Liz Schuerman: Maestro Hall of Fame 2024 Inductee

The positions Liz Schuerman has held at her places of work over the years read like a dream trajectory: account executive, regional sales manager, director of sales, VP of sales. And yet, when the word sales is in the title, some people can be dismissive.

“What do you think is the biggest misconception about sales?” we asked her.

“I think that there’s this perception that you’re just a salesperson, and so I don’t have to treat you with a certain level of respect. Human-to-human tends to kind of go out the window when it’s just a salesperson, and they’re just sending you an email.”

Liz understands that there are some people who are never going to want to speak to a salesperson, but “for some people, I tend to try to find as many ways to communicate with them as possible.” This includes facetime at conferences. She finds it’s not as easy for people to be jerks when she’s suggesting they grab a cocktail. And it doesn’t even have to be about business. Liz is happy to be the recipient of a good vent. “I’ll be your therapist. That’s fine, you know.”

In sales as in life, according to Liz, always opt for authenticity. “I think anyone who’s good at marrying their personality with a true sales process is going to be super successful,” she says, “and someone that’s maybe more just process oriented, they’ll still be successful. Right? Cause you lay the foundation and everything but it’s that personality piece— ‘that authentically you’—piece that I think kind of gets you to the next level.” Put a different way: “People want to talk to humans they don’t want to talk to a robot salesperson.”

U-TURN

2013: Liz Schuerman was having second thoughts about becoming a teacher. She’d gone to school for it, got a degree in secondary education, she told us, but it didn’t feel quite right. A friend of hers alerted her to an entry-level position at Thomson Reuters where, she assumed, she would take the admin route. Her colleague had a different idea.

“One of my sales guys kind of forced me to pick my head up a little bit.” He said she should be doing what he was doing. “And so that was the first time I had thought about it and transitioned into it, and never really looked back.” She really didn’t. Shortly after that conversation, Liz became a salesperson at Thomson Reuters. By the time she left them five years later, she was a customer success manager.

“ON MY GRAVESTONE”

Liz was working as a regional sales manager at a software firm when Maestro was brought in to consult with the company. “Essentially, I reported to Will [Fuentes] for about a year.”

She describes theirs as a “full-circle” type of relationship. Liz reacted with skepticism to the cluster of new procedures that came with Will. It wasn’t love at first strategy session. They tackled this tension bluntly, by meeting up and talking about how they could work together in a way that honored both of their styles. “On the other side of that, we just understood each other going forward, to the point where, Will’s one of the few people I consistently check in with I consistently, you know, ask him questions, ask him for feedback. He’s become a true mentor in my life.”

She also finds herself regularly using Maestro teachings. “I think probably my number one is control what you can control and mitigate risk. That has become a mantra in my professional life as well as my personal life.” Questions trees and agenda-building protocols are also up there. And the three times? (If you don’t know what this means, check out Maestro’s course on Effective Emails.) “On my gravestone,” said Liz, “there will be three times.”

Liz is currently VP of Sales at MBSi Corp., a software solutions provider for the auto repossession industry. You can learn more about Liz here. Be sure to congratulate him while you’re there!