Welcome to the Make Work Work Better Podcast, where we delve deep into the minds and experiences of some of the most inspiring leaders in business today. We are your hosts, Mikayla Wallace and Dr. Marc Reynolds. We are thrilled to introduce you to our special guest, Kerry Grueneich. Kerry, thank you so much for joining us today. Absolutely thrilled to be here. Kerry, can you tell us a little bit about your career journey? Sure, absolutely.
So, I've been in the telecommunications space for a little over 20 years now. I’m in Charlotte, North Carolina, by the way. So when I graduated college, I was at, UNC Charlotte and, took a myriad of jobs after school just to get my feet wet in professional environments coming out of school. And, honestly, was psychology major and criminal justice major and went on some interviews in that space and pretty quickly found out I didn't think that was the right fit for me.
based on some of the interviews that I went to, like minimum security, juvenile detention centers and those types of things and, at the ripe age of 20, figured that, this isn't really for me. So, I wound up eventually working in sales as a direct sales rep for a telecommunications company. And this was back in the, like, early to mid 90s. And at the time, telecommunications was blasting off. So, prior to that, there was a quasi monopoly with, AT&T and the Bell companies.
And so they had broken that up and allowed competition into the space. And so when I joined the industry, there were a lot of what we call CLECs competitive local exchange carriers. So, kind of everybody and there, brother decided to become a CLEC. And so there were a lot of companies, and I joined the sales team and carried a bag for a while. And, was in a very, very competitive time in our industry. So I learned a lot, with that experience and, just stuck with it.
Did the direct sales thing for quite a while, and then, transitioned to a company and sold phone systems. So as a smaller company here in Charlotte, and, we carry around, a demo kit that was probably weighed about, at least 60 pounds, all around the city. Carrying this demo kit. And was actually, as the sales rep, the one that would go in and set it up and try to sell this phone system. I felt like I was just like selling my wares.
But it was a great learning experience because what it taught me was to talk about technology, in front of customers that weren't necessarily technical, and neither was I at the time. Though it was very interesting toting that thing around 60 pounds up and down stairs in downtown Charlotte. I learned a lot about how to do demonstrations and how to, sell a technical solution to, non-technical people. And so that led into a skill set that is, a path to sales engineering.
And so sales engineering is where I ended up as an SE for, another telecommunications company supporting multiple markets. And that was the time in my life I just fell in love, with being a sales engineer. And I always talk about sales engineering. some people noticed solutions engineering or pre-sales, but it's the best kept secret in the industry.
I'm very passionate about, being in SE and now leading sales engineering, and it's a way for people that like to be in sales and be in front of customers and design solutions and get to do all the fun part of sales without the prospect being that I have to close the deal, right. That's why I call it the best kept secret, because you get to do all the amazing things, the presentation and the designs and, helping customers solve problems and creating solutions to problems and business impact.
but you don't have to do the really, really difficult part of direct sales, which is prospecting and finding new business. So, Sales Engineering is where it's at and a lot of it is about doing those demos. So those early days as a sales rep, lugging that thing up and down those stairs really taught me, the skill set necessary to kind of transition into being an SE, right. And I just fell in love with it. It's a great occupation.
And I have since kind of become an evangelist for the position and really having, encouraged people, where I see that they have their skill sets. I'm exposed to a lot of different salespeople and a lot of different customer engagements. And, some people just have the knack for it. And so that, led into me, moving into, Sales Engineering management. And I managed a team of North Carolina sales engineers, for my previous company.
And then the opportunity came for me to lead all of sales engineering. traditionally I was always in that enterprise space selling B2B, and with the, promotion into the director position, I was then able to lead the SE organization for all of our business segment. So across the enterprise, our carrier and our government, space as well.
So that allowed me to gain exposure and, grow and develop and learning those other segments of the business and then leading, leading a team of fantastic SE managers. And then eventually I kind of spread my wings a little bit and saw that, sales engineering is such a critical component to the success of a sales organization. There's other areas that would be considered support under a sales org, and customer success is one of those areas.
And so I saw an opportunity to take what was traditionally called sales support and evolve that team into more of a customer success approach, meaning a more proactive approach educating customers, gaining product adoption after we implement our products and services. And so, they put the the customer success team under my umbrella, and then eventually we built out a training department and voila, I'm now leading enablement. it just was an organic growth.
And to what we are now calling sales enablement. And so I just recently transitioned to another company and, I'm the VP of sales enablement for Cantera. telecommunications company based here in Charlotte, North Carolina. And I'm just loving it. So I met our executive leadership team here and, talked about the vision of sales enablement and what it meant to me and how it can really be instrumental in driving revenue targets and getting the company the growth that they're, setting forth.
And so it was a fantastic opportunity for me to come here and develop the program, lead the sales, engineering teams, develop customer success team, and now building out their onboarding and recruitment practices, as well as their their training and ongoing training for the existing sales work. So super excited to be here. And it was a really fantastic opportunity for me to build it from the ground up. So yeah. Oh good. Yeah. Well that's exciting.
That sounds like quite the journey to have gone on where you really started in the trenches and climbed your way up to, train and work with a lot of other people and run a program. That's amazing. one of the things that I was hearing you say is you really learned how to talk to non-technical people and get them to care about your product, to get them to want your product?
I think that applies to a lot of different sales positions, where you're trying to get someone to care about something that is important. It's a good product, and they could use it, but they don't necessarily care If you're willing to share some of your tips and tricks, what have you learned? The big thing that I have learned is it honestly, it doesn't necessarily matter about all of the features and functionality and widgets and gadgets and all of the other things.
What really, really matters is that you're solving a problem. You're solving a gap. That's what I'm teaching. as I'm building up this enablement program, is we're teaching our salespeople the art of active listening and how to, get people to talk about themselves. And it's a very difficult thing to do because you might be listening, but I think our human nature sometimes is to listen only for your opportunity to respond or you already have in your mind what you're trying to get out of it.
And so your listening skills kind of shut down a little bit. It's really difficult to master the art of active listening and asking the right questions to allow you to active listen.
I think that is really the key to it all is, if you approach with curiosity and you are authentic and being curious about the people that you're meeting with and the people that you're having a conversation with, and you really want to understand what's happening in their world, what's happening in their business, what are things are trying to solve for. And you truly listen. Then you can, make the determination as to whether you can truly benefit them. And I think people appreciate that.
If that authenticity, people appreciate it. and sometimes there might not be a great fit. And that's okay and If you can build a network of people, then, now you understand, you truly understand what's going on, and maybe you can refer them to somebody that can help them solve a problem. It goes back to that authenticity. And really being curious and listening to to what people say. And it's a difficult thing to train and it's a difficult thing to train on.
But I have found that, approach has worked really well for me because it helps me understand where they're coming from. So then when I do, want to position something that I feel like can actually solve that need I can circle that conversation back to our previous conversations and say, this is what I heard you say. This is how I think it's going to solve it. versus the typical approach is just to kind of come in with, this is what we offer, this is the price. I really view it as an art.
and active listening is a big piece of it. And, and and approaching your engagement and your conversations with curiosity is a big piece of it, too. So I imagine with sales, It's got to be a really diverse field of people to try to train and, help create a consistent, product as a salesperson. Your product is how to train them. Right? So if you had to say what are the some of the, key things that you found to be consistent needs among this diverse group? Yeah. I'll give you an example.
So we're, we're practicing via role play. And like any you all are opera singers, right? So you don't just one day become an opera singer. And maybe you do have some inherent talent, but if you don't practice and cultivate and continue to practice and enhance, you will never reach mastery. And so it's just like playing an instrument or being an opera singer or being, in sports, you don't get to the NFL and, and not practice.
That's what I'm trying to, accomplish here is that, we want to get to a level of mastery, but you can't get to a level of mastery without practice. And so we are going through a whole journey with our sales organization where we're doing role play. And it's really for just that. It's practicing and practicing in the safe environment with your peers and then giving feedback to each other so that we're learning together.
And the beautiful thing about that is, if you do it in that group setting, I'm finding that they're learning from each other, and now they're starting to incorporate what they really liked. Their colleague did. and they're incorporating that into the way that they approach it. And so we're all learning from each other and I think over time it'll take time as we continue to practice and evolve. But that's how you can create consistency across a wide footprint at my company.
So we've got offices all over the country. And so in different teams with different cultures and a different, team dynamic. But if we do these things as a group, then you can start to learn from each other and create a consistent approach across the board. same with sales engineering, a big part of sales engineering is being able to demonstrate our products and services. We have lots of portals and going through some of that technical scope with the non-technical client.
And but being able to do that while you're weaving in a story as well as circling it back to business impact, to what really matters to that client that's sitting across the table from you is, again, it's an art. It is a it is an art form to do that with confidence, with authenticity, and doing it in a manner that you're feeding off of your audience and their reaction to what you're putting out there. I relate it to a performance. Yeah, it really is a performance.
And it's it's your it's your time to shine. And so if you don't practice that when you're in the moment, you can very easily get tripped up. Or if something goes wrong, which inevitably sometimes things go wrong, it won't power up. Or for whatever reason, the internet's not working or I'm a sales rep and my camera shuts off. Whatever it might be, if you've practiced and you're reaching that mastery level, you can so easily pivot and be able to pivot in that situation without skipping a beat.
Right. Just like you would playing a football game. If you've practiced in practice and practice, then when the play is going the way you thought the play was going to go, you can very quickly pivot and not let it defeat you. It's all about that practicing. And I finding that doing that in that group environment has really been beneficial. Oh that's awesome. Awesome. Yeah I'm something that I've always looked by as practice makes progress. Unfortunately not perfection. Right.
As much as sometimes we wish that was possible. That practice is so important. Communication in any way, whether it's telecommunications, whether it's communicating with people via talking, sales, opera performance - it requires practice and active listening. I love that you brought up active listening and authenticity, and that's something we talk a lot about here and is a big belief of ours is being authentic and true to yourself and true. What you believe allows you to become who you can be.
So I love all those points that you brought up there. We've done a lot of role play over the years I know from experience and trying to train people through role play that some are really resistant, but they're like, this feels so fake. Why are we doing this? Plus trying to get the balance of sales or having an objective in a conversation of some sort with authenticity is a really tricky, difficult balance. It certainly is.
So are there any particular things that you've learned in working with these teams, or training people that you felt help them get past those barriers of how to role play? I know, like if I'm doing executive coaching or whatever, I'll talk with even executives will be like, intellectually, I know that this is has value, but oh, I really don't want to do this is feels uncomfortable and awkward and strange and fake So what have you learned?
What are some of the things that you've learned that have overcome some of those barriers there? yes, I've, I've learned a lot of things actually. It's that resist to it of like the eye roll as soon as you say role play sometimes. Right. The eyeroll. Yep. Oh, I have to. Here we go. Yeah, yeah. So I, I when we were watching this here, I had to do a lot of convincing that this was this was the right approach to do it.
If you tee it up, as think of this as your opportunity to learn from each other, if nothing else, And we're not in this to, embarrass each other or make it difficult or hard or because, I think in the past, people have probably experienced that, too. where people have tried to trip you up and make it intentionally difficult or awkward. I was very mindful of that because I've been on the receiving end of that type of role play where it was like intentionally trying to make you fail.
And I'm not a believer in that, I'm a believer in like, let's try to just try to make this as real as possible. I found that we put some time into preparing ahead and making sure that we were using real examples, like real life examples of prospects that they were actually chasing. So if you're going to practice, you might as well practice on a real deal that you're trying to land right? Why not? Let's use real, real life experiences.
We have a sponsor that sits in on all of the sessions to, provide feedback, provide a way for others that are providing feedback and critique to have an example of how to do it in a way that isn't, coming across as making it a negative experience, right? How to provide that kind of, critique without it being, belittling people in front of other people. That is not the point, right? The point is learning.
And, I have found that that worked really well by giving them the tools necessary to to know what we were trying to accomplish, setting forth the objective, having a very well thought out plan as far as it, related to the use cases that we wanted to use. I even provided details on how to provide constructive criticism to the folks that were going to be, providing the feedback. Thus far it's going really well.
What I have noticed that I just love is that there are some people that just deserve an Academy Award. It's a it's like you can like people just come out, some some people are really good at it. And the ones that I find are fantastic are the one that are there are actually role playing. The customer and you learn so much. That actually tells you in my mind almost how much they've mastered their art.
Because if you're really convincing at playing the customer, then, like, I can tell that people that have been doing this for a long time because they're able to portray that and it's such a realistic way, which makes for a very dynamic role play. There was resistance for sure in the beginning. but the feedback that I've been getting, I think is having that preparation in advance and giving everybody tools to do it in a way that didn't feel haphazard has gone a long way. that makes sense.
I have a couple cousins that actually work in sales, and they talk a lot about what tips and tricks they learn from other people. Like you were saying, have you ever run into issues, though, of someone trying to go so far that it's almost reinventing the wheel. A little bit? We have we have the right to do your time out. Like I would do it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I've had some instances where where it like, definitely gone down through rabbit holes and, We reserve the time out.
when we're doing it and, and that's for everyone. You can find yourself rambling and. Yeah, just going down this crazy path. Yeah, But that's the whole point. The whole point of it is that it allows you the opportunity to do that and have self-awareness about it. I think the self-awareness is is a big piece of it. Clearly, it sounds like in these role playing sessions you're providing some structure, providing guidance, providing feedback, as an expert, there.
What would you say to someone who's struggling to be authentic in sales. Yeah. I mean, it goes back to being curious because other people immediately know when you're not. Yeah. And so if you really aren't curious and you're not approaching your conversations or your appointments or your networking event with that true sense of curiosity, people pick up on that. If you don't have that, then maybe, maybe it's not the right position. and that's okay too.
It, You hear people a lot talk about approaching with curiosity, but you can even tell when people are faking that, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you. Can, You do want them to practice that skill set. We talk about building rapport and all of those things. Right. Building rapport is a big part of sales. But when you're faking it. Yeah. Are you just, looked on a LinkedIn profile and and just put something out there. You're not coming across as authentic. Yeah. Right.
And so it's just, some of it is just a natural ability to engage in conversation and have a true sense of wanting to understand other people and learn about other people. Some of it is not being afraid to be yourself as well. Yeah. not being afraid to share something about yourself that would maybe spark up a conversation that would put everybody at ease because you have to remember that people that you're meeting with are also in that same situation.
Yeah. Especially if you're meeting with them for the first time and maybe they're very busy. so, I think it's a relief sometimes to the people that you're meeting with, if you can just be authentic and, maybe share a little bit about yourself or maybe something funny that happened to you on the way or whatever it might be, maybe inject some humor in there just to let everybody take a breather, relax a little bit. and let them know that it's not serious all the time, right? Right right.
Right. Right. Right, right. Yeah. So if it's okay with you, I'd love to pivot in a new direction. Yeah. If that's okay. So a little bit of context is actually last summer I went up to do a two day workshop with a company in Canada, and I always do personal interviews before I go to get to know whether the pain points are, what's going on, what the issues are, so that whatever we're training on is relevant.
Right? Yeah. Well, one of the things that became really obvious, that needed to be discussed was being a man or a woman in the workplace and the challenges that come up there. so we did this workshop, and I did a session where it's just being a guy in the workplace. the struggles there, but also how to create a safe place and work effectively and well with women.
And then the scariest thing I've ever done, being in a room full of of women who are executive level women, where we talked about the struggles of being a woman in the workplace. Right. And I was like, I have no business talking about this, but I'm going to facilitate this discussion.
Here we go. Yeah. If you had to say what you've learned throughout this career, and You're telling us previously that you're in a male dominated field, not just the field, but also the position that you have would be traditionally filled by a man. And here you are. What have you learned? What are your superpowers that you've learned? Not only am I just by competing, I have my own unique things that give me an edge here.
Yeah. it's funny because I never really thought about it in that light earlier in my career, earlier in my career and, in sales that, not necessarily male dominated, but as I moved into technical sales, specifically in our industry, telecommunications, and then moved into the sales engineering, field, I was kind of an anomaly. I think at one point in time, one of my leaders called me an enigma. I wasn't quite sure how to take that. Is that good or bad, I don't know.
I guess is that good thing is that a bad thing? Comments like that are the things that you find as you, especially as you start to move up in your career and now you're, you're leading, you're, you're leading mostly men. I think a lot of times there's. Maybe some unintentional, preconceived notions of, what a female leader will be. And to be honest, I think that some of the folks that I ended up leading, were probably concerned to be led by a woman.
because I think that we, maybe historically have had this for whatever reason, label that, in order to move up or to be a leader, especially in technology, as a woman, you have to be overly dominant, overly, pushing and driving. And honestly, I've never really done that. I have found that through the years, a lot of it to me, especially because it's in the technical space, some of it's about your technical chops. Be honest.
And when people see that you, know what your talking about, then that's kind of disappears. If you lead people with empathy, if you lead people with wanting to understand where they're coming from and show them how you're there to support their career growth and their path, I think that all of those preconceived notions and stereotypes can just melt away, and I'm a big believer in that. I mean, again, it comes back to that authenticity. But, I will say there have been challenges.
Reflecting back, a lot of it was self-imposed. And I think women put, a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves. we feel that we have to overachieve in order to get recognized. There have definitely been times where I have felt that, and I have felt that I had to put in the extra hours. I had to, go above and beyond 24/7. And it's difficult. I still have that to a degree. It's hard to break that cycle of over achievement in order to advance in your career and get, recognized.
But, I think that we're evolving. Yeah. That's my general sense is that we are truly evolving and, the imposter syndrome thing. Yes, it's real, but I can feel that it's starting to dissipate a little bit. as more and more women are being elevated into leadership positions and, I think getting rid of those stereo types is I'm starting to see it. but, yes. Does it still exist? Of course.
Does the, that need, that self-imposed need to feel like you have to, just go above and be overachieving and working 1,000,000 hours. Yeah. That still exists. but as a leader, I have awareness of that. And so when I see that happening to the people in my organization, I call it out. I call it out, very much about empowering other people.
And, having people view themselves as, leaders in their own space, running their own business, coming up with solutions, bringing those ideas to the table, helping them in their career growth, but also noticing that they have a life outside of work. and they have, family sometimes or things going on in their life that sometimes might, take away from, from what you have to do and that's okay. You don't have to be perfect. when you're talking about practice makes what what did you say
practice makes progress. Yeah. Yeah. Not practice makes perfection. And I think, I'm guilty of, sometimes feeling I have to be perfect or, if I made a mistake at work, I was like, oh, I'm not going to get the promotion that I've been trying to seek. I have to be perfect 24/7.. And that's just not real. And so, moving into a leadership position, it's remembering that and remembering how that feels.
And when you recognize it, call it out and have a discussion and talk about like it's okay to have a life and it's okay to trip up. And there's things that go on in our personal lives that sometimes take away from our work lives. but as long as your intentions are to do the right thing and to, run your business and, have growth and be willing to approach with curiosity and learn, then then I'm a big supporter. I think it's not forgetting what it feels like to be in that boat.
Okay. So the patterns that I'm hearing you say here that are kind of sound like hallmarks of your style of leadership would be authenticity, connection, curiosity. These are words that are coming up frequently, right?
Yeah. In my experience of talking with different people across the globe is those things are only becoming more relevant with each passing year as people are feeling more disconnected and more hungry for connection, as they are feeling more like they're being put in this little box in education where there's they're just learning how to fill in a bubble rather than actually to be curious and learn about life.
and that by valuing those things that has given you a power in leadership that has empowered you to transform these teams of people, to teach them how to do sales, which is traditionally seen as when you think of a salesperson as super fake and like forced and and like, please don't. but you're also empowering them to make genuine connections with whoever they're working with. and I can see that as a world changing thing. Right?
As these people go out, it's not just about the sale, it's about connection. And I think that that would be the superpower. Right? It is a superpower. And, and I feel like it's contagious. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So it's a lot of it is how you treat other people. And, just being genuine and recognizing that people can make mistakes and it's not detrimental to your career. nobody is perfect.
And, I think if you if you genuine also want to see other people succeed and really mean it and approach your day to day like that and your interactions, interdepartmental, even people that aren't within your specific department, then it's contagious for other people. And I think that's how you build really, really good company culture. Yeah. Is having that willingness to be open, to empower others, to listen to others ideas, and values, understanding that people have different values.
People are coming from all different walks of life and, being empathetic to that. but also moving the needle, getting the job done, and being productive and, being successful as a team. Yeah. I think you can do all of those things. Yeah. I think you can still be competitive and have a get after it spirit and be successful in an organization. Achieve your goals in an organization.
But you can do it in a way that's genuine, that's empowering others, that's, coming from a place where you really want to succeed as a team. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So as we're wrapping up here towards the end of our time, I want to give you the opportunity to share any lasting star on your mind.
It might look like something along the lines of, if you could put one thing into your self 20 years ago into your mind and say, no, intrinsically know this now so you don't have to spend 20 years learning this or it could be anything else that comes to your mind. What would you want people to know? Yeah, if if I could step back into my 20 year old self, I would tell my 20 year old self that you can do it. you have the ability. Be confident, be curious. Don't be afraid to talk about yourself.
Don't be afraid to talk about your own accomplishments. and really create a network of people. one of the big things that I have been very fortunate is, I've had people in my life that have really, really supported me and really wanted to see me be successful and surrounding yourself with other people that want to see you achieve your goals, or maybe even people that see something in you that you don't see in yourself. it's really, really powerful.
And so, take advantage of the opportunity to seek out relationships like that where people have your back and people would really want to see you succeed in your path. It has been a really powerful thing for me. I've had a lot of great people that weren't just mentors. They saw something in me and wanted to see me succeed. And so when you see that in other people, pay it forward. I love it. Yeah, I love it.
thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing these lessons and for being so genuine, authentic, and for being willing to share these really valuable lessons, excited to explore these further in mini-workshops that we do after of practical Application, how do we take some of these big concepts and put it into something for the day? It was a pleasure. Thank you so much.