#26 From Hip Hop to Chess - The Winning Sales Philosophy of DeJuan Brown
Driving B2B Sales Revenue
English - October 19, 2020 05:00 - 31 minutes - 21.7 MBManagement Business Homepage Download Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
ABOUT THE GUEST: DEJUAN BROWN, SR. DIRECTOR, GLOBAL SALES AT SEISMIC
In his own words...
“Since I started waiting tables in the ‘90s, I've always had a passion for people and service. That passion has translated, decades later, most naturally into sales. I've had significant success as an individual contributor, and as a sales leader, and still believe that sales is a human contact sport.”
Find DeJuan on LinkedIn here:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dejuanbrown/
Or on Twitter here:
https://twitter.com/StratusNow
ABOUT THE EPISODE:
DeJuan took a step in his career that is not something everyone wants to talk about - a step from a VP of Sales role back to an individual contributor, but what makes his story and this episode great is how he articulates the deliberate reasons for doing so, and the core philosophy that drives his sales journey and gives context and meaning to this recent move and all that he has learned along the way.
1:00 - What is the best sales advice that DeJuan has ever received?
2:05 - What is some of the worst advice DeJuan has ever received?
3:54 - If traditional objection handling approaches suck, what’s a better way to handle objections?
7:30 - David sets up the episode around DeJuan’s unique career path
8:19 - DeJuan gives some background about his career path to give context for the rest of the conversation
11:25 - DeJuan talks about how your career is like playing chess - and how the board and the game looks different as you grow as a player
12:56 - What did DeJuan learn as a sales leader that makes him better now as an individual contributor
14:55 - How does DeJuan balance the things he loves about sales leadership and the things he loves about being an individual contributor from the IC role
18:10 - David and DeJuan talk about the discomfort of selling when you don’t have confidence that your company can fully deliver for your customer
22:35 - What does DeJuan think salespeople can do and/or look for to make sure they find a great customer-focused organization when looking for a new role
26:15 - DeJuan talks about his sales philosophy in general and how it was influenced by his love of Hip Hop
29:55 - Where to find DeJuan, learn more about him and enjoy his content (or get his Hip Hop playlist)