Coffee & Closers with Ryan Padget

December 12 marked our last Coffee & Closers of the year. Mickeli Bedore of Bedore Business Group sat down with Ryan Padget, Senior Sales Director at Infor. Ryan talked about falling into a leadership role and shared a ton of insights on how he hires rockstar salespeople at Infor. I walked out of the room with some excellent advice on hiring, selling, and being a better employee. Here are a few thoughts he shared:
On Hiring
You can’t build a team of just wide receivers – diversity in people and skill sets is key to an effective team.
Get over your ego and hire people better than you.
When hiring someone, try to judge whether they have been successful to date because they’ve been lucky or because they followed a process that works.
Always start with someone that can problem solve and think critically. This is more important than an applicant with experience in the field.
On being a Better Salesperson
Mirror and match your customer when you’re trying to close a deal. You don’t have to be smarter than them, you just need to solve their pain point – determine what it is and get them to understand how you’ll solve it with the least amount of information.
If your sales cycle is taking too long, look at the product information you are giving and cut it by 50%. Then cut it by 50% again.
Be a subject matter expert on your customer and what they need.
On Staying Motivated through the Ups and Downs
Start by building a team of people that are emotionally involved in some way and this will carry your team through tough times.
Continually remind people why they are doing the job in the first place.

Finally, some closing words of wisdom from Ryan, “time kills all deals and all good recruiting efforts”. Cheers to the new year and to moving quickly!
Ryan’s Book Recommendations
The Common Denominator of Success
Think and Grow Rich
The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done
Extreme Ownership
The Score Takes Care of Itself
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Thanks to Bedore Business Group for collaborating with us on this series and thanks to Triton Commerce for sponsoring. Stay tuned for 2018 Coffee & Closers guest announcements, we can’t wait to share the wisdom of our next guest!