How Relentless Pursuit Landed a Meeting with Activision: A Sales Manager's High Standards in Action

I think a primary example of that would be Activision, a client that I had acquired. Uh Activision is a video game software, electronics. Yeah, I'm sure many are aware of Modern Warfare is one of the biggest franchises, um. The commitment I had to get those guys was at the time, it was really when I said I wanted to get them. It wasn't necessarily taken as serious because of just the ginormity of them. And I think that, that commitment that I had for acquiring them drove me to ultimately get them in 4 months. How? is because I was able to just relentlessly hunt, hunt down who I needed to. Activision office is in Santa Monica, so I went there 6 times. Unannounced, just trying to see how I can get the right contact person. Uh, by the 6th time, I, I went, I had a familiar face, which was the receptionist. Um, and then getting the contact, making all the phone calls, trying to get them in touch with them, trying to get them on the email, trying to get them in a conference call, trying to get all these things established, just constantly getting a rejection. Oh, we're too busy, oh, it's not the right time, oh, you know, we got things going on, this and that. So I think the relentless drive that I had trying to get these accomplished was, was, was really My drive where everyone else kind of wrote it off. But ultimately I got lucky, to be honest with you, it was the last phone call of the day. And I called and I asked for to speak to Richard, and it happened that the receptionist called out that day. So someone who is feeling. Wasn't as familiar. They forwarded me to him directly. And I was able to get him directly on the phone and give him a small pitch, say, hey, you know, it's, I know you've been receiving my emails so on and so forth, uh, and I would love to just come by, just, just come by and just spend a little bit of time and I was able to solidify an appointment. Pitch as hard as I could. I had prepared things with my marketing team. I prepared things with all of the departments that I felt could help. Uh, in putting together a nice pitch deck and presenting to him and ultimately he was interested. We went back and forth. I got upper management involved at that time, it was serious. And they said at the end of the day, excuse me. At the end of the day, they said, oh, you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna pass. And everyone just kind of said, you know, good effort, whatever, but it wasn't good enough. And then a week later out of the blue I got a call saying, you know what, the budgets allow for it. And the fact that I was able to continue to be on top of it and stay with it, I think that that that led me to have that deal. So I hope I answered your question, but essentially it was the commitment to not stop when everyone else stopped believing. I kept going and I think that was really driving force. It's just getting rejected, getting no, getting You know, all that.

I just committed to it. I just needed to have this deal. Um, if I was to get this deal, it would be a huge win. It would, I mean, I have been working for the company for less than 6 months. It would put my name on the board per se, um, and I just, I just didn't wanna be the new guy, you know, I just considered the new guy. I want to get up there and, and show them that I can, I can accomplish something big. And uh that deal was something that opened up many doors, and after that I felt A tremendous amount of respect and cooperation from a lot of folks back at the, at the team there.

Because The biggest The biggest thing that they need, the biggest factor that they require the company, I

excuse me, our, my employer, uh, what they needed, and they said it in a meeting was we have no. Video game, I mean, we, we have no monsters. So with the studios, we have the NBC's, we have the, you know, the, the, the Disney's, OK. They went on to each category. My category is eSports, video game, and electronic, uh, you know, products as well. So they were looking at it as if they need it, they said we need this, we don't have anyone to e-sports and video games as big, we need a monster because they have an editorial, a magazine, and they're just gonna write off a tremendous amount and they say, OK, we get one big monster, now all of these other guys are gonna follow him, that's the trend of the industry. So for me, I felt like that, that I can't accomplish the success that I want. I can't hit the, the numbers that I want, I can't quotas if I don't nail a whale and a whale would bring in all this other business to follow. So for me it was like, it was playing for life or death, to be honest, because there was no way I could hit my quota with smaller companies as a new guy, no relationships, but I know if I go big and I hit a home run. This is gonna allow me to have the momentum, to allow me to have the trajectory and the clients that I really need at the end, so. And it worked, and that's what it was and uh. It was just the drive, the ambition, the fire that I needed to get it.