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Welcome to the Revenue Builders Podcast, a weekly show featuring B2B sales leaders and executives. Hosted by five time CRO John McMahon and Force Management co founder John Kaplan, the show goes behind the scenes with the people who have been there, done that and seen the results. If you enjoy our content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help.
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Us reach more people.
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Revenue Builders is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing.
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The growth strategy at the point of sale. Find us@ForceManagement.com Enjoy today's episode.
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C
Hello and welcome to another episode of Revenue Builders. I'm joined by my friend and esteemed colleague John Kaplan, also known as Cap.
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Thanks, Johnny Mac. Thanks buddy. Good to see you.
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C
Good to see you, buddy. Hey Cap. Today we got a special guest that I had the pleasure of working with multiple times. This person started their career at ptc where they grew to run the uk. Then they ran EMEA Sales for Essential Software before joining me again at bladelogic as the Director of Northern Europe. After the acquisition of Bladelogic by BMC, as a VP of EMEA. Since then he's ran EMEA sales for AppDynamics. He's been an investor in companies like Datarobot, Castori Software or Sportswear. Sorry, Jeremy. And Multiverse. Cap, please help me welcome my friend, also known as the Ginger Prince, the one, the only, Jeremy Duggan.
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B
Jeremy.
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Dude. Jeremy. It's good to see you, buddy. It's been a while.
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B
Great to see you lot. You know what? I've got a jacket that I wear on special occasions. And I call it a triple threat jacket. Cause it's black, it's leather, and it's by Tom Ford. It's a triple threat jacket. And I just realized on this call, this is a Triple J threat call.
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We've got Johnny King, we've got Big.
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B
Johnny Mac, and we got Jeremy Duggan. It's a Triple J threat call. This. I'm amazed the world's not imploding at this.
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C
But you're the king. You're the king. You're also the Ginger Prince. But you are the king of the uk, baby. You're the king.
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A
Thank you. So, Jeremy, we are really, really fired up to have you. How I remember you, dude. Back in the day. It's one of the. And I mean no disrespect by this, but it's one of the greatest young sales leaders that I've ever seen. And now seeing you on video these 20 some odd years plus later, and especially next to McMahon and I, you don't Seem to be aging. Dude, you're looking good, buddy. You're looking good.
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B
It's a mixture of using serum in the morning, moisturizer at night, and having a kind heart.
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A
Hey, brother. We went out to our listeners and we've asked like, what are some great topics for, you know, for our guests to discuss. And I'm going to tee this first question up because not only do I think it's right up your alley, but it is really, really top of mind for our listeners. And as Johnny said, you know, you helped appdynamics grow from 23.6 million in revenue to a run rate of more than 200 million. I read an article where you attributed that growth to what you called the three Rs, which were recruiting, retention and revenue. And I think that's a great place for us to start because it always, it always starts with talent. So would you mind kind of walking us through those concepts of the three Rs?
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B
Yeah, no problem. I do get asked. That's a lot. And look, you know that it comes from my kind of, you know, history of wanting to understand what excellence looked like from a fact based perspective, not from an opinion based perspective. And this all started back at ptc, right? You know, we had an incredible, fast growing company there. But when you joined, you were under no illusion. What happened if you weren't successful? Right? And being, you know, young and full of fire and fury, I kind of couldn't have imagined anything more humiliating than losing my job. And so what I did was I started trying to look around at all the salespeople and thinking, well, why are these people doing well and these people aren't? And why are those two people, both of them are good at pg, but one of them is doing well and one of them isn't. And so I was trying to figure out what were the facts that lay underneath somebody being successful and somebody else not being successful. And then as I got into leadership, I did the same thing. And as I got older and older, Essential got sold for billion. Blade did as well. John. We added a few billion to BMC's valuation. AppDynamics was worth about 100 million when I joined and we sold for just under 4 billion. And multiverse, where I'm at now, me and Stevie Mac joined two years ago and the company was doing 10 million and valued at 60 million. And this year, two years later, we'll do 100 million and we're comfortably over a billion in valuation. And what I was trying to do with the three R's was try and simplify the incredibly complex mission of building billion dollar companies in a way that was fact based. So I knew that it would work. And also in a way that was facts based on, so I could sell it to people. Because I never wanted to go to people and say, you know, here's what I think is the right thing to do, let's just do it. Because you're asking for a lot of trust in people there. And obviously at times in my life I've been so young in the jobs I've done, you can't ask that of people. So you have to win with, with, with data and with facts and with history and with logic. And so the three R's was born out of trying to say, well, how do you take a company that's, that's quite small and make it a billion dollar company? Because lots of companies don't succeed there. And when you go and study them all, it comes down to really at a high level, three things, which is if you recruit great people and then you can retain and inspire those great people and then you have a fact based methodology around how to drive results. If you take care of those three things, then you've got a fantastic shot of building a really incredible company. And so that's where that came from, was just figuring that out at the start, saying they're the things that companies tend to do and then underpinning that with training and development and knowledge and facts around all those different areas. So that's kind of where it came from.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Jeremy, you've always done an amazing job recruiting top talent. And not only you talk about retaining, but you built an amazing team around you. Like every time I, you know, I come to the UK or Europe, I always felt like, oh, these guys are really tight. And that speaks a lot to your leadership. But if you really go back to the recruiting priest and you want to give advice to young sales leaders, what would you say about what's the most important thing when you, when you're talking about recruiting?
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B
Well, I think, I mean there's two things for it. The first thing is knowing what an A player looks like. You know, I kind of, I do a lot of calls with, you know, with CEOs at the minute and I say to them, I say, hey listen, what's the most important thing you got to do? And then they all say recruitment because that's the textbook answer. And I say, yeah, yeah, and who are you looking to hire? And they always lean forward like they've got the, they've Got the answer. And they go, A players. And I go, A players, good. That's exactly what you're looking for. And I say, well, so what does an A player look like to you? And then they kind of get a bit shifty, you know, and look at the shoes and, you know, and then most of them, most people say experience. So then I say to them, well, so let's say you're hiring for a cmo. If you're looking for experience, that means you can hire every CMO in the world, right? Because they've all got that experience. But not every CMO is going to be right for you. So this again all goes back to the data and the historical knowledge and the science of building success, which is, again, I looked at what does an A player actually look like based on all the ones I've met that are great and all the people who maybe haven't made the mark. And it comes down to. We have different terminology, John. I know you use different terms, but it's pretty much the same thing, which is, are they smart, intelligent, do they have character? Things like resilience and determination and loyalty and honor. Those things are really important if you're going to go on a really difficult journey, which it is when you're building big companies, are they coachable? Do they want to learn? Do they want to progress? They want to get better. And at the end, the last one is experience, which is really nice to have, to be honest with you, because once you get a great process lined up, you can take people who have the first three qualities and not necessarily the last one and make them great. So I think the first thing is really understanding what an A player actually looks like to recruit them. But then the second thing that I'm finding in the world right now, especially with the war on talent and all that kind of stuff, is once you find those people, they're in demand in a major way.
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C
Huge. Especially these days. Big talent wars out there.
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B
And when you're smaller, John, like, you know, you can't offer the same packages that the big guys are offering, so you got to offer something more. And so I always look at it. You know, the way I talk to my leaders about it is it's really, I break it down to four areas in terms of how you get great people. The first one is you got to join a company that can attract great people. Right? And, you know, I always, I'm always. That's always front of my mind. You know, I've been working with Steve McCluskey, who's just an absolute superstar for about 18 years now. You know what he says to me, John? He says, he says, hey, hey, Jeremy. He said, I've been working with you longer than I would have gone to prison for if I'd murdered somebody. Less time for murder than I've had working for you. So I've got to make sure that it's a company that is going to appeal to a players. That's a first pass when you're looking for something. And then once you're in and if you've chosen well, you then got to understand what these people want, right? And again, if I go back to my research, they're looking for really two things. They want to be inspired. They want to leap out of bed in the morning loving what they do. They want to be inspired by the, the job they're doing, the opportunity. They've got the leaders, they've got the people around and that kind of stuff. And then they want to be developed, you know, and, and because if you're taking somebody, you know, who joined your company from this position to the end of that journey, that their whole life outlook on life, capability, opportunity is different. That's something that's that great people want. And then the final thing is, I think is people join people, don't they? You know, I mean, I mean, I joined, you know, bladelogic because of you, John, you know, and then you kept us all in BMC when that happened. And as a leader, you know, you've got to inspire them. Can you sell that story of development credibly? Right? Can you give these people the vision that they want in a way where they believe it, it's real for them? Because lots of leaders talk a good game, but as the best leader, hiring the best talent, you've got to be able to deliver a good game. Do they believe you? Can you deliver for them? Will you deliver for them? Right? Is it going to be, you know, fun? Is it going to be. Are they going to have a rewarding experience? And again, coming back to it all, can you look them in the eye and tell them and sell that vision in a way where they know they're going to get it from you? Because you've got the track record for it. It's your values, they believe in it, believe in who you are, all those things. And so if you get a great company and you know what people want and you delivering that in your culture and then you're the kind of leader that can inspire that in people, I find that they're the three the three steps you got to take.
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C
Yeah, and you want, when they join A players, want to be around other A players. You can't just talk the game and then recruit an A player. And the person comes in, they look to the left and they look to the right and they're CNC players. They're not going to stay, you know, so you need to recruit A players. It becomes paramount to recruiting other A players.
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B
Well, even it works the other way as well. John. I remember when we were at Appdynamics, you know, we were growing so quickly. Way quicker than John said at the start, by the way. John. John like lowered that number by about 4x, right? I couldn't. I decided. I thought I was going to leave it because I'm all grown up and mature now. Johnny K. I only joke and go, um, but so we, we were going so quick and then you, you know, you have to hire more and more people. And we got to a point once where the RDs were coming to me and Stevie Mack and saying, hey, listen, we're out of talent, right? We've got all the A players, you know, and so we're going to have to, we're going to have to compromise. And so, you know, even with all the experience we had at the time, we kind of hired three or four people that we knew weren't quite good enough. And, and then what happened was, John, within three months they were. The, these, these kids were struggling and the A players were coming into our office going, what are we, we don't want to be great. Any great anymore. What's going on? Are you guys, you guys dropping the standards?
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C
It has a huge effect on your culture. Because of that right now they start to look around and say, why are these people on the team? You're not really fulfilling all the stuff that you've been preaching to us, right? Why are these people here?
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B
Yeah, no, no doubt. And you know, if you, if I take that back, John, to when we started off talking about the three hours, right? If you, if you. Obviously the recruitment, but you've got to get. Right. But when you, when you get people in. The retention piece is about, I think is about inspiring development people. But, but you know, you've got to. There's no good having that idea in your head. So this is what you were always brilliant at, John. And, and you know, John, this is, this is your living now and you're the best in the world at it, which is you've got to be able to take this strategy and, and have everybody executing it, right? All the time. Because, you know, if you've got, I'll give you an example, right? So I talk a lot about, about excellence in everything at Multiverse. And you know, everywhere I go. And so there was a kid, a young kid, young, potentially great manager at Multiverse interviewing with me last week for the job, right? And when I talk about, about delivering great meetings, right? Every meeting being delivered excellently, it's about have you done the right prep, you know who you're talking to? Do you know what they want to get out of it? Have you set an agenda ahead of time, send them all the stuff. Is the call then going to be around talking about those things? When you're prepared, you've got actions and then you follow up, right? That's a great meeting. So this kid comes on the call and he hadn't done those things. And I found out pretty quickly, you know, that he hadn't done his research. So he was exposed in the questions I was asking. So the end of it. I say to him, listen, just think of it like this, right? We've got 500 people at Multiverse right now and they're all doing, let's say six calls a day, right? That's 3,000 calls a day going on at Multiverse, right? So in a week I'm going to have to get my maths right here. In a week that's 15,000 calls, right? In a month that's 60,000 calls. And over the course of a year, that's just under 800,000 calls. Now imagine if we did 800,000 brilliant calls, how much further ahead the company will be than where it is now. And so this kid got it immediately, went back, set a follow up call the next day came on. He knew more about me than I knew about myself, John, right? He knew what color socks I was wearing that day and he walked the interview, right? And so part of the kind of retention pieces is getting people to buy into your idea, the development piece, getting people to buy into your ideas, showing them, you know, educating them and develop them and then maintaining that, you know, you know, acting and inspiring that when they, when they leave the room, but making sure it gets out your head and then every single person in the company, so everything's being done excellently and against the strategy that, you know, that works, that makes sense.
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C
Yeah. Well, you started, you know, many teams from scratch so you can inspire when a lot of people are winning, but when you're just starting and you're building your team from scratch, it's really Hard to inspire. And what you're trying to do as a leader is go get some wins so you can inspire the rest of the team.
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Right.
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C
So can you talk a little bit about starting from scratch, which you have done a number of times. And you know, it seems like to me, like as a leader you only have a certain timeframe to establish those wins, to sell all the things you have been selling to these people and get them to buy in.
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Right.
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The longer it goes and they're not winning, the harder it becomes to continue to inspire them.
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Yeah, no doubt. I think, I mean that's, be honest with you, that's where the data and the facts are really useful. Because what you're saying is, don't just trust me and the way I'm delivering it, trust the history and the data. So I'll tell you what I say when I talk to leaders about the three R's or I talk to salespeople about the leading indicators. We build the leading indicators for success. You know that John, which you've. A salesperson does these six things I always say in the history of time, they take the mickey out of me, say, well, the history of time, nobody's ever done those things and not hit a number. So what I say to people here is I say, look, when I talk to you about leadership in the three R's or the leading indicators in sales, what I'm actually doing is I'm handing you the winning lottery numbers. All you got to do is go down to the shop and buy a ticket. Right. And I go through the detail of why this makes sense and the logic behind it, but also the data behind it where you're referencing all these people achieved all these things through following this playbook. Because that's the first thing I call it the battle of the buy in.
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C
You've got to buy into the process. Right? Yeah, exactly.
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B
Right. And then the second thing is underneath the strategy, there's, there's a way of executing it. So then you've got to educate and develop people around the education. So like if you say a leading indicator is doing, you know, booking one new business meeting and doing one new business meeting a week, great. But then somebody can do a new business meeting and get a 20 conversion rate. Somebody else can do a new business meeting, get an 80 conversion rate. Yeah, but then you've got to look at, right, these are the high level strategies, but how do we execute them to the absolute maximum to get the best results? And then that's the education and development process. Remember Blade Logic. We'd get everybody in a room and we'd go through the four differentiators. I still got no idea what a configuration object dictionary is.
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A
Right.
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And I bet you you don't want me to ask you because you don't know what one is, do you? Right.
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C
But it sounded great, man. And the customer, someone's like, wow, that's unbelievable. That sounds fantastic. We need one of those.
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B
And then, so then once you've gone through that education development process, then, then you've got to. Then, like, the way I look at it is like 5% of what you're doing is. Is the ideas and the concepts of it. And then the 95% of it is the execution. So you've got to inspire all the time because it's really hard to be great. And if you're teaching people how to be great, by definition, it's going to be really tough for a while. So you got to inspire them all the time. Don't worry, you'll get there. You know, lots of stories all the time about how people fell again and again and again, got up again and again again. But then you also got to make sure you inspect it as well. And sometimes people get crazy about the concept of inspection. You know, I mean, they think it's micromanagement and stuff like that.
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C
Yeah, it's too much sometimes with some.
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B
People, but every company in the world, John, inspects what's happening in the business. It's different to anything. And I think it also depends on the intent as well. Because if you're a leader and you're checking somebody's progress, so you can report that to Big Johnny Kaplan, otherwise he's going to shout at you. Right. You're doing it to make yourself look good, then people are going to be picked. That is inspection for no purpose. But your true purpose for inspection is to help someone to develop the people if they know that your sole purpose in getting information about their business is so you can see where they're going well, so you can share it with others and where they may be struggling so you can help them. And actually, nobody really cares about inspection anymore because it's a mechanism for improvement.
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C
Because they know you have their best interests at heart. That's why that's the most important thing. But it has to be genuine, it has to be authentic. Otherwise people could feel it.
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A
Right.
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B
That's where I think a lot of leaders go wrong. I think they get a forecast or they look at Salesforce or HubSpot, or they look at how many economic Buyer meetings you're doing. And they're doing it so they can put it in a spreadsheet or they can. They can talk to somebody above them about what's going on. And it's never about going up, it's all about helping people underneath you. Because if you figure out a way to make them all great, everyone above you can love you anyway, aren't they, Jeremy?
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A
You are. You are one of the. Again, you still look young, so to me, you're still incredibly youthful, but you.
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C
I love any of the juices.
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B
Can we dig in a little bit more on that point, John?
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A
We're going to. We're going to. Because I remember reading something about you by the time I met you, I think I'm almost positive you were leading. When I came over to Europe, I think you were leading in the UK and all of these things, the things for my. For, for our listeners, I'm just so ecstatic. I watched you do all of this and just watch you go create a dominant team in the uk, not only in Europe, but in the company. But your first attempt to become a leader, to become a manager, was actually forwarded by one of your leaders. And I've read an article of one of the speaking engagements you gave where he said you didn't have what it takes to be a successful manager at the time. So I really want to just kind of sit with that for a second, because knowing who you are today, getting. And I want you to think about the listeners that we might have that says, well, how do I become a Jeremy Duggan? How do I. I'm young, I'm intelligent, I have great character, I have. I received this information really well. How do I become this great leader? How do I make this moniker for myself? Could you tell us a little bit about that journey, that experience?
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B
Yeah, I mean, he was right, the guy who said it to me, for the reason that he said it and because what he was saying was I was a great sales guy, but I didn't really know why, because I was naturally, you know, I had naturally good work ethic, I was naturally resilient, I could get on with people, you know, in a good way. And he said to me, how are you going to manage five people that aren't like Jeremy dubbed, because you don't have this thought process behind it. And so it was that. That really started me down the line of trying to educate myself on what great things look like. It's the same when you make a mistake. People sometimes say to me, well, what big mistakes have you made? And I always answer that by saying I can't really remember big mistakes, even though I know I've made loads of little ones. Because for me, the whole point of making a mistake is like you immediately recognize it and then you figure out why you did it so you don't do it again. So then you don't kind of remember it right, because you've fixed it. And so this constant kind of self coaching, self learning, listening to people around you, striving to get information, all it's doing is making you stronger and stronger and stronger in whatever you do. And so if you look at the leadership thing, that advice I was given, I didn't sulk about it or start crying. I kind of took it on board and thought, well, okay, let me see if I can go and do some fixing that. And so what I did was I studied what made leaders great. I learned about it. I kind of made myself more knowledgeable about it than almost dated because I was speaking to a lot more people about that kind of stuff. And so then I was able to get together a base of data and knowledge on what it took to be great. And then once I figured out that it was about then educating the people in the team and getting them on board with it. And like I just talked about. So I think that one of the things that gets you to be great but then keeps you there is realizing that the world's always moving and it's always changing and you've got to stay on top of all the new things that are coming up, trying to make yourself better all the time. I feel as though, like, in every job I've done, I've got better and better and better. And I always take a little gap at the end, you know, because it's like, it's really difficult to analyze a performance in the middle of a game, right? But at the end of the game, when you look at the real, the highlights, you can look and say, I could have done that a bit better. So after bladelogic and bmc, I took nine months out and I studied what I did well and tried to add to it, and I studied what I didn't and tried to replace it and then went to AppDynamics and I was better with AppDynamics. And then when I left, App Dynamics, took nine months out and said, okay, well, what could I have done better in appdynamics and then come to Multiverse and think I'm even better. So it's constantly thinking how you can evolve and get more Knowledge to help you get. Get better. Kind of a waffly answer, John. I don't know if that answered your question.
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A
No, I love it. I absolutely love. And it's such great advice to the listeners. You have to participate in your own rescue and you have self awareness and self reflection. You don't wait for anybody to tell you to give you the feedback. You give yourself the feedback first is what I heard you say. Yeah. And I think that's people around you.
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B
You know, I remember, remember John at Blade Logic ran me up and he said, hey, Dugan. And I said, hey, John. You know, John, everybody. When I do an American accent, it's always a John McMahon accent. So everybody doesn't matter who I'm doing in America, it's always John McMahon. So he rings me up, hey, Duggan. I said, hey, John, how you doing? Said, good. Do you want to know the book on Jeremy Duggan? And I said, there's a book about me? Fantastic. I'll definitely read that. No, I don't think you understand, buddy. And he said, he was saying, I think you give me 99% of the information. Do you remember saying that, John?
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C
Say it one more time. What did you say?
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B
You said people get a sense from you that they get 99% of the information, but not the 1 1%.
- [29:19]
C
Yeah, right.
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B
And you know, you think, you said, I always feel like there's some trickery going on that you're not letting me know about.
- [29:26]
C
Yes.
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B
And, and so again, that's an example where I listened to it and, and, and I thought, he's right. And, but, but what? Why does he care about that? Because I'm always doing my number. And, and then when I broke it down, I realized that I was doing it because I don't like to go to people with problems. Right. I like to go to people with solutions. So if a problem came up, it wasn't that I didn't want to go to John. It was just like, I'd rather fix it because John's got his plate full. So then I thought to myself, well, that's a good thing. So why does John want to know about it? And then I went to John and told him why I didn't do it. And he says, yeah, but I could help you. It's my job to help you. So he said, don't fail alone, mate. And so that immediately clicked for me. And ever since then, I've gone full circle and had full transparency for good or for bad. And there's been lots of times in my I didn't realize that just that little thing was impacting the way a lot of people looked at me and thinking I was. Wasn't honest and stuff like that. And John popped it out with me, and then I fixed it straight away.
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C
Sometimes, you know, because you, you, you know, everybody called you the PG King, you know, pipeline generation King. So. And you were so good at, you know, building pipeline and getting your people to build Pipeline that you always made your number. So then what happened is it seemed like, well, he's masking a lot of problems that do exist simply because he is absolutely the PG King. Right. So then I always wanted to know, and that's when I would kid with you, is to, you know, Doug, and I know you got problems, but you're so good at building pipeline. I can't figure out exactly what the problems are, but I know you got problems. And you're like, john, I don't have any problems. I'm like, yeah, okay, you have problems. I just.
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B
It was a drinking problem I had. That was the problem.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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B
But I guess you're going back to the point is that. That, you know, even John, when he positioned that to me, he was almost saying wasn't a problem, that the results weren't there. It was something he picked up that was maybe holding me back. And so, you know, again, it's. And sometimes I see a lot of people, you know, they get advice and the idea, they kind of shrug it off a little bit. And even. Even when I got advice that at the start I didn't agree with, I'd analyze it, and I might come to the conclusion in some cases that I wasn't, you know, I was comfortable that that wasn't a problem, but I considered it. And. And because I was always thinking, how can I get that extra 1% today? How can I get that? How can I move it forward just a little bit? Because if you add all those little bits up together over a career, it's the difference between being good and being the best.
- [32:29]
C
Yeah, Jeremy, you know, like, you've always had this exceptional ability to disarm people, like, with your charm and charisma. And then as a leader, what I've seen in some organizations is a lot of people try to emulate, like, their leader or their boss, but they're not really being themselves. Like Jeremy Duggan is Jeremy Duggan. Other people are who they are, but a lot of people don't actually figure out who they really are and then use their own unique characteristics to be themselves. Have you Ever had any conversations with some of your people where you see that you could tell they're trying to be somebody that they're really not, and they're not really introspective enough to figure out who they really are and use those skills and knowledge and characteristics to be better at what they do?
- [33:20]
B
Yeah, definitely. You know that the. The first evidence I saw of that, and you two will be really familiar with this, was. Was PTC with you and Dick Harrison.
- [33:32]
A
Yeah.
- [33:32]
B
Right. Because. Because you, You. You guys had a way where you could be. You could be funny, you could be charming, you could be tough, but. But in a way where it didn't make you feel bad, you know? And then there was. It grew so quickly that we had. We started developing all these leaders that would try to be Dick Harrison and John McMahon, but they would do it with no charm or charisma. So they ended just. Just coming across like bullies, I think. You know, I think that boils down to. Again, I always like to keep things. What we're trying to do here, building these big companies is really complex. So I try and always boil it down into simple, simple things. And so if I look at, like, leadership, I think you need two things to get into a leadership role in the first place, and it. And. And that you've got. You've got to be credible.
- [34:22]
A
Right.
- [34:23]
B
There's no point. I could be the best leader in the world, but if I come over and try and coach an American football team, I haven't got a chance because I don't know. You know, I don't think it should be called Football for Stars.
- [34:32]
A
Right.
- [34:32]
B
Because the world has football and you just nicked it off us. Right.
- [34:35]
A
You guys need to get over that, though.
- [34:38]
B
Not ready to, John. I'm not ready to. So you've got to have credibility in the people that you can manage. And then fundamentally, you've got to care about people.
- [34:49]
C
You have to care. That's absolutely it. Yeah.
- [34:52]
B
Because if you care about people, it overcomes a lot of things that you might do wrong. Right. You might have a bad day, you might lose your temp on something, you might get something wrong. But if people know we fundamentally care about them. Right. Then. Then they'll change. And so what I always say to the leaders in that situation, John, I'm happy to talk to people and say, look, you know, the fundamentals that got you into being a great ic, Intelligence, character, coachability, you've got those things in spades. Right. They're the things that you need to be excellent at any job. Now we can add to that now credibility, because you've been a top performer and I know how much you care about people. They're the only two things you need to be a great leader. Now you've got to find your way, right, of, of leading, to make, to, to get the, you know, to, to inspire people and develop you, that kind of stuff. But you're not going to do it in the way that Kaplan does it. You're not going to do the way that McMahon does it, you're not going to do the way that McCluskey does it. You got to find your way. But fundamentally, you've got credibility and you care about people. And as long as people know that you can do all the stuff that we talk about, you don't have to be somebody that you look up to, right. For something. Figure out what you're good at and that'll be enough. You know, that makes sense.
- [36:15]
C
Yeah, for sure.
- [36:17]
B
Is that what you would have done in that situation?
- [36:20]
C
I always feel like I want to sit people down just like I did with you. And I always say, you know, hey, Jeremy, you know, what's the book on you? And then I try to see how self aware people are of the way other people perceive them.
- [36:36]
A
Right?
- [36:36]
C
That's, that's really huge. Especially as a salesperson, you got to know about how you come across and especially as a leader, how do you come across as two other people? So I love asking that question because I want to see can they match what the book really says about them when they're not around versus the way they want to describe, describe themselves. And sometimes they, in that first part of that conversation, they want to describe themselves differently than the way they really are. But if you keep pushing them a little bit, but you're not giving them the answers to the test, a lot of times they will admit, hey, I do have some issues here, some character flaws that I need to work on. And then that becomes a really good conversation where you can say, yes, it's exactly why we're having this conversation and I'm here to help you overcome those things and become a much better leader. So, yeah, absolutely.
- [37:27]
B
I think the problem you had with me, John, when you had that conversation was you said, tell me the book on Jeremy. And when I figured out what you meant, I think I said, people probably think I'm really cool, good looking and intelligent. And that's the end of this discussion. And then I think.
- [37:42]
C
Charming. You left out charming silence when he thought, dude, what.
- [37:47]
A
Let me tell you what the book on Jeremy is and was, which was always really impressive to me, you were always one of the early adopters of data. And back in the day, like, I think my first experience of knowing I was a little exposed is when that book Moneyball came out. And Jeremy, it's. It's about American baseball or worldwide baseball or whatever, but it's not.
- [38:12]
B
It's American baseball. I think the last World Series was between Tampa and New York. Does that sound like the world to you, John?
- [38:19]
A
Buddy, I'm trying not to offend you, but if you want to go toe to toe about soccer and football, we'll do it. All right? So. But what I noticed about you was you were not intimidated. I don't know what your background is, if you have financial background or not. It appeared that you did. I'm not sure if you do, but you were not intimidated by the data. So everything we've talked about thus far, I'd like you to kind of give some advice to our listeners. I myself don't see how you can lead in today's environment. You can be charismatic, you can be credible, you can care. Because there's so much data available today. If you don't have the ability to use the data in all of those leadership principles you guys have been talking about, I think you're really exposed and at risk today. Could you comment on your thoughts on that?
- [39:09]
B
Yeah, I mean, I can comment just by simply saying that you couldn't be more right. Because you think about it, John, it's like, how do you develop somebody when you don't have data on them?
- [39:24]
A
Right.
- [39:24]
B
How can you see what's going wrong in the team when you don't have data on it? Right. And so it's impossible. I mean, you're looking around for a light bulb in the dark. That's what you're doing without data. And so it's really simple, really. You've got two things you got to do. You've got to know the data that you need to make those decisions, and then you've got to find a way where it comes to you in a simple and digestible way.
- [39:55]
A
Let's stay on that one right there. Because can you give us your experience about being the leader, being the sales leader, the Croatian, and how incredibly important it is to have people around you, like an operations and finance, to be able to. You don't want people just pushing data at you. You want to be telling them, this is the data that I need, or what's the combination? And how critical is that?
- [40:20]
B
Role.
- [40:21]
A
When you show up and you're, and you're thinking about going to a company or taking the next job, what's that role like from an operations perspective, having the data available for you? Is that a comp. Did I make it too complicated?
- [40:35]
B
No, no, you didn't know. I mean, at Appdynamics, we, we had a guy called Tom Levy. He's now doing the same thing at Data Robot. And, and he, he came in and he was fascinated by the concept of, of how much information is out. And I used to say to him, if you give me a spreadsheet with, you know, 27 tabs underneath it, I'm going to look at nothing.
- [41:00]
A
Yeah.
- [41:01]
B
If you give me a spreadsheet with a few, you know, a few rows and columns with core data, I'm going to look at it every single day. So some people, they think that the more data you have, it shows you in control.
- [41:15]
A
Right?
- [41:15]
B
It's like the same people think the more complicated something is and they can explain it. It makes them the cleverest.
- [41:20]
A
Yeah.
- [41:21]
B
And there's a genius in simplicity, right, because you can't do something with 17 tabs on the spreadsheet. Nothing you can do about it. You've got to hunt for hours just to get the right thing. So what this, I said to the, I said to Tom, said, look, we've got to find out because you know that if you, if I get the right data, I'll act on it. Right. And this is what sales ops people like, you know, because oftentimes sales ops, they, they do provide a lot of this data, but no one does anything with it, right? And so then they lose heart and then they don't know what data should be providing because no one's giving them any feedback anyway. So that link between, you know, any business person, Right. You know, not just, not just salespeople and operational people who are providing information is crucial. The functional leader needs to know what data. They need to see what's going on with individuals and people so they can know where the problems are, how they can fix them. The operational people need to make sure they can provide that data in a simple, digestible way. Right. And feel good that something's going to be done about it. If you don't have either of those two things, that, this is why, you know, some of the, some of the worst sales leaders in the world have the best Salesforce dashboard. Yeah, right.
- [42:32]
A
Yeah.
- [42:34]
C
But I want to jump in here though, too. Like, I want to jump in because I think data is okay, but for me, I feel like leaders have to be very intimate, I use that word, intimate with their people also. Right. So if you're intimate with each individual and look at them as individuals, not cookie cutter, then you know what their strengths and weaknesses, fears, insecurities, doubts, all those types of things and goals are. You know, everything about that person. And then you have to apply the data to that specific individual. And I can give you guys cases in point. We've worked with people like Marty Carty, Paul Kant, Mark Musselman. These are people that you couldn't jam into a sales process the way that everybody else needed to be jammed in there. Why? Because these people were what I call artists. They could do certain things, you know, unconsciously that the rest of us need to have three or four steps to do. And taking that data and just cookie cuttering it onto Paul Cant, Marty Carty, Mark Musselman would have probably killed those guys in a sense that you probably would have ran them out of the organization. So I think it's a, it's a tight balance between being very intimate with your people and applying the data, not applying the data as if it's all cookie cutter individuals. Right.
- [44:01]
B
No, I get that we've talked about this before, John. I'll just, I'll add to that point and provide a little bit of a counter. Right. Which is, which is like if you have data and that, you know, drive success. Right. And you get an artist then positioned in the right way, that data can make the artist better support.
- [44:27]
C
That's what I mean by positioning it.
- [44:29]
B
Yeah. Paul was the biggest fan of the leading indicators because it allowed him to take facts and logic about being great plus his artistry equals the best in the world. So you just got to sell it. Right. If you just say, right, you're doing that muscleman and get on with it. If you don't do your outs, he's going to go. But if you say this is how you become the best in the world consistently, they'll more likely to listen.
- [44:55]
C
Yeah. Because going back to your earlier point, those people that I mentioned, they could have three deals that had an 80% chance of closing. They didn't need 20 deals that had a 20% chance. That's not how they operated because they were different.
- [45:10]
B
Yeah, but if they wanted to do five, if they want to do 600% and they've got eight deals and it can close them all, that's when they make millions, isn't it?
- [45:18]
A
Totally.
- [45:19]
C
So it is that balance and applying it to, like you said, in the right way, right?
- [45:24]
A
Yeah. Where were you in our QBRs, Jeremy, when nobody would counter John McMahon. That was a very productive conversation. Where were you? He was.
- [45:35]
B
I mean, me and John. Me and John used to do this, you know. You know you talking earlier on about, about like, you know, being. Being quick and stuff like that. You know, this is, this was my first experience with John was, was this. Which is. I told you this story once, John, and you. And I remember you saying you remembered the story, but you didn't know it was me. But when I first joined ptc, right, I can't remember where it was. It might have been a new high the first time. You know, John was the head of worldwide sales, wasn't he? And John, you had to do your training. And at the end they said, John McMahon's gonna come in. Like he's this big scary dude, you know what I mean? And you know, I'm from Newcastle, so I've got a bit of swagger. So I'm thinking, who's this guy and why is he so scary? Everyone is like, oh, John's coming in and he said he's gonna pick somebody. Do you remember associativity, John?
- [46:25]
C
Absolutely. Bi directional.
- [46:26]
A
Bi directional associativity.
- [46:31]
B
So, so then I, so I thought to myself, well, I'll, you know, I'll nominate myself. So John comes in, he stands there. Don't you like John? Like a cowboy, like a gunslinger who wants to tell me about associativity? So I said, I'll, I'll do it. So I get up on stage and he says one thing. Do it so your mother would understand it. And I was like, oh my God, I'm screwed. Because I was 23, I didn't know how to spell engineering. And I had a. And I had an English degree. So I go up and I do the worst, the worst explanation of associativity ever. And I finish and there's a hush over the room. Everyone thinking, is he going to. Is he going to chop his head off first or just take a leg? And then John turn to face John and he's looking at me the way a shark would look at a healthy lunch, right? And he says, and your mother would understand that. And I said, yep. And he went, how? And I said, she's got a degree in mechanical engineering. And honestly, there was like the air got sucked out the room. And he looked at me for what felt like about 43 years. And he went, smart ass, huh? Sit down, buddy. That was the first buddy I got from Tom McMahon.
- [47:48]
A
Oh, I remember those days. Jeremy, do you remember being in the room when. And this is, this is really kind of a great point. Like, one of the things that I loved about John when he was leading us was he never expected us to do anything that he wouldn't expect himself to do. And we, I, we went to some meeting and he was like, okay, get up and tell me about Mechanica. Remember, Mechanica first came and it's a simulation, simulation product. You gotta be a PhD to use it. And they're freaking asking Kaplan to go sell the PhDs. And, and he gets people up and asks them to get up, stand up and talk about Mechanica. And the way that you ended it, John, was really powerful, is that you explained it to us in very, very simple terms. And I never forgot it. I was like, okay, as a leader, do not ask your people things that you cannot do yourself. And that was a really, really, really good message. So I think part of the thing you were doing also by going down to those, you were getting intimate with people to meet the new recruits and stuff, but you're also showing them development's important.
- [48:59]
B
Yeah.
- [49:00]
C
Trying to lead from the front too.
- [49:02]
A
Yeah.
- [49:03]
C
Switch gears just a little bit. So one of the most valuable things that, I mean, you've done a lot of amazing things, but one of the things that you really brought to a lot of people was what you call the value pyramid. And for people that haven't heard about that, can you just give them a quick little overview of what the value pyramid is and why it's so powerful with C level executives? For people that are listening, Jeremy developed his value pyramid. And when he and his team would get meetings with the economic buyers, they would be shocked at the level of understanding that Jeremy and his team had about the company. And it literally didn't differentiate just the company, but it differentiated Jeremy and his team and put them on a different plateau than other salespeople. You just walk the, you know, listeners through that just a little bit.
- [49:57]
B
Yeah. I mean, again, John, like everything, it came just from me trying to, you know, solve a problem. And I used to look at the pain I went through to get new business meetings, sitting on the phone, making 100 calls a day, not putting the phone down. And then my hit rate when I was younger was like 25%. And I was thinking, wouldn't be brilliant if it was 100%. I could do four times less pipeline generating. And then I thought to myself, well, maybe I won't get to that, but surely it should be better than 25%. So what's stopping me? And so then what I did was I started with the executives that I built as champions. I would go to them and say, what is it that you like? What is it that you want out of speaking to somebody, Right. Versus what you don't want? And I remember pretty much all of them saying, every salesperson comes in and they effectively show their brochure, right? They say, this is what, you know, this is what we do, right? What do you think about it? And one of the guys said to me, how long does your new hire last? And I said, well, it depends if you get away with associativity. With John McMahon, it can be cut short pretty quickly. But I said, it's about a week. So he said, so you expect me in effectively a 30 minute meeting to understand what you do and apply it to my company, right? In 30 minutes? No chance. So I said, well, what would you want us to do? Then? He said, well, come and do your research, man. And I thought, that's obvious. So then what we did was we built this value permit. And it's easy to get the information. You can read a chairman's letter, a CEO's letter, and it basically says, looks at how a chairman looks at a company or CEO looks at the company, saying, these are the external influences. It might be Covid, might be the exchange rate, it might be economic crisis. Here's our strategic response, here's the strategies we've put in place, here's how we're implementing them. And then, so what you can do is in like three, four buckets, right, with not a massive amount of research, understand exactly what that company's trying to do. And then what you do at the end of it is you say, here's how we can help. We can't help with these things, but we can help here. Now you get two things out of that. The first thing you get is that even if they don't understand what you do, they can understand areas that you can help, which if it's important to them, which it probably is because it's in the value pyramid, then you can go, okay, well I do need help on that. And that's quite a good way. So that happens. The second thing, and this is the main thing actually, you stop being the 99% of salespeople who show up and try to flog something.
- [52:45]
C
Totally.
- [52:46]
B
Hey, listen, here's what I've got. It's fancy. Any of it? Nope. All right, see you later. And you go on to Be you go on to the next customer. You've, you're the guy that's gone in and you've taken the time to research and be. Respected them. You respected their time, you respected their position. And you said, I genuinely think I can help you here. Right. And here's how. And my, my hit rate went from 25 to 75% overnight when I, when I figured that out.
- [53:10]
C
And it stayed there and the deals became much bigger.
- [53:13]
B
Oh, much bigger. Because it's like, it's like Jesse James, isn't it? You know, why do you sell the executives? It's like he said, why do you sell the banks? Why do you rob banks? And he said, that's where the money is. Yeah, that's why you sell to executives. Right?
- [53:24]
A
Exactly.
- [53:25]
B
That's where the money is. And that happens quicker.
- [53:28]
A
Jeremy, we could go on for, I mean, so many golden nuggets. Johnny, I'm just going to do a quick summary here. We started off the conversation talking about talent. And you know, you talked about creating an environment that's gonna, you talked about, you know, intellect and you talked about characters, the things that you're looking for. But then you also said, you know, what they're. What, what, what your candidates are looking for is, you know, you gotta appeal to the A players. You gotta be. Know what they want and inspire them and develop them and people join people and you gotta be able to sell the vision, which was a big takeaway on talent. Right now. It's not just about what you're looking for, it's about what the talent is looking for. You talked about self awareness, trying to make sure you didn't make any big mistakes. I love the points you made about the gaps. And the gaps in the end were taking a little break and assessing where was I good and where could I improve. So when I roll into the next role, I am constantly improving. And you talked about kind of having a mindset of continuous improvement. I heard you say full transparency in your conversation when Johnny was talking to you about, you're only giving me, you know, 99%. And you broke it down to full transparency. And John's answer was, if the 1% is your, you know, you're worried about, you know, me seeing that you're going to be stuck. It's my job to help you get unstuck. That was a very powerful exchange that I took away. You talked about credibility and, and you have to care on leadership attributes. And then we talked about just the importance of the data and John kind of talking about it's data with intimacy or intimacy with data, which I really, really liked. And it's the art and the science coming together. And the last thing you talked about, Jeremy, was the importance of the value pyramid. To make yourself relevant, attach yourself to the biggest business issues that your customers experiencing, and make yourself relevant. So the call is instantly warm versus cold. So, dude, you have been. You've been an absolute joy. We could. We're probably gonna have to have him back. Johnny, too.
- [55:54]
C
We have to have part two. I mean, we just.
- [55:55]
A
Yeah, we're gonna have to have part two.
- [55:58]
B
John, you don't. Because. Because what happened there is. John has summarized my 50 minutes of absolute drivel in a minute and a half. So you don't even have to listen to the podcast. Just put that two minutes on John. No chance of the John Kaplan version and the Jeremy Duggan waffling on version. That's the way to do that.
- [56:20]
A
We're going to have you back.
- [56:21]
C
We have to have you back, brother. We have. There's a lot more to Jeremy Duggan than just this, you know, last, you know, 45 minutes for sure before we let him go.
- [56:30]
A
Johnny, can I do. Can I do the rapid fire? Yeah. So, Jeremy, what we like to do is just kind of leave it on a fun note. And knowing you, this is going to be really, really fun. We're just going to hit you with a couple of rapid fire questions, and if you're up for it. You ready?
- [56:46]
B
Yeah.
- [56:47]
C
Yeah.
- [56:47]
A
Definitely your ideal day off work.
- [56:51]
B
I don't know. Watching Chicago PD on repeat. Love it. Have you seen it?
- [57:01]
A
Have you seen it?
- [57:02]
C
That's the last thing that I would have thought from Jeremy Duggan.
- [57:06]
B
Sergeant Hank Voight is the John McMahon of the cops. What happens is if there's a baddie, but they can't get evidence on him, Sergeant Hank Voight goes at the end of every episode, he goes, you and me are gonna go for a ride, and that means you're not coming back from that ride. That's how he still strengthened. I love it.
- [57:24]
A
It.
- [57:25]
B
I love it.
- [57:26]
A
I love that. How about your favorite meal, brother?
- [57:30]
B
Probably burger and chips. I'm from Newcastle, you know, I mean, yeah, burger and chips, you know?
- [57:35]
A
Love it, Love it. Favorite movie?
- [57:43]
B
Do you want the real answer or, like, what I wanted? I want to say something like, you know, the Godfather, but it's really either Annie or the Sound of Music.
- [57:53]
A
Oh, buddy, we don't have enough time to dig in there. I mean, you're coming back just to talk about those.
- [57:59]
C
We want to hear More about Mary Poppins.
- [58:03]
B
I don't like that because I can't have that Dick Van Dyke doing a rubbish English accent. He ruined it. But Annie's great, man.
- [58:12]
A
Hey, man. The last one. And leaving on a serious note, we like to, we love to have our guests talk about the charities that are important to them. So the last one is your favorite charity and why?
- [58:25]
B
Well, it's called Save the Children uk And I mean, it does work way beyond the uk and they just, I mean, you know, kids, man. You know, vulnerable kids. There's nothing more heartbreaking than seeing people in that situation. Me and my son Tommy, we, we, we raised $150,000 for, for them by climbing Kilimanjaro a couple of years ago. And it was, it was, I mean, it was a great experience. I mean, it wasn't pleasant, you know, and a lot of reasons. And there's things that happen to your body which I don't want to go into detail in public, but it was just amazing to do that and, and, and do it for the charity. So, I mean, that, that's, that's what I look after a lot.
- [59:10]
A
So the charity is called Save the Children. Right. And we'll make sure that the, the producers put the, put that, that a link to that in the show notes. And Jeremy, I'm going to let Johnny wrap up and say goodbye, but, dude, it's so great to see you. Thank you for being with us. You're. You're a beast. Appreciate.
- [59:30]
C
Thanks, man.
- [59:31]
B
It's a pleasure, John.
- [59:32]
C
It's great to see Jeremy Duggan, the Ginger Prince. It was very, very special honor to have you on. We can't wait to have you back on, brother. Enjoy yourself. Great to see you looking fantastic. But you didn't tell us about that juice you're using.
- [59:48]
B
I don't use juice. It's Pop Tarts, John.
- [59:50]
C
That's what put them in the toaster for two seconds. Take them out.
- [59:54]
B
That's all you need. All right, Seeing you.
- [59:57]
C
Good to see you, man.
- [59:58]
A
Jeremy, thank you. And thank our listeners for listening to the Revenue Builders. Thanks for listening to today's episode.
- [60:06]
B
Be sure to check us out@ForceManagement.com.