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How a French Skier Built a 2,000-Person Sales Team | Building Patriots, Not Mercenaries with Cedric Pech of MongoDB
01:03:46
In this replay conversation, Cedric Pech reflects on leading a 2,000-person global sales organization at MongoDB, integrating complex routes to market, and building culture that withstands market volatility. He breaks down the difference between compensation-driven leadership and purpose-driven leadership, why execution alone creates burnout, and how resilient organizations are built long before downturns arrive.
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- [00:00]
Cedric Pesch
Foreign.
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Podcast Host (Narrator)
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 takes guests in the barrel behind the scenes with the people who've been there, done that, and seen the results. Revenue Builders covers best practices for school scaling and growing your business while sharing the pitfalls to avoid Enjoy Today's Episode Today we're revisiting one of our most thoughtful conversations on leadership, culture and scale. John McMahon and John Kaplan sit down with Cedric Pesch, President of field operations at MongoDB and former CRO. They unpack what it really takes to lead a global revenue organization through complexity and growth. In the conversation, Cedric shares the leadership lessons that shaped him early in his career, including the defining moment when a manager invested in him before he had even proven himself. He breaks down the difference between compensation driven leadership and purpose driven leadership and why execution without meaning creates burnout. You'll also hear his perspective on empowering reps in the room, navigating different leadership styles throughout your career, and why protecting perspective is essential when leading at scale. If you are a responsible for revenue performance in a volatile market, this is a conversation worth revisiting.
- [01:29]
John McMahon
Welcome everyone to another exciting edition of the Revenue Builders podcast. I'm John McMahon and I'm here with the man that's now functioning at a higher brain mode so he can dock his boat safely. The big man. The one and only Johnny Cap. How you doing Cap?
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John Kaplan
I'm doing fantastic Johnny Mac. Really, really excited for our guest today brother.
- [01:51]
John McMahon
Yeah Cap, at one time our guest was on the French national downhill team. I don't know if you knew that. I met him when he was a sales rep at PTC in Bologna, Italy where we made sales calls on a lot of well known names like Ducati, Ferrari, gd. Now at the time Cap, he had left his home country of France to be under the wing of one of the best managers in Italy. Now his willingness to leave France and move to Italy where he spoke little to no Italian and worked for an American company where he spoke no English, told me everything I needed to know about this man's desire to succeed. Since then, Cappy's moved up the ranks in sales managing Italy at ptc, becoming VP of Southern Europe for Blade Logic and then GM of Europe for BMC Fuse, Bizarre Voice and then MongoDB. He was promoted to CRO of MongoDB in February 2019. Since then he's faced a diversity of challenges running a salesforce with multiple Routes to market. Here's what I mean. They have a free product. They have a paid cloud product. They have an on prem product. They got inside sales groups in Austin, Dublin, Bangalore. He's got a direct sales force in 35 countries. He's managing SIS Cloud partners, resellers, ISV partners. And in addition, he recently took on the responsibility to manage client success. Kat, please help me welcome my good friend super talent. Coming from high in the mountains at Les Deux Alps, Cedric Pesch.
- [03:33]
John Kaplan
Bonjour, mon ami.
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Cedric Pesch
Bonjour, mon ami. That's impressive, John. I mean, fluent in many languages. Languages including German, but I didn't know about the French one.
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John Kaplan
It's so great. So great to have you, Cedric. So great to have you. Welcome.
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Cedric Pesch
Thank you.
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John McMahon
How long did it take you to practice that cap, buddy?
- [03:53]
John Kaplan
I placed out of French in college, man.
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John McMahon
You did?
- [03:56]
John Kaplan
Oh, yeah.
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John McMahon
Wow.
- [03:57]
John Kaplan
Yeah, but remember? Yeah, I went to Bowling Green, so I don't. I probably couldn't even talk to Cedric any more than that. Great to see you. Said great to see you.
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Cedric Pesch
Yeah, likewise.
- [04:08]
John McMahon
Hey, Cedric, let's start with how you got your job at ptc. You know, like, when I first met you, like I said, you were French. You went to Italy to work under great manager Carlo Carpinelli. Talk a little bit about why you did that, how you did that, you know, give us a little glimpse of that move.
- [04:29]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, well, I guess there was a little luck involved there. I remember getting the facts, which doesn't make me feel any younger, in my previous internship job. And there was like a. It was from the business school. They were saying that there was this American company looking for reps. And long story short, I start these interviews and I get into a guy which at the time was leading Europe. His name was Kirk Bowman. Do you remember that guy?
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John Kaplan
Yeah, sure.
- [05:01]
Cedric Pesch
And I was hardly speaking English, even worse than today. And I remember he asked me at the end of the interview where I wanted to go and work. And I guess that's one of the rare times that I did an interview since then. But I had a good answer, the only one of the whole interview. And I told him, anywhere in the world, as long as it's for the best leader that you have. And then he committed to that. I signed a contract. And then I was headed to Italy the next day, and we spiked my luggage. And as you said before, exactly. In this way, I've never been there before. And I hardly spoke Italian. And I met this guy called Carlo Carpinelli. Boman kept his word, that's for sure. That day.
- [05:46]
John McMahon
Yeah, it was amazing. I remember we picked you up in Carlo's Porsche.
- [05:52]
John Kaplan
Yeah.
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John McMahon
You get in the back. You don't speak a word of English that I can't talk to you. Carlo could barely talk to you. But we're still going to make sales calls. Let's go. That was a funny time.
- [06:04]
Cedric Pesch
I remember that very well.
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John McMahon
Hey, Cedric, so you've had an amazing career so far and, you know, still more to come. You're the VP of Europe for, you know, four software companies now, the CRO at Mongo db. Can you talk about the biggest challenge that you've faced? Moving from the VP role to the CRO role.
- [06:31]
Cedric Pesch
Yes. From the VP of Europe to the CRO job. Yeah. So I guess that, you know, the size, I mean, there are different elements right here. There is an element which is around moving to playing in your backyard and knowing your, you know, being two hours away from everyone in your team and running a team of 200, 300 people to moving into global role all across the world with many different cultures and frankly speaking, not touching everyone every week any longer. Right now you've got like 2,000 people. And it didn't happen overnight, surely, but in the us, in Indonesia, in Indonesia, in Australia, in India, in Europe, everywhere in America, in South America. So all of a sudden the size of what you do is different and then the complexity is clearly a little different. So all of a sudden you realize that you can't manage those teams in the same way that you used to manage the previous one. Right. You have multiple layers of leaders underneath you. So there is also this concept of how am I going to still influence people on a global scale when I don't touch them every day? And where it's not only about me running a playbook and putting together a couple of trainings and deciding where the ideal customer profile is. Or it's like a bigger problem, which is like, how do I set a vision? How do I make clear what we stand for in terms of values as a team? So that people have a sense of orientation on a global scale without you being there every day. Whether they are ICs individual contributors or first line leaders or second line leaders or whatever, that working on that aspect of the job has been quite important, quite a difference. The other aspect is the complexity because as you mentioned before, it's one thing to manage a direct enterprise software sales team, it's another one to have multiple channels, starting from product LED growth channels, partners, hyperscalers, which are both Fryens and, and partners. And once Upon a time, enemies, sis, all over the world and more. So all of that complexity, all of a sudden you start to have to deal with that and integrate these different channels so that they work together and not against each other. That was a big difference as well.
- [09:16]
John McMahon
Yeah. And you touched on this a little bit. But you've done an amazing job getting your team to bond as one and then buy into the team's purpose, which I think is really important because a lot of people are always sitting back asking, why am I doing what I'm doing? Especially during COVID a lot of people ask that.
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Cedric Pesch
Yes.
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John McMahon
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about why purpose is so important to the team and the motivation of the team?
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Cedric Pesch
I think it starts from you. Meaning there is a moment where you wake up in the morning and it's so hard that you ask yourself, why am I doing what I'm doing? The moment you start asking that, then you start needing to dig into yourself and do some introspection to come up with answers. Sometimes you don't come up with answers and therefore it's too hard and not worth it. And sometimes you do come up with answers. Then from the moment you come up with answers for yourself, then it's about, how do I articulate that to the rest of my team? And are others feeling the same thing? Because you do push. The more indexed you are on execution, the more you push your people to the brink, the more they do ask that question to themselves as well. If they are intelligent.
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John Kaplan
Right.
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Cedric Pesch
And they are obviously very intelligent. So then it's really about doing the work together with the team to come up with collective answers, personal answers to these questions. Why as a VP of North America, am I doing what I'm doing and working 60 hours a week and going through the pain that it takes to do that? What is motivating me? And as a team, what values do we stand for? If we say we stand for excellence and innovation, what does that mean practically for the people working around us?
- [11:12]
John Kaplan
Right.
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Cedric Pesch
What's in it for them? How are they going to benefit from us building an excellent, outstanding team or us being committed to innovation in their day to day work? So all this work of, let's say, team introspection as well as personal introspections as senior leaders? I think it's very important because now I start seeing the world of cell leaders in three buckets, right? You've got the. You've got the sales leaders who promise a great paycheck and a couple of trainings, and in 2021, frankly, these leaders fall in the category of those which don't really know what they are doing. So let's draw them and focus on the others. But the remaining ones, you have these two categories. You have these leaders which are super sharp on defining the messaging and the ideal customer profile. The market you want to focus on the recruiting profiles and productivity models and all these things which are very important tools, but they are all execution oriented, right? And then you have this. And if you have this is very, very, very important to excel at that from the execution standpoint. But if you don't go beyond that and don't explain your people, why is it that they need to excel at these on that side of things, you know, sales execution rather than qualification and so on so forth, then they really quickly start feeling that this is a grinding organization, all focused on execution and not very insp. And the next thing you know is that they are here exclusively for a paycheck which needs to be there anyways, but it's never enough. There is a moment where if it's only about the paycheck, the team starts saying, I can't take that, it's too hard. At least if you pretend to excel. And this is where I think the third category of leaders come, or at least sales organizations come, which, you know, really work on, on defining that vision. And it's quite a journey. You don't, you don't show up, you know, a morning and you say, here's I'm going to write my vision on the wall or my team vision on the wall. And then I'm going, it's a little like. And if you don't do that, it's a huge waste of energy in the like, it's a little like, you know, Martin Luther King saying I have a dream. And then turning to, to the crowd and saying, and my dream is that you guys are all going to make a lot of money. Just a little like that, right?
- [13:48]
John Kaplan
It's odd.
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Cedric Pesch
It's weird, right? So there's this whole process of working together in order to come up I have a dream. Let's define that dream. Let's see if this is authentic, it's us or it's someone else dream. And how are we going to execute on it and how is this connected to tomorrow morning and what we are going to do tomorrow morning? That's a lot of work.
- [14:10]
John Kaplan
And your point is on the dream part, when you're the leader, it's got to be a big enough dream that people are going to be willing to sacrifice People are going to be willing to put in the grind. People are going to be willing to do things that they just normally wouldn't do. So the dream has to be big enough and meaningful enough.
- [14:34]
Cedric Pesch
There is this quote from this French author, John, which used to say that if you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work only, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. So when you define the sales process, when you train people on it and qualifying things, these are all incredibly important things to do, without which there is no way to build anything, right? Like it's about gathering the wood and giving the task and so on, so forth, right. You make them competent at doing that, but the more you grind them on that, the more you push excellence in execution, the more you need to remind them every day about what the immensity of the sea looks like. Otherwise those guys are, after a while, they are like, you know, I'm screw driving. I've been screw driving for four days here, five days. I forgot why I was, what I was building, right. I don't even understand. I was building a ship and I was supposed to sail on the endless ocean one day. So as a leadership team, you do need to be able to define what that endless ocean looks like and how are we going to get there all together and what does a ship look like and keep that vision always connected.
- [15:51]
John McMahon
Yeah, that builds the. OR answers the question, as you pointed out. What's in it for me? You have to. Everybody has that written on their forehead and you have to be able to answer that question.
- [16:02]
John Kaplan
Hey, Johnny and Cedric, just, just one other piece. Yeah.
- [16:05]
John McMahon
On what Cedric said, you know, when people are there only for the paycheck, they'll stay. And as long as that paycheck's good, something goes wrong with the company, you know, stock goes down, the paycheck's not as good. That's when people just jump really quickly. But if they think that they're inspired and they understand what's in it for them and you're training them to be very competent at what they do so they can be self sufficient, then I think that's when people, you know, stay with you and just don't jump at the first time.
- [16:38]
Cedric Pesch
I think it's specifically important now, John, because, you know, like with what's going on in the market right now, you know, if as an organization you've been telling your people that they should come because of their only. Only because of their big equity package and big otes and so on and so forth. Then what happens is that you expose yourself to have these same people coming and say, what about that evaluation that you've got last year for multiple billions of dollars? Is it still valid right now? Or am I underwater? Or they're going to say, how far am I from this liquidity event that you're promising me? And next thing you know, that does create chaos and, and attrition in the sales organization because you are just reaping what you've been, you know, preaching substantially. And I see a lot of, I think this is going to be interesting to see in the next couple of years what's going to happen.
- [17:38]
John Kaplan
I think the, I think you all three of us, we were doing a fireside chat, I think, for an SKO at MongoDB, and this concept came up and we labeled what we're talking about right now as great leaders build patriots versus mercenaries. And what, what I'm seeing is in tough times and what I saw in tough times of COVID you know, the organizations that were built on mercenary. Cedric, this, you know, the first bucket that you were speaking about from a leadership perspective that's focused just on comp and paycheck and stock price. And when all that got, you know, put under pressure, many of the mercenaries picked up their guns and dropped their guns and went home. And like, as a leader, we talked about, you know, and I think what you do so well, Cedric, is that you focus on building, you know, a culture of patriots that are focused on the why and the, you know, when the tough times. Like my favorite story about a patriot is the tough times come, the patriots, they go home, they break up their furniture and they, you know, they use the, they melt down the metal parts for more bullets, you know, versus the mercenaries dropping their guns and going home. So I, I, I, I often think about that when I think about leaders. Like you said, Rick, tough times come, and that's when companies that are led by people that really focus on doing the things that you're talking about doing. They, they hold their people intact.
- [19:11]
John McMahon
Yeah. This is something when people understand the why, they can handle the how.
- [19:18]
John Kaplan
Yeah.
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John McMahon
Which is so important.
- [19:20]
John Kaplan
Yeah. Hey, can we do. I didn't want to move over this because in your intro, Johnny, you talked about. And then in your intro, you talked about Cedric, you know, going to Italy and working for him, just an incredible leader. And then Cedric, you kind of talked about, you know, your, your prerequisite was I want to go work for a great Leader. And they, they put you with this great leader. One of my favorite stories, Cedric. And I think that this individual was just such an incredible leader and left such a great legacy. Would you mind just telling us the characteristics of that leader and why they were so important to you as a young seller back in the day?
- [20:09]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, yeah. I think it's, you know, joining PTC, I think I was 23 was a little like. How can I describe that? Like Dora the Explorer in Jurassic Park. That's what I'm saying. I don't know if you translate in English, but yeah, it does. Or maybe the Care Bears in Jurassic Park.
- [20:30]
John Kaplan
Right?
- [20:31]
Cedric Pesch
It's like the same. You're like, you come to this organization and you're like, holy shit, what's going on here? Right? Like. But lucky enough. And I'm saying that because I have to admit with as much sincerity as I can that the reason I was able to survive that is because I had a great leader. And I just tell this story because it was a few months in the job and my brother comes to Bologna, Italy and he's going to go for a worldwide backpacking trip. And he spent the weekend with me. And I was spending the whole weekend going in industrial areas to pick up names to prospect on Monday. And I had this recorder, this little recorder in my car and I was recording those names in this industrial area so that on Monday I could pick up the phone and know who to call substantially. And it was difficult back to what John was saying because my Italian wasn't that great. And so it was a lot going on in my life. My brother does such a good job that on Sunday night he tells me that convinces me that I need to quit and go for this worldwide backpacking trip. It's a daunting moment because it's Monday morning and I show up in the office in San Lazzaro di Savina, which is close to Bologna. And it's the moment where. The crucial moment where I'm going to have to tell Carlo that it's over. So I'm sitting in my desk 7:30 in the morning and he's supposed to show up at 7:30 and you know, I'm sweating like, holy shit. He gets into, into the office and instead of turning right back into his own office, he's very smart. He sees me there and probably my body language was betraying me. He goes straight to my office, but he stares in mine and goes like, how are you doing? And I'm starting to mumble. And Carlo, I think I might have not made the right decision for myself. And before I end up, I finish my sentence, he goes like, where are you living those days? And I'm like, you should know that because you signed my expense reports. I'm in a hotel in the suburbs of Bologna, and that's where I am. And he stops me and goes like, you're going to stop here. You're going to take three days off. You're going to go and find an apartment for yourself. And once you are settled and in a good place, you come back to work. I don't want to see you before that.
- [22:58]
John McMahon
His intuition was off the charts.
- [23:00]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. But, like, as far as I was concerned, it wasn't really the direction I wanted to take that conversation to.1, right? So I'm like, holy shit, how? So I tried last one. And I tell him, you know, which was the truth. I don't have the money to make a down payment to get that apartment anyway, so it's not an option. So I was trying to work myself out of this conversation. And before I can understand what's going on, he pulls out his paycheck and writes a 3 million lir check, which was probably at the time, the largest check I had ever seen. And he hands me over his check. And I'm like, I've known you for two months. I don't do that. And by the way, I'll never be able to give you this money back.
- [23:42]
John Kaplan
Kahlo.
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Cedric Pesch
And the guy has that line which does differentiate great leaders from others. At the right moment, in the right place, he goes, you are going to give me that money back when you get your first commissions. And I'm sitting on my chair in a long moment of loneliness because I'm like, this guy believes in me more than I believe in myself.
- [24:07]
John McMahon
That's powerful.
- [24:08]
Cedric Pesch
And therefore, I'm like, I can't give up on this guy. I can't quit on this guy. I just can't watch myself in the mirror in the morning. And that has been an important lesson for me as I reflected about it when I grew up in my career. Because at the end of the day, we are not in the software business. We are in the people business. And to the extent that us as leaders can actually get involved authentically, not talking about, you know, faking it, but authentically in being curious about what's going on in our team's life. And actually it's a buzzword like caring about them and making a difference that can have a giant motivational impact on people. It had on me for sure and I never forgot it. Right. We worked 10 years together and never, never, ever. I'm very, very bad at taking directions. I'm pretty good at taking inputs. I was very difficult to handle and he was able to build a partnership with me which I will have never betrayed at any price. And that's what happened.
- [25:25]
John Kaplan
So I want to look at that from a couple of lenses. Obviously, the leadership lens is unbelievable. It is. He understands your body language. He's looking for more than just what your numbers are. He's looking at you as an individual. Getting intimate with your people is just a. We talk about that a lot on Revenue Builders. I want to flip the lens for a second because there's a lot of great potential in young sellers that are hearing this story and hearing other stories like that, whether they have a leader like that or don't have a leader like that. Sit yourself in the seat of a new seller or a new employee and talk to us a little bit about the advice that you would give that new employee that's overwhelmed, whose brother is like trying to get him to make the biggest mistake on the planet. You know, go backpacking, leave corporate America or leave corporate world and you know, go backpacking. Give some advice to the sellers that are swinging for the fences right now. Don't really feel like they're making it. You maybe don't have the greatest leader. What advice would you give them?
- [26:45]
Cedric Pesch
I will give them. The first piece of advice I will give them is exactly what the entire enterprise software sales, corporate world is, is not doing, which is be patient and work on your craft and don't cut corners and don't go after the next promotion or after short term money, but really work on your foundations because this is a marathon. Right? If your ambition is to being amazing at what you do in the long term, you're not going to win or lose in the next couple of quarters. You're going to win in the next 20 years, 15 years, 10 years, that's what you're going to do. And unfortunately, the whole world is trying to make people believe that they should be rushing into promotions and bigger titles and more money in the short term. And I think it's a giant mistake because it's like it's betraying those young people. That's one piece of advice which is very difficult to give because most of the time people. I'm not sure I was able to listen to this one, even if it was given to me many times, including by Carlo. I had a hard time listening to it. And I wish I could talk to those people with, to these younger salespeople with the eyes and the experience I have right now. Because, you know, it's too bad. I saw so many mistakes there. The other piece of advice I will tell them is that out of all the leaders I've worked with, let's call it this way, I've got 20 to 30% of them which were really bad, maybe 40% which were. Whether they were there or not will not change anything. And then I've got maybe 10, 15% which were amazing. Now, the way to deal with the amazing leaders is easy, right? You get inspired, you observe, you listen and you try to work on yourself and you imitate someone and that's an easy one. The vast majority of those leaders are there which are without any color. They don't hurt, but they don't add any value. You need to be able to use them. By using them, I mean, I give you something to execute on. You do it for me so that they can do my job. And as a young salesperson, you need to recognize that, right? It's not because your leader doesn't add values that you can't still progress your career. And the third piece I would say is when you bump into a bad leader, that's another learning opportunity about when you're going to be in his or her shoes. Here's what you'll never do, here's what you are going to avoid at any cost, right? And you suffer the pain out of it. And it's horrible. And this is why it's an even better lesson. And that happened to me many times. And sometimes McMahon knows that I've been, you know, screaming and complaining a lot and being very difficult to handle as well. And because I was suffering and going through the pain, right? And but if I look back, I say, you know, what did I learn there and what I remember? I'm going to make you a specific example. I remember a sales call. So I had been used to sales call with Carlo and when Carlo will get me. So first of all, we will never get in the sales call, even with the chief executive of Ferrari without me in the room. And not only that as a rep, right? So Carlo would always consider that the most important person in the room is a rep. And he was right. In a sales driven organization, the most important people in the room is a rep. Not only that, but every time I will get in that room, he will give me a lot of credit in front of the customer and try to empower me and to help me, put me in the driver's seat. Because he understood that this is about developing me. It's not only about being successful in that specific sales call. And he will always be there to rescue the situation if needed. But he has the maturity to do that. Then I move into another leader a few years later and I go into this third sales call. The guy was head of female and we get in the call, we sit in front of those guys and my leader takes over the conversation, introduce himself, gets everyone introduced, ran the whole meeting, we go out and I never say a word. So he gets out of the meeting and he goes like how did he ask me? How do you think it went? Right. And I told him, well it sounds like you just promoted yourself into being the rep on this account.
- [31:34]
John Kaplan
Because
- [31:39]
Cedric Pesch
I'm not going to follow up on that. Right. So I have zero empowerment. Customer doesn't understand. So that's. So you see that depending on the mindset of the leaders that can very little things can really hurt someone in the way you behave or not.
- [31:56]
John Kaplan
And sometimes Cedric, what happens is for, for sellers listening. Let's say you're working for, you know, a great leader or just a leader that is a great seller. So many times what I see sellers do is they abdicate their power to the sales leader and they give that sales leader no choice. So they don't prepare. It's like Johnny Mac we call it. Then a miracle happens. Let me go on a sales call with Johnny Mac. And then a miracle happens.
- [32:26]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, exactly.
- [32:27]
John Kaplan
And what happens is left to our own devices. I've been on the other end of this. Left to our own devices. Of course I'm going to take over a sales call. Of course I'm going to execute or what have you. And then what happens is it's very difficult for that seller to get that relationship. They've abdicated that relationship to their sales leader and then vice versa. The sales leader that doesn't do a good job of empowering the seller takes over in a sales call. You have a very difficult time giving it back to that seller. So I think what you just hit on there is don't either either role that you have. Do not abdicate your role to somebody else.
- [33:10]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah. There is another coming back on John's question around what piece of all your question on one piece of advice you would give to younger another way I will say it is what I've seen many times. I'm curious to get your guys opinion. Slow success builds character and fast success builds Ego.
- [33:29]
John McMahon
Yeah, I think that's true.
- [33:31]
John Kaplan
Very true.
- [33:33]
John McMahon
What you saw with what Carlo did with you is he was more enamored with the process of your development and not the short term result of going and getting a deal. And that's really the difference between a great leader that's there to develop their people versus somebody that's only there trying to transact and get a deal. The other part that you brought up, Cedric, is some leaders, your relationship with them is very transactional. I ask you to do this in return for you to get you some money and you not be penalized versus what Carlo was doing with you is very transformative. He was trying to transform you from this young salesperson into, you know, an amazing salesperson. It's really a big difference between, you know, transactional leaders and transformative leaders.
- [34:32]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, completely agree with that.
- [34:35]
John Kaplan
Yeah. Hey, Cedric, I want to change gears a little bit and I want to talk about you, which I don't. I'm not sure everybody knows this about you. You were a competitive skier, and I don't. When I say competitive skier, I'm not saying like, you know, I'm saying not like Kaplan playing football. I'm talking about like, you were on the national team. You were on the national team, the French national team. You grew up in, in the mountains in France. Your parent, your, your. Your whole family was involved in skiing and skiing instruction. Could you talk a little bit about how your athletic background has really kind of shaped you and, and molded you specifically? Just your experience of competing? I think you started competing at like 5 years old or something like that.
- [35:30]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, I competed. I less. I started. Maybe not competing now, but like, I started in. Skiing is one of those sports where you can't, you can't start late. And lucky enough. My father was a ski teacher and a mountain guy. We're living in a ski resort. So the whole family was in the ski business. So it was difficult to do something else except nothing. Right?
- [35:50]
John Kaplan
Yeah.
- [35:50]
Cedric Pesch
So that's where. And then, you know, I grew up in this environment still. My, my, my family is in this business and, and I guess that those years were very formative in two ways, let's say without getting into the weeds. I think the first one was ski is a sport where you do take risks and therefore you quickly learn to deal with fear, especially in downhill. And I guess that I didn't realize it in the early years, but that helped me a lot because my perception of risk was, from the get go, as soon as I stopped skiing was very different from most People's perception of
- [36:48]
John Kaplan
risk
- [36:50]
Cedric Pesch
and even to these days, in some ways they are. When things don't go well, obviously I'm not bumped, I'm not super happy. But you know, I kind of put them into perspective. I really get anxious for, you know, a board meeting or whatever. That helped me a lot. And the other one is that I pursued a big dream for many years and obviously I never became an Olympic champion and obviously I never achieved what I wanted to achieve in the first years. But I know how important that journey has been and how I realized later on how my old childhood was shaped by this big dream. And I do believe that even if I never achieved it, I wasn't talented enough. And a bunch of reasons, but it doesn't take away from the importance of the dream and how much drive it put into me and energy it put into me. Right. And I do believe that back to business. It's extraordinarily important for people to want to make a big name for themselves and have an impact and change your fucking world.
- [38:09]
John Kaplan
Right.
- [38:10]
Cedric Pesch
Especially in the early years. Then you get older and instead of wanting to change the world, you start realizing that it might be wiser to try to change yourself first. Early years, you're like, you're like, let's go and change the world and have a big dream and have a big ambition. When I was, you know, One of the 900, 900 reps in the PTC South Force, I was looking up to McMahon. I wanted to be McMahon one day and. And that drove me for many, many years. Right. And so that's spot has given me for sure.
- [38:47]
John McMahon
Yeah. Hey, Cedric, I've also knowing you to be very detail oriented and I always wondered, did that go. And it must go back to. Before you're going to go strap on some skis and go downhill at 90 miles an hour, you better pay attention to the details.
- [39:03]
Cedric Pesch
Yes, yes, yes. 100. I think that. I think there are two sides there. There is one which is. They are big consequences which are hiding in the details if you don't take care of them. That's your point, I guess, right? Like potentially, you know, between 98 degrees where water doesn't boil and 100 degrees, there is a difference. And those two degrees are actually incredibly important. And it's true when you. I see many times teams implementing a process and then getting to a conclusion and say the process doesn't work. But then you never know if this is execution of the process, process which doesn't work, or the process itself.
- [39:43]
John Kaplan
Right.
- [39:44]
Cedric Pesch
And I think the other aspect of this is I do believe that greatness in sales implies or requires a lot of curiosity, like intellectual curiosity. And curiosity has to do with details, right? Like traveling and like navigating, you know, the stories up to the last level so that you actually understand them and can say, okay, I get the points, I get the point, but not superficially. I don't like, just like, you know, kind of get it. I actually get it to the last bit and bite. And this is where I think attention to details is important in business. It was important in, in my, in my short, short sport carrier, but very important in business. It helped me a lot, that's for sure.
- [40:29]
John McMahon
Now, Cedric, there was an amazing French skier who won three gold medals. Guy named Jean Claude Keely. Yeah, hopefully I pronunciated that. Right? Yeah. When you were just a young lad, you wrote him a letter and he wrote you back. You want to talk?
- [40:47]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, yeah.
- [40:48]
John McMahon
It's funny.
- [40:49]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, yeah. I didn't expect you to bring that up today, but I guess that my dad was. In 1968, there was an Olympic games in France in Grenoble and Keely won three gold medals there, giant slalom and downhill and he won the downhill with 9 cents of a second ahead of the second one. And my father was a ski teacher in Chan Roos at the time. He was like 22, 23, I guess. And so he saw that happening. Right. And therefore when I was born in 72, four years later, instead of talking to me about Santa Claus, he will always talk to me about Jean Claude Kelly.
- [41:29]
John Kaplan
Right.
- [41:30]
Cedric Pesch
So. So, you know, later on, as soon as I was able to write, I would start writing those letters to Jean Claude Tilly because at home it was the only thing we would care about was, you know, how do you become Jean Claude Tilly one day? Right. And so I will write those letters and most of them, thank God, my mother will take them and put them into, you know, a drawer. But a couple of them she sent and he answered. He answered twice at the time. The first one was a postal card where it was written to my friend Cedric Gutzking. And the other one was a letter where he would write, remember, no need to win with 2 seconds, 9 cents are enough, are sufficient.
- [42:14]
John Kaplan
Right.
- [42:15]
Cedric Pesch
So I get these things and fast forward 2010 or 2011. John. We were at BMC and I have one of my many motivational crises and you know, I'm at my post quarter end of quarter flu with pressure going down and I'm cleaning my home office with fever and I'm coughing and I'm in a bad place. And I bump into these two answers from Killy of, you know, 30 years before, right? And I'm like watching, staring at these two letters and I'm like, why did you. I moved in the meantime 15 times all around the world. And I'm like, why did you keep that with you for so many years, right? I'm asking myself, I go on the Internet and bump into his address and I write him a letter. And I'm not.
- [42:57]
John Kaplan
This is in 20. This is in 2010.
- [42:59]
Cedric Pesch
2010. 2010, yeah. And in the letter, I'm not going to give you the details. It's too long, and we don't have the time here. But the letter goes substantially this way. It goes like, you don't remember me, obviously, but I do remember you. And here's what happened in those years. I was writing to you, you were answering. And thank you for doing that. Because even to these days, the way your answers contribute, even to these days that I wake up in the morning and try to leave the day just like if it was the last one and try to put some intensity in what I'm doing because that big dream that I was pursuing at the time, the principle is still there. And therefore I conclude and I say, how could I thank you for that? Send. You take a few minutes to write this letter and thank you for that. But I send that letter like you send a bottle in the ocean without ever hoping to get an answer right? I was. I was up. So I then, you know, get back on my. In my. In my. My flights and go around the world. And my wife calls me a few days later and she. She goes like, I didn't tell her right anything. And she goes like, keely answered you? And I'm like, how do you know that he answered me? I never told you that I sent anything to him. And it's like, you know, a letter with Olympic, you know, circles from him, handwritten. And so I fly back, open the letter, and the guy goes like, the letter starts in this way.
- [44:27]
John McMahon
It goes.
- [44:28]
Cedric Pesch
I'm still. I'm still, you know, emotional when I talk about that.
- [44:32]
John McMahon
It goes.
- [44:33]
Cedric Pesch
It goes, cedric, I've been answering autographs for the past 40 years, and still to this day, I answer a few weeks. Your letter in itself justified the effort for the past 40 years. Thank you so much for that. And then he goes, keeps going for a few things, you know, about the importance of the journey to get there and not the final result. And a few other things around that and he signs up, you know, thank you to my friend Cedric Gutzkig again. So, yeah, that was. That was quite a moment. Especially the guy. It's like, where you, like, you know, that he understands we don't need to meet. We want. We will ever, never meet. I don't want to meet him. I don't want to break anything, Right? But, you know, he knows. You know, he knows, right? And you know that all those guys, which are guys which try to achieve something important in their lives, they all think in the same way. They all have the same, you know, big dream behind them which pushed them. He organized the Olympic Games three or four times. He's the only man to this day who resigned from the International Olympic Committee. He said, I've done my job. I don't need you guys. Don't need me any longer. And then he goes, right. So he does have character and honor and, you know, it's something. It's quite someone.
- [45:56]
John McMahon
Wow, Great story.
- [45:58]
John Kaplan
So. So you have mentioned in Johnny Mac, we have heard how many times in the last months of doing these interviews this. The journey. There's a dream, but the journey to the dream. Somebody the other day referenced Kobe Bryant. You know, Kobe Bryant didn't talk about the championships. He talked about the. The journey of competing and being the best. And so, Cedric, you've been in this. This professional grind. You have, you know, been in this journey. And I just want to take a moment if you're comfortable with it. I remember probably one of my most profound conversations with you happened a few years ago when you and I were talking. It was very late for you. The kids were. You were. You had. He had to call me back because you had to put the kids down. And we had a conversation where you were reflecting and you took a break. Like you were in the journey. It was important for you to take a break and reflect. And I. I don't want to lessen the significance of that by lack of eloquence of me relating the story. Would you just give some advice to folks that are in the grind that are, you know, every now and then when you have to reflect on the purpose, reflect on the dream, reflect on the journey. Why was it important for you to take a break to kind of reset?
- [47:34]
Cedric Pesch
Yeah, I think it was even more than taking a break to reset. It really was. I stopped three times actually working in my life, and that time that you refer to, I had burnt out. I remember, you know, I resign. And then the first week, it feels amazing. And then the second week I'm like standing in this supermarket queue or whatever you call it, line and, you know, feeling unsettled because people make me wait in the line.
- [48:07]
John Kaplan
Yeah.
- [48:08]
Cedric Pesch
And being, you know, unable to stay within myself. And from there, it didn't go anywhere better. I'm not going to get in the details, but it's been a brutal, so to say, journey. Right. And somehow, you know, it was before the bazaar voice days. John. Right. And somehow I recovered, but that I will never forget in many ways, in the sense that, you know, one of the things I learned in this thing is that we are not undestroyable. And being good at what we do also implies that we are able to protect ourselves and take care of ourselves.
- [49:02]
John McMahon
And. And
- [49:07]
Cedric Pesch
that is, I think, something that most very driven people don't realize in their early years, at least I didn't. Maybe others are smarter than I was and didn't realize it before. But we have the way I think about MongoDB today, whoever joins the company, we have these big. We have a few values in sales, executive team, and one of them is we are going to win, but not at any cost. And the line that we are going to draw is the line where people get hurt in their families, their health or their personal balance. And our challenge as leaders for ourselves and for the people working with us, is to push them to the brink, but not to the point where they lose themselves. I don't want anyone to go to where I've been, and I don't think it's fair to ask for that. And I think you can excel without doing that. Too many scarves, which I could have saved myself. One of the reason why I'm still here in Europe, right, is because somehow, John, I found that one time in my life I said, I'm going to be able to draw. I'm going to draw a line in the sand. And I could have moved to the US Like I did already in the past, as you both well know. But there is a moment where I said, I'm going to either I'm going to do the best I can and living close to my olive trees. And the reason, it's not for the olive trees, it's more a symbolic thing, right? Like, it's like this is the line in the sand where for me, it was like, I will keep a distance and protect myself from, you know, if I had been maybe living in Boston or New York or San Francisco, I might have, you know, spent much more time in my life trying to catch up with the genesis or getting into an environment where, you know, I didn't have enough distance and others are able to do it. I'm not talking. It's the same thing for everyone. Right. As far as I'm concerned, I needed to have this question of protection to keep my balance and sense of perspective, which at the end turned out to be of some help to me because I do believe that it helped me being a little more balanced and a better leader. Yeah. Ironically, so to say.
- [51:27]
John McMahon
Yes. Cedric, you know, I always say, if you don't take care of yourself as a leader, you know, no one else will. And you touched on the word that I always think about is perspective. And as a leader, everybody underneath you is counting on you to have the proper perspective. So when you lose yourself, you kind of lose perspective, and you can't make really great decisions as a leader. So. And we've all faced it where we just go too hard, too hard, too hard. And we don't really know where the limit is until all of a sudden we cross that limit, so.
- [52:02]
Cedric Pesch
And it's too late. And you're like. And you look. You look and like, you're like, fuck. I knew. I wish I had listened to McMahon when he said, you need to protect yourself and take care of yourself. And you're like.
- [52:12]
John McMahon
And you're like, have that conversation. Yeah.
- [52:15]
Cedric Pesch
And you're like. And it's ironic because you. You're like, oh, that's what he meant. You know, but it's too late, right?
- [52:22]
John Kaplan
Hey, Johnny Mac, before I do a summary here of some golden ducks, because we had so many. I don't want to. I don't want to miss them. Is there anything that we haven't covered that. That we. That we had planned to cover with our friends?
- [52:38]
John McMahon
Tons of things. But, you know, we'd have to have Cedric back for another couple hours, which.
- [52:43]
John Kaplan
Which I'd love. Which I'd love to do. Cedric, do you mind? And Johnny, do you mind if I just do a quick. Just a quick recap on some of the things that we talked about. We. We talked about in the beginning, Cedric. You had this theme about purpose in your leadership style. You had this thing. It. It's always about purpose. And you made the point of reflecting on that before you try to figure out what the purpose is for the people, for the culture, what have you. You got to make sure that your purpose for yourself first is set, and then you're in. You're in shape to be able to do that for your people, which is so relatable to what we Just talked about on, you know, potentially burning out. But you put people in three buckets. You put those leaders in, you know, those that are focused on compensation and paycheck and very, very short sighted. And it doesn't, it doesn't go very far in culture. And then you talked about the execution tools, those leaders that focus on execution messaging and ideal customer profile and execution tools. And that's important. But you said that it can't just rely and stay there. You talked about the leaders that really focus on the purpose of starting with the why. And then Johnny talked about the what and how are easy. And you said without the why, it's just a grind and it's just exclusively for a paycheck. And that never is sustainable for your people. I loved your quote. I didn't catch the author, the French author that said, teach your people how to long for the sea versus gather the wood to build the boat. I thought that was powerful. We talked about patriots versus mercenaries. Carlo Carpinelli, God rest his soul. You made a very specific statement, which I loved and I wrote it down and said he believed in me more than I believed in myself. And therefore I immediately had a feeling of not wanting to disappoint him. And what a powerful, powerful leadership message that you shared there. You talked about, you know, you're really in. Leaders are in the business, they're in the people business. There's people, process and technology. And those leaders that figure out the people part are, have a tremendous advantage. You gave some advice to our listeners who might be young sellers that are thinking about, you know, the grind and it's hard. And you gave the advice that said, be patient and work on your craft. If you are listening to this podcast, you are probably in that category of working on your craft. So celebrate that. You talked about success being a marathon versus a sprint. And then you also talked about, you know, in our lives, we're not always going to be blessed with, you know, having great leaders. You said your experiences, 20% of them are really bad. 60% of them are, you know, okay. And then 20% of them are probably amazing. And over your lifetime, you have to learn how to even with the bad ones. I really love this because I've given this advice to my own children. If you have bad leaders, bad coaches, bad teachers, bad bosses, there's still something you could learn. And what you said was, when you become a leader, you're going to learn what you don't want to do as a leader. So even being in that bad situation is still powerful. Leaders we talked about the rep is more important in the room than you. Such great advice because I think so many leaders get that wrong, and I think so many reps get it wrong. You don't want to abdicate your responsibility. You don't want to abdicate your role either way. But the great leaders give the credit and prop up the sellers in a relationship so they can successfully have those relationships with customers on their own. Slow success builds character. Fast success builds ego. Really powerful. And then your skiing background, you talked about learning how to deal with risk at a very, very young age. And risk and not being afraid of risk. The journey versus the dream of the Olympics. And because you invested so much in the journey, you were able to convert your dream to being the best leader that you could possibly be, the best business leader that you could possibly be. Because you focused on the journey and details are where the consequences lie. I thought that was really, really powerful. And the last thing we spoke about was taking care of yourself as a leader, having perspective and making sure that you do that self care. Because when you're at that leadership level, nobody else will care for you the way that you will care for yourself. Johnny, what did I miss?
- [58:03]
John McMahon
I'm going to give you an a plus on that summary, Cap. So let's.
- [58:06]
Cedric Pesch
I agree with that.
- [58:09]
John McMahon
Let me move to the rapid fire questions with Cedric. Is that all right?
- [58:13]
John Kaplan
Let's do it.
- [58:13]
John McMahon
All right, Cedric, we got four rapid fire questions for you. Ready?
- [58:18]
Cedric Pesch
Okay.
- [58:19]
John McMahon
Ideal day off of work.
- [58:23]
Cedric Pesch
It's day where my family and I sail on the Mediterranean sea. And it's a beautiful, warm, sunny morning. And, you know, wind is blowing but not too much. The boat. The boat is fast and the waves. And the waves are. And the sails is just powerful. And it just goes and goes like a machine. That is a great day.
- [58:47]
John McMahon
Wow. Awesome. Favorite meal.
- [58:52]
Cedric Pesch
I'll say that. This is the one that I prepare in my country house with my kids, my wife, couple of friends, a glass of wine and the four seasons of Vivaldi in the background.
- [59:07]
John Kaplan
He's become a romantic job.
- [59:09]
Cedric Pesch
I'm just lost. I've just lost the two johns here with the four seasons of Vivaldi.
- [59:15]
John McMahon
He's French and Italian, of course.
- [59:17]
John Kaplan
Getting cultured here. I'm good. I'm still with.
- [59:19]
John McMahon
Yeah. Favorite movie, Cedric?
- [59:23]
Cedric Pesch
My favorite movie is movie from the 80s, a French movie from the 80s. I'm going to lose you as well here. It's called Itinerare d', unfinquet, which means path or journey of a spoiled kid, which talks about this Kid which is abandoned by his parents and who his mother and who becomes a big entrepreneur and one day he decides to quit everything and to disappear. Orchestrate. He just disappears. He acts like he was dead, but he actually disappeared. And he does it on purpose, right? And I'm sure we all have that dream today, one day which was like, you know, why don't I fucking quit on everything and disappear and I don't have to go through this grinder again, right? Like, and the lesson from the movie, which I always love, is like, happiness is only real when it's shared and on your own, you know, on your own, you don't. You can't achieve whatever you want, but on your own, it's going to be lonely and painful.
- [60:29]
John Kaplan
Johnny, we can build. We can have like a calendar and on each month we can have like Cedric Isms. These are, these are powerful. When did you get. You got. Very, very, very reflective, my friend. Yes, very, very well done.
- [60:42]
Cedric Pesch
I've just done my 50, right. So the guarantee is I'm running out of time, right. So I need to reflect a little.
- [60:50]
John McMahon
Well, Cedric, last one, best concert you've ever been to.
- [60:54]
Cedric Pesch
It's been the one which I went like a month ago where my daughter Camilla was playing the violin here in the Rom auditorium with her mates. That was cool. Or if you want to see an amazing moment of, of music. And I hope I'm not going to lose you here.
- [61:14]
John Kaplan
Why does he always assume he's going to lose us? Cerebral stuff, Johnny.
- [61:18]
Cedric Pesch
If I speak about, about like classical music, music, I'm like a little.
- [61:22]
John Kaplan
I'm in. Let's go.
- [61:23]
Cedric Pesch
I mean, McMahon is going to follow me, but, you know, I don't know about you. I think, you know, there is this Leonard Berstein. He was like one probably the biggest conductor of all times. Like, he's the Tom Grady of, you know, conducting an orchestra. And there is this moment in Vienna, I think it's in the 80s where he conducts this symphony number 88 of Haydn, only with the stare. So there is an orchestra with 100 people, super high level performance musicians. And the guy only with his stare drives the whole orchestra without moving each. And you can see the charisma and the power of this director of orchestra, which is just spreading through the room. Kind of powerful. I wish I had been in that room that day.
- [62:16]
John McMahon
Well, Cedric, I'm really grateful to have had you on the podcast. I think you gave the audience a bunch of great information and golden nuggets. Just want to thank you so much for agreeing to come on the podcast.
- [62:32]
Cedric Pesch
Thank you to both of you. It's always a pleasure to chat with the two of you and hopefully we're going to be able to do that soon without a camera or a microphone.
- [62:45]
John Kaplan
Cedric, you have been one of my favorite people that I ever met along the journey. I remember meeting you in the early days of PTC and then just watching you and your career and I've always just been really, really impressed. You're a great friend. Thanks for coming on and we wish you nothing but continued success, brother. Keep it going.
- [63:09]
Cedric Pesch
Thank you so much. You guys stay safe.
- [63:12]
John Kaplan
All right, well done.
- [63:13]
John McMahon
Thanks everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast.
- [63:21]
Podcast Host (Narrator)
Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoy the content, please subscribe, rate and review the show to help us reach more people. This show is brought to you by Force Management, where we help companies improve sales performance, execute the growth strategy at the point of sale. Check out forcemanagement.com for more information.