Covered With Ice - The VarTec Story
WMMM #049 - This week, I share a story of perseverance, extra effort, a winning formula, and a rookie mistake.
Jeff Keplar Newsletter January 13, 2024 12 min read
With an Arctic front arriving in Dallas this weekend, I am reminded of a sales cycle twenty-four years ago.
That sales cycle contains many lessons worthy of sharing and is perfect for this week's numbingly cold edition of Win More, Make More.
Taking Us Back to that Place and Time
In the annual June ritual of reorganizing their sales force, we were assigned to Oracle's Communications industry vertical.
Oracle wanted to reduce the headcount of its Major Accounts Application team now that the rush to replace legacy financial applications before the end of 2000 was over.
The "Year 2000" fear of legacy applications' inability to handle dates of the 21st century created an impending event that drove many enterprises to update their legacy, mostly mainframe financial application software.
The Company also wanted to double down on its industry verticals.
Sales professionals with applications expertise were considered valuable to Oracle's strategy to penetrate key industries like communications, financial services, and utilities.
The 1984 Breakup of AT&T
When the US Government decided to break up the Ma Bell monopoly over telephone service, the ensuing deregulation gave birth to Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs).
CLECs competed with the incumbents - the former Bell Company monopolies in a given geographic area (Ameritech, for example) by offering new services to consumers.
Another name for companies like Ameritech was RBOCS (Regional Bell Operating Companies.)
Examples of the new services included data for internet services, fiber systems, and PBXs (digital switches.)
RBOC competitors also offered long-distance service.
Oracle expanded its Communications vertical beyond the coverage of the original seven RBOCs.
They added CLECs, long-distance dial-around carriers, and cable companies to this organization, creating the need for sales coverage.
VarTec Telecom was a long-distance, interexchange bypass carrier and a "no name" compared to Southwestern Bell, MCI, or Bell Atlantic.
Bypass is another name for dial around and was used because the service allowed one to bypass their default (RBOC) long distance by using an access code, like 10-10-321, to dial around the legacy service.
"No Names"
Thanksgiving is a time that many spend with their extended families. Ours is no different.
Invariably, we gathered around an island in the kitchen and got caught up.
"How's work going?" "We saw you on your laptop this afternoon. Everything all right?"
Me: "Yes, thanks for asking. Just responding to one of our guys."
"Who? Do we know him?"
Me: "As a matter of fact, you do. It's Bob."
"Oh yes. How is Bob?"
Me: "He's fine. He's trying to crack this account that's new to us."
"What's the name? Have we heard of them?"
Me: "VarTec. Surely not. They are a small long-distance service based in Dallas."
"Long-distance, you say? VarTec is the name of our carrier."
Me: "Really? Do you like them?"
"We do. They're a lot cheaper."
Me: "That's weird. I've been in and out of telecommunications accounts for the last 15 years and have never heard of them. Oracle grouped them with companies like Level 3, Excel Communications, Nextlink, and Charter and called them the No Names. They assigned them to us in June."
Setting the Stage
After VarTec was assigned to us, we learned that the account had been "left for dead."
This is worse than not covered.
Not only was there no prior coverage nor account files, but employees of VarTec had placed calls into Oracle that had gone unreturned.
As we engaged, we learned of this situation. They refused to grant us a meeting now.
(My kind of account. A challenge. Against all odds. This was the perfect scenario for making lemonade out of a lemon and having a story to tell the team.)
Bob joined our team from the Business Intelligence team.
He had a pre-sales role but had never been a direct field salesperson.
He was new to the sales role, unknown to me, and VarTec was new to him.
Bob was smarter than most of us on the team.
And since none of us were academic slouches, it would not be unfair to say that Bob was exceptionally bright.
I found him humble and transparent as we discussed what was expected of him in the role, and he acknowledged that he had some obstacles to overcome.
But his hunger to do well separated him from the ordinary.
It became apparent on this VarTec account.
I'll take desire and effort over IQ any day, but in Bob's case, we got both.
Bob had learned from others in his network that VarTec was interested in an ERP solution, especially financial applications.
If you worked in the Global Verticals at Oracle, you carried quota and had the responsibility to sell every product Oracle offered, including Applications and Systems software.
On this particular opportunity, we had more than two individuals who knew how to sell application software.
Bob had experience with implementing financial applications before joining Oracle.
Immediately preceding this Comms vertical assignment, I led an Oracle Applications sales team for one of the best in the business. His name is Matt.
I had confidence and a playbook.
Bob made it his mission - almost as if it was his sole purpose in life - to get a meeting with VarTec's Chief Financial Officer.
He was obsessed with this objective and would not be denied.
After countless attempts using a variety of tactics, Bob secured the meeting for the morning of December 13th and asked me to accompany him.
Covered With Ice
In the afternoon on the day before our meeting, Dallas, Texas, was hit with a winter storm.
Freezing rain and sleet fell through the night, and as daylight broke on the morning of the 13th, the city of Dallas was shut down, blanketed with over an inch of ice.
Many residents were without power, and the schools were closed.
Roads and highways were impassable if any bridge or overpass was on the route.
Bob called me at home.
He wanted to try to make our 10:00 appointment.
I immediately thought he was nuts.
But I admired his attitude and told him I was in.
I asked him if he was coming by to pick me up, and he told me he'd have to meet me there.
Bob had risen early that morning and had driven from his Plano home to our offices in Las Colinas.
He had called from the office.
We Made It
It took me over an hour to make a 20-minute drive.
I arrived right at 10:00a.
I felt rushed and late.
We Just Knew He Wouldn't Show
We had convinced ourselves on the phone that he would unlikely be at his office this morning.
Very few people were on the roads.
Our wives thought we were out of our minds.
But making the extra effort to show up was good karma, and we needed it, given the current state of the relationship.
We Were Wrong - The CFO Was There
There weren't any cars in the parking lot.
Walking from my car to VarTec's lobby entrance was a harrowing experience on that ice.
I had chosen to dress like I had a meeting with a CFO.
I was wearing leather-soled dress shoes, not ski boots.
It was comically difficult to walk up the incline to the lobby.
Bob was there waiting for me.
I do not recall anyone sitting at reception, so I believe Bob called the CFO's assistant's desk.
Her name was Shirley.
Shirley answered.
He had braved the weather and was in his office waiting for us.
Shirley came up and walked us back.
Their offices were empty.
We reached his office and introduced ourselves.
His name was Gary.
No Excuses
Bob and I had rehearsed this meeting.
It was something I did before every external meeting.
We agreed to use the following approach:
Begin with building rapport
Acknowledge the lack of transition due to Oracle's sales coverage changes, but don't dwell on them
Conduct some Discovery to confirm data we had learned, but more importantly, get Gary's view
Impress upon him the wisdom of considering Oracle before making a decision
Leave the meeting with Gary knowing that he had a new team from Oracle on his account that was professional and committed to responsiveness
If we could find a problem we could solve for Gary, that would be even better.
For whatever reason, I was not on my "A" game.
During our rapport-building, Gary shared how VarTec made money when Bob asked about their ideal customer profile.
As Gary was answering, I chimed in:
"My inlaws are customers."
Gary: "Oh really? Shirley, can you pull up our customer master? What's the name?"
Me: "Rollie Cornelson"
Nowhere To Hide
Shirley was sitting at her desk outside Gary's office and immediately began a query.
Shirley: "I don't show anyone by that name."
I looked over at Bob, and his face was losing its color.
He was white as a ghost.
I had just made a rookie mistake.
I had gone off-script, offering information that Bob and I had not discussed.
Here I was, the person with considerable sales experience, coaching someone relatively new to sales, and I had gone and broken one of the basic rules.
This was wrong on so many fronts.
I should be listening twice as much as I speak.
Gary was providing us with his view on their ideal customer.
Why did I open my mouth?
What was I thinking?
In fact, there was little upside in Gary knowing that my inlaws used their service.
But there was a whole lot of downside.
What if they were delinquent with this month's bill?
What if we were successful and VarTec began evaluating our ERP, and my inlaws decided to cancel?
Bob had gotten us this meeting so that we could establish credibility and build some trust.
What had I done?
Art Vandelay
My brain began to fill with the possible downside of this mistake.
Without missing a beat, and due to experience in similar situations, not panicking, I offered:
"Try Juanita, my mother-in-law; maybe it's under her name."
The following 10 seconds felt like an eternity.
I was under a little pressure but trying not to show it.
Gary had turned to his workstation and was now accessing their customer master file.
He typed in her name.
If he did not find my mother-in-law, I was prepared to offer Art Vandelay (Seinfeld reference) as an alternative.
Gary: "Ya, we have a record that matches. Wichita, Kansas?"
Me: "Yep, that's them. You had me worried for a minute."
Gary laughed and began to read aloud from their file some of the attributes: subscriber since, source, etc.
Meanwhile, I glanced at Bob, and he looked as if paramedics had just finished resuscitating him.
I was confident that he had not heard a word spoken after "Ya, we have a record that matches…"
He had survived this frightening ordeal, and we were only at the Build Rapport stage of the call.
The Playbook
I mentioned that we had a playbook for selling applications software to enterprise accounts.
Please allow me to elaborate.
SAP and Peoplesoft were formidable competitors in that era.
In fact, SAP was the #1 applications software vendor, and Peoplesoft enjoyed a market share advantage in Human Capital Management.
Conducting a winning applications sales cycle consisted of the following:
Developing and executing a "campaign" throughout the sales process
Perpetually qualifying the opportunity
Discovery
Building trust
Organizational (B2B) selling in addition to person-to-person
Having and using a process
Finding the one thing of high value that the prospect needed and Oracle uniquely accomplished
Sell solutions, not products
Tell stories
Darken the Skies - suffocate a qualified prospect such that they have no time for any other vendor.
Our Communications Team
We won, a lot.
I don't recall losing to SAP or Peoplesoft, but it might sound arrogant to state that we never lost.
I just don't recall.
I recall that T-Mobile's parent, Deutsche Telekom, forced them to use their ERP.
It was SAP, based in Walldorf, Germany, and a neighbor of DT, headquartered in Bonn.
I also remember that little Century Telephone in Monroe, LA, had SAP.
Every other telco and cable company chose Oracle during our run:
AT&T, SBC, Bellsouth, ATT Wireless, Cingular, McCaw Cellular, Nextlink, Verizon, Sprint, Charter, TimeWarner Cable, TCI, Cablevision, Comcast, Level 3, Echostar, DISH, DirecTV, and Liberty Media.
We Won VarTec
When Bob got that meeting with Gary, VarTec was looking at SAP, Peoplesoft, and possibly JD Edwards.
Bob used the momentum from the "Ice Storm" meeting and ran a "campaign."
He used the Playbook.
Gary became an advocate.
We had twists and turns but won the business six months later.
Bob used the Applications win to initiate a Systems software sales cycle that delivered database, middleware, and business intelligence revenue to Oracle.
I'll take desire and effort over…
Lessons Learned
I learn something new with every sales cycle, sales call, and interaction with the salesperson I am working with at the time.
It's a learning moment for me, even if it's just a new twist to a tried and true principle.
The VarTec sales cycle is memorable because it produced a couple of significant lessons:
Stay Focused - Don't allow external forces to distract your execution
Stick to your Plan - Be intentional with the things you say.
Listen twice as much as you speak
Lead by example - Continually set the bar high to be the best.
Bob was hungry.
He wanted to prove himself.
He was the one who called me that morning, wanting to go to VarTec despite the weather.
Bob had gone to the office that day before dawn, in inclement weather, to prepare for the meeting.
I felt that I should be the person with the behavior to be emulated - that raises the bar.
At that moment, I committed to myself to do exactly that all the time:
Lead by example
Set the bar high in execution and work ethic.
And I did, for the most part.
My team picked up on this over time.
Within a couple of years, a few individuals attempted to "outdo" me.
Up to the challenge, I doubled down.
A few more joined them.
They had begun by coming to pre-call meetings so prepared that there wasn't a single question I posed for which they could not answer.
I saw that they were sharing information amongst themselves.
They collaborated on how and when to outperform me in some aspects of our duties.
They took their effort to new levels and went to great lengths to "best me."
It became a game:
Be the first to respond to an email request
Read Oracle's quarterly financials or listen to the Investors Call before I send the links
Beat me to the hotel fitness room during Company offsites.
And I was up to the task.
But it was exhausting.
I have run the Filbert Street steps in downtown San Francisco.
I did spin classes that left me breathless at Flywheel in Seattle.
They were relentless.
It lasted for over a decade.
Eventually, it was them setting the bar, and it was me keeping up in almost every aspect of being the best.
But isn’t that what every sales leader ultimately wants?
Thank you for reading, and stay warm.
Jeff
When you think “sales leader,” I hope you think of me.
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