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- [00:05]
A
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 us reach more people. Revenue Builders is brought to you by Force Management. We help companies improve sales performance, executing the growth strategy at the point of sale. Find us@force management.com Enjoy today's episode.
- [00:44]
B
Hello and welcome to the Revenue Builders podcast. I'm John McMahon and I'm joined by the one and only John Kaplan. Cap, how are you, bud?
- [00:53]
C
I'm doing really good, bud, really good. Excited for this guest today.
- [00:57]
B
Yeah, you know him and he's our special guest today. It's Mike Ernest, who started his career at Blade Logic and then he was at BMC Software for five years before moving on to Sumo Logic as a regional Sales manager. Since Sumo Logic, Mike was a leader at AppDynamics for four years before AppD was acquired by Cisco. And then after App D, Mike moved to Zscaler where his experience and tenacity allowed him to grow through the ranks from Regional Director to Senior Vice President of the Americas. After four and a half years at Zscaler, Mike accepted his current position as VP of Worldwide Sales at wiz. We'll just start with recruiting, right? You're always Talking about the three Rs, revenue retention and recruiting. Let's talk a little bit about why recruiting is so critical to not only your success, but the success of any sales leader.
- [02:04]
D
Yeah, it's a, it's a great point. Right? I, I think really recruiting is our pipeline generation. As leaders, you have to create a culture of recruiting. When the Reps are off PGing on PG Mondays or Tuesdays or whatever, you do it and you're intentional about pipeline generating. And leaders need to be intentional about constantly recruiting, you know, the next wave of folks, whether it's reps or leaders, depending on like the level at which you're at. So it's about creating that culture of, of constantly recruiting and not just passing it off to your recruiters or other people to do for you. You have to have like ownership in it and constantly be looking for the next, you know, top, top talent. Because you never know what's going to happen. You know, someone may leave, you may promote somebody, someone may, you know, move on to a new job within your current company. And you always have to be ready so you don't get into a hole that you just can't overcome.
- [03:02]
B
You were listening to Kaplan's three rules of why you need to constantly recruit. Right, Cap?
- [03:08]
D
You get. Yeah, you guys are embedded in my brain like it's for years.
- [03:12]
B
Well, share them with the audience. Share those three. Three rules of why you need to constantly recruit as a sales leader.
- [03:19]
C
Yeah, yeah. The rule of three. Somebody's going to get promoted, somebody's going to get demoted or reassigned or moved out and then somebody's going to surprise you. So that's why you always have to have three. It cracks me up when I talk to people and I'll say, hey, how's recruiting going? And they'll go, well, we don't have any headcount.
- [03:41]
B
Yeah, I'm full. I'm full.
- [03:42]
C
Yeah, I'm full. And the rule of three has always taught me that you're, you're, no matter what, you should always have three people on the deck.
- [03:50]
B
Yeah. Especially if you're a sales leader because guess who they're going to come and get. They're going to come and get your best rep to promote, typically in most cases. So you're going to lose the most productive rep on your team. Especially if you're a first line manager and you got five people. You're going to lose your best rep to a promotion. You better be ready. Right?
- [04:11]
C
Well, you better have a culture, you better have a culture of promotion. I know, Mike, you guys have just done a great job and your history of kind of promoting within, also promoting externally as well. But you got, you have great success of building future leaders.
- [04:29]
D
Yeah, that's right. I think, you know, looking inside the company first for the role and looking to stretch people. Obviously you need to be ready because back to the recruiting, you better have the right folks ready to kind of step into the, you know, the role, but you know, completely consistently investing in, in the people on your team and around you and you know, bringing them up and stretching them into, into new jobs and opportunities. We look there first before external while obviously continuing to recruit externally as well.
- [05:01]
C
Which creates a whole body else would they take your best person. That happens all you got to be prepared for that. They take your best person and, and you know, whether you're ready for it or not, that's going to happen. And a lot of people, a lot of people don't get that right. Like a lot of frontline managers in the beginning, they don't understand that it's a, it's an honor. It's part of, it's building A building a family tree, so to speak, of who you've developed that has gone on and become a leader. And, and when they don't understand, they always have a hole. Then they're always, you know, then they always have a backfill.
- [05:38]
D
Yeah, it's a great point.
- [05:40]
B
Like, yeah, go ahead.
- [05:41]
D
Everyone should be recruiting, everyone should be recruiting my people. They're amazing and people on our team are amazing. Like it's, it's a great, it's a great point. You have to, you have to know that that's happening and not be mad about it. You should be happy about it. Like they're, it's an amazing team. They're killing it. They're having a good time doing it. They, they are raising the bar. It's a high bar. And they're meeting it day in and day out. Like they deserve to be recruited by the top companies and in the world. And it's, it's my job and my leader's job and our job as a company to make sure that the place that they're in now is the best place in the world.
- [06:13]
C
Yeah. Amen.
- [06:14]
B
And Mike, you talked about constant recruiting, building a culture of recruiting. How do you make sure that your first line managers, second line managers are constantly recruiting, what type of techniques or, or how do you hold them accountable to that?
- [06:30]
D
I think constantly talking about it and just like, you know, when we're in, you know, forecast calls or when we're in one on ones or you know, hey, where's the risk in your business? It's not risk in dollars, it's risking people. Right. Like, I don't, I don't view, you know, account of your revenue as the kind of the, the lagging indicator. Right. If you've recruited the top talent and you're retaining the top talent, revenue becomes just an outcome that's inevitable. Right. So instead of talking about risk in the business from a dollar's perspective, you're honing in on the people and you can't really hide from, from that in those conversations. Risk and current, current state of your team, positives, negatives, where you're helping develop those people. And then if something were to happen, you know, I were to promote this person tomorrow, like what would you do? And just constantly having this conversation.
- [07:18]
B
Pipeline generation, like for, for, for new recruits. How do you, how do you do that? Do you guys have certain methods that you, you know, share with these guys to, to go after new recruits?
- [07:31]
D
Oh yeah, like, like profiles of people will constantly be looking at like, you know, top, top Companies top, top talent, you know, pulling them into spreadsheets or, or wherever. Like whatever tooling we're using, working with our, our talent team, getting everybody on calls. I have weekly calls for global talent reviews with, with ecosystem leaders and my TA team going through like profiles of people personally with, with them. Like figuring out who might be a fit, who might not be a fit, like honing the bar a bit on, on who we want to go after. That type of stuff. Right? It's just like back to the culture of it's just constantly talking about it and making it part of our weekly conversations and our daily conversations and our one on ones. And you know, I think that flows down and I know it does because I do the skip levels all the time, but I know it flows down into first line leadership as well and they're starting to do the same thing.
- [08:28]
B
What do you do if you find a leader that can't recruit.
- [08:34]
C
A leader.
- [08:34]
D
That can't recruit hopefully doesn't make it into, into the team right back to holding the bar high because that's a core. Like it's like the number one thing I'm looking for is, is top talent and recruiting and retaining the people. But, but hopefully you could, you could teach them and, and dig into the why they can't recruit or why they feel like they can't recruit and you know, ask them to pitch you and just like you would pitch a first meeting deck for a, for a deal or for, you know, our company. Ask them to pitch me how they sell, not just whiz, but how they position the team, the future where they can help develop this person, how they can help get this person to the next level where that person's gaps may be, how they make deposits in that person to get them to take the first call. Like a lot of the times when I'm recruiting, it's not, hey, I have this amazing thing like you should talk to me. It's you know, hey, I've heard great things about you, would love to, you know, learn more about what you're doing and get into your network. Like do you have 15 minutes just to catch up? Right? And then the second call isn't even a recruiting call. It's like, hey, that was amazing. Like, tell me more. How can I help you? Are there things that are going on in your business that I can even help you with that perhaps, you know, somebody on your current team isn't helping you with? And just, just that type of stuff. You're making deposits the same way you would in A deal or an opportunity you're building like true champions through deposits. And then, then you can kind of slowly start recruiting from there.
- [10:03]
B
And what kind of traits are you looking for in a new recruit? There's certain key traits that you're looking for.
- [10:11]
D
Yeah, great curiosity. Just like, just things in the locker room that nobody else. You look around, you kind of know who that person is. You can dig into their personal life, adversity they've gone through, personally, professionally, how they've overcome it. I like to hear more about losses than wins. What you learn from those things. High character, high intelligence, coachability. And then, you know, obviously experience as well in, in the field and, you know, as you, as you've gone through your career, like, where, you know, where are some of the things you faced and overcome them and all that, all that good stuff. Right. Hard things to look for and, and to dig into, like curiosity, you know, how do you, how do you, like, measure curiosity? How do you measure character? Those are, you know, those come with conversations and really starting to understand just the background of the person and what makes them tick and want to. Want to be part of what we're doing here.
- [11:17]
B
You mentioned and have been doing over that grit. What is, what do you mean by grit? I get all kinds of definitions when I ask what grit means.
- [11:28]
D
Yeah, it's doing the hard things when no one's watching.
- [11:31]
B
Okay.
- [11:32]
D
I think it's, it's. It's like really like every. Like the little things every little day or every day that, like the little things that no one's watching you do that you don't get credit for, you know, making the extra call, helping the extra person, like, and not asking for credit, just. Just doing the little things day in and day out consistently. That all add up to the big thing at the end and creating that awesome journey throughout the. Throughout, whether it's the cycle here or, or in life and in those kind of moments and not. Not really asking or begging for credit, just doing it. That's. That's great to me. Is that different than some of the ones you've heard?
- [12:12]
B
What's that?
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D
Is that a new. Is that a new one? Is that a new one?
- [12:15]
B
Grit?
- [12:17]
D
Yeah. No. How I define. Was that a new one? You said you've heard all sorts of definitions.
- [12:21]
B
New one. It's a new one. I mean. Yeah, I've heard every. Because a lot of times people say, we look at recruiting grit or when they're getting rid of somebody, then they say. I say, well, why'd you get rid of the guy, well, he. He didn't have grit. And I'm like, okay, explain grit. And then they go on for, like, a couple minutes, and I'm like, I don't think you really know why you got rid of the guy. You know, let's boil it down. But I think it's like an overused term, and I think if you are. I hear so many people say it that I think if you're going to use it in recruiting with your team, my advice is nail down what you. What the definition is. Otherwise, people say they got grit, and you think they got grit, but you guys are talking, like, past each other. It's like anything else in sales. We need that common vocabulary, you know. But of all these. All of these traits, if you had to pick one that you had to have from the person, what is it? Grit.
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D
How I define grit, which one would you pick?
- [13:27]
B
Of all the ones, grit, curiosity, adversity, coachability, all of those.
- [13:34]
D
They'Re all connected. John? I would say curiosity, I think, is really hard to, like, coach or have. I think it's just a. You kind of just. You're naturally curious, and you want to know things. Like, you want to know when you're doing your research on a company, you want to know what makes that company tick or what business problems they have. And then. And then you want to know about our technology and how it would fit in there. You want to know more about your ecosystem and the people and how they play into what they care about or how they play into the deal or where they want to go. You're just naturally curious and curious about people and technology and everything around you. I think it's a hard thing to coke. It's IQ and EQ kind of married together. You got to do it in a really emotionally intelligent way. And, you know, when I say curious, I don't just mean, like, peppering people with questions. I mean, like, really just naturally digging into how things take. Like, I. There are people that I know that just, like, unnaturally pepper you with questions, and it comes off not. You know, it's not great. Right? You don't want to answer the questions anymore. But just having the ability to navigate curiosity with an emotional flare, I think is really hard to coach.
- [14:55]
B
Yeah, I think all of these traits are something that are really difficult to coach. You know, you can coach, you can teach people stuff if they're really smart and they'll. They'll pick up the knowledge. So intellect could be a trait. And then if they're super driven and you Know, they'll pick up the skills. But these traits, these are things that I think they're either born with and as. Like I used to say, if their mom and dad couldn't instill it in them by the time they're 21, you ain't instilling it in them. So, yeah, these are the things that you're not going to change. And usually in my experience, after you hired somebody, it's six months to nine months later where it's not the skills and the knowledge that become apparent where you made a mistake. It's the. It's the traits that become apparent where you made a mistake or you, you got a great hire because then you see their true character traits or behavioral traits, you know, because you can't change those. You're not going to change them. Yeah.
- [15:53]
C
I think what you also have to do is you have to, you know, in order to scale companies like we've all been involved in, you have to start to identify these and break it down into what it looks like in the job. And so, like, a competency or a trait has a success behavior, like, and how does it manifest itself? And then you have to simulate those in the interview process. Because even grit, like every single one of those traits that you guys talked about, it's really, really important to put that into a conversation that allows people to really demonstrate what it looks like in action or what it looks like.
- [16:46]
B
So you can pull it out of the, out of the person during the interview process.
- [16:50]
C
Well, it's got to be done in the interview process because like you said, if you're getting burned by traits six months later, that's expensive.
- [16:58]
B
Very expensive.
- [16:58]
C
Yeah.
- [16:59]
B
And that's typically where you get burnt.
- [17:01]
C
Yeah. Do you, Mike, do you have any, do you have any advice for the audience on how some of these traits that you've kind of committed them to, maybe some interview questions or discovery questions or scenarios that allow them to present themselves?
- [17:19]
D
Yeah, I think in the. We do a couple interviews and then a final challenge. We have people from like, ecosystem plus sales, sales leader. And then we go right into kind of a challenge. We have a couple people on the challenge. And a lot of companies I've seen where they do the challenge, they do it with like, a presentation of like, your product, the product pitch. I think that I understand why people would do that, but I actually think salespeople are great actors and they can memorize a pitch pretty quickly. And I don't think you really get anything about, like, if you actually look at some hires that didn't work out. And you go, man, they had the best pitch ever. I don't understand why it didn't work out, really. I don't know that that pitch was telling you anything outside of that they were able to memorize what your technology does or talk to a couple of people to pitch it back to you. So we, we give them, you know, accounts that will be in their patch and we tell them to prioritize the accounts. We tell them to, to build essentially, like how they would operate within the accounts and then come up with a customized, like, set of discovery questions for the people they think would buy our technology and then pitch into like, like marrying our tech into the business problems that they think those companies have. So we tweaked that a little bit. We also give less time, I think, to prepare for the final pitch, which shows, like, a willingness to want to spend the time to prepare. So whether, rather than two, three, four weeks to go prepare for the final pitch, you get a couple days once we agree to send you in the final challenge. And that shows like, hey, we're going to spend the extra time, they're going to overly prepare for it. And then when they come in super prepared, you know that they did do like the little things along the way. You hear that they went and they pipeline generated into certain people to learn more about, you know, what we're doing or what we're expecting or like prepare better. Those people we hire generally work out and work out really well that go on and pass those things hard to do again at scale. We've hired a lot of people in the last year. My first couple months, I was doing several interviews a day personally. And then obviously, as we got leaders in place, I no longer needed to do that. But, you know, that's, that's typically how. How we go about it. In digging the interview when, when we're talking again, we want to dig into like, personal adversity. First jobs out of school or first jobs when they're in school or even before school. Like, just those types of things. Like I worked at Dunkin Donuts when I was 14, 15 years old and brought in Massachusetts. Like I was trying to buy a car. Like, like those types of things, like, you know, student loans or athletes or veteran. Like, all that stuff, I think adds to like, the story and the journey of the person that really could help them, help you hire them or help them be successful in your work.
- [20:22]
B
And when you miss and you look back, I missed this person's not going to make it. We all have it. So.
- [20:31]
D
Oh yeah.
- [20:32]
B
Is there one or two things where you, where you can go to this category and say when we miss, we typically miss on this one or two points. That is what the reason why this person didn't make it.
- [20:46]
D
The job is really. Your job can be really hard and.
- [20:49]
B
They'Re gonna make too big of a jump is what you mean.
- [20:53]
D
I think, I think it's too big of a job. Right. So you take it, you take a, you know, you hire someone that's got the great profile that has killed it at every company that maybe are different companies than the ones you've. You've grown up different orgs and companies and the ones you've grown up in and you kind of expect them to be a little more than plug and play, put them right in and they're going to kill it and then they just delete to like how we operate from a, you know, pipeline generate every Monday go, you know, own the economic buyer. Truly define what a champion is. Understand the personal professional wins of the champion or a leader like prepare for your one on ones deeply. Spend two hours on Friday prepping for your one on ones as an RD on Monday. It's the most important meeting of the week. Like you need to bring as much to the table as the rep is like so they get something out like all those, those are like extra things that I think a lot of folks if they haven't worked in, you know, candidly, you got your guys network or, or any of the companies we worked in before. It's, it's a leap. And so a lot of people make the leap and then there are some, some that don't. It's, it is, it's. It's a big, it's a big.
- [22:01]
B
That's more of a skill gap. Right. I mean they may know the playbook but if they don't haven't developed the skills over time. I think what I'm hearing is more of a skill gap you're missing on the skills. Right?
- [22:13]
D
Yes.
- [22:13]
B
Which makes sense because they take so long to, to get to really master some of these skills that you have to, that you have to master if you're going to be a really good enterprise salesperson.
- [22:24]
C
I think some of the other ones are there especially with like your history Mike, and the companies that you've come from. And John, I know you've experienced this before. You'll get. Just because of your reputation and where you've been and what you've done, you'll get people that want to come to that company. And I think that's outstanding when you can get a leadership team in there like that that just has a history of success. What I find you have to be careful is everybody says they. Everybody says they want to do something, everybody says they want to do it. And then the people that aren't really honest with themselves or really understand themselves, there's a difference between, can I do it? Have I done it? And these are the harder ones. Like, somebody can do it, somebody has done it. But do they want to do it? Like, it's the energy piece. It's like really figuring out if people really want to do this or they're just telling you they've done it, they can do it. I think sometimes frontline managers miss it. They. They look for what he's done or what she's done, what they can do and what they demonstrate. But the best, best people I've ever seen are the ones that put people in jobs that give them energy, give them energy. And if you're not honest about what gives you energy, and if you're an interviewer and you don't have the ability to find out what gives people energy and what sucks the life out of them, I think you really miss it because there's a lot of people that want to be a part of Johnny, back in the day, there's a lot of people that wanted to be at ptc, and this was a difficult one because, like, who wouldn't want to been PTC back in the day? Who wouldn't want to been at Blade Logic back in the day at Zscaler with you, Mike, back in the day at Appdynamics or whatever, who wouldn't have wanted to be there? So that's sometimes the case is really helping people understand themselves and being honest that that's a good fit. That's a, That's a great, That's a great interviewer, great leader that can get somebody to that level.
- [24:36]
B
They all want to be in the club, and then they get up to the club level and they realize, oof, there's a lot more going on here than I'm ready for.
- [24:44]
C
You know, do you guys have.
- [24:45]
B
Do you guys have the jump? The only people that make the jump, I think, are the people that have what I call a PhD, persistence, heart and determination. They're just not going to fail. They're going to gain those skills and they're motivated to your point, they're motivated to have a positive energy to. To gain those when they get up there and they don't have real persistence and determination to gain those new skills. That's where they look around and everything kind of unravels, and they have this negative energy. Like, hey, I thought I wanted to be here, but this is not a place for me. I can't put this type of work in.
- [25:22]
C
Yeah, the excuse department comes. I used to tell people at Force Management, it's like, look, I'm not. When we would hire people, I would say, you are absolutely going to fall on your face here. I promise you, like, no matter what, where you come from, what you've done, you're going to fall on your face here. It's hard. So I wanted to try to get people to talk to me about sometimes that you've fallen on your face, and what would that look like here and how have you reacted to that? Because the people that I missed, when I missed the people that I miss were the people that I realized that it wasn't me evaluating could they do it? Have they done. Is. Do they. In some cases, do they still want to do it, or are they just saying that they want something, that they have no idea what it really takes to get there? And I think that's, like, that's legit, man. Like, that builds a great, great culture where you. You have people that are in jobs because they want to be in jobs. They're doing what they love to do. They're swinging their legs over the bed in the morning. They're, you know, they're swinging them out of bed, and, you know, they're not staying in the shower for 30, 40 minutes and convincing themselves that they can go out and do the day. And I know in our audience, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Audience, you either are looking yourself in the mirror and you're saying, this job gives me energy, or it sucks the life out of me. And it goes both ways, I think.
- [26:58]
B
Yeah. Have you seen that, Mike?
- [27:03]
D
Yeah, but you can't, like, you can't. You know, you can't really learn until you miss. Right. Like, you. You have to. I mean, you have to go through it. You have to go through the pain as a leader. You're going, no matter what, whoever's listening, like, you're gonna miss. It's going to happen, and it happens to the best, and it's a painful moment, and you just have to learn from it and adjust to your point, John. Like, you're almost selling people out of the job and talking them through how hard it's going to be and trying to get them to push back on you and see where the energy they still have or have is going to be applied within what you're trying to sell them out of. And so definitely have adjusted through the years, especially at this company, given how. How fast paced it is, how amazing the product is and how, you know, they keep innovating the product team. And so we have to. We have to keep the bar with them and keep pace with that. So it's. This is definitely not easy.
- [28:04]
C
And I find Johnny, the, the. And Mike, the surprises, you know, when I said the rule of three, somebody's going to get promoted, somebody's going to get demoted, and somebody's going to surprise you. My misses have been on the surprises where the surprise was. I'm thinking that they're doing great because they are performing and they're killing it in the job, in my opinion. But when I get a chance to, you know, figure out what's going on with this individual, they. They hate the job. It's sucking the life out of them, but they're not showing it in the system, in the symptoms that I am measuring and that I had to open my aperture because performance is not always the symptom of, of content or happiness in the job. I had somebody tell me, said, yeah, I knew you were going to say that, John, because I said, why are you leaving? Like, you crushed this job. And this woman said to me, I actually knew we were going to have this conversation. And I know that you don't understand why I want to go because you think that what I do, I'm really good at. And I said, exactly why are we having this conversation? She said, because I hate doing. Gives me no energy to do what you're asking me to do. It sucks the life out of me, and it's one of the best experiences I ever had. So now what I start to do is when I'm making my rounds, I start, hey, give me two things you love about this job. Give me two things you love about your job. Give me a couple of things that are just bugging you or. Or that are giving you pause, and it's those bugging you or giving you pause. Those are the telltale signs of what our future surprises, in my opinion.
- [29:46]
B
Well, you can do that in the interview, too, by telling people that you don't think that they can do the job because of this. These key parts that, you know, as Mike brought up before, you know, they're going to go from this one level up to this next level, and they've never seen that type. You know the ball move at that speed before. So this is where they're going to struggle. And you can tell them like, I don't know if you're going to be able to do the job here and see how they react. I've done that many times where at the end of the interview they say, what do you think? And I get quiet, look at them.
- [30:17]
C
And we're not talking about being cheesy. Johnny.
- [30:20]
B
Job. No.
- [30:21]
C
Authentic, right? Yeah. In the old days it was cheesy. It was cheesy. It was like, I'm going to challenge this person. I don't think you can do this job or whatever. That's.
- [30:29]
B
No, it's because something that you either sense or you pick up in the, in the process where you know this skill set that they have at this level of product that they were selling and their sales process, now they're going to come up here, there's a bunch of skills that they're going to have to learn in order to execute at that level. It's not cheesy at all.
- [30:47]
D
And if, if they come in and you decide to move forward and we all agree that they can, they can do, they can overcome those things. They want to be part of it. Now you have your anchor and where you thought the risk and the gap was and then the areas of which you think perhaps you need to coach them and you can help your first lines there. And then when, when they fall off or if they fall off, you can go back to, hey, we, we agreed these were going to be new things like what's going on, Help me understand it and build a coaching plan to help them back on. Right. And so it all ties together. You know, same thing with the people on your team. Like how do you do what you just said, Cap, like at scale, right? Like how do you, how do you know that the person isn't happy at scale? When you've got 4 or 500 reps plus on your team, it's super hard to do. And that's back to the first line leader and having that first line leader know how to, how to manage the one on one, which I think is the most important meeting of the week. Prepare for that, that meeting and, and help understand like what's going on in the risk in the business with a rep and not turn that into a, you know, you turn that a lot of first lines turn their first, their one on ones and then forecast calls like they just get in.
- [31:56]
C
Really good point, Mike.
- [31:57]
D
Give me the data. I'll manage it up and and one of the ways that I stay out of it or you stay out of it is from being managed up to is I, I will always talk to, I'll do skips with down to the rep level all the time. Like when I took over the America's Job of Zeus Killer, I called every rep in the company and just had a conversation. What's working? What's not working? Like, you know, what do you think of the job and the company? Like, that's it. Those, those four questions. And you just listen. And so you have to keep tasks on the field to make sure that everything's, you know, what you're hearing is usually different than what's actually happening.
- [32:32]
C
Guaranteed. Right? Guaranteed. You're gonna find.
- [32:35]
B
Yeah. Going back to the interview, like, one of the things that I used to always like to ask when they say we want to hire this person, the number one question I'd ask is, what's the risk? Because, you know, you have a, a profile of the types of things you're looking for in trades. Skills, knowledge, experience. When you ask the question, what's the risk? Because they say, oh, we got to really hire this person. Okay, what's the risk? Then they tell you three areas that the risks are. The next question, and most important is, okay, how do we cover? Do we have a training program to help that person gain the knowledge? Are we giving them to a sales leader that has that skill set and can help them develop that skill set? Whatever it is, what's the risk and how are we going to cover? And if you can't cover, and that happens a lot in startups, you don't really have the resources. And it's kind of Darwinism. It's like every man for himself. And if you don't have the resources to help cover, even though the person looks fantastic, you kind of. They're just not a good fit for your company at that time?
- [33:41]
C
Yeah, I love that one.
- [33:43]
B
Hey, Mike, on the flip side, let's talk about ways in which you try to retain.
- [33:48]
C
Wait, before you go there, Johnny. I wanna. On the, on the recruiting piece, I find that a topic that doesn't get covered very often is these are all great ways to help your frontline managers, you know, be better recruiters. The feedback I get all the time is, man, I understand what we're looking for. Because companies do, you know, they either do a good job of an ideal profile. They either do a good job or don't do a good job at that. But most of them say, help me find them. So let's just have a quick discussion about sourcing because I actually believe sourcing is the greatest gift. If you're a second, third, fourth line CRO or what have you, you can add a ton of value on sourcing. How do you get you going to.
- [34:36]
B
The sourcing piece though? When you do come up with the ideal profile, what a lot of the managers will say, they throw their hands up in the air and they say, dude, you're looking for the unicorn. We can't find the unicorn. And you have to say, no, I'm not looking for the unicorn. If we find them, we're going to hire them. But profile should always be let's, we have to find people as close to the profile as we can and then cover for the risks where they're weak.
- [35:01]
D
Right.
- [35:01]
C
See, I'm a believer that that profile has to represent somebody you can point to right now inside the company.
- [35:07]
B
Yeah. And that's.
- [35:08]
C
Yeah, you got to have that profile based upon current people finding those guys.
- [35:12]
B
If I could find, you know, 50 Marty Cardi's, then.
- [35:16]
C
That's right. So let's talk about sourcing because this.
- [35:19]
B
50 Marty Cardi don't exist.
- [35:21]
C
Yeah, let's talk about. This one's a, this one's a big one. Like where do you tell people to. How, where, how do you do it? And I don't think it's from the recruiters.
- [35:36]
D
Yeah, look, I think, look, I think there's, you know, there's a profile, you know, there's companies out there that have, you know, that are, you know, in network or out of network. There's, there's great training programs that are known out there where, that we know, you know, people get taken in and built and developed super well, just like ours by the way. Again, back to, I'm sure we're on other people's lists of places that they should be recruiting from. Right. And so, you know, you kind of know the network, you know what you're looking for from a company that has that, that level of development of folks through the funnel. You know, perhaps they haven't stretch their people the way we would or perhaps they haven't allowed them to make them sit in roles for too long before they're willing to promote them or move them around. When we have a demonstrated record of promoting folks and stretching them into jobs over the last, I don't know, since App Dynamics really when I got into leadership. Right. You know, my, my VP of America is right now Dave Goodmark. He's, you know, younger, younger guys. He's been with me since Appdynamics and we stretched him into multiple roles and he delivers better than anyone I've ever seen in my life. Right. The guy could do my job tomorrow. So just, just having the willing, willingness and track record and reputation to be able to stretch people, I think is appealing for folks that are kind of up and coming and then, and then the established people that are in the market like our, our product and are going to market tied together. It's, it's, it's pretty special. And so being able to go specifically target a players that are known, known commodities, I think is, is a gift for us, you know. You know, people that have taken your course Kaplan and have been promoted multiple times throughout. I mean I've been through force management like three times. I think maybe four times. Right. Like, it's ridiculous. Like I, when I said the, the rule of three, I didn't even, I forgot. It's like back to my point on like a lot of the stuff I'm talking about has been embedded in my brain. From one of you two in the last 17 years of selling software. Having worked for, having worked for you, John, when you gave me my shot as a BDR Blade Logic to having taken Force management. Number of times I've taken force management. So there are folks that have taken your class that talk about it on your course, talk about it on LinkedIn and have been promoted multiple times throughout their career at multiple companies. That's, that's a person that I would go after like tomorrow.
- [38:06]
C
Yeah.
- [38:07]
D
Or today. Like just right there. That is, that is somebody that I think is great people that have been promoted, you know, multiple times, been in a company for six years. Like those, those are interesting profiles. Like there's a lot of things you can look for that I, I think are really relevant for how you, how you like. But you have to do the work. Like, you can't just say how to do the work. I want to like, I want to go, I want to give me a medic shop that has, that is in John's tree. Like, that's like it's not gonna, that's not gonna give you what you're looking for. It has to like be super defined. Like, yeah, I want somebody that's been promoted multiple times in a job for four or five years, demonstrated track record of success, played, you know, sports, did this also took this course, also was a member of this tree. Like you gotta be super specific with your TA team to get you the funnel. But also again, you have to do it Yourself and you gotta do the work.
- [39:01]
B
Yeah.
- [39:04]
C
Where else do you.
- [39:06]
B
What's that, Johnny?
- [39:07]
C
Sorry, I was just. I want to get down to these sources because people, I want to give you this. I'm going to always get to this. And they're like, okay, I get that. Tell me where. Give me some ideas on where to find them.
- [39:17]
B
Give you one that I really like. And this is Carlos de la Torre. You know, thought of this. It's really good. He takes his leaders and he says every week you have to go out and you have to do your own pipeline generation and you have to send three messages to people in your territory. So if you're in the Chicago territory, you look for really good profiles on LinkedIn. You send three messages to those people, you say you're going to be in town Wednesday, Thursday. Like, would they like to meet for coffee or lunch? It's not a recruiting call. You know, I heard that you're really good. And I'm just trying to network through, you know, the Chicago area because that's where I am. Would you like to just meet for, you know, 20 minutes for a cup of coffee? You do that once, you do that twice with the person. You get to know them a little bit better. All of a sudden you have an opening and you have an A player. Because those A players, they're not, as you know, they're not available.
- [40:13]
C
They're really resume is not on the street.
- [40:16]
B
Now you've built like some sort of relationship with them. They know a little bit about you, your company, you know about them. And now you have this pipeline that's almost ready to go. I love that.
- [40:26]
C
I like that. I like that. How about, how about some others, like new hire company. I think new hires are some of the best places that I've ever gone for candidates because they are at their highest point of satisfaction when they first get to the company. Everybody's got a buyer's remorse mentality. So the more people they can go, they can convince to go to war in, you know, with them or make the same decisions they made. I think that's a great one. Just calling up new hires and even new hires. I remember Steve Strahan didn't. I didn't work for Steve Strahan. Steve Strahan called me on my first day at Force. Management welcomed me, excuse me, at PTC welcomed me. And I, I knew who he was prior to my. Because of my athletic career. So I knew who he was and I was thrilled to talk to him. And he asked me, hey, what other people do you know, like, from your previous company? And I gave him, like, three names. And I'll never forget that because he got on the phone and McMahon ran a very specific forecast process where we didn't talk about the forecast first on the forecast. We talked about how many interviews we did or what names we got. Mr. Hand offers up these names. And you asked him, where did he get them? And he said, from Kaplan. And I was working for Grant Wilson. And. And you said to Grant Wilson, grant, doesn't he work for you? And. But it's. And then, you know, Wilson comes running to me after the meeting, gets all pissed. He goes, what'd you give Steve Strahan three names for? My answer was simple.
- [42:06]
B
He asked.
- [42:07]
C
Yeah, that's a good one. New hires is a good one.
- [42:10]
B
Stay on hires for a second especially then you find a quality person, you know? And then even. Even during the recruiting process, I used to say to them, look. Okay, Mike, so in your office, where. Where are you located? Massapequa, Long Island. Okay, great. So how many reps in that office?
- [42:30]
C
Great.
- [42:31]
B
Ten. Great. Where do you rank? I rank number two. Okay. When you come back for the next interview, bring me a printout that shows where you rent that. You ranked number two?
- [42:42]
C
Yep.
- [42:43]
B
Home run. I got number one. I got number two, and I got a couple other leads right here. And if Mike comes from a really good program, really good training courses, they have the skills and the knowledge to sell what I sell. Let's bring them all on board. Let's go. You know, that's a great place to look. Or even LinkedIn. Mike comes, and then I see that he is from a really good company. Who else in LinkedIn, across that company and across the country. Should we start to go after.
- [43:11]
C
Yeah. Have you guys ever made it a. Like, hey, look, I'm going to hire you. You're going to get an offer letter. But in order to. For me to sign your offer letter, you have to give me three names. You got to give me three additions. So I'm going to hire you.
- [43:28]
D
I make it part of our challenge in the leaders Challenge.
- [43:31]
C
Yes.
- [43:31]
D
Before we hire.
- [43:32]
C
Yes.
- [43:33]
B
What do you do?
- [43:35]
D
So you. You put it in. You know, hey, I. I need. How would you fill your team? Say you have four or five openings. Yeah. What are the profiles? Who are they specifically? And, like, why these profiles? And then you make them, like, by the way, I'm going to be looking at the linkedins in the interview. So they bring, you know, four, five, six names into the. Into the final challenge, and then you can look through the names and you can observe the traits in real time in the LinkedIn and you can, you go bottoms up on the person and profile on LinkedIn. And then you start to pick off certain questions and understand, hey, why this person? Tell me about their, you know, what you think they've overcome, you know, why they would add value to the team, whatever it is. But you, I mean, if they're very good names, you've got the, you've got your leads right there. And that's the final challenge before, before the hire. You've got, you know, four, five, six leads right there. Oh, that's good for reps or other leaders.
- [44:33]
C
Love it, Love it. I think that's a big one. I, I find that the number one problem with recruiting the least, the people that I interact with, they get the, you know, I'm not saying that everybody gets the profile right, but if you get the profile right, you get the mentality of participating in your own rescue and going out and, you know, doing it as like your own pg. The sourcing part has rears its head and I think second, third, fourth level managers really got to help people get creative because it's creativity that creativity gets not in play players interested. Like, how did you get a hold of me? How did you, how did we have this conversation? I always find there's a great story on how a not in play player came to a company and they didn't come through a recruiter.
- [45:28]
B
Right?
- [45:29]
D
That's that back to, you know, it being a leader's pipeline generation. Right? Like, how do you get into accounts? Like, what are the best stories you ever heard about PG and cracking into an account? Like, it's always my favorite part about, you know, somebody winning a deal is how'd you get in? It's the same thing with, you know, how did you hire this person? Or how'd you get this a player? There's no way they were looking to your point of creativity. But if you, if you create that mindset and the culture of pipeline generation of the leaders being recruiting, you can start to see a ton of, you know, a ton of wins there, for sure.
- [46:05]
C
Yeah. It even happens with the candidates, too. I remember Kelly Deemers. I'm going to give her a shout out. She. I said no a couple of times on an interview when I was at ptc, she got a hold of my administrative aide and I still, you know, I don't know, maybe she just guessed good or whatever. She asked for my shoe size. She sent me whatever the latest and Greatest. I wish I had remembered, but I think it was some Nikes. She sent me one shoe and she sent me a great note in the shoe. She sent one shoe and she said, I'd like to bring the other one with me if you'll allow me to have an interview. And we hired her. We hired her. I thought that creativity was. So if you're listening to this and it goes both ways, creativity and, and, you know, to, to find not in play players and create creativity to get attention of people that, you know, for companies that are hiring. It was a. I thought that was awesome.
- [47:06]
B
Yeah. I even get people that are trying to get into companies and they'll contact me as a board member. Can you help me get into this company? You know, yeah, it's pretty creative. Maybe they don't have the skill set or the knowledge or the traits to, to do well, but it is pretty creative to find somebody on LinkedIn that's tied to it and just say, hey, help me this company.
- [47:26]
D
Yeah, certainly courageous.
- [47:29]
C
Yeah, it is, it is.
- [47:33]
B
Hey, what about on retention? Is there any special things that you do to try to hold on to your people in this market? Everybody, as you said, they know, they know Mike, Ernest, they know Dolly, Roger, they know the reputation of whiz. They know that you guys have a good training program, know the sales process. Everybody wants to get in there. But it also means that there's a lot of companies that are targeting your company and other really good companies. What do you do to try to help retain your top talent?
- [48:01]
D
Yeah, I think it's, it's understanding, you know, why people are here and, and what they're trying to accomplish at a personal, professional level, but like being really authentic about it and at the R and D level at the second line and above and all the way back down. Right. And, you know, helping people to achieve those things through, whether it's the sales process or, you know, leveraging a product or whatever it is, and then really genuinely caring. I like, I don't think it's an. I'm not trying to oversimplify the retention part, but I think if you're authentic about it and you genuinely care about your team and people and you get them to buy into the high bar and have it tie back to personal and professional gain and you see them progressing throughout their career, making money, having fun and part of a team as they look left and right and up and down and around like that, are all doing the same things. They're not going to leave, they're not going to Chase a shiny object because they're in the shiny object. And I think again, it's authenticity about it and bringing them along the ride and earning the right along the way and guiding them through it versus like compliance. So it's buy in versus compliance and creating that type of a culture around getting people to buy into versus like dictating and yelling at and leading through fear and things like that. Right. I think, I think if you're leading through fear and you're being, you're driving a culture of compliance. You know, there's a difference between adhering to a sales process versus like wanting to adhere to a sales process where you actually think it adds value to you and your customer by helping them define the problem you solve. You know, helping move the deal along faster, whatever it is, versus just like trying to meet a metric to meet a metric to appease your boss. Those are two very different things. And I like to think we create the culture of buy in versus the culture of compliance.
- [49:48]
B
Yeah, I call it like transactional management versus transformational management. To your point, when you help somebody, you coach them and develop them and believe in them and you participate in helping them and you get them to the next level where they never thought they could get, whether that's mastering a new skill, helping them get to an economic buyer, helping them get promoted, they're not going anywhere for another 10 or $30,000. They're staying with you because they're, they're thinking, well, when I go to this other company, are they going to help me like my leadership, help me develop my skills, help me get to the next level so I can be a much better salesperson or a better leader. They're not going anywhere. I think that's the key point, Mike. Yeah, well done.
- [50:32]
C
I think that's a good one. There's another one that is you as a leader have to help people see themselves in the future, in your environment. If, and that's the, for me, that's when people are at risk is when their future is clouded, they can't see themselves in the future or something about the future for them is, is, is causing them concern. And I think one of the leaders greatest traits is to constantly help people see themselves in the future. And you know, that's, that's big for me. And it's, it's. I, I don't think companies do that a lot. They're like, hey, you know, it's because we're XYZ company and we have the best product and blah blah, blah, that doesn't mean anything if they, if they don't know what the future is going to look if they can't see themselves in the future. And they like what they see.
- [51:29]
D
So, and a lot of that, I think people will throw that on your enablement team or you know, somebody, a different group, but you have to, you have to own it. In the sales leadership world, it can't, it can't be a different group. Back to, you know, a one on one from an RD level should be development and then coaching opportunities through cycles of deals, but development and then something. Right. Second line, the first line should be development specific and one on ones and then, you know, risk in the business and things like that. Right. So through those conversations, you're going to understand where the people want to be. Through the conversations and recruiting, you're going to hopefully understand a little bit more about where they want to be and how you can take them there and then into the, once they get into your company, it's all, it's all interconnected. You know, I really, I really believe that. But we, we have to own it as sales people and sales leaders. You know, I don't know how many calls I get, for example of, of like reps. I want to get into leadership, right? Like John's laughing. He doesn't laugh. Like, I want to get into leadership. Okay, great. You know, tell me why. Let's, let's have a com. Let's have a call about it, right? And you get on a call and you do a skip down in a rep and you have an open conversation about why, like what, what things they're looking to do. What, what do they care about? Like why, why leadership specifically do they want, you know, is it about just the next job? Is it about, you know, developing people? Is it something, you know, what are the traits they're looking to, you know, hire for, recruit for? Like what do they care about? What's their culture going to be kind of interviewing them without interviewing them, but trying to understand like what makes them tick and, and the reasons. And you say, okay, great, you know, I might not have a spot now, but here's what I'm gonna do for you over the next, you know, three, six months. And it's like, I need you to go meet with these five people outside of your network and start building the brand in the ecosystem because that's what a leader needs to do. They need to own the whole ecos systems, like everyone around you. I need, I need you to go develop the, or go talk to and do one on ones with these three to four new hires that you're, you know, you're a veteran here, go help them, listen to them, hear what their problems are. Like, what are the things that you can help them with to move them along. Like, you give them a ton of homework and most of the time you can figure out who's gonna, who's gonna actually, I mean, it's a lot of homework on top of the hard job that's going on.
- [53:47]
B
They might at least. You're right, they might also.
- [53:51]
D
They might. But like a lot of people will go do it and then come back and then the next iteration of the one on one. But you're developing and moving along throughout, throughout the cycle. And like, what makes leadership, you have to own ecosystem, you have to own top and bottom. You have to own, you know the number, it's everything, right? Like the first line job is the hardest job in sales, I think it's the shit box. Like you're squished from like every angle. Right? But it's the fun job. I, I thought, I thought it was the most fun job.
- [54:22]
B
Well, I used to ask them when they say, I want to get, I want to get promoted. They say, because a lot of them at that, by that age, they typically have kids. I say, you got any kids? Yeah, I got two kids. I said, what? Why do you want five more? Well, what are you talking about? Well, when you were single, it was about you. When you went to bed, when you woke up, what you ate, when you ate, what you did on the weekends is all about you. You didn't worry about anybody else, did you? No, I didn't worry about anybody else. Get married and have kids. Yeah. Not about you anymore, Right? It's about kids. When they get up, when they go to bed, what they eat, what they do on the weekends, what the sports are, what their activities are, what's going on at school, that's exactly what's going to happen. You know, when you become a leader, it ain't about you anymore. So you got to decide, are you ready to take your egos, unscrew it, leave it at home in the dresser and work for, you know, five other people? If you are, then maybe you're prepared to, to be a manager. If you're not, it's not going to.
- [55:20]
C
Work, you know, like that. I like the mike, your people picking up the phone and calling you. The best advice I ever got when I did that as a young, as a young professional, I picked up the phone and called somebody and said, hey, I want to be a manager. And the what this person said to me still stays with me today. They said, act like you already have it. So I want the next job. And they said, act like you already have it. And so that was so profound for me. It's like, okay, so I have to understand. It means I have to understand, well, what do they do in that job? And then the dialogue is, okay. Because my next conversation when I went back to that leader was, okay, you got to give me some opportunities. And they gave me opportunities to mentor, which I sucked at in the beginning. I totally sucked at it. Like, I would go to people and I'd be like, hey, just watch me. What is wrong with you? Just watch me do this, you know, and then just do what I do. And, you know, but I thought it was brilliant. If you want those people listening out there, if you want the next job, act like you already have it. Which means you have to understand what that job's all about and then look for opportunities to do it.
- [56:36]
D
It's good you learned that before you got into the RD job because, you know, when I took the RD job, I tried to just make everyone me, which is really, it's, it's a miserable experience for me and everyone that worked for me. So.
- [56:51]
B
Yeah, well, then you have kids. That's why I bring up the kids thing. Because when you have kids, then you realize none of them are the same. They grew up in the same house, same parents, but none of them are the same. They're all completely different. That's what you have to do when you have five different reps. Can't make them all. Mike Earnest, they're all completely different than you. Now, how do you, how do you got to meet.
- [57:11]
D
You got to meet them where they are.
- [57:12]
B
Really hard part for first line managers. How do I assess these five different reps and what their strengths and weaknesses are, the skills, their knowledge and, you know, what some of their traits are. So I know how to manage them. I know how to motivate them. I know when they're getting demotivated. You know, I, I can read them so I can help them and coach them to success. Once you think that they're all going to be like you, that's how that turn out.
- [57:40]
D
Yeah, but what typically happens, you're the top rep, you get promoted because you're the, you're the top rep, so you get promoted. To take over a team with limited coaching on what the actual job is, you've got a much bigger number than you're used to having attached to you now. And you go. And you're like, okay, we're just going to go focus on revenue because you don't know any better. Right, right.
- [57:59]
C
And that. And, and by the way, that's lazy by companies that do that. Not only do they do that, some companies do that, they just promote the best rep in the geography. And then what they do is they promote the rep and have that rep manage. Try to manage their buddies that they were kicking it with. It's so lazy. Do you still see it, Mike? I know you don't do that, but do you still see it out there? Where, where, where companies do that?
- [58:29]
D
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
- [58:32]
C
And this disaster, like the, you know, and people are just looking at them like, wait, what do you want me to do? Like yesterday we were doing this and you were complaining about that. It's really, really hard to take over. I'm not saying never happens, but it's hard to take over a team you. You've been on.
- [58:50]
B
It happens a lot, I think.
- [58:52]
C
Yeah. Especially.
- [58:55]
B
More often than not just be in Dallas, Texas or Chicago, and it's five to eight people and you get promoted, you're probably going to run that team. The same people that you've been playing football with and hockey and going drinking beer on the weekends and all that stuff.
- [59:12]
C
It's happened to me. I actually, I actually did. It was one of the hardest things that I've ever done. I was. Then I was managing mentors and, you know, there were good things about it and there were a lot of challenges about it, I got to tell you. And people would, you know, if they were honest, being honest with me, they would be like, hey, dude, you know, a couple of months ago, you were calling this bullcrap from the company. And so you have to really be really, really confident in yourself. And, and so we ought to do a segment on that sometime, buddy.
- [59:41]
B
Like a good one.
- [59:41]
C
How do you take over a team? Yeah, that you've been on. Any advice for that, Micah? You've been around the block. Any advice for that? If you're taking over a team that, that, that you were a part of. Any advice?
- [59:54]
D
Yeah, confidence is needed for sure. Especially if you're taking over a team of, you know, been there, done that, folks. I've, I've certainly had to take over a couple teams like that, you know, when I was younger and, you know, I've actually seen it done well here. You know, a couple folks that got put into positions where they had to manage the team that they were, you know, where they were the number one rep in the world and, and they got put into spots and you know, Bill Master though one of them just, just crushed it and you know, absolutely took the team to the next level and hired great. But it's super rare to have that, you know, person that's able to kind of take it over. So the advice is be, be really humble and acknowledge the situation like right at the beginning.
- [60:41]
C
Yeah.
- [60:41]
D
I actually think you have to hit it head on and not let it linger. You can't just take over the team and say, you know, I'm the boss now. Like we're going to completely ignore everything we've talked about the last year or two. Like you have to say hey this is a weird situation. Like, but we're in it. Like help me through this. Like I think we're going to be a great team and continue to be a great team. There's certain things I now have to kind of own and like move through the system that he didn't have to before. And we're going to have an open thread on how this is going to go. Right. And seek feedback constantly. Be, be humble and be authentic I think are my. And be confident in the direction you're taking the team and create the culture around kind of where you're going to take the team. I think those are the traits you need to take on if you're going to do it.
- [61:29]
C
Good ones. How about you Johnny?
- [61:31]
B
I think they need a lot of support from the second line manager. The person I call the Teflon. Teflon manager. Right. The Teflon manager should, or second line manager should be held responsible for a couple things to help out the first line manager. One is assessing the skills and knowledge and traits of the all the reps because it's really hard for the manager himself when they're just got promoted to really see those people for what they, what they really are versus the way he viewed them before as friends. And, and that should be consistent whether you got promoted, you know, to, to run your, the group you were with before or not. And the second thing is to help them with recruiting. But I think overall in leadership, because we were talking about retention is that if you want to retain your people it's really important to be like consistent in everything. Consistent in. This is the sales process, these are the methodologies, this is the training, these are the rules of engagement and then also the expectations of what you have for them. You can't give them like 10 things that, that you're expecting from them. It can only be two or three. And to your point of rolling over the side of the bed in the morning and your feet hit the floor Cap. I always thought that it has to be so simple that when their feet hit the floor, they know exactly what I want from them. They don't have to think about it, they have to write it down, they don't have to memorize it. And if they can't just snap it out, those three or four things, it's too complex.
- [63:03]
C
Yeah. You know, like that.
- [63:04]
B
Gotta keep it simple. Expectations that don't change all the time. Like some, some leaders are like we got to get more PG, we got to do more POVs, we got to go close more deals. We got to do this, we got to do that. They're changing all the time. And there's this one that drives like a people crazy, a, A you know, performance crazy. It's that you're constantly changing the, the goal posts.
- [63:28]
C
I like that. And I think the last point on that, if you take over a team that you've been on, I think if you just focus on helping people get to the next level or overcome challenges, that's a great place to start. You're not looking for more friends. As a matter of fact, you'll probably put strains on relationships if you do it right. And I think you just focus on how can I help add value to this individual. That's the best advice I could give you. I think that's a good one. Covered a lot of ground boys.
- [64:06]
B
Everybody equal is important too. And trying to work on like what we talked about, their development issues is important. Typically those first line managers, when they, when they get that job, the other thing mistake they make is they're just only going after the biggest deals on the forecast. So John Capp's got a big deal in his forecast and Mike has one in his forecast. Meanwhile, they got three brand new people that are suffering. Can't even get a meeting with an economic buyer. Still trying to struggle to find out what a champion is. And they're going out for the five hundred thousand dollar deal. So they can say that they killed the bear and put it on their back and brought it back to the campfire. Right when that rep didn't need the leader at all on that sales call. The people that needed the leader on the sales call are the people that need to be developed. Right. And you got it. That's really where they should be spending revenue first.
- [64:56]
D
What's it, they're promoted into the role, they're putting revenue first and they're not realizing that those three people that are new, that are not being developed are at risk of leaving in six months and you could go hero. Those deals, get them and get the wins in six months and then all of a sudden you're three people in the hole and haven't recruited the back tools at all. And now you're in trouble.
- [65:17]
B
You're in big trouble. You're going to lose your job. Right. You're going to be a rep again.
- [65:21]
D
Right. You are now one of those three.
- [65:25]
B
As a rep. Yeah, no, that can easily happen. You just chasing revenue. You're not putting any systems in place for the entire team to move the whole team forward. Right. I think that's where the leaders need to constantly enforce what's most important, which is the average productivity of that sales team. You know, closing down the ramp time, increasing the average productivity and preventing attrition. I mean at the end of the day those, those, those are the rules of the game. And if you work really hard to do those three things that sound simple, you know, you'll be way ahead of the game.
- [66:08]
C
Mike, are you guys still adding folks over there? Are you still. Let's use this for a little commercial over there for Wiz.
- [66:14]
B
He's getting busloads of people, airplanes, C17, cargo planes.
- [66:19]
C
Still a great place to work, bro. Do a little advertisement.
- [66:23]
D
Look, I, you know, I mentioned earlier, it's, it's the best product I've ever seen. We're just trying to in the go to market keep pace with what the product team is delivering on a hourly basis.
- [66:35]
B
Really.
- [66:35]
D
New features, functionality. It's, it's crazy. Just the new stuff I see week over week from, from organization and you know, so we are, we are growing, we're growing in mostly in APJ and emea. Our Americas team is, we spent the majority of the year building out the Americas team and emea, but we're, we're still growing there. I anticipate some more heads in the Americas as well. So yeah, we're hiring a lot of folks worldwide in multiple different positions across the board. So it's been a great run so far. In 12 months actually I come up on my year and a week at this company.
- [67:16]
B
It seems like you went there yesterday.
- [67:19]
D
That's right.
- [67:19]
B
Yeah.
- [67:20]
C
Well done.
- [67:21]
D
So, so a lot of growth internationally right now, which has been a great experience. My first time as a worldwide leader.
- [67:30]
B
A lot of, a lot of plane rides over to APJ then.
- [67:34]
D
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
- [67:39]
B
I'm gonna have to tell you some stories sometime. We'll have to share.
- [67:46]
D
Can't wait. Sounds like over a beer would be good.
- [67:49]
B
Yeah, that would be. Well, Mike Ernest, thanks a lot for joining the Revenue Builders podcast. Really appreciate it.
- [67:57]
D
Thanks, guys, for having me.
- [67:58]
B
Best of luck. I don't think you need the luck.
- [68:01]
D
Good to see you guys again.
- [68:02]
B
You're gonna be fine. So what's that?
- [68:07]
D
So you always need luck. We always need luck. Come on. I'll take it.
- [68:11]
B
When it's the old Jack Nicholas thing. The harder I work, the luckier I get. Well, thank you, Mike Ernest. Thank you, John Cat. Thanks to everyone for listening to another episode of the Revenue Builders podcast.
- [68:27]
A
Thanks for listening to today's episode. Be sure to check us out@ForceManagement.com.