Episode 6 - She Climbed from 38% Quota to $14M in one year

She closed 14 million on a 5 million annual quota, had one of the largest deals in her division, and ended up getting promoted to the strategic group of SAP, who's in charge of taking care of their biggest clients. There's only 20 of these roles in all of SAP, and Carolina got it by the time she was 30 years old.

I was in hustle mode, and also looking back, I was in a mode of proving that I was worthy, because I didn't believe that I was worthy. There was an even greater part of me that just knew that I needed to make a change. And when I had made that investment in myself, I had already changed after that, right? Because I had decided that I was worth it.

That's true confidence. It's, you know, I I trust in my ability to figure it out. I trust in my intention to to serve, and I trust in my work ethic that I'm going to, you know, give it my all.

Why not tell yourself that you're worth it, and you are worthy to be in these rooms? And just step in. Take that first step.

Welcome everyone to the Untap Your Sales Potential podcast, and I'm very excited to be sitting here with Carolina Chavez, who was in Untap Your Sales Potential for a couple years, and just blew my mind with the quality of human being she is, as well as the quality of seller she is. And to share a little bit about Carolina, when she came in the program, she was one of the youngest ones in all of enterprise sales. She had gotten recently a job at a new company, SAP, in their enterprise division, and was the youngest on her team, and one of the only women on her team, and she said, "I want to crush it. I want to be a top performer." And she made the bold leap of investing in herself, getting one-on-one coaching with me, and was in the program for 2 years.

During our time, she closed 14 million on a 5 million annual quota, had one of the largest deals in her division, and ended up getting promoted to the strategic group of SAP, who's in charge of taking care of their biggest clients. There's only 20 of these roles in all of SAP, and Carolina got it by the time she was 30 years old. But what's most impressive is not just her results, but her drive, and her passion, and her care of other people. She not only coaches with me, but she got a hypnotherapy certification, and I was one of her uh guinea pigs to go through that, and it was just an incredible process. So, she's doing hypno on the side. She's been super involved in her community, including leadership positions with Latinas in tech in the past, and she's just a wealth of knowledge to give back. She's very focused on giving back and serving other people, and she's proof that it doesn't matter what your background is, it doesn't matter what your age is, it doesn't matter what your gender is. If you approach sales the right way, you can succeed in a very short time with minimal experience, and that's what she's done. So, I'm excited to dive into Carolina's story today.

Welcome, Carolina. So good to see you.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Ian, for the wonderful introduction and for the invite to be on the podcast today. I'm so excited and grateful to be speaking with you.

Well, I'm glad to uh to have you, and I want to dive in. So, maybe why don't you just start by sharing with the listeners a little bit about yourself.

So, my name is Carolina Chavez. I'm currently in SAP's strategic customer program, where I have the privilege of supporting one of our top global clients. As Ian mentioned, I was recently certified in hypnotherapy, so I took a year-long course, over 250 hours, where I studied and learned about how the subconscious mind works, and how our body and our mind store things. And that's something that's really important to me as in my role, I wear many different hats. I'm balancing and juggling a lot of different priorities. So, it's been really, really helpful for me to continue to advocate for mental health and just show up as my best self at work. Outside of that, I live in Denver, Colorado with my amazing boyfriend, our two pets, cat and a dog, and I'm really close with my sisters that live close by in the area and have just been having, you know, an amazing time.

Yeah, it's been an honor for me to to work with you and support you. I'm curious on the hypnotherapy since you got into that a little bit and I was a a test subject. When you say you're passionate about the body and the mind, how we store things, can you just elaborate on what it is that you're curious about and why you got into the hypnotherapy to begin with cuz I think a lot of there's a lot of psychology in sales and there's a lot of behaviors which people don't even they're not even aware of why they do what they do. And having studied now and gotten certified in this, I'm I'm curious kind of what drew you into that and honestly how it helps you and your maybe how it helps you in your job.

Yes, such a great question and a a little bit of a personal story which I don't even know if you and I have talked about this. So, I'm glad that we're diving in. So, in 2020, I went through a a personal event that was very traumatic. It's something that really shook me. It shook up my sense of confidence, safety, and I just I felt all of these heavy emotions at once. Um I couldn't imagine not feeling anxious or paranoid or or holding on to this sense of overwhelming fear, right? And at the same time, I was dealing with the lockdown orders for COVID that just being announced. And I was in my first ever account executive role as a small business account executive at Salesforce at the time where I had a predominantly hospitality and tourism patch, right? So, you kind of see where the the story is going. I had lost 30% of my customers in 1 week. So, there were all of these things that were happening just back-to-back-to-back that were amplifying and magnifying all of these really heavy emotions that were not supporting me. And so, for some time I tried to work through that the best that I could, and I I tried traditional talk therapy, I tried different things to help process and support myself, and I found that when I had signed up for a group hypnotherapy session, I was stunned by the results. I was able to feel significantly better, and I was able to hold on to that feeling for weeks. And that was something that was so surprising to me because I again, I had never tried it. If I were to talk to a past version of Carolina 6 or 7 years ago, she'd probably say, "Are you crazy? Hypnotherapy? What do you even mean? What is that?" But, I did find that it helped me feel so so so much better. So, I continued as a client over many many years, and would later want to dive into, "Okay, I know it's working, but why is it working?"

So, do you mind, are you open to sharing what you experienced or went through that was that was the impetus for getting support and that trauma? It sounds pretty pretty heavy.

Yeah, I [sighs] I had gone through I'd gone through a really bad breakup. Um and just getting out of that, uh that individual uh was very aggressive after the fact, and I eventually had to get a restraining order, and it was something that was really difficult for me at the time. Um and going through something like that, it's not just something that you can snap your fingers and get over in a week's time, right? Or even in a month's time. That's something that will shake you up and and shift your sense of safety and openness and confidence. So, there was a big part of me that was really sad about that because I was before that looking back incredibly confident and really a happy and light person. And I felt like that really shifted who I was in the moment. And hypnotherapy for me personally, it helped me not go back to who I was before that. It helped me actually transition into someone who's even better, who's even stronger.

Mhm. No, I like I like what you're sharing. I think um that's a real I mean, being stalked or any kind of fear that someone could harm you, it's not just a traumatic one-time incident. It's something that you you can come up in any way, shape, or form, right? And you I think for a lot of people, they don't face their, you know, their trauma. They say, "Okay, I'll put this in the past and keep running, keep moving away." But like what I'm hearing from you is that you dealt with whatever needed to happen, but then you you felt you weren't changed. You weren't your old self anymore, and you wanted to get back to that natural state that you used to be in. And that was really the goal of therapy is not to let this trauma pollute you or or just um stain your essence, your or your natural your natural being.

Yeah, I didn't want it to define me. And I didn't want to feel anxious or feel that I couldn't thrive again. So, hypnotherapy is what helped me personally be able to shift that. And throughout that process, what I learned was there were so many things at the subconscious level that I was holding on to even before this event that I got to let go of. I got to release. I got to learn more about myself and why I responded the way I responded to certain situations and let that go.

So, what does that process look like in terms of like awareness of like what you're even storing and then going back and is it is it a process of grace and understanding why you're the way you are and identifying these patterns? I know you're a huge mental health advocate and I want to preface this by saying, you know, sales tends to draw a certain type of personality, tends to to draw people that um grew up in chaos or uncertainty or they they they're drawn to sales because if it's meant to be it's up to me and and I coach a lot of these and you'll see them on the podcast over and over again, people that have overcome some hardship or some personal trauma or whatever and they thrive in sales. They thrive because there's a lot of attraction in going to career where you can literally create your own destiny. And so, the people that tend to do the best are the ones that know themselves really well, have faced themselves and now can serve without caring all this heavy baggage and all of them, all of them, 100%. And my million-dollar earners, my 500k earners, Carolina's in the 500k club meaning she made over half million dollars, um have faced themselves. It's the common characteristic is they've done deep work on themselves which have enabled them to show up in this much greater capacity at work. So, walk us through kind of what that really looks like for you to be able to leave some of these patterns behind and really, you know, serve at such a high capacity because you've addressed things that you needed to on the personal side.

Really like that you brought up the example of how a lot of these top sellers have gone through maybe hardships or they've had to face maybe their demons, right? Or have had to hustle, work hard to accomplish really great things in spite of the odds. So, a part of what shifted for me actually is looking back, I've always been a competitive person, right? Even before I was in sales, I've always just naturally been competitive. And a part of what I got to let go of was holding the belief, a belief which did not serve me and does not serve those that I loved around me, which was I need to over exert myself or I need to constantly being in hustle energy in order to accomplish success. And that's something that our mind might store because it could have been logical for me to look back and say, "Well, hey Carolina, looking back, you hustled to get this top job out of college, you hustled to be a top performer on your team without really any experience. Why would you not continue the way that you are?" And what happens is the conversation we're having right now, this is a great example of a conscious conversation. If we were to tap into, let's say, a hypnotherapy session and clear the mind, you know, close our eyes, take a deep breath, and be guided into that trance state, what you would find is the answers that I would provide to questions might shift because when you're shifting into that natural and relaxed state and your mind is clear and calm, the ideas are flowing to you. And a great example for those that are listening that might not have might not have any experience with meditation or visualization or hypnotherapy, right? Is just think about how your mind is flowing when you're in hustle energy or when you're in panic versus when you are natural and calm and relaxed. And think about how the ideas float back into your head. And I would guess and I would wager that when you're calm and relaxed, that's when you're able to have and unlock the most creative and expansive ideas because you're not panicking. So, that's an an example of something that I was able to let go of and step into an even better person, not just an even better seller, because I went through that.

Yeah, I think for anyone listening, we're both in that state right now. It's very calm. It's very present. There There's full presence with both of us. I have a list of questions you can't see in in front of me. Um and I haven't asked any of them because what Carolina said on the intro was interesting about the hypnotherapy. And we're however many minutes in, 15 minutes. So the the idea that you can have this type of engagement with your customers, your colleagues, your boss, because you're present and you're completely attuned with yourself and you're comfortable in your own skin, will make you 10x more impactful with people, with engagement. And ultimately, sales is interaction. Would you agree with that sentiment, Carolina, cuz you were in hustle mode in front of customers a lot, but how is this way of being impacting the way customers receive you?

I was in hustle mode and also, looking back, I was in a mode of proving that I was worthy because I didn't believe that I was worthy. And I have to thank you because working with you was such a treme- There was such a tremendous shift in me, right? In acknowledging that I am worthy of holding this position and being in this space, despite maybe not having past experience. I was hired for a reason, right? And I deserve to be here. And on top of that, I can show up to these spaces and bring my full authentic self, right? And you were really pivotal in that process because a few years ago, even though I held the interest of hypnotherapy, I probably would not feel comfortable talking about it on a podcast or talking about it at work or with other people. And now, I get to have these conversations that really light me up and also start to shift the way that others might be thinking, too. Right? Cuz when we're more open, when we show up as our authentic self, that also helps others realize that they can show up as their authentic self, too. And the reason I want to talk about this is cuz sales people are struggling. There's not many that are super happy or present or able to, you know, there's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress and a lot of grinding and I think people want a way out. They want to see [snorts] what's possible. Is it possible to have a life-changing money? The reason I do this is cuz I want people to do so well in sales that they can get out of sales. That's the truth. And why would they want to get out of sales? Well, because we're all We all have a mission. We all have a purpose. We all have a passion. And imagine being able to do that full-time because you are so financially set because you have the not only the skills, but the success in sales that you have a lot of runway and confidence and you can go, you know, make an impact in ways that are even bigger than helping your customers succeed, right? In a corporate job. And And that seems to be a real um desire for most sales people is to do really well and have that financial freedom to go and do whatever they want. And I I do see you as being on that path as well, especially given your impact and service to so many people. Um let's let's talk a little bit about what I guess led you You're only 27 years old. You don't You got this new enterprise job. Talk about maybe how you put yourself in the position to get that enterprise job at 27 in the first place. Like what your career journey was to to get that high up in such a big company so fast. I think that'd be interesting for people to hear.

Yeah, I mean, I joined SAP at such an exciting time and I think it's it's only gotten better and better since I've joined. I think what allowed me to make the shift from Salesforce, selling at the small business level, into SAP at the enterprise level were a few things. So, SAP at that point in time when I was interviewing was going through a bit of a transition phase into being a true cloud company. So, what I was able to bring was my experience at Salesforce being in true cloud sales. I think that that made a world of a difference. Another part of that is just I mean, I really love what I do. I loved the years that I spent at Salesforce, the time that I spent at ADP previously, and I feel like bringing that type of energy of having fun and excitement into the role and seeing what creative ideas I could bring were really pivotal.

Your background was starting after college Did you go to college and complete college?

go to college, yes. So, I did go to college and my university is actually one of the few universities that has a sales program, which is amazing.

That's awesome. So, you went straight to ADP, which is more of a like a transactional type sale after college?

I was at ADP actually when I was in college, so during my last year I worked at ADP and I took classes at the same time.

And then did you go to Salesforce out of college or did you go to ADP out of college?

Okay, so you went you went right to Salesforce. How long were you at Salesforce for and what was your path there before getting the the enterprise role?

I was at Salesforce for 5 years. I started in their sales development rep role. So, I did SDR, BDR, and then AE for a few years before transitioning to SAP.

Got you. So, your 5 years right out of college, traditional sales path, jumping from SMB to enterprise. What what gave you cuz I think for a lot of people that might be on the younger side, that path can be 10 years easily from like AE SMB to enterprise. And most people will say, you know, most interviewers and managers, "Do you have you have enterprise experience?" And if you don't, they might disqualify you. But, you said, "No, I have Salesforce experience. I have cloud experience. I have SMB experience. I'm, you know, consistently getting results." But, was that a concern for the leadership in terms of having not been in enterprise when you were interviewing? Or, they they just bet on you that they you know, you did such a good job selling yourself that that you overcame that? Or, was that something that wasn't necessary for that manager who hired you at SAP?

I don't feel that they had concerns over me not having enterprise experience because they got to see me in kind of a mock call setting for an entire day. So, they saw how I worked with team members and how I would deal with client issues. And even before I got to the interview phase, this is something that all sellers should be doing. There were so many individuals that I spoke with for informational interviews. So, I did already speak to others that were in the enterprise account executive role. And I spoke to others that were even in the leadership position, right? And I would leverage those calls and I would get them to refer me to somebody else in the organization and, you know, talk me up a bit to say, "Hey, you should get on a call with Carolina. She's trying to learn more about this position." So, by the time I got to the interview, I had already built somewhat of a brand for myself. And I came in knowing what was specific to that team and to that role, right?

Got it. By knowing that, I could take my own skill set and say, "Okay, these are the areas I'm good at. These are the areas I'm not as strong in." And I I do this for any interview. If there are areas I'm not as strong in, I'm going to write down, "Okay, what are the reasons that they could dig into? Or, what are the hesitations they might have in hiring me? And what am I what am I going to say in the room to combat that? So, that I can wipe that right out of out of their head."

Were you already in SAP when you did all these interviews and kind of digging? Were you already there and then you switched to enterprise or you were outside at Salesforce just talking to people that were in your network? Cuz that's I think that's interesting cuz a lot of people don't know how to actually land, you know, in their role and what to do ahead of times. How did you I am assuming this wasn't a job posting. You you knew you wanted to go there and you, you know, you kind of took the initiative to make it happen.

Yes, so I leveraged my network. One of my first ever sales mentors who is, you know, such a tremendous influence and and champion for a lot of my success, Daniel Torrance, was at SAP at that time. And we had stayed in contact for a few years. So, when timing aligned and when I I felt that it was appropriate for me to look elsewhere and expand my horizons, I did reconnect with him. And I had already shared some of the things I saw online. So, again, when even if there's not a posting available, you should be looking into what kind of role you might like, what your dream company is going to be. And it doesn't hurt to have a virtual coffee chat. I was doing a lot of this when we were still on lockdowns. So, it was all the virtual world. People had uh a lot more time, right? They weren't traveling out to see customers. And they were very open to getting on a casual call with me. And and the benefit of that is I'm it it's so much better when you're doing that and you're not interviewing because there's nothing on the line for them, either, right? There's no reason why they would hold back on either the positives or the negatives of the role or organization. So, it really helps you have a full perspective.

And how did that coffee chat with your mentor lead to the the job opening? Was this someone that he knew and connected you with when there was an opening?

So, he was able to provide one name of someone that he'd recommend I connected with. And then from there, I also did my own research. So, in connecting with Daniel and then connecting with the other individual, I was able to have an understanding of, "Okay, what is the SAP language, right? So, what are the positions that are going to make sense for me?" And then let me do a LinkedIn search to see who started in the past year or who has a year of experience versus 2 years of experience cuz they might be a little bit more open to connecting versus someone that might be there just a bit longer cuz I'm just assuming their schedule This might be packed if you've been doing this for so long. And also, individuals that have started more recently have a more fresh perspective of what was onboarding like and what What's the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I think it's interesting cuz no one would hire me at Salesforce who had been there a while, but the guy who hired me was there 2 months. He's like, "I got to build out my team, you know." And he actually came from copier. So, finding people who, you know, again, it takes initiative, but finding people who came from your industry that you are in if you're trying to get into a new industry and can appreciate the the type of person that does well at that industry. He said, "I know if you can make it in copiers, you can you can do this all day long." And I went from zero SaaS experience to enterprise at Salesforce. So, our our stories are similar because I had someone I found who um came from HP selling printers and he knew the DNA of the copier salesman and and was willing to take a bet on me. And I ended up being rookie of the year.

So, let's walk through kind of that first year, I guess, leading up to coaching. What made you decide cuz you were in your role for maybe 9 months before you signed up for coaching. What made What was it like on your own before coaching and what made you decide to, you know, make that investment in yourself to get get support to accelerate your results?

So, that first 9 months, again, I had never sold enterprise before that, right? So, everything was new and I was learning the SAP product suite, which if you know anything about that is incredibly expansive, and just figuring out our extensive internal external network. There were so many moving pieces. I had a not-so-great year. I think it was 38% attainment. And that's obviously not something that any rep is going to be excited about. And at the same time, I just I knew there was so much that I was still learning. And I felt that I really, really needed the support and the mentorship of someone that had done what I was trying to do at the time, which is to hit multiple President's Club. And to also be able to start my year in the spirit of excitement. So, we started working together at the beginning of that year. And it was a really good awakening for me because as I was going into the year, even though I had did a tremendous amount of work, and I had built some new relationships, it just it wasn't translating into deals yet, but I still was, you know, I was building pipeline and and I had I had some good footing for the new year. And yet, I was anxious, and I was so worried. And I wanted to be able to work with someone like yourself who had hit, I think it was over 10 or 15 President's Club, something insane like that, Ian.

15, yeah. And yeah, and was able to do it in the spirit of authenticity, in having fun, in being excited.

What um did you have any Were you having any nerves around it or like any hesitation before?

Yeah. I did. That was the largest investment that I had made in myself at that point in time. So, there was of course a part of me that was wondering, but there was an even greater part of me that just knew that I needed to make a change. And when I had made that investment in myself, I had already changed after that, right? Because I had decided that I was worth it.

Yeah. There's something that happens. I want to This is a plug for coaching. And it's not a plug for my program. It's a plug for coaching with any program. When you make an investment in yourself, because human nature, we want to We don't want to waste money in general. No one likes to waste money. And so, there's an old phrase, those who pay pay attention. But just by nature of making the investment, your mind has completely shifted, especially if it's a bigger investment. The bigger investment, the bigger the shift. That's half the battle, is saying, "I'm going to commit to change and I need help." I just joined Dan Sullivan's program, Strategic Coach. We have not had our first workshop yet. It's in May. This is our first one. I actually joined in in December, 6 months earlier. And they were backed up. He wrote The Gap and the Game, 10x is easier than 2x, Who Not How. So, great entrepreneurship coaching. By way of joining that program, I'm I said, "I am going to build a self-managing company. I'm going to get myself out of the weeds and and put the right team in place so I can be the visionary. I can be the CEO and not the operator." And since joining that program, I hired a CEO or I hired a sorry, a CRO, a COO. I'm taking inventory of all of the tasks that I'm doing, looking at where and how I can outsource those things, and and have a vision for how I can spend more time with my family, more time with health, and more time in in a space of joy and presence rather than stress and scarcity. And I haven't started the program yet. It actually starts this month. So, I think there's a lot to it.

Can you elaborate on that? Is your experience like by way of that decision, what happened? What shifted for you?

When you make an investment like that, you have to be all in, right? And I say this because there are individuals that will come to me and that have come to me in the past and said, "Carolina, why don't I just get the $300, $400 from, you know, this other place? Or why don't I just try to do it myself?" And the reason that an individual would be looking into is because I knew that I knew that I wanted more. I knew that I wanted to be in a position and to be in a community where there were others that were investing in themselves, that there were others that wanted to see beyond just hustle hustle culture and have that balance, right? So, when I had submitted that payment and had paid for year one, I said, "Oh my gosh, that was This is the first time I did something like that, right?" So, there was a little bit of "Oh my goodness, this is so big."

Do you remember what the check was for for people that don't know the pricing?

Oh, you want me to share how much I paid for your program at that time?

yeah. When you first This is 3 years ago, but when you first What was the check for for to give context for people?

So, it was 18k for the year.

That's right. $18,000, the price of college tuition, probably less than college tuition now, but she spent it wrote a check for $18,000 and I'm coaching for a year. So, that's that's the context of an investment. It's not a $300, $400 course, right?

Right, because if you if it's just like with clients, too, right? So, sometimes clients will come to us and they'll say, "I want this product for free for a certain amount of days or I want this amount of service hours." And then what you might find in those situations that can happen pretty often is it could just sit there on the shelf, right? Because they don't have that buy-in. But when you say to yourself, "I'm worth this 20K or more investment, you're not going to ignore the calls in your calendar. You're going to go to them, you're going to listen to the feedback, you're going to listen to the coaching, and you're going to apply it because you're going to make sure that you you get that back. And I knew within the first 30 days, even though I didn't see, you know, necessarily results on the dashboard because I got into enterprise sales, the deals can take some time. I knew within the first 30 days that it was so worth the investment because I was showing up differently.

What was the difference between how you were showing up before and how you showed up after? Because the purpose of this podcast is to take people who have gotten coaching and to extract everything they're learning so people who may not want to do coaching or feel like they can't afford it, at least know what they should be focusing on and what they should be doing by sharing what your best practices and what's working for people selling $14 million in 1 year. So, tell people kind of like the pre-Carolina and then what happened, you know, within the first 30 days? What was the difference there?

So, before, I was operating in a place where I felt that I needed to prove that I was worthy of being in the room. And I remember even coming to you in our first one-on-one and talking about this and saying, "Why would anyone listen to me? I don't have experience in this. I don't have as much work experience as a lot of my clients do in general, right? So, I was operating in a place of fear and also in a place of needing to constantly prove myself, which that doesn't help anyone, right? Because that's not true confidence, right? That's that's panic and anxiety.

That was your truth, didn't serve you, but that was your truth. I have no enterprise experience, I'm the youngest, I'm Latina, I'm a woman. I mean, that's why I wanted you to come on. Like, for you, that was all true and and I'm half the age of of the people I'm sitting across from, the CIOs or what not. So, I could see why people would feel that way in your situation and you actually had a legitimate reason to potentially feel that way.

I did have reasons to feel that way and feeling that way and thinking those thoughts also didn't support me. So, I had the ability to let them go.

Why why didn't they support you? For cuz I hear it all the time, I'm not qualified. And I hear it from 50-year-olds that have been in enterprise sales for 20 years they still feel like they're not qualified. So, so just talk about like that version. What was the impact of believing you don't belong in the room even though you're trying to prove yourself. I'm sure you were prepared, I'm sure you were studying and doing everything cuz you're a hard worker, but like why didn't that serve you?

It didn't serve me because I felt terrible. Right? I energetically felt drained because you will use up more energy when you're not in a state of being calm and when you're not in a state where you're confident and secure. And I was not any of those things when I had started and I felt like I had a lot to lose instead of thinking of the upside of hey, I landed this amazing position. I work with some phenomenal people. I love the people that I work with and I learn so much from them. And I get to figure this out. I get to figure out how to close multi-million dollar deals, how to build a relationships with new executives. That's a shift and it took me some time to figure that out, right? But when I figured that out, I wasn't feeling physically drained at the end of my days.

How did you make that shift? That mindset shift from energy draining thoughts that live in fear and scarcity to abundant thoughts that live in opportunity and service.

The first part was admitting that I had an actual problem. Because for quite some time, I was just very stubborn. And I did not want to face these feelings of being uncomfortable or feelings that I didn't deserve to be there. Even though I was holding these feelings, I wasn't able to say it out loud. So the first step was giving myself permission to be open and be vulnerable with coaches like yourself. And I did do some work in hypnotherapy, too. So there was a balance of a beautiful mix of both. But coming to you and actually being open and talking through these things, what we were able to do was brainstorm on okay, you think that you are not deserving to be in the room with these executives, right? You think you're not bringing a perspective. Let's take a step back. Like first, where is this coming from? And second, when we get into the perspective, I mean, I was blown away. And we were able to get on calls and in one call build out a completely new and unique perspective for an account. And that would send me off with just this rush of energy, right? I feel like I was running a marathon or something because I was so excited to go back and to talk to my team and to share these creative ideas of how we were going to support these clients in a new and expansive way.

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I think when you're in fear and scarcity, when you're worrying if you belong or I don't want to lose my job, I need to prove myself, like you're not thinking creatively to your point earlier. You can't think clearly. You can't think in terms of the customer and what's best for them because you're making it all about you. It's actually the most selfish thing you can do is obsess about, you know, whether or not you belong in the room or you're going to lose your job cuz it's me, me, me, me, me versus like who am I here to serve and how can I help?

But it's not Most people don't even have the self-awareness to realize that they're running at that in that type of of manner. What's the difference the energy with customers? You said when I'm not energy drained, I can focus on being more creative and serving the customer, but like how do customers receive you pre-coaching versus post-coaching from a place of like knowing you belonged and that you are more there to serve?

I feel like everyone's more open, not just customers, right? Because a good part of my job is also getting to work with my internal team and in enterprise there's so many moving pieces. So I've seen a shift in the openness with my customers. When you're coming in and you're confident and you're secure and you're leaning into your strengths, which I I believe my strengths are more on the emotional side and the empathetic side, right? People just feel more calm around you. Cuz you're you're coming up, you're showing up differently. And I've seen that not just with my clients, but I've seen that with my internal team.

Yeah. It's funny cuz the version of you now, 3 years after working together, versus when I first started, like you had me on my toes. Whereas now I can just be myself.

I had you on your toes? What do you mean?

Like you were tense. Mhm. Yeah. You're tense.

I was very tense.

Like you're just relaxed now. Your energy You're talking about your energy. Your energy is like completely self-assured. It's quiet confidence. For people on YouTube watching, you'll see like you can feel it. Like you don't have anything to prove. It's not I have to prove myself. I got to go. I got to perform. I got to like get go like that is not that's the hustler energy, which actually you can get a lot of done with hustler energy. Don't get me wrong, but like it's exhausting and it's not sustainable. Burnout city. So, I think I think part of this is like you know, can you succeed at the highest level in sales without you know, freaking out all the time and without burning out and without hating your job. So, talk to me about like is that possible? Now, fast forwarding a few years like tell people how you operate now and then we'll get into the weeds of like what's really going on with you, but but for people that don't maybe think it's possible to to keep their calm and cuz you're in a high stress job. You're in a high uh stakes job, I should say versus high stress. Like there's a lot of visibility. These are the biggest accounts in all of North America for SAP. High quota, high pressure to perform. You you every time I get on with you, you just seem super trusting and calm and would love to like dive in in terms of how you keep this energy amidst [snorts] the roller coaster that is software sales.

It's a fun roller coaster, though, right? It's a lot of fun. I think having fun is a big part of it, too. I really really love the clients that I've worked with and the client that I work with now. I really enjoy the team that I'm with and at the same time, like you said, there's a lot of different elements. So, there might be things that come up that could be points of frustration that are not revenue generating, but they're important to do or there could be things that are just pulling you in different directions. Or maybe you're facing some pushback on approvals that you're seeking, right? There's all of these reasons that you could decide you could decide to be frustrated. Or you could decide to allow it to take your energy. And I think that the amount of work and the time that I've invested in myself and my personal journey with mental health and the work that we've done has shifted the way that I show up. It shifts the language that I use, right? So, there are a lot of times where you'll talk to sellers, you'll talk to leaders, and they'll say it's going to be an uphill battle, it's going to be a big hustle, this this is going to be really tough, you know, seeking these approvals or doing this thing. And they're already mentally setting themselves up for a hard time, right? Versus just seeing where can I neutralize the language so that it's more beneficial for me? And because I'm doing that, I'm showing up differently to these calls where maybe we're seeking internal approvals or we're seeking something external, internal, or we're on a negotiation call with procurement. And because I'm calm and cool and collected, the person on the other line is showing up differently. They start to calm down a bit. And because of that, I'm not exerting as much energy. I'm just able to stay in this energy of having a good time. And and when there are points where maybe I I notice myself getting frustrated, I know enough I know enough on how to pause and how to take myself back to what is my natural state, which is being calm, which is being in a state of gratitude, which is having fun.

I love that. You've grown so much. And what how do you have fun in this job? Like, I don't think there's a lot of that right now, Carolyn. I don't know if And it could be a very fun job if you see it the right way. I I think people have Yeah, I don't know if they see their jobs as fun. I haven't heard that and I've coached thousands now of people. It's not something that comes up every time. It comes up

saying the first time that I said, "Have fun." Actually, Greg Commings said that recently, too, in a call. But, it's not the normal way people view their role. It's like they take it very seriously. They've got a big quota, big job. They got to get these point of views and multi-threading and you know, get it Fun isn't like the the first word that comes up when they talk about enterprise software sales. So, talk to us about like how you are able to see your job as fun and what that actually looks like in raw.

Well, you can take your job seriously. You can have a a high number, write a multi-million dollar quota, and still have fun. The way that I see that and the way that I carry that out is I remind myself, we get to figure out how to solve these complex problems. We get to figure out how to do things in new and creative ways. I get to figure that out, right? And looking back on the clients that we worked on together, Ian, when

I look back and I had step. I had stepped into this promotion in October of last year, Mhm. And it was such a wonderful thing to do, to be able to hand off those accounts to a new account executive, and say, "We changed the way that they buy from my company forever, right? We built new relationships. We shifted how they purchase from us and how they partner with us."

And that's not to say that we had all of that figured out on the first call. That's not to say that there weren't periods where I looked around and I said, "Oh my goodness, how are we going to do this?" But, taking yourself back to a state of calm, you're able to say, "Okay, I get to figure this out." And that part does get to be fun. It really, really does. If you see it that way. If you decide to see it that way.

And we're talking about years of work that I've done here, right? So, I'll get into that in a minute cuz this is not like, "Oh, you hear how she talks and it's so deliberate," but the work is daily. It's continuous today. It's not a one-and-done thing. Carolina is still doing the work very actively, but I want to table that for a minute and just ask, like, let's give an example of something that I think the vast majority of sellers would view as a very frustrating situation that I worked with you on, whereas you saw it as fun and a challenge.

And the situation, without naming any client names, of course, was that Carolina was trying to do very transformational strategic deals with an account that would benefit greatly from innovating, moving faster, and they were traditionally an on-prem client, and she was trying to move them to the cloud and to be able to support all of their key business initiatives and growth initiatives. And she was stuck in IT, and IT was looking at it very more like a commodity, more like a vendor, and more from a cost-centric versus a partnership to grow their business. And you didn't want to upset IT by going around them, but I kept saying and Mike kept saying, "You got to get out of IT, or else this thing won't go anywhere," cuz they're not seeing the big picture, and frankly, they're hurting their company. That would be a very frustrating situation for many people, but you had fun with it. So, talk about like the process you went through in terms of getting to the C-suite, getting out of IT, and kind of having fun in the process without necessarily pissing people off, or maybe you did piss people off, and you just didn't care. So, maybe cuz that comes up a lot where it's not fun because they're being boxed. People are being boxed in as a vendor or as an IT contact, you know, that they can't go outside of.

Yeah, and throughout this process, there are times where you definitely get your hand slapped, right? But it just means that you're doing the right things, candidly. So, I worked with you and Mike on two customers that fell into this exact category. And through that, I saw, "Okay, I know that I need higher relationships on the business side. I know that we at SAP can provide a tremendous amount of value. And yet, we don't have any relationships with these individuals." And maybe even sometimes there was a perception of lack of trust that we had to overcome.

So, what I'd focused on and had partnered with you and Mike on was how do we bridge the gap between myself, my team, and these executives. And I started to look into what do they care about? What events are they going to be attending? What are they speaking at? I listened to recent interviews that these executives had. I was all in, right? All in. And at the same time, I was looking at what organizations are they in? What do they care about? Where were they last working? And what was that organization's experience with SAP? And is there any closeness or proximity in terms of team members that they might have partnered with over there versus at this new company? Is there any openness to SAP there? So, we went really, really, really wide. And it can take a good amount of time. But that good amount of time up front made a world of a difference in the end.

To where now, because we had the right perspective going in, I was able to prospect and find leads into the chief accounting officer at one of these companies. I was able to find someone through all that research I did that could advocate to us, that that chief accounting officer would actually listen to. And that not only got us a meeting with this individual, but he stayed for an entire day at a demo session all day and had built strong relationships with leaders on my side that trickled into us having relationships with their CFO, which we had never had. He had never responded to any messages for years and years and years. And that catapulted into us having relationships on the C-suite, on the supply chain side, on the operations side. So, in the span of such a short period of time, we were able to take an account that had been a customer for 20 years. Again, a 20-year customer where we're only in IT, and I was able to hand off that account and say, "Okay, you've got relationships with the CFO, the CAO, the chief supply chain officer, and these folks in operations." How amazing is that, right? How could I not have fun doing that?

What was the process of finding somebody that could walk you into the chief accounting officer like for people who have never? I see a lot of people grinding right now with cold calling and email and they just the responses are a lot less than when I was in sales because of the, you know, the volume from AI and from sequence tools, a lot of stuff doesn't ever get opened, spam filters. So, what is that? You said it took a lot of time to figure out who can walk me in. Kind of describe what that process is like to get the warm intro to the C-suite because that's a big part of what we teach at Undock.

>> What my mind goes back to is people trust people, right? People in their network, people that they've worked with. So, my goal was to try to find a few people, at least one person, that could be that in for that executive. And I went really deep. So, I remember pulling up his LinkedIn and going all the way back to even college and seeing, "Okay, who graduated from this college in this similar track at this time that works at SAP? Who worked at his previous company that now works at SAP or maybe one of our partners? What are any leads that I can find? Anything that I can take. What organizations is this person in? What do they care about? What events do they attend?" I went very, very, very deep and that's why it did take a good amount of time and there were a lot more messages that I got no's to, obviously, because there were a ton of people who said, "No, I'm so sorry. I don't have any relationship with individual. No, good luck, etc., etc."

But I was actually able to find three people. Two that kind of knew them, right? And even though they didn't know him that well, they were open to getting on a call where I could ask questions and say, "Hey, you worked at this company three years ago, five years ago, ten years ago, whatever it is, in a finance role. What are your honest opinions of working there? What were the problems that they were facing?" And even though it was just a few years ago, you'd be surprised at some of the things that still carried over, right? And that helped us show up as strategic partners. That helped guide us to asking the right questions and knowing where to hit home when we did get to that CAO. And then there was that one individual that did actually know them well. They hadn't connected in a few years, but they knew them well enough to where when we got on a prep call with them, we were able to say, "Hey, this is our outside-in point of view. This is why we feel that a meeting's not just going to be beneficial for SAP, it's going to be beneficial for him, too. Because by him not being involved, this is the risk. This is what he's leaving on the table by not being involved in the strategic project. Can you help us advocate?" And from there, sending that message from someone who is trusted helps open a ton of doors versus just sending a cold call or email.

Was he still at the company there? Was he had already left the company and just knew this other person? Was this someone who was at the company that was making it?

>> No, outside of the company. So you found people who had worked with this CAO and then, you know, set up calls with them to get the intel and to share your POV and ask for an introduction and this person said sure and you gave them basically a ghost written note or enough context where they can connect you with the CAO directly.

>> We had done some groundswell work at the same time too and before that. So we already had a really, really great perspective. We had great reasons as to why he should be setting up a meeting with us. But we just weren't getting there and I really do feel like the most effective way to get your foot in the door, especially with these higher up executives, is finding someone to advocate for you that they trust to get them to want to take the meeting.

Yeah. I was going to say, a lot of times why do deals lose? Cuz you're single-threaded. You're stuck in one department, but you have to be talking to the individuals at the company that stand to gain and lose the most from the outcomes that you're delivering. So if you're delivering financial outcomes and you're not talking to finance like margin or profitability or revenue, right? You're not going to get the buy-in that you would otherwise get.

Just to go a step further, why is it so important to get heads of the departments, the chief supply chain officer, the CFO, the chief accounting officer? Why is it so critical to get them involved in the deal and what actually happened once they got involved? What did that do to your velocity and your deal size?

Well, it's critical because it's very likely that it's not going to get done without these folks, especially when we're talking about strategic projects. This was a very transformative project. The steering committee had over 20 individuals that had to say yes to this decision. And when we were only working with IT, it's no surprise now. I spent so much more time, so much more time in doing all these different activities and tasks, and the deal didn't go through that year. Surprise, surprise. And I had to redo a lot of that the next year with the right stakeholders. And I told myself I was not going to make that mistake again.

Because when we were partnering with IT, although they showed a strong interest in this strategic project, and they wanted to get it across the finish line, there's of course different sets of questions, considerations, that those on the business side are going to have, right? Because they will have their own lens, they'll have their own view. And outside of that, from a value perspective, what IT is normally seeing is more of a technical lift and shift, right? Getting from point A to point B, versus an executive on the business side, they're going to want to know, "Okay, why are we putting millions of dollars into this?" And even if they see an ROI case, if they weren't involved in the conversations, if they don't know you, they're going to look at that piece of paper or that PowerPoint, and they'll probably laugh and say, "I don't believe any of this." And why should they? They weren't involved.

Yeah, that's right. It's got to be their idea. It's got to be their numbers. Do you believe in the 80/20 rule? That 80% of your business comes from 20% of your opportunities?

Absolutely. Yes. With that 14 million of that, how much came from one or two accounts?

It came from two accounts. All the time. It's like I see that all the time. People are crushing it. It's like they spend all their go high, wide, and deep. And for people that don't know what is really involved with enterprise selling, selling a deal that transformation, how many people were involved on your side, SAP, and the customer side, if you think about like the number of individuals that were brought in throughout the sales cycle.

Well, I may I can tell you exactly because I made a wonderful org chart with this tool you might have heard of it, 100 handshakes. >> [laughter] >> Uh that we learned in the program. So I started out with a teeny tiny little org chart for that customer. It grew to 150 that year. And all of those individuals had touched this project in some way. They were either involved in demos or discovery or solutioning calls and that was all on the customer side. And then when I sent the thank you email to everyone on the SAP side who helped get this deal done. I checked it three or four times to make sure I didn't miss anyone. There were over 70 names on that email.

What does it take? What type of skill set does it take to manage a project that size, deals that size, but also like the team? Like what are the skills? Cuz it's not like the hustle and it's certainly not the closing skills. I always tell people like you don't need to be a good closer to be great in enterprise sales. You need to be very organized. You need to be good with project management. You need to have be a visionary in terms of really having a vision that executives will buy into. But I'm curious what do you think your superpowers are that make you so effective in this role and that got you promoted to even the higher level of strategic accounts now than enterprise. Now you're in strat. What does it really take for those people that are new to enterprise or aren't in that role yet or even enterprise sellers that have done it for years but are still in a transactional way of working.

Well, you already said it, being organized. It does require a higher level of organization because you're managing multiple projects within this huge or strategic project, right? Various teams on your side, various teams on the customer side, but also the ability to delegate. I think that's very, very important and the ability to lead your team. You'll see in my type of role, I'm a generalist and there are a lot of generalists that are very successful that will still find themselves overworked because they feel that they have to control every single thing and they feel like they have to know 100% of all the details of every single thing and that's the easiest way to get burnt out and to never sleep.

There are times where you're working on these strategic deals and you're dealing with a lot of different people and a lot of different skill sets and you might come up with come faced with situations that are not ideal, right? Maybe someone on your team prematurely shared pricing or, you know, maybe they didn't share these terms the right way and you have to know how to effectively work with others, coach others and guide others and not take over every little aspect because you may not realize that you're leaving so much on the table and you're burning yourself out so, so much. So, it takes a balance. It takes a balance of knowing how to lead and also knowing how to delegate and trusting in others and their abilities, too.

>> I heard a phrase from Dan Martell that 80% done is good as you can do it by someone else is 100% awesome. >> [laughter] >> You're not going to have people do it exactly like you, but just recognizing and coaching them and being able to realize that your headspace, your time, your energy's freed up by having someone else do it versus trying to take everything because they can't do it as good as you. That's a, I think, a big shift to leadership. But what does it take to like lead a team? Did you have an account meeting with your team every single week where you ran it like an hour a week? That was something I used to do with my co-primes and the extended team. Did you have something similar set up when you said like you have to know how to lead a team?

Yes, so we had weekly calls for a half an hour with the entire team. And then I would have a weekly call for a half an hour with what I called the core team. So those were the main five or six people outside of myself that were driving critical aspects to the deal. And then on top of that, I would have calls weekly with my services counterpart. And then also any implementation partners that were working with the customer. So there's a good balance that you get to learn in leading these types of deals because you are getting a lot done on these calls and you get to make sure that you're also working through some of these other motions. It was a learning experience, but I feel like now I'm able to go into more strategic projects and really know how to run them, how to delegate, how to partner with an extended team.

Yeah. Now you're trusting in yourself. It's kind of like you're an RVP. RVP is a, you know, manager of sales people, online sales manager, but you're an RVP for your territory and you have all these resources. You have your legal, you have your pricing, your business value, you have all your specialists, you have your SEs, you have your architect, your services team. Having all, they're a team that's all entrusted and you're the quarterback to be able to deliver outcomes to your clients and that's how you have to look at it. Right? It's like you scale yourself by getting the team to work for you. So I think it's a big part of why you've been so successful.

I think going back to, we only have about 5 minutes. There's two things I want to touch upon before we wrap up. One is like throughout this process, you didn't have the experience. You didn't have the quarterbacking experience, the big deal experience, the enterprise experience. How did you? You said earlier it's like you just have to let that go. You know, "I'm not experienced enough or I'm not qualified." How did you do that in reality, not just when you started, but throughout your career when you're stepping into these bigger roles where you haven't done it before? Cuz that'll come up all the time, that imposter syndrome.

I hadn't done it before at the time, but looking back, I had been in situations where I was new, where I was less experienced. I'd been in situations where it seemed like my chances for success were very slim. And I not only overcame that, but I came out on the other side thriving and excited, right, and happy. So, what I got to do was I got to remind myself that I've accomplished tough things before. And there's no reason why this has to be any different. It needed to be a mental shift. It got to be a mental shift.

And we had worked through that on some of our calls together. We had worked through, "Okay, how can we neutralize language to make it more supportive?" And also, "How can I show up to these calls with a greater perspective?" And because I was showing up with a greater perspective throughout the work that you and I did together, throughout the work I did with Mike in the deal rooms, I was able to get on calls with people in my company who had been here for five years, for seven years, for ten years, for even longer than that, cuz we have so many wonderful tenured people. And I was able to hear them say, "I get this. I didn't think about it that way." Mhm. Or, "I wouldn't even think to try to get in that way." Mhm. And I could see the wheels start to turn in their head. And because I was coming about it that way, even before the deals started falling in, I could see them starting to gain even more trust in working with me as a strategic partner.

I think that conviction and belief in yourself is where true confidence is. It's the ability to trust yourself because you figured it out before. You've overcome hardship that's harder than software sales. That's true confidence. It's, you know, I trust in my ability to figure it out. I trust in my intention to serve, and I trust in my work ethic that I'm going to give it my all. I love that answer.

Last question on the energy. You said, "Will this take a lot of work?" Takes a lot of work not to be reactive, not to be passive-aggressive, not to get frustrated. What is the work you're still doing on a day-to-day basis to keep yourself in the right energy to be able to ride the ups and downs that is software sales?

>> I have a good morning routine. So, most days I'll start my morning with a recorded hypnotherapy. I use the Grace Hypnotherapy app. And for those of you that are not familiar, hypnotherapy is like a deeper form of meditation. So, it's meditation with a goal. I probably should have said that at the beginning, but now you know. The reason that helps me is because it helps clear my head, helps implant some positive affirmations, it helps me visualize what my ideal day is going to be. So, there are days where I will start off in a sense of gratitude, and I will actually visualize myself with the calls I have on the calendar, having a really great time. I'll visualize myself with a smile on my face. And I notice that the days that I'm doing that versus the days that I'm not doing that, my energy is different.

I also prioritize movement. So, I'll do my workouts in the morning, and it's a really beautiful way to start the day when you have listened to a hypnotherapy session, you go to a workout, and you're able to start your day with that energy. And that was a huge part of our work together with self-care. You had been giving and giving so much that you were depleted. So, we had you start the Miracle Morning when we were working together so that you could pour from a full cup. Do you find that that had a big impact, too?

It had a huge impact. I did the Miracle Morning for some time for a few months. And for those of you who are not familiar, that's journaling, exercise, silence, reading, and visualization, right? So, those five. So, much more structured, but I have elements of that in my daily routine today, and it really showed me that I got to acknowledge that I was deserving of that time, too. And just like you said, Ian, it was so natural for me when we started working together to give from an empty cup. I wouldn't even think twice about it. And now, through the work we've done together, through the work I did in the Miracle Morning, and having this morning routine, it's shifted the way that I show up not just in my day job, but in all relationships that I have. It's a non-negotiable now.

>> It. You've come so far. Um we're going to wrap. My I always ask every guest the last question. What would you have to say to someone who is in the position you were three years ago, where they're coming off 34% of quota, they're in a role they feel like is above and well beyond them, and they're just, you know, frustrated. What would you tell them so they could get the results that you got and have a similar type of path?

I think that investing in mentorship, in coaching, in making sure that you're in the right room, right? So, it could be really easy to seek validation for things and thoughts that are not serving you. It's going to be really easy for you to find individuals and spaces that are saying, "It's a horrible time to be in sales. There's no way I'm going to hit my number," and that embrace that panic state, versus finding rooms and finding situations and groups where there's an openness and a vulnerability to learning. So, focusing on, "Okay, maybe in my visual experience right now in the group that I'm in, the team that I'm in, the company, whatever it may be, whatever your situation is. Maybe you don't even see those examples in front of you, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist. That does not mean that they don't exist. And if they do exist, what are you doing to make sure that you're in the right space that's going to facilitate positive change for yourself?" That's what I would say.

>> [music] >> Instead of trying to figure out everything by yourself and to push through it and to go about it the hard way, why not tell yourself that you're worth it and you are worthy to be in these rooms. And just step in. Take that first step.

>> And that's a plug >> [laughter] >> for the program. We are a community of top performers that are not only committed to making a million dollars and crushing it in their careers but doing it with integrity without sacrificing their health, their relationship. And to see you and how far you've come and more importantly, just your energy, your calmness, your happiness. You look really happy and you look really peaceful and to see you in this state and crushing it and promoted, it's just makes my heart happy and I'm just very proud of you and grateful to have you in our community and thank you for sharing your story with the Fun Top podcast today.

Yes, thank you Ian so much for having me and thank you for everything.