Why You Need Selflessness and Empathy in Sales Leadership with Marty Sacks

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:05

Hello, and welcome to another episode of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:08

the transformed sales podcast today I am so excited to have

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:12

Marty Sachs with us. How are you? Marty?

Marty Sacks: 00:00:15

I'm well how are you doing?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:16

I am doing lovely, lovely and delightful.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:19

And just a peek behind the hood a little bit. You guys know how

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:22

amazing this podcast world is. Marty and I this is my third

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:26

attempt to record this episode until I know Third time's a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:29

charm, because we're both so busy. So I am so excited to do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:33

this.

Marty Sacks: 00:00:33

It's good to be with you.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:34

So let me tell you a little bit about Marty. He

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:37

has been with Telos alliances. For over two decades, he's held

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:41

a variety of roles in sales, business and product

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:45

development. He has a sales role where he is over not only the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:50

sales team, the marketing team, and now No, sorry, I think I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:55

might have gotten that wrong. He's over the sales team

Wesleyne Greer: 00:00:57

marketing team and what we would call is it support Marty? Or did

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:01

you just let that part go?

Marty Sacks: 00:01:02

So now I have April overseeing our strategy efforts?

Marty Sacks: 00:01:07

Yep, yep, the support team now works in another group for a new

Marty Sacks: 00:01:11

professional services organization that were standing

Marty Sacks: 00:01:13

up. So that group now no longer reports directly to me, although

Marty Sacks: 00:01:16

I get to talk to them from time to time. So we're still good

Marty Sacks: 00:01:19

friends.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:19

Awesome. So Marty is the Executive Vice

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:23

President of Sales, Marketing and strategy. And he's been in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:27

this case been with this company for over two decades. So Marty,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:30

I am so curious, how do you stay with a company for so long and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:01:36

still enjoy what you do every single day?

Marty Sacks: 00:01:39

That's a great question. And I think the

Marty Sacks: 00:01:40

probably the easiest answer is it's all about the people that

Marty Sacks: 00:01:43

you work with, and the industry that you serve. So in my

Marty Sacks: 00:01:47

particular case, I started out as a technologist working for

Marty Sacks: 00:01:50

radio stations on the east coast of the US, and went from sort of

Marty Sacks: 00:01:55

one set of stations to another and then ended up moving into a

Marty Sacks: 00:01:58

sales role, about halfway through what's now my 40, some

Marty Sacks: 00:02:02

years related to media and technology. And specifically, I

Marty Sacks: 00:02:06

started out as a radio guy. So if you work with great people,

Marty Sacks: 00:02:09

if you're in an industry that you love, if you are challenged

Marty Sacks: 00:02:13

every day, well guess what you can get to these kind of decade

Marty Sacks: 00:02:17

counts, and still love to get up in the morning and be very

Marty Sacks: 00:02:20

excited and have great relationships in the industry.

Marty Sacks: 00:02:22

And just, you know, it's one day at a time, but it really goes

Marty Sacks: 00:02:26

back to my love for the industry and the great colleagues that

Marty Sacks: 00:02:29

I've worked for, or worked with for many years.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:32

So you started your career in on the other side

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:35

of the supply chain, as I'll call it. So talk to us about

Wesleyne Greer: 00:02:38

your early career, what was that like for you?

Marty Sacks: 00:02:40

So the early career, you know, I had a

Marty Sacks: 00:02:42

disappointment early in life, where I ended up getting

Marty Sacks: 00:02:45

eyeglasses, and that's not necessarily such a

Marty Sacks: 00:02:48

disappointment. But if you want to be a military pilot in the

Marty Sacks: 00:02:51

70s, you needed to have perfect vision. So what turned out to be

Marty Sacks: 00:02:56

kind of a bad news thing, right? Getting glasses was a good news

Marty Sacks: 00:02:59

thing, because it allowed me to pursue this interest I had in

Marty Sacks: 00:03:03

electronics, and I ended up hanging around one day at my

Marty Sacks: 00:03:06

junior high school, they call it Middle School. Now, the

Marty Sacks: 00:03:09

audiovisual club, I don't even know if they have those anymore.

Marty Sacks: 00:03:12

But I ended up going on a tour to a TV station, and that was in

Marty Sacks: 00:03:16

1972. So you know, something happened, I got excited about

Marty Sacks: 00:03:21

it. And you know, little by little, you started to work in

Marty Sacks: 00:03:24

the industry that I'm in to this very day.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:26

Wow. So something in middle school is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:29

what gave you that little spark? When your first plan didn't

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:33

work? You said, Okay, that's fine. I kind of have this backup

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:35

plan that I think may work that I think I might like. So when

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:38

you first got into this broadcast journalism world, what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:42

kind of things did you do? Were you DJ making amazing music late

Wesleyne Greer: 00:03:47

at night? Were you a sports reporter? What did you do?

Marty Sacks: 00:03:50

So I was on the other side of the microphone. So

Marty Sacks: 00:03:52

I was one of the people that made sure the microphone worked

Marty Sacks: 00:03:56

and made sure that even if the microphone work that you could

Marty Sacks: 00:03:58

actually hear the station. So I started out, you know, very much

Marty Sacks: 00:04:02

behind the scenes, and in some respects, did very little in

Marty Sacks: 00:04:06

front of the microphone other than a little bit in college. So

Marty Sacks: 00:04:10

I've always been primarily unseen, and mostly unheard when

Marty Sacks: 00:04:14

it comes to the actual broadcasting. But of course,

Marty Sacks: 00:04:17

what a lot of people don't realize or maybe some people do

Marty Sacks: 00:04:20

is that there's a tremendous amount that happens that you

Marty Sacks: 00:04:23

never see whether you're watching TV news, or you're

Marty Sacks: 00:04:26

listening to a song, there are so many things that have to

Marty Sacks: 00:04:30

happen for you to hear that song or watch that show or view the

Marty Sacks: 00:04:36

news or, you know, have Alexa play you a stream of audio from

Marty Sacks: 00:04:39

something. So there are just so many unsung heroes, and I sort

Marty Sacks: 00:04:46

of had that role for the first two decades of my career, just

Marty Sacks: 00:04:50

you know, doing more and more project work. I went to

Marty Sacks: 00:04:53

different cities and built radio stations, but I always came back

Marty Sacks: 00:04:57

to the technical side and the you know, nobody really You

Marty Sacks: 00:05:00

might name side, which was just fine by me.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:02

So one of the people that I used to work with,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:05

she used to call herself the brains behind the scene. So

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:09

that's really what you've described, you are the brains

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:12

behind the scene, how did you really take like, I'm the person

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:16

who's weighing the bag? I'm not talking is not about me, how did

Wesleyne Greer: 00:05:20

you take that and transition into a sales role.

Marty Sacks: 00:05:23

So it's kind of interesting. You know, they

Marty Sacks: 00:05:26

often say that there are some things that you cannot control.

Marty Sacks: 00:05:30

But what you can control is how you react to those things. So I

Marty Sacks: 00:05:35

ended up having a pretty significant change. At the time,

Marty Sacks: 00:05:38

I was leading the technology for a specific group of radio

Marty Sacks: 00:05:42

stations in the DC area, which is where I grew up in

Marty Sacks: 00:05:45

Washington, DC, and I got a new boss. And, you know, I realized

Marty Sacks: 00:05:50

relatively quickly that I was probably going to want to do

Marty Sacks: 00:05:54

something different. And so what do you do, you start looking

Marty Sacks: 00:05:57

around, you start working your network. And essentially, what

Marty Sacks: 00:06:00

ended up happening was, I called one of my vendors, looking for

Marty Sacks: 00:06:03

another technology role. And he said, I don't have a technology

Marty Sacks: 00:06:07

role in mind. But I do have a sales role that opened up last

Marty Sacks: 00:06:11

night. So literally, I talked to him the next morning, after

Marty Sacks: 00:06:15

somebody had given notice the night before, day before,

Marty Sacks: 00:06:17

whatever it was, and that's how I ended up in sales. And it was

Marty Sacks: 00:06:20

very serendipitous it, I didn't really know anything other than

Marty Sacks: 00:06:25

the actual products that I would be selling, or the very products

Marty Sacks: 00:06:29

that I was purchasing as a technology leader. So I knew

Marty Sacks: 00:06:33

that particular part really well, the part I didn't know is

Marty Sacks: 00:06:36

now what do I do? What do I say, right? How do I talk to these

Marty Sacks: 00:06:40

guys that, you know, I used to go to picnics with now I got to

Marty Sacks: 00:06:43

try to sell them something, you know, so it was more of the how

Marty Sacks: 00:06:47

do I function as a seller than it was? How do I learn this

Marty Sacks: 00:06:51

industry that I'm going to try to sell products into so a lot

Marty Sacks: 00:06:54

of times people go into sales, and they move from industry to

Marty Sacks: 00:06:57

industry, because they have such great sales skills, you know,

Marty Sacks: 00:07:00

they can make that kind of a change for me, I had to learn to

Marty Sacks: 00:07:03

sell. And I had to learn by knowing what I was going to sell

Marty Sacks: 00:07:07

so that I could focus all that energy on learning the sales

Marty Sacks: 00:07:11

process and how to do that effectively.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:14

So one of the great things that I love to talk

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:17

about on the podcast is the fact that a lot of times as sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:22

leaders, we are looking for that ready made salesperson, right

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:27

the person who has some technical knowledge is a good

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:30

salesperson knows the market all of that however, you said I knew

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:36

the technical stuff, I was on the other side, I was buying

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:40

these things. So I know what a buyer actually likes. I know

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:45

what annoys the buyer, I know what actually matters to them,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:48

right. And so it's like when you go when you're on that other

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:51

side, and then you flip and you're like, but I don't know

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:53

how to sell it, you actually really do know how to sell it,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:07:56

because you know how you like to be sold to and so you do unto

Wesleyne Greer: 00:08:00

others as you would like to be done unto you.

Marty Sacks: 00:08:02

Yeah, in fact, you're speaking the truth.

Marty Sacks: 00:08:05

Because I said a moment ago, I didn't know what to do. But in a

Marty Sacks: 00:08:09

way I did. Because just as you described, you know, I had a

Marty Sacks: 00:08:13

certain mental image of how I wanted people to do business

Marty Sacks: 00:08:17

with me how to sell to me. And what I realized was that it was

Marty Sacks: 00:08:21

all about figuring out a way to add value in a way that nobody

Marty Sacks: 00:08:24

else can, or that fewer people can. So think about it, if we

Marty Sacks: 00:08:28

all sell the same reading glasses, you know, when we all

Marty Sacks: 00:08:31

sell within pennies of each other, guess what, we have some

Marty Sacks: 00:08:35

limits there, right? We're never going to be able to really

Marty Sacks: 00:08:37

differentiate ourselves. And we have to sell lots of these to be

Marty Sacks: 00:08:40

successful. But if we can figure out a way to sell these, and to

Marty Sacks: 00:08:44

sell these and somehow have them work together, okay, somehow we

Marty Sacks: 00:08:48

can differentiate ourselves, then, you know, we have more

Marty Sacks: 00:08:51

options. And I think that's what I learned was that if I could

Marty Sacks: 00:08:55

figure out a way to put together packages of equipment, and then

Marty Sacks: 00:08:57

that wasn't new in my industry, but I put together packages from

Marty Sacks: 00:09:01

maybe some additional companies that other people didn't put

Marty Sacks: 00:09:04

together packages, including, you know, I learned how to help

Marty Sacks: 00:09:07

people adopt new technologies, they may not necessarily know

Marty Sacks: 00:09:12

all about them. I didn't know all about them. But I knew who

Marty Sacks: 00:09:15

to call to be able to put these pieces together in a way that

Marty Sacks: 00:09:17

would work for these particular clients. And over time, what I

Marty Sacks: 00:09:20

learned was that did my very best to always add more value

Marty Sacks: 00:09:24

than my competitor because most customers will pay for that

Marty Sacks: 00:09:28

value. Gladly, because you save them time you save them hassle.

Marty Sacks: 00:09:33

You save them the embarrassment of something not working because

Marty Sacks: 00:09:36

they save $15. So I think it was a process of me learning how to

Marty Sacks: 00:09:40

create that differentiation. And sometimes I was successful, and

Marty Sacks: 00:09:43

sometimes I wasn't. But I think that over time, I learned ways

Marty Sacks: 00:09:47

to differentiate. And that ultimately was what helped me to

Marty Sacks: 00:09:51

stay in sales as opposed to you know, needing to do something

Marty Sacks: 00:09:53

else because I was not as successful as I wanted to be to

Marty Sacks: 00:09:56

provide for my family and do the other things in my life. So

Marty Sacks: 00:09:59

yeah, that's Lori,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:00

wow. And the way that you kind of took the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:04

autonomy that you had to create packages, not just this is what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:08

you need, this is what I'm gonna give you. But from your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:10

knowledge of, again, on the other side of the supply chain,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:13

this is what a person in this position needs this is what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:16

would be valuable to them. And so as you continue to build that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:20

value and help your customers, understand it, grow your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:23

business and grow your business. And at what point in your career

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:27

did you say, I think I want to lead people like me, instead of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:10:31

just being an individual contributor,

Marty Sacks: 00:10:33

I was probably slower to go more into a leader

Marty Sacks: 00:10:37

role, then, you know, I mean, I had people advising me, I should

Marty Sacks: 00:10:41

think about that, and maybe I didn't listen as well as I

Marty Sacks: 00:10:43

should have. And it's a really, you know, it's a timing thing.

Marty Sacks: 00:10:46

And I think that where I finally, I guess, where it

Marty Sacks: 00:10:50

finally clicked for me was the fact that, you know, I joined an

Marty Sacks: 00:10:53

organization that had more than one employee doing sales. And,

Marty Sacks: 00:10:58

you know, naturally, there's going to be somebody that that

Marty Sacks: 00:11:00

might gravitate more towards leading that team, or, you know,

Marty Sacks: 00:11:03

at least showing up at meetings, helping to lead that team,

Marty Sacks: 00:11:06

whatever it might be. And so it wasn't a click of a switch, it

Marty Sacks: 00:11:10

was much more of a kind of a slow realization. And I think

Marty Sacks: 00:11:14

that to a certain extent, leading means serving. So I

Marty Sacks: 00:11:18

think one of the things I learned was that I never really

Marty Sacks: 00:11:21

led as much as I tried to help other people succeed. And I

Marty Sacks: 00:11:25

think ultimately, you know, the best quality of a leader is

Marty Sacks: 00:11:30

caring for the people that are on your team, or that are on the

Marty Sacks: 00:11:33

team, right? It's not my team, it's the team. And that in the

Marty Sacks: 00:11:37

process of doing that you help them succeed, and you sort of,

Marty Sacks: 00:11:41

you know, then help them more succeed. And, you know, it's

Marty Sacks: 00:11:43

really, you just wake up one day and go, Huh, wow, okay. But it

Marty Sacks: 00:11:47

wasn't something I deliberately said, you know, in 10 years, I'm

Marty Sacks: 00:11:50

going to be a leader, you know, that wasn't really what crossed

Marty Sacks: 00:11:53

my mind on that.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:56

And so how long was that time, though? Like, I

Wesleyne Greer: 00:11:59

know that you said you weren't jumping up and ready. But how

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:02

long were you actually in that individual contributor sales

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:05

role?

Marty Sacks: 00:12:06

I guess, probably for good 10 years or so. And,

Marty Sacks: 00:12:10

you know, I mean, depends on how you count it exactly. But

Marty Sacks: 00:12:13

probably nine to 10 years in, I was starting to be a dedicated

Marty Sacks: 00:12:19

leader. And, yeah, that's about right.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:22

So as that dedicated leader, what are some

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:24

of those that give us the year, the first 90 days? What are some

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:29

of these are like, Oh, my gosh, what am I doing here? What's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:12:32

happening?

Marty Sacks: 00:12:33

Well, one of the things I guess I learned on the

Marty Sacks: 00:12:35

beginning stages was the company I was doing some of that

Marty Sacks: 00:12:38

original leading for was going through some changes. And so one

Marty Sacks: 00:12:43

of the things that is difficult for a leader, especially a sales

Marty Sacks: 00:12:47

leader is to maintain the success of the business while

Marty Sacks: 00:12:51

you're trying to change the business. So I used to tell

Marty Sacks: 00:12:53

people, it's a little like driving your car down the

Marty Sacks: 00:12:55

highway at 60 miles an hour and change your oil at the same

Marty Sacks: 00:12:59

time, it's a little hard. So I think one of the things I

Marty Sacks: 00:13:02

learned was just this idea that you have to sort of pick the

Marty Sacks: 00:13:05

areas that are most important, because you're not going to have

Marty Sacks: 00:13:09

time to do all the things that you normally need to do to lead

Marty Sacks: 00:13:13

and, you know, institute new comp plans and create new

Marty Sacks: 00:13:17

contracts for your resellers. And there's just a lot that has

Marty Sacks: 00:13:21

to happen when change is upon you. And so you constantly have

Marty Sacks: 00:13:25

to prioritize. And I think that's the one thing I've

Marty Sacks: 00:13:27

learned is prioritize, right? The idea that you can't do it

Marty Sacks: 00:13:30

all. So what's the thing that you want, at the end of the day,

Marty Sacks: 00:13:32

you will be most motivated to have accomplished and that, you

Marty Sacks: 00:13:37

know, some people would say that negatively, what's the one thing

Marty Sacks: 00:13:40

that you would be really ticked off about if you didn't have it

Marty Sacks: 00:13:42

done at the end of the day, but look at it from the positive,

Marty Sacks: 00:13:45

which is you know, what is most important, and that's hard,

Marty Sacks: 00:13:48

that's hard, especially if you have a family, you know, you're

Marty Sacks: 00:13:50

trying to juggle all these balls in the air and not drop any of

Marty Sacks: 00:13:53

them. And that's probably the biggest lesson I learned the

Marty Sacks: 00:13:56

hard way. Because I found myself focusing on things that weren't

Marty Sacks: 00:14:00

as important to the detriment of the things that were so you

Marty Sacks: 00:14:03

constantly have to prioritize as a leader. And even to this day,

Marty Sacks: 00:14:07

there are times where I just go, you know, now it's a little

Marty Sacks: 00:14:09

easier. At my advanced age, I'm able to triage what's important

Marty Sacks: 00:14:14

and what's not a little better than I could when I was younger,

Marty Sacks: 00:14:17

shall we say? And so there are some advantages to a little this

Marty Sacks: 00:14:21

stuff here. And, you know, definitely, that prioritization

Marty Sacks: 00:14:25

thing is huge. I mean, if I had to go back and do it all again,

Marty Sacks: 00:14:27

the one thing I would do is make better use of my time as a

Marty Sacks: 00:14:31

husband, as a dad, as a worker, as a technologist, as a

Marty Sacks: 00:14:35

salesperson, whatever, right? That's the one thing if I rewind

Marty Sacks: 00:14:38

the tape all the way back and be much better use of my time.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:41

I really love that you said your number one

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:44

tip is prioritization and time management. It's not figuring

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:49

out how to get the troops in line. It's not beating them over

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:53

the head with their KPIs or coming up with KPIs. It's me and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:14:58

as leaders, so many At times we put those things that need to be

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:03

done on ourselves on the backburner. We're like, oh, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:06

this is wrong, and only 50% of the team is producing. And my

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:09

boss told me to do this, and this is not working. Let me go,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:12

go go. But when we stop and take a minute, and really just take a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:16

moment to say, How can I become a better human being today? And

Wesleyne Greer: 00:15:20

every day? That is what helps us lead better?

Marty Sacks: 00:15:24

Yeah, cuz quite frankly, you know, I've heard

Marty Sacks: 00:15:26

this said before, kind of different ways. But you know,

Marty Sacks: 00:15:28

one way to say it is nobody cares how much you know, until

Marty Sacks: 00:15:31

they know how much you care, right? Kind of a trite saying,

Marty Sacks: 00:15:34

right. But if you think about it really makes sense. And I think

Marty Sacks: 00:15:37

that the other thing that I think is, unfortunately, where I

Marty Sacks: 00:15:40

failed as a leader in the past is I haven't always walked the

Marty Sacks: 00:15:44

walk. Right. So I talked the talk, right, I've got all the

Marty Sacks: 00:15:47

right sayings and things, you know, and I can tell you a mile

Marty Sacks: 00:15:50

long, all these things, right. But I wasn't necessarily always

Marty Sacks: 00:15:53

doing the things that I was telling other people to do. So

Marty Sacks: 00:15:56

you know, full disclosure, you know, somebody that's watching

Marty Sacks: 00:15:59

this that knows me, you know, I have to be honest, because

Marty Sacks: 00:16:02

they'll call me out, you know, I've learned because I made a

Marty Sacks: 00:16:05

lot of mistakes. And I think that's the one thing I would

Marty Sacks: 00:16:07

tell anybody, no matter where they are in their career, no

Marty Sacks: 00:16:09

matter what industry, no matter what their line of work is, is

Marty Sacks: 00:16:13

that if you make mistakes, if you learn from your mistakes, I

Marty Sacks: 00:16:16

think you're gonna succeed. Because most people, a lot of

Marty Sacks: 00:16:19

people are afraid to stretch and make a mistake, right? You know,

Marty Sacks: 00:16:23

they'd like that comfort zone, and nobody grows in a comfort

Marty Sacks: 00:16:26

zone. But not everybody is in a safe environment, to be able to

Marty Sacks: 00:16:30

make mistakes and survive them. So you know, there are lots of

Marty Sacks: 00:16:33

stories of people, you know, getting removed from an

Marty Sacks: 00:16:35

organization for making a mistake. And I think that the

Marty Sacks: 00:16:38

idea here is, you know, for anybody listening to your

Marty Sacks: 00:16:40

podcast, that's a leader, make it safe for people to make

Marty Sacks: 00:16:43

mistakes, not integrity mistakes, right? You got to be

Marty Sacks: 00:16:46

honest, you got to treat customers fairly, you can't

Marty Sacks: 00:16:49

compromise your integrity, that's a deal breaker, but other

Marty Sacks: 00:16:52

than integrity issues, I would say that's the one thing that I

Marty Sacks: 00:16:56

would encourage any leader that wants to be successful is to be

Marty Sacks: 00:17:00

a safe place, maintain a safe environment so that people make

Marty Sacks: 00:17:03

mistakes, and they learn from them. You know, guess what?

Marty Sacks: 00:17:06

They're more valuable to you. So yeah, to me, that's a big one

Marty Sacks: 00:17:10

right there,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:10

give us a real example of something has

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:13

happened in your current position, or in your previous

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:16

positions where you actually had to put this into action. There

Wesleyne Greer: 00:17:19

are

Marty Sacks: 00:17:19

a few, but I, at one point, I was with an

Marty Sacks: 00:17:22

organization that was running into financial trouble. And at

Marty Sacks: 00:17:26

the time, I had the privilege of leading that organization. And

Marty Sacks: 00:17:29

unfortunately, we were going through a tough patch, and I had

Marty Sacks: 00:17:32

to lay myself off. So you know, and my wife had just been

Marty Sacks: 00:17:36

diagnosed with an illness. So it was a very, very difficult time

Marty Sacks: 00:17:40

is a very difficult choice to make. But it was the right

Marty Sacks: 00:17:42

choice to make because the organization was more important

Marty Sacks: 00:17:46

than one individual. So that's probably the best example that I

Marty Sacks: 00:17:49

can talk about in terms of difficult decision. And it

Marty Sacks: 00:17:53

wasn't easy, but I was rewarded in multiple ways for making that

Marty Sacks: 00:17:57

decision. One was because I could look myself in the mirror,

Marty Sacks: 00:18:00

no, I've made the right choice. So to thine own self be true,

Marty Sacks: 00:18:03

right, the integrity thing, I think the other thing was that I

Marty Sacks: 00:18:06

set an example for people that were closest to me, my friends,

Marty Sacks: 00:18:09

my family, because they knew what had happened. And

Marty Sacks: 00:18:12

ultimately, it all ended up working out just fine. But at

Marty Sacks: 00:18:15

the time, it was a bit painful. And boy, did I learn a lot from

Marty Sacks: 00:18:19

that,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:19

that is very amazing. It really shows your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:23

self, Lis nature and how much you value people. And a lot of

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:30

times I say as leaders, for me, it's not just the person who's

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:34

on my team, the person who's working in the company, I'm

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:37

thinking about their families, right? Like, okay, kids are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:40

going back to school. So I'm not thinking about my kids gonna

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:43

write something about everybody, kids who has to go back to

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:46

school, everybody who's buy school clothes, and do this and

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:48

do that. Because literally as leaders, that is how we impact

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:52

lives, day to day. And so for you to look at the numbers, look

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:55

at the situation and say, it is better for me to lay myself off

Wesleyne Greer: 00:18:59

so that five or 10 or 12 other people can keep their jobs. That

Wesleyne Greer: 00:19:03

is very, very, very, very amazing. I mean, that's Yeah,

Marty Sacks: 00:19:07

it wasn't quite that many, they could keep their

Marty Sacks: 00:19:09

jobs. I wasn't paid that much. But I will tell you, I know I

Marty Sacks: 00:19:13

just had to put that in there. But I will tell you that I'm on

Marty Sacks: 00:19:15

a team now with a number of leaders that during COVID made

Marty Sacks: 00:19:20

some very difficult choices about their own salaries, to

Marty Sacks: 00:19:23

avoid laying off anybody here at our company. So we were very

Marty Sacks: 00:19:28

fortunate, not every company had the flexibility and sort of the

Marty Sacks: 00:19:32

financial wherewithal to be able to do this. But during the

Marty Sacks: 00:19:35

COVID, the worst of the COVID period, you know, say about 18

Marty Sacks: 00:19:38

months there, we didn't lay off a single person. We continued to

Marty Sacks: 00:19:42

pay everybody's health care and all that sort of stuff. And this

Marty Sacks: 00:19:46

was partly because our team did some sacrifice across the entire

Marty Sacks: 00:19:50

team. And partly that's because the senior executives here took

Marty Sacks: 00:19:54

a significant salary reduction for a short period of time to

Marty Sacks: 00:19:58

make sure that we had the ability And so that we didn't

Marty Sacks: 00:20:01

have to lay a single person off. So I'm really proud of this team

Marty Sacks: 00:20:03

and our leaders, not my leaders, right? The our CEOs, co CEOs,

Marty Sacks: 00:20:08

and our CFO banded together and help us ride this through. So

Marty Sacks: 00:20:12

you know, company's very, very strong, always has been strong,

Marty Sacks: 00:20:15

very, very strong. Now, you know, and that's, again, a very

Marty Sacks: 00:20:18

vivid example to me of what leadership is about, because

Marty Sacks: 00:20:21

that wasn't my idea. That was their idea. And I was happy to

Marty Sacks: 00:20:25

jump on board and be a part of that. So yeah.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:27

So what you just demonstrated is a culture,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:31

right? You guys have a culture of empathy, a culture of really

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:36

digging deep and figuring out what does the organization need?

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:39

Not what do I an individual and maybe my household name, but

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:42

what as an organization? How can we ensure that our employees are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:45

all able to continue paying their rent and their mortgage

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:48

and their car notes, right? Because that's what it's about.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:51

When you're at a level of being an executive in the C suite,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:56

senior executive? Yes, you make good money. And yes, we know

Wesleyne Greer: 00:20:59

that we need money to live, but we can cut back and tighten our

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:02

belt sometimes, and to have a culture where senior executives

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:07

all get online, and you don't have a dissenter, I mean, that

Wesleyne Greer: 00:21:11

is a great testament to the work you guys are doing there.

Marty Sacks: 00:21:14

The team here is remarkable. And I couldn't agree

Marty Sacks: 00:21:17

with you more just that idea, that sort of that selflessness

Marty Sacks: 00:21:21

that came, it's pretty interesting, because I haven't

Marty Sacks: 00:21:24

always been on teams like that. So I don't take that for

Marty Sacks: 00:21:27

granted. I've been on teams that have been very political, very

Marty Sacks: 00:21:30

siloed, I've been on teams where quite frankly, the people

Marty Sacks: 00:21:33

outside the company, were friendlier than the people

Marty Sacks: 00:21:35

inside the company. So I mean, I've, I've kind of been there

Marty Sacks: 00:21:39

done that probably not as much as some people that are viewing

Marty Sacks: 00:21:41

this, but seems to times I've been in some really funky

Marty Sacks: 00:21:44

places, and boy, what I've learned, and so to be in a place

Marty Sacks: 00:21:48

like telos, and, you know, being working with the people I am is

Marty Sacks: 00:21:52

a great blessing. I don't take it for granted. I'm very

Marty Sacks: 00:21:55

thankful to be here and very privileged to be on this team.

Marty Sacks: 00:21:58

So yeah, no question. I've seen it both ways.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:02

Wow, you've given us so many lessons in

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:06

leadership, and accountability and creating a culture where

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:11

people want to work where they want to stay and where you as a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:13

leader can show up. So I know when I asked you to tell me

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:16

something that has impacted your career, you may not have too

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:19

much more, because you give me so much. So now I'm gonna ask

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:23

you to pull something else. Why? The way that you lead a

Wesleyne Greer: 00:22:27

situation personally or professionally,

Marty Sacks: 00:22:30

so I've got one, all I got is one, you've taken

Marty Sacks: 00:22:33

everything that I've got. But I've got one for sure. So one of

Marty Sacks: 00:22:38

the things I learned this was early in my technology career.

Marty Sacks: 00:22:41

So my exposure to technology leaders was largely, you know,

Marty Sacks: 00:22:46

very smart individuals, but maybe a little bit lacking in

Marty Sacks: 00:22:51

some of the social skills, right, sort of how to interact

Marty Sacks: 00:22:54

with people how to get your point met, you know, how to

Marty Sacks: 00:22:57

creatively confront, you know, behaviors, just this idea of,

Marty Sacks: 00:23:01

you know, how to live the rest of your life when you're not

Marty Sacks: 00:23:03

doing technology. And so I came up in the early parts of my

Marty Sacks: 00:23:07

career not having good examples of how to do that, right. My

Marty Sacks: 00:23:11

parents weren't really that way. They didn't really deal with

Marty Sacks: 00:23:14

their emotions at times very effectively. So I was really

Marty Sacks: 00:23:17

lacking that in the beginning of my career. And I ended up

Marty Sacks: 00:23:21

working right as I graduated high school, I changed jobs and

Marty Sacks: 00:23:24

worked for one of the most successful radio stations here

Marty Sacks: 00:23:27

in the Washington DC area at the time. And I met a guy who became

Marty Sacks: 00:23:31

a lifelong friend. I've known this guy over 40 years. And more

Marty Sacks: 00:23:35

than that, I can't do the math, not enough fingers. But I think

Marty Sacks: 00:23:38

the point here is that for the first time ever early in my

Marty Sacks: 00:23:41

career, I worked with a guy who had an amazing people skill. So

Marty Sacks: 00:23:45

he was brilliant technologically, don't get me

Marty Sacks: 00:23:47

wrong, he was nobody's fool when it came to how to do the actual

Marty Sacks: 00:23:50

blocking and tackling of the work we do at that point in

Marty Sacks: 00:23:53

time. But man, did this guy have people skills and I watched how

Marty Sacks: 00:23:56

he interacted I watch how he, you know, I read what he wrote,

Marty Sacks: 00:23:59

I learned to write reading his stuff. And, you know, I watched

Marty Sacks: 00:24:03

him model much of the same behaviors. We've talked about,

Marty Sacks: 00:24:06

you know, selfless leadership and caring for your people. And

Marty Sacks: 00:24:10

I remember him taking me to an executives dinner one time in my

Marty Sacks: 00:24:13

blue jeans in Los Angeles, I didn't have any real clothes. I

Marty Sacks: 00:24:16

was out doing a project, but we had just celebrated something

Marty Sacks: 00:24:20

big. And he said, Look, these guys are celebrating, they

Marty Sacks: 00:24:22

didn't even work on it. This guy, me, Marty. He brought me

Marty Sacks: 00:24:26

along to this ritzy restaurant. I remember, you know, I was like

Marty Sacks: 00:24:28

20 years old, and I'm like, What am I doing here? Right? I'm

Marty Sacks: 00:24:31

looking around and all these people are wearing suits. And

Marty Sacks: 00:24:33

I'm sitting there in my jeans and a T shirt. And the steak was

Marty Sacks: 00:24:37

great. Let me tell you what, it was a great experience. But I

Marty Sacks: 00:24:40

learned how to take care of people from this guy. His name

Marty Sacks: 00:24:43

is Smitty. So he's been a lifelong friend. He's been a

Marty Sacks: 00:24:46

great mentor. You know, when my wife went through medical stuff,

Marty Sacks: 00:24:50

his wife was always sending stuff to her just very caring,

Marty Sacks: 00:24:54

very caring people. And so I learned, you know, I had a great

Marty Sacks: 00:24:57

example. And so that is, you know, when I Talk about

Marty Sacks: 00:25:00

mentorship. I've been fortunate my entire life to have so many

Marty Sacks: 00:25:03

great mentors. He's probably the first major mentor I ever had.

Marty Sacks: 00:25:07

So yeah, big time.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:08

That's amazing,

Marty Sacks: 00:25:09

I think so

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:11

that someone helped us get to where we are

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:14

today. And so we're responsible to reach back and pull somebody

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:18

else up. And it really sounds like in everything that you do

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:21

you practice that, right. You remember Smitty, and how much he

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:26

just brought just a straggling, 20 year old and jeans and a T

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:29

shirt or fancy meeting. And he's literally showing you this is

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:33

how you show up. And this is how you talk to important

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:35

executives, and he was mentoring you and teaching you. And this

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:39

is one key reason why when I work with leaders in companies,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:44

I say you are not allowed to go to a meeting, external meeting

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:48

without somebody on your team with you. Like you cannot do it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:52

It is like a thing that I need you and grant your brand. You

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:54

should never go to a meeting alone as a leader, because

Wesleyne Greer: 00:25:56

that's how salespeople learn. They learn on the fly.

Marty Sacks: 00:26:02

Absolutely, right. I think there's a book that was

Marty Sacks: 00:26:04

written years ago, Never Eat Alone. And I'm pretty sure

Marty Sacks: 00:26:08

that's the principle that they talk about there. So it's that

Marty Sacks: 00:26:10

idea of you're always teaching. Well, Marty,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:12

this has been an amazing, amazing conversation.

Marty Sacks: 00:26:16

I've enjoyed it. Thank you for having me. I

Marty Sacks: 00:26:18

really appreciate it. Me too.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:19

I'm so glad it was we waited a while to get

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:22

here. But I'm so glad we're able to connect and to chat. And what

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:26

is the one best way that listeners can reach out to you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:28

if they're interested in chatting more?

Marty Sacks: 00:26:30

Best thing to do is email me. It's Marty dot sacks

Marty Sacks: 00:26:34

at TELUS alliance.com. Feel free to reach out I'm happy to

Marty Sacks: 00:26:37

interact with any of your listeners. Hi, Sam,

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:39

make sure you tell them in the email that you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:42

heard him on the transformed sales podcast. So he doesn't

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:45

think that you're just somebody's trying to sell them

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:46

some more stuff. To actually want to learn from him and talk

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:51

to him and develop as a leader as a salesperson.

Marty Sacks: 00:26:54

Absolutely, I'd welcome the opportunity. Well,

Marty Sacks: 00:26:56

thank

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:57

you so much, Marty, for your time, your

Wesleyne Greer: 00:26:59

talent, your expertise, and sharing how the company culture

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:04

within Telos has really helped you lead and show up. That's the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:09

way you best express yourself. So thank you so much for sharing

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:13

that with us today. We definitely appreciate it.

Marty Sacks: 00:27:15

Great to see you. Thanks again for inviting me. I

Marty Sacks: 00:27:17

really appreciate it.

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:18

Awesome. And that was another episode of the

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:21

transform sales podcast. Remember in everything that you

Wesleyne Greer: 00:27:25

do every single day, find one way to transform your sales