And that brings you more

business tomorrow. So as a individual contributor, I know

that it's it's easy to have your marched to the beat of your own

job focused on the customer centric and the value. And you

mentioned coaching your team? How do you ensure that you're

incorporating this into the fabric of your sales team?

So with my team, we talk about meetings, pretty

much beforehand, we want to know what our objective is from the

meeting. And with that we really test each other. We really go

back and forth, not so much role playing but really understanding

what are you trying to do and how do you think you're going to

get there? Because you can't lead the customer there. But you

need to be knowing what your objective is to understand how

to get there at the end. And again, it's more about

uncovering what are the pain points, what are the

bottlenecks, what are the problems that I can help solve

and that That's how we do it. And then afterwards saying, how

do you think we did, um, because let's face it, having the best

laid plan, you can walk into a meeting and get thrown sideways,

until you're not always going to hit your objective. But if you

provided a glimpse to that customer, the value you bring,

it's still a success. I love

that. So, so many sales managers and sales

teams, they hear roleplay and they're like, Hey, go play. It's

the worst ever. But I found that, you know, when you role

play, what you're doing is you're allowing the sales people

to mess up in a safe space. And so even if they cringe, or they

don't like it, this is how they practice. And so when they get

out there in the real world, they've already got all the

jitters out, they've already perfected their pitch, they're

questioning, so it helps them. So how do you one, get your team

to enjoy roleplay? And to what are some tips that sales

managers could use to make their roleplay sessions better?

Yeah, I think what I found in past and role

playing, because honestly, I don't like role playing either.

It is so uncomfortable. And one of the reasons is, I think a lot

of times, when trainers come in, they set up profiles and things

that maybe have nothing to do with the customer. And I always

bring it back to I start with with the customer. And I say

what problems are they facing? So if it's procurement, they're

going to have specific problems, marketing, it'll be different

set of problems, and then say, how do they create a win for

themselves in the business? And so that's, that's really what I

asked to set up a roleplay is, what are we trying to achieve?

And how can we realistically help them get there? And that's,

that's where you have to make it personal to me. And so for role

playing, that's what gets my team comfortable with with going

through this scenario.

I love that it's starting with the end in mind,

right? Like, what are the goals that we're trying to achieve?

What do we need to what is the outcome of this meeting? Right.

And one thing that I like to tell people when I'm working

with them coaching them, is whenever you do a ride along

with your salespeople, you set the objective before the

meeting, you add you are quiet in the meeting, because it's not

about you, nobody gets back to you. It's all about salesperson.

And then after the meeting, you have to debrief right, you have

to say you did this right, you did that? Right. Okay, these are

the goals that we set, do you think that we achieved our

goals? And again, when you're able to do that in a safe space,

I think that's really what helps build the trust within a team.

And when they get out there in the field, they perform better?

Correct? Yeah, it's just immensely helpful. And

I also try to remind my team that, you know, I've coached

older folks that have been selling for a long time. And in

the current industry, I'm in it's long term accounts that

you've been selling to for 40 years. And so what's relevant 40

years ago, is still relevant today, as far as some of the

knowledge, but I always remind them, I said, Any relationship

you've ever had, whether you're married, whether you're not even

your relationship with with your parents, right? Think about when

you first started that relationship, and what was

important to you in them then? And what's important now, you

know, new couples starting out, it's finding a place to live

together. What do we agree upon all of that. And once you've

been married 20 years, it's different. So you can't assume

that what you knew about an account 20 years ago, or two

years ago is true today. So tell me about those.

Those salespeople that you have that

are probably towards the end of their career, and they've been

doing the same thing for 1020 30 years. For you as a sales

manager? How do you ensure that you're giving the brand new

people on the team, the same type of support as those more

seasoned salespeople?

Yeah, and what I tried to do there is praise and

understand those those workers that have been in the in the

position a long time, they're doing a great job, they're the

best coach, they're the best example for the newer members of

the team. So get them to work together to understand each

other, and, and even to share accounts. I've done that some

salespeople really hate it, I'll admit, because they're very

competitive, and they want to win on their own. But if you

make them understand that winning together, that's truly

what a team is about. And what I also tried to do is, I tried to

stay away from my account that my this my that, I always remind

them, we're stewards, they're the company's accounts. And so

if I can get them to buy into that and believe in that, that's

also a big asset to training.

So I touched on something that is so, so big

with sales teams, it's really like we're not competing against

each other. We're competing against external forces. So

really having within your sales team them working on accounts

together and sharing knowledge and I won here, you can do this,

you can do that. And give us some tips tell us how you were

able to develop that culture within your team.

So with the team, I it's really a celebrating

individual victories. And also acknowledging the challenges and

sharing those as a as a group, again, that that safe space that

you talk about, owning up to everyone has a bad day, right.

And the other thing I've done is I get to Team comfortable with

the fact that we're not all the right cup of tea for each other.

And so you are going to have a country feel there's nothing

there, we've got everything we can get. And so getting people

comfortable with swapping out accounts, to bring it and I'm

sort of the intermediary to make sure you're not dumping your

worst accounts on someone, but really getting people to

understand and it's, it's been miraculous, because accounts

also respect that, that you respect them enough to say, All

right, you know, it didn't work out with this salesperson. This

is another person, right? And this is why I selected them for

you, this is what I expect to get out of it. Because I want

the accounts to understand too, that they also play a role in

this. If they're going to be Prickly, with every single

account manager that gets in front of them. That's that's not

an account that we want to spend a lot of time with. It's not

rewarding for anyone. So I sort of also expect respect from the

accounts for what we're trying to do if we're truly bringing

them value, they would understand that.

I love that. I love that, you know, because

sometimes I find that sales managers, or salespeople,

they're like, oh, yeah, that person doesn't like me. So we're

just not going to do business with them. But you take a

different stance that maybe that sales person doesn't veg with

their personality. So let me try somebody else. And if I try

three or four people, then yeah, it's the customer. It's got my

salespeople, right. So at some point, it's not making excuses,

it's really aligning the outside influence with the inside

influence. So within this last year, we've been in, I call them

a new normal. So we've transitioned to mainly virtual,

we've done a lot of things differently, what were some of

the challenges that you guys experienced? And how did you

overcome them.

So the challenges, as you can imagine,

we're not an inside sales team. We're an outside sales team

here. And it's international. And so to overcome some of the

cultural differences, other things, it just makes more sense

to be face to face as much as possible. And not being able to

do that was very challenging. We adapted very quickly to having

teams meetings or Zoom meetings, that wasn't an issue. But the

body language, the rest of it was really a challenge. And so

for the team, a big thing we did is, for large meetings, I'm

okay, if someone's not talking, not really primary to the

meeting, camera can be off, not a big deal. But if you're

speaking, and especially if your salesperson your camera needs to

be on, you need to be interacting in that way, because

that is the best thing we can do. And so that was one thing

that we did. And like you said, we really, we had to almost

become therapists, because when people were working from home, I

found that there were more of their personal lives that

interfered with work than when they're in their office. And so

just understanding sometimes that you're that you can see a

little kid that's coming up and tugging on dad or mom shirt, and

wanting some attention saying, hey, you know, do you need a 10

minute break? Or should we reschedule, people really

respected that and understood that. So it was being aware of

these different cues that we obviously in a business setting

when you're in a conference room, you don't have to be aware

of? So that was that was our challenges, and I think we

tackled them very well.

I love that because you know, one thing that

I say is, would you get in the room with a customer with your

sales manager, your colleagues with a bag on your head? Why are

we in a Zoom meeting, and I'm just looking at a black box and

I poke fun I can I can talk to your black box today. I get it,

you know, you just don't want to be on camera. But it's weird,

talking just a name. And I think that, you know, humanizing,

because sales people are people too, right? Like, I really like

to say that because a lot of times, salespeople get this

stigma of being sleazy or self centered, like all of these

things, but at the end of the day, they're human, right? And

so yes, they have families, they have animals, they have kids,

they have spouses, they have things that are happening. And

really within this past year, there were so many things that

were out of our control. So I'm curious, do you see what do you

see I guess for the next 12 months or so for for the

business. Are the reps going to be back in the field are you

going to do in person conferences virtual All

conferences, what are you going to be doing to incorporate the

old and the neat.

So for us, it's been pretty interesting. We deal

with very small companies, but also a very, very large

corporations. And we've been trying to be polite and

cognizant of where they're at. Some are coming back into the

office on a part time basis, but not allowing for, you know, face

to face meetings. Others are, and so we're getting in front of

those that are ready to accept us. And honestly, with others,

what we found is they want to meet as well. And so if their

company is not allowing people into the building to meet, we're

actually flying out and meeting in an outdoor coffee shop, if

that's acceptable, just having them check. But again, it's it's

part of that value equation, again, you have to value where

they're at what they're comfortable with, while still

maintaining a great relationship. And so we're

really doing a mixed bag of still doing some online, some

face to face some getting into a corporate boardroom and talking

to folks, whatever is acceptable to them, and they're comfortable

with.

I love that back in the olden days, as my kids

call it when I was first in sales, I can remember one of the

things that I would do when I got a new lead or prospect, I

would ask them, How do you like to communicate phone in person,

email, subconsciously like email, and like I sold things

100% through email, this is way before the days of Skype or zoom

or selling that way. But like I corresponded 100% through email,

they sent a purchase order, we never spoke on the phone,

sometimes they would want to see face to face, like they would

not do business with you, unless they're like, no, come meet me.

And then you're like, Okay, well, can I send you the quote

or put nope, nope, coming in, right, and you do what the

customer wants. And I think that that goes back to being customer

centric, which is what you said, it's like, focus on what the

customer wants, I can't go on site. But I do think that we

need a connection and you want to see me let's go to a coffee

shop, I'll take you to lunch, right. And I think that is

really what helps to build these strong sales teams. Right? So I

would love for you to tell me Give me a success story. Tell me

about a salesperson that you have that was an underdog. That

was the comeback kid that was like a written off and you were

able to redeem them, or a team or a project, something that

you're really especially proud of,

you know, I've got quite a few folks that I

just feel personality wise, professionally, they were at one

point and just getting them to a new point has been remarkable.

And I had a person who was a new immigrant to the United States,

and really felt uncomfortable with their language skills felt

uncomfortable with the way they interacted, it just culturally

was a different environment for them. And so I work with that

person, and help them to understand that bringing their

culture out. And sort of bringing it with them, instead

of being ashamed of it or trying to minimize it was actually to

their advantage. Because it made the conversation more

interesting. It made it more of a learning experience for both

sides. And this person just had had a heart like you wouldn't

believe. And I remember after two years ago, I was at a trade

show. And this was a female, she wasn't in the trade show booth.

And one of her customers came in and said is Lisa here and I, I

have a dry sense of humor. So I made some sarcastic remark about

oh, you know, she, you know, Lisa, she showed up and now

she's gone. And this customer got defensive on Lisa's behalf

and defended her and it was then I realized, this is who she is.

And to this customer. She wasn't a salesperson, she was a member

of their team. And it just made me so proud of the steps that

she had taken to really overcome, you know, what she

felt was something that set her back. And she was able to turn

it around and really use it to her advantage to be more human

as a sales, like you said as a salesperson, right?

Oh my goodness, I absolutely love that story. A

lot of times in these this technical field that we're in we

have a lot of people who English isn't their first language. And

a lot of times they shy away from getting into sales because

they're like, I have to talk to people. And I don't feel like I

can communicate clearly but for you as a sales manager to say

hey, it's okay. You know, your differences are accepted and

respected and I'm going to work with you and lean on the things

that you're good at that relationship building that

developing that rapport and really when you have a customer

who's defending your boss, maybe like that is like the Holy

Grail. So kudos to Lisa I hope she listens to this wherever she

is in life and really knows and understands how great of a

salesperson she is to have her Boston Finding her, I mean her

customer defending awesome. So Pete, we have had an amazing

conversation and I know there gonna be be people out there who

want to get in contact with you what is the one best way for

them to reach out?

Probably through LinkedIn. Um, I know it's a

tough last name. But on LinkedIn, it's Pete last name is

Tom Tiger. Isn't Thomas o n is an anti s ag er, just ping me on

LinkedIn. I'll sure be sure to get back to you. I love meeting

and connecting with people on LinkedIn.

Awesome, thank you so much for talking to us

about building value and having a customer centric sales

organization and really how you take your sales leadership, your

sales management to a whole different level by really

coaching your team to their strengths and their weaknesses.

Thank you so much, Pete.

Thank you for a great podcast. I love listening

to it. It's been fantastic.

Awesome. Thank you guys so much for listening

to another episode of the snack sized sales podcast. Be sure to

check us out rate and review this episode and in everything

you do. Remember to transform your sales