YOUR INTENTION MATTERS! The Sales Podcast
YOUR INTENTION MATTERS! The Sales Podcast
Ep. 215 - Shane Stone (National Vice President of Sales @ The OccuNet Company)
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Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Your Intention Matters the Podcast. My name is Paul Madot. Thank you very much for being here today. Today we have Shane Stone. He is National Vice President of Sales at Oculet coming to us from Big D. Shane, man. How have you been?
SPEAKER_00I've been good, Paul. Good to hear from you again. It's been a while.
SPEAKER_01Likewise, I appreciate you being here. How are things in Dallas?
SPEAKER_00Things are great. Um, business is great. The climate here is uh amazing. Not the actual climate, but the climate of companies moving here. Uh so it just continues to make our market grow. But yeah, we're we're loving it here.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Well, nice to see you again. It's been a while since I had you last on the podcast back in 2022. Uh, do me a favor say hi to everybody and provide a quick real introduction.
SPEAKER_00Hi, everybody. It's uh Shane Stone, and I'm coming at you from Oculet. Uh, we are an Amarillo-based company uh here in Texas, uh, even though I happen to live in Dallas, and I'm the national uh VP of sales for them.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. On a personal front, remind me, married father, both, neither. I think you're a dad and a husband, but I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I'm uh married. I have uh five grown children. Uh we are waiting on grandchildren at this point, and my wife's getting anxious to have those grandchildren. So in the meantime, she's been buying additional dogs, which is not actually my preference, but it's it's what's happening.
SPEAKER_01You know, my mom said to me once that when I was born, uh her mom, my grandmother said to her that she loved me more than my mom loved her. Sorry, so more than my mom loved me. And at the time, my mom was thinking, what are you crazy? There's no way that's possible. And now she's a grandmother and she's like, I fully get what my mom was saying. So when that happens for you and your wife, I'm quite sure that love for your grandchild, boy or girl, will be through the roof.
SPEAKER_00I I've heard, I've heard that's the way it works, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, nice to be connected with you. I appreciate it. You know, Shane, as you've been on this podcast before, and as we were kind of talking, uh just kind of getting set up here for this one right now, the podcast is all about mindset and intention and ultimately their rules on overachievement in sales. Because, from my perspective, as we were talking about this, nothing is given to any of us in a sales role. Like organizations can provide salespeople with every tool to get after it: product training and system training and competitive intel and tools and documents and software, and they can be given inbound leads as well, but if they don't have the right mindset going into it, from my chair, I think, well, they're probably gonna crumble as soon as they get resistance. And I'd love kind of your take initially on my take on mindset and the importance of it in a sales role.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, actually, I'm I'm glad you're using that word. Um, I'm part of a unique company that actually is very, very big on culture. And one of our culture drivers is actually a philosophy called the outward mindset. That's the name of it. It was a it was a book written by uh a team over at Arbinger Institute. It helped us develop everything that we do from the hiring process when we bring people in to make sure that they're a culture and personality fit, to actually aligning them up for the appropriate job that they best fit into. And we've been practicing this culture for since 1998. Uh, everybody uh goes through the program, we do refresher courses on it all the time, but it really gets people in the in the um the understanding, I guess I would say, when they come to this organization, we have no hierarchy, we have no egos, everybody has to check those at the door. So even if we bring on sales folks that are, you know, very successful in their past career, they have to know how to be a team player. They know how to have to know how to work with everybody and work in that team environment. Um and then when we learn about outward mindset on an ongoing basis, we know that you know we're all in this together. So there's there's nobody um trying to talk down to other employees, or if there's confrontation at work, which occasionally happens, we know how to kind of disarm that and really make sure that everybody's rowing in the same direction. So it's it's a it's a great uh principle to live by. And it's also great for, especially the sales team speaking for them specifically, uh, so that you get folks that know that we're all collaborating. Uh and it's actually led to a unique culture where we don't even really have territories. Um, there's not um every everybody that's here is pretty seasoned. So we all have established relationships uh that we rely on, probably more than like a business development, uh, like you alluded to. But um, you know, even with those relationships, a lot of people know a lot of people. And so therefore, there's some crossover sometimes, but we know how to come together and work those opportunities as a team instead of somebody just trying to take all the credit for themselves. So it's very collaborative here.
SPEAKER_01So, you know, Shane, you have me curious about something specific to the setup there. And that to me, in terms of creating the proper environment and uh way to work, it's mission critical for an organization to kind of get to the next level and keep going because and so on. But that said, when it's not so black and white and cut and dry, here are your 15 zip codes, here are here's your base of companies to pursue, here's your vertical to go after. How do you think you guys manage that so effectively when there's possibility to maybe unknowingly, I don't want to say clash, but you could contact the same company. And so how do you guys deal with that?
SPEAKER_00Um, I would say we're just nimble enough and just small enough where there's not too many of us stepping on each other's toes. But when those situations arrive, uh we just kind of you know put everything in our CRM system, uh have intelligent conversations through the uh that those relationships and those crossovers that could occur. And basically, you know, we reach an agreement. You know, do you want to work this as a team? If there's multiple contacts at one particular brokerage firm, for example, or a consulting firm, you know, who do we know better there? Like who do you know and what role do they specialize in? And who do I know? And how do we collaborate on that? So again, it's a unique culture uh because I've never seen it work relatively uh, you know, without without uh any kind of issue. Uh occasionally stuff comes up, but it's never a big deal. But it all goes back to that outward mindset thinking where it's like, you know, I'm not gonna run over somebody just to claim my stake, or I'm not gonna say that I know this contact and I've known them for a while, even though I haven't done business with them in 10 years. You know, it's more of a, you know, who do you know? What do you know, and how can we help each other to get the win collectively?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I'm glad to hear that because if you think about my own selling career, when I was flipping copiers back in the day, uh on the dealer side of the business, it was, I don't want to say or over overspeak that it was like elbows out all the time, right? But but but it was very much 30-day driven, and you kind of eat what you kill, and and it was uh it wasn't aggressive, like really, really like pitball aggressive, but it was but but it was not as graceful as it as it should be. And it sounds like you guys have figured out that the the bottom line is well, let's do what's best for the client, and we'll figure out the internal processes appropriately as a result.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. I mean, that's I I can't say enough about that, and also the fact that we have uh several different solutions. Sometimes there's cross-sellability there, where maybe you know somebody's interested in pharmacy, so you bring in the person that's more experienced for that while you're also talking to them about cost containment solutions on, say, reference-based pricing, uh, or they're out of network claims, you bring in kind of the the right discipline for that and work together collaboratively.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love it. And so, you know, Shane, as we were talking before we hit record, uh, I remembered that when we last spoke in this forum, it was in in 2022. And if everybody was around, of course, you might remember that 2020 and 2021, even to even into 2022 a little bit, COVID was this like uniquely unique thing in the world that just really overtook everything. This work from home movement, and there were furloughs and layoffs, and this working from home and virtual meetings, and there was just this uh unfortunate, uniquely unique time. And so, as we were talking back then, a lot of it had to do with well, how are we managing this? How are we coming out of it, and so on? Now it's been four years. So I'm just curious overall, how has life been for you uh professionally post-COVID? New role, new job, new company? How are things going?
SPEAKER_00Um, I would say it's going wonderful. I found my forever home here. So I really love this organization. It's family owned. Um, they're uh much more willing to bend and take risks, which they even did through COVID. We actually made our biggest technology investments that really fuel a lot of what we do today during the COVID time. So it's a huge risk, but it paid off uh in spades, which was wonderful. Um, but I would say on a personal note, yeah, it was challenging. I mean, not being able to meet with people, and then even when you came back from COVID, a lot of people pushing to more webinars than in-person meetings and just kind of a different way of doing things uh because people got busy and overloaded during COVID and, you know, had to come out and and and manage their time better. It's definitely changed the way that we interact. But I'd say as the years have gone by, thank goodness, we're starting to get to a point now where I think we're coming back to normal a bit. I mean, because we're we're out on the road continuously now. We're meeting with folks, people are coming out again and going to events and activities that they that they had put off for a while. Um, you're still dealing with a lot of remote workers in some instances. So sometimes you do have to tie together the standard webinar uh presentation to get things going. But we try to, you know, press the flesh as much as possible and get out there and and talk to people because nothing beats that personal relationship. Um but I but I do think, yeah, it definitely changed our world. Uh it was a painful time for everybody, I think, and a learning adjustment. But hopefully we're getting back to a place where uh, you know, it was like it was pre-COVID.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, now we just have different issues in the world going on right now, and it's uh it is what it is. Just a few, right? And so, you know, so uh you're at a new company since the last time we spoke. Um, I think. Did they find you? Did you find them? What was that transition like for you to AlcuNet?
SPEAKER_00Sure, sure. Yeah, they found me via a recruiter, and um it was interesting. I was actually on a family vacation uh at the time and I met up with my boss, which I was okay with. It was uh not not so much my direct family, it was some of the extended family that I kind of wanted to break from. So we managed to uh break away and meet.
SPEAKER_01Um, cares about the cousins, right? It's fine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I made the drive about halfway to the halfway point where I met him in this little rural town that wasn't too far from where we were staying, and he was also uh staying uh in a rural area, and we met up at a McDonald's and we uh we talked through everything. Uh, we talked through my experience and and what my career had been over the last 35 years, and he told me just about everything I wanted to know about their company structure, how they started, how it was family owned, and how the entire uh family uh you know is in the business and involved in it, um, and really told me about the culture. And that impressed me. I mean, I I'd only worked for one other family-owned entity in my life. And to see that there was no private equity or venture capital driving decisions or large company politics, uh, he really disarmed all of those concerns that you know, there wasn't nepotism, there wasn't uh oddity or hierarchy or a lot of different layers there. They were pretty flat as an organization. And then when he told me about the sales team, that impressed me even further because a lot of these folks were seasoned veterans uh that had come from different sides of the industry, including my previous employer. Uh, and um they had all managed to make this model work where they all worked cohesively together uh without territories, without assignments like you talked about premier coffee your days, you know, where you had like these 30-day plans. It was much more of a um just, you know, we're all in this together. We all represent the entirety of the company, uh, and we are looking for, you know, new opportunities where we can, you know, take our skill set, take our relationships and manage those properly to go and get the business. So it was a great uh it was a it was a great experience uh coming into it that way.
SPEAKER_01So you meet at McDonald's. I kind of have a one-to question for you here, Calm. But the first question is, uh, were you looking before this recruiter found you? Like were you on the uh were you on the scope to look at all?
SPEAKER_00I I had just started to look. Um I had actually thought about going back to the consulting side at one point, which is where I had the early part of most of my career. Uh, but I just started to look. And then it was happened very fast where this recruiter contacted me and said, Hey, you should look at this opportunity. It's very unique.
SPEAKER_01You know, I asked the question with regards to looking because I I think back to my selling career, and I again I was flipping copiers for about a decade. And and when I decided to leave, I didn't leave for another company, I started up my own business, which which comes with its own uh risks and spreadsheets and plus minuses and all that good stuff. But I remember when I did that, um, I hadn't really been looking, looking early on, but I got to the point where I was like, okay, I want to do something different. But it took me, I would say, about eight to nine months before I finally put my resignation in and did it. It wasn't this overnight decision. And so you started to kind of maybe think about it. And so you met at McDonald's, a good conversation. You were quite impressed, it sounds like with what they're up to at this organization. From there, how long did it take before you actually made the decision to move forward?
SPEAKER_00Um, I was there within probably just right at two weeks, maybe a little bit less. Because they yeah, they moved very quickly. Uh, and when they did, um, you know, the first order of business was to come up there and really get to know everybody at the at the office uh in Amarillo. Uh, and meeting that team was just validation that I was making the right decision uh because you know I loved I loved the conversation with my boss, but I also loved the folks that I was going to be working with on a daily basis. Uh, and it was just such a solid organization. And I I had come there honestly to, you know, try to pull coals in it or see if there was anything that you know didn't match up to what he told me, but I couldn't find a single flaw. I mean, they were they were solid all the way through.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Well, that sounds like it's working out for you.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is a wonderful place.
SPEAKER_01And so you people that are listening to this obviously can't see us talking right now, but you're uh it looks like you're in your home office. I am. Okay. So I asked because in the background I can see a couple of guitars, like real guitars with a photo of a guitar as well. And so we we have a 10-year-old son, his name is Nicholas, and my wife and I decided with our kids we were gonna pretty much put them in everything. Uh and like and whatever stuck, stuck. Like they like to ski. My son hated soccer, so we pulled him out. My daughter loved gymnastics, so we kept her in. And so, whatever, I mean, as you know, I'm in Toronto. There was there's there's no hockey in our house at all. New their kid wanted to do it, and so et cetera. But but we but we decided to put them in everything, and uh we put our son in guitar lessons, uh, and and he's just starting to get it, but it takes like a really big effort for him to kind of get it because you look at the guitar and you think, well, how hard can that be? But it's a hard thing to get right. And so I'm just curious about I see a couple of guitars there. Is that a big passion of yours?
SPEAKER_00Uh that is my passion. Uh, music I've been playing since I was about 12 years old. Uh played in a lot of bar bands growing up. Uh, have a full recording studio, freestanding uh building on our property now that has about 37 guitars in there, as well as drums and bass and karaoke equipment. Um, three of my five grown children play with me. So even though they're older now and we don't see them nearly as much as we used to, I still have a drummer in there, another guitar player, and then our youngest daughter sings. But I just love it. I mean, music is is been a big part of my life, and uh it's my uh sanctuary, my my place I get sent to when I'm stressed out. My wife tells me to go to my room, that's where I go. And uh and it's it's wonderful. But I would say some advice for your son. Uh I found that I also took guitar lessons at a younger age and didn't stick with it, but then I went back to it when I was around 11 or 12. That's kind of the sweet spot. There's a there's a level of understanding and patience you need when you're first learning that if you're too young, you won't focus on it. And if you get too old, it's too hard to teach an old dog new trick sometimes. So that that you're right in that zone right now, that 10 to 12, where if he he likes it and he excels at it, it'll be his his hobby for life.
SPEAKER_01Do you still have one of your early guitars?
SPEAKER_00I do, I do, and it's funny you mention that because uh, as I mentioned, I'm a bit of an avid collector, but uh there's many an opportunity where my wife will walk in the studio and she'd go, That looks new. Are you buying another one? I'm like, No, I've had that one since I'm 15, you know, and so we we have that little debate back and forth, but I do sneak them in the house, uh, you know. So there's 37 that she knows of, we'll put it that way.
SPEAKER_01Gotcha. Well, Shane, listen, man, it's great to reconnect with you. I appreciate you being here. I've enjoyed talking to you again.
SPEAKER_00Ah, you do you as well, and I'm glad that everything's going good uh up there in Canada. And you know, uh it's it's really good to connect.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I appreciate the time. Thank you. And enjoy your long weekend as well. We're recording this on the Friday before Labor Day.
SPEAKER_00That's correct. Yes, sir. Okay, well, thank you for that. We'll be on the lake. So yeah, I love it. Hope you have a good time up there as well.
SPEAKER_01All right, good. Okay, everyone, thanks for being here as well. I appreciate it. And remember, as I'll close out this podcast, as I always say, your intention matters. Why? Because that's the result you'll tend to get. And I hope to see you on the next episode.