Amie Teske Podcast Transcript
Amie Teske joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
[00:00:12] Brian Thomas: Welcome to the Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Amie Teske. For more than 24 years, Amie Teske has led public, privately owned and private equity backed health IT software companies to double digit sales growth. From 10 million to 250 million in revenue, leveraging organic and M&A growth strategies.
This has given Amie extraordinary access to work alongside, learn from, and get to know countless accomplished business and health leaders who define this industry. Now Amy is dedicated to paying forward the abundant experiences she’s collected for those who truly desire adventure, accelerated success, and choose to rise up in pursuit of their leadership legacy.
Well, good afternoon, Amy. Welcome to the show.
[00:00:56] Amie Teske: Thanks, Brian. So glad to be here.
[00:00:58] Brian Thomas: Awesome. This is so fun. And, Amy, we talked about this previously. I tell all my guests, I traversed probably 45, 50 countries now around the world, but occasionally I need to come back to Kansas City virtually here, right just behind the mic, but I appreciate you making the time today.
And I’m so, so excited to have you on. You’ve been such a great colleague and friend over the years.
[00:01:19] Amie Teske: Likewise, Brian and glad to be on here and getting a chance to chat with you and tell my story.
[00:01:24] Brian Thomas: Awesome. Amy let’s just jump right in then. You’ve got an amazing story. Let’s talk about your career in healthcare technology sales, you were a senior executive. Now you’re the founder and CEO of Topline Advisory and AmieTeske.com. Could you share with our audience a secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
[00:01:45] Amie Teske: Absolutely. So, I’ll start with the end there. What inspires me because I get talking about my career and sometimes I missed the last part.
So, what inspires me now has changed. I would say then my, from my early career. So now it’s really helping people making a difference, leaving a legacy. And I would. say maybe the kind of overarching theme with that is really more of an others focus versus a me focus. I’ll be the first to say for the first part of my career.
It was, what can I do to achieve and succeed and, make more money and, all the things and, you get to a point where. You still want those things. I think that’s part of your DNA bit, but you get to a point to where it’s like, gosh, I have a lot that, that I can help others with and would like to share that.
So that’s really what inspires me. And maybe that sounds a little cliche, but it’s fuel for me. I have three girls and I saw a guy on the street yesterday walking that said teenage daughter survivor. And I’m in the midst of that. I have a almost 20 year old, a 17 year old and a 11 year old almost.
And yeah, we’re in the thick of it, but I think that helps turn my attention to others. And how do I leave something better for them and anybody else who really cares to listen? That’s on the inspire side, but. What are the secrets to my success from a career perspective? I had a friend the other day tell me that she’s read Matthew McConaughey’s book called green lights.
I haven’t read it yet, but hopefully I don’t butcher the premise here. But as I thought about. What I’ve done and how I’ve been successful, a lot of it was the same premise where I would just chase something that I know that I was good at and or I could be good at with practice, and I’d work my butt off and then when I felt like it was time to move on.
I’d give that good thought. And if I felt there was a green light, so to say, then I’d move on to the next thing. And I think it’s just like being in touch with who I was and knowing when it was ready to go. So that was a lot of it just knowing and being in touch with it.
But I guess if I double down a bit on working my butt off that was the primary theme in my early career. And it’s good and it’s bad. I, the good is that. was hard to outwork me for a long time, and it was part of my upbringing and modeled for me by my parents. And, I would take jobs that were in my wheelhouse at the time and then I would just go really fast and I was thorough and I always strove for excellence and quality and, all the things.
And not so much because people asked me to or expected it of me, but I expected it of myself, so I always over-delivered. So I think that that was a big part of my success as well. I would say the other thing is I’ve always been really observant and, I could say we’re, we all know this, but we’re social tribe species, right?
We learn by watching others, but I can work pretty independently pretty darn well by myself and sometimes to my own detriment. But while that’s true, I’ve always had this gift of being able to. Just observe and see others and see success from afar. So, I do that. And what was ever making other people successful, I would emulate it.
And that helped in my career growth. So that was, I would say the early part of my career was just working my butt off watching other people were successful going and studying and figuring out how to be more successful and whatever it is that I was tasked with. So that was a big part of my early career.
But then. I would say mid-career when I moved into people leadership. That’s different. Let’s just leading people and, it’s just as easy to observe and emulate. Leadership, both the good and the bad. I think over time, you kind of start to discern the good from the bad and what you’ve done even yourself.
But good leadership requires a lot of intentional study and mentorship and so that would be advice. I guess I would tell people is gosh, study it because it’ll only make you better. But, in my opinion, the dirty little secret about people leadership, though, is that it’s we’re all in it, whether you have HR responsibility or not, if you work with people.
You’re a people leader. And I think that throws a lot of people for a loop, especially ones who do manage people because the dynamics of, of our market has changed. And what is it? I think I’ve recently read there’s 5 generations in the workforce right now. So how do you lead and be successful operationally and while still having a life outside of work?
It’s hard. Intentional study, mentorship, Professional development, making sure you’re learning and becoming who you want to be and not just letting it happen by happy accident is what I say. So, I guess, to put a pin in this, the things that led to my career early on was, working my butt off observing others, figuring out what success looks like.
And then when I got into people leadership, although I kind of sucked at it at 1st, I think most people do. Just getting to a point to understand that you’ve got to, invest in yourself and get yourself to a point to where you’re good at what it is that you do, practically speaking, and, what you want to earn a wage for.
[00:06:16] Brian Thomas: Thank you for sharing, Amie. I appreciate that and great story. I love how I think everybody has had to roll up their sleeves and figure some things out in their career early on, regardless of what it was and the next big step to wow, I’m successful. I’m going to go ahead and be a leader now.
And they just added more complexity and some challenges there. But you had some great three reasons to your girls, obviously to really get out there and kick some butt. So thank you for sharing your story. Amie, you’ve said that talking about your sales a little bit, you’ve said that the beauty of sales is in the freedom, the challenge and the people.
Could you maybe elaborate on that more for our audience?
[00:06:52] Amie Teske: You bet. And I know we only have 10 minutes or so that I could go on for a long time with that. Yeah, I have said that and let me just start with freedom. I think the thing with sales is that there’s so much art and EQ, emotional intelligence and just this intangibility to being excellent at it.
And for those of us who like to have some parameters in our life, some fences, us rebels who will take some, but not so much. It really gives us a little bit of that and then the space to then just go kick some butt. So it’s an awesome profession in terms of just the idea of having some parameters and then just being able to put your creativity to work and really help others.
And I’ve said a few times and I tell others that sales is really helping the ones who are really good at sales are They just enjoy helping. It fills their cup. And I don’t know if people have stopped long enough because we work, we move so fast when we’re in this profession to say I really thrive off of helping. There’s, intrinsically get a freedom from that as well. I was right in front of my desk. I always think about this when I hear the word freedom on the wall, right in front of my desk there. I have a just a little plaque thing that says success is doing what you want, when you want, where you want, with whom you want, and as much as you want.
And you could replace the word, in my opinion, when I saw that and why I bought it, what success with freedom. Because there’s a lot of what I just described in sales, right? It’s just the freedom to do those things. It’s not complete freedom in the sense that you throw all inhibition to the wind, but there’s just a lot of ability to just go out there, help people and do so in such a way that just comes very naturally to you as a person and helping others.
That’s the freedom side of it. When I think about the challenge. I’ve always liked puzzles and I think it’s. It’s what that is. It’s the chase. Those of us in sales, we love the chase. It’s a puzzle. You know, how quick can we get it solved? How fast, how impactful the more complex, the better.
And while we want things and need things to be simple, just not hard to just generally understand once we, lock in and understand what it is that we’re responsible for and what we’re chasing. That makes things easier, but it just can’t be too easy. Because we get bored, so there’s this weird little mind I don’t know, mind thing that goes on.
I believe in the mind of salespeople that we love the challenge. We love the chase. It’s like a puzzle, but we need things to be simple, but don’t give it to us too easy because then we’re going to get bored. So, it’s a weird little thing. One of my favorite things to always mention is when I was doing persona work.
Just building out the marketing plan and so forth for my business and relaunching AmieTeske.Com. I ran into an article by a guy named, I’m a, I’m totally going to butcher this, but a guy named he’s French. Clotaire Repay. I’m sure somebody’s laughing at me. He’s a psychoanalyst and he works with companies and helps them define personas and so forth.
Anyways, he describes. A successful salesperson is a happy loser, which in other words, is just saying there’s somebody who sees rejection as a motivating challenge. So, I, if you pause and you think about that, at least somebody in sales, it’s, I can be told no and still not beat down. I’m not easily offended by it.
Every interaction is a challenge that I can use in some way. So, to me, every no, I get gives me something. And it sails. It usually is insight to pivot my sales strategy. So, gives you some, maybe a peek into the mind of somebody in a sales profession who really loves it. And why challenge really fuels me.
And then the last. I’ve said as people and as for people, this took some time. I think all of us have this tendency to just get really frustrated with people and me included for a long time. But I shift my focus to it over time that. I really find them more fascinating and for a period of time.
That’s a choice, right? Like just don’t get so frustrated by people because they have things going on in their world. And when I think about people in general, since I shifted that focus and think of them more as fascinating than frustrating, it’s really. Helped me be successful in sales. But I also think it’s what makes me think about people as one of the things that I love about it, that, and I’m just a naturally curious person, what’s going on with people?
Why, people who are witty and who can professionally break tension with levity and humor are just the best in my opinion. People who are worked up usually have a reason for doing so. Anyways, I think it’s, when I think about the people, I just get to interact with so many different people that I’ve just learned to love it.
I don’t know if that answers the question, but, freedom, challenge, people, those three things combined is. A big reason why I stay with it.
[00:11:36] Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And I know sales is a tough job. We talked about this, Amie. I certainly not a strong salesperson, of course, but I like how you unpack that that freedom, the challenge and the people, and you brought that together.
And that brings a lot of insights to me, of course, and of course our audience. So thank you again. And Amy, you talk about the five, your five strategies on how to turn a sales team from good to great. Could you briefly share some insights on this?
[00:12:04] Amie Teske: Yes, of course. The five that what you know, what do they say?
Simple is hard. How do we get it down to five? But I know I did a piece on this recently, but, I would say, well, the five generally four things are that the first is that you’ve got to get to know your team and, not on some super personal level that’s not the goal of it, but to get to know them so that for two reasons.
One is. When you know somebody a bit more, you’re less likely to be offended by them, right? And at the end of the day, it’s business, business isn’t just business. Business are made up of people. And so the more, you know, about people, the more you’re inclined to help them figure out how to be successful and the more you enjoy working with them.
So that, that’s a big part of it. Get to know your team and, as leaders don’t just operationally focus on what you have to get done, spend time with your team. So that’s. That’s a big one, in my opinion, is how do you get to know him and even to that, that’s, a playbook I’m just now launching called the impact recognition playbook is on that topic is just a four step way in which sales leaders who are so busy, operationally speaking, and in so many meetings demands on their time, just giving them an easy way to figure out how to be, closer with their folks.
That’s a big number one. Number two was just provide certainty to them. There’s so much power and certainty and uncertainty can, gosh, we can go to about 20 different, rabbit holes on that topic. But the biggest one when it comes to certainty is yes, you need to have clear goals and expectations, but the biggie in my mind is make sure your sales team as a leader knows.
Their value in your eyes. And it just can’t be underestimated. I mentioned it earlier. We’re a social tribe species and for our sanity. I mean, this goes way back 2000 years. We got to know we are okay with the alpha. It’s almost a biological imperative. So, the more that they know how you stand and how certain they are, not only to you as the leader, but just.
Their place in the company, the value they offer, the impact that they can have by way of it. Just the stronger and more performance you’re going to get out of them and the greater culture you’re going to get. So, 1 and 2 are really big in my mind. The 3rd really comes down to simplicity. And this is hard, especially at the enterprise sales level, because there’s just so many moving parts and.
So many products to know and solutions to know and services and, all the things, and from an enablement perspective it’s easy to get lost in, all of it, but the more simple that you can keep things for your sales folks the more creativity, the more art. The more innovative ways that they’ll practice their trade and the more effective they’re going to be in the field.
So, it’s, keep things simple. Don’t make them have to know too much or think too much. That’s a big one again, not something that can be. Underestimated as well and an interesting little fact though, is it’s reported lots of different ways is if you get a salesperson to spend at least four hours per day on sales activity, actual sales activity, not like the internal meetings, not the admin staff, the happier there’ll be and their performance, the performance gain you get out of them, both in just terms of volume as well as quality skyrockets.
And fun little fact there. So, four hours a day, I guess is doctor’s orders. And then one of the last things is have fun with your team. Just it’s so easy to just go, go, go, go, go. One of the things that is a blessing, I guess a curse of those of us in sales, especially sales leaders is.
We have a hard time stopping to celebrate and have a good time. And at the end of the quarter, we’ll do it, or, at the end of a long day, but what are you really doing to pull the team together? And it doesn’t always have to be the obvious, go on a scavenger hunt type. It doesn’t have to be so overblown as that.
There are simple ways to do it but find a way to have fun with your team, individuals on your team and so forth. Work hard, play hard, very cliche, but that’s a big part of it. But those are the top areas that I would say, if you’re going to get a sales team to be high performance.
overachievers working while you’re busy doing all the things that you’re doing as a leader, but they do it because intrinsically they’re motivated to do so. Those are some of the core things I would focus on as a leader to get them there.
[00:16:27] Brian Thomas: Thank you, Amie. Most appreciated. And again, a lot of that stuff seems foundational or basic as far as being a leader, but you did go into ways that really to engage with your team, because obviously the big part of your organization as a sales organization is to increase revenue.
And I know there’s a lot of pressure around that alone. So, I couldn’t imagine how I would be doing something like that. So, I appreciate you unpacking that and then Amy, last question of the day. If you could just briefly share something real quick that maybe, you might be leveraging some of that new emerging tech because we are a tech platform, but just something, maybe there’s an app or cool tool that you’re utilizing today.
You might be able to share with us.
[00:17:10] Amie Teske: Yeah, and it’s funny. You’re I could geek out on this topic, too. I’m just intrigued with the bright, shiny objects. And there’s so many out there right now in terms of tech. I tried to take a quick inventory last night, but I have about 16 different tools. No, 18.
Sorry That I use for various reasons, and it’s all aimed at how can I be more productive? And how do I better manage my time? And as a solopreneur, I mean, I have some people who are, in my, as part of the company, but how do I, best use time all 24 hours in a day?
How do I capitalize on it? So, a lot of my tools are in that vein. But I would say, yes, I use chat GPT, a lot of the plugins that come with it just to help refine things or get me started. So, I’m not staring at blank pieces of paper as I develop content. That’s been extremely helpful. Not all that innovative and this is going to sound so silly maybe, but the tool that I’ve run into lately that has been my favorite just because.
It’s new and I’d never heard of it before is proof note. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but. Between people that, this company that I’m working with in Australia or the, even my kids, like they’re like, hey mom, send me a, the username or password to, X, Y, and Z.
Or I have to send my VA a virtual assistant username and password. How do I do it? So, I use PrivNote and it’s just you put your information in there, like confidential information. It generates a link. You send that link over. And once somebody opens it and looks at it, it self destructs. Which I think is great.
So, you’re not using text message. You don’t have to worry about phone calls all the time. Anyways, this simple little tool, but it’s my favorite right now. Maybe not what you’re looking for, Brian, but That’s awesome., That’s what we want to hear is what people are utilizing today.
[00:18:54] Brian Thomas: I speak with a lot of CTOs out of Silicon Valley, and we get into some of the nuts and bolts of the things that they work on and build as far as emerging technologies, but having, our guests talk about just the different things they’re doing and not everybody’s a technologist.
So, we like to hear what they’re doing. And that certainly helps something or somebody in our audience. So, thank you again.
[00:19:17] Amie Teske: You bet. Not a problem. I tell you what 1 of the 5 things was simplicity and that falls right in that category.
[00:19:22] Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Well, Amy, it was a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
[00:19:29] Amie Teske: Likewise, Brian. Hey, thanks so much. I appreciate you and all that you’re doing and great to talk to you.
[00:19:34] Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Amie Teske Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
