Welcome to episode 139 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we share part 1 of our interview with Eric Brooker, covering topics such as getting into sales, accepting others’ no, and progression into sales leadership.
Original Recording Date: 7-20-2021
Topics – Getting into Sales, When No Means No, Performance Issues and Doing the Right Things, Sales as an Element of Many Areas, Individual Contributor to Leader, Interaction up the Leadership Chain
2:02 – Meet Eric Brooker

* Eric and his wife have 7 children and live near St. Paul Minnesota. Eric has been in tech sales / tech sales leadership for about 21 years and currently works for Bigleaf Networks.

* Eric says he currently works with some of the best people he’s ever worked with in all his years.

3:25 – Getting into Sales

* Eric has interviewed a number of people going into the sales profession.
* If you can get past the 4 letter word that is sales and be comfortable in your own skin, there is a lot of upside.
* When Eric was 20 and his wife was pregnant with their first child, it was all about the money and a chance to make a financial advancement in his career.
* Eric had not finished college, and it was time to "grow up." He had a plan for his wife to stay at home, and in order to do that, there were sacrifices needed.

* Stepping into sales was kind of in his blood with his parents both owning their own business.
* He found himself successful with the support of a number of great sales leaders who told him what to do and how to do it. Eric learned if he would do what they told him to do, he was going to be successful.
* Eric eventually grew into a sales leader himself, wanting to give back see others succeed as he did.

* For Eric, the idea of sitting back at a retail facility and waiting for someone to come to him was not what he wanted. He wanted to go out and get the business.

* Very early in his career, this meant door-to-door sales. In order to build trust with businesses, you have to do it.
* One Monday he would have conversations and collect business cards followed by making calls on Tuesday, trying to earn that next customer.
* This was not easy because Eric was young. So many of his friends were out partying.
* Eric stayed motivated by that vision of his wife staying at home with the kids, which she has been able to do for his entire career in sales.

* Sales is not for the week at heart.

* Month after month there are sales goals and objectives. You can knock it out of the park in June, and then July 1st hits, forcing you to do it all over again.
* It’s a lot of work, and it’s a lot of fun when it’s rewarding.
* Eric has seen many people succeed over the years, which brings him joy just the same.

* Are there certain personality types better suited for sales?

* Some of this is a learned behavior. No one really likes rejection.
* Eric has the ability to just "move on" after getting a no despite wanting a yes. He has rarely if ever taken it personally.
* No one has ever not done business with Eric Brooker because they didn’t like him as a person.