Hello, my name is Maureen farmer and I'm CEO and founder of Westgate executive branding. And I'm thrilled today to have Brendan stage rock with me who is a sales executive. And he's going to tell us a little bit about his career, some of the clients that he's worked with and some of his favorite stories for his throughout his career so far. And Brendan, I know you're on the other, on the other line there. I love for you to just take a minute to introduce yourself and then we'll start from there.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes. Thanks so much, Maureen. Um, so yeah, Brendan St. Jacques here—currently a key account director with IHG and I've had a long history of working hospitality, working in the hotel industry and have developed a huge passion for sales. In my current role, I've been with IHG for over seven years but I've been in the hospitality industry for over 13.

Maureen Farmer

And I can tell you're very passionate about your work because your metrics tell stories of their own. But before we get into that, Brendan, I'd love for us to go back and talk a little bit about how you became so interested in sales and helping people.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, so really interesting story. Um, I took time to kind of reflect back on the really early days of Brendan and I'd have to say my first original passion for sales came from when I lived in Singapore and there was a store there, uh, in Holland Village called Made in The USA. And as kids we'd always go to the store and you could buy different candies. So the real popular one where these Airheads that were brought in from the US and the price on them was like four times what you could get back in the US or in Canada. So I would go home during breaks or in summer, and buy these candies and bring them back to Singapore and sell them on the playground and just make a huge profit. And so when I look back, I feel that that was a real sort of turning point where I became passionate and interested in the sort of exchange that was made in the sales process and the value add of how you can sell something way more than what you buy it for.

Maureen Farmer

That's fantastic. So tell me a little bit about your early life with your father, I know he worked for Nortel, you spent a lot of time with your dad.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah. I spent a lot of time with my dad, a huge influence on my life around the dinner table at night, or, you know, as we're out on drives, you know, the sports would come up every so often we chat about the Leafs and how they're doing or the Jays, but a huge focus of our conversation was some of the massive struggles and challenges that my dad went through working at Nortel. It wasn't uncommon to talk about big deals that he was working on or an upset customer. And, um, you know, how he sort of went through the process of making sure everyone's okay, make sure the customer's happy. And then also look at where else he could get a sale or help help the sales guys close out a huge opportunity. And something that really stuck with me was late one night during a school night, um, a fire had taken place in one of the sort of mainframe or switching, um, buildings in downtown Toronto.

And so he actually, uh, wanted to get onsite and see what was going on and kind of drag me out of bed late one night and brought, brought me down. And, you know, I could kind of see him working there firsthand and evaluating the damage that was done for this fire in this, in this switching unit, um, and sort of the best practices or his protocols on what he was going to do to fix it, get the cell phone, um, cell phone system up and running again, and, you know, look really good, um, in front of the customer to hopefully close some future sales. So that was a real kind of, um, imprint on my mind of how you can get stuff done and work above and beyond what's necessary, uh, to really make a customer happy.

Maureen Farmer

And it sounds as though he really enjoyed people, enjoyed helping people and obviously very committed to what he was doing as a salesperson.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes, absolutely. And it's funny, he wasn't always directly in sales. He was more on the customer side. Um, but he just, uh, on the customer service side, but he just knew how important it was, um, to have a strong, robust sales pipeline, um, how to keep sales guys happy, how to keep the customer happy. Um, so it was a really, really interesting sort of step that he sort of took to, um, to make all that happen, but definitely learned a lot through that and sort of the stories that he shared.

Maureen Farmer

And it sounds as though, like you, he, or maybe you were like him, of course, always looking at the long-term view of a relationship.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes, yes. It's great to get a sale, but you know, you're really going to get paid, you're going to make the big bucks, you're going to really help out a company when you can focus on the long-term relationship of a customer. Um, and in fact, if I can, I'll tell a cool story. Um, personally, if I can Maureen, if that's okay? So, I spent some time working for Delta hotels and Canada soccer association as it was referred to now, it's, uh, Soccer Canada, I believe. Um, they put in a bid to host, uh, the women's world cup in Canada, very exciting news, very awesome opportunity for Canada to showcase itself to the world. And when the news finally came out that we were the, we were going to be the host country, uh, you know, everyone went nuts and immediately, I thought, okay, how are we going to get this business?

And so for many years prior, I've been sort of working my relationships with the, with, uh, Canada soccer association, trying to find out some of the key people there. And a few times I actually kind of got blocked. And the reason for that was, um, IHG my current company had some, you know, sponsorship deals done and, and I just wasn't really getting any traction. Um, but you know, always sort of focused on the long-term sale, building those relationships up long-term I knew how important that was. And so when the announcement came out, reached out to my contact there and said, "Hey, like what, what's the plan here for accommodations? Like, where are the players going to stay? Where is the ref staying, all the FIFA staff, how is that going to work out? Like, is there any help, um, that, you know, you can lend and sure enough, she said, "yep, I have a contact for you". Here's the gentleman you want to contact. You want to reach out to him, you know, get in touch, see what's happening. And also what's your address? I'm going to send you something." And she sent me a really cool, uh, FIFA scarf and pen and, um, notebook with some information. And then, so I was like, wow, this is just proof that this is such a great relationship.

So I then took that relationship and started working with, uh, the FIFA accommodation office, um, with a gentleman there who had actually recently moved to Ottawa where I was living. And, uh, so spent a lot of time with him, got to get to know him and his business and how things work. And sure enough, through that relationship, I signed, I think it was 2 to 3 million dollars worth of contracts at different Delta properties, where we had teams coming and going and staying at our hotels for almost a month, which was great, great business.

Maureen Farmer

You said something that piqued my interest, um, a little bit ago about being "blocked". Can you sort of walk us through what you mean by you were "blocked?"

Brendan St. Jacques

There was a, a sponsorship deal between IHG and the Canada Soccer Association. And so it was sort of preventing me, um, from securing some of the group, um, business opportunities that were available for some of the events that Canada Soccer Association was hosting. And, you know, as a good salesperson, I never really took that to heart. I said, you know, I can't get the business now, but something's going to happen where I will get a piece of business. I will get an opportunity, I'll get a contract. So I kept in close contact with this person at this office and sure enough, it led to this FIFA contact. Um, but to continue that story, I was then approached by IHG to leave Delta and come work for IHG to help and set up the sports department. So sure enough, as this was kind of in the works and things were happening, you know, I made sure that I was staying extra close to my customer at the FIFA accommodation office. So sure enough, when I left IHG, I tried to get some work done, some contracts signed for the women's world cup. Um, but unfortunately the hotels that IHG had to offer, they just weren't a good fit. So we, we didn't end up securing any business there, but again, focused on the long-term relationship. I knew there was going to be some other opportunities that came and stayed close, close to the customer. And sure enough, I get this RFP for, um, Women's World Cup, uh, under 19. U-19 in Papea, New Guinea.

Maureen Farmer

Wow.

Brendan St. Jacques

The contract, it was between two hotels. Um, but it was signed. It was just over a million dollars for the two properties. And, um, it was an interesting process because I was working with hotels to secure this business with a 15 hour difference in time zone. Um, which made it a bit of a challenge, a lot of like late night calls to get them on the line, late night calls on their part. Uh, the FIFA contract itself is very complex. There's a lot of legal terms in it. Um, so we had to kind of walk through everything, had to make sure that the hotel was comfortable. And, um, also the clock was ticking. I needed these contracts to really hit it big and close out my year. And so worked through the process, was patient, but still applied enough pressure that made sure that come December 31st, these contracts were getting signed and so worked through many of the details.

Um, and then it became time, you know, I was leaving Ottawa, I was going to drive down and see some family in Toronto. And it started coming close to Christmas. And I was like, 'God, you know, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. It's really coming down to the wire here. I need to get these signed before year end.' And so I tried the customer one more time, called them up and said, "Hey, you know, what can we do here? Is there anything else we can do?" And he said, "can you come over to my place, uh, Friday?" And I was like, 'okay, how am I balancing this? I gotta get home. Uh, but I need this contract.' I'm like, "yep, no problem. We'll be there." So make the drive. My partner Louise was with me too.

And, uh, kind of left her at a, at a coffee shop, drove over to the customer's house. Uh, come in, you know, it's all decorated nice with, uh, with all the Christmas stuff up, his wife's there. Uh, his two kids, you know, chat with the kids a little bit shy with the wife, talked to my customer, had some tea and some, some cookies. And in my mind, I'm like, Oh, I got to get this contract signed. And towards the end of the conversation, um, you know, I'm starting to wrap up a customer said, "Oh, Brendan, did, did you see the gift under the tree?" And I was like, 'what is this guy talking about?' I'm looking around. I don't see anything. There's no presence out yet. It's still, it's still early. And he said, "we're, we're giving you the signed contract. You're going to get it."

It'll be in your email box tomorrow. And I was so thrilled. I was so through thrilled, it made my year, um, you know, got the bonus, made the money. Um, and then also this was the first year that we had a sales incentive trip to St. Kitts. Uh, so I also won the trip thanks to, uh, thanks to this contract. So really, really great demonstration in my mind of that long-term relationship. Um, it's not easy to maintain relationships. I find you do have to have those check-in points and you, you do have to still demonstrate value. Um, you can't fall into that sort of friend zone because then it's kind of easy to get stepped on or stepped over or look past. You have to, you have to keep that business side of it.

Maureen Farmer

And so how do you continue to add value in these relationships?

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes, of course. Um, very important. And I think you can do that by knowing your own product that you're selling. If there's any changes that the customer needs to know, um, you need to evaluate the climate that the product is operating, and if the climate has changed, um, if there's an ability to make money for the customer because of a market segment change or an update or change in legislation and the government, you need to make sure that they know and how that adapts or adapts or work with your product. If you can save them money, if you can help them mitigate a risk, you really do have to stay on top of the market. What's going on, what's going on in the segment, what's going on with your product, all those things. And you can really come up, come up with some good value, um, to add to any conversation with a customer.

Maureen Farmer

That's fantastic. So I know that you have introduced a whole new segment, uh, into your current employer. So tell us a little bit about the clients that you've been working with over the past couple of years.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, absolutely. So I was brought on to really open up and expand, uh, the sports segment for, for IHG. And this has led to awesome opportunities to work with huge customers, um, the professional leagues, as well as the teams that are within them, like the NHL, the NBA, the NFL, um, brought on new accounts like UFC WWE, um, MLS there's, many of these, these leagues that I've had the chance to work with, uh, NASCAR, have even touched and done a little bit of formula-one work, um, US Olympic committee, Canadian Olympic committee, the national governing bodies that, uh, are part of these, these councils or these committees. Um, so it's really, really touched a lot, but the, the sort of personal pride and joy that I've had the pleasure of working with is just all of the youth sports that are taking place, especially in the US, it's huge competition.

Parents are opening their wallets to ensure their kid either, um, gets the scholarship for college, or potentially goes up into the pro leagues. And, um, they're spending a ton of money traveling kids around and, um, making sure that, uh, they, they have access to the, this high level of competition. And of course they need a place to stay. So we've really, really capitalized on, uh, ensuring that they pick, uh, our brands specifically Holiday and Holiday Inn express. Um, it's been a huge, huge moneymaker for the company. Um, so that's one of the bigger segments, but maybe just a, an interesting story I wanted to share...I know I mentioned a UFC as a new, a new account that I brought on, um, and this actually stemmed, so again, sports are a passion. They're very much an interest of mine, and I spend a majority of my free time watching or playing sports sports—

Maureen Farmer

—What is your favorite sport?

Brendan St. Jacques

Oh, you know, I always struggle with that question because I love so many of them equally. Um, I'd have to say that hockey is my most favorite sport to watch. I've never actually played hockey. Second. I would have to go with, uh, with football, the NFL, I love watching the NFL. Played football in high school. Um, but there's no way I could play it these days. It's, it's a brutal sport. Um, and then third and fourth, I absolutely loved playing rugby. I don't watch it as much. Um, but I loved playing in, uh, in high school and university. That was my favorite. Um, nowadays I say, I'd probably say more of my passion is, uh, playing basketball. It's a little easier on the body.

Maureen Farmer

Well, and it seems to me as though you bring this same rigor and discipline and energy to your profession, as you do to, to your sports endeavors, would you say that?

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, absolutely. I overall I absolutely love the competition of sport. I love how much you sort of have that fine balance of where you're on a team, ou need to operate as a team, and you're only ever going to win championships if you work as a team, but there's still the competition between players on the same team to do better, uh, which I think is extremely important. And so I, I feel I bring that same passion to the workplace. I love competing. I, you know, I definitely want to be number one. Um, but I also want to support the team and really ensure that the whole team is succeeding. Uh, so it's that kind of combination of ensuring the team succeeds, but still holding yourself to a high standard, um, where you're competing internally to bring your very best every day.

Maureen Farmer

And so how does that translate into sales, leadership development with your direct reports and team members? How do you best support them to be successful?

Brendan St. Jacques

Uh, I do whatever I can to make sure they have what they need to feel confident, put their best foot forward every day and really, really Excel. And it's important to have clear communication channels, open communication talk regularly. It's not always a business conversation. Um, I take time to personally, uh, to have personal conversations with a lot of my colleagues to really get to know them. And I think that that is such an important aspect, um, of, of a good leader, um, definitely a servant leader where I'm serving them to make them as successful as possible. Um, and I'm not afraid to jump into something that's difficult or hard to, to support them and make sure that they're able to deliver their best.

Maureen Farmer

And, um, I also do recall that you've done some interesting entrepreneurial endeavors as well, besides your professional sales career. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so my pride and joy, and unfortunately it's, uh, it's kind of moved to the wayside right now (time is tough to come by and obviously, uh, COVID has put a pause on all, um, marathon and running events), but I had a company and I will reopen it sometime soon—the pay sponsorship agency. And so my focus was to work with, um, race directors to help them find sponsorship for their races, as well as a long-term vision of working with running, uh, athletes to help them find sponsorship or speaking opportunities, or, um, support them in an agent style to ensure that they're putting their best foot forward as far as training year round, um, and as well as competing. Um, so that was a, that was a real passion of mine and had some success with it, had some success, learnt a lot. Uh, and, um, now that I'm in Toronto, I know the races here, um, are just that much bigger, more, more competitors, more attendees. And it's something that I'm interested in in starting up again soon.

Maureen Farmer

So when you said that you learned a lot from that when you were in Ottawa, what was your biggest takeaway from that experience there, with your company there?

Brendan St. Jacques

My biggest takeaway was how, how passionate I am and how interested I am in business development and how much I really enjoy the cold call reaching out to customers, building those relationships again, with any of the existing sponsors, securing new cash for the event that whole sales process I absolutely enjoyed. Um, you know, I've learned that, uh, I guess book keeping is not necessarily as much of an interest. I, I really enjoyed, you know, meeting with the race directors. I enjoyed talking to the sponsors and potential sponsors. I really enjoyed that, that person to person, people, to people connection.

Maureen Farmer

That's so interesting. You know, we could have an entire conversation on the cold calling process, because I would have to say that probably 95% of the population is not good at cold calling and probably more don't even want to do it.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah. You definitely need thick skin to do it. I was able to cut my teeth early on in my career as a prospecting sales manager, which was six months of, uh, cold calling. I was given a business directory of all the downtown Toronto offices and either the owner or CEO or list of VPs at that hotel. So this big phone book type thing, and I just started dialing each company on there, talking about if they had any training coming up that I could secure for my hotel, holiday parties, um, people coming from out of town and it was tough. I mean, not going to lie. I had a lot of people hang up on me before I could finish talking with them or people that had no time or people that would just ask for, you know, a sales kit, a package of information.

So it was really a delicate balance of keeping people on the line, keeping them engaged, uh, ensuring, you know, as, as we've chatted about Maureen, on how important that follow up is, um, and making sure we, you know, continue the relationship, continued the conversation. Um, but I really felt that that role had set me up for success. Um, even to today, I still remember how challenging that was, but how great it felt when you actually could close some business through, through a complete co cold call, like the, the definition of a cold call, very little information on them. Um, you know, I still keep that in the back of my mind today. And it's, it's easy to, to pick up the phone now and call and call anyone.

Maureen Farmer

So I've got a question for you because a lot of the people I work with, I recommend that they follow up with the prospect of employer, employer, or whoever it might be. I'm curious about your take on how, how often do you follow up with someone when you don't hear back from them?

Brendan St. Jacques

I just keep following up. I'm going to say every couple of days, if I haven't heard back almost to the point where I'm waiting for them to just say back off or no, they're not interested because almost in my mind, I'm thinking if they haven't, if they haven't responded to me, it must mean that they're interested, but maybe they're just busy and I still want to stay top of mind. And I, as I mentioned before, adding that value to each reach out, I always try to change my message and, um, try to add some value or some way I'm able to help them, or, you know, an article about their business and how that relates to something I can help with. Um, just to, just to keep the message a little fresh, and maybe, maybe within that message, you're finding the next kind of hook to, uh, to have a phone call with them or continue the relationship.

Maureen Farmer

I had an experience one time where I was approached at a chamber of commerce dinner by a CEO of an organization, wanting to hire me to do some training. And, uh, he didn't have a business card. I gave him mine and he didn't contact me. He told me he would, and I didn't hear from him. I followed up six times or seven times left voicemail, voice messages, the, those seven different times. And I took the same approach as you did. I just waited and I was politely following up and I did hear back from the CEO at the seventh call. And it turned out that they had had a major crisis in their organization and didn't have the time or the capacity to reach out to me. And in that seventh call, he hired me on the spot and he said, look, thank you so much for taking the time to follow up with me. Uh, I appreciate it, even though I wasn't able to respond in time. So I don't think we can really ever underestimate the power of the follow-up. What do you think of that?

Brendan St. Jacques

No, it's absolutely true. And I think it just my own, you know, business capacity, you know, I have salespeople that, um, reach out to me and I mean, you, you probably feel the same way, Maureen, where they probably just reach out once and sometimes I'm actually, you know, could be kind of convinced on their product or interested in it at least. And once if they're not following up, then I just, you know, I kind of lose interest and I move on to something else. So I think that follow-up is really important.

Maureen Farmer

I think that that's golden. And I think that, what does it say about the person if they don't follow up, if they stop following up? What does that say?

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, I mean, it just kind of sounds like they're not interested. You're not important. Maybe they're not as hungry. It could be a combination of many things. Yeah.

Maureen Farmer

So in terms of future plans, Brendan, tell me a little bit about your future plans.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes, absolutely. I really am focused career wise right now. I've demonstrated for several years, the ability to bring in new business, closed business, negotiate, um, whatever it takes to hit any revenue target and exceed it. And I've had opportunities now to mentor, coach, uh, interview, um, several salespeople. And I really want to take that experience and take it to the next level, uh, look for a VP of sales position, um, something, something bigger. I can really, really demonstrate, demonstrate that servant leadership and demonstrate myself as a leader. That's my focus right now.

Maureen Farmer

So Brendan, I know a little bit about you and I know that you're a sought after speaker. So tell us a little bit about some of the speaking engagements that you've participated in over the past few years.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yes, absolutely. So as a true salesperson, I love the chance to connect with as many people as possible. So no problem going to a conference, networking, chatting with a few individuals. Um, but I love to get in and, you know, demonstrate my industry knowledge and take on a speaking position. So I've had the pleasure and opportunity to speak, um, at conferences internally at my company of sizes of 500 people, I've hosted, um, video call WebEx's with groups of six to 700. Um, but my absolute favorite is when I can dive in and do sport tourism related calls or sorry, presentation. So I've done some unique opportunities. I've had unique opportunities with sports ETA, uh, sport, tourism, Canada, um, the Canadian sponsorship forum, which is now called sponsorship ex um, the Western Canada sponsorship conference. Um, so any chance that I can get, I love to get in front of an audience, um, educate the audience on trends and things that we're seeing in the hotel industry or the sports industry, um, not, not shy to get on a stage and, and absolutely love it and always look forward to it.

Maureen Farmer

You're a great communicator, Brendan. Thank you. You're welcome. So just to recap a little bit, um, about your plans for your career. We talked a little bit, a few minutes ago about, uh, your, um, desire and passion to continue with the sales journey, leading other people, sales, uh, servant leadership. Um, again, your, your, tell us just a little bit more about your plans for the future.

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, absolutely. So really looking for that leadership role. Um, I do have an interest in some of the emerging segments or, or market opportunities that are coming up. And again, this goes back to probably my, my early days at IHG and building up the sports business. Um, I love taking on sort of new challenges or new markets and right now, um, you know, maybe a little bit late to the game, but, uh, no pun intended, but the e-sports arena is absolutely massive. The amount of money that's flying around right now for franchise purchases, especially with call of duty is a huge interest of mine. Um, I think it's only going to get bigger. We're seeing it accelerate through the pandemic right now as more people are inside and they're gaming. Um, so I see that as a huge, um, all of the professional leagues have, uh, started their own, um, e-sport teams again, that's perhaps maybe a little bit old news, but just demonstrates on how big and how, how fast this industry is growing.

Maureen Farmer

It's a multi multi-billion dollar industry, is it not?

Brendan St. Jacques

Multi-billion dollar and growing extremely rapidly rapidly? I, I mean, I even, uh, am impressed now, especially in the U S many cities have now, um, started to add in their own, um, e-gaming sports arena, which is fantastic. It just goes to show how quickly this industry is changing. I even know, I believe it's in Atlanta where an old shopping mall is now being converted into an e-sports arena, so that that segment is growing extremely rapidly. The other place that I am interested in is the sports gaming or sports gambling arena. Um, there's now, um, gambling sports, gambling opening up in a massive way in the U S there's a huge amount of money. That's now returning to the U S where maybe it was being, uh, illegally bet on overseas. Absolutely massive opportunity. Canada announced their own, um, changes to the legislation recently where you no longer have to, um, bet on sports, through pro-line or through the casinos where it's parlayed between three games. It's now they're looking at single sport betting, which is a huge game changer. And again, going to bring, bring, um, huge tax revenue for the country, for the provinces in a massive, uh, a massive undertaking, but I know it's going to be great. And I've also seen it, uh, and have an interest in the fantasy sports prop betting, all of that is big and it's, it's changing and the whole industry around it, um, is growing. So that's, that's the other place of interest.

Maureen Farmer

The possibilities are endless. It's true. The future is bright. The future is bright. Well, Brendan, this has been an absolute pleasure. And I can just tell from your, the energy in your voice and the stories that you've told today, how passionate you are, not just about the sports, the world of sports and business, but just about serving other people and, and lending your athleticism to, um, to performance in, in, in your career. And it's just so impressive. Um, anyone listening to this particular conversation, if they want to reach out to you, how would they do that?

Brendan St. Jacques

Yeah, the best way is to visit my website. It's um, https://www.brendanstjacques.com/ 

Maureen Farmer

And it's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today, Brendan, and for the, um, for the benefit of the listener. Uh, my name is Maureen farmer and I'm founder and CEO of Westgate executive branding. And you can find me at maureen@westgatecareercoaching.com. And once again, Brendan, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. 

Brendan St. Jacques

Thank you so much Maureen—my pleasure.