Mark Barragan | Beyond the Rules: The Truth About Winning in Sales

Talent Acquired

Chris

00:00 - 00:13

Really, what I wanna kinda start with is, what got you like, how did you get into sales? Like, how did that all happen? Because I saw your background was more engineering. So that's kinda where I'm very, like, curious about.

About.

Mark

00:13 - 02:34

Yeah. So, I was lucky enough in high school, when I started off, in high school, I was actually in a, class where we had, like, some Macs, some piece some IBM PCs.

And I didn't know anything about this, but there were some printers out there and the teacher was like, hey. Those printers aren't working.

And, I walked back there and I was like, well, what what's not why they're not working? They look powered on. And there's a little manual on the side, and I opened it up.

And I'm like, let me read this manual. And this is, oh, well, do this, do this.

And I just read it and did it. And then it just I'm like, hey, man, it's working now.

And so the teacher's like, oh, well, what'd you do? And that from that day forward, he's always using me for, like, technical support. And, and so, you know, one day the IBM guy was in there and he was like, hey, so I need I'm here to fix stuff.

The teacher was like, hey. Everything's working fine.

He's like, well, who's who's fixing it? They're like, that dude over there is, is a guy Mark who's fixing it. And so I went, you know, talk to him and he's like, hey.

Do you want a job at IBM? I was like, I'm not doing any better. Yeah.

I'll take a job at IBM. And so, you know, I started internship there.

And, and from there, I kinda just learned a lot about technology. I knew nothing about technology before that.

The nice thing about that that experience is, a lot of engineers are took me under their wing, and they just taught me a lot about engineering, diagrams, a lot about PC support. I just learned so much there in such a short amount of time.

And, eventually, I was doing desktop support for the VP of the site. And, the VP of the site, he, one day was was on his way to something called Comdex.

And, this was one of the big shows. Like, today, they have the the big CES show in in Vegas.

It was that that equivalent of the time. And he goes, Mark, what do you think of these demo demos we have here? And, I was just looking around working on his laptop, and, and it was just a bunch of spinning hard drives.

And I was like, you know, I go, Mike, they're they're pretty boring looking. You know? He's like, well, what would you do? And so, I said, well, you know, I I would do something way different.

And and, like, we're we're putting movies on the drives right now. We're, like, we're putting mapping systems.

Us like, the younger kids over there and the interns. Right? And then he's like, well, can you put something together? And I said, Yeah.

We'll we'll put something together. He goes, Great.

I'll see you in the morning, 8AM. And I'm like, Woah.

Woah. I'm like, 8AM? So I went and we got a bunch of interns that, you know, we're talking interns from Cal Berkeley from so from there, it was it was kinda like, that that's where I kinda started my technology journey.

And then I So.

Chris

02:34 - 02:37

more support is what you're saying is where you started.

Mark

02:37 - 02:47

Yes. Yeah.

So that's where I got my technical background. And, from there, it was just, you know, I got a lot of confidence in terms of technology and cell phone value in general.

Chris

02:47 - 03:08

Like, how did that, like, come to? Did someone say, like, hey. I think you'd be great at sales, or was that something that you're, like because what I've heard, there's two routes.

I've seen sellers get or in technical people get pulled into sales because, like, hey. Like, I think you could do this.

Then the other route is I see the technical people saying, I see what the sellers are making. Like, I can do that job because I'm already doing it.

Mark

03:08 - 03:09

Yeah. Which is that was.

Chris

03:09 - 03:10

it for you?

Mark

03:10 - 06:05

So I got pushed. So, you know, I got my technical background, what was saying, but, then I took a sales engineering role, after that.

And so the sales engineering role was where I was working with a lot of sellers. When I was working with a lot of sellers, you know, I was bringing a lot of new ideas in terms of how we presented.

And that's one thing I've been passionate about always is like not just, hey, this is the way to present and that's that. It's always how do we change the way we present.

Right? You saw that one of the some of the work we've done. So, you know, one day I was sitting there and I had an opportunity to turn into a product manager, and I started going down that path.

And our sales director at the time, the company I was working for, pulled me aside and said, you're making a mistake, Mark. And I go, what do you mean? I'm getting promoted.

Like, I don't see that being a mistake. He goes, no, no.

Don't go into product management. Go into sales.

And that was my moment of, like, no, I don't wanna be a sales guy. You don't understand.

Like, I don't want anything to do with it. And, and yes, I did look at the money and I was considering that, but I I just said to myself, well, you know, maybe now is the time to do it if someone believes in me that much.

And so at the time I said, well, you know, I know the products. I know the company.

I know the people. And so I decided, hey.

Let's take a leap of faith. And by the way, when you're doing this, because a lot of sales engineers, like, what you just said, they think we we thought at the time that, hey.

I see the money. I'm doing a lot of sales motions.

Why don't I just go do it? But, someone recently told me only about twenty percent of the sales engineers that go into sales actually succeed. And so, you know, I took this journey and and I said, okay, let's just do it.

And in the back of my mind, I think a lot of the sales engineers that we think this way is like, well, you know what? I'll just go back to being a sales engineer if this doesn't work out. And, not quite the way it works out.

Right? But, so I take this journey and, I I I gotta tell you about the six month mark, I go, man, I must be failing miserably. So, you know, I pulled my boss and said, hey, man.

I go, this is, this is this is not working out. Like, I I haven't sold really much.

And he goes, no, no, no. Keep doing what you're doing.

I see what you're doing. You're calling customers.

You're prospecting. You're getting relationships built.

And, you know, about the six month mark, the magic started happening right about after I had this discussion with him because he said, you know, keep on going. I was looking for, you know, maybe he would say, Yeah, you're right.

Maybe this isn't for you. But, I was doing now in hindsight, I can see I was doing all the right stuff.

But sales is, you know, sales is not a unless you inherit some golden territory, you don't just kind of wake up and then boom, the next day you start selling a ton of stuff. Right? So I got a patch which was a Hunter's Patch, which was no logos in there.

So I was responsible for going and getting logos away from our competitors and which is really, really tough, but I think it was a really, really good learning lesson for me. So about the six month mark, I landed two giant opportunities that I had been working on for a really long time and it turned into a really big deal for me.

Then that was kinda like when I knew, okay, I think I I think I could do this. Right? And, from there, the confidence kinda just built up.

What would you tell anybody who's kind of.

Chris

06:05 - 06:07

like on that fence or not sure?

Mark

06:07 - 07:13

You know, it's a lot like, you know, Warren Buffett always says, hey, if you don't have the stomach for seeing your stock go down, you shouldn't be you shouldn't be trading stock. It's the same thing in sales if you don't have a stomach for being not having that consistent pay.

Right. Because it's up and down.

So, you know, again, my mentor used to tell me, Hey, because early on, I had success. And so when you're when you're young and you have the success, you're like, oh, it's just this way from here on out.

And that's not the case. So, like, you have to be willing to take that roller coaster.

Right. And that always be playing in the back of my mind of, like, this is too good to be true.

And after my first sales role, right? Like, you crush it and then you're like, Oh, I feel like I could just do this all the time now. But, you know, part like you have to have some luck in this right there.

You have to get, a little bit of, you know, a good patch because you can I've seen great sellers have bad patches and not so good sellers have stellar patches. And then you ask yourself, wait, is this person that good? And it's really kind of like the consistent ones that can go ahead and make, you know, lemonade out of lemons that that are the real stellar ones because, hey, they get a bad patch and it's like you we can complain about it or you can just go, hey, we'll go and attack it.

Chris

07:13 - 07:16

I'm curious. Have you had a bad patch before?

Mark

07:16 - 08:12

I have. I mean, I've had bad patches.

Luckily, early on, I didn't I had some some pretty good well, my first role was that. It was a bad patch, but there was a good sales compensation around it.

If you can wrestle some of these customers away from the competitor, it was a hunter a real hunter's patch, then, you you know, we'd get compensated really well for that first sale. So that was, like, when that adds up, that is where you kind of like develop that mentality of I want to go open some more doors.

And, and that's really where you move the needle for the, you know, for the for the company because there's a lot of existing customers that we have in those days. But getting the new ones, which which was really difficult, we built a team to go do that.

And so I was one of the few that that did it for the company. And, I'm glad I did in hindsight because it's helped me in the, you know, in the future when we had to go out and start from scratch again, specifically in startups.

And, you know, you have a wide open patch. Where do you start? You gotta pick up the phone and you just gotta go for it.

Right?

Chris

08:12 - 08:24

For you as a seller, in tech, would you say, hey. You know, it's okay to bounce around into different industries or, hey.

I would recommend being narrow focused.

Mark

08:24 - 10:10

So that's a good question because I did try going outside of the the industry I'm in now. And I would say that that that was a big challenge in my lesson.

And I was, you know what? Let's just it's okay. Stick to what you know and and and sell that.

Now I do believe in industry trends. So, you know, right now things are rapidly changing.

So everybody's running to companies are selling some form of AI. Right? Whether it's LLMs or or robotics or whatever it is.

Like, that's the trend. And and I can see that.

Like, that's something that I think that, that's a cool industry to be in right now. So in some way, shape, or form, you need to learn it and you need to be able to sell that in the future.

But for me, I've learned, hey, stay in your swim lane. Stay at what you're good at.

At least for me, that's what's worked. And that's the advice I would give to someone else is like, hey, don't don't just get enamored.

And also another thing too for me that I've been lucky on is I've worked with companies that have been managed very, very well. And then they've had good management teams.

So that's made a big difference as well because, I've worked for four zero one's where there wasn't good management and it's a big difference, right? You got to trust the folks above you in this organization. And that's how I pick the companies I go to because if it doesn't have good management, then I probably don't want to be there.

Right? So, that's something that's that's that's very important to me is get to know the management team, get to know the, you know, the the the folks at the top that that write the checks because, you know, you wanna be able to trust them. And I've I've heard some stories of others have gone to companies where it was just a mess and it's usually starts from the top down.

So, I've been super fortunate to be be at companies where where we've had really strong management. If you're in that world and you bounce around a lot, you're never gonna be able to settle in and then and then, you know, be successful.

So you've gotta you've gotta grind in that in that in that environment.

Chris

10:10 - 10:17

What are you seeing that sellers need to be more focused on in doing that you're seeing that they're not? I know you see this next generation of sellers.

Mark

10:17 - 11:36

I appreciate you saying that I'm on their side, but I don't feel that way. And I think that's probably something that always feels to me because I feel like, hey, you know what? I could be better.

And, you know, when I see others that are really, really good, I'm like, I wanna be like polished like that or I wanna know how to articulate a story that way. Like, I think that's what keeps me hungry is like trying to always sharpen, like, sharpen the tool.

But I would say that where I see sellers that are, they just get complacent. They get a PowerPoint deck and they just go over it over and over again.

And to me, that's like, hey, you gotta you gotta be able to up your game, articulate the story more. Tell the customer why your product is good.

Right? Learn your product inside and out. Of course, you're gonna need your technical resource with you.

Like, I've been, again, fortunate to have really, really good sales engineers I've worked with, yeah, that that have become my really close friends, which that that's also another thing too is you've gotta be really, really tight with your technical resources and the resources you have within the within your company, the cross functional. But I would say that, when when sellers get complacent and they just tell the story kind of plain and they lose the customer, you've got to be able to read the room, right? If I'm if I'm pitching a customer and they're losing interest, I have to pivot.

And that's happened, right? Like it happens a lot. And that's how you become better because you learn your customer in terms.