Podcast
The Naberhood
Hosted by Brandon Naber · EN
Democratizing The Career Stories, Mindsets, and Methods of World-Class Sales & Marketing Leaders @The World's Fastest Growing Tech Companies.
All Episodes: https://www.brandonnaber.com/
11episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Danielle Peretore - Director, Sales Strategy & Analytics @Glassdoor (Formerly @NerdWallet, @LinkedIn, @BCG, @HBS) - Biz Ops Team Structures, Data-Driven Executive Decision Making, Translating Executive Data to the Field - Sales & Customer Success
Sep 3, 201900:41:20Tap to summarizeGuest: Danielle Peretore - Director, Sales Strategy & Analytics @Glassdoor (Formerly @NerdWallet, @LinkedIn, @BCG, @HBS) Guest Background: Danielle Peretore is the Director of Sales Strategy & Analytics at Glassdoor. Prior to Glassdoor, Danielle worked in management consulting and business operations in the tech industry. She graduated from Brown and Harvard Business School and has a soft spot for the East Coast. She spends most of her free time doting on her two rescue dogs. Guest Links: LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - Biz Ops Team Structure & Hiring - Best Practices - International Markets Selection Framework - Data-Driven Executive Decision Making - Executive Profiles, Challenges, Solutions - Translating Executive Strategy & Data to the Field - Sales & Customer Success - Building Commercial Structures for Scale - Company Superpowers - @Glassdoor, @NerdWallet, @LinkedIn Full Interview Transcript: [Naber] Hello friends around the world. My name is Naber Naber, welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented, and highly skilled sales and marketing minds on the planet from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy. Hey everybody, today we have Danielle Peretore on the show. Danielle's the Director of Sales Strategy and Analytics at Glassdoor. Glassdoor was acquired back in 2018 for $1.2 billion. worked in management consulting and business operations in the tech industry. She worked for NerdWallet, who has a $500 million valuation, and $105 million capital raised. And she also worked at LinkedIn, who was acquired by Microsoft back in 2016 for $26.2 billion. Before that, they went public in 2011. Danielle graduated from Brown and Harvard Business School, and she has a soft spot for the East Coast. She spends most of her free time doting on her two rescue dogs. Here we go. [Naber] Danielle, awesome to have you on the show. How are you this morning? [Danielle Peretore] I am great, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. [Naber] Thank you. [Danielle Peretore] Although it's actually evening my time. [Naber] (laughs) Well happy evening, and good evening. So what I think we'll do is first talk through a little bit of your personal story, get into you as a kid, some of the decisions you made, interests you had, et cetera, and then we'll start to lean into probably 80, 90% of what we'll talk about which is your professional jumps, and some of the superpowers that you've acquired, accumulated along the way, and some of the things that you're great at, and know a lot about. And we'll talk through some of the methods and mindsets that you have around those things. Sound okay? [Danielle Peretore] Yeah, sounds great. [Naber] Okay cool. Let's start back in Jersey, where it all started. [Danielle Peretore] Oh boy. (Naber laughing) [Naber] 25, 35, minutes outside of Newark it seems. Tell us a little bit about you as a kid. [Danielle Peretore] So, I think I was the ultimate nerdy kid. I read all the time and everywhere, and I was horrible at sports. I got kicked off of six sports teams in high school, actually six. [Naber] You counted. [Danielle Peretore] About half for skill. Oh yeah, I mean about half of them were for skill and about half of them for having a bad attitude. So, you know, kinda evened out. But yes, I read a lot of books. I went to a lot of really nerdy camps. I went to computer camp, I went to science camp, I went to math camp, all of the above. [Naber] Yes, this is so cool. [Danielle Peretore] Is it, is it so cool, or did I have a tiger mom? I'm not really sure. (Naber laughing) [Naber] Fair enough, fair enough. So maybe both are true. This is great. Tell us about a couple of the camps that you enjoyed the most and why. [Danielle Peretore] Which camps did I enjoy, actually I loved computer camp because you could play games all day. Actually, you weren't supposed to but I did. Do you remember that game Frogger that was really big in the 90s? [Naber] Absolutely. [Danielle Peretore] Of course, of course. Okay great. Yeah, I loved Frogger, so I played a lot of Frogger there. I also learned how to code in HTML, back in, this must have been like 1998. So I was ahead of the curve and then I totally lost it, never became a coder, you know my mom's dreams of me becoming a female engineer just went out the window. That's a story for later, but anyway I coded these, Danielle's home page, it was always rainbow and sparkles, whatever. So yeah, I loved computer camp. [Naber] Very cool. [Danielle Peretore] Yeah, yeah. [Naber] And what was the first way that you made money? [Danielle Peretore] First way I made money. The first actual paycheck I had for the summer before I went to college, my parents were, you know I'd been a nerdy kid just studying all through high school. And so they were very determined, they said that I needed to have a menial job. It was incredibly important to them that I understood what life would look like if I dropped out of college. And so they signed me up to work at a, it was like a shack that made french fries. So I made french fries and like chicken dinos. It was at like a, I think it was at a local pool. Yeah, it was at a local pool. And I spent my summer mopping floors, lots of clogged toilets. It was great, it was great. By the time I got to college, I was like, yep I'm gonna figure this thing out, I'm gonna stick it out. I don't want there to be any more clogged toilets in my future. (Naber laughing) [Naber] That's a good story. [Danielle Peretore] Yeah, my parents had a little bit of a shock and awe strategy in terms of raising us. They were like yeah, you don't wanna do the things that we think you should do, or that you should do, let us shock you. Like, throw you in the deep end. [Naber] That's funny. Was that the way it was for all our siblings as well? [Danielle Peretore] Oh my gosh, yes. I think my other sisters, one of them worked, she actually, she was going to Harvard and then she spent two summers scooping ice cream. Where she got in trouble because apparently her ratio of ice cream to sprinkles was not right, and it was pretty funny when then she had to explain to them, she's like, "I promise I can do this. "I'm going to Harvard next year." (Naber laughing) [Naber] All right, great. And one last question, and we'll move on. What was your personality like as a kid? How would you describe it? [Danielle Peretore] Well, believe it or not, I didn't talk really, as a kid. This is shocking to anyone who knows me now, but I was silent. I didn't talk to anyone, except my parents, and I really didn't like other kids. I was not into it. I just wanted to hang out with the adults. I basically wanted to be left alone and reading all day. I didn't wanna sweat. Sports was just a no go, I didn't really wanna be outside. I was like an 80-year-old woman as a 10-year-old. [Naber] Interesting. [Danielle Peretore] Yeah. [Naber] Were you always like that, like did your parents say that you were like that when you were really small, like when you were a child? [Danielle Peretore] Yes, yes. Yes, I was always like that. I never, there's all these pictures of me as a kid where all the other kids are together and I'm in the corner by myself not talking to anyone. Yeah, but it's funny, as I got older, so my middle sister used to be the really talkative one and so she would answer questions for me and whatever, and then we totally flipped and now I talk all the time, I always wanna talk. And my middle sister is really quiet and wants to be left alone. [Naber] Well, you're making up for lost time with words, I love it. [Danielle Peretore] I mean, yeah it's been about half my life that I've been making up for lost time so I should probably pump the brakes a little bit. (Naber laughing) [Naber] Fair enough. All right, so you're getting out of high school, you're making the decision to go to uni, why Brown University? And why cognitive neuroscience and Brazilian Portuguese studies? [Danielle Peretore] Oh God, that's the question of the century. Why Brown, I'm wearing my Brown sweatshirt right now actually. I went to Brown, well really 'cause it was the best school I got into and as I said I had a tiger mom. So there wasn't much negotiation there. However, I loved Brown. I loved everything about Brown. Brown is just such a weird, wacky, wonderful place. There are no requirements, you take whatever you want. The weirder you are the better. I was considered so normal at Brown. And it was not cool, you know, it was not cool that I was normal. My friends from Brown are, they're just doing weird cool stuff. Brown was the best. I just had my 10-year reunion and it was a dream, I loved it. I think I got there and I was like, oh it's a bunch of weird kids who wanna sit in a corner and read, like me, great. [Naber] Why cognitive neuroscience, and why Brazilian Portuguese studies? [Danielle Peretore] Also great questions. So cognitive neuroscience, as I've said lik...
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Ryan Bonnici - Chief Marketing Officer @G2 (Formerly @HubSpot, @Salesforce, @Microsoft; Writer @HBR, @Forbes) - The Inbound Marketing Playbook, The Art & Science of Marketing Metrics, Ryan's Hiring & Retention Methodology; B2B Brand Building
Aug 27, 201900:57:11Tap to summarizeGuest: Ryan Bonnici - Chief Marketing Officer @G2 (Formerly @HubSpot, @Salesforce, @ExactTarget, @Microsoft; Writer @HBR, @Forbes) Guest Background: Ryan Bonnici is the Chief Marketing Officer of G2 Crowd, where he's driving the growth of the world's leading B2B technology review platform that's helping more than 1.5 million business professionals make informed purchasing decisions every single month. With previous positions leading global marketing at HubSpot, Salesforce, and ExactTarget, Ryan's marketing and SaaS expertise has been featured in Forbes, Business Insider, Entrepreneur, and LifeHacker. Guest Links: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram How We Grew Our Organic Traffic to 1 Million Monthly Visitors in Under a Year The Most Important Marketing Metric You're Not Measuring Learn.G2.com Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Inbound Marketing Playbook - The Art & Science of Marketing Metrics - Ryan's Methodology - Hiring and Retaining World-Class Talent - B2B Brand Building - What can we Learn from B2C? - Social Media Strategy - Ryan Talk's the Talk AND Walk's the Walk Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to the Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Ryan Bonnici on the show. Ryan is the Chief Marketing Officer of G2, formerly known as G2 Crowd. They have a $500 million evaluation on $100 million capital raised, where he's driving growth of the world's leading B2B technology review platform that's helping more than 1.5 million business professionals make informed purchasing decisions every single month. With previous positions leading global Marketing at HubSpot (who IPO'd back in 2014, they currently have a $7.5 billion evaluation), also Salesforce (who also IPO'd, they have $124 billion valuation), and ExactTarget (who Salesforce purchased). Ryan's Marketing and SaaS expertise has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Entrepreneur.com and Life Hacker. Here we go. Naber: Ryan, awesome to have you on the show. How are you? Ryan Bonnici: I'm doing well, Brandon, thank you so much for having me. Naber: Good. It is amazing to...I can see you right now, see your lovely hair, and hear your lovely accent, which is always a treat for me. You're in Chicago right now, correct? Ryan Bonnici: I am, yeah. I moved from Australia to the US a few years ago, and it's beautiful, sunny and warm outside, so I can't complain. Naber: Awesome. I've done some solid research on your personal and professional, from all the content you've put out there, and I'm pretty convinced, based on the moves that you made, that you're doing your penance for growing up in beautiful, best in the world to live Sydney and Cronulla, by trying to attempt to live in the coldest, major market cities in the US - in Boston, Chicago. Ryan Bonnici: Haha, yeah...this is true. Naber: No slag on those cities because I love both of them. Lived in Chicago for about five years as well. Hey, let's jump in. So, I know that you've had such an amazing career and, in the intro everyone's heard a lot of your accomplishments as well as a bunch of the companies you've gone through. So, what we'll do, I think today is we'll jump into some personal stuff first, for maybe a few minutes, and go through what it was growing up as Ryan Bonnici, and then we'll hop into some of the professional, and that'll be the meat of what we talk about. Sound okay? Ryan Bonnici: Sounds amazing. Naber: Cool. Trinity Grammar School, growing up in Cronulla, going through all the interesting things you did in your childhood to become the person you are today - which I believe, a perennial overachiever, which I'll talk about in a second. But talk about a little bit about, maybe three or four minutes, on what it was like being Ryan Bonnici as a child and growing up. Ryan Bonnici: Good question. Gosh, I think in one word, what it was like growing up as Ryan Bonnici as the child, would be "lonely" a little bit. Yeah, I was an only child. And, my parents wanted to have more kids, but they stay separated when I was young. And then I got back together, and they eventually divorced, but they didn't really want to have a second child because they weren't sure about what was gonna happen with their relationship. And so, I don't know. I remember just growing up and always wanting a brother or sister or someone to play with. And so, I definitely feel like I was a very different person then than who I am now. But I don't know, I think that shaped me to be honest, in good ways and in bad ways. So I think, early on and growing up, decided that I was going to put my self worth on my accomplishments, which I wouldn't recommend people do necessarily because you will always be unfulfilled because you're always trying to get the next best thing, or to make yourself better, or be better. And flash forward 30 years, and through a lot of therapy, I've been able to unfold a lot of that stuff. But, yeah, I don't know, that's probably the one word that would best describe me - maybe "lonely", and probably not very social. Which is bizarre, because I think across Linkedin, and Instagram, and Twitter, and different social networks, I probably have a few hundred thousand followers, which I share a lot of content with. So, I come across really social, but I'm secretly just an extroverted introvert. I grew up in Sydney, Australia. I didn't really focus all that much on school up until year 11 and 12, which are the two final years of high school, in Australia. And I don't know what it was, but something just clicked in my mind, and I was like, I really want to get a really good GPA because I want to be able to get into any University in the world. And so I worked my butt off and I got a 4.0... Naber: Wow. Ryan Bonnici: And then went to university for a year, and I was a bit burned out at university, and then I took a couple of years off from studying to be an international flight attendant, which kind is random. Naber: That's pretty cool. Ryan Bonnici: Really fun. It helped me save up to buy my first investment property back when I was 19... Naber: Wow. Wow. Ryan Bonnici: Yeah, and then I can jump into the career stuff, or happy to answer more questions on the growing up, or wherever you want to take it, Brandon. Naber: No, that's good. That's good. Let's pause there just for 30 seconds, and then we'll hop into some career stuff. But, you mentioned, you mentioned the word "lonely", and you've talked about - in a lot of the content you've put out around mental health, mental health in the workplace, and how it shaped you professionally - can you talk a little bit about that? Because you're really passionate about it. And, I think that's probably a good place to start because you talked about how some of the events in your childhood had shaped you up until who you are today. Can you just give us a little bit more about that, and how it shaped you as to who you are right now? Ryan Bonnici: Yeah, sure. So I think mental health is just something that, I think it impacts everyone to some degree. Some people have good mental health, somebody will have poor mental health. And I think everyone will experience poor a mental health, at certain times of their lives. I think for me, and my family anyways, there's definitely a genetic component because my mum, my mum's mum, there's quite a significant amount of depression and suicidality in our family. So I think some of my own experiences growing up, as well as some of just my genetics, I think predisposes me to have more issues in that space. Which I think I used to view as a problem, but now I just view it actually as something that needs to be trained in the same way that I train my body by going to the gym, I train my mind by going to therapy and doing different therapeutic modalities. And so, I think growing up as an only child and experiencing bullying when I was in primary school, just sort of...I think you attachment to your friends, your attachment to your family, your attachment to these key figures in your early years is really paramount in your formation of the world, and relationships, and whether or not you, when you interact with someone, whether you are going to over-index for them being trustworthy, or you're going to over index for them being someone who's going to take advantage of you, or whatnot. So I think for very good half of my career, I was definitely the latter. So I, unconsciously anyways, viewed everyone around me as a potential bully. And so that meant that I was super competitive and was always thinking about how people around me were going to, I don't know, get in my way, or take me down, or stabbing in the back, which sounds really dramatic. And it wasn't like I was going through my jobs and literally thinking that, and like planning behind the scenes. But I think what I've learned for therapy now, is that I think, and in some ways, I think I've grown a lot of empathy actually toward those...
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Oliver Jay - Head of Global Sales & Partnerships @Asana (Formerly @Dropbox, @NEA, @HBS) - Top Talent: 4 Hiring Criteria & Step x Step Recruiting Process, The International Expansion Playbook, Freemium to Enterprise, Picking Great Companies, Unit Economics
Aug 27, 201901:29:29Tap to summarizeGuest: Oliver Jay - Head of Global Sales & Partnerships @Asana (Board Director @Grab; Formerly @Dropbox, @NEA, @HBS) Guest Background: Oliver Jay is the Head of Global Sales & Partnerships at Asana. Prior to Asana, he scaled the Dropbox sales team from 20 to 100 people across multiple geographies. Previously, Oliver worked at Morgan Stanley and New Enterprise Associates (NEA) where he invested and worked alongside entrepreneurs in consumer internet, cleantech and enterprise SaaS companies. Oliver earned his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Guest Links: Website | LinkedIn | Twitter Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - Top Talent: 4 Hiring Criteria & Step x Step Recruiting Process - The International Expansion Playbook - Upstream: Product-Market Fit to Freemium to Enterprise - Building Sales Engines - Self Serve, Online Sales, Enterprise, Partnerships & Channel - 3 Criteria for Picking Horses (the Right Hypergrowth Companies) - The Role of Unit Economics for Sales & Marketing Leaders Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Oliver Jay on the show. OJ is they call him. OJ is the Head of Global Sales at Asana, a $1.5 billion valuation company, a Unicorn with $213 million capital raised. Prior to joining Asana, he scaled the Dropbox Sales team from 20 to 100 people across multiple geographies. Dropbox IPO in 2018 $9.6 billion valuation. Previously Oliver worked at Morgan Stanley and New Enterprise Associates, NEA. We invested and worked alongside entrepreneurs in consumer internet, clean tech and enterprise SaaS companies. OJ is also on the Board of Directors for Grab, who has a $14 billion valuation and $9.1 billion capital raised. OJ earned his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his MBA from Harvard Business School. Here we go. Naber: Oliver Jay, awesome to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Oliver Jay (OJ): I'm so glad to be here, Brandon. Naber: Excellent. Thank you. It's July 4th. I'm sure you don't have anything better to do, so I'm really glad that you're spending it with me this morning. and I really appreciate your time. So we've got a lot to talk about. We're lucky enough to know each other personally and professionally, so I get to talk about some of my favorite things and hear about your story personally, and we'll hop into professional as well, hop through some of your career journey and ultimately, spend the bulk of our time in your professional journey, talking about a lot of the strengths, experiences, and ultimately superpowers that you've built up over time, that you've been able to study about, but also execute on that at several different, really, really high growth businesses. So let's start with on the personal side, little bit about you growing up, a little bit about what you were like as a kid. I mean, Hong Kong, Concord, New Hampshire, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, San Francisco, Sydney, San Francisco 2.0, been all over the planet. And I'd love to walk through you as a kiddo and talk about some of your interests, some of the things you're interested in, and then your journey through school. And then we can get into some professional stuff. Maybe in five to seven minutes, et's talk through what was OJ as a kid? Oliver Jay (OJ): Awesome. Yeah. Well, so I grew up in Hong Kong. My parents are still there. And, I think even as a child I was always, I was the Lego kid, I was the builder. I was a total nerd throughout. And I excelled in math and science. Not a surprise. And it got to a point where my parents were , okay, math is only going to get you so much here. So they then sent me to boarding school in New Hampshire. Naber: And that was St Paul's? Oliver Jay (OJ): And that would be St Paul's. So I went there. That was my entry to the US was a ninth grade. Naber: Nice. Excellent. So, what were some of the interests you had or the hobbies you had when you were a kid? Oliver Jay (OJ): My main thing was tennis. Tennis was my major hobby growing up. And I think a lot of who I am came from just that sport, because that sport, just like any sport, requires you to be excellent. You just have to be, continue to grind away. A lot of, how I think actually came from that sport and competing, learning how to lose graciously, learning how to stay calm when there's, when it's things are looking rough. When you're down a set, what do you do? I'm thinking about how do you change your tactics in real time? That all comes from tennis. Naber: Absolutely. Especially in an individual sport. We have to be so iterative. Where you do things a thousand times in practice, and it just becomes a transaction when you're in the actual match. That makes a lot of sense. So when you moved to St Paul's, and you were in Concord, New Hampshire, out of your comfort zone, tell us about that transition. And then let's talk about some of the things that you were interested in when you were in New Hampshire and high school. Oliver Jay (OJ): Boy, so the interesting thing was Saint Paul's is one of the top high schools in the US, and that's pretty much all my parents knew. And my parents said, you're very strong in math and science, but your English sucks, and it's just really bad. And they're like, you need to supercharge that. And so they looked at the list, I think it was a US News and World Report list. And they had a couple rankings and some names that people have heard of, Exeter, St Paul's, whatever. And then so I applied and got in. And I mean St Paul's is a real school, in that it's academics is intense. And it's in the middle of nowhere. I mean, you're literally in the woods. I grew up in Hong Kong, I grew up in the heart of the jungle, a concrete jungle, and then I'm literally moved into a jungle. The school had, I think 200 acres. And I mean, it was nuts. But I learned to adapt. I learned about the American way. Yeah, it was tough, but it was certainly, also the best four years of my academic career. Naber: Nice. Very cool. And did you play tennis when you were there? Or what were some of the activities that you were doing? Oliver Jay (OJ): Yeah, yeah. I was on the tennis team, I was captain of the tennis team there. We were decent, we were decent. I did that, and then I was just lots of part of lots of clubs. But honestly, high school was tough for me. I didn't have that much spare time. Obviously, it should be clear, I have tiger parents, right? Obvious. So I did play a violin as well, but I was terrible at it. But I did the orchestra thing, but I was, I was so bad, so bad. But I survived, and I was okay. But I mean, I just, I worked so hard because my English level was far, far, far, behind my peers at school. Naber: That must have been so challenging. Learning all that curriculum at such a high level, while you're learning how to master the English language yourself. That is immensely complex. Oliver Jay (OJ): It was crazy. It was crazy. But, it changed my life. Because when I went to college, I studied philosophy, politics and economics. I went to Penn, right? So I didn't go to Wharton and just do a bunch of math and talking about strategy. I mean it's funny, I'm in business now. It's so easy compared to a career, or studying old philosophy texts, and debating, and writing papers or why you disagree with Socrates. I mean that's...But if I didn't go to St Paul's, and then of gotten out of my comfort zone, I wouldn't have done that. Naber: That's cool. That's actually a really good way of looking at it. The most challenging class I think I've ever had in Uni was my logic class, my philosophy class - deductive reasoning, and logic, and going through all those different frameworks, and squaring everyone from old philosophers, and folks that...it's just almost, it feels it's impossible with their life experiences to contend and debate with. But that's, that's really interesting. You moved to U Penn. Why did you decide to choose U Penn? Oliver Jay (OJ): Actually it was specifically because I really liked this program. So PPE, philosophy, politics and economics, is the most popular major in Oxford, in the UK. And Penn was one of two schools that adopted this program. It sounds fancy. Sometimes when I tell people that, it sounds I tri-majored. It's not true. It's more than one, but, it's this integrated curriculum of three disciplines that I think are really, really tied together. So that's why I went to Penn, for that program specifically. Naber: Got It. So I won't tell anyone you didn't tri-major, but it sounds really, really stimulating. So you were at U Penn, What were some of the things you're interested in at U Penn? Before we get into your first job. Oliver Jay (OJ): Like I said, Saint Paul's really opened my eyes to the world of humanities, and that's why I really loved that. But my interest had always been in business. You grow up in Hong Kong, you're going to be in business or you're a doctor, right? Or maybe a lawyer. It's just what you do, and it's in my blood. And so even when I was in high school, I was reading Peter Lynch books on how to invest. And so I've always been interested in business, but I to...
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Ryan Burke - SVP, International @InVision (Formerly SVP, Sales @InVision) - The 3 F's to Build Your Sales Team from 1-50, InVision's Entirely Remote Workforce (1,000 EE's): How to Hire, Onboard, Manage, and Communicate, Inside Sales vs. Enterprise Sales
Aug 27, 201901:09:23Tap to summarizeGuest: Ryan Burke - SVP, International @InVision (Formerly SVP, Sales & Custome Success @InVision; Formerly @Compete, @Mainspring, @Goldman Sachs) Guest Background: Ryan joined InVision in 2014 as the Vice President of Sales. He quickly grew his remote salesforce of 3 to over 100 talented professionals responsible for identifying new market opportunities for collaborative design, developing new revenue streams and managing both enterprise and inside sales. Ryan was eventually promoted to SVP, Sales before taking on his current role as the SVP, International leading their international expansion efforts around the world. Prior to InVision, Ryan was at Moontoast as a member of the senior management team. He created and managed both enterprise and inside sales functions, selling both SaaS and custom solutions to clients including Toyota, P&G, GM, Microsoft and others. Prior to Moontoast, Ryan was the SVP of Sales at Compete which was acquired by WPP and later became Millward Brown Digital. He led all sales efforts, including a senior vertical enterprise team as well as an inside team selling the Compete.com SaaS product. Guest Links: LinkedIn | Twitter Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The 3 F's to Build Your Sales Team from 1-50 - The InVision Story - InVision = 1,000 Remote Employees: How to Hire, Onboard, Manage and Communicate w/ Remote Teams - The Role of Sales in Creating & Cultivating a Global Brand & Community - Inside Sales vs. Enterprise Sales Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Ryan Burke on the show. Ryan Burke joined InVision back in 2014 as the Vice President of Sales. InVision has a $1.9 billion valuation and $350 million in capital raised. Ryan quickly grew his remote salesforce of three to over 100 talented professionals responsible for identifying new market opportunities for collaborative design, developing new revenue streams, and managing both Enterprise and Inside Sales teams. Ryan was eventually promoted to SVP of Sales before taking on his current role as a Senior Vice President for International @InVision leading their international expansion efforts around the world. Prior to InVision, Ryan was at Moontoast as a member of the Senior management team. He created and managed both Enterprise and Inside Sales functions, selling both SaaS and custom solutions to clients including Toyota, P&G, GM, Microsoft and others. Prior to Moontoast, Ryan was the SVP of Sales at Compete, which was acquired by WPP and later became Millward Brown Digital. He led all Sales efforts at Compete as the SVP of Sales, including a senior vertical Enterprise team as well as an Inside Sales team selling Compete.com SaaS solutions. Here we go. Naber: Ryan, awesome to have you on the show. How are you doing? Ryan Burke: I'm doing great. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Brandon. Naber: I've seen you with a beard without a beard and a lot of my research I've been doing in the last few hours here. I like the beard and without the beard. It's very rare you can say that about someone you like it equally, and I typically lean towards beard by, I really like both. Ryan Burke: And now it's the grey beard. Now it's the grey beard. Naber: It's like, you go from all bald on the face to some salt and pepper, to a lot of salt, and then you're just, it sinks in. This is just a grey beard. This is just a great, love it. Love it. You and I have gotten to know each other personally over the last few months professionally as well, which is quite cool. I'm happy that we get to, go through a lot of this, as content today with you. What I figured we could do is go through some personal stuff first. So start with Ryan Burke as a kid, what you're interested in. Then ultimately graduate into, pun intended, where are were in school with Baldwin the Eagle up in Boston, and then all the way through your professional jumps into your time at InVision. And in that time we'll just cover a bunch of superpowers as well as things that I know, people have said that you are very good at. And I know that you excel at given a lot of the places you've worked, and roles that you've had. Sound okay? Ryan Burke: Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Cool. Naber: So Westford, MA. What was it like for Ryan Burke as a kid? What were you like? What were you interested in? What were some of your hobbies? Let's go. Ryan Burke: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So Westford is about 40 minutes northwest of Boston. Typical New England town with the centre of town, and the old church, and the common, and all of that. And it was great. Kind of prototypical New England childhood riding a bike around the neighbourhood and doing that whole thing. It was funny, my first job actually was, snake busters. So my buddies and I, when we were, I don't know, maybe 12, decided that we were going to rid the neighbourhood of snakes. So we would walk to people's houses, knock on the door, and charge a dollar a snake. It went well, it went well. It went well. We made all these crazy tools and t-shirts. We ended up just grabbing them with our hands, harmless garter snakes. But it went well until my mother came home one day and found a giant trashcan in the garage that had about 40 snakes in it. That was the end of, that was the end of snake busters. Naber: Did you call it snake busters? Ryan Burke: Oh yeah, we did the tee shirts that we hand drew. I mean, it was right around, I mean, I'm dating myself, but it was right around the Ghostbusters days. So, that was, that was my first commercial endeavour. Got me started in, got me started in Sales. But. Westford was great. I was kind of the athlete, whatever, captain of the basketball and soccer teams in high school, it was great. National Honor Society, I got kicked out my junior year, and came back in my Senior year and won the leadership award. So, it was a fun time and nothing but good things to say about Westford. I had a great childhood. I stay in touch with a lot of my friends still from Westford, pretty close to the community. And the Grey Ghosts, which was our mascot, which I still think is a great name, and I was the 200th graduating class of Westford academy. So it was public high school, but 200. Naber: So, one more question then we'll, we'll talk about your move up to BC. What did your parents do, when you were growing up? And what were some of the hobbies and interests you had outside of sports? Because obviously, you were quite athletic. Ryan Burke: Yeah, definitely, definitely. So my dad was, that day and age was still the time of the long runs at companies. And so my dad was that a Digital Equipment Corporation. So he was at DEC for shoot, 30 years, I think, a long, long time. He ran manufacturing for a couple of plants there. My mom worked there as well for about 10 years. Naber: Is that how they met? Ryan Burke: No, they met outside of Hartford, Connecticut, in college. But my dad had a great run in Digital. My favourite thing was during his retirement ceremony, they renamed the big board room, the Bill Burke Board Room, and then they did a top 10 Bill Burke famous quotes. The number one quote for Bill Burke that I'm not sure what it says about him for his 30 years. There was f*ck 'em. I mean it was celebrated, and it was a quote on a plaque, and all of that. But for 30 years that was interesting, and it kind of describes my dad, in a nutshell, a little bit. Naber: It's funny because people that know your dad if you gave him 10 guesses, they'd probably guess it. People not knowing your dad, like myself, if you gave me a hundred guesses, that wouldn't have been it. I'm so glad that that just happened. Ryan Burke: Yeah. So, and then the hobbies. Like it's interesting, you grew up in Massachusetts, but for whatever reason, my brother and I got really into fishing. And so, that's become a lifelong passion. I actually started and ran a fishing tournament for about 13 years on Cape Cod, kind of post-graduation. The Headhunt. The Harwich Headhunt. And yeah, it just became a passion, and I still fish all the time, and I've gotten my kids involved, and all of that. But that was one of the things that my brother and I would sort of hike through the woods, and find little ponds, and build our little boats or whatever, and float out there, and catch bass and perch and whatever all day. And then we got the bug and started to get closer to the ocean and do some of the offshore fishing, which has been great. Naber: Wow. Very cool. All right, we're going to get into BC, but I have to go rogue on this one. If you're not heavy into fishing, what's the best part about fishing? Like, why do you love it? Ryan Burke: Yeah. I mean honestly now that we get out offshore and go out on the ocean, you're just so in such a different environment and a different mindset, and really things just kind of melt away. And just from the stresses of the world being 10-15-20 miles offshore in that type of environment, we go to tuna fishing, there are whales jumping, whatever's going on, it's just a real escape. The phone's half the time don't work, and so, it's just...a lot of times we'll go out for an eight-hour fishing trip and my wife will say, well, you didn't catch anything. What the heck did you guys do out th...
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Daniel Dackombe - Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Formerly @LinkedIn) - The EMEA B2B SaaS Playbook: GTM Considerations, Compete AND Compliment- The New Fragmented Market Reality, Hiring Profile Tips - Reps & Managers, Global vs. Regional Leadership
Aug 15, 201900:47:10Tap to summarizeGuest: Daniel Dackombe - Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Formerly @LinkedIn) Guest Background: Dan is the Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Series B, $865M Valuation, $77M Raised), where is leading Mixpanel's rapid expansion into EMEA & LATAM markets. Prior to Mixpanel, Dan was at LinkedIn as Global Sales Director - Search & Staffing focused on growth and strategy of the Search and Staffing vertical globally. Prior to this, during his 8 years at LinkedIn, Dan built, managed, and led the Search & Staffing vertical expansion throughout EMEA from scratch to a 9-digit ARR business w/ over 150 employees. Guest Links: LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The EMEA B2B SaaS Playbook: Market Selection, GTM Considerations - Compete AND Compliment- The New Fragmented Market Reality for Sales - Hiring Profile Tips - Sales Reps & Sales Managers - Global vs. Regional Leadership - Influence, Focus, Consistency vs. Flexibility Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest-growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Dan Dackombe on the show. Dan is the Head of Sales, EMEA & LATAM @Mixpanel (Series B, $865M Valuation, $77M Raised), where is leading Mixpanel's rapid expansion into EMEA & LATAM markets. Prior to Mixpanel, Dan was at LinkedIn as Global Sales Director - Search & Staffing focused on growth and strategy of the Search and Staffing vertical globally. Prior to this, during his 8 years at LinkedIn, Dan built, managed, and led the Search & Staffing vertical expansion throughout EMEA from scratch to a 9-digit ARR business w/ over 150 employees. Here we go. Naber: Double D, Dan Dackombe. Awesome to have you on the show. How are you this morning? Daniel Dackombe: I'm well. I'm well. Thanks, Brandon. Naber: You've got your go-to tee shirt on. You're ready to rock in the morning and had your cup o'tea. I'm loving it. Hey, what I think we'll do in our chat, go through some personal stuff first, and talk a little bit about you growing up. What Dan Dan was as a kid. And we'll go through some of the decisions you made as a kid, and what you were like. And then ultimately, go through the bulk of where we'll spend our time, which is professional stuff. Sound okay? Daniel Dackombe: Sounds great. Naber: Awesome. All right, let's start with Dan Dackombe as a kid. So Crawley, England, I could have said that horribly, with the American accent. Totally understand that. However, Crawley, England, believe you grew up there. What were you, what was Dan Dackombe like, as a kid? What were you interested in? And what were some of your hobbies and things that you were doing when you were younger? Daniel Dackombe: Oh, man. Yeah. So, I'm the oldest of three. Two younger brothers. Yeah, my parents divorced when I was about 12, and they both started another family each. So there are five brothers all in all basically. Which is, which is pretty cool. So I'm the oldest of five really. I was, I was pretty intense. My Dad was a rugby guy, so I played a lot of rugby growing up. So yeah, I'm not great at the kind of default, what's your favourite football team? I kind of have to take a bit of a back step in terms of my credibility around anything regarding football, more of a rugby guy growing up. I boxed through it while I really enjoyed that for a few years. But yeah, I was a pretty social guy, pretty social kid. I was, I was always...and this is quite an interesting dynamic actually because I've thought about a lot of these ideas. I was always the worst kid, in the top class. Okay, and so what that basically meant...And that has kind of scarred me and blessed me. Take sports. I remember being on again, my son's 14, so this is really like...I remember being 14, 15 in the cross country race. So you imagine a freezing cold, February morning in the UK, frost on the ground, and there being a big line of in my mind, giant 15-year-olds. And there'd be like, me, and I always got smashed. So I'd always be like, maybe not last in the top group, but I definitely went the champion jog. And so I was always frustrated that I'd worked hard enough to get to the top group, but I was never kind of capable in that sense. And likewise, academically, I always found I did pretty well at school. I wasn't the most gifted, but I was always in top sets, but I wasn't one of these people that were crazy naturally gifted. I had to revise really hard. And so, I think a lot of that translates to both, I think what helps set me up for future success, but probably also like, it has caused a lot of the scarring and imposter syndrome that we all kind of face. Maybe it'd be different if I was in the one class down and like, the top kid there. Yeah, it was great. I was, I enjoyed growing up with where I lived, had a whole bunch of friends I'm still in touch with. Probably half a dozen of them. You don't see someone for a year, two years, three years, and then you catch up in a bar or pub and telling the same mom jokes, or talking about the time that someone did something stupid. And you know what man, we just been repeating these stories for like 30 years. It's nice to maintain those types of relationships. Naber: Oh, that's great. That's good, that's a really good start. You got me smiling a lot over here. It's great. And you always do. Okay, so, two more questions. What was the first thing you did to make money? Daniel Dackombe: Yeah, I mean I've always had a pretty good work ethic. And so I worked from a pretty young, I mean I did like, standard, paper rounds at a young age, gardening work. My first actual employment I worked, cleaning the cars on the four court, on early, early Saturday mornings. So that when people are out looking at new vehicles, they can go in and again the cars don't look like they're covered in crap. But this was a show that was right in the middle of an industrial estate, right next to this great big dual carriageway. So I used to come into work every Saturday when these cars were like rotten. I was like, I gotta clean every single one of these calls again. It used to kill me. I just think maybe like, I don't understand how they get so written off. So I did that probably 14 or so. But yeah, I spent a lot of time, doing construction jobs. My Dad was a construction guy, ran his own companies. I mean, you wouldn't do it now. I mean, I would probably be, yeah, my first salaried wage. I could have been maybe 15, maybe 16, and you'd be working in a building site in central London. He'd like dropped me off. I mean he dropped me deep in. And so talking about learning confidence. And building relationships with like, grown men who are kind of in the construction stage, and I'm like 16. And my dad was the boss and no one knew this. So basically, I was the boss's son. He would drop me off, and at the end of the week. I'd meet him in the pub, as you do when you're 16. And everyone would be like, Oh man, you know...I'm like, that's my dad and all of these guys be like, oh man, we've been bossing this kid around for a week, and this is the boss's son. I, I've got a whole bunch of stories I can probably tell you in the pub about my time doing that sort of thing. But yeah. So I've done some different jobs and worked from a pretty young age. Naber: The things that folks have done when they were younger that they don't think are that fascinating, or just normal, are fascinating to a lot of other people. So you're saying that you worked for your dad's construction company, you just got dropped off and then picked up. That sounds a crazy, interesting scenario for many people that didn't have that as their normal day to day as they're growing up. So maybe it doesn't come to mind, for you or for the folks that are talking on this on our show a lot, but it's really fascinating. That's really cool. It probably, I mean it forms and shapes you. Daniel Dackombe: Totally, I mean I've got a really vivid image in my mind. Bearing in mind this would probably be early to mid-nineties. So it wasn't quite deep in the eighties, but there was still that 80s hangover of music, what people wore. And so the work that we did was a lot of, like, data centres and dealing floors. And so basically just as the trading community began to really digitize their business, and they used to have big data centres basically, that's what my dad did. He built out trading floors and data centres. So all of my work would be in the city. Okay, so you'd be all of these companies that had been doubling down on technology. And so I remember being in a bar in the city and there was like, two divides. I mean on one half of the bar you had all of these construction dudes, and on the other half, you just have all these traders. You know, handmade suits. And it was really interesting for me too because it was like, hey I'm here, but it baked this aspirational, I want to be on the other side of the bar, and I want to be with the traders crowd. Those are the guys that are drinking bottles of champagne, and you know all of the builder guys were pretty dismissive about them. And I kind of was looking at them in a fairly, sort of aspirational way. Like yeah, at some point I'm going to be, I'm going to be that guy on the other side of the bar. Naber: I love that. Cool. That obviously shaped your mentality for a long time. Great Story. All right. So, you're making decisions about where to, about whe...
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David Katz - VP, Sales @Tessian (Formerly @Intercom, @Dropbox, @LinkedIn) - The Art, Timing, & Tactical Guidance for Moving SaaS Upstream, Full-Stack Commercial Teams - Functional Hiring Best Practices, Team Prioritization & Stakeholder Engagement
Aug 13, 201900:59:03Tap to summarizeGuest: David Katz - VP, Sales @Tessian (Formerly @Intercom, @Dropbox, @LinkedIn) Guest Background: David is the Vice President, Global Sales @Tessian - Tessian has raised $60m from legendary security investors like Sequoia and Accel and have over 150 employees located in New York, San Francisco and London. Prior to Tessian, David was the Senior Director, Global Sales & Customer Solutions @Intercom - Responsible for the Account Executive, Account Management, Sales Engineer and Customer Success teams (100+ people) Globally across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Before joining Intercom, David was the Director, Mid-Market & Enterprise Sales @Dropbox - Responsible for a regional direct sales team of more than 40 Mid-Market and Enterprise Account Executives working out of HQ (largest P&L globally). Prior to Dropbox, David was Manager, Mid-Market Sales @LinkedIn. Guest Links: LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Art, Timing, & Tactical Guidance for Moving SaaS Upstream - Full-Stack Commercial Teams - Functional Hiring Best Practices - Team Prioritization & Effective Stakeholder Engagement - Mistakes, Lessons Learned, & The New Mindset - Talent = #1 Priority - Evaluating & Onboarding Top Talent Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have David Katz on the show, DKatz as he's lovingly known. David is the Vice President, Global Sales @Tessian - Tessian has raised $60m from legendary security investors like Sequoia and Accel and have over 150 employees located in New York, San Francisco and London. Prior to Tessian, David was the Senior Director, Global Sales & Customer Solutions @Intercom - Responsible for the Account Executive, Account Management, Sales Engineer and Customer Success teams (100+ people) Globally across Americas, EMEA, and APAC. Prior to Intercom, David was the Director, Mid-Market & Enterprise Sales @Dropbox - Responsible for a regional direct sales team of more than 40 Mid-Market and EnterpriseAccount Executives working out of HQ (largest P&L globally). Before Dropbox, David was Manager, Mid-Market Sales @LinkedIn. Here we go. Naber: DKatz. Awesome to have you on the show. It's great to see your bearded face. How are you? David Katz: I'm great, BNabes. And for those at home, you should also clarify what our full names are, although nicknames are great. I think I once called you just BNabes or even beautiful Nabes. Naber: I dunno if you remember that. I mean that would've been, that's going pretty deep back into the archives of my history and memory. Naber: Haha, that's pretty good. If you called me beautiful, first of all, I think I do remember you calling that, second of all, you may be the only person that's ever called me that. So if I don't remember, that's pretty bad cause that's an amazing story for myself. Thank you for that. Appreciate the confidence boost as we get started. And I'm just looking, I'm just looking to match your beard skills and your hairstyle. I feel like you've nailed the combo. I feel like you've really nailed the combo. David Katz: So for those at home that are just listening to the audio, if you went and actually just googled David Katz at Tessian or found me on LinkedIn, you'd see this shiny bald head. And yeah, I mean when we worked together, I had some hair, but maybe one or two of the things we'll talk about is the high pressure environments I put myself in more recently that caused me to lose all said hair. But I say like, dude, this look without a beard and glasses to soften it up. Like, if you could imagine this, without glasses. I'll take them off so you can see and then imagine now, if you take those things away, you're getting into the Doctor Evil territory. And I don't know if that's necessarily all look that is inviting and encouraging of future conversations. So anyways, I appreciate that. Naber: Yeah, it's an evolution. I'm sure that it feels right that Dr Evil is what you're moving towards in your life. But I'm sure you've perfected the morning routine pretty well with the head, the beard, the glasses. Like it's gotta be a pretty solid morning routine at that point. David Katz: Less than five minutes. Naber: Nice. Awesome. That's what I like to hear. Every, every guy wants to hear that. All right, so let's hop into a couple things. One, we'll go through some personal stuff first. Mr Smarty pants grew up in New Hampshire, went to Syracuse, some interesting history, interested in debate, and government, and voracious reader obviously, and I'm sure that started at a really young age. So we'll talk about all that fun stuff as a kid, what you were like, then we'll hop into the professional stuff, talk about some of your superpowers, talk about tech businesses you've worked with, and ultimately get into your superpower mindset as well as methodology, and some frameworks around some of the things you're really good at. Sound okay? David Katz: Yeah, let's do it. Naber: Awesome. let's start personal first. So 5,000 population town lake Winnipesaukee. I'm totally gonna screw up any one syllable that I'm sure. So, you grew up in that town. Let's talk about what was it like being DKatz as a kid? What were you interested in? And what were some of your hobbies and things you were good at growing up? David Katz: I was a high energy and devious child, but not like in a malicious way. Like I wasn't getting arrested or lighting Barbie dolls on fire, per se. But I was a bit of a menace to society or to my teachers at least. I definitely was always pushing the boundaries of what I feel like I could get away with. And I feel like that's pretty much just continued throughout my entire life. Let's just see how far we can push this. And now I'm being penalized by having a two and a half year old that's doing the same thing. And what my mom used to tell me as a kid, whic is now coming true, which is, I hope you have a son just like you someday. For better, for worse, that's coming to fruition with my two and half year old. So yeah, I mean you said it, I grew up in a small town, 5,000 people. And it was an amazing, beautiful place to grow up. It just wasn't super diverse. Like there wasn't a lot of opportunity to be exposed to a lot of different things. It was a it was a very touristy environment that I grew up in. The population would grow by like 10x in the summer. People love to coming up to the lake. I mentioned to you earlier, Jimmy Fallon named his daughter after Lake Winnie, this lake I grew up on. It's just like a beautiful, nice, small town that kind of grew up on. But yeah, always interested in government, government affairs, and debate. I had this amazing teacher in high school, Mr Zoolof, who was very supportive and encouraging. I just felt a strong connection to. And, from taking classes with him, decided to really pursue a career in political science and public policy, or this thought I wanted to. So that's when I went to school for up in the upstate New York at Syracuse University. Naber: Very cool. Shout out to Mr Zoolof off. I like that. So one more thing about, DKatz growing up. What were you interested in? What was the first thing you did to make money? Tell us a little bit more. David Katz: Yeah. So, I was very interested in extreme sports growing up, or what I thought were extreme sports at the time. So it was a bit of a daredevil. I spent a lot of time in the emergency room. But I was very into freestyle skiing, wakeboarding, mountain biking, hiking, climbing, pretty much anything where I could lose a sense of gravity for some small period of time. I really enjoyed as a child. And it wasn't until my twenties where I started having real serious injuries that I didn't rebound from so quickly, and I decided maybe need to slow down. But yeah, I mean like I was a bit of a speed freak. I wanted to go, high and far in the air in whatever I was doing. So, outside of school and things I was interested in politics. I was really most first and foremost interested in just, thrill and just kind of chasing that feeling, as a kid. Naber: Okay. So I have a hundred questions on that stuff, but we've got to move on so I won't indulge in my own curiosity. So you're going through high school, you're making a decision to go to, upstate New York, Syracuse University, The Orange, which I think is like one of 11 schools that have a mascot that don't end in "S", I believe, something like that. One of 10 or one of 11. We don't need to go through the trivia, but that's actually a fun trivia question. So why do you make that decision to go to Syracuse? Walk us through what you were like for a couple minutes while you were at Syracuse. David Katz: Yeah, I mean, first and foremost, I didn't get into Georgetown, which was my number one. And I just, I didn't get it, and I was pretty bummed about that, honestly. I just really wanted to be in DC. I really wanted to be in that, that environment cause I really want to study political science and public policy. But I would say in hindsight, I was very fortunate that I didn't get in that I went to Syracuse. It was an incredible program that going to be part of, I met my future wife and mother of our son, and soon to be our second son. She's due literally any day now. And yeah, so it worked out for the best. One of the things that was really attractive to m...
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Jenn Knight - Co-Founder & CTO @AgentSync (Formerly @Dropbox, @LinkedIn) - The Playbook for Building Business Systems, Tools, and Technology Teams, The Business Technology Team Superpowers @Stripe, @Dropbox, and @LinkedIn, End-to-End Process Thin
Aug 3, 201901:01:10Tap to summarizeGuest: Jenn Knight - Co-Founder & CTO @AgentSync (Formerly @Stripe, @Dropbox, @LinkedIn, @Bluewolf) Guest Background: Jenn has worked with hypergrowth businesses like LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Stripe. At LinkedIn (IPO 2011, Acquired by Microsoft for $27B in 2016) Jenn was the Manager of Solutions Architecture. After 3 years at LinkedIn, Jenn joined Dropbox (IPO in March 2018, $10.5B Valuation). She was there for 3.5 years where she was the Head of Business Technology, managing technical teams spanning financial systems, sales systems, web services (CMS), integrations, and business intelligence infrastructure. Over an 18 month period, she scaled her teams from 15 to 35 people. Jenn has since joined Stripe ($20 Valuation, $785M Raised) for the last 2 years as the Head of Internal Systems. Guest Links: LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Playbook for Building Business Systems, Tools, and Technology Teams - Mindset, Structure, Chronology, Methods, and Best Practices - The Internal Business Technology Team Superpowers @Stripe, @Dropbox, and @LinkedIn - How to be an End-to-End Process Thinker - Stakeholder Management Tips & Advice Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. We have Jenn Knight on the show today. Jenn has worked hypergrowth businesses like LinkedIn, Dropbox, and Stripe. At LinkedIn (who IPO'd in 2011 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2016), Jenn was the Manager of Solutions Architecture. After three years at LinkedIn, Jenn joined Dropbox (who IPO'd in March, 2018 and they have a valuation of $10.5 billion). She was there for three and a half years where she was the Head of Business Technology managing Technical Teams spanning Financial Systems, Sales Systems, Web Services, Integrations and Business Intelligent Infrastructure. Over an 18 month period, she scaled her teams from 15 to 35 people. Since Jenn has joined Stripe (who has a $20 billion valuation on $785 million capital raised). For the last two and a half years, Jenn's been at Stripe as the Head of Internal Systems. Here we go. Naber: Jenn Knight. Awesome to have you on the show. How are you? Jennifer Knight: I'm doing well. Thank you for having me. Naber: Awesome. Thank you for coming. It's amazing to have you. I'm excited for so many reasons. we know each other well and we've worked together in the past. But your brain, and getting to share that with people in the audience is really exciting for me. it's hard for me to contain some of the excitement with my emotions. But, I'm excited to go through some personal stuff today. So go through and dive into who Jenn is as a person. Start from where you grew up, and some stuff from your childhood. So people can get to know you a little better, like I do. And then, we'll hop into some professional stuff. Why don't we just get started. So, you grew up in San Francisco, you're smarty pants. Anyone that has met you for more than a minute knows that, but it's written in you DNA as well as your GPA, as well as your accolades. Walk us through, a few different things about what Jenn was like as a kiddo, and what it was like growing up with as Jenn Knight. Jennifer Knight: Well, I grew up north of San Francisco, in Sonoma County, in Petaluma, which was a ton of fun. It has changed a lot now, but in the early nineties, it was very rural still. Get on your bike, ride into a field, find some mice, hang out. I was a pretty nerdy little kid. I grew up in a house that didn't have a TV. My Dad is an engineer, so we were always puttering on things. He had a garage full of tools, and we're always being taught new things. I was always encouraged to be outside or around. Got a computer pretty early, which was neat. My brother and I, very nerdy, would love to do things like see how many files we could delete to destroy the operating system, and then rebuild the thing. Built a few computers growing up, but really enjoyed that part of life. Yeah, I was a kid who had a little bit of a different experience growing up just because of the nature of my house. And spent lot of time outside, and a lot of time building and poking on computers, and just hanging out. Naber: Cool. Were you a particularly social kid? Jennifer Knight: That's a funny question. I always had good friends, a few good friends. I think I'm still that way. I'm someone who finds people that resonate with me and I keep a few close. I really enjoy the company of others, but I've always been someone who has had two or three really close friends, than whole big group. And growing up I had to change schools in middle school. And so at 12 years old I had to move across to a school across town. And that taught me one that you can make new friends but was pretty scary I think at the time. So you get close to people in elementary school and then didn't get a chance to stay friends with those people. I had to make new friends at 12, which was great in the sense of it taught me that you can, and you can survive. But it definitely meant that I had a few folks that I kept close. Naber: Cool. I like it. A small, very close circle. And you said you were always building things, or tinkering, and having some nerdy fun. Tell us about a little bit of the nerdy, fun hobbies that had. Jennifer Knight: I think, I actually laugh when I look back on this...A very good example of this is my fourth grade science project was about different forms of energy, and it was about potential versus kinetic energy and the conversion. So my Dad had me worked with me to solder a little, wind mill thing that was powered by candles. That might give you a good picture of what my house is like. And then we did things like gardening. That was always fun in the summer. Petaluma was a great place to grow a garden in the backyard, so my parents did that. Just those kinds of projects. Those are the ones I remember the most, I think partially because you get pictures of them, and they're the stories that get told. But there were always a million little things we were playing around with. Naber: Yeah. Cool. Love it. That's great. And let's see, quick stop on high school. What was high school like for you? Jennifer Knight: High School was a lot of fun. I wanted to get out of Petaluma. I knew that that wasn't where I wanted to be, and I knew I wanted to go somewhere for college. In my family education was really important. So, all growing up it was, you're going to go to school, you're going to do well. You're gonna learn a lot. You're capable of learning a lot. You're very smart. Put your head down and learn. Go get opportunity. So that was just the ethos of my growing up. One thing I will say is my parents were not obsessed with grades, they didn't push me to be perfect. I weirdly pushed myself, and at some point they were like, you need to calm down a bit. But high school was a lot of fun. I had a really close, like once again, handful of very close friends. We all encouraged each other to go after where we wanted to go next. Really great study groups. It was also for me a hard time. My Mom was sick when I was growing up, and she got really sick again when I was about 16. So that was hard at home. My parents dealt with it really well, but I had the mix of trying to be the kid who was studying and then dealing with some things at home. So I think once again, close knit group of friends is really important for me because they were people that I could lean on and really knew what was happening in my life at. And the rest of it, was just getting through it. Naber: Interesting. Some things a lot of kids that age don't necessarily have to deal with obviously. So you wanted to get out of Petaluma, but you were trying to be perfect so you could have all the opportunities in the world to do that and chase your dreams. Your dreams brought you to Beantown Boston. So tell us about going to BU. Tell us about why, and what were like at BU. Jennifer Knight: Yeah, so, my parents had saved a bit for us to go to school, but couldn't go anywhere. So one of the reasons that studying was really important for me, was ultimately getting scholarships, and getting the opportunity to go to school. And I actually went to Boston site unseen. I'd never been there. I didn't know anything about the school. Yeah, it was funny. So they reached out to me, and they offered me a really amazing scholarship, and it actually brought the price of the college down to closer to what a UC would be for me. And so I was making a decision whether to stay in California, or go somewhere else, and my parents were very open to encouraging me to try something new. My Dad said...he always jokes that I was running away from them. He said to me, "Leave California now. If you don't like it, wherever you go, you can always come back. But if you don't leave now, you may never actually leave the state, and and you may not see what the rest of the world's like." So, I accepted to BU, and I had a choice for my parents to come with me for orientation or to help me move in. So my Dad came with me for orientation, and that was the first time I saw saw the school and saw Boston. Naber: That's a very Jenn Knight thing to do. You're so adventurous and fearless. I love the courage and the fearlessness. It's cool. It's a good example. Jennifer Knight: Looking back on it, it's funny, I think I was mildly terrified...
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Nick DeMarinis - Director, Enterprise Growth @WeWork (Formerly @LinkedIn, @Yahoo) - The Trusted Advisor Equation (Numerator, Denominator), The Mindset & Execution Tactics for Individual Recognition, Your Personal Board of Directors
Aug 1, 201900:52:55Tap to summarizeGuest: Nick DeMarinis - Director, Enterprise Growth @WeWork (Formerly @LinkedIn, @Yahoo) Guest Background: Nick DeMarinis is Director, Enterprise Growth for WeWork based at their HQ in New York City. Previously he spent 13 years in the technology industry with Yahoo and LinkedIn. At LinkedIn, he held various leadership roles across both North America and Asia-Pacific while based in Hong Kong. Nick holds a Bachelor's Degree from Saint Leo University in Tampa, Florida and a Master's Degree in International Business from St. John's University in Rome, Italy. On a personal note, he has identical twin boys that just turned one, and prays that one day the New York Knicks will be relevant again. Guest Links: LinkedIn | Twitter Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Trusted Advisor Equation - The Numerator, The Denominator - Recognition Mindset & Method - Gratitude, Strengths - The Power of Storytelling - Your Personal Board of Directors - Nick's Go-to Coaching Framework - The GROW Model Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we've got Nick DeMarinis on the show. Nick is a Director of Enterprise growth for WeWork (a Pre-IPO Unicorn with a valuation of $47 billion). Nick is based at their headquarters in New York City. Previously he spent 13 years in the technology industry with Yahoo! (a $4.5 billion acquisition by Verizon) and LinkedIn (a $27 billion acquisition by Microsoft and they also IPO back in 2011). At LinkedIn, Nick held various leadership roles across both North America and Asia Pacific, while based in Hong Kong. Nick holds a bachelor's degree from Saint Leo University in Tampa, Florida and a Master's degree in International Business from St John's University in Rome, Italy. On a personal note, he has identical twin boys that just turned one, and he prays that one day the New York Knicks will be relevant again. Here we go. Naber: Mr Nick D, in the house. Good to have you on the show, man. Thanks so much for coming. Naber: Naber, anything for you my man. Wow, anything, I like that. Don't. Tempt. Me. So, I am so excited to have you on. You're a world-class dude. So many people in my inter and outer circle know who you are, have crossed paths with you, have worked with you, have worked for you, you've worked for, or just some sort of combination thereof, and there's just not enough nice things to say about you as a dude, let alone, as a professional. So, I'm excited to have you on. So one of the things I want to do is, we're going to jump through some of your personal life, a little bit about where you grew up, how you grew up, what you were like, all the way through school. And then what we'll hop into is, the bulk of what we'll talk about today, which is your professional experience. And both the strengths and learnings you've gained along the way, but some of your superpowers that you are just top 1% in the world at, and talk about some of the frameworks and principles that you think about. And then we'llget into some of the methods as well, and some of the process and examples. Sound okay? Nick DeMarinis: That sounds great. Excited to be here. Naber: Awesome man. So basketball player, ice hockey, soccer, Jesuit high school, Tampa, Saint Leo, St John's in Rome. Hong Kong, New York, identical twin boys. We'll talk about all of it. What I want to hear as we go through that is, let's first talk about maybe four or five minutes on how you grew up. What was the life of Nick D as a kid? What were you like? Tell me about some of your interests, go through school a little bit, and tell me about some of your hobbies. And I'll interrupt you, hopefully not too rudely, to ask you maybe a little bit more detail. Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, totally. Well, before we kick off, thanks again for inviting me. The minute I got your email, I was excited to see what was in there and to reconnect. I know we've always stayed in touch, but it's been awhile since we able to connect, and really talk through what's been going on in life. And as you mentioned, you're putting this together to pay forward all of the learnings, and the coaching you've had, and I'm excited to do that as well. And every day I learn more and more, and it's just exciting to share all of my experiences and people that helped me along the way. And as you said, it starts for me at a very young age, right? Where and how I grew up. My parents grew up in New York. They met when they were 15, got married and they were 19, had their first kid at 20, and then had six children. Fast track six children. Irish, Italian family. We drink with one hand, we talk with the other. And you know, my dad was in Sales his whole career, right? My Dad was Sales his whole career. And he always valued relationships, and he was very successful, end to end and his career on the basis of relationships. Me being one of six kids, growing up, we're always very competitive. Who's the first one to get to the bathroom in the morning, take a shower? I was also a middle child, so I had to be pretty diplomatic in my approach, right? I couldn't be this authority as the oldest, and I couldn't be like, Hey, I can get away with anything. I was a baby. I kind of had to play both ends of the spectrum. So I learned that early on of how to manage relationships up, and down, and sideways. We just love sports. We love being competitive, all of us. And I never really got too deep in a single sport because I just loved the ideas of other sports, and trying those out, and getting good at those. And in particular I just love team sports, right? I think individual sports were fun, but I loved the idea of going into battle with others, with the team behind you. And you know, although I grew up in Florida, unfortunately my father raised me a New York sports fan. So I had to adopt the New York Knicks and the New York jets, which are horrible sports teams. Naber: I saw Stephen A. Smith's video of his, basically a nervous breakdown, or his breakdown he had on TV. And I thought of you immediately. I felt miserable for you in that moment. Nick DeMarinis: Yeah. Yeah, it's been bad. But you know what it's taught me...and through my dad's professional career, through their marriage of over 50 years, through being in New York Knicks fan, as hilarious as it is this idea of loyalty. There's been a lot of lessons around loyalty through...and it might be tough times for a very long time, and there's gonna be ups and downs. But, that's what I learned a lot about growing up. It's just the value of family relationships, and loyalty, as much as it can hurt some times. Naber: That's an amazing lesson to learn. I mean, it give back to you so much over time as well, loyalty over time. Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Naber: Cool. So, what was the first thing you did to make money? Nick DeMarinis: First thing I did to make money. I sorted through a bunch of baseball cards that I inherited from my older brothers, and I went through the Beckett magazines that showed how much these cards were worth. And I tallied all that up, and I thought I was going to make thousands of dollars off these cards. But I was kind of talked out of it to hold onto those as an investment for later in life. So that's not how I made money. I thought that that's how I was going to become rich. First way I made money, it was really concession stand at at the little league field. Spent a lot of time as a young kid playing baseball, and then once it got to that certain age, I think it was 13, which is when they allowed you to actually work the concession stand, and sell M&M's, making whatever the minimum wage was, that was it. So yeah, it was a very efficient way to make money because as soon as my shift was over, it's back to the field, back to playing ball. Naber: Nice. Love it. Love it. So your middle child, you're going through school, you're selling M&Ms, and you're playing a ton of sports, competing on first to the shower, first to the bathroom, first to the dinner table, first inside if everyone's outside playing, totally get it. One of five kids myself, so that rings a bell for me. So when you were in high school, tell me a little bit about some of the things you're interested in outside of sports, and then we can get into why you went to Saint Leo, and what that transition was like. Nick DeMarinis: Yeah, I mean, it's funny, it was really all about sports in high school for me. A funny enough, it's funny to say, but I went to an all boys, Jesuit high school, right? So I was also really interested in girls. There was a sister school nearby, but we just didn't have a lot of interaction. So it was like, you're at that age of adolescence throughout your teenager years, and it's this fascination around your first date, and what does prom look, and all that fun stuff. But outside of that, what I was really interested in is the world outside of where I grew up. And I was really fascinated about New York, about where my parents grew up and I didn't, I grew up in Florida and I visited. I was really fascinated about where my grandparents came from in Italy. I was really fascinated about like, what's outside this world of Florida, of Tampa where I grew up. And I know that's kind of the case for a lot of people. So, throughout hig...
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Nicolas Draca - Chief Marketing Officer @HackerRank (Formerly @Twilio, @LinkedIn) - The Science of Marketing Playbook (Talent, Insights, Operations, and Lifecycle), Manager & Stakeholder Alignment: What is your job?, The Hiring and Onboarding Process
Aug 1, 201901:25:26Tap to summarizeGuest: Nicolas Draca - Chief Marketing Officer @HackerRank (Formerly @Twilio, @LinkedIn, @Infoblox) Guest Background: Nicolas Draca has over 20 years of experience in sales and marketing. He is currently the CMO at HackerRank. Prior to HackerRank, he was the Vice President of Marketing at Twilio. Prior to Twilio, Nicolas spent five years at LinkedIn, holding the position of senior director, global marketing operations. Before LinkedIn, in 2004, he co-founded Ipanto and served the same company as the chief marketing officer. Ipanto was acquired by Infoblox in 2007, where he spent another 3 years as a Director, building their Demand Marketing function globally. Nicolas holds a master's degree from ICN Business School, France. He is also an advisor and early investor in several startups and incubators (like Y Combinator). Guest Links: LinkedIn Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - The Science of Marketing Playbook - 4 Pillars (Talent, Insights, Operations, and Lifecycle) - The Formula for Hiring, Onboarding, and Developing Successful Marketing Teams - Critical Alignment w/ Your Manager and Stakeholders: What is your job? - Data and Measurement - Moving from Data to Intelligence - The Account-Based Marketing Method Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to The Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey everybody. Today we have Nicolas Draca on the show. Nicolas has over 20 years of experience in Sales and Marketing. He is currently the Chief Marketing Officer at HackerRank, who have raised $58 million in capital. Prior to HackerRank. He was the Vice President of Marketing at Twilio. Twilio IPO's back in 2016, and they currently have a $17 billion valuation. Prior to Twilio, Nicolas spent five years at LinkedIn holding the position of Senior Director of Global Marketing Operations. LinkedIn IPO'd back in 2011, and they were acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $27 billion. Before LinkedIn. In 2004, he co-founded Ipanto and served the same company as the Chief Marketing Officer. Ipanto was acquired eventually by Infoblox in 2007, where he spent another three years as a Director building their Demand Marketing function globally. Nicolas holds a Master's Degree from ICM Business School in France. He is also an advisor and early stage investor in several startups and incubators like Y Combinator. Here we go. Naber: Nicolas, awesome to have you on the show. How are you? Nicolas Draca: I'm doing fantastic. Thank you for having me. Naber: Yes, I'm so glad to have you. Hearing your French accent makes me think about the French holiday I just had, the French holiday that you just had, in addition to being in Greece and having all the amazing food. I am so excited to have you on. I've learned a lot from you in a short space of time when we've worked together in the past. Gotten to know you a little bit personally. Many of the people I've worked with have gotten to know you personally and professionally, and there's just so many good things to say about you, as a person and as a professional operator. So I'm more than excited for the audience to hear what you have to say. So why don't we jump in? What I think we'll do is, we'll get into some of the professional jumps that you've had through your career, talk about your career, as well as a bunch of the frameworks, the mindset you have, some of the methods that you've gone through and used in your playbook, if you will. But first, I think it'd be helpful, if it's okay with you, is to start to get to know you a little bit personally so that they can build up the same fascination as I have with you as an individual, and maybe we'll start back in the day, if you will. Maybe, we'll start in your childhood. So why don't we start with...I mean, you grew up in France, you were based in Strasbourg, you were born in Strabourg and grew up there, you were based in Frankfurt, then Strasbourg again, San Francisco, you've got so many global experiences. What was it like as a kid growing up as Nicolas Draca? And what are some of the things you're interested in? Nicolas Draca: Yeah. So I grew up in France, in Strasbourg - border with Germany - East. And what was it to be Nicolas Draca? Well, I would say not much, pretty shy kid. Just following my friends wherever they would go. I was not the leader, that's for sure. I was average in every single sport. I was okay with it, no ego there. It's just, like, anything I would play, I was just average. I think that summaries what it was when I was young. I think school, I was average. Sport, I was average. I think great friends. I lived in the countryside. So after school, I was more about going outside, playing in the forest, playing with my bike. And that was my life as a young kid. Naber: Very cool. And what were some of your hobbies, your interests as you were growing up? Nicolas Draca: It was being outside, and I think this is still the case today. We lived in a small village. There were like 200 people, in my class were nine, on my level. Being with friends, outside, playing whatever, playing soccer, running around, jumping on our bike, whatever you can imagine. Naber: Very cool. Very cool. And as you're going through high school, were there certain subjects or anything you acceled at where you thought at a young age, you were pretty good at it naturally? Nicolas Draca: Yeah. I specialized pretty quickly in math and physics. I have boys. I was a boy. I was just going with the flow. I'm just no big plan, no ambition, no nothing. To be fair, ,when I talk to friends today, and they look like where I am today, they struggled to connect between what I was when I was young, and what I do today. Like, really? That's what you've done and that's who you are. So yeah, just I go back to that just an average kid. Naber: It's funny, I'm laughing so much, and I have to hold it in because of the microphone, but I'm laughing. That's really interesting...What did your parents do for a living? Nicolas Draca: My father was a Sales guy, and my mother was a teacher. And then my father moved from Sales in consulting to building his own company. Actually he created two companies, two startups. Naber: Wow. So that was in your genesY Nicolas Draca: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Part of the education was you started in a job early, starting when you're 16 - it's like, first job, same for my sister, I have one sister. And you're going to have to work. Yeah, that was in our genes, that's for sure. Naber: Very interesting. And what was the first thing you did to make money? Nicolas Draca: The first thing I did to make money was to work in a restaurant as a waiter. And then the second thing, I ended up driving ambulance. Naber: Whoa. Nicolas Draca: Yeah. That was my summer job. So this was when I was 18, you'll can only drive in France when you're 18. That was something really unique, learned a ton from it, specifically on the people side. And I think if I didn't have started computer science at that time, maybe I would have moved into being a doctor or something in the medicine field. Naber: Wow. What were some of the things that you learned? You're probably about to say that. Nicolas Draca: Yeah. Wow. So when you drive when you drive an ambulance, you drive people from home to the hospital, or you drive them back. So quite quickly you understand and you see where they live, and you see all type of people, all social aspects of it. And so that was one part of it, which when you're young, I was like 18, 19, that's just wow, it was pretty surprise, I'd say. The other thing is, we will also doing ER type of thing, I don't know how we say it in English, but like we would go...there are car accidents, and we would go there and pick up the people. And yeah, we did a couple of ones where...once we went for somebody who committed suicide to pick 'em up. Naber: Wow. Nicolas Draca: so it's a, I mean a, you guys can go a little bit on it to give you an idea, but the, you arrive there and the person tried to, cut is they yeah. And yeah, but, but survived it. And so it was really a weird kind of set up because you arrived, you don't know the person, so you're completely disconnected. whereas there's a lot of drama going on around the seminary. You come here and you just try to do your job and then you have those weird part of the story where actually, which we have to do is to chase a cat with trying to leak the blog. We're story, but we ended up running in the k frame to chase that cat was trying to lead all the blog. yeah. Yeah. It's just kind of weird setup slash weird experience and we had many of those, which I'm not sure I want to share. Naber: Oh Wow. That's an amazing short story. You walked into a storm on a bottle and you have to write into the bottle every single time. Yeah. Yup, Yup, Yep, Yup, Yup. Wow. That is, that's probably the most interesting answer I've gotten to that question. That's a really good answer. Nicolas Draca: It says a, it was a unique experience actually. I a I still remember that, that job and I think I got lucky to get that job for a couple of months, a few years. And yeah. Do you find a lot? I think where I am today. Naber: Very cool. Wow. You always learned something really interesting about somebody. You have these types of conversations, so you're in Strasburg, driving ambulances, working at resta...
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Daniel Sanchez-Grant - Director, Strategic Sales @InVision (Formerly @LinkedIn, @CEB) - A Fully Remote Workforce - Methodically Hiring and Onboarding Teams for Success, Great Culture @InVision and @LinkedIn, Strategic Sales and Executive Meeting Prep
Aug 1, 201900:40:15Tap to summarizeGuest: Daniel Sanchez-Grant - Director, Strategic Sales @InVision (Formerly @LinkedIn, @Rungway, @CEB) Guest Background: Daniel Sanchez-Grant leads Strategic Sales at InVision ($350M Raised, $1.9B Valuation), the digital product design platform used to make the world's best customer experiences. He's part of the International Leadership Team responsible for growing InVision's business outside of North America, and leads a group of senior sales professionals who are fully distributed across Europe. Previous leadership experience includes launching a cloud technology business in the HR/Culture space called Rungway, as well as several years at LinkedIn (IPO, $27B Acquisition) from pre-IPO startup stage to the acquisition by Microsoft. Guest Links: LinkedIn | Twitter Episode Summary: In this episode, we cover: - A Fully Remote Workforce - How to Recruit, Hire, Manage and Onboard Teams for Success - Building Great Cultures @InVision and @LinkedIn - Strategic Sales and Executive-level Meetings - Preparation and Execution Full Interview Transcript: Naber: Hello friends around the world. My name is Brandon Naber. Welcome to the Naberhood, where we have switched on, fun discussions with some of the most brilliant, successful, experienced, talented and highly skilled Sales and Marketing minds on the planet, from the world's fastest growing companies. Enjoy! Naber: Hey, hey, hey everybody. Today we've got Daniel Sanchez-Grant on the show, affectionately known as DSG. He leads strategic sales at InVision. InVision's raised $350 million in capital, worth $1.9 billion valuation - a Unicorn. They're a digital product design platform used to make the world's best customer experiences. He's part of the international leadership team there, responsible for growing InVision's business outside of North America, and he leads a group of senior sales pros, who are fully distributed across Europe. Previous leadership experience includes launching a cloud technology business and the HR/Culture space called Rungway as well as several years at LinkedIn, six years to be precise, where the IPO'd and were acquired by Microsoft for $27 billion in the acquisition. He was there for pre-IPO startup stage to the acquisition by Microsoft. Here we go.! Naber: DSG! Awesome to have you on the show, man. Thank you so much for taking the time to come hang out with me for a little while. DSG: Naber, always a pleasure. Looking forward to the conversation. Naber: Cheers, buddy. You're coming from London today, is that correct? DSG: That is correct, yeah, based out of the WeWork on Chauncery Lane. Naber: Chauncery Lane - write it down, everybody. Put it on your Google Map. Naber: it's hard to know with you. You are, you're everywhere. You are all over the place. When I'm looking at your Instagram or any of your social feeds, you're everywhere. So we'll talk about that in a little bit here. What I want to do is go into a little bit of your background, probably personally first, and then we'll jump into professional, and then we'll hop into some of your super powers and some of the things you've observed as well as lived and executed over multiple businesses and multiple roles. I think people really lucky to hear from you today, which is great. DSG: Awesome. Naber: Why don't we start with you growing up a little bit personally. So I know that you've been mostly London through and through, which is a bit ironic considering how much you are all over the world for snowboarding, traveling with family, traveling with the partner, traveling by yourself, traveling with friends, and with all the global businesses and roles you've had. It's pretty amazing that you've been almost always in London. Give us maybe five minutes or so on DSG, Daniel Sanchez-Grant was growing up, and what your childhood was like. DSG: Sure. So, I guess come from an entrepreneurial background. My mum was very successful business woman. She setup a company in the recruitment industry, and went to build that during a time where recruitment, and particularly the agency market in the UK was a really successful industry. And so I grew up in an environment where a high work ethic, a successful achieving kind of environment. Two older sisters, who in their own right very successful individuals, doing different careers. And so grew up in-and-around London, actually from a place called Staines. It's probably most famous for Ali G, of all things. Naber: A-mazing, a-mazing. Nothing could come out of your mouth that would make you more proud than that. He's unbelievable, unbelievable. He's an amazing set of characters, and he's an absolute genius for what he's been able to do. And the people he's able to get on this show - what's the email look like, or the message look like, that comes to get that level of success rate and conversion rate for getting those people in your show? It's unbelievable. DSG: Yeah. He's he's definitely become synonymous with the place that I grew up, so, that's quite funny. But, so look, spent a bunch of time there. Left school, relatively young, and joined the family business and spent four years in that business. joined with the idea of being there for a couple of weeks to help out during the summer, and fell in love with the whole environment. And four years later was still there and going strong. And so I think that was a huge part of shaping my professional perspective, and work ethic, and just loved being in a entrepreneurial environment and building companies. And so yeah, that was a lot of fun. Naber: And what were your set of responsibilities in that business? DSG: I think, to be honest, there wasn't anything, there wasn't...when you're building a company of that stage, when I joined it was four people in a branch environment in a place called Teddington. So, you don't really have a set of responsibilities, right? whether it's fixing the printer, or going and covering a temporary assignment on reception for one of your clients. The role was so varied from that point of view and therefore it just gives you a flavor of all aspects of business - from payroll, to customer service, to candidate management, business development. From that point of view, it was super fun. So in the early favor I was 17, totally clueless, probably more of a hindrance than a help to a lot of the talented people I worked with during my time. But, I got exposure to different ways of working. And that was just a small group, but such a talented, diverse group within that environment. Such different styles amongst the three or four consultants that we started with that, as an early career professional, just really inspiring and energizing exposure at a young age. So, how to run a business, how to service as costumers, how to think about building teams and a great culture. It was a lot of fun. So yeah, that was the early parts of my four years there. And I look back with nothing but fond memories of that experience. And I think also, it being a family thing, I think it brings a different level of purpose to the feeling that you get from building stuff and accomplishing things on a day-to-day basis. I think that's hard to replicate in other types of environments. Naber: Yup. And that was LPR, correct? DSG: Yeah, it was a Litchfield's Personnel and Recruitment, it was called. It started in Teddington, and then grew to be multiple branches, and 20 to 30 full time staff at one point, and hundreds of people working on a temporary basis. So yeah, that was a fun ride. Naber: And you went through the roles and ranks to General Manager that business, is that correct? DSG: Yeah. My mum, at the time, got to the point where she'd stepped back from the business. It was doing really well and had gone into an early retirement, and me and a bunch of people were running and different branches, different customers at that time. And so yeah, it was exciting...Got to a point where I was fairly integral into the running of that company, and obviously at 20, 21 years old, that's a lot of really good experiences quite early into how to drive a company, how to make sure that people are happy, and all of that good stuff. Naber: I want to go off the script from some of these tech businesses that you've worked for, to talk about this just for a minute. So as a young professional...there's a lot of young managers in tech companies and a lot of young leaders in tech companies because, oftentimes, they'll promote internally, or for a lot of reasons. Sometimes that's just what they've always done. Sometimes it's because of speed. Sometimes it's because they have brilliant people, and they're just the best people for that role. But there's a lot of young leaders and young managers. For someone that is a young manager, a young leader, that is either managing or leading people that are older than them, or more experienced than them - that sounds something you had to do when you're relatively young. Is there any sort of mindset, or way that you think about, or set of advice that you've given to other people that are in the same scenario so that they can alleviate confidence concerns or not overthink it? Any advice or mindset that you can deliver to folks that are in that same scenario? DSG: Yeah, so I think the first thing is that it's totally okay not to have all the answers, right? If I think about all of the teams that I have and have managed, the best teams, I'm surrounded by people even today who are much better than me at a whole bunch of things, and I love that. And so I think, just firs...
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