AJ Tennant: How to Build a Sales Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | E2118

You can very quickly know when you've got an AE that's all they're doing is coming to you with problems and not coming with solutions and ideas. If you do not have the ability to collaborate effectively in a way that's driving your point of view, that does require some tension, and you are steamrolling people, people don't want to work with you, you're gone. It just doesn't work.

Ready to go? (upbeat music) AJ, I am so excited for this, dude. We get to do this in person. This is so ... 'Cause we were planning on doing it remote-

Yeah.

... and then when you said you were in London, I was like, "Yes, this is it." Thank you so much for doing this.

Thank you. I'm- I'm stoked to be here.

Now, I want to start with sales leadership skills and sales skills. A lot of people suggest that they are born, you're a natural salesperson. Do you believe that sales skills are born or they can be learned?

I fundamentally believe they can be learned. Uh, uh, you know, I think a lot of people would say it's innate, you know, you're born with it, it's that personality of someone that's outgoing. But my- my philosophy is that pretty much humans can learn anything if they're taught and they have the motivation to do it. And so I've seen in my career someone that's joined, you know, both Facebook and Slack that many people are like, "Oh, they're not outgoing. They don't have that gregarious nature," but they were able to navigate just, like, figuring out how to do sales because they had the work ethic, they had the desire to learn. And ultimately, it's about, it's about inputs and it's not just about being a personable, like, gregarious person.

What was the hardest sales skill to learn for you?

I think rejection. J- just this idea that, man, like, I- I- it feels... I feel a little bit of, you know, shame. You know, c- like, my s- I started my s- just to give some background, I started my sales career doing outbound, almost in-person sales doing print ad sales in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was selling to mom and pop shops on buying ads in this guidebook called The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard. I felt bad interrupting, like, a small business owner who was trying to make, like, a l- money. And so just the- the- the sort of, like, sh- almost the shame of, like, interrupting their life and then that rejection of them saying, "Hey, look, I am not interested. Get- you know, please get away," like, that is just, like, a really hard thing because it's- it's just failure, failure, failure, failure.

When you look at ... Yeah, it's super tough and it actually just makes me think of why Mormons tend to actually be such good sellers-

Yes.