Jeff Schlossnagle, vice president of sales for the North America East for Omnicell, Inc., visited Elon to share insights into how to build a successful career.
As part of the Chandler Family Professional Sales Center Speaker Series, Jeff Schlossnagle ’97, vice president of sales for the North America East for Omnicell, Inc., spoke to Martha and Spencer Love School of Business students about his professional experience in a presentation on Nov. 7.
Omnicell is a leading provider of medication and supply management automation, analytics software, and medication adherence solutions for healthcare organizations. For the last decade, Scholssnagle has led and managed high-performance teams at Omnicell excelling in change management, industry-leading displacement of competitors solutions, and introducing new innovative robot, AI, analytics and automation technologies. He was the lead for several marketing and sales corporate product initiatives and launches that resulted in industry-leading competitive conversion rates, customer satisfaction and customer retention. He also developed Omnicell’s Leadership Development Program to build company talent bench that identifies future leaders and managers to lead as the company expands.
Schlossnagle presented his journey to becoming a sales leader to students, providing them with encouraging examples of moving up in the company. Schlossnagle entered the company as a sales representative and quickly climbed to regional sales director and later vice president of sales. In sharing his personal example, he advised students to focus on the activities that lead to results, rather than the results or goals themselves. “If you drive and measure activities that lead to growth, that can go beyond goals,” Schlossnagle said.
Additionally, Schlossnagle shared three key takeaways he hoped for Elon students to grasp. The first was in relation to the title of his presentation. Schlossnagle prompted students to read the following on screen: “IAMNOWHERE IMPOSSIBLE.” He then noted the importance of reading those words as “I am now here” and “I’m possible.” The small exercise helped demonstrate his point that success in sales starts with changing perception.
“The best sales representatives, presidents or any sort of leadership I see have started with the right perception,” Schlossnagle explained. “They take the preconceptions away of what they think the customer wants and they come in with the perception the customer needs.”
Schlossnagle’s second key takeaway was the need to identify and execute “the work that WORKS” while loving the process, not the result. He illustrated the importance of the sales mental approach with the equation “Believe + repeatable = achievable.” The best sales representatives, he said, have a positive attitude and stick with their vision. “They work hard because they know the numbers will pay off over time,” Schlossagle said.
The final takeaway was the “+1, -1, =” rule. This rule encourages sales professionals to always find someone that can make them change their perception, find another to teach and another to remind them of the basics who is likely at their equal position. Schlossnagle stressed the importance of learning at all times, regardless of career level.
Schlossnagle closed his presentation offering what he looks for in prospective employees. Among skill level, experience and education, he looks especially for drive. “You can’t coach drive,” said Schlossnagle. “If someone has great skills, experience and education, but they lack drive, they aren’t a good fit.” Schlossnagle presented drive as integral to the hiring score through the following equation: S (Skill Level) + E (Experience) + E (Education) x D (Drive) = X.
In his Q&A session, Schlossnagle provided further advice. In response to a question regarding the difference between pestering and staying present in a sales deal, Schlossnagle suggested having five contacts to contact individually once per week. He then offered his advice on resumes, noting the importance of demonstrating work ethic and engagement, and urged students to demonstrate their ability to drive behavior by coaching in some form or another. “Sales is the art of driving behavior,” Schlossnagle said. “Can you get someone to act on something?”